THI<: TOWNS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



265 



expand, native-oak belts enclose great flats, where in a good season tall wild-oats hide 

 the sheep ; the salt-bush becomes frequent, and soon large clumps of lemon-tinted 

 tiarran are seen, with sandal-wood and emu-bush, and then a flat all myalls and salt- 

 bush. On this broad plain the beautiful myall is not only characteristic, but supreme. 

 It spreads from the railway-fence to the dark-green belt on the horizon, willow-like in 

 its pendant boughs, with dark trunk and olive-silvery foliage ; and, if but a bough be 

 broken, exuding an odour as sweet as that of violets or new-mown hay. Of all the 

 native-growths the myall is the fittest to droop over a grave ; to be the /// iiicmoriam 

 tree of Australia, sacred as the yew in England and the cypress in Italy. 



A CAMEL-TEAM AT WILCANNIA. 



The railway line follows the ridge of the water-shed between the Bogan and the 

 Macquarie Rivers. The first township of any importance is Nyngan, where the rail- 

 road crosses the Bogan, and from which a line is projected to the west to the 

 mining township of Cobar. From Nyngan the railway runs over a poor, patchy pastoral 

 country, passing Girilambone, where there are large outcrops of copper ore, which, 

 however, have not yet led to the discover}' of profitable mines ; past Coolabah the 

 native name for a full-foliaged handsome description of eucalyptus and on to Bourke, 

 which is at present the terminus of the North-Western Railway. To get a comprehensive 

 understanding of this north-western district, it will be well to follow the line from 

 Nyngan to Cobar. For the whole seventy miles there is hardly a sign of an agricultural 

 or a pastoral homestead. The soil is a light red sand, and patches of scrub are frequent. 

 There is little to be seen but wire fences, and sheep clustered about the dams, or 

 camped in the shade of the trees. 



Cobar, a mining township seventy miles from Nyngan, looks an anomaly among the 

 great pasturages a municipality with mayor and aldermen, court house, banks, churches 

 and schools, out in the midst of the sheep and cattle, the kangaroos and emus, and 

 the wild scrub-country. The germ from which the isolated township grew was an 



