Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/363

 expected. In about another week, said our host, they would begin, and in less than a week from that time the bare red soil would be covered with springing vegetation, three or four feet high. Here the mango trees, that we had seen in flower at Cairns, were already bearing the yellow globes of their fruit. Among a grove of coco palms we saw the picturesque corkscrew palm, with its odd spiral stem, but we saw no animal life, except a few peeweets of the smaller kind, though our host said the flocks of wild geese, that herald the coming of the rain, had already begun to pass overhead. He also pointed out a spot on the road, in which a short time before, a large kangaroo had run out of the bush and, startled at seeing him, cleared his horse's head at one bound.

At the entrance to the Botanical Gardens we saw our first banyan tree, bare of leaves, and showing the curious formation of the branches. Later we passed one that had already burst into leaf. The drive afforded lovely glimpses of the harbour, its bright blue waters lapping the green, wooded shores. In the Botanical Gardens there were as yet few flowers. The scarlet coral-tree was there, and another scarlet flowering tree, and some waxy, red hibiscus. The Administrator and his wife received their guests upon a lawn, that had somehow retained its grass, and we then sat