CORRESPONDENCE.

THE BLUE MOUNTAINS OF NEW SOUTH WALES.

[PROM A CORRESPONDENT.] Tan protests of the Spectator against the imperfect way in which travellers commonly record their impressions of the external aspect of countries they visit have encouraged the present endeavour to describe—in such a manner that readers may form distinct and faithful (though of necessity incomplete) mental pictures—some of the most beautiful and impressive scenes on the continent of Australia. Such an aim is surely the proper object of verbal descriptions of scenery, which, if

they do not enable us to gratify the "visualising curiosity," remain mere additions to our knowledge of natural history or local geology.

It will simplify the task and further the end in view if, in the first place, an account be given of some of the metereological conditions which usually obtain in Australia, and of certain almost universal characteristics of Australian scenery ; and secondly, if that part of the Blue Mountain range with which we are now concerned be shortly described in a general manner. A few remarks on each of these topics are therefore offered.

Let it, then, be said that the weather is almost always very fine, the sky intensely blue, and on perhaps a majority of days in the year absolutely cloudless. The air, especially away from the coast, is clear to a degree almost, if not quite, unknown in this country, and consequently one can generally see as far as on a very fine day in England, say, fifty miles, and often farther. An Australian in London, even in high-lying suburbs like Hamp- stead and Highgate, on days when a Londoner will scarcely notice that a very fine haze, miles of which scarcely dim the view to a perceptible extent, pervades the air, will roundly com- plain of the " fog." (So much for the weather.) It should be borne in mind also that though, owing to atmospheric and other causes, most Australian scenery has great richness and variety of hues, the vivid green which is the greatly predominating colour in five-sixths of the landscapes of these islands, is most rare. Many other colours, vivid enough, there are in profusion, especially in the parks and gardens with which Australians are so fond of ornamenting their towns ; but unless it be tree-ferns in shady gullies, scarcely anything is of a thoroughly refreshing green. The grass especially, except on the downs, is commonly coarse and scant ; and very early in the season it is generally burnt by the sun to a disagreeable brown hue. This, however, is not so great a detraction from the beauty of an extended prospect as it is from that of the country in one's immediate neighbourhood. The paddocks are usually parched, and the cattle in them poor,—with harsh coats and protuberant bones,— to a degree almost painful to the visitor from a more humid climate. An Irish, or even a Middlesex meadow, with its sleek and well-fed occupants, would be a revelation to most nntravelled Australians. Ask any of the Australian visitors to the Ex- hibition what he is most struck by in this country. The chances are that he will say the complexions of the girls and the green- ness of the grass and trees. The forest, or " bush," that forms a principal part of most Australian scenery, is of a hue very different from that of any British wood. Nine out of ten of the trees—probably one might say ninety-nine out of a hundred— are gum-trees, mostly blue or red gums (which are superficially very much alike) ; and some of the other trees have a consider- able general resemblance to the eucalypti. (There are, never- theless, pine-woods in some localities ; for instance, in the gold district around Ballaarat.) Individually, gum-trees, though some near Melbourne are the tallest trees in the world, not even ex- cepting the Yo-semite pines, are for the most part straggling and ungraceful, and the foliage almost always has a meagre appear- ance. The colour of the foliage of a mature tree (except the young leaves, which are never numerous) is a dark-green, of about the same hue as the leaves of a fuchsia on the upper surface, the under-side being whitish ; and in almost all of the various kinds there is upon them a " bloom " of a very distinct blueish tinge. Half-a-mile away, a forest of eucalypti, unless umbered by the solstitial heats, appears entirely of this characteristic blue colour, the shade deepening with distance to a dark indigo ; and such a forest, viewed from above, has this beauty,—that the tree-tops, being rounded, do not form an undistinguishable thicket, but, as in an oak-forest, the dividuons rondure of each distinctly appears.

