Читать книгу The Open Road in Victoria - Robert Henderson Croll - Страница 6

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Art is but Nature to advantage drest:

Look well on Nature—and you'll know the rest.

—(Pope—adapted.)

Our Botanic Gardens have been acclaimed one of the three finest in the world. No Melburnian with an eye for beauty fails to recognise their great charm. But Sir Frank Clarke's book (surely the most delightful thing of its kind published in Australia), has said the last word about this beautiful collection and arrangement of plant life, so I shall pass it by, assuming that all Victorians know and are proud of it.

The Fitzroy Gardens are quite another matter. They seem to be all too little known to the man in the street. Yet they lie in the very bosom of the city, and are lovely both by art and by nature. Traffic roars past in all the nerve-racking tumult of the modern street, and they dream on, undisturbed, an oasis of peace in a desert of noise.

They are a testimonial to Melbourne's good citizenship, these Gardens. Like most of the cultivated reserves, they are now fenceless, their lawns are open and inviting to all, and the freedom is not abused. The result of this removal of restraint suggests that that wise old humorist, Mark Twain, was right when he thought Adam ate the apple solely because it was forbidden. "The obvious mistake," he added, "was in not forbidding him to eat the serpent."

From the city the way is short and agreeable. Only the width of the Treasury Gardens separates the Fitzroy reserve from the top of Collins Street. Enter the Treasury Gardens at the Clarke Memorial and you are at once in the dappled shade of a varied avenue of oaks, elms, palms, pines, Moreton Bay figs, a white poplar, a willow, and others. Below, on the right, is the enclosed lakelet (now bright with water lilies), with its ring of special plants. This is known as the Japanese garden. It is told that a party of Japanese visitors were taken to it. "Garden," said their guide. "Yes," replied the taciturn visitors, after due consideration. "Japanese," added the guide. "No!" came the prompt reply, with emphasis.

The glory of the Fitzroy Gardens is their avenues, and in these they excel their Botanic brother. A tunnel of green coolness is created by the great elm avenue which runs as far east as the central creek, branching off there in several directions. Just now the stem of every tree is decorated with the nymph cases of cicadas, and the air vibrates, each warm day, with their strident song, while birds "wax fat and kick" (like Jeshurun) as they dine sumptuously on the soft green bodies.

There's a bewilderment of choice in the paths. All are good, and all lead to the central core, a choice portion which, mistakenly, I think, actually has a fence. Within its bounds is a minor heaven, if heaven be a place of peace and beauty. Here poetry might be born, here youth dream dreams and old men see visions. The green lawn is hedged about by tall trees, goldfish nose the banks of a papyrus-edged pool, a little fountain splashes coolness, and narrow paths, emerald lanes formed of soft-foliaged bamboos and other evergreens, wind about and lose themselves in the most entrancing fashion. A reminder of ancient days is the butt of a giant gum tree, brought from its native hills in sections and set up here to waken in a new generation thoughts of what our country was like

"When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

One of the unusual avenues is that of Himalayan cedars (the Deodar which gives the title to an early book of Kipling's), shielding the two ribbons of garden that rise towards East Melbourne. Another good double row of trees meets over the plane tree walk, and there are lines of Lombardy poplars (tall, stately chaps with their cloaks held tightly round them), American maples, flowering chestnuts, Queensland silky oaks (covered at present with their honeycomb-like bloom), lindens and araucarias. Individual trees stand out, such as the Queensland Kauri near the south-eastern corner, a paper-bark on a western lawn, some redwoods (the giant tree of California) also on the western side, and a Moreton Bay fig near a noble jacaranda. Finest of all is the slim, graceful lemon-scented gum at the back of the deodars. She is always a delight, and never more so than when, obviously conscious in early summer of her new, close-fitting dress of silver bark.

The population of the Gardens is varied and numerous. Birds abound. The Kookaburra may be seen (and heard) constantly, thrushes, blackbirds, minahs, doves and blue wrens treat the grass plots as their own. Two pairs of the white-shafted fantail built last season in bushes in the main walk, and the sacred Kingfisher nests not far away, for the mother was seen the other day feeding a hungry young one. One morning I noted a land rail at the creek, and a rabbit nibbled at the grass close by. Possums are plentiful, as anyone who strolls through by night can testify.

Reluctantly one leaves these Gardens. Pan, outcast from a war-smitten world overseas, might well be hiding here. The statues, showing in glimpses clown the leafy aisles, encourage the thought.

Memory brings away pictures of sunny lawns, shady groves, peace and beauty.