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It was, as he says, "embowered in creepers," for over its front a cloth-of-gold rose spread its clinging arms, and over one side a Banksia flung a curtain of green and yellow. It was during his stay in this house that we first realized the serious nature of his illness, and yet there was none of the depressing atmosphere of sickness, for he refused to be the regulation sick man.
We wandered into an arbour covered with wistaria, banksia, and Marechal Niel roses, and I made him a buttonhole. A traveller pulled rein in the roadway, and, dismounting, threw his bridle over a paling of the garden fence while he went inside to try and buy a loaf of bread. I jumped up, frightening the horse so that it broke away, pulling off the paling in the bridle-rein.
Rose was a great authority on dress and, when her cousin returned, began to study her attire critically. She wore a very simply made dress of moss-green velveteen, high to the throat, and relieved by a deep falling collar of old point. Elspeth had brought her a spray of white banksia roses, but otherwise she wore no ornament.
This tract of country produces some interesting plants; a splendid Calathamnus, with leaves nine inches long, and showy scarlet flowers, was found by my youngest son, and I got plenty of specimens. "With regard to a new Banksia, allied to Aquifolia, which he found here, I was not so fortunate, and he brought home no specimens.
He wore a blue-and-gray wrapper that was his wife's gift; the sling was gone, but his hands were oddly thin and white. The big room, once the study, and still shaded by the old banksia rose, had been turned into as luxurious a bedroom as Cherry could make it.
Those only who have looked out with the eagerness and anxiety of a person in my situation, to note any change in the vegetation or physical appearance of a country, can appreciate the degree of satisfaction with which I recognised and welcomed the first appearance of the Banksia.
The change which I had noticed yesterday in the vegetation of the country, was greater and more cheering every mile we went, although as yet the country itself was as desolate and inhospitable as ever. The smaller Banksias now abounded, whilst the Banksia grandis, and many other shrubs common at King George's Sound, were frequently met with.
And now the music of our men had sunk to one faint whistling from Eustace of tunes in harmony with whispers at the prow. Then came the steps of the Palazzo Venier and the deep-scented darkness of the garden. As we passed through to supper, I plucked a spray of yellow Banksia rose, and put it in my buttonhole. The dew was on its burnished leaves, and evening had drawn forth its perfume.
The sandy slopes around the swamps were covered with Banksia, the Melaleuca gum, and Pandanus, and a rich profusion of grasses and low sedges surrounded the deep pools of spring water. These spots, which bore the marks of being much visited by the natives, were like oases in the dry, dull, sandy forest, and formed delightful shady groves, pleasing to every sense.
Near to one of the tents was a large stone hollowed out in the middle, and two or three round pebbles for pounding dried seeds, etc. October 7 and 8. Flat sandy ground, with occasional patches of scrub, composed of bushy Melaleucas, Hibiscus, Banksia, and several rambling plants, with a few large palms scattered in places; there was not much grass, except at intervals. October 9.
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