cattle station, for, in the thickly wooded hills, hollows, and flats
about sheep could not live--at least, to any purpose--and the homestead
had the importance of a little straggling street, with the main dwelling
at the top, as the end of a cul-de-sac, and the dairy and what not in
marshalled line below. We revelled in pastoral abundance. I wandered
into the adjacent woods, experiencing the sense of overpowering grandeur
amidst their vast solitudes, with the gum-trees rising straight above me
with colossal stems, not seldom 300 feet and more in height, and 100
feet, or even much more, from the ground without a branch. When this
"redgum" has elbow room, it expands in all variety of form, attaining in
favouring circumstances vast dimensions, as in one example met with in
the Dandenong Ranges, which measured 480 feet in height. But in this
Yering case, crowded as they were impoverishingly together upon flats of
the river, they did not bulk out into such dimensions, but they shot up
side by side, straight as arrows, rivals en route to the clouds. Sad
changes came to Yering's happy and hospitable owners since, for, like
many others, they had to "realize" in the bad times, and to quit a most
pleasant home. But Yering itself has thriven, and has since advanced
into a great wine-producing district, whose wines Mr. De Castella, its
later owner, has made to carry prizes even at European Exhibitions.


EARLY WESTERN VICTORIA ("AUSTRALIA FELIX").

"Oh! 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine."
--Love's Labour Lost.

"He makes a July day short as December."
--Winter's Tale.