isappear, and I found nothing but the same endless stretch of grass,
burnt up by the midsummer sun.

For many miles I had distinguished the new huts, placed at the apex of
a great cape of the continent of timber which ran down from the
mountains into the plains. I thought they had chosen a strange place
for their habitation, as there appeared no signs of a watercourse near
it. It was not till I pulled up within a quarter of a mile of my
destination, that I heard a hoarse roar as if from the bowels of the
earth, and found that I was standing on the edge of a glen about four
hundred feet deep, through which a magnificent snow-fed river poured
ceaselessly, here flashing bright among bars of rock, there lying in
dark, deep reaches, under tall, white-stemmed trees.

The scene was so beautiful and novel that I paused and gazed at it.
Across the glen, behind the houses, rolled up a dark mass of timbered
ranges, getting higher and steeper as far as the eye could reach, while
to the north-east the river's course might be traced by the timber that
fringed the water's edge, and sometimes feathered some tributary gully
almost to the level of the flat lofty table-land. On either side of it,
down behind, down folded one over the other, and, bordered by great
forests, led the eye towards the river's source, till the course of the
valley could no longer be distinguished, lost among the distant ranges;
but above where it had disappeared, rose a tall blue peak with streaks
of snow.

I rode down a steep pathway, and crossed a broad gravelly ford. As my
horse stopped to drink, I looked delighted up the vista which opened on
my sight. The river, partly over-shadowed by tall trees, was hurrying
and spouting through upright columns of basalt, which stood in groups
everywhere like the pillars of a ruined city; in some places solitary,
in others, clustered together like fantastic buildings, while a hundred
yards above was an island, dividing the stream, on which, towering
above the variety of low green shrubs which covered it, three noble
fern trees held their plumes aloft, shaking with the concussion of the
falling water.

I crossed the river. A gully, deep at first, but getting rapidly
shallower, led up by a steep ascent to the tableland above, and as I
reached the summit I found myself at Major Buckley's front door. They
had, with good taste, left such trees as stood near the house--a few
deep-shadowed light-woods and black wattles, whic