novel,
but what they saw they describe with characteristic and pains-taking
fidelity. Here is their description of Govat's Leap, a remarkable
valley, one of the lions of New South Wales, about five miles from Mount
Victoria:--

"We followed for a considerable distance the high road to Bathurst cut
through the bush. The mass of gum-trees on either side looked beautiful
in their fresh summer foliage. The young shoots are crimson, and when
seen against the blue sky, the sunshine gleaming through them, the tree
seems covered with gorgeous blossom. Leaving the road, we turned into
the scrub, and drove over a sandy soil among small gum-trees and smaller
scrub. When at length we quitted the carriage and had followed our guide
for a short distance, we suddenly came upon what appeared to be an
enormous rift in the ground, which yawned beneath our feet. Far below
was an undulating mass of foliage--the tops of a forest of gum-trees,
which covered the whole bed of the valley. Vast was the height from
which we looked down, so that the trees had the appearance of perfect
stillness, forming in the glorious sunshine a lovely crimson-tinted
carpet, the shadows cast upon them by the clouds giving continual
variety to the colouring. At the upper end of the valley, towards the
west, the cliffs on either side were somewhat depressed. Here a
streamlet fell over the rocks, a sheer descent of 1,200 feet, but so
gentle its fall appeared, as we watched it obliquely across the valley,
that the water looked like marabout feathers softly floating downwards.
Towards the bottom it vanished from our sight among large stones, and if
in that dry season the stream made further progress, its course was
hidden by the forest at its feet. Turning towards the south, the brown,
grey, and yellow rocks rose perpendicularly, the sunshine softening them
into a delicious harmony of colour; and so great was the width of the
valley, that a waterfall on the opposite cliff looked, from where we
stood, like a silver thread against its side. Beyond, the valley bore
away in a southerly direction until it was closed in by ranges of
overlapping hills of lovely blue--indigo or cobalt--as the blaze of the
sun or the shadow of the clouds fell upon them. But for the faint murmur
caused either by the falling of the water or the wind among the trees,
the place was silent, and it was almost devoid of animal life. A bird or
two overhead, and the noiseless lizards who ran over our d