40 BUSH DAYS 



Christmas bush looks dull, the wattle pales, the Christmas 

 bells seem almost tawdry. It is a gleaming, glowing wonder 

 that transforms the green gully into an enchanted garden. 



There, at our very door, it grows ; magic, wonderful, a 

 brave ensign of a sun-girt land. And on the road above, 

 hundreds of Australians pass up and down, gaze at its beauty, 

 and ask what's its name, and whence it came. Not one in a 

 hundred knows, or cares, that it is a native ; not one in a 

 hundred glows with the pride that must come from possession 

 of so much beauty. But, one and all thinking it too strangely 

 beautiful to belong to their own land they wonder aimlessly 

 how " it came to be out there in the bush !" 



