Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/59

Rh depths of the forest among the soaring white trunks of the karri, the early sun tinging their smooth trunks with red. The line had been recently made, and the sleeping cars were very heavy, so we proceeded slowly. There was very little sign of life; we could almost feel the great deep silence of the forest, moist, and fresh, and cold, in the frost of early morning, for it lies 400 feet above the sea level, and the temperature was very different from that of the dry sandy plains of Perth. At long intervals solitary wooden houses stood in little clearings, with grave-eyed children before the doorway, shading their eyes to watch the unfamiliar passage of a big train. More seldom we came upon a scattered village of tents, roughly put up like a gipsy encampment, pitched among the damp undergrowth. There was something pathetic in the deep isolation of these pioneers, though the near neighbourhood of the railway made their lives almost metropolitan, compared with those of many Australian settlers.

As we drew nearer to our journey's end, we passed an occasional small clearing, where the yellow sandy soil had already been planted with apple trees for the fruit growing, which is one of the industries of the future for Western Australia; or patches of forest had been ring-