the bush to the Botanical Gardens. It seems incongruous to talk of Botanical Gardens in a place that is yet hardly a town, but in a new country foresight is essential, and the Government has set apart here as elsewhere a reserve for the future, when Port Darwin shall be a great busy port crowded with shipping, and its lonely shores thronged with houses.
It was just at the end of the dry season when we were there, and as we drove along between eucalyptus and coco palms, and all kinds of unfamiliar tropical plants, their vivid green contrasted oddly with the absolutely bare red soil—there was not a blade of grass or green upon it. This is its normal condition in the dry season, which occurs with perfect regularity from May to October. The rains are ushered in by violent thunderstorms and hurricanes, increasing in frequency till the end of November, when about an inch of rain falls nearly every day. In January the wet season has penetrated to the heart of the continent.
Of course, these climatic conditions do not exactly apply to the whole of a tract of country, which covers more than 500,000 square miles. From north to south the Territory extends for about 900 miles, and it is roughly divided into three areas, according to its climatic conditions.
