CHAPTER XIX 



Australia 



Sydney — Excursion to Bathurst — Aspect of the Woods — Party of 

 Natives — Gradual Extinction of the Aborigines — Infection gener- 

 ated by associated Men in health — Blue Mountains — View of the 

 grand gulf -like Valleys — Their origin and formation — Bathurst, gen- 

 eral civility of the Lower Orders — State of Society — Van Diemen's 

 Land — Hobart Town — Aborigines all banished — Mount Wellington 

 — King George's Sound — Cheerless Aspect of the Country — Bald 

 Head, calcareous casts of branches of Trees — Party of Natives — 

 Leave Australia. 



r ANUARY 12th, 1836. — Early in the morning a light air 



carried us towards the entrance of Port Jackson. In- 



stead of beholding a verdant country, interspersed with 

 fine houses, a straight line of yellowish cliff brought to our 

 minds the coast of Patagonia. A solitary lighthouse, built of 

 white stone, alone told us that we were near a great and 

 populous city. Having entered the harbour, it appears fine 

 and spacious, with cliff-formed shores of horizontally strati- 

 fied sandstone. The nearly level country is covered with thin 

 scrubby trees, bespeaking the curse of sterility. Proceeding 

 further inland, the country improves: beautiful villas and 

 nice cottages are here and there scattered along the beach. 

 In the distance stone houses, two and three stories high, and 

 windmills standing on the edge of a bank, pointed out to us 

 the neighbourhood of the capital of Australia. 



At last we anchored within Sydney Cove. We found the 

 little basin occupied by many large ships, and surrounded by 

 warehouses. In the evening I walked through the town, and 

 returned full of admiration at the whole scene. It is a most 

 magnificent testimony to the power of the British nation. 

 Here, in a less promising country, scores of years have done 

 many more times more than an equal number of centuries 

 have effected in South America. My first feeling was to 

 congratulate myself that I was born an Englishman. Upon 



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