FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SYDNEY

Wellington Independent, Volume VI, Issue 559, 19 February 1851, Page 2

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SYDNEY

(From a Correspondent.) No. V.

THE BUSH—TREES—ANIMALS—ROApSRAIIWAJTS —CONCLUSION, The Bush is one of the most 4isiinctiv features of New South Wales scener. Sydney itself, and the lovely villas j n it seem all to be in the midst of th "Bush." A learned pedagogue, de scribing his tour on one occasion, com pared himself to the verb esse, To Be which the grammar told him has th same case after it that it has before it so he had bush after him and bushhefori him; look where ;he liked thene was no thing'butiusA. The various trees I wait not to describe The most common are different specie of the Eucalyptus; as the gum-tree, th iron bark, the stringy bark, and others Mimosas, or wattles as they are called of different species; and the JtjUtree, th manuka of New Zealand., Banksii called after Sir Joseph Banks. Wh e) decayed, the heart of the iron-bark tre becomes just like earth, while the oute part remains hard and durable. Fron its .being so easily hollo.wed out, and tb-

exterior part so durable, you see it every where used as water troughs. The bark „f the stringy-bark tree is used extensively in the country for covering houses, instead of thatch or shingles. There arc two peculiarities in the Australian bush that strikes a stranger, especially from New Zealand; the one • s the absence of underwood—you may walk or ride any where through the densest of the bush and not a vine or a creeper obstructs your path ; the other is t'ue shape aud the position of the leaves, fhe leaves of almost all the different s.ecies of trees are of much the same s'-iape; they are long and narrow, and all hanging down nearly perpendicular, with their edges not their sides to the trunk ; so that the largest trees furnish almost no shade. When walking in the bush under a scorching sun, oue looks in vain for the cooling shade; and to lie, like 'Virgils s\va\n, sab tegmine fmgi, under the shade of a spreading beech, is a luxury not easily found—the shade of the gum-tree, like the friendship of tho world, fails you when you need it most. But no doubt some wise purpose in tho economy of nature is subserved by this arrangement; aud as far as the trees themselves are concerned, Paley's law of compensation is fulfilled; the bark on almost every tree being uncommonly thick, completely secures the sap from being dried up by the heat of the sun. Every where throughout the country the wooded land is the rule, the cleared land the exception. Around Camden, however, there is a large breadth of cleared country, which has all the cheering appearance of some of the agricultural counties in England. The crops of wheat and hay were excellent, and the pastures covered with herds of well conditioned cattle. The dock, such a pernicious weed in New Zealand, appears to be unknown in this part of Australia ; but a thistle, the carduus benedictus, has found its way into some places, and is a most formidable nuisance. It seems to say, Nemo me impune lacessat— Let nobody touch me with impunity. Subdue me if you can. It was introduced as a flower, but doubtless by some one unacquainted with the Bible, and who had never read Gen. iii. 18. Animals. With beasts, birds, reptiles, and insects Australia abounds. The most characteristic are the marsupial animals: as the kangaroo, the opossum, the wallohy, kangaroo rat, and winged squirrel. The squirrel, though a quadruped, has two wings, something like a bat, which extend from its shoulders to, its thighs; when leaping it extends these, which act like a parachute, prevent it from falling, and facilitates its movements in leaping from tree to tree. There is a great lack of carnivorous animals; the marsupial are all graminivorous. .The native dog resembles a wolf. It grows large, and is most destructive upon sheep. The birds are rich in plumage, but poor in song; there is more of noise than music in their notes : if the eye is delighted, the ear is grated. There is abundance of wild ducks, pigeons, parrots, magpies, ravens, laughing jack asses—a niost_ noisy but harmless and useful bird, that injures neither fruit nor grain, but lives upon insects, and kills snakes, guanos, and other noxious reptiles. Swallows are plentiful, and remain all the year round. They are small in size. It is pleasant to hear " The swallow twittering in the straw-built shed," and to see them building their nests under the cares of houses. They build their nests somewhat differently from any I have seen elsewhere. I saw in one instance about twenty nests under the projecting cave of a two-story house; the mouth of each nest was prolonged somewhat like the neck of a bottle, and the opening turned slightly down. The birds are most destructive to grain, but especially to fruits; some settlers say that the best orchards will hardly pay for powder and shot to shoot the birds, but asUhe country becomes more populous, this evil will diminish and be less felt. Of reptiles, lizards aud guanos • are most plentiful. The largest lizards are from twelve to eighteen inches long, but they are all harmless; the guano is from two to three feet long, shaped like a lizard, hut the tail very long in proportion to the body. The guano climbs trees, robs birds nests, and kills birds as often as it can. I was one day walking through the bush, a guano on seeing me ran up a tree; while I was looking at it, a small bird flew past the tree, the guano made a dart at the bird and struck it with its fang, which it can project nearly six inches from its mouth; the poor bird new away uttering the most pitious cries, and alighted on a tree at a short distance, possibly so stunned that it would fall a to it 3 enemy. The sting of the guano stuns and stupifies, but does not in general kill. There are several kinds of snakes and a death adder, and the bite or sting of most of them is fatal. A .stranger is apt to think' that it must be extremely dangerous to Jive in a country so full of poisonous reptiles, and that no one's life could be safe; but this is by no Weans the case—very few accidents oc- £<"". Guanos and snakes invariable flee »om man. It is only in self-defence Wat they will attack. There is a. fiery

