From Croydon upwards the valleys grow deeper, the hills higher, the paddocks wider; the whole country less snug and compact. One passes vineyards, the largest belonging to Victoria’s adored Madame Melba; and beautifully fenced and kept pasture-land, part of the estates of the prima donna’s father, Mr. Mitchell, famous not only for his daughter, but—quaint enough contrast—for his pigs and his bacon factory. The trees are big here, and cast wide-stretching shadows, beneath which the cattle congregate during the heat of the day. How I wish I could paint the landscape! It is all a study in pastel tints, with none of the crude primary colours seen in tropical regions, no vivid scarlets or emerald greens. The distant hills are grey-blue, the middle distance a brownish-blue, the fields, even in spring, of a yellowish tint, save where they are blotted by velvety shades. The gum-trees, here in the open, are very large and beautifully proportioned, with their huge limbs growing to within four feet or so of the ground; and the foliage is grey, or golden, or brown, or shaded with madder tints—but never an absolute green; while over all hangs for the most part a delicate shimmer of heat, the colour of the palest blue larkspur. Finally, as you disembark at Healesville Station the arms of the hills enfold you, while in every direction around you swell the bosoms and shoulders of them, deep with massed trees. The township itself is clean and cheerful, yet inclined to stuffiness; so one hires a horse and buggy and drives farther afield up the mountain-side, or else adventures one’s life in the public motor—which has replaced, within my memory of Australia, the tranquil old coach—and starts away up over the Black’s Spur, along a road which follows the actual track made by the aboriginals in those days when they divided the forest ranges among themselves—the opossum, the native bear, and kangaroo. Better abjure the motor, though—it is a brute—and, waiting until it and its smell are past, hire a couple of horses at the hotel and drive up the mountain far enough in its wake to be able to forget it. The road is wide, and for a while it runs along comparatively level ground, in one place crossing a bridge, and passing a wilderness of overgrown gardens, where some earlier settlers’ dwellings must have been, and where there is still a lilac-bush that blossoms bravely each spring, and pink monthly roses, and clumps of fuchsias, a few rough broken walls and a blackened hearthstone—a melancholy sight this, that all the gallant gaiety of the flowers fails to modify. [Picture: A bush giant]