Page:Old Melbourne Memories.djvu/58

 any of the new-fangled contrivances for letting the same land to half a dozen people at one and the same time.

There was nothing which some people would consider to be romantic or picturesque in the scenery on which I gazed. But the “light which never was on sea or shore” was there, to shed a celestial glory over the untilled, unfenced, half-unknown waste. Westward stretched the great marshes, through which the Eumeralla flowed, if, indeed, that partially subterranean stream could be said to run or flow anywhere. Northward lay the lava-bestrewn country known as the Mount Eeles rocks, a mass of cooled and cracked lava now matted with a high thick sward of kangaroo grass, but so rough and sharp were the piles and plateaux of scoria that it was dangerous to ride a horse over it. For years after we preferred to work it on foot with the aid of dogs.

On the south lay open slopes and low hills, with flats between. On these last grew the beautiful umbrageous blackwood, or native hickory, one of the handsomest trees in Australia. At the back were again large marshes, with heathy flats and more thickly-timbered forests. Over all was a wonderful sward of grass, luxuriant and green at the time I speak of, and quite sufficient, as I thought, for the sustenance of two or three thousand head of mixed cattle.

There were no great elevations to be seen. It was one of the “low countries” in a literal sense. The only hill in view was that of Mount Eeles, which we could see rising amid the lava levels a few miles to the north-west. The marshes were for the most