et eh ee 
in England his broth 
THE LATE MR. RICHARD CUNNINGHAM. 
crease on the salary that Mr. Cunningham's 
predecessor had received. Together with 
other ornamental and useful plants, which 
he had obtained permission to carry out 
with him in cases on the ship's deck, were 
some open boxes of Vines of approved 
kinds, both for wine and raisins. These 
had been very judiciously selected for the 
purpose by James Busby, Esq., during a 
tour, which that liberal-minded gentleman 
had prosecuted through some of the best 
vine districts of France and Spain. After 
a voyage of nearly eighteen weeks, Mr. 
Cunningham landed safely at Sydney, with 
his collection of living plants for the use 
of the colony, in very excellent condition. 
In January 1833, he entered on the super- 
intendence of the Botanic Garden in that 
colony with an earnestness and zeal which 
furnished good evidence of his having the 
improvement of the Establishment, in its 
several departments of Botany and Horti- 
culture, perfectly at heart. An experimen- 
tal ground was formed, in which the culti- 
vation and propagation of vines and fruit- 
trees generally, were particularly attended 
and from which the colonists have since 
received ample supplies of cutüngs. In 
the Botanical division, some improvements 
are made, and many of the rarer indigen- 
ous plants were brought in from remote 
localities, that had not previously found a 
Place in the garden; while numerous valu- 
able exotics, adapted to the soil and climate 
of the colony, were introduced. Thus, 
under the most favourable auspices, en- 
couraged by the local government, in pos- 
sion of a perfect knowledge of all that 
“ts, prior to his day, had already ef- 
i E their investigations of the ne 
ets ngdom, in acquiring which he de- 
‘ita ordinary advantage from the per- 
n given him to inspect and arrange 
that "dn omae, whisk it had cost 
Pags ~ is long residence in the coun- 
Melo in—thus we say, provided, did 
unningham enter upon the duties 
218 
of Colonial Botanist in our Australian set- 
tlement.! 
No Naturalist could have gone from the 
land of his fathers to a foreign clime, bet- 
ter mentally equipped for botanic investi- 
gations. Besides, his labours were to be 
exerted on a continent, hardly one-seventh 
of which has, even to this day, been looked 
at ; such has been the apathetic coldness in 
matters of internal geographical investiga- 
tion of the local governments; and such 
the incurious disposition of the colonists 
who now so firmly hold possession of the 
soil. That vast land 
** Jay all before him, where to choose" 
his path, and every step he should take 
beyond the last foot-track of white man, 
would afford him new plants, new birds, 
new animals, and new beauties of wild and 
wood-land scenery on which the eye of a 
civilized being had never before been fixed ! 
Midst all these advantages, these noble 
prospects, in the best possible health and 
vigour, in an exceedingly salubrious cli- 
mate, and beneath that deep, deep blue 
sky which none can forget, who has ever 
! He speaks of his arrival, and of poor Fraser's 
death in the following extract of a letter, dated 
** Sydney, Feb. 9, 1833. 
** Qur voyage, lasting one hundred and twenty-two 
he 
e 
but calms under the Line, a 
the East coast of this continent, extended it to what it 
is considered an average passage. My reception here, 
especially from His Excellency and Mr. M'Leay, has 
been most gratifying: the former having promised to 
afford me every facility for prosecuting my researches, 
ia Wr pU TM E V 
Amo 
OT y: = , P 
ing poor Fraser’s affairs, when I found that the fears 
many of his creditors assure me, that were he now 
alive, they would not press him for payment. The 
circumst ttending his decease were these :—He 
had gone with the carts to Bathurst for living plants. 
At Emu Plains, a distance of about twenty miles from 
