Then from the forest's thickest shade,
Scared at the sound my steps had made,
The ever-graceful kangaroo

Would bound, and often stop to view,
And look as if he meant to scan
The traits of European man.

There would I sit in the cool shade
By some tall cedar's branches made,
Around whose stem full many a vine
And kurryjong* their tendrils twine,
While beauteous birds of every hue-
Parrot, macaw, and cockatoo-
Straining their imitative throats,
And chirping all their tuneless notes,
And fluttering still from tree to tree,
Right gladly hold corrobory.t

Meanwhile, perched on a branch hard by,
With head askance and visage sly,

Some old Blue-Mountain parrot chatters
About his own domestic matters:
As how he built his nest of hay,
And finished it on Christmas-day,
High on a tree in yonder glen,

Far from the haunts of prying men :
Or how madame has been confined

Of twins-the prettiest of their kind-
How one's the picture of himself-

A little green blue-headed elf

2

• The kurryjong is a tree or shrub abounding in alluvial land, the inner bark of which is used by the natives for the manufacture of a sort of cord, or twine, of which they make nets, bags, &c.

+ Corrobory is a native word, and signifies a noisy assemblage of the Aborigines. It is also used occasionally in the colony, to designate a meeting of white people, provided their proceedings are not conducted with the requisite propriety and decorum; as, for instance, the meeting of the Benevolent Society in Sydney, in the month of June last. At the St. Andrew's dinner, also held in Sydney, in the year 1829, an infamous Gaelic toast, of which a false translation was put forth (whether wittingly or unwittingly I know not) by the gallant chairman, was drunk with applause by the gentlemen present; for which reason the meeting has ever since been deservedly designated, "The Scotch Corrobory."

While t'other little chirping fellow
Is like mamma, bestreaked with yellow :
Or how poor uncle Poll was killed
When eating corn in yonder field;

Thunder and lightning!-down he fluttered-
And not a syllable he uttered,

But flapped his wings, and gasped, and died,
While the blood flowed from either side!
As for himself, some tiny thing

Struck him so hard, it broke his wing,

So that he scarce had strength to walk off!

It served him a whole month to talk of!

Thus by thy beauteous banks, pure stream,
I love to muse alone and dream,

At early dawn or sultry noon,

Or underneath the midnight moon,

Of days when all the land shall be

All peaceful and all pure like thee!

The country along the course of the Hunter appears to have undergone considerable changes in its physical conformation from the inundations of the river. In some places the river has been entirely diverted from its former channel, leaving a line of long narrow lagoons to designate the place of the ancient rushing of its waters; in other parts of its course, lakes, whose existence cannot be doubted for a moment, have gradually disappeared, and been succeeded by grassy plains, islands, or peninsulas. This is particularly obvious at Patrick's Plains, a level tract of alluvial land of considerable extent, about thirty miles from the town of Maitland, as well as at the Green Hills at the head of the navigation. At the latter of these localities, the rivers Hunter and Patterson, or, as they are called by the black natives, the Coquun and the Yimmang, approach to within two hundred yards of

each other, and, then diverging, inclose between their deep channels a peninsula of upwards of eleven hundred acres of alluvial land; forming almost a dead level. The peninsula, which the natives call Narragan, but which the late proprietor, Mr. Harris, a native of Dublin, called the Phonix Park, is without exception the finest piece of land, both for quality of soil and for beauty of scenery and situation, I have ever seen,— being entirely of alluvial formation, and bounded on all sides, with the exception of the narrow isthmus that connects it with the main-land, by broad and deep rivers, the banks of which are ornamented with a natural growth of the most beautiful shrubbery; while over its whole extent patches of rich grassy plain, of thirty or forty acres each, alternate with clumps of trees or narrow beltings of forest, as if the whole had been tastefully laid out for a nobleman's park by a skilful landscape-gardener. Mr. Harris has informed me, however, that in digging a well, somewhere near the centre of the peninsula, he found pieces of charred wood at a depth of nine feet from the surface, or beneath the present level of the river. It cannot be doubted, therefore, that the beautiful peninsula of Narragan was formerly a lake, and that it owes its existence to successive deposits of alluvium from the two rivers.

Previous to the introduction of steam-navigation in the year 1831, the uncertainty and danger of the existing mode of conveyance by water, between Sydney and Hunter's River, induced the majority of those who either resided in, or occasionally visited, the latter

district to travel by land. hundred and thirty miles, occupied three days.

The distance is about one and the journey generally

The first time I travelled across the mountains-in the year 1827-I had a young man, who lived as a settler at Hunter's River, for my fellow-traveller and guide. Our horses had each a long tether-rope wound about their necks, to fasten them with at night. We had each a valise or portmanteau affixed to the saddle behind, containing a small supply of provisions for the mountain-part of the road, and a boat-cloak lashed to it before to serve as our covering when bivouacking in the open forest during the night. A tin quart-jug to make tea in on the mountains, and a pistol to strike a light, completed our equipment.

The country from Sydney to Parramatta-the first part of the road to Hunter's River, comprising a distance of fourteen or fifteen miles-is in general of inferior quality as to soil, though in some parts of it there appears to be good land. Its vicinity to Sydney, however, renders it valuable. The greater part of it has therefore been cleared for a considerable distance on either side of the road; and the number of neat cottages and comfortable villas that are seen at moderate intervals to the right and left indicate the neighbourhood of a bustling and thriving capital. Indeed, land of any kind adjoining a public and wellfrequented road in the colony is always considered highly valuable; for, though it should produce absolutely nothing to the agriculturist, it will at least serve to build a public-house on-a sort of crop which

is cultivated in all parts of the territory in which it can possibly be grown with the least prospect of success. Indeed, the number of these nuisances, each of which produces £25 annually to the colonial revenue, is the most striking feature in the scenery of the Parramatta road, and speaks volumes for the colony. There are the Spinning Wheel, and the Cheshire Cheese, and the Cherry Gardens, and the Ship, and the Duke of Wellington, and I do not know how many other signs of the times along the highway from Sydney to Parramatta; at each of which the poor emancipated convict-settler, who is just beginning perhaps to do well in the world, may easily get himself dead-drunk on. returning home from Sydney market with the price of his load of wheat or maize, or pigs, or poultry. And lest he should have resolution to drive his bullock-cart forward without stopping to bait, there are Jem Tindall and Dennis Flanagan, sitting quite comfortable in the tap with the window wide open, bawling out to him to stop a bit, and they 'll go along with him; for it is getting dark, and the bush-rangers are out."

I have heard of a poor settler of this class, who left the Hawkesbury with a well-furnished team and a well-filled cart of produce, coming to Sydney and disposing of his goods at a fair price. Unfortunately, however, he happened to meet in the market an old associate, who had arrived in the colony as a seven years' man and had just obtained his ticket of leave, and with whom perhaps he had often stolen in company in merry England. It was impossible to resist the temptation to adjourn with so old and tried a friend to

VOL. II.

E