Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The plains extended on either side to the north and east, nor could we distinctly trace the creek beyond the trees at the point we had crossed it, but there were a few gum-trees separated by long intervals, that still slightly marked its course.
As far as could be seen was a carpet of flowers under a soft sunset. The homestead by which they sat was in a wilderness of blossoms. To the left was a high rose-coloured hill, solemn and mysterious; to the right afar off a forest of gum-trees, pink and purple against the horizon. At their feet, beyond the veranda, was a garden joyously brilliant, and bright- plumaged birds flitted here and there.
After crossing several stony rises, in which we had some difficulty in getting our horses over, arrived at a nice broad valley with a creek running through it, course north-west. At a mile it received a large tributary from the east of north, and the bed seems sandy; melaleuca and gum-trees in it; also the bean-tree. The valley is covered with grass from two to four feet high.
The township to which I was destined being distant about six miles from Maryborough, I was driven thither in the evening, full of wonderment and curiosity as to the place to which I was bound. As we got outside Maryborough into the open country, its appearance struck me very much. It was the first time I had been amongst the gum-trees, which grow so freely in all the southern parts of Australia.
Hark! the echo catches the sound, and flings it sportively from hill to hill, farther and farther and farther down, till all again is hushed, and the flowers hang noiseless over your head as you ride through a grove of the giant gum-trees. Now the air is literally charged with the odors, and the sense of fragrance grows almost painful in its pleasure.
But I heard nothing not a thing but the mare's bellow and my own heart. I'm sorry, Bunny; but if ever you write my memoirs, you won't have any difficulty in working up that chase. Play those dead gum-trees for all they're worth, and let the bullets fly like hail. I'll turn round in my saddle to see Ewbank coming up hell-to-leather in his white suit, and I'll duly paint it red.
Experience had proved that the bark was powerless against the violence of the torrent, and John accordingly felled some of the gum-trees, and made a rude but solid raft with the trunks. It was a long task, and the day had gone before the work was ended. It was completed next morning.
The mass of gum-trees on either side looked beautiful in their fresh summer foliage. The young shoots are crimson, and when seen against the blue sky, the sunshine gleaming through them, the tree seems covered with gorgeous blossom. Leaving the road, we turned into the scrub, and drove over a sandy soil among small gum-trees and smaller scrub.
At five miles after starting, we came upon a mass of eucalypts which were not exactly gum-trees, though of that family, and I thought this might be the end of the exhausted creek channel, only the timber grew promiscuously on the tops of the sandhills, as in the lower ground between them.
Some great progressive change appears to be taking place in the climate and seasons of this part of the country, as, in many of the watercourses, we found all the gum-trees either dying or dead, without any young trees growing up to replace them.
Word Of The Day