Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/207

 It was a bright afternoon of sunshine, and the Botanical Gardens to which we went on the way to an At Home were looking their best after an earlier rain. They are laid out on rising ground, with ornamental water, sloping lawns, and graceful groups of trees.

In the evening we dined very pleasantly with a university professor, when a fellow-guest at dinner described his experiences in shooting the rapids of an Australian river. He and the friend who went with him had to keep their food in watertight bags, as the canoes continually upset. The one thing, he said, was whatever happened never to let go of the canoe, or you would find yourself two hundred miles from anywhere, bereft of all means of existence. "Was it dangerous?" somebody asked. "You are never out of danger," was the reply. And it is this sense of the possibility of adventure that constitutes part of the charm of colonial life, where men come into contact and into conflict with a nature not yet all sleek and combed.

Our last day at Melbourne we spent in driving round the city and such of its environs as we had not already seen. We visited St. Kilda's, the watering-place of Melbourne. A low, grey, cloudy sky threw a pale light on the waters of the great inland sea, with its pretty opposite