The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner • Paragraph 668
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It is not only in Africa that one finds these half-deserts or scrub. There is the Brigalow Scrub in Australia, which has a curious silver-grey shimmering appearance on account of the blue-grey sickle-like leaves of the Brigalow Acacia. The foliage casts no shade, for the leaves are flat and thin, and place themselves edgewise to the light, so that there is no danger of the strong light injuring them. Also in Australia is the Mallee Scrub, covering thousands of square miles between the Murray River and the coast. It consists of bushy Eucalyptus, six to twelve feet high. Its monotonous appearance when seen from a small hill is very striking.[48] "Below lies an endless sea of yellow-brown bushes: perhaps far away one may observe the blue outline of some solitary hill or granite peak, but otherwise nothing breaks the monotonous dark-brown horizon. Everything is silent and motionless save perhaps where the scrub-hen utters its complaining cry, or when the wind rustles the stiff eucalyptus twigs."[49]