each leaf sparkled with its dew-drop. Ere the sleepers awoke the sun's beams fell full upon their faces. A light breeze was blowing up the creek, and as it sighed through the bush, set the pendent leaves in a gentle motion, and shook from each tree and shrub a mimic shower. Birds of every shade of plumage, flitted from spray to spray, and the insect world joined them in their morning orisons. Parrots and paroquets continued a subdued chattering as they flitted overhead; the notes of lyre birds were heard from the distant hills, and nearer, the delightful whistlings of the Australian magpies. Now and then some black swans flew by with outstretched necks, and seeing intruders on their domains, expressed surprise by shrill and varied trumpetings. The incessant chirping of myriads of locusts lost its monotony, and with the ripling of the waves upon the distant shore, blended every sound together so sweetly, that for a time the travellers listened in admiration to the most delightful of all melody—the harmony of nature.
CHAPTER VII.
Numberless specimens of the Australian Flora bloomed at heir feet for which they knew no names but only that they were beautiful—
"Crimson buds, and white, and red,
The very rainbow showers
Had turned to blossoms where they fell,
And strewed the earth with flowers."
On one hand, several varieties of heath clothed a sandy hillock, whilst in an adjacent gully could be seen tree ferns rearing
