the world. The still waters, alive with steamers passing and repassing, with ships of English and American flags, and a crowd of small craft, yachts, and pleasure-boats, betoken the approach to a centre of busy commerce, even before the church spires show themselves against the sky. In this city, which has been too often described to need any detailed account here, every comfort and every luxury of Europe is to be obtained that can be purchased with money.

The entrance to Port Jackson is so safe and easy that the American surveying ships ran in at night without a pilot; and when the inhabitants rose in the morning they found themselves under the guns of a frigate carrying the stars and stripes.

Vessels of considerable burden can unload alongside the quays.

Sydney Cove is formed by two small promontories, between which the rivulet flows which induced Governor Phillip to choose this site for his settlement, as it possessed a safe harbor, wood, and water, three essential points, although not alone sufficient to support a flourishing colony. The first harbor is of little value, unless it is the outlet to a country capable of producing some exports.

Tanks were cut for storing the water of the freshwater stream during the summer; but, the increase of the town having rendered this supply insufficient, water was brought from Botany Bay; and, recently, further extensive works have been executed, by which an aqueduct is brought from Cook's River, where a dam has been built to exclude the salt water.

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Along the hollow formed by the two promontories or ridges, where the native track through the woods down to the water's edge, formerly George-street, extends, and which holds in the colonial metropolis the relative ranks of the Strand and Regent-street, London, combined, there, until recently, stately plateglass shops were to be found side by side with wooden huts.

The harbor of Port Jackson affords an almost unlimited line of deep water, along which, when needed by the extension of commerce, quays and warehouses may be erected at a very trifling expense, so great are its natural dock advantages; many of the coves in Port Jackson are even now as much in a state of nature as when Captain Phillip first discovered it. As a central point for the commerce of the Australian seas, it is not probable that it can ever be superseded as a maritime station even by any other colonies planted in a more fertile situation, although it may be asserted that, with rare exceptions, the land for a hundred miles round Sydney is a sandy desert. But roads, railroads, and steamers will afford Sydney the advantages of the produce of districts which have no such harbor as Port Jackson.

Cumberland and Camden were the two counties first settled. Cumberland is the most densely-populated district in Australia, and has the poorest soil; a belt of land parallel to the sea, from twenty to forty miles in breadth, is either light sand, dotted with picturesque, unprofitable scrub, or a stiff clay or ironstone, thickly covered with hard-wood timber and

underwood. After passing this belt, to which the colonists confined themselves for more than ten years, with a few spirited exceptions, the soil improves a little; that is to say, narrow tracks of a rich alluvial character are found on the banks of the rivers, but the greater proportion consists of forest on a poor, impenetrable soil, which defies the perseverance of the most skilled agriculturist: the deeper you go the worse it is.

Camden has a moderate extent of cultivable land, including the singular district of Illawarra, which is at once one of the most beautiful and fertile spots in the world, in regard both to the luxuriance and variety of its vegetable productions. The pastures of Camden are extensive, and were considered important until the discovery of the western and southern plains.

These are almost the only counties much named colonially; other parts of the colonies are chiefly known as districts, and the counties which fill up so much space on the maps are seldom named. We give a list of them with population in another chapter.

The dryness of the counties of Camden and Cumberland, in which, in the course of the year, nearly as much rain falls as in the counties of Essex and Sussex, is greatly owing to the stiff clay of which the soil is chiefly composed, through which the rain cannot easily filter, or from which springs can with difficulty burst forth. Boring on the artesian plan has been recently adopted with success.

To describe in detail the character of each county and each district would be a difficult, an intermina

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ble, and, to the reader, a wearisome task. Many, after being charmed with the exquisitely picturesque appearance of Port Jackson and Sydney, on a very cursory inspection of the surrounding country, come to the conclusion that the whole province of New South Wales is a barren desert, only fit for feeding sheep, a conclusion which is not more correct than to judge of the agricultural capabilities of England by Dartmoor, or of France by the "Landes."

Within the Sydney district are the towns of Paramatta, Windsor, and Liverpool; but, in consequence of the dispersion incident to the pastoral pursuits which have hitherto formed the chief employment of Australia, there are really no towns in the European sense of the word, with the exception of the three capitals, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, and Geelong in Victoria, which, being the port to a rich district, is likely to rival Melbourne. The other towns with imposing names are mere villages, with a gaol, a magistrate's office, some stores, and a great many public-houses.

Taking Sydney as the starting-point, we propose to survey the general features of the settled and pastoral districts, proceeding first towards the north, and returning to Port Jackson, traveling along the coast to the other two colonies.

The three great colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, late Port Phillip, and South Australia, occupy a coutinuous coast line, extending from Wide Bay, in New South Wales, to Cape Adieu, in South Australia. With the exception of the small and unsuc

cessful colony of Western Australia, or Swan River, the remaining coast line of this island-continent is unsettled, and only inhabited by wandering savages or stray parties of whalers and sealers. Attempts have been made more than once to form settlements in Northern Australia, but they have been abandoned, and will not probably be renewed until the older colonists find the need of further extensions inland, or some coal stations are established for the numerous steamers which are now plying between England and the gold regions.

The three colonies are only divided by imaginary lines, so easy are the means of inland intercommunication. Overland journeys have been executed between all by parties driving great herds over an untracked country.

The principal ports to the north of Port Jackson are Broken Bay, the mouth of the River Hawkesbury, up which vessels of one hundred tons can proceed for four miles beyond the town of Windsor, which is one hundred and forty miles by the river, and about forty miles in a direct line from the coast. Broken Bay is not a safe harbor, being much exposed to the east and south-east as well as the north-west winds.

Port Hunter is the mouth of the Hunter River, which receives the waters of the Rivers Williams and Paterson. It is navigable for about thirty-five miles by waterway, and twenty-five miles in a direct line from the coast. This stream was formerly called the Coal River. On the bay sheltered by Nobby Island stands Newcastle, a town which owes its name of