110 COLLECTOR'S RAMBLES 



but these carry their bulk well up, and their circumfer- 

 ence is not much less at one hundred feet than at the 

 ground. 



Some had fallen down, and it was difficult to climb 

 to the top of a fallen trunk ; and when there one felt 

 as if looking from the top of a shed, or L of a house. 

 The giants are all gums or Eucalypti, and it makes one 

 feel insignificant enough to walk among them and look 

 up at their massive trunks. The wood is very soft, 

 and can be easily split into thin boards, called shakes, 

 with which the miners clapboard their cabins. 



Pheasant Creek is a collection of half a dozen small 

 cabins almost hidden among the tree-ferns and bushes, 

 and so shut in with giant trees that sunlight seldom 

 visits there. We heard that about a quarter of a mile 

 from the others was a little cabin, whose proprietor had 

 gone to Melbourne, so we moved down at once and set 

 up housekeeping. The furniture consisted of a large, 

 shallow box on four legs, half filled with dry ferns for 

 a bed, and two home-made chairs. There was one 

 window, and the floor was the bare ground. The 

 wooden fireplace was a curious part of the " she- 

 bang," as it occupied nearly one-third of the entire 

 house. 



Shelley said it reminded him of the picture of Robin- 

 son Crusoe's house, and after our things were arranged, 

 the floor covered with ferns, and the fire lighted, it did 

 seem very homelike and cosey. A few extracts from 



