The Great Barrier Reef* 321 



cool, picturesque-looking villas, wood-built, protected from 

 the glare and heat by broad verandahs, and surmounting 

 high-wooded eminences; clusters of neat cottages, houses 

 great and small, overlooking the river ; and, finally, having 

 rounded a sharp tongue of land, the busy wharves, Ware- 

 houses, churches, and shipping, burst into view. Upon 

 hills, right and left, the city of Brisbane stands revealed, 

 charmingly situated, but as yet in its infancy, though an infancy 

 which any one may see at a glance is lusty and rapid in its 

 progression to maturity; Government House, standing in 

 ample grounds, the Botanical Gardens, full of strange tropical 

 trees and plants, and the Parliamentary Buildings, with 

 their conspicuous centre dome, appear in succession as the 

 steamboat sweeps round yet another sharp curve and makes 

 for the wharf at which, bag and baggage, we land, to begin 

 our practical experience of the antipodes. 



PRINTED AT THE CAXTON PRESS, BECCLES. 



