126 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE 
had very strongly recommended him, in consideration of the 
intelligence and general activity which he had uniformly ma- 
nifested in a service of more than four years and a half with 
me, in which period he had accompanied me on journeys in 
the interior, as also to Norfolk Island, and in my more 
fortunate and much more interesting voyages in 1828 and 
1829 to. Moreton Bay.* : 
“It now remained for me to bid adieu to several old 
friends in Paramatta, whose kind offices I can no more 
forget than attempt to eradicate from my memory in after- 
life, the recollection of the very many agreeable periods I 
have spent in that quiet town, the centrical situation of which, 
at a convenient distance from the bustling sea-port, with 
which it commands both land and water communication 
proved on all occasions so extremely favourable to my pur- 
suits. Inow left Paramatta, and, accompanied by a friend, 
reached Sydney in the afternoon, where I learnt that the 
departure of the ship was postponed until the 16th. This. 
gave me more time to settle certain matters of business in 
Sydney, as also to call on several friends living at this port, 
and among them was Mr. Macleay, our worthy colonial secre- 
tary, whom I accompanied to his retreat on the shores of Eli- 
zabeth Bay, where I was not a little delighted to find so much 
had been done in planting and improving the sterile ground 
amidst high sandstone rocks since I visited the Bay last year. 
Among the very interesting assemblage of rare native plants. 
(indigenous to Moreton Bay, Port Macquarie, Norfolk Island, 
&e), which have, through the medium of the colonial go 
vernment vessels, been brought together in this garden, 
where they were growing with the utmost luxuriance, I ob- 
served a liliaceous plant, originally discovered by Mr. Brown 
on our inter-tropical shores during the Investigator's voyage. 
This novelty, the Calostemma album of that very able bota- 
nist, which I sought for in vain during my several voyages 
* This was far from a solitary instance of Mr. Cunningham's rewarding 
a deserving convict servant ; his journals shew dations 
of the people he had under his charge, on all occasions, when they had 
served him diligently and faithfully on his distant journeyings. 
