346 THE AESTHETICS OF 



are especially the foe which, hitherto unconquered, has 

 opposed almost all the Niger expeditions, and fearfully 

 thinned the ranks of the bold adventurers. I too had a 

 friend, the lamented Theodore Vogel, who, too early for 

 Science, fell a victim to this demon at Fernando Po. 



As the hill between mountain and level land, so between 

 the Wood-formation and the Plain, a link is formed by the 

 Bush and the plains displaying merely small, isolated groups 

 of trees. 



A portion of the so-called woods on the northern coast 

 of Australia must be reckoned here, those which clothe the 

 enormous tract extending southward into the interior from 

 Raffles Bay and Essington. They exhibit a wholly peculiar 

 physiognomy, which is repeated almost everywhere through- 

 out this strange country. The trees and bushes have 

 leathery leaves, the majority of them being covered with a 

 white, resinous powder, which gives them the most mono- 

 tonous, dismal, pallid look possible. The principal trees 

 are species of Eucalyptus, Acacia, Leptospermum and 

 Melaleuca (Cajeputs). Many other plants, scarcely to be 

 reckoned by the side of those named, live beneath the 

 shelter of these lofty greyish stems, which stand far apart, 

 and by their meagre, incessantly trembling foliage remind 

 us of the weeping Willow. Handsome tufts of Grass with 

 long, slender halm, grow throughout the whole extent of 

 these Bushes, and in them nestle the kangaroo, with the 

 ring-doves and other birds. The sun's rays readily pene- 

 trate between the narrow leaves, always waving on their 

 long petioles, and produce an uncertain light mingled with 

 fleeting shadows. The eye sees far up through the vault 

 of twigs and leaves, and is arrested, not so much by the 

 density of the vegetation as by the continually changing 

 glance of an uncertain mystic light. 



