234 IfATUBAL HISTOET SKETCHES. 



subject, but I must beg of the reader to bear with, me a 

 little longer, and read a few lines which. I have copied 

 out of Melbourne Punch, and which, although apparently 

 the offspring of a discontented mind, convey a true and 

 not very exaggerated idea of the natural history of this 

 land of contrarieties. If intended as a sarcasm, they 

 certainly contain more truth than bitterness. 



Know ye the land where the shey-oak and gum-trees, 

 In shapeless deformity darken the wold ; 

 Where the blast of the north, where the chill of the sea breeze, 

 Now scorches to fever, now pierces with cold ? 



Know ye the land contrariety sways, 

 Perverting the laws common nature obeys ; 

 Where black swans and magpies in whitened array, 

 And water-rats duck-billed, come forth to the day, 

 Where trees shed their barks as the serpents their skin, 

 And the stones of the cherries are outside, not in ; 

 Where the crowing of cocks at the midnight is heard, 

 And beasts breed their young in a manner absurd ; 

 Where enjoyment a fiction is, comfort a myth, 

 And the heart of an esculent hardens to pith ; 

 Where a wooden pear offers the toughest of fruit, 

 And the laugh of the bush jackass never is mute ; 

 Where the dust of the earth, and the glare of the sky, 

 Are a plague to the breath, to the skin, and the eye, 

 Where waters are brackish, and rivers are dry : 

 Where the load-star of life is the gold in the mine, 

 And the spirit supreme is the spirit of wine ? 



