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Show 528 NEW SOUTH WALES. Jan. 1836. Bathurst has a singular and not very inviting appearance. Groups of small houses and a few large ones are scattered rather thickly over two or three miles of a bare country, which is divided into numerous fields by lines of rails. A good many gentlemen live in the neighbourho.od, and so~e possess very comfortable houses. A hideous httle red briCk church stands by itself on a hill ; and barracks and government buildings occupy the centre of the township. I was told not to form too bad an opinion of the country by judging from that on the road-side, nor too good a one from Bathurst; in this latter respect I did not feel myself in the least danger of being prejudiced. It must be confessed that the season had been one of great drought, and that the country did not wear a favourable aspect ; although I understand it was incomparably worse two or three months before. The secret of the rapidly growing prosperity of Bathurst is, that the brown pasture which appears to the stranger's eye so wretched is excellent for sheep-grazing. The town stands on the banks of the Macquarie : this is one of the rivers whose waters flow into the vast and scarcely known interior. The line of watershed, which divides the inland streams from those of the coast, has an elevation of about 3000 feet (Bathurst is 2200), and runs in a north and south direction at the distance of about eighty or a hundred miles from the sea-side. The Macquarie figures in the map as a respectable river, and is the largest of those that drain this part of the inland slope; yet to my surprise I found it a mere chain of ponds, separated from each other by spaces almost dry. Generally a small stream is running, and sometimes there are high and impetuous floods. Scanty as the supply of the water is throughout this district, it becomes still scantier further inland. JANUARY 22n.-I commenced my return, and followed a new road, called Lockyer's Line, in which the country is rather more hilly and picturesque. This was a long day's ride ; and the house where I wished to sleep was some way off the road, and not easily found. I met on this, and in- Jan. 1836. NEW SOUTH WA LES. 529 deed .on all other occasions, a. very general and ready civility among the lower orders; whiCh, when one considers what they are, and what they have been, would scarcely have been expected. The farm where I passed the night was owned by two young men who had only lately come out and were beginning a settler's life. The total want of al~ost every comfort was not very attractive ; but future and certain prosperity was before their eyes, and that not far distant. . The next day we passed through large tracts of country m :flames, volumes of smoke sweeping across the road. Before noon we joined our former track, and ascended Mount Victoria. I slept at the Weatherboard, and before dark took another walk to the amphitheatre. On the road to Sydney I spent a very pleasant evening with Captain King at Dunheved: and thus ended my little excursion in the colony of New South Wales. Before arriving here the three things which interested me most were,-the state of society amongst the higher classes ~ the condition of the convicts, and the degree of attractio~ sufficient to induce persons to emigrate. Of course, after so ve.ry short .a .visit one's opinion is worth scarcely any ~h1~g; but It 1s as difficult not to form some opinion, as It IS to form a correct judgment. On the whole, from wl~at I ~eard, more than from what I saw, I was disappomted m the state of society. The whole community is rancorously divided into parties on almost every subject. Among those, who from their station in life ought to be the best, many live in such open profligacy, that respectable people cannot associate with them. There is much jealousy between the children of the rich emancipist and the free settlers ; the former being pleased to consider honest men as interlopers. The whole population, poor and rich, are bent on acquiring wealth ; amongst the higher orders wool and sheep-grazing form the constant subject of conversation. The very low ebb of literature is strongly marked by the emptiness of the booksellers' shops ; for they are inferior even to those in the smaller country-towns of England. VOL. III. 2M |