Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/221

 Here was the spot that the creative fancy of a Greek would have peopled with dryad and naiad, and all the beautiful phantoms and wild imagery of his sylvan mythology: wide waving lawns were sloping down to the water's edge, trees thick and entangled were sloping over the banks. One in the centre of the rapids had taken root in the very rocks over which the waters tumbled; its bended trunks and tortuous roots seemed to indicate that it had struggled more than once to gain the perpendicular form, from which it had been thrust by the rude torrents, which at certain periods evidently pour down this obstruction to the free flow of the river.

About a hundred or two hundred yards on the other side, we obtained a sight of the sea bearing N.W. The country here was so clear that a farmer could hardly grudge the fine spreading trees of the red and white gum and peppermint the small portion of ground that they occupied only to ornament. The soil was always good, sometimes very light; a red sandy loam; at other times stiff, particularly where the white gum prevailed.

After walking about three miles in a N. by W. direction along the banks, we began to observe evident tokens of the proximity of the sea, such as hottentot figs, rock spinach; of the latter we prepared a mess when we arrived on the edge of a large flat, into which the river falls. It was then 12 o'clock; before, however, we began our repast we were hailed by three natives, who were wading over from the opposite side, fearful probably that we were likely to interfere with some snares for fish which they had constructed near the spot where we were; they carried spears, but approached withal with such friendly guise and