Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/104

 are corroborated by other authorities, I will here quote from Murray's New Encyclopaedia of Geography, a description of the country surrounding Port Macquarie, principally deduced from the observations of Captain King, R.N.,the present resident Commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company, in the neighbouring county of Gloucester, and whose name has acquired considerable celebrity in the scientific world from his surveying voyage round the coasts of New Holland.

"The river Hastings, with the country round it, has since, in its turn, been made a free settlement. The Hastings was discovered, as already observed, by Mr. Oxley, (the late Surveyor General) on his return from his second journey. It is not very important in a navigable view, since it cannot be ascended more than ten miles by vessels of any size; but it flows through a great valley, extending fifty miles inland, till it reaches the mountains, and with a breadth nearly uniform. This tract is various, but generally broken into a pleasing undulation of hill and dale, and consisting mostly of what is called open forest, by which is meant grass land, lightly covered with good timber, and free from the perils of inundation."

Captain King remarks, that "there are here twelve million acres in which it is difficult to find a bad tract. It is, in general, finely watered with clear small streams, an advantage not enjoyed by the more southern districts of the colony. The climate