load of felons, the colonists have evident cause for the energetic nature of their proceedings; and justice being on their side, there can be no doubt whatever of their ultimate success. The government, however, have, it is right to state, already sent out an expedition to New Caledonia, and other islands in the Pacific, with a view of selecting a convenient place for the future reception and punishment of convicts; and now that the discovery of gold in such abundance in these colonies renders it of still greater importance that reckless and unscrupulous criminals should be kept as far away as possible from places where, under the most favourable circumstances, the administration of justice is attended with great difficulty, and society has a sort of natural tendency to throw off all restraining fetters, and level every distinction but that of physical strength, it is probable that the authorities here will think twice at least before despatching another cargo of crime to a place where its presence will be so eminently dangerous and impolitic.

Before we leave the colony, however, let us just glance at the general features of the interior. Besides the metropolis, and the town of Paramatta, which we have already devoted some attention to, there are a large number of other towns and villages scattered over the

colony, and which are all in a prosperous and
improving condition. The land in the colony,
generally speaking, is better adapted for pas-
toral than for agricultural purposes, but to this
rule there are many exceptions. In various
parts of the colony there are extensive tracts
of land remarkable for fertility, yielding during
several years in succession, without any manure,
from thirty to forty bushels of wheat per acre.
The Rev. Dr. Mackenzie states that he has
seen three hundred bushels of wheat raised
from eight acres, in the valley of the Hume
River, that being the third crop of wheat raised
on the same land without manure; also, that
he has seen seven successive crops of wheat raised
from the same field, which had never been
manured by the hand of man, and yet that the
seventh crop averaged twenty-five bushels to
the acre.
One of the most fertile districts in
the colony of New South Wales, is that called
the Cow Pastures, so called from the fact of
large herds of wild cattle having been found
there at the time of the discovery or explora-
tion of the district, which were the descendants
of three runaway cattle belonging to a herd
brought to the colony by H. M. S. Sirius, soon
after the foundation of the colony. These pas-
tures extend northward from the river Bargo to
the junction of the Warragumba and Nepean

rivers, bounded to the west by some of the branches of the latter river and the hills of Nattai; and they contain about 60,000 acres, the greater part consisting of a fertile sandy loam, resting on a substratum of clay. Towards the southern hills of Nattai the Cow Pastures are broken into abrupt and hilly ridges; but for a distance of three miles from the Nepean they consist of easy slopes and gentle undulations, from the centre of which rises a lofty hill, called Mount Hunter.

These Cow Pastures are situated in the Camden county, and are about fifty miles south of Sydney. This county is also celebrated for containing within its limits, and in immediate proximity to the Cow Pastures, the fertile, beautiful, and romantic district of Illawarra, or the Five Islands. The scenery at Illawarra is totally different in character from the remainder of the county, and also from Cumberland, the metropolitan county; tall fern-trees, having a foliage exactly similar to that of the fern plant in this country, but whose leaves are gigantic in the same proportion in which the tree exceeds the plant in size; umbrageous cedars, graceful palm-trees, with numerous creeping vines throwing around, in wild luxuriance, their flowery tassels; and abounding with flights of red-crested black cockatoos, and purple

cowries, make the spectator fancy himself in some tropical region, blest at the same time with the exhilarating atmosphere of a temperate clime. The Illawarra district is not very easily accessible from Sydney by land, but there are steam vessels passing regularly twice or thrice

a-week between the township of Wollongong, the port of the Illawarra district, and Sydney, and conveying the fertile produce of the district to the Sydney markets.

The illustration is taken from the Illawarra district; its subject being a beautiful salt-water lagoon, discovered by the same enterprising explorer whose name has been transmitted to posterity in conjunction with the Strait which divides Van Diemen's Land from the Australian continent, viz. Bass's Strait. The lagoon is that called Tom Thumb's Lagoon, from Bass having passed over the sand bar which divides it from the sea in a small boat, called the Tom Thumb. There are several lagoons of a similar character, most of them abounding in excellent fish.

With regard to the statistics of the colony. of New South Wales, it may be interesting to state, that by an official document on the subject of the progress of the colony from 1840 to 1849, during which period the colony of Victoria was a province of that colony, and was therefore included in the returns, it appeared that the population had nearly doubled itself in the course of that ten years, having risen from 129,463 in 1840, to 246,299 in 1849, of which latter number 101,470 were females. The proportionate excess of males was much greater at the former than the later period, but the diminution of the disparity cannot be attributed so much to the greater evenness of the immigration during the period, as to the extended

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