8 Australian Life 



flourishing on the plain beneath them, and there 

 is little or no undergrowth. The best of this 

 country has been not inaptly compared to the 

 park land of one of the flatter English counties. 



This is a common aspect of the bush, but it is 

 only one aspect, and the bush has many. There 

 are Australians to whom the word recalls the 

 picture of a roaring mountain stream of cold, clear 

 water. The banks are carpeted knee-deep with 

 maiden-hair and coral fern, and out of this tender 

 green rise the velvety brown boles of the tree 

 ferns, each crowned with its wide circle of broad 

 fronds. Above the tree ferns trembles the grace- 

 ful feathery foliage of the sassafras, and higher 

 than the sassafras grows the myrtle, most shapely 

 of all Australian trees. From this tangle of 

 forest and fern, the tall mountain ashes rear their 

 smooth grey columns, one hundred and fifty feet of 

 straight timber before the first branch. The air 

 is sweet with the scent of fragrant meadow plants, 

 and from the thicket close at hand there comes 

 the long-drawn note of the whip bird, with its 

 curious and startling staccato ending. Some- 

 where in the distance the lyre bird is imitating 

 all the sounds of the forest, now fluting like a 

 magpie, and anon warbling like a whole chorus 

 of wrens. This is the bush in one of its most 

 gracious aspects. 



Fifty miles nearer the coast, the mountain stream 

 has become a brimming river, winding through 

 fertile valleys and broad sunlit plains. Its banks 



