412 The Australian Bush. 



But if we seek the wild forest or the rugged fell, the wide prairie or 

 the silent bush far away from the human herds we shall see the 

 world as the Almighty has really planned it ; and here we can revel 

 in all the luxuriance of untamed nature, with no other companion- 

 ship than the wild animals who roam in fancied security over 

 feeding grounds rarely trodden by any human foot save that of men 

 as wild and savage as themselves. 



It is such scenes that have a peculiar, charm for the hardy, 

 adventurous Englishman ; and, no matter how distant, or how 

 inaccessible the land no matter what hardships or dangers he must 

 undergo before he can reach it there we find him adapting his 

 habits to those of the rude people among whom he has voluntarily 

 exiled himself, and willingly relinquishing all that, in the opinion of 

 many, alone makes life worth living for purely to gratify a love of 

 danger and adventure. 



The Bush what a magic is there in those two simple words to any 

 one who has spent a few years in its wild solitudes ! and what 

 remembrances will they conjure up in his mind of that vast tract 

 of wide-spreading, gloomy-foliaged forest, impenetrable scrub, sandy 

 heath j swamps dotted with the yellow-blossomed swamp oak ; lily- 

 covered lagoons, creeks, water-holes, and chains of ponds bristling 

 with rushes and fringed with tea-tree scrub j sun-baked plains, and 

 deep, dank gullies, lighted up only by the yellow cones of the honey- 

 suckle or the light feathery foliage of the magnificent fern-tree ! 

 Add to this the quaint beasts, the brilliant birds, ever-buzzing 

 insects, and remarkable-looking reptiles which meet the eye at 

 every step, the pure salubrity of its climate, and, above all, the 

 careless contentment of a life passed in such a spot, where a man 

 has no other care than to provide his daily bread from a larder so 

 liberally spread out before him ; and where the thousand petty 

 vexations of civilized life, and the thousand wants which the arti- 

 ficial state of man has now rendered indispensable to his very exist- 

 ence, are never felt. 



And yet I have heard some men stigmatize such a life as dull 

 and monotonous. 



