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.
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