Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/36

16 and big grey water-tank, we came to rising ground overlooking the Swan River. Behind were the low deep blue hills of the Darling Range, and the broad river lay glassy in the heat of the sun, blue as the Lake of Geneva on a summer's day. Its wooded banks run out in little spits of land with white sandy foreshores, one or two small white-sailed boats were floating idly on it, and some water-fowl swam on its unruffled surface. The foliage of the gums with which its banks are covered is dark and uniform in colour, and had the massive effect of our trees in autumn, before the leaves have begun to turn. The air was heavy with the scent of some white-flowering shrub, the stillness was unbroken except by the note of a magpie; the place seemed a paradise. So it must have looked to the first settlers, the first pioneers, who stood, as we stood, looking down on it. It left an ineffaceable impression, and we never again saw anything more beautiful than that view.

Western Australia is famous for its wild flowers. We were a month too early, but even so we saw many strange and beautiful varieties. They are more numerous here than anywhere else in the world, even now many have not been classified. The most characteristic are as unlike as possible to our delicate evanescent wild flowers at home;