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The roadside was dusty, but along all the hedges the acacias still showed a most delicate and tender green. During August and September we were kept pretty busy on the Plateau. Concentrations on enemy trenches and wire and special counter-battery shoots by day and counter-battery support of Infantry raids by night were continually required of us.

Rhut is the most favoured spot in the Warsingali dominions, and had been loudly lauded by my followers; but all I could find were a few trees larger than the ordinary acacias, a symptom of grass having grown there in more favoured times when rain had fallen, a few puddles of water in the bed of the nullah, and one flock of sheep to keep the place alive. 9th. Halt.

Near seven we reached the spot where we were to wait for Mr. Carnet, who came to us with a bullock he had purchased. Then quitting the shore, we went into the interior to seek a place to cook our supper. We fixed our camp beside a small wood of acacias, near to which were several wells or cisterns of fresh water. Our ox was instantly killed, skinned, cut to pieces, and distributed.

Still talking, they enter the garden, which is as carefully kept as a public park, with round-topped acacias almost as old as the buildings, and magnificent ivies that hide the high, black walls. Beside Fromont jeune, Risler Aine has the appearance of a clerk making his report to his employer.

From the top loft, still bare and echoing, where the highly respectable summer tenants were to put up the cots of their children, to the outside den which served for a kitchen, whence a wooden ladder led to a recess among the rafters, occupied by Madame Pyat as a bedroom; from the masses of Virginia creeper on the thatched roof to the thicket of acacias and roses on the front grass-plat, and the high flowery wall which shut them off from the curious eyes of the street, it was all, in the lovers' feeling, the predestined setting for such an idyll as theirs.

Here and there amongst the outspread fields are villages buried under the thick foliage of trees under acacias which, in the distance, resemble ours at home; beyond indeed the mountain chain of Libya, like a wall confining the fertile fields, looks strange perhaps in its rose-colour, and too desolate; but, nevertheless amidst this glad music of the fields, these songs of larks and twitterings of sparrows, you scarcely realise that you are in a foreign land.

I have spoken of the little bell bird, which, piping its pretty monotone, flitted in those earlier years amongst the acacias on the banks of the Yarra close to Melbourne, but which has taken its departure to far distances many a year ago. The gorgeous black cockatoo was another of our early company, now also long since departed.

The pomegranates with their scarlet flowers, and the acacias with their light and graceful foliage, ornament the banks of the streams, generally intermingled with the far more frequent palm, while oranges, apples, pears, and vines are successfully cultivated in the gardens and orchards.

The air was loaded with the perfume of the acacias. Amidst the glades of the open forest land, or climbing the craggy banks of winding silvery creeks, creepers and flowers of dazzling hue contrasted the olive-green of the surrounding foliage. The exhilarating effect of the climate in that season heightens the charm of the strange scenery.

After proceeding north-east one mile and a half, and east two miles, we came to a pretty little islet covered with palms and acacias, and rich long grass. Numbers of large white waterlilies grew on its banks. The river was now only an eighth of a mile wide, and two fathoms deep. This still promised well.