270 
SCENES ON THE JOHNSTONE RIVER. 
And now we are fairly in the Johnstone River. Can this 
he Australia ? As we steam along, vivid recollections of other 
parts of this continent, visited hy me during former voyages, 
crowd upon the brain. I picture myself wandering again over 
the stony deserts and dreary hlue-busli plains of South 
Australia; anon I am tramping once more through the 
monotonous mallee scrub bordering the River Murray. Again 
my mind leads me to the endless vistas of cracked salt-pans 
and stunted mangroves of the plains of Carpentaria. I look 
up and make yet another contrast—for such contrasts form 
one of the keenest charms of travel. Behold ! the luxuriance 
of the Johnstone fairly beggars description. The banks are 
clad with dense masses of tangled jungle—the very hot-bed 
of Nature. Flowering vines wrestle with lawyer-palms and 
wild bananas for the supremacy of existence. They mingle 
in one ravelling thicket of loveliness and health, now one kind 
predominating and then another. Beautiful evergreen trees 
shoot up boldly from the depths of the forest, decorated by 
gigantic festooning creepers of the convolvulus family, whose 
delicate white flowers against the various shades of green give 
a most pleasing effect. Then graceful cabbage palms proudly 
rear aloft the delicate outline of their quivering branches, 
forming an exquisite picture against the background of hills. 
Numberless tree-ferns push forth their huge and varied fronds 
from amid the thick undergrowth, and gracefully expand 
themselves to the light and life of the river. We soon 
reached Geraldton, the capital of the Johnstone district, and 
here the temperature of the river had risen to 83'9°. The 
place stands on the right bank. The architecture of the low 
shanties constituting the township, the old gnarled tree- 
stumps—all charred and hlack—where the adjacent land had 
been cleared, and the delicate green of the luxuriant bananas, 
unite the characteristics of scenes I have beheld around 
Colombo and Galle, and in the backwoods of Canada, with 
the hush aspect of a Queensland settlement. Verily such a 
picture is singularly fascinating. It is so essentially Colonial 
—so suggestive of the active wild life of the settler, and of a 
delightful freedom from the conventionalities of civilised life. 
Forward again went the launch up this beautiful river of 
the tropics. On hotli sides the wealth of vegetation is 
marvellous, testifying to the powerful influence of a rainfall 
averaging 0-400 inch daily. In festooning wreaths, delicately 
wrought by the lavish hand of Nature, the graceful creepers 
hang over the water. There again is Convolvulus multivalvis , 
with its white flowers so chastely delicate peeping out from 
among the tangle of ferns and palms; and there is Rntada 
