Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/51

 SKETCH. xli pleasure which every traveller receives from a scene of wild uncul- tivated beauty. That it did not suggest any idea of colonisation may be understood from the fact mentioned by Cook as the result of his survey — "we found no flat large enough for a potatoe garden/* The contrast between the scenery of Botany Bay and that which had just been left behind in New Zealand gave rise to very animated discussions on board the Endeavour. The densely timbered hills in one, and the gentle undulations of the other, had each their advocates ; but we may imagine Banks summing up the characteristics of the two countries by saying that while the Sound was a magnificent place for tourists to roam about in. Botany Bay was designed by nature as a field for colonists. There was no difficulty in finding flats there large enough for many potato gardens. The whole country about the bay seemed to rise and fall for miles around like the lazy billows of the Pacific on a summer day ; there were no impenetrable masses of heavy timber, the trees standing so far apart as to give the appearance of an English park. The general impression with respect to the scenery of the bay has seldom done justice to it ; but that Cook and his friends thought well of it is manifest from their description. A few lines from Hawkesworth — whose narrative, by the way, never rises beyond a cold expression of approval whatever the scene he describes — will be sufficient to show what they thought of it. We found the soil to be either swamp or light sand, and the face of the country finely diversified by wood and lawn. The trees are tall, straight, and without underwood, standing at such a distance from each other that the whole countiy, at least where the swamps do not render it incapable of cultivation, might be cultivated without cutting down one of them ; between the trees the ground is covered with grass, of which there is great abundance, growing in tufts about as big as can well be grasped in the hand, which stand very close to each other. The trees over our head abounded with birds of various kinds, among which were many of exquisite beauty, particularly loriquets and cockatoos, which flew in flocks of several scores togethei*. The country examined on that occasion was the southern shore of the bay, near the point at which Cook had landed — and which is now identified bv a monument erected in 1870 to commemorate Digitized by Google