Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/147

1832.] some rich, red loam, clothed with luxuriant vegetation. Fern, Prickly Acacia, and Musky Aster, were so thick as to be passed with difficulty. Tree-ferns were numerous, and many lofty shrubs were overrun with Macquarie Harbour Vine and White Clematis. Above the shrubs, rose stately Stringy-barks and White Gums, attaining to about 200 feet in height. Here and there, a tree had fallen across the path, which was but indistinctly traced in places, and when left was not easy to find again.—Leaving Table Cape, we crossed the Inglis and Camm Rivers, upon the beach, on which we rode most of the way to Emu Bay; where the Company have a store, for the supply of their establishment, at the Hampshire and Surrey Hills. Goods are landed at this place, on the basaltic rocks, which rise perpendicularly out of the sea in pentagonal columns.

After a short rest, we set out for the Hampshire Hills, distant 20½ miles, through one of the most magnificent of forests. For a few miles from the sea, it consists chiefly of White Gum and Stringy-bark, of about 200 feet in height, with straight trunks, clear of branches for from 100 to 150 feet; and resembling an assemblage of elegant columns, so irregularly placed as to intercept the view, at the distance of a few hundred yards. These are elegantly crowned with branching tops, of light, willow-like foliage, but at an elevation too great to allow the form of the leaves to be distinguished, yet throwing a gentle shade on the ground below, which is covered with splendid tree-ferns and large shrubs, and carpeted with smaller ferns. Some of the larger Stringy-barks exceed 200 feet, and rise nearly as high as "the Monument" before branching. Their trunks also will bear a comparison with that stately column, both in circumference and straightness.—The bark of these trees is brown and cracked: that of the White Gums is french-grey, and smooth.

The prostrate trunks of these sylvan giants, in various stages of decay, add greatly to the interest of the scene. Some of them, lately fallen, have vast masses of the rich red earth in which they grew, still clinging to their roots; others, that have been in a state of decay before they fell, present singular ruins of shattered limbs and broken