Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 1.djvu/411

Rh to run to the southward until the afternoon, when, supposing we had passed that port, we bore away to the S.W. At midnight the gale fell, and the wind changed to the westward. At day, light land was seen to windward, which, from the distance we had ran, was supposed to be about Port Stevens; but we found ourselves at noon, by a meridional observation, off Jervis' Bay; so that the current, during the gale, had set us one hundred and fifty miles to the south. ward, and for the last twenty-four hours at the rate of nearly three knots per hour. Owing to this we did not arrive at Port Jackson until the following day at noon; and it was sunset before the cutter anchored in the cove.

It appeared, on our arrival, that the weather had been even worse on the land than we had experienced it at sea. The Nepean and Hawkesbury Rivers had been flooded, by which the growing crops had been considerably injured, but happily, the colony has long.ceased to suffer from these once much-dreaded inundations: a great portion of upland country, out of the reach of the waters, is now cultivated, from which the government stores are principally supplied. with grain. Individuals who, from obstinacy, persist in the cultivation of the low banks of the Hawkesbury, alone suffer from these