Country and Climate 9 



are lined with groves of pleasant wattles, that are 

 covered in the early spring with a garment of 

 yellow blossoms, so fragrant that the warm 

 breezes carry their message to the distant city, and 

 men there know that winter has now become 

 spring again. Between the river and the distant 

 blue hills, the grassy meadows are unbroken by 

 any tree, save the clumps of lightwoods, with 

 thick and shining foliage. These cast across the 

 grass a welcome shadow, in which the sheep and 

 cattle cluster as the sun grows warm. From the 

 distance, blue hills beckon invitingly, but viewed 

 close at hand, they are forbidding and desolate. 

 The soil is hard and stony, and nourishes only a 

 coarse, scanty grass, with a few bristling thorny 

 shrubs here and there. The trees are twisted and 

 stunted, and their trunks are clad in a rough, 

 coarse bark that hangs from them in long untidy 

 strips. There is no pleasant stream to be found 

 here : one walks for miles only to find the ground 

 growing harder and stonier, and the undergrowth 

 scantier and less attractive. A bush fire swept 

 down this range the summer before last, as the 

 bare branches of the trees and their blackened 

 trunks bear witness. Near the trunks there is a 

 fringe of fresh green foliage, out of which the 

 skeleton branches protrude most uncompromis- 

 ingly. It is not cheerful or inviting, but the bush 

 holds scenes that are sterner still. 



There are wastes of sand hummocks, with crest 

 and hollow as regular as the wave and trough of 



