nS AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



background to the landscape. They constantly vary in outline ; now receding in soft 

 azure tint ; now near at hand like Mount Dromedary which, less than two miles off the 

 coast, lifts its two dark humps into the sky ; and they are all well timbered. Could a 

 landing be effected many a delightful ramble in umbrageous tree-fern gullies along the 

 courses of murmuring streams might be indulged in by the coasting voyager. 



The next port is Bateman's Bay, about four miles wide at the opening, and tapering 

 inland to the sandy bar that effectually closes the navigation to large vessels ; smaller 

 craft go up to Nelligen. This bay is really the estuary of the Clyde River ; it has 

 some importance as the outlet for a busy district, including the gold-mining townships of 

 Braidwood and Araluen. 



Here the ranges, which are luxuriantly beautiful, approach nearer the coast-line and 

 add greatly to its grandeur. That high point with the breakers running far out indi- 

 cates the proximity of the small and pretty harbour of Ulladulla, which lies at the head of 

 an inlet in a secure little bay only half-a-mile wide, and is also a shipping-place for dairy 

 produce. The singular outline of Cook's Pigeon-house rises from a cluster of tine hills, 

 and the gullies between them are rich with palms and tree-ferns. 



A great sweep of the coast to the east, past rich forest-lands, brings in view the 

 bold cliffs of Cape St. George, looming out of the heaving waters. Beyond its weather- 

 graven profile, and on another rocky projection a mile or so farther on, stands the 

 light-house, a short white tower ; this light, fixed two hundred and twenty feet high, is 

 eagerly sought for in bad weather by the seaman ; its successive flashes of green, red 

 and white being the surest guide the mariner has for nearly two hundred miles of coast 

 between Sydney and Gabo. Past this promontory lies a passage two miles wide, leading 

 into Jervis Bay. The inlet is deep, and if an easterly wind blows, rough ; but in so 

 capacious a harbour, with each headland overlapping a large area of good anchorage, 

 plenty of sheltered water is to be found. There is very little sign of habitation on its 

 mountain-fringed shores ; for commodious as is the harbour, there is but little agricultural 

 land behind it, and its future depends entirely upon the development of its coal-fields. 



Jervis Bay affords one of those instances of which there are several on the 

 Australian Coast of a magnificent harbour apparently thrown away. There is no easy 

 access to the interior, and a range of hills cuts it off from connection with the valley of 

 the Upper Shoalhaven, most of the trade of which district reaches Sydney through the 

 township of Marulan, on the Great Southern Railway. The produce of all the rich land 

 along this southern coast finds its commercial outlets through poor, and sometimes 

 dangerous harbours, often inaccessible in heavy weather, and always calling for the greatest 

 caution on the part of the skilful navigators who conduct the maritime trade, and who, 

 to their credit, have met with comparatively few casualties. The one good harbour along 

 the coast has hitherto been useless ; though before many years are past it will probably 

 be turned to account, for the South Coast Railway from Sydney is intended to reach 

 as far as this bay, when it is expected th'at the port will be busy with the shipment of 

 coal. The coal-seams have been traced to the south of the Shoalhaven River, though 

 no attempt has yet been made to open any mine in this locality. But the owners of 

 coal-land lying at the back of Kiama look to Jervis Bay as their chief port of shipment 

 as soon as the railway is constructed. The smallness of the coast harbours hitherto used 



