Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/215

 Rh come home, however, I hear of them more frequently.

James went to the landing-place, a few nights ago, on hearing a noise in the boat, when a wild dog rushed out of it and ran off. The natives sometimes domesticate them, and there seems to be almost as great a variety of them here as with you; some are like little black and white collies; many of them yellow and large; our dogs howl whenever one of them comes near the house.

You wish to know the size and appearance of the trees here. They are of all sizes. Sometimes you see one like an old father, with his family of striplings around him. The colour of the foliage is green, the appearance of the bark various. To begin with our most valuable timber—the mahogany;—its bark is of a reddish brown colour, and runs in continuous slips from top to bottom. The red gum tree has a rough scaly bark, of a dusky brown or reddish colour. The white or blue gums (there seems to be a confusion about the names), have a bark not unlike that of beach, of a light slate-colour, and smooth; some on the high ground have a tinge of a rusty colour mixed with French white. And the banksia has a hard, grey, gravelly-looking bark, formed of little rough particles. Can you imagine a tree composed of coarse granite?—such is the banksia. The wattle—what shall I compare it to? the Portugal laurel is the nearest in resemblance that I can think of.