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, travelling along the coast to the other two colonies.
The three great colonies of New South Wales, Yictoria (late Port Phillip), and South Australia, occupy a continuous coast line, extending from Wide Bay, in New South Wales, to Cape Adieu, in South Australia. With the exception of the small and unsuccessful 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 imtracked 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 harbour, 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.[1] 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 and importance to the coal-fields by which it is surrounded, and has recently been made the see of a bishoprick, extending to the extreme northern district of the colony. Forty miles up the river are East and West Maitland, and four miles nearer the sea Morpeth, the port of the Hunter River Company. A regular steam-boat traffic
- ↑ So named after Colonel Paterson, for a short time Lieutenant-Governor; one of the earliest colonists who devoted himself to botany, and introduced the first orange trees in 1791.
