L I EUT ENANT COOIL’ s V O Y A G E
C II A <IY VI.
Departure from New South Wales ; a particular Defcrip-
tion o f the Country, its ProduElst and People: A Specimen
o f the Language, and fane Obfervations upon the
Currents and Tides.. * iefT
OF this country, its products, and its people, many particulars
have already been related in the courfe of the
narrative, being fo interwoven with the events, as not to admit
of a reparation. I fhall now give a moré full and cir-
cumftantial defcription of each, in which, if fome things
fhould happen to be repeated, the greater part will be found
new.
New Holland, or, as I have now called the eaftern coaft,
New South Wales, is of a larger extent than any other count
ry in the known world that does not bear the name of a
continent 1 the length of coaft along "which we failed, reduced
to a ftrait line, is no lefs than twenty-feven degrees
of latitude, amounting to near 2000 miles, fo that its fquafe
furface mull be much more than equal to all Europe. To
the fotithward of 33 or 34, the land in general is low and
level; farther northward it is hilly, but in no part can be
called mountainous,, and the hills and mountains, taken* together,
make but a fmall part of the furface, in comparifon
with the values and plains. | It is upon the whole rather barren
than fertile, yet the rifing ground is chequered by woods
and lawns, and the plains and vallies are in many places
covered with herbage: the foil however is frequently fandy,
and
R O U N D THE W .0 R L D.
and many.of the lawns, orfavannahs, are rocky and-.barren,- w p
efpecially to the nor/hward, wherq,’ln the t)efl:.'fpots).-vegq- 1 :_g_
tation was lefs.vigorous than in the tfouthern part of the
country ; the trees were not fo rail, nor was the herbage fq
rjch. The grafs in general is high, but thin, and the trees,-
where they are largeft, are feldom lefs than forty feet a funder
; nor is the country inland, as;far as we couldexamind
it, better clothed than the fea coaft, The banks of the bays
are covered with mangroves, to the diftance of a mile within
the beach, under which the fqil is a rank mud, that is always
overflowed by a fpring tide ; farther in the country we
fometimes met with a bog, upon which, the grafs was very
thick and luxuriant, and fometimes with a valley, that was
clothed with underwood: the foil in fome parts feemed to be
capable of improvement, but the far greater part is fuch as
can admit of no cultivation. The coift, at leaft that part of
it which lies to the northward of 250 S. abounds with fine
bays and harbours, where veflels may lie in perfect fecurity
from all winds.
If we may judge by the appearance of the country while
we were there, which was in the very height of the dry fea-
fon, it is well watered : we found innumerable fmall brooks
and fprings," but no great rivers; rhefe brooks, however,
probably become large in the rainy feafon.' Thirfty Sound
was the only place where frelh water was not to be procured
for the fhip, and even there one or two fmall pools
were found in the woods, though the face of the country
was every where interfered by falt-creeks, and mangrove
iand.
Of trees there is no great variety. Of thofe that could be
called timber, there are but two forts ; the largeft is the gum
tree, which grows ali over the country^ and has been men-
E e a tioned