414 NEW SOUTH WALES. [CHAP. MX. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



AUSTRALIA. 



Syd lie y_Excursion to Bathurst Aspect of the Woods Party of Natives 

 " Gradual extinction of the Aborigines Infection generated by 

 associated Men in health Blue Mountains View of the grand gulf- 

 like Valleys Their origin and formation Bathurst, general civility of 

 the Lower Orders State of Society Van Dieuien's Land HobartTown 



Aborigines all banished Mount Wellington King George's Sound 



Cheeriest Aspect of the Country Bald Head, calcareous casts of 



branches of Trees Party of Natives Leave Australia. 



January l%th, 1836. EAULY in the morning a light air carried us 

 towards the entrance of Port Jackson. Instead of beholding a 

 verdant country, interspersed \vith fins houses, a straight line of 

 yellowish cliff brought to our minds the coast of Patagonia. A 

 solitary lighthouse, built of white stone, alone told us that we were 

 near a great and populous city. Having entered the harbour, it 

 appears fine and spacious, with cliff-formed shores of horizontally 

 stratified sandstone. The nearly level country is covered with thin 

 scrubby trees, bespeaking the curse of sterility. Proceeding further 

 inland, the country improves : beautiful villas and nice cottages 

 arc here and there scattered along the beach. In the distance 

 stone houses, two and three stories high, and windmills standing 

 on the edge of a bank, pointed out to us the neighbourhood of the 

 capital of Australia. 



At last we anchored within Sydney Cove. We found the little 

 basin occupied by many large ships, and surrounded by warehouses. 

 In the evening. I walked through the town, and returned full of 

 admiration at the whole scene. It is a most magnificent testimony 

 to the power of the British nation. Here, in a less promising 

 country, scores of years have done many times more than an equal 

 number of centuries have effected in South America. My first feel- 

 ing was to congratulate myself that I was born an Englishman. 