It is now desirable to give a short general description of the Blue Mountains, and to call attention to their most remarkable features. This name, then, is given to a mountain-chain in New South Wales the main part of which runs approximately parallel to the coast-line, at an average distance of about forty miles, and is, measured roughly, two hundred miles long and fifty broad. That part of the range in which we are at preaent interested, however, lies within a single county, sixty miles long by forty-four broad. That county, named after Captain Cook, contains more than a million acres, and almost the whole of it is mountainous. The highest point in it is considerably over four thousand feet,, and the average height of the land throughout the county is about two thousand five hundred feet, above the sea-leveL There is hardly anything that

can be called a peak, though there are long ridges leading up to the highest points, the surface lying for the most part in

gentle slopes many miles in length and width. The greater part of the surface of Cook County is clothed with a thick low scrub, but still considerable districts are covered with the ordinary bush, consisting principally of gum-trees. Throughout almost the whole area of the county, except in the valleys, the surface stratum is a ferruginous sandstone, which forms an important feature, as will appear, in the scenery. Doubtless, if there were any ploughed fields, the humus would be found tinctured, as it is in Devonshire, by the all-permeating iron rust ; but as things are, where there are no boulders or chasms, the rufous dust of the road alone shows the nature of the geological formation. There are very few inhabitants in the county, three or four thousand perhaps, and the few enclosures are made with the ordinary red posts and rails of gum-timber, or with gum- wood posts and iron wire.

If a model of Cook County were constructed like that known to many by photographs, which has been made from the Ordnance Survey of the English Lake District, and is now ex- hibited at Keswick, it would resemble nothing so much as one of those Chinese puzzles which are made from thin slabs of wood, by cutting out with a fret-saw, in as sinuous and intricate a manner as possible, as much of the wood as can be removed without destroying the slab, the object being to make the task of replacing the fantastically shaped pieces into the corresponding spaces from which they have been excised, as difficult and per- plexing as possible. In several salient features besides the similarity of plan, such as the verticality of the sides, their con- vergence near the mouth till they form mere gorges, and the projection of peninsular masses, the resemblance between these valleys and the spaces in the puzzle would be almost exact.

It is trusted that the reader's mind has been prepared by the preceding descriptions—as the artist's paper is prepared with preliminary washes of pigment—to receive impressions of some definiteness of outline and distinction of colour, of the scenes to be depicted. Let us, then, imagine ourselves starting on a fresh morning in September—early spring—from a hotel three thousand feet above the sea-level, to visit the Kunimbla Valley. There has been a slight frost during the night and at this elevation the air is deliciously fresh and ex- hilarating after the heat and dust of Sydney. Opposite the hotel a "laughing jackass" is sitting motionless on a post He is as large as a big rook, and, according to Mr. Fronde, in "Oceana," has "the shape of a jay." He is more like a king.

fisher in shape, though ; and naturally so, for he is a kingfisher, —Dacelo gigas, the great brown kingfisher, to wit. If we had not slept too soundly in the mountain air, we might about sun-

rise have heard his peculiar clamour,—a low, gurgling chuckle, increasing gradually in tone till it ends in an obstreperous cachinnation, "mocking and malicious," as Mr. Fronde says, such laughter as Gabriel Grub heard in the churchyard ; but we are not likely to have another chance of hearing it until evening, as his risibility is not easily provoked, except at the beginning and end of the day. He has probably been sitting on the post for hours, and if not disturbed, may sit there half the day, especially as the season is still too cold for the snakes he feeds on to leave their winter quarters and entice him off his perch.

The sun is warm, but not hot or dazzling, and except for a few white patches, sailing slowly at a great. height, the sky is still cloudless. There is little wind. We have only a quarter of a mile to walk, and our way lies through the bush. As we go, a king parrakeet, resplendent in scarlet and green, crosses the path, with the swerving, irresolute flight of his tribe ; it is almost a question which is the brightesk—the burnished green of his back and wings, or the flaming scarlet of his head and breast. He at least is of a green sufficiently vivid. It is too early in the year, however, for us to find many of the parrot tribe on the cold hills, and we meet with few living things. A turn in the path shows an opening in the bush, and in a moment we are

looking forward fifteen miles across a valley twelve hundred feet deep. A valley indeed I but like no other valley anywhere existing,

save in poet's vision, or fable of Eastern enchantment. Here is no "brae," sloping gently from the mountain-crest to the bottom of the vale; the cliff on which we stand is absolutely perpendicular, and the vast tract below, except a few isolated hills in the far distance, is perfectly flat. It seems as though the land had sunk gently down in its integrity, bearing with it un- disturbed the forest which for many a mile covers the whole broad bottom of the gulf, and leaving a stark precipice in the rent bo3om of the earth. The forest below exactly resembles that in the shade of which we stand. Above, the trees grow thick to the very edge of the chasm ; below, the branches brush the foot of the precipitous wall. Here and there a patch of grass, green with the moisture of rivulets that run unseen beneath the trees, smiles brightly in the sun.

