of his partners has made very dangerous scientific excursions to explore,) that strongly excite our curiosity. Mr. Scott, private secretary to the storekeeper-general, and a man of great erudition, particularly captivated our attention, even on subjects of little importance, by his agreeable and original powers of description. Mr. Oxley the surveyor-general, whose skill and courage have had the guidance of expeditions to the interior of New Holland, that have shared with him their honourable dangers, has also given us an interesting account of his adventurous excursions; and already makes us sensible, that we shall hereafter be indebted to his zeal and courage for the knowledge of a vast portion of this fifth quarter of the globe. M. de Mestre, and one of his friends, whose name I am sorry I have forgotten, offered themselves as our guides in the different excursions we wished to make. The officers of the garrison have proposed to join us in shooting parties, in which we shall find both an instructive and useful recreation. We have engagements for a fortnight, and all the inhabitants of Port Jackson rival each other in their attentions to us.

The town of Sydney-Cove, the capital of Cumberland county, is built partly in a plain, partly on a little hill, that overlooks the south side of the river, so as to display an amphitheatre, and form a delightful prospect. The principal buildings exhibit themselves in a very original manner over the old wooden houses, which are gradually disappearing, and have their places supplied by structures of hewn stone, ornamented with pleasing sculptures, and embellished by balconies, in a style truly remarkable. You would imagine that our best architects had deserted Europe, and repaired to New Holland, to re-produce their most elegant designs.

You see at first, on the left, the spacious residence of the Governor, surrounded by a magnificent English garden. The apart

ments are remarkable for their distribution, richness, and for the pictures they contain of combats between the savages of New Holland. The Governor, who resides a part of the year in his palace at Parramatta, has not had the bad taste to overload this fine dwelling with too many sculptures or other ornaments, which are almost always detrimental to the general appearance, and spoil the effect. To the right of the palace, but at a great distance, appears the regular front of the superb barracks, built of brick and stone. Still farther on is an hospital of elegant design, ornamented with a fine colonnade, where the patients may breathe a pure and salubrious air at all hours of the day. At a less distance is distinguished a spacious building, which is the house of prayer; and still nearer, on the harbour itself, we perceive immense magazines, in which are deposited the goods kept in store. Fronting this storehouse, on the other side of the cove, is a quay not yet finished, where ships may be laid down to careen, without incurring the least danger. A great number of other public buildings and private houses embellish this truly magnificent prospect; and nothing indicates that this town, already so beautiful, is the work but of a few years.

In the new quarter, the streets are wide, straight, but not carefully paved; which renders them difficult of access, and disagreeable in the rainy season. As to the old quarter, built on the slope of a steep hill, foot passengers alone can make use of the paths close to the houses; and it is easy to foresee, that in a little time it will be destroyed, unless the ground be levelled, which in certain places would require infinite labour.

The environs of the town are not very luxuriant, though tolerably well cultivated. A few country-houses however, built with elegance, and embellished with gardens loaded with the fruits of Europe, fix the attention. Of the trees transferred from our climates, the peach and the oak have succeeded best. The

former produces excellent fruit, and grows without trouble; the latter is as beautiful as in our finest countries; and, if I may credit our botanist, even acquires here more valuable qualities for building. The other trees that shade the ground, are the fig, the pear, the apple, and the orange; all useful, all furnishing resources in time of scarcity.

When the sun is setting, and the observer from the top of a lofty building turns his eyes towards the country, he enjoys a prospect truly interesting. From the midst of those deep forests that lately were trodden by the feet of savages alone, arise immense columns of smoke, impelled by the wind, amid which burns a bright flame, illumining the distant horizon. All the new grants are cleared by burning: an old trunk of a tree at first resists the fire; by degrees its moist covering dries, is charred, and becomes itself fuel to feed it; the branches are consumed, and bring down with them the neighbouring branches, which soon communicate the flame to the remotest trees; but, as these burnings must be frequently repeated, and the proprietor of a piece of ground must guarantee the adjacent property, he begins by circumscribing with the axe, the space he means to cultivate. The fire, arriving at this boundary, as it ceases to find aliment, stops, dies away, and its beneficent ashes give life to the land it

has thus cleared.

LETTER CXL.

Sydney.

I CANNOT comprehend how the government of Sydney, so in its regulations, so just and so severe in its policy, can permit savages from the interior to reside in the capital. For the

sage

purpose of concealing from women and young girls the disgusting spectacle of hideous nakedness, it ought to confine to a separate quarter all those wretches who wear no kind of clothing; or, by a regulation strictly enforced, oblige the savages to conceal at least certain parts with the skin of a kangaroo, or some other covering.

Yesterday I went to the house of one of the richest and most respectable merchants here, to spend the evening. What was my astonishment, on entering the court, to see girls from fifteen to eighteen years old encouraging in their savage sports, men and women absolutely naked, and exhibiting all the appearance of the most disgusting wretchedness! These persons, covered with old scars, and armed with spears and clubs, had already received as rewards for their capers and grimaces, some pieces of bread, which they still held in their arm-pits, and a few glasses of wine or brandy, the active effect of which on them was already perceptible by a boisterous mirth and frightful dancing. Their gestures soon became more violent, and their language more loud all spoke at once, all shook with a ferocious air their murderous weapons. Attracted by the noise, the master and mistress of the house hastened to the place with their guests, and invited me to wait the issue of the disturbance. I yielded with a good grace, persuaded that their excesses would not be carried to any greater height, and that the ladies would leave us to enjoy the spectacle alone. In this expectation I was disappointed; and their soft voices, on the contrary, excited the courage, or rather the ferocity of the actors. But when these poor creatures had finished the prelude to their bacchanals, they began to brandish their clubs with greater force and dexterity against the adjacent fence, as if they were practising to strike more surely; afterwards these unfortunate men, whose gaiety at first appeared so peaceable, struck each other repeated blows; two of them

were stretched on the ground dangerously wounded, and a third received a mortal blow. Their companions, who had hitherto taken no part in the action, but by encouraging the combatants, then rose, quietly carried off the victims, who were perhaps their fathers or brothers, and disappeared with their burdens.

This scene took place in the midst of a civilized city; the spectators were respectable merchants, and elegant and accomplished young ladies; a few days before, I had already seen, in company with my friend Dubaud, a similar spectacle in the yard of a little public-house, where also one savage fell a victim to the cruelty of another.

The manners of these poor creatures, their habits and customs, furnish the curious inquirer with a number of interesting particulars. When we think of the poverty of their country, and the scanty resources they find in the waters of the ocean and rivers; and when we calculate the small advantages they can derive from their weapons; we need not be surprised at the small number of individuals that travellers have found in these vast solitudes. The wandering and precarious life they are forced to lead, and the very frequent recurrence of a total want of food, sufficiently account for their feeble constitutions. A body lean, and far from robust, supports a head void of expression, or rather characterised by brutal ferociousness. They have in general small eyes, a very flat nose, a mouth of monstrous width, enormous feet and hands, excessively slender legs and arms, and very white teeth. Most of them want the two front teeth of the upper jaw; and I have seen a young girl of fourteen or fifteen undergo this painful operation with astonishing fortitude. She rested her head against a wall, while a woman much older than herself, whom I took to be her mother from the likeness between them, applied to the two teeth she wished to be removed, a bit of wood of the thickness of a quill, and struck it with a large stone. The young girl did not