1827.] Terra Incognita. 261 



sidered very healthy and one reason for its insalubrity, I believe to be, 

 a sort of malaria, occasioned by the continual dampness, which might, I 

 have said, be easily remedied. Parramatta has increased, however, almost 

 in the same ratio that Sydney has ; but I do not think that it will continue 

 to do so. At present, the high road to the fertile districts on the Hawkes- 

 bury necessarily lies through it ; but if, at any time, a communication 

 should be obtained from Sydney to the north shore and a chain bridge 

 would easily effect it the distance to that, and many other very improving 

 parts of the colony, will be greatly shortened ; and Parramatta will, at 

 best, but stand still. 



The only public buildings in the town are a church and a hospital. On 

 the hill to the south are the military barracks ; and, higher up, towards 

 the government- house, is the parsonage a neat cottage-villa. On the 

 opposite, or north bank of the river, are the gaol and factory the latter a 

 sort of barrack for the female convicts who are not at service, where they 

 are employed in the manufacture of a sort of coarse woollen cloth. On 

 the same side, but considerably lower down, there are some neat cottage 

 residences ; and below them, and below the town altogether, opposite Mr. 

 Macartbur's, is the Female Orphan Asylum. Mr. Macarthur's is at the 

 other extremity of the town from the government-house, and is more like 

 the establishment of an English country gentleman, than perhaps any thing 

 in the colony besides. 



At the time when I first arrived in Parramatta, it was little more than 

 a mere straggling hamlet ; and even now it is not a properly condensed 

 town but it has its hotels (and very good ones, too), its market, and its 

 fair. It is to Parramatta that stage-coaches regularly run from Sydney; 

 and thither the mates of merchant-ships hie, to spend a holiday and to see 

 the country ! 



The friend, to whose family I went on a visit, had what was then, 

 and what, I believe, is now the finest orchard in the town. In front, 

 towards George-street, the house was shrouded in n grove of orange-trees 

 and laburnums ; and from the back of it there was a beautiful avenue of 

 orange, lemon, and lime-trees, which finished in a large Cape mulberry 

 arbour. To the right and left were evergreen and deciduous peach trees, 

 mingled with apricot, nectarine, apple, pear, pomegranate, fig, chestnut, 

 English mulberry, and a great variety of other fruit-trees some still with 

 bending boughs, and others turning to the *' sere and yellow leaf." The 

 walks were bordered with rose-trees, geraniums, and a hundred beautiful 

 and odoriferous shrubs, that in this country bloom but to die. 



My holidays there were among the pleasantest I ever passed ; there the 

 ghosts haunted me not although, in the very next house, a murder had 

 been committed not very long before,* and the house itself had frequently 

 been broken into by midnight burglars! I lived in the colony long 

 enough to see great changes in that place, and in the persons who rendered 

 it to me most interesting. Time, and his great auxiliary Death has 

 since made much greater. W G. 



' 1 







: 



* An anecdote occurs to me connected with that murder, that I cannot pass over. 

 The man who committed it suffered for the crime, and his body was hung in chains on the 

 hill to the south of the town, near the spot where the military barracks now stand. He 

 had two children a boy and a girl : the latter was put into the Orphan Asylum, and the 

 lad remained at Parramatta, I think, apprenticed at the Lumber-yard. At the time of their 

 father's execution, the poor boy was not more than twelve or thirteen years of age ; but, 

 within a very short time after the body was gibbetted, he went alone one night, took it 

 flown, and buried it! 



