Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/391

 THE HAEBOUR. 279 The lapse of time had brought a much more pressulg dijEEii- 1788 culty to the surf ace— that of providing, the population with i^ ^^' food. I have had the honor of informing jour lordship that this har- The hour is, in extent and security, very superior to any other that I ^' have ever seen, containing a considauble number of ooves formed by narrow necks of land, mostly rocks, covered with timber; and the face of the country, when viewed from the harbour, is the same, with few exceptions. The neck of land between the harbour and the coast is mostly sand. Between that part of the harbour in The oountiy which the settlement is made and Botany Bay, after you pass sydn^ the wood which surrounds us, and which in some parts is one and Botuiy Bay. a half, in others three miles across, the country is a poor sandy heath full of swamps. The country towards the head of the bay* is covered with timber, and ha:« the land appears less rocky, and the trees stand in some parts at a greater distance^ but the head Parrmmcttik of the bay being left dry in several parts at low water, and the ^^* winds being obstructed by the woods and the different windings of the channel, must^ I conceive, render this part of the harbour un* healthy till the country can be cleared. As far as the eye can reach to the westward, the country appears to be one continued wood. Phillip was not at all disposed to be enthusiastic in his views of things^ but there were at least two exceptions to the rule. When he first mentioned the harbour of Port Jack- TKe hafbour. son, he pronounced it '' the finest harbour in the world " ; and, when referring to it again, he declared it to be, " in extent and security, very superior to any other that I have ever seen." Familiar as he was with the principal harbours in the world, he evidently ranked Port Jackson far beyond the best of them. He spoke with equal confi- dence on another point — the future of the colony he had The future founded. His opinion of it was expressed repeatedly in colony, the strongest terms, and that too at a time when others were proclaiming it a failure, and writing pitiful lamenta- tions over it to their friends in England. Notwithstanding • Port Jackson, not Botany Bay. By " the head of the bay," Phillip meant the Panramatta River. . . Digitized by Google