Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/61

 which naturally enough excited the idea of Noah's ark." On the 12th Nov. the ships left Table Bay. After much baffling wind, being only eighty leagues eastward of the Cape on the 25th Nov., Phillip left the Sirius and went on board the Supply, hoping to examine the country at Botany Bay, and fix upon the best site for the colony before the arrival of the transports. Lieutenant P. G. King accompanied Phillip in the Supply, which reached Botany Bay on the 18th Jan., 1788. On the 19th the Alexander, Scarborough, and Friendship arrived, and on the 20th the Sirius, with the remainder of the convoy, the whole fleet having rounded Van Diemen's Land in their course.

Phillip was not satisfied with any site at Botany Bay, and on the 22nd he proceeded, with three boats, "to examine Port Jackson, a bay mentioned by Captain Cook, immediately to the north." Here all doubt and disappointment vanished. The prime necessity of a noble harbour for shipping was doubtless first in Phillip's thoughts, and such a harbour he said he found in "the finest in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line might ride in the most perfect security."

But no one ever entered Port Jackson—with its jutting promontories, its retreating coves, its fringe of shrubs and trees interspersed with brilliant flowers, its picturesque rocks, its apparently unending wealth and variety of shapes and windings, whether of water or of land—without feeling within him a spring of wondering pleasure. With such feelings the breasts of Phillip and his companions must have glowed. But work was his immediate object. He promptly examined the different coves, and selected one which he named Sydney Cove, after Lord Sydney, the Secretary of State. There he found a spring of water available for close-anchoring ships. Fresh from visiting Rio Janeiro, he yet told Lord Sydney: "This harbour is in