At length we reached the banks of the Kinkham, which flows in a bed twenty feet deep. A slender streamlet of water found its way with difficulty amid the scattered pieces of rock, which the floods had brought down thus far from the summit of the mountains. I was preparing to cross it, when my guide stopped me, and gave me to understand, that government had prohibited the passage of this natural barrier under severe penalties. He told me also, that the opposite bank was often frequented by savage hordes, led by convicts who had escaped from their fetters; and that they came as far as the neighbouring estates, to levy contributions, and carry off produce and cattle. I would not take upon myself the responsibility of my guide, and consented to his not accompanying me; but I desired him to wait for me, with an assurance that I would be absent only a few hours. He promised me he would; and I set off, after receiving from him instructions for my return.

Kinkham is one of those torrents, whose waters when swelled by thunder-storms, spread desolation through the country. Its ravages extend more than two leagues from its bed, and beat down the strong barriers opposed to its impetuous course. Its inundations, which are really terrifying, may be said to be periodical; and few seasons pass without distant dwellings being swept away or damaged. The most substantial buildings, the tallest plants, covered by its red and turbulent waters, with difficulty resist them. When the swelling commences, the experience acquired by disaster teaches how far its ravages may extend, and the settlements in the vicinity are deserted. When it has attained its utmost height, this ravaging torrent resembles an immense lake, containing a considerable number of floating islands. Some lofty roofs appear amid the vigorous heads of the tallest eucalypti; and if this impetuous inundation have taken but few days to cover so vast a space,

a few days also are sufficient for its peaceable return to its ordinary bed. The country it has quitted is then a truly curious spectacle. On the stout branches of the trees remain suspended garlands of foreign flowers and plants, sometimes forming elegant canopies picturesquely suspended. The waters soon retire more rapidly; and every hour, almost every minute, gives birth to a fresh landscape. To the astonished eyes of the observer it is no longer water that falls, but vegetation that rises as it were by enchantment, and domineers over this vast sea. At length the ground appears; and the impetuous torrent, that seemed as if it must lay it waste, leaves, like the beneficent Nile, a generous mud, that gives it fresh powers, and augments its produce. The next day, the sun diffuses his rays over a new land; the cultivator seeks the place of his ruined hut; and with the fragments of it, scattered among his furrows, erects another, to be destroyed in its turn by the next inundation.

The Grose, the Nepean, and particularly the Hawkesbury, are subject to considerable floods, though less than those of the Kinkham, and have occasioned terrible disasters in the English settlements, ever since the first establishment of this colony: what is most remarkable, and distressing, is, that these inundations are repeated five or six times a year, and that no notice of the swelling occurs, till it is impossible to avoid its ravages. The abundant rains that fall on the Blue Mountains, the waters of which unite in one point, and take one and the same direction, sufficiently explain these repeated phenomena, which seem to make of New Holland a country by itself, a new land, or, as the English justly term it, the continent without equal. The imagination would gladly reject the idea, that storms traverse the gloomy deserts of those mountains, beyond which are perhaps civilized nations and flourishing cities, if it could assign other causes for these

rapid floods, that swell the rivers to more than forty feet above their ordinary level. What enormous bodies of water must fall on those vast solitudes! How frightful the situation of those savage tribes that wander over them! How grand and terrific the spectacle of those impetuous cataracts, that pour down amid the dark forests! What a fearful disorder throughout all nature!.....Behold those little streamlets of clear and limpid water, at first almost imperceptible, gradually increase, soon scoop out for themselves a roomy bed, roll down trees and rocks, and spread to a distance ravage and desolation!.... I have suffered myself to run into this digression, not to return hereafter to these extraordinary phenomena of the Southern continent.

Scarcely had I crossed the bed of the Kinkham, when my heart misgave me. Here, I said to myself, nothing lives but villains or savages; here no voice is heard, but the shout of war. The trees, the hills, seemed to me to have an alarming gloom; and nothing but my ardent curiosity could have dragged me into the midst of the forests. I had a gun; yet, notwithstanding my desire of killing some of the beautiful birds, that were flitting among the leafy branches, I was afraid to disturb the silence of this solitude. I advanced mechanically; and if any imminent danger had presented itself to my eyes, I know not whether I should have had sufficient presence of mind to avoid it. If once we become sensible of our weakness, or confess to ourselves our own pusillanimity, no human power can compel us to assume an appearance of firmness. Accordingly, scarcely had I heard the distant roll of the thunder, growling on the mountains, when my terrified imagination depicted to me the torrent overflowing its limits, and detaining me a prisoner amid the deserts. The sound of a few large drops of rain falling on the leaves of the trees sounded already fearfully in my ears, and I returned with hasty strides toward my prudent guide, who had refused to follow me. I then

neglected all the precautions I had taken during my advance; the bushes were trampled under foot; the unsubstantial hillocks, underneath which millions of large ants had fixed their abode, trodden down by my hasty steps: the wind, rustling among the trees sounded to me like the noise of the waves, that were about to stop me. Alarmed, I called to my guide......The sinister cries of a few birds alone answered my voice; and at length I reached the terrible barrier, already somewhat swelled, but which I had little trouble in crossing.

Arrived on the other bank, I blushed at my foolish fears; and, ashamed of myself, was about to make a second attempt, when a faint noise I heard near me checked my resolve. I listened, and recognized the voice of a woman.

At the entrance of a hut, formed of pieces of bark, connected together by a little clay and turf, I saw a woman sending in two young children, with nothing on them but a check shirt. I approached her with confidence, and requested, in French, some refreshment, and permission to rest myself in her hut. She understood me, no doubt; and, after offering me a rude seat, set before me some excellent peaches and a delicious white loaf. I had scarcely tasted them, when the quick step of some person approaching struck my ear.

A man about forty, with the countenance of a freebooter, entered, and saluted me with a rough good morning. I answered with a timid bon jour, which he perfectly understood. His eyes were red, his brow covered with sweat, his clothes neat, and his linen very white. Ah! you are a Frenchman,' said he, with an accent that bewrayed his country. I love France much, and resided there a long time.' Certainly, Sir,' answered I, ‘France is the land of lands; you live there at less expense than in England; and Paris, in particular offers strangers a variety of pleasures at an easy rate. O yes!' added he; 'Paris for ever. It is an en