Page:The three colonies of Australia.djvu/295

 beneath their gunyah, the nearest approach to a hut which these poor creatures have contrived.

Jervis Bay—in the county of St. Vincent where the township of South Huskisson has been founded is eighty miles from Sydney, with an entrance two miles wide, and an inner harbour three leagues in length, safe for ships of the heaviest burden, with access to ample supplies of wood and water, and presents a total change of climate. Unfortunately, this fine port is surrounded by a hopelessly barren country. It has been suggested by Mr. Ralfe, an experienced Australian surveyor, that Jervis Bay should become the terminus of a railway from the Bathurst district. A railway for wool and tallow would be a very doubtful speculation; but recent events have laid the foundation for more important exports and imports. Perhaps by following the course of streams it would be possible to find workable gradients for a tramway on the Welsh coal-mining or American plan.

The next ports, Ulladulla and Bateman's Bay, the outlet of the Clyde River, are only accessible for coasters; but the latter has recently come into notice from the discovery of the gold-diggings, distant only thirty miles: that thirty miles being over a country of so difficult a character that a party with loaded packhorses were three days in crossing it.

The last harbour in the New South Wales district is Twofold Bay, 240 miles from Sydney, on which two townships have been founded, Eden by the government, and Boyd Town by the late Benjamin Boyd, with the funds of a Scotch company which he represented. Eden has never been anything better than a government project at the expense of a few foolish land speculators. Boyd Town enjoyed a brief period of factitious prosperity, when the steamers, whalers, and yacht of the founder lay in harbour. It was at Boyd Town he appeared with almost viceroyal state, when laying the first stone of the never lighted lighthouse; and it was there that he landed the island cannibals whom he had purchased from their savage conquerors, with the view of reducing wages by introducing slavery into Australia, rather than encourage shepherd families upon his boundless sheep-runs.

The steep range of hills which separates Twofold Bay from the vast squatting district of Maneroo has hitherto, in spite of a road constructed at much expense by Mr. Boyd, to a great degree neutralised its advantageous position as the only harbour for large ships on a long line of coast. It is still used as a station for shore whalers being almost the only station for that purpose in the colony. There has been a great falling off in the whaling operations of the Sydney merchants.

The Australian whalers are for the most part from 200 to 300 tons