Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/220

 the opposite side; the trees here were distant from each other and large. A white cockatoo, the first I had seen this year, attracted the attention of one of our party, but no success attended his efforts.

The country, as we advanced on the other side of the rivulet, improved rapidly; the ground on which we trod was a vivid green, unsullied with burnt sticks or blackened grass trees; not that it was covered with a decided turf, but the vegetation seemed more succulent than woody, and the plants growing to about the same height, presented to the eye a smooth surface.

With daisies pied, and violets blue,

And ladies' smocks all silver white.

Though the flowers were not perhaps precisely the same that characterised an English meadow, they were not the less beautiful in appearance, varied in form, or brilliant in colour; grass was plentiful, and the clover I have noted above, with its bright scarlet and yellow flower, the daisy, buttercup, and a purple marygold. The whole effect reminded me of that confusion of rich tints that are produced in the Indian loam, and as I looked upon it, I could not feel but inclined to believe that such a scene as this must have presented to the imagination of the Hindoo, the high colouring of his fabric, and the prototype of the gaudy chintz.

Half a mile brought us on a small river, and so slow that I could hardly ascertain the existence of a current. I concluded it to be, as it afterwards proved to be, the Vasse. The sound of rushing water proclaimed a rapid near; walking, therefore, a short distance up the stream, we found what we sought, a passage over.