Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/62

40 of Australia. Victoria and New South Wales are doing some planting, but South Australia is the only state in which forest plantation is being carried on on a large scale.

The railway ended abruptly in a large clearing in the forest about fifteen miles from the coast and two hundred miles from Perth. The air was that of a keen autumn morning, and we climbed down from our carriages, for there was of course no platform, feeling stiff and chilly, to find breakfast waiting for us in a big wooden hall, with a great fire blazing in the kitchen, which opened out of it, the most cheering and comfortable sight in the wilderness. These halls are a feature of backwood settlements in Australia; they are utilised for all social and business purposes, and are the common meeting ground of the community. In this instance the landlord leased the building from the state, and provided meals for the men employed in the sawmills. He invited us to inspect his pleasant kitchen, the floor sanded with sweet-smelling, deep-red sawdust. At the back he was putting up bedrooms in small detached one-storied wooden buildings. Big Brook with its keen, pure air, the sweet, clean scent of the fresh-sawn wood, and all round, the illimitable forest, mysterious and im-