and one can well conceive the fair and fleet goddess selecting such a
spot to bathe her limbs. Yonder dwelling, partly visible through the
trees, which flourish to the water’s edge, is the Summer retreat of F.
Groome, Esq. of “Harefield” at St. Mary’s. This lake is like the others
which we have passed――an inlet of the sea enclosed by a large and high
sandbank. Wild ducks, teal, and the never-absent cormorant, haunt it
in vast numbers, for it abounds in fish. Here for the first time since
leaving the eastern extremity of the pass we come upon granite the
prevailing rock of the stanniferous district we are about to enter.
A very interesting and instructive tale of cosmical change does this
same granite tell, but time and circumstance alike forbid us staying
to listen to it now. It will have been observed that there is a most
decided change in the character of the vegetation in these parts. The
gum trees no longer have the white, smooth bark which mark them a few
miles to the south-east. Instead of this the bark is rough, thick, and
deeply furrowed. They are the iron bark, or redgum of the colonists,
an exceedingly hard, and durable wood and it is much prized for sluice
boxes by the tin miner. Five miles more, and as the sun is setting over
the blue and distant mountains in the west――an abrupt turn of the road
occurs, and lo! the truly magnificent