h continue throughout its course,
so that it could often be recognised by travellers coming upon it a
second time, and at a different part of its career towards the sea.
The beautifully-timbered plains, or the limestone cliffs of the noble
Murray--the naked plains that bound on either side the strip of
forest-trees of huge dimensions, by which the Lachlan is bordered,--the
constantly full stream, the water-worn and lightly-timbered banks, the
clear open space between the river and its distant margin of reeds,
which mark the character of the Murrumbidgee,--the low grassy banks or
limestone rocks, the cascades and caverns, the beautiful festoons of
creeping plants, the curious form of the duck-billed platypus,[18] which
are to be found on the Glenelg; the sandstone wastes of the Wollondilly,
the grassy surface of the pretty Yarrayne,[19] with its trees on its
brink instead of on its bank; the peculiar grandeur of the tremendous
ravine, 1,500 feet in depth, down which the Shoalhaven flows; these and
many more remarkable features of scenery in the Australian rivers, would
afford abundance of materials for description either in poetry or prose.
But we can now notice only one more peculiarity which most of these
streams exhibit; they have, at a greater or less distance from their
proper channels, secondary banks, beyond which floods rarely or never
are known to extend. In no part of the habitable world is the force of
contrast more to be observed than in Australia. A very able scientific
writer[20] has ingeniously represented three persons travelling in
certain directions across Great Britain, and finishing their journeys
with three totally different impressions of the soil, country, and
inhabitants; one having passed through a rocky and mining district, the
second through a coal country peopled by manufacturers, and a third
having crossed a chalky region devoted entirely to agriculture. An
observation of this kind is even still more true of New Holland. And,
consequently, when, instead of _pursuing_ the course of certain similar
lines of country, the traveller _crosses_ these, the changes that take
place in the appearance and productions of the various districts are
exceedingly striking and follow sometimes in very rapid succession. A
few examples of these contrasts, which arise in Australia from the
nature of the seasons, as well as from that of the soil or climate, may
here be noticed. How great a change did the exploring pa