The conduct
of these women, on this occasion, was exactly descriptive of their characters.
The former was ever meek and feminine, the latter fierce and unsubmissive.
On the first of May, many allotments of ground were parcelled out
by the governor to convicts whose periods of transportation were expired,
and who voluntarily offered to become settlers in the country. The terms
on which they settled, and their progress in agriculture, will be
hereafter set forth.
CHAPTER XIV.
Travelling Diaries in New South Wales.
From among my numerous travelling journals into the interior parts
of the country, I select the following to present to the reader, as equally
important in their object, and more amusing in their detail, than any other.
In April 1791 an expedition was undertaken, in order to ascertain
whether or not the Hawkesbury and the Nepean, were the same river.
With this view, we proposed to fall in a little above Richmond Hill*,
and trace down to it; and if the weather should prove fine to cross
at the ford, and go a short distance westward, then to repass the river
and trace it upward until we should either arrive at some spot which we knew
to be the Nepean, or should determine by its course that the Hawkesbury
was a different stream.
