16 
sideling road winding around the mountains, on the 
higher side of which there grow shrubs and flowers, anti 
on the lower side steeps whose bases the eye could not 
penetrate—so far were they below us. 
As we made the ascent towards Mount Hothanj on r 
attention was attracted at first by the rocks and the 
vegetation. We glanced now and again at the near and 
distant heights only to return to the examination of the 
strata, which are here well exposed by a sideling cutting- 
along the slopes of the range. 
The track beyond, which appeared in the distance as a 
yellow streak on the side of the mountain, was far above 
us, and we could only conjecture by what route it was to 
he reached. One after another of our fellow-travellers 
called out the names of well-known peaks as they ap¬ 
peared in view, and we made hurried guesses respecting 
the depth and trend of the ravines whose lower parts 
were lost to sight. On the right appeared a mountain 
rich in bossy sculptures that attracted all eyes. It glowed 
in the sun with all the brightness of the emerald, and 
over it—as it seemed like waves—flashed ever and anon 
pale tints of carmine and purple. In hollows on its flanks 
lay in patches herbage of a vivid green, showing where 
the snow had just disappeared—cradles of young glaciers, 
that can never mature. The high Bogong plains, sepa¬ 
rated from us by deep chasms and wide valleys, out of 
which arose solitary peaks and broken ridges, seemed, as 
we gazed on them, to be sleeping ; the slopes were scored, 
but not deeply, the even line of the plain was not broken, 
and the light of the sun fell on them softly, not making 
deep shadows and showing sharp contrasts as in those 
parts where the denuding forces had worked fantastic 
hollows and carved long straight lines for the discharge 
of melted snows. 
