258 Terra Incognita. [ MARCH, 



lay in their road, it was thought too favourable an opportunity to be 

 neglected, of sending me to my destination. The cart had been sent down 

 a distance of more than forty miles, with articles for the Sydney market, 

 and to bring back such things as were only procurable in the principal town 

 such as tea, sugar, spirits, and manufactured goods ; indeed, all such 

 things as, in this country, are to be found at a village-huckster's. It was 

 in the charge of a convict, or as the term used there is a " government 

 servant". Horses were, at that time, only used for the saddle, and to run 

 in harness ; but seldom, indeed, for heavy draught for which oxen were 

 employed. The cart in which I began my travels in Australia, was drawn 

 by a bullock, whose utmost speed would never exceed two miles an hour, 

 on the best of roads ; but on that we had to go over, at least for the first 

 day, 1 do not believe he netted one ! 



We started from Sydney at one or two o'clock in the afternoon of a 

 fine autumnal day, intending to stop for the night at Brown's Half- way- 

 house, which was not more than seven miles, or seven and a half at the 

 utmost, on the road ; but, after having safely passed through Blackwattle- 

 swamp, which then had no bridge and over Grose's-hill, the steepest in 

 the line we found ourselves, at seven or eight o'clock, abreast of Dobryde, 

 with a broken felloe, and not less than a mile short of our destination. 

 Hungry and tired for we boys had been obliged to walk up every hill, 

 and over every bad part of the road, which did not comprise a very small part 

 of the whole distance frightened, too, of bush-rangers (the runaway con- 

 victs are so called) tempted by the sight of a comfortable house, standing 

 by a grove of orange-trees, and close at hand r- my companions, who were 

 considerably my seniors, determined on seeking there an asylum for the 

 night, and the means of repairing our damage. The proprietor of Dobryde 

 resided in Sydney ; but his absence did not prevent us from being received 

 with hospitality. Johnny-cakes were fried, and tea made ; tea, the 

 universal beverage of an Australian settler at breakfast at dinner at 

 tea and at supper and sometimes oftener! In no part of the world, I 

 believe, is tea so much used as in that country, in proportion to the num- 

 ber of inhabitants leave comparative wealth out of the question. Malt 

 liquors are hardly known out of two or three of the principal towns. Peach 

 cyder (apple cyder is not made) forms the field-beverage of the country 

 people, but cannot be put into competition with tea, which is preferred to 

 it, both in summer and winter. Rum is so great a favourite, that it never 

 gets a day older after it has become the property of a settler so, for the 

 ordinary purposes of life, cannot be compared with tea. But it is settlers 

 of the old school that I am speaking of, and they are now getting scarcer 

 every day. I remember the time, when it was no uncommon case for a 

 man and his wife to leave their farm with a load of grain, vegetables, or 

 fruit, for the Sydney market arrive there steadily enough dispose of 

 their wares, and expend the proceeds in the purchase of necessaries and 

 comforts, including a few gallons of rum reach their home again in two, 

 three, or four days after their departure from Sydney, according to their 

 distance from it with an empty keg, and an empty cart! But turripike- 

 roads the use of horses instead of oxen and the tighter rein by which 

 the convicts are held together with the great influx of respectable and 

 industrious emigrant settlers have tended to make such scenes much less 

 frequent. 



If England had been a wine country, wine would have been flowing 

 through tho streets of Sydney twenty years ago : but, even now, the grape- 



