I20 WYALLA CHAP. 
hidden underneath were big rocks over which we 
slipped and fell every minute. 
It was indeed very hard work, and we stopped a 
good many times to admire the view. The native 
women, who are like kangaroos on their feet, enjoyed 
our discomfiture, and thought it great fun each time we 
fell. Past this we again came into the scrub, where 
the real climbing commenced, and where every few 
yards we were caught in tangled masses of creepers 
and vines which throw their arms from tree to tree. 
Our gentlemen guides had to cut the way before us as 
we went along. The luxuriant vegetation was dense 
and smothered ; overhead tall palms stretched their 
leaves heavenward through it all. Far up in the 
branches, well out of reach, we saw a rare and lovely 
white orchid. In these northern tropical wilds the 
flowers grow high where they can catch the sunlight 
above, that fringes the edge of the jungle. 
It is tantalising to see the ground strewn with fallen 
blossoms and not to know which leaf owns them ; 
while on the opposite side, in West Australia, it is low 
on the ground that we see the overgrown garden. 
The dreary sand plains, which in winter are desolate 
and withered, are then one blaze of colour with flowers 
of every form and hue, some like feathers, others 
deep -fringed, blinding to paint ; wonderful shades of 
hibiscus, patches of crimson desert pea, with here and 
there a white variety ; others again more like insects, 
bee and butterfly ground orchids, black anigazanthus 
or kangaroo's foot, with its five sooty fingers lined with 
lemon colour ; the bright green variety with its scarlet 
calyx ; pink, yellow, white, and crimson verticordias ; 
sweet-scented veronicas and heaths — but their name 
is legion, and if I wander off to endless colouring I shall 
never get to the top of the mountain and you will 
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