And, I Think There Can Be Little Doubt,
That His Curiosity Will Not Go Unrewarded.
If large rivers do exist
in the country, which some of us are almost sceptical enough to doubt,
their
Sources must arise amidst these hills; and the direction they run in,
for a considerable distance, must be either due north, or due south.
For it is strikingly singular that three such noble harbours as Botany Bay,
Port Jackson, and Broken Bay, alike end in shallows and swamps,
filled with mangroves.
The general face of the country is certainly pleasing, being diversified with
gentle ascents, and little winding vallies, covered for the most part with
large spreading trees, which afford a succession of leaves in all seasons.
In those places where trees are scarce, a variety of flowering shrubs abound,
most of them entirely new to an European, and surpassing in beauty, fragrance,
and number, all I ever saw in an uncultivated state: among these, a tall shrub,
bearing an elegant white flower, which smells like English May,
is particularly delightful, and perfumes the air around to a great distance.
The species of trees are few, and, I am concerned to add, the wood universally
of so bad a grain, as almost to preclude a possibility of using it:
the increase of labour occasioned by this in our buildings has been such,
as nearly to exceed belief. These trees yield a profusion of thick red gum
(not unlike the 'sanguis draconis') which is found serviceable in medicine,
particularly in dysenteric complaints, where it has sometimes succeeded,
when all other preparations have failed.
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