Each moment brought in sight the location of some enterprising settler, which, ever varying in appearance, in importance, and in extent yet told the same tale of difficulties overcome, and success ensuing.
On his reaching the township, near the head of the navigation, this agent found horses waiting for him:--he was addressed by a well-appointed groom--our old friend Thompson--who touched his hat respectfully, and mentioned the name, he was already prepared for by his Sydney advices.
Suffice it, that Sir Henry was no longer the Baronet, and that the name of Delmé was a strange one in his household.
Their route skirted the banks of one of those rivers, which, diverging from that mine of wealth, the Hunter, wind into the bowels of the land, like a vein of gold.
That emissary will not soon forget his lovely ride. His eye, wearied with gazing on the wide expanse of ocean, feasted on the rich and novel landscape. They rode alternately, through cleared lands, studded with rich farms, waving with luxuriant crops of wheat and rye; and again, through regions, where the axe had never resounded, but where eucalypti, and bastard box, and forest oak with its rough acorn, towered above beauteous wild flowers, whose forms and varieties were associated in the mind of the stranger, with some of the most precious and valued flowers which adorn British conservatories.
The russet Certhia, with outspread fluttering wing, pecked at the smooth bark, and preying on some destructive insect, really preserved what it seemed to injure. The larger parrots, travelling in pairs, screamed their passing salutation, as they displayed their bright plumage to the sun; while hundreds, of a smaller kind, with crimson shoulder, were concealed amid the green leaves; and, as they rode beneath them, babbled--like frolicsome children of the forest--a rude, but to themselves a not unmeaning dialogue.
The superb warblers, ornaments alike to the bush or the garden, flitted cheerily from bough to bough. Strangely mated are they! The male, in suit of black velvet, trimmed with sky blue, looks like a knight, attired for a palace festival:--while his lady-love--she resembles some peasant girl, silent and grateful, clothed in modest kirtle of sober brown.
As he reined in his horse, to examine these at leisure, how melodiously came on his ear, the clear, ceaseless, silver tinkle of the bell-bird; this sound ever and anon chequered by the bold chock-ee-chock! of the bald-headed friar. They had proceeded very leisurely, and the sun was already declining, when Thompson, pointing to an abrupt path, motioned him to descend, and at the same time, gave the peculiar cry, known in the colony as the cooï; a cry which was as promptly answered. It was not until he was close to the edge of the river, that the stranger understood its purport.
A punt was rapidly approaching from the opposite bank. An athletic aboriginal native, in an attitude that seemed studiedly graceful, was bending to the stout rope, which, attached to either side of the river, served to propel the punt. He had been spearing fish; for his wife, or gin, or queen--for she was born such, and contradicted in her person the old adage,
"There's a difference between
A beggar and a queen"--