3 86 



A USTRALASIA ILL USTRA TED. 



altitude of three hundred feet or more, it spread its crown of foliage to the sun, and 

 received through all the changing seasons the messages uttered, now in soft murmuring 

 whispers, and now in accents of passionate fury, by the winds. 



In older, or should we not say in younger, countries all sorts of human associations 

 are connected with the mountain and the forest. Each has its history and its legends. 

 The former may be vaster or more terrible in Europe, in Northern India and in South 

 America, but neither the highest aiguilles of the Alps, nor -the sublime heights of the 

 Himalayas, nor the snowy summits of the Andes are _ dissevered from human interest 

 like the unexplored ranges of Australia. So also with the forests of Europe, and of 

 Asia more particularly. The cedars of Lebanon carry us back to the days of Solomon ; 

 the sacred fig of the Hindoo village has been the place of refuge and of prayer for 

 generation after generation of the native worshippers of Brahma ; angels are described as 

 having visited Abraham under the trees in the Valley of Mamre ; Alexander the Great 

 requested that he might be buried in the forests of Libya ; the Fountain of Egeria 

 flowed from a consecrated wood in the Roman Campagna ; it was to the forest of 

 Dodona that the two black doves flew when they forsook the shrine of the Theban 

 Jupiter ; the woods of Britain and of Gaul are haunted by memories of Druids and 

 Druidesses, and recall the exploits of famous outlaws ; while the genius of Shakespeare has 

 invested two forests with undying interest by associating them with such exquisite creations 

 as those which speak to us in "As You Like It" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream." 



But the mountains and woods of Australia have not been thus consecrated. They 

 belong to the infancy of the world. Their virgin solitudes, in numberless instances, have 

 never been penetrated by the foot even of the black man. To plunge into the forest, 

 and to scale the summit of the wooded range, is like receiving admission into the inner- 

 most sanctuary of Nature. She has secluded these mysterious regions from the human 

 eye ever since the dawn of creation. But for the rustle of a lizard in the grass ; but 

 for the occasional apparition of a bird glancing across the pillared aisles of the stupen- 

 dous cathedral which lifts its vaulted roof of foliage so high overhead ; but for the 

 chiming of an unseen spring, fretting and chafing against the mossy boulders which 

 impede its downward course ; and but for a faint and far-off stir, a sort of muffled 

 music in the air, when the wind plays with the leaves which loftily overarch the 

 difficult path, the traveller would be enveloped by absolute stillness, to which, after a time, 

 he is so accustomed and reconciled that the ear becomes preternaturally sensitive to sound, 

 and any violent impact upon it, like the firing of a gun, occasions almost a feeling of pain. 



But in the winter season all is changed. Instead of the silence and serenity of the 

 long calm days of January and February when the very air seems to have fallen 

 asleep, and the sun flames across a cloudless sky as lustrous as burnished silver, " shining 

 on, shining on, by no shadow made tender " ; when the motionless leaves of the trees 

 in the forest appear as if they were ready to crackle with the heat ; and when the 

 plains below shimmer and quiver in the fierce light of the almost vertical luminary, and 

 a hot haze envelopes the distant ranges, chequered in places by volumes of white smoke 

 arising from bush-fires gloom and tumult invade the landscape ; murmuring runnels are 

 transformed into roaring torrents ; voluminous clouds, sullen and sombre in aspect, drift 

 inland, shrouding the rugged summits of the highest mountains in an atmosphere of 



