THE TOWNS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



26] 



settlements focalize naturally upon Orange, bringing into that healthy and promising 

 town the produce from their farms, stations and mines. Westward from Orange the 

 descent from the high land is rapid. Looking from the windows of the railway carriage 

 in the earlier stage of the journey, a lightly-wooded country is seen sloping away towards 

 the setting sun ; the pasture still green even in the 

 early days of midsummer, the wild-flowers starring 

 the grass, and occasionally almost covering it with 

 their colour and light. A little lower down and a 



wash of the more sombre tints of the Australian 



WELLINGTON. 



summer is felt rather than perceived over all the landscape. The cool fresh mountain 

 air is passing away, and the heat arises from the plains, now so rapidly approached. 

 Gray-trunked box-trees sparsely stud the broad downs, together with iron-bark and gum, 

 and also the beautiful kurrajongs, closely cropped for food during the years of drought, 

 but bursting with the first return of rain into fresh and luxuriant foliage. Thirty- 



