On an Austral Beach. 
*39 
less than fifteen miles away from the dull little 
township where my friend and myself were 
awaiting the arrival of a steamer to take us to 
Sydney. 
By daylight next morning we had breakfasted 
and saddled up, and long before the inhabitants 
of the sleepy old seaside town were awake, we 
cantered through the silent streets and out along 
the winding forest road leading towards the 
coast. Five miles from the town we emerged 
from the gloomy shadows of the grey-boled 
gums out upon the summit of a hill whose 
seaward side, clothed with a soft green nap 
of low shrub as smooth as an English privet 
hedge, was shining bright in the first rays of the 
morning sun ; while at its base of black trap- 
rock the lazy ocean swell had not yet heart to 
break, for only the lightest air ruffled the sur¬ 
face of the sea beyond. To the north, cape and 
cape and headland and headland of pale misty 
blue were fast purpling in the glorious sun, and 
southward there trended in a great sweeping 
curve a noble beach full fifteen miles in one 
unbroken stretch. Beneath us, where it began, 
its hard surface at the water-margin was dotted 
with countless groups of snow-white seagulls 
