68 THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



park-like sprinkling of it on the plains — there was much 

 more before the squatters destroyed it to make room for 

 their sheep. The grass is excellent, and as green as in the 

 English meadows ; and probably this is the best watered 

 part of Australia. No wonder, then, that it is thickly 

 strewn with the homesteads of squatters and stockmen, 

 homesteads that often rival the stately homes of the old 

 country aristocracy in splendour of architecture, and are 

 fully equal to them in luxury of appointments. There is a 

 fad in this district for imitating the mother-country in all 

 things ; and British trees are planted, and British shrubs 

 cultivated, to an extent that often completely deceives the 

 eye, and renders it impossible, by sight alone, to detect the 

 difference between the mansion on the Australian sheep- 

 run from the old country family-house of which it is, as 

 nearly as possible, a replica. 



The bases of the mountains are much littered by 

 masses of rock, great and small, which must have rolled 

 down from the heights above ; yet it is often difficult to 

 realise that this is the correct explanation of the origin of 

 some of the masses. Huge rocks, weighing hundreds and 

 perhaps thousands of tons, and surrounded by numerous 

 smaller masses, lie in positions which they could not 

 possibly occupy if they fell from any of the existing heights. 

 Some of these rocks are half buried, apparently to the 

 extent of one or two hundred feet, in the ground upon 

 which they lie ; and generally they are half-hidden in a 

 thick growth of brambles, brake-canes, and ferns, with 

 many sweet-scented wattle-trees and other flowering shrubs. 

 It is here that the " rock-wallaby " love to lurk, and so 

 closely do they lie that they may often be literally kicked 

 from the shrubs before they will fly. It is fine sport is 

 this wallaby-shooting, and the man who wishes to enjoy 

 it fully does not use dogs to flush the game ; rarely indeed 

 are dogs used at all. The sport is very hard work, for one 

 is constantly climbing in and out of holes and small deep 

 gullies formed by the massing of the loose rocks, and the 

 vegetation is so thick that here and there it is impossible 

 to force a way through it. 



