pioneers are crumbling away; although the present church people struggle to preserve the building. In front of the church there is a new graveyard, bright and well tended. To the rear are the resting-places of some of the most admirable early-day settlers; but these graves are overgrown with weeds; the head-stones have fallen, and the writing on them is unreadable.
Nature has made Russell beautiful, and its long beach and stretches of hillside invite one to walk endlessly on; to bays where the air and water are cool, and to headlands which overlook stretches of sea and islands. It is in the evening that one goes forth with the greatest pleasure, for then the heat of the day has departed and there is the silent luxury of sunset. A dozen islands stand out of the sea and are silhouetted against the pastel sky; the gulls shriek; the fishing boats return, and evening comes like a mute to the strings of a violin.
I have walked across the hills of Russell in the quiet of twilight—over to Long Beach, where the waves break on the shore in a semi-circle of white; I have seen the distant slopes ablaze with bush fires. I have tramped the hills in the evening, and stood high up on the cliffs with no company but the shrieking gulls, and the soft murmur of the sea below; I have plunged into the cool water, and after swimming to a small island near-by, have stood on the rocks dripping wetPage 20
