Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 1.djvu/412

350 floods, which have been known to rise in a few hours to the height of eighty feet above the usual level of the river's bed. The evil, however, deposits its own atonement: and the succeeding crop, if it escapes a flood, repays the settlers for their previous loss: this it is that emboldens them to persist in their ill-advised temerity. At no very distant period a time will arrive when these very lands, the cultivation of which has caused so much distress to the colony and ruin to individuals, will, by being laid down in grass for the purposes of depasturing cattle, become a considerable source of wealth to their possessors.

There has been no general want of grain in the colony since the year 1817, although there have been several floods upon the Hawkesbury and the other rivers that fall into it, which have greatly distressed the farmers of that district. One of the arguments, therefore, with which the enemies of colonizing in New South Wales have hitherto armed themselves, in order to induce emigrants to give the preference to Van Diemen's Land, falls to the ground.

We were fortunate in finding in the naval yard, a spar of the New Zealand cowrie pine, (dammrura,) large enough for our bowspirit; and, on the 13th of July, having had our