Straight across the valley, ten miles away, the bush becomes gradually less dense, and for several miles on this side of a bank of violet haze, fifteen miles distant, beyond which we cannot see, there is open pasture. A white house, the dwelling-place of a squatter, lies just within the verge of the forest. The smoke of a gum-wood fire issues from the roof and hangs aloft in an azure cloud. No other sign of human life appears. To the right, a quarter of a mile off, our view is blocked abruptly by a promontory which stands out several hundred yards further into the valley. If we could see beyond it, nothing would appear but the same level floor, covered with the same leafy carpet—so immense is the depth, that the forest scarcely seems more than a thick yielding carpet,—which stretches fifty miles, as we can see, and we know not how much farther, on our left front. On this, the left side, we can follow the enormous escarpment, trending slightly forward from our point of view, for four or five miles. Its irregularity is wonderful. Everywhere perpendicular, it stands like some majestic coast, worn by the roll of Atlantic billows ; its fretted coves flanked by jutting nesses ; its sweeping bays " bastioned impregnably " by broad- fronted capes. Marvellous in proportion and outline, this stupendous curtain of rock astonishes almost as much by the boldness and singularity of its colouring. Whitish gray from the foot upwards for four-fifths of its height, it is everywhere surmounted by a broad even band, or continuous cornice, of a clouded rose-colour. In a degree striking even among the land- scapes of a sunny clime, the scene is steeped in colour. The deep-blue sky, with its few fleecy, gleaming clouds ; the veil of shimmering haze and sapphire wreath of smoke ; the indigo gulf below, with its emerald glades (like patches on a green sea where sunbeams fall through rifts in an overshadowing cloud), on one side stretching to the furthest zone of vision, on the other bounded by the giant rampart with its battlement of coral,—all combine to intoxicate, without satiating, the whole being, like a deep draught of wine " when it is red," in a suffusive libation of sumptuous colour. Admiration falls faintly from the lips, or, hushed by the serene glory of the scene, remains unuttered. Many hours might we gaze, forgetting time and care, without any loss of delight or diminution of our wonder; nor could custom stale the joy, or daily familiarity by aught impair the exulting reverence, which such a prospect would ever inspire.

We have left little space to describe another scene, not less impressive in its way, but different in many respects. In some, however, it is the same. It is another valley ; it is a thousand feet deep, and its sides also are perpendicular. The cliffs, too, are coloured exactly like those others; all the cliffs in the district, indeed, are so coloured. The bottom of the valley, again, is flat, and covered, as in the other case, with thick forest. We will take our station at the end of this valley and survey it. The end where we stand is from half to three- quarters of a mile wide, and the sides, always about that distance apart, wind before us for seven or eight miles, until the view is closed by a sharper turn than the others. We stand on a large flat rock, overhanging the abyss. We drop straight from the hand, without throwing it, a stone over the edge of the rock, and as we watch its accelerating fall, in a few seconds it disappears among the trees, many yards from the base of the cliff. There is a small waterfall close by us, and there are several others along the head and sides of the valley ; but not much water is now going over

the cliffs. After rain they must add much to the beauty of the scene, which even now is supremely lovely. Right below us a

line of tree-ferns, delightfully fresh and green, shows where the

water from the nearest waterfall runs in a small, unseen rill. The trees at the bottom are seventy feet in height, yet they look like shrubs. The tree-ferns look like green stars. If we would descend into the valley, and reach the spot at our feet, we must make a circuit of twenty miles. The whole valley seems, and ones may not impossibly have been, a noble fiord, raised by the gradual upheaval of the land until the ocean whose waves once laved its sides and filled its basin to a profound depth—a

harbour for an Imperial navy—was left many a league away, hoarsely mourning its primeval memories. Such is the scene to which the colonists, countenancing a terrible legend which tells that a bushranger, hard pressed by pursuing officers, preferred

a self-inflicted death in the abyss to suffering the penalty of the law, have given the name of " Govett's Leap." But let us not turn away from these scenes of marvel and magnificence with a shocking or humiliating thought. The story is not true. Govett was no bushranger, nor did any one ever take that awful leap. He was a trusty Government official, who first accurately surveyed and mapped this labyrinthine district.