1,334,593 sheep; the number of horses assessed was 7,088. Surely such an amount of capital is deserving of consideration. The export of wool from Australia for that year was 7,668,960 lbs. Is such an immense item in the commerce of Britain, not to mention the employment afforded to her shipping, to be rashly endangered by any temporary colonial embarrassment? I say endangered, because the mere uncertainty of what course Government will pursue is extremely dangerous and injurious to the colony, retarding emigration and preventing investment.

Four hundred thousand tons of shipping yearly load at its wharfs, employing twenty thousand seamen. Let the fostering hand of encouragement be withdrawn from the woolgrowers, and one thousand tons of shipping will suffice for Australian exports.

February 2nd.-As I find I shall be detained longer in this country than I expected, I have resolved to visit some of the districts which I hear spoken of as best worth the notice of the stranger, and also to accept an invitation from a Mr. B., with whom I became acquainted at Petty's, to visit him at his residence, which I learn stands in one of the most fertile and best cultivated parts of the colony. I wished also to see a young friend whose abode I had long sought, and had only lately discovered to be in his neighbourhood—at Windsor, on the river Hawkesbury. I accordingly left Sydney this morning for Paramatta, by steam-boat. We passed the island on which the convicts are kept, at least a part of themCockattoo Island, where the Government siloes are the salt works of a Mr. Blaxland-and, near to the town of Paramatta, the hospital, and workhouse for female convicts; and I am now once more staying at my former inn, the Brown Cow, in this pretty straggling village town.

When last I was here, one interesting scene escaped my notice its burial ground; it is the only thing of the kind I have seen, except at Liverpool and Glasgow, where similar very admirable cemeteries have been made, and are kept with extreme neatness; but there is a wildness and suitable loneliness about this, that neither of these possess. It is out of the town, and altogether in the bush, about half a mile from the church. It is in fact a space cut out of the forest, and enclosed by paling. Pathways are cut in serpentine lines through the low bushes and trees, among which, scattered here and there, are the graves with their white wooden enclosures. The tomb is here deprived of half its ordinary gloom, and one can scarcely imagine a more peaceful resting-place.

A short way from this place I saw an aloe in splendid bloom, the stem of which was twelve or thirteen feet high: it was covered with about forty flowers of a yellow colour, and in shape like a dish; it is not the kind of aloe which is said to flower only once in a century, but a species that blooms every seventh year. At seven I left Paramatta by coach for Windsor, which place I reached by eleven at night. These coaches are well managed: no fees are expected by guards or drivers; all charges are, as they always ought to be, included in the fare, so that one has no further trouble, nor is there the risk of losing cash in the dark! Though the roads are certainly very bad, we whirled along at a wonderfully rapid pace; this was the first close coach I have been in since I came to Australia. Windsor is situated in the county of Cumberland: it is a comfortable town, and antique-looking for its years; and though it does not possess the noble site of its royal namesake on the placid waters of the Thames, it stands very beautifully upon a rise above the Hawkesbury

a broader and nobler river far than the Thames, anywhere above Westminster-bridge. The Hawkesbury here, at the distance of forty miles from the ocean, is navigable for vessels of above one hundred tons burden; two of that tonnage lay below the town this morning.

The water of this river is considered by the inhabitants as peculiarly wholesome; and they say that, unlike any other water, it may be drank with impunity when the frame is heated. The village of Richmond, a few miles further on, is equally worthy its name; and certainly this district altogether is the best I have yet seen in New South Wales, and only needs a few hedges and the removal of the dead trees scattered through the fields to make it resemble closely the country around England's imperial seat.

The churches in both these places are excellent; those of the Roman Catholics and Presbyterians vie in neatness with the more aspiring structure of the Episcopalians. I happened unfortunately to set out for the house of Mr. B., of B., on a pony belonging to my Scotch friend in Windsor, and on reaching the ferry, I found the punt in ruins. As venturing across would have been a decided case of swimming for my life, I was compelled, to my great disappointment, to retrace my steps, and was deprived not only of the pleasure I had promised myself, of seeing this prettily situated place and its fine gardens, but, what I regretted much more, of improving my acquaintance with its agreeable owner. I saw the house on the brow of the hill, standing proudly above the Hawkesbury; behind it lay the district of the Curragong, one of the most fertile tracts in Australia, bounded in the distance by the Blue mountains and the gorge, through which the river Grose winds its way, amid the most romantic and beautiful scenery, to the river Hawkesbury.

There was one cottage in Windsor for which I broke the decalogue; it was the very beau idéal of a cottage. Its extreme neatness; its shape and size; the creepers on its walls; its pomegranates, rich in flower and fruit; its figs; its cages full of birds; the scent of its roses; the perfect loveliness of its retired situation; left nothing for the imagination to wish. In the levels around Richmond, I saw the first real agriculture I have met with in the colony. Ploughs with two horses, instead of half a score of bullocks, and ridges manured for wheat as in Old England; the rich, deep black soil(the result, I doubt not, of the inundations of the Hawkesbury which encircles the greater part of it) reminded me of the best land to be seen at home.

Mr. and Mrs. M, of C, had shown great kindness to my eldest son on his first landing in this country. I had always intended acknowledging my obligation to them in this respect; and as I was now, perhaps for the last time, fairly on the highways of Australia, I resolved to extend my journey to C, before returning to Sydney. On inquiry I found, however, that I must return again to Paramatta, and thence take the coach to Campbeltown, in the county of Camden, and within a short distance of C, but lying in an opposite direction to this place, although within a few miles of the same river Hawkesbury, which in its long course winds through an immense extent of country, and at C assumes the name of the Cow-pasture River.

The road to C- crosses Cook's River by a very handsome stone bridge. I rejoiced to see this indication of improvement in the great thoroughfares of the country. Alas! how mistaken was I; for from that very moment the roads became intolerable,-the worst I had seen, that to Bathurst always excepted. The country on either side

was quite bush, as usual, till we came near the town of Liverpool, where there is cleared ground. The town, though small and mean, is adorned by a very handsome hospital erected by Government. There are several inns here; the one at which we changed horses seemed of the very lowest order; and the language that issued from an old beldame in the tap was quite in keeping with the character of the establishment. Betwixt this place and Campbeltown, the country improves very much; and at the latter town, and all around it, becomes quite British, containing farms of large extent, and fine cleared fields, good farm-buildings, and rich lands; while the town itself, lying in a bottom, looks extremely well in the distance. As usual, however, the "distance lends enchantment to the view;" for, on our nearer approach, it proved to be but an insignificant place; and, were it not for its numerous grog-shops, would be scarcely a town at all. They are "thick as leaves in Vallambrosa," pouring vice and iniquity over the country around and the poor corrupted hamlet. One really wonders how the population can be sufficient to support these wretched dens of evil, and yet their doors are crowded day and night. The want of the usual attractions of a home, a wife and family, and the absence of everything like English domestic fire-side comforts, I have no doubt drive many to the gin-shop. Unfortunately, public opinion is here in favour of drink, and has been ever since the foundation of the colony; and the largest fortunes in it have been founded upon a rum-cask. But one would expect that among the wealthier classes there would be sufficient good sense and interest in the welfare of their successors, to induce them to endeavour to change the character of the population. And why those lately arrived in this country, who have settled in the