2 BUSH DAYS 



that here is at least one place unspoiled by improvement com- 

 mittees and holiday trippers. And as you climb up the rocky 

 path and brush beneath green pittosporums and grey wattles, 

 past blossom-laden tea-trees and drooping she-oaks, you will 

 wonder what special providence it was that saved this happy 

 corner from the hands of the iconoclast. 



But you will not wonder long, for it is a place for idle 

 dreaming, not for perplexing problems. You will cease to 

 question " why/' and will be content that it is so. The sight 

 of that hillside will fill your heart with peace and thanksgiving ; 

 and, if you are the sort of person that I think you must be, to 

 have come so far, you will stretch yourself out on the long, 

 green grass that clothes the hillside, and, half-closing your 

 eyes, will watch with lazy joy the queer shadows of the red 

 gums as they sprawl across the grass, and the shimmer of the 

 sunshine as it turns the bracken silver. Spread out before you 

 will lie the waters of the bay, where idle colliers rest darkly, 

 and further off the white sails of racing yachts will skim the 

 sunny harbour. The outline of the city will come to you. 

 broken by the leaning branches, and will but add to your feel- 

 ing of isolation and content. The " hoot " of a distant ferry- 

 boat w r ill come like a pleasant dream sound to your ears, which 

 are filled with the sounds close about you. You will hear a 

 whole chorus of bird notes, sweet and soft, shrill and loud, 

 whistling and warbling, calling all together thrushes, thick- 

 heads, silvereyes, and peewees, all mixed up with honey-eaters. 



