350 SURVEY OF THE INTERTROPICAL 
1820. structive floods, which have been known to rise 
June 24 in a few hours to the height of eighty feet above 
the usual level of the river’s bed. The evil, 
however, deposits its own atonement; and the 
succeeding crop, if it escapes a flood, repays 
the settlers for their previous loss : this it is that 
emboldens them to persist in their ill-advised 
temerity. At no very distant period a time will 
arrive when these very lands, the cultivation of 
which has caused so much distress to the colony 
and ruin to individuals, will, by being laid down 
in grass for the purposes of depasturing cattle, 
become a considerable source of wealth to their 
possessors. 
There has been no general want of grain in 
the colony since the year 1817, although there 
have been several floods upon the Hawkesbury 
and the other rivers that fall into it, which have 
greatly distressed the farmers of that district. 
One of the arguments, therefore, with which the 
enemies of colonizing in New South Wales have 
hitherto armed themselves, in order to induce 
emigrants to give the preference to Van Diemen’s 
Land, falls to the ground. 
We were fortunate in finding in the naval 
yard, a spar of the New Zealand cowrie pine, 
( dammar a, ) large enough for our bowsprit ; 
and, on the 13th of July, having had our da- 
