NEW SOUTH WALES. 45 



"the sky," according to the author " being seldom clouded,and day after 

 day, for whole weeks together, the sun looking down in unveiled 

 beauty from the northern heavens." The soil produces in abundance 

 almost all the delicacies of the tropical regions : and that the country 

 itself is by no means destitute of fine scenery, appear from the follow- 

 ing quotation : 



" Let the reader" says the author, in his description of Hunter's River, 

 one of the largest in the colony, " imagine to himself a noble river as wide 

 as the Thames, in the lower part of its course, winding slowly towards the 

 ocean, among forests that have never felt the stroke of the axe, or seen any 

 human face till lately but that of the wandering barbarian. On either 

 bank the lofty gum-tree shoots up its white naked stem to the height of 150 

 feet from the rich alluvial soil, while underwood, of most luxuriant growth, 

 completely covers the ground, and numerous wild vines dip their long 

 branches, covered with white flowers, into the very water. The voice of 

 the lark, or the linnet, or the nightingale, is, doubtless, never heard along 

 the banks of the Hunter; for New South Wales is strangely deficient in the 

 music of the groves. But the eye is gratified instead of the ear ; for flocks 

 of white or black cockatoos, with their yellow or red crests, occasionally 

 flit across from bank to bank ; and innumerable chirping parroquets, of 

 most superb and inconceivably variegated plumage, are ever and anon 

 hopping about from branch to branch. I have been told, indeed, that there 

 is nothing like interesting natural scenery in New South Wales. My own 

 experience and observation enable me flatly to contradict the assertion. In 

 , many parts of the territory, both to the northward arid southward of Sydney, 

 I have seen natural scenery, combining every variety of the beautiful, the 

 picturesque, the wild, and the sublime, and equalling any thing I had ever 

 seen in Scotland, England, Ireland, or Wales." 



In that part of the work which relates to Sydney, the capital of the 

 colony, and where the settlers have made the greatest advances in 

 civilization, we find the following graphic and very lively description 

 of the manner in which the inhabitants spend their leisure hours : 



" It is not very creditable, however, to the dwellers in Sydney, that such 

 scenes" (he had just been describing some fine pieces of scenery in the go- 

 vernment domain around Port Jackson), " should be allowed to remain so 

 entirely sacred to solitude, as they have hitherto been. But while it is un- 

 deniable that the schoolmaster will require to be abroad somewhat longer, 

 ere the race of Australians can be expected to go any where in search of the 

 picturesque, there is another very obvious reason for the comparative de- 

 sertion of the government domain by the inhabitants of Sydney. Every 

 person who can contrive to get any thing more than a mere livelihood in the 

 colony, forthwith possesses himself of a horse and shay for pleasuring, to be 

 transformed in due time into a curricle and pair. Till lately, however, the 

 government domain was open only to pedestrians, and was consequently no 

 place for the display of equipages. Besides, a road was formed, during 

 Governor Macquarie's administration, at the expense of the people of 

 Sydney, as far as the Light House on the South Head ; and that road has 

 ever since been the favourite resort of the beau monde of the capital. About 

 four o'clock in the afternoon before dinner in the haut ton circles, but 

 some time after it among people of inferior station all the coach-house 

 doors in Sydney fly open simultaneously, and the company begin to take 

 their places for the afternoon drive on the South Head road. In half an 

 hour the streets are comparatively deserted; by far the greater portion of 

 the well-dressed population being already out of town. In the mean time, 

 the long line of equipages from the ponderous coach of the member of 



