AUSTRALIA, OR NEW HOLLAND. 95 



aspect, were long considered impassable ; but when English 

 colonists in New South Wales were straitened for room, they 

 looked for wider pastures for their flocks, and more extensive 

 lands for the cultivation of corn and vegetables. Necessity 

 then opened a passage through the hills — the Bathurst plains 

 were discovered, and a stage-coach rattled along a well-made 

 road winding among the mountain-passes. In other directions 

 adveuturous men, starting from different points, attempted to 

 explore the interior of Australia ; but as yet all have been 

 unsuccessful in their endeavors to reach the centre, and he 

 who traveled farthest, at the utmost point of his journey, has 

 only cast his eyes over a monotonous desert, apparently of 

 interminable extent. 



Australia is situated in the immense ocean stretching to 

 the southeast of Asia, and lies in nearly the same latitude 

 as the Cape of Good Hope and Brazil. Equal in surface 

 to four-fifths of the European continent, it extends from 

 113° 05' 00" to 153° 16' 00" east longitude, and from 

 10° 39' 00' to 39° 11' 00" south latitude. The area is cal- 

 culated at 3,000,000 square miles, and the coast line at 7,750. 

 The whole of this immense mass of land is solid and compact, 

 broken by few indentations of the ocean. 



The mariner, for the first time approaching Australia on 

 its western coast, perceives few of those natural charms 

 painted by so many writers. Along these shores, even now 

 very rarely visited, there is little to allure the eye. A mono- 

 tonous plain, bounded in the distance by a chain of bleak 

 hills, stretches from the sea, and over the surface of this vast 

 level are scattered sweeps of ground blackened by the passage 

 of flames. The few wandering tribes leading a nomade life 

 in this part of the island, frequently, by accident, or inten- 

 tionally, kindle the tall, dry grasses or the low bush. The fire, 



