Mr. Meredith used often to make long explorations in the neighbourhood of our cottage, sometimes to shoot ducks or a kangaroo, and as frequently merely for a new walk. One day he returned with such an armful of beautiful shrubs and ferns, and such exciting accounts of the singularly beautiful spots where he found them, that I waited impatiently for his first leisure day, that I might go with him into the new and wondrous world he had discovered, and see its treasures growing there.

Accordingly on the first opportunity we set forth; we rode on horseback for two miles of forest, and then arriving at a “scrub,” so thick and close that our horses could go no further, we left them with the servant, and proceeded on foot. We soon struck into a cattle path, which was a beaten though very narrow track underfoot, and so far a passage above, that the shrubs gave way on being pushed, but instantly closed again. Long pendulous streamers of tangled gray lichen hung like enormous beards from the trees, and on horizontal branches formed perfect curtains of some feet in depth. Funguses of all kinds protruded from the dead, damp, mossy logs and gigantic fallen trees that lay in our path, and the deep soft beds of accumulated decaying leaves and bark that one's feet sank into were damp and spongy, and chill, even on a warm summer day.