TOPOGRAPHY OF VICTORIA. 



409 



At other times a valley widens out and offers a soil of wonderful richness for the 

 enterprising husbandman to exploit: and all' the tributaries of the (ioulburn the 

 Jamieson, the Howqua, the Seven Creeks and the Broken River have their birth-places 

 in the midst of labyrinthine ranges, and lend an additional beauty to scenery which it 

 would be difficult to overpraise. There is no limit to the variety of form assumed by 

 these intermediate mountain-chains, or to the apparently innumerable shades of colour 



THE UPPER MURRAY AND MOUNT DARGAL. 



which they wear, from the faint vapoury blue of the distant peaks to the imperial 

 purple in which some of the nearer mountains robe themselves when the sunlight is 

 withdrawn from them, and they lift their massive shoulders up against the western sky, 

 which is all aglow with the amber radiance of the declining luminary. The air is full 

 of aromatic odours ; and, excepting that you now and then catch the chime of a far- 

 distant water-fall, the silence is broken only by the sharp metallic notes like the 

 percussion of a small steel-hammer on a small steel anvil of the bell-binls. 



The Ovens River, like its affluents the King, the Buffalo and the Buckland heads 

 to the St. Bernard Mount, its eastern and western branches rising on the opposite sides 

 of the same ridge, and effecting a junction at Harrietville. Until it reaches Bright this 

 stream traverses a region of remarkable grandeur, dominated by one of the highest moun- 

 tains in Victoria. From Bright the valley of the Ovens widens out, especially on the 

 right bank, and the rich pastures, both here and in the open country beyond Myrtleford, 

 are noted for their fine grazing qualities. The King River, which joins the Ovens at 

 \Yangaratta, at a point where the counties of Moira, Delatite and Bogong meet, also 

 flows through similar country, and between the two streams lie the far-famed Oxley Plains. 



