Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/80

 high banks and in the valley below us. The forest had never really ceased since we left Perth, but it had twice assumed a change in character, and was now exhibiting a third. The first part of our way, with the exception of the sand plains, had been bordered almost exclusively with mahoganies, which by degrees became fewer, leaving red gum-trees predominant; and these latter, with their rough and rusty-coloured bark, were now in their turn giving place to another kind of eucalyptics, white and ghost-like, and as smooth as though they had been scraped on purpose, or deprived of their bark for the tanner. In fact, on seeing these bark-shedding trees for the first time, a young friend of mine supposed that they had been actually subjected to some kind of artificial treatment. Probably an Australian aboriginal, suddenly introduced to a European forest in its winter condition, would equally think that the trees had been expressly stripped of their leaves. The white trunks of some of the trees were so much flecked with dark-brown spots as to remind me of a panther's coat; and just at this part of our road I saw a lizard spotted brown and white, precisely in the same manner as the trees; I therefore concluded that it was of a sort that lived amongst them, and was shielded by its colour from the notice both of its enemies and of its own prey.

On reaching the top of a rather steep ascent called Cut Hill, we came in view of a bold mountain-shaped ridge running towards the north-east, and swelling upwards from the wide forest plain which stretched away before us into the distance. Mount Bakewell, as the highest part of the ridge is named, appeared to me of much the