Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 14, 2025
With a reminder that they must hold themselves ready to ride at any moment, he passed on through a large, wild garden, and at length, where a grove of box-trees surrounded the ruins of a little summer-house, cast himself to the ground. His breast heaved, his eyes swelled and smarted, but he could not shed tears. Face downwards, like a man who bites the earth in his last agony, he lay quivering.
A verandahless four-roomed slab-hut now standing out from a forest of box-trees, a stock-yard, and six acres under barley were the only evidence of settlement.
Both the flats and the ridges were well clothed with grass, and the former had box-trees and hakeas scattered over them; but these favourable indications soon ceased. The pine ridges closed upon each other once more, and the flats became covered with salsolaceous plants. The day was exceedingly hot, and still more oppressive in the brushes, so that the horses began to flag.
The garden, about an acre in size and enclosed by walls, was a true priest's garden; that is, it was full of wall-fruit and fruit-trees, grape-arbors, gravel-paths, closely trimmed box-trees, and square vegetable patches, made rich with the manure from the stable. Within, the large room, panelled in wainscot, was hung with old tapestry.
There were some box-trees growing near this creek, which came from the north, and fell towards the ranges. At half a mile further we crossed a small fresh water creek, and intermediate between the two was a lagoon of about a mile in length, but not more than three inches in depth.
The forest crosses the river a little way, so Sam, gradually descending from the plains to cross, went the last quarter of a mile through a shady sandy forest tract, fringed with bracken, which leads down to a broad crossing place, where the river sparkles under tall over-arching red gums and box-trees; and then following the garden fence, found himself before a deep cool-looking porch, in a broad neatly-kept courtyard behind the house.
There was a good deal of grass here and there upon it, and box-trees stunted in their growth were scattered very sparingly round about; but the country was otherwise denuded of timber. There were large bare patches on the plains, that had been full of water not long before, but too shallow to have lasted long, and were now dry.
After crossing a portion of the plain we saw some box-trees in a hollow, towards which we rode, and then came upon a deep dry pond, in whose bottom the natives had dug several wells, and had evidently lingered near it as long as a drop of water remained. It was now clear that our further search for water would be useless.
The scrub now opened, and the last four miles lay through a fine box-flat, bounded by long hollows surrounded with drooping tea-trees and the white water-gum, the bright foliage of which formed a most agreeable contrast with the dull green of the scrubs and the box-trees.
She continued to chatter, and, while thus keeping his glance away from herself, she detached the forlorn bouquet of dead violets from her dress and laid it gently beside the one she had carried. The latter already reposed in the obscurity selected for it at the base of one of the box-trees. Then she was abruptly silent. "You certainly are a funny girl," Dowling remarked.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking