Читать книгу Rambles in Australia онлайн

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One soon takes as a matter of course the brilliant unvarying Australian sunshine, but on our first walk the day after our arrival, it seemed as if we were wandering in a land of limelight; its hard dazzling white brilliance appeared artificial and unreal. There seemed to be an absence of chiaroscuro, and of atmosphere, the clear-cut distance gave an illusory impression of nearness, annihilating perspective; the eucalyptus with their light, springing branches, sparsely covered with long, narrow leaves, give little shade. From pictures and photographs one is led to suppose that Australian scenery is not unlike that of England. It is wholly and entirely different, not only in its atmospheric effect, and in the more uniform and heavier colouring of its foliage, but every individual plant is unfamiliar. Australia, one may say, roughly speaking, is one vast forest of eucalyptus or gum tree. The gums have many varieties, far too numerous for the traveller to distinguish, from the slight pale trees that are not unlike a silver-barked birch, to the soaring giants of the karri forest, with their smooth white stems; but whatever the variety, the prevailing tinge is a bluish grey. Sometimes the forest or “bush” has been cleared away to make room for orchards, and crops, or towns, or grazing land; sometimes acres of trees have been “ringbarked,” as it is called, a rapid and cheap way of clearing land, by cutting out a ring of bark so that the tree dies, and only a skeleton forest remains, letting in light and air to the soil. But the “bush” is never very far away. It seems to be only waiting to close in again, and swallow up once more what has been so laboriously cleared. West, east, north, and south, the gum tree predominates, though the bush varies in the nature of its undergrowth, which in the tropics becomes rich and beautiful.