GENERAL EEMABKS. 217 



CHAPTER XIII. 



GE.VSK^l LEX'AKKS ON THE SCENERY, CLIMATE, AND THE SEASONS 

 OF PORT PHILLIP. 



THERE is a monotony in the scenery of this part of 

 Australia which is very wearying to the eye ; and 

 although at times the traveller suddenly comes upon 

 a break in the landscape, the beauty of which no pen 

 or pencil can portray, yet the thick forests and the low 

 swamps and plains are of such vast extent, that the 

 wayfarer in Victoria may plod on for many a weary mile- 

 with one unvarying landscape continually before his eyes. 

 Deep forests of gum and stringy-bark, evergreen both 

 in summer and winter ; flats of stunted honeysuckle, 

 bearing no resemblance but in name to the sweet wood- 

 bine at home ; parched and barren plains, miles in extent, 

 without a green blade of grass in the summer, and not a 

 drop of water for miles ; immense swamps and morasses, 

 impenetrable even to the foot of the native, interspersed 

 with open lagoons and creeks, and water-holes, hidden 

 from the view by dense masses of tea-tree scrub ; sandy 

 moors, clothed with coarse stunted heather ; the distant 

 horizon, bounded by heavily-timbered ranges, extending 

 throughout the country, form the principal features of 

 the Australian landscape on the shores of Port Phillip, 