scorpion wind, the learned call alcohol, that bites like a serpent and stings like an 'Uitler, and every year kills twenty times more men and women than alt the snakes and death adders in Australia, and yet very few ever fear it, and no effectual measures have been taken either by the government or the community for the exterpation of so fearful a pest. 01 insects the ants are tho most numerous. They are of different species and of various sizes; but in the bush so plentiful that every foot breadth is covered with them. One species rears nests, several feet high, of finely tempered clay, which dries and becomes hard as a brick. Another species build lower nests, which appear to stranger like cart loads of sand lying here and there and every where. If a dead snake is laid on the top of one of these nests, in a short time nothing will be left but the skeleton. The locusts (cicada) make a most deafening noise in many places, but they are not destructive to any thing. Musquitoes are complained of iv Sydney, but with very little cause, at least beyond a few stragglers I saw now; the worst time, I believe, however, is to come. On the Murrumbidgee and other places, I understand, they are to be found in earnest. The mo3t valuable insect in New South Wales is the Bes; there is a small native bee without a sting, whose honey is very thin, and so of little use; but the common European bees arc very plentiful, and produce honey in abundance. These were introduced about thirty years ago by Dr. John Wilson, R.N., for" which patriotic deed he received a thousand acres of land iv Australia and the same quantity in Van Dieman's Land. Almost all the trees are of a flowering species, so that the bush furnishes inexhaustible supplies of.food for them. Great numbers have gone to the bush, aud hive in hollow trees ; sometimes out of a single tree a hundred weight of h.ney will be obtained. It is on this account, I suppose, that Razor Back Hill is called also Mount Hymettus. This is a land of dairies and apiaries; " a land flowing with milk and honey, which," says au old but much esteemed writer, " is the glory of all lands." This part of New South Wales is preeminently a pastoral country. Sheep and cattle are its staple wealth. The wool season has commenced, and along the great southern road there are hundreds of drays coming down from the interior, each generally drawn by 10 strong bullocks, and carrying from two to three tons of wool. It is also the harvest season ; the wheat, so far as I travelled, looked well, as there has been abundance of rain in the neighbourhood of Sydney ; but higher up the country, about and beyond Goulburn, from the want of rain early iv the season, there will be a great failure in the crops. Rain is almost the only thing that is never feared in New South Wales; give.thera rain, and they are sure of abundance. It is like the overflowing of the Nile in Egypt, the only condition of plenty: but as "population increases and cultivation extends, reservoirs and irrigation will no doubt be resorted to, to secure them from the contingencies of drought. | The roads near Sydney are excellent; but as you proceed into the interior, they become first indifferent, then very bad; and the frequent and heavy floods during the early part of this season, has done great damage to the bridges. Oue great desideratum in this country is a railway. It is proposed to carry one through from Sydney to Melbourne, if not also to Adelaide ; and it was fully expected that it would have been opened very soon from Sydney to Goulburn, a distance of more than one hundred miles; but as yet it has been only registered among the future good intentions of tho colony*. The want of capital and the scarcity aiid high price of labour have proved for midable barriers to this important undertaking; but the work is only deferred, it is not abandoned. According to Sir T L. Mitchell, when a railway can be completed to Goulburn, the thirty-fifth parallel of Latitude marks very nearly the line for its extension to Adelaide, across a territory almost level. The chief impediments to this line are two deep rivers, the Murrumbidgee and the Murray, whose waters would be nevertheless indispensable for the supply of the engines, This line lies across dry plains of poor soil; but it would connect with Sydney and Adelaide the rich alluvial lands on tho two rivers, which lands are by far the best spots in all Australia for cultivation, the soil being deep and rich —the water inexhaustible. The Murray river is broad and probably also salt: there are swampy flats, and also plains ssubject to inundations; but in Australia as elsewhere, the elements must be dealt with as they are found. The concentration of many waters determines the importance of the lands on the Murray. This railway would connect the three chief centres of population, the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, with the main concentration of the waters. These prospects are perhaps distant, but they are bright; and in an age of mechanical enterprise, are not likely to be lost sight of by a people so public spirited and energetic as the' colonists of "Australia.

In fine Sydney with its unrivalled harbour, its stone, its minerals, its fertile soil, its salubrious and delicious climate, the extensive territory of which it is the outlet, with its numerous, active, and enterprising inhabitants, bids fair to be by and by one of the first cities in the world. With any thing like a fair average, and attainable amount of true religion—tho religion of the Bible—if sound education; and of pure hightoned morality, with the blessing of Divine Provinence, there is no conceivable amount of prosperity to which this colony may not confidently look forward. But have not we in Now Zealand much to fear from such a prosperous rival ? Yes, much, very much ; all that a younger sister has to fear from the prosperity of an elder. Were it not that selfishness is always short sighted, often stone blind, self-inte-rest alone would lead us always to rejoice in the honestly procured prosperity of our neighbours ; for to a oertainty we shall always come in more or less to share in it. There is ample room in these colonies for the legitimate exercise of all, the.capital, skill, and labour, that can find their way' to them, and set a well doing man down in any of these colonies, Australia, or New Zealand it matters not which, let him only get a hold of the soil, 1 and without fail, hy the favour Heaven, he will live, flourish and prosper.