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Although the climate is variable, yet it is very healthy, and
uncommonly fine for vegetation. Most of the disorders which exist in
the settlement are the fruits of intemperance and debauchery, the
necessary result of that fatal addiction to drunkenness, which
produces mental imbecility and bodily decay. Frost is known but
little; at least, ice is very seldom seen; and, I believe, snow has
never yet appeared since the establishment of the colony: Yet on the
highest ridges of the remoter mountains, to which I have had
occasion to allude as never yet having been passed, snow is to be
seen for a long time together; and this circumstance is a proof of
their elevation. The usual weather in New South Wales is uncommonly
bright and clear, and the common weather there, in spring and
autumn, is equal to the finest summer day in England. This purity
and warmth of atmosphere, it may be naturally inferred, must be
particularly favorable to the growth of shrubs and plants, which
flourish exceedingly, and attain to a degree of perfection and
beauty which is unknown to the inhabitants of this country. The
woods and fields present a boundless variety of the choicest
productions of nature, which gratify the senses with their fragrance
and magnificence; while the branches of the trees display a
brilliant assemblage of the feathered race, whose plumage,
"glittering in the sun," dazzles the eye of the beholder with its
unmatched loveliness and luster, and presenting, on the whole, a
scene too rich for the pencil to portray--too glowing and animated
for the feeble pen of mortal to describe with half the energy and
beauty which belong to it, and without which description is
unfaithful.
The Present Picture Of New South Wales, 1811 |
