Sunny blue reflected, with the gaunt old trees, in the tiny
gleaming seas among the lilies, while everywhere upon the floating leaves
myriads and myriads of grey and pink "gallah" parrots and sulphur-crested
cockatoos preened feathers, or rested, sipping at the water grey and pink
verging to heliotrope and snowy white, touched here and there with gold,
blending, flower-like, with the golden-flecked glory of the lilies.
For a moment we waited, spell-bound in the brilliant sunshine; then the
dogs running down to the water's edge, the gallahs and cockatoos rose
with gorgeous sunrise effect: a floating gray-and-pink cloud, backed by
sunlit flashing white. Direct to the forest trees they floated and,
settling there in their myriads, as by a miracle the gaunt, gnarled old
giants of the bush all over blossomed with garlands of grey, and pink,
and white, and gold.
But the operator, being unpoetical, had ridden on to the "wire," and
presently was "shinning up" one of its slender galvanised iron posts as a
preliminary to the "handshake"; for tapping the line being part of the
routine of a telegraph operator in the Territory, "shinning up posts," is
one of his necessary accomplishments.
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