358 THE LAST) 1786 by Pliillip in finding a sufficient area of land, fit for cnltivB^ tion, in the neighbonrhood of the settlement. The counisry ronnd about it had been carefully explored in all directioiiB The land for that purpose, but it was condemned as useless, except in
- " **°* small patches here and there; the soil being everywheBe
described as either covered with rocks and trees, or else as a poor sandy heath, full of swamps. Until the laaid at the head of the Parramatta Biver was discovered^ tihe prospect of obtaining any substantial assistance from the soil appeared to be uncertain in the extreme. The opinion thus formed with respect to the country can only Difflcui^ of be understood when we recollect the difficulty experienced ^ oountoy. in penetrating it where it happened to bo covered with, timber. The land at Rose Hill was discovered easily be- cause there happened to be a ready means of communica- Water com- tion by water, and the country in that direction was toler- mun on. ^^^^ open. But there was even better land to be found at a much shorter distance from Sydney Cove, which, could it have been turned to account, would have removed all difficulty on the subject at once. Between Cook's River and the Cove — ^a distance of less than five miles in a straight Cook's line — there was land enough to supply the settlement with vegetables and fruit, if not grain, in abundance; while beyond the river, in the midst of a charmitig landscape, lay a fine agricultural district, in which many hundreds of settlers might have made their homes. How then was it that, while so many efforts were made for the purpose of finding such land, the natural wealth of the soil in the immediate neighbourhood of the Cove remained unknown 7 Phillip went up Cook's River in December, and he could not but have noticed the level TTie river country on its banks, covered as it was with very different timber from the gum-trees at the Cove, and richly sugges- tive, even then, of the meadows he had read of in Cook's ae they were, Voyage. The sceno which presented itself to him as he followed the windings of the stream, might be compared with that which met the eyes of the Saxons wheu they first Digitized by Google
