THE FIRST BECLAIMER 57 



land from a liberal-minded Governor, though this is 

 not stated, and by other purchases (some, it is stated, 

 by Mr. C. J. B. Watson, being at the rate of £21 per 

 acre) from the Government the remainder of the estate 

 was acquired. The acquisition was thought at the 

 time to have small value. The whole tract had so 

 often been overflowed by the adjacent waters, by 

 marine tides and periodical floods. The shipmaster had 

 forsaken the sea to settle on the land, but it was not 

 the dry land. Shoalhaven was a chain or a network of 

 swamps. The scholar Faust, in Goethe's classic, had 

 dedicated his last years to redeeming his sin-stained 

 soul and atoning for his deep offences. 



" Let that high joy be mine for evermore, 

 To shut the lordly Ocean from the shore. 

 The watery waste to limit and to bar, 

 And push it back upon itself afar ! 



• •••••• 



To many millions let me furnish soil, 

 Though not secure, yet free to active toil ; 

 Green, fertile fields, where men and herds go forth 

 At once, with comfort, on the newest Earth, 

 And swiftly settled on the Earth's firm base. 

 Created by the bold, industrious race, 

 A land like Paradise here, round about." 



Alexander Berry's achievement was not unlike Faust's 

 dream. His first business was to make his river navig- 

 able by clearing away the shoals that obstructed its 

 entrance. He cut the first canal in Australia, thus 

 connecting the Shoalhaven Kiver with the deeper 

 entrance to the Crookhaven River ; and the canal has 

 since then been so deepened and broadened that it is 

 now as deep and wide as the river. In so doing he 

 created a peninsula of 700 acres of alluvial soil, of which 

 the Government at once took possession. Had he not 

 earned the right to retain them ? 



His gigantic task was only begun. These vast swamps 

 were to be drained. His labour and that of his partner, 

 with all that they could command, were endless, and, 

 as he himself stated, " it was at an expense unknown to 



