454 NEW SOUTH WALES. 
mable, conflagrations take place so frequently and extensively in the 
woods during summer, as to leave little vegetable matter to turn to 
earth.” ‘There are, however, some fine regions, which afford a relief 
to the dry scene. Such are the valley of the Hunter, the plains of 
Argyle, Port Stephen, and Illawarra. The Illawarra district is laden 
with the foliage of the tropics, for palms mingle among the trees of 
the dense forests. There are many fine farms along the Hunter and 
some of its tributaries, though of limited extent. 
It is well known and generally admitted among the citizens of New 
South Wales, that the territory is not agricultural, and consequently 
the attention of the inbabitants and the capital of the country has 
been largely given to wool-growing, an excellent material being 
afforded. Wool is therefore the staple product. A farther obstacle 
to successful tillage is encountered in the frequent droughts which, 
once in seven or eight years, are so excessive that the largest rivers 
are dried to a string of pools, and it is with difficulty that water can 
be obtained for land or cattle. When Oxley made his exploring tour 
beyond the Wellington Valley he found the whole region under 
water; it had been a season of floods, which are of occasional occur- 
rence. Major Mitchell passed over the same region some years after- 
ward and found the water of the rivers too scanty to form a running 
stream, and his party was finally compelled to turn back for want of 
water.* Mr. Hale states in his journal, on the authority of the mis- 
sionaries of the Wellington Valley, that the crops of their region have 
wholly or in part failed for six years out of seven, and that the settlers 
were obliged to transport their flour and other provisions from Sydney, 
a distance of two hundred and fifty miles. 
The rivers of Eastern Australia, east of the Blue or Dividing range 
are small streams, the largest, like the Hunter, navigable but twenty 
miles from the sea; and the smaller quite dried up during the sum- 
mer weather. From the map of New South Wales, it might be sup- 
posed that no country in the world was better watered: but the 
greater part of the rivers sketched on the map are only beds of 
streams, which are wet or dry according to the season of the year. 
West of the Blue range, the streams collect from many sources over 
an area five hundred miles north and south, and flow towards the 
southwest, combining to form the Darling, Lachlan, and Murrum- 
bidgee, and these again unite into the Murray, a hundred miles above 
* Oxley inferred from his observations that the interior of New Holland was a wide 
sea; and Mitchell, that it was a desert. 
