Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/330

 Mr. A. G. Hamilton, "once saw a cow which had rushed through a lot of small plants. She had lost all her hair and looked like an india-rubber cow."[A]

The construction of the line must have involved a considerable feat of engineering, for it winds up the hills like an Alpine railway. Presently we began to have glimpses of deep dark gorges with a broad green river flowing beneath us, then we crossed a waterfall slipping down an almost perpendicular rock, and in flood covering the railroad. The rain had ceased, and now the rolling clouds, soft loose masses resting gently on the tops of the tallest gums, suddenly drifted away and revealed a vast landscape of rare loveliness. Looking down the opening gorge, we saw the valley of the Barron River, for almost its whole course, winding to the sea, a pale streak below the dark slopes of the mountains. The train stopped within sound of the thunder of the Barron Falls. The swirling water takes its magnificent plunge in tumultuous clouds of white froth to the gorge below, where rare butterflies hover, and white cockatoos flutter among the tops of the gum trees. Above all the tumult two swallows were darting to and fro, they carried

[Footnote A: "Flora of the South Coast," "Handbook to New South Wales," p. 395.]