Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/151

 excursions he was successful in tracing the course of the Hawkesbury River from Broken Bay to Richmond Hill; and, intent as he was on the useful, he had yet an eye for the picturesque, and reported the wonderful charms of the river scenery.

The ravages of past floods were visible in the lodgment of large logs in branches of trees, at a height of thirty to forty feet above the level of the river.

In Phillip's earliest excursions he had not discovered good land for cultivation. That at Parramatta was better than the sand of Sydney, but it was poor. When the rich soil at the Hawkesbury was known, the colonists were adscripti glebee elsewhere; and there was, moreover, some risk of attacks by the aborigines, the ill-treatment of whom, by the convicts and others, had aroused an unfriendly feeling which Phillip and his wiser comrades vainly strove to remove. In April 1791 Phillip headed an exploring party of officers, soldiers, and convicts. Bennilong and another native accompanied him, "carrying their own provisions." Phillip intended to trace the Nepean River, previously named by him, but he had to return without seeing the Nepean. In June 1791 two officers, Tench and Dawes, and two soldiers, went to explore. Civilly treated by the natives, they ascertained that the Nepean was an affluent of the Hawkesbury. Tench invited travellers among polished nations to produce a brighter example of disinterested urbanity than was shown by these denizens of a barbarous clime to a set of destitute wanderers on the side of the Hawkesbury."

While Phillip was gaining knowledge of the eastern territory, a brother officer, Captain Vancouver, H.M.S. Discovery, found and named King George's Sound in the west. Phillip was intelligently solicitous to establish