On its vegetable productions.
On its climate. On its animal productions. On its natives, etc.
The journals contained in the body of this publication, illustrated by
the map which accompanies it (unfortunately, there is no map accompanying
this etext), are, I conceive, so descriptive of every part of the country
known to us, that little remains to be added beyond a few general observations.
The first impression made on a stranger is certainly favourable.
He sees gently swelling hills connected by vales which possess every beauty
that verdure of trees, and form, simply considered in itself, can produce;
but he looks in vain for those murmuring rills and refreshing springs
which fructify and embellish more happy lands. Nothing like those
tributary streams which feed rivers in other countries are here seen;
for when I speak of the stream at Sydney, I mean only the drain of a morass;
and the river at Rose Hill is a creek of the harbour, which above
high water mark would not in England be called even a brook. Whence
the Hawkesbury, the only fresh water river known to exist in the country,
derives its supplies, would puzzle a transient observer. He sees nothing
but torpid unmeaning ponds (often stagnant and always still, unless agitated
by heavy rains) which communicate with it. Doubtless the springs which arise
in Carmarthen mountains may be said to constitute its source.
To cultivate its banks within many miles of the bed of the stream
(except on some elevated detached spots) will be found impracticable,
unless some method be devised of erecting a mound, sufficient to repel
the encroachments of a torrent which sometimes rises fifty feet above
its ordinary level, inundating the surrounding country in every direction.
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