The Hillyars and the Burtons by Henry Kingsley

BELOW the city of Palmerston, which was situated just at the head of the tideway, the river Street found its way to the sea in long reaches, which were walled in, to the very water's edge, by what is called in the colony teascrub--a shrub not very unlike the tamarisk, growing dense and thick, about fifteen feet high, on the muddy bank, eaten out by the wash of many steamboats. But, above the tideway, the river was very different. If you went up, you had scarcely passed the wharves of the city before you found yourself in a piece of real primeval forest, of nearly two thousand acres, left by James Oxton from the very first; which comprised a public park, a botanic garden, and the paddock of the police-station. This domain sloped gently down to the river on either side, and the river was no sooner relieved from the flat tideway than it began to run in swift long shallows of crystal water, under hanging woodlands,--in short, to become useless, romantic, and extremely beautiful.

Passing upward beyond the Government Reserve, as this beautiful tract was called, you came into the magnificent grounds of the Government House. The house itself, a long, white, castellated building, hung aloft on the side of a hill overhead, and was backed by vast sheets of dark green woodland. From the windows the lawn stooped suddenly down, a steep slope into the river, here running in a broad deep reach, hugging the rather lofty hills, on the lower range of which the house was situated.