The sandal-wood blossoms were out and wild flowers plentiful.

The lagoon was then flush with the grass, and its water, on which white, pink and blue lilies floated, had reflected the vegetation at its edge.

Now the lagoon had shrunk and the water in the gully was in places a mere trickle.

Of course, the trees were there--ti-tree, flooded gum, and so forth--but they looked brown and ragged.

One standing by itself, a giant white cedar, which in spring was a mass of white and mauve bloom and in winter of scarlet berries, had a wide strip of brown mud between it and the water that had formerly laved its roots.
Lady Bridget had thought that the rocky gully, the lagoon and the vast plain made as pretty a landscape as she had ever seen, when she had first looked upon it in the early morn after her homecoming.