the coast supplies, (from the beauty and rare character of which the bay received its title of "Botany"), what would these say, could they nów, standing on the same spot, look at the monument of poor La Perouse, and gazing on

the waters before them, see the emblems of civilization scattered around them, and know too, that but a short distance would take them to the busy haunts of men, happy in all the arts

of civilization, and advancing in all that adorns humanity.

Yes, La Perouse has his monument here.

"It

is situate on a green plot, elevated above the adjoining land on its north. It is a It is a plain circular column, about twenty feet in height, constructed on a square pedestal, and surmounted by a brazen sphere, emblematical of the vocation of the man it is intended to commemorate. On the side of the pedestal are inscriptions, recording the birth, principal known adventures, and supposed death of the French navigator. The whole is surrounded by a neat low quadrangular parapet, which considerably enhances the beauty of the monument." The place and circumstances of his death are unknown, but here stands a monument, sufficient to tell that he lived; that he lives no more, except, indeed, as all benefactors to their species live, in the enduring character of their works, and in the remembrance of the wise and good. Just by Botany Bay are formed two rivers: one, George's River, navigable about thirty miles, and another, Cook's River, which is navigable for but a short distance. The latter runs between two points of land seen on the right, the further of which goes by the appropriate name of Long Beach. Rest, La Perouse! we know not thy last slumbering place; but we raise thy tomb: thou wouldst desire that even thy monument should look out upon the

expanse of waters, there then we plant thy cenotaph; around it blooms many a rare exotic, upon it we drop a tear, and above it plays a halo of glory from the pure light of that sky, which traced all thy passage, and now guards (wheresoever it be) thy last sad resting place.

"What would those say, who, on the 26th of January, 1788, on a little stream, formed the first settlement in this colony under Captain Phillip, could they know, as has been well observed by a Colonial writer, that the course of the muddy streamlet may still be traced threading its way across the line of Hunter Street and Bridge Street, and mingling with the waters of the Cove, but the thick wood through which it silently stole in 1788 has disappeared before the advancing march of civilization, and the deserted haunts of the kangaroo and opossum, the rude hut of the Aboriginal savage, and the stillness of the forest solitude have been converted, not by magic, but by the more potent influence of European enterprise, into a large and populous commercial city, the Queen of the Southern Seas, the metropolis of a new world."

What would the enterprising Captain Cook say, could he visit this our Australian Capital? What! might he not say, standing on some eminence whence can be seen all our fair city stretched before the gaze, with almost a nobler pride than our great English architect says from his tomb, "Si

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CONCLUDING REMARKS.

monumentum quæris, circumspice?" And how has all this been effected? By well directed British influence and energy. She has raised, almost at her antipodes, a town containing now nearly 50,000 inhabitants, and that but the capital of a colony with a population of more than three times that number; a city which vies with many older in the world's history in the beauty, order, and splendour of its buildings; the firmness and intrinsic prosperity of its institutions. Long may Australia flourish as a healthy off-shoot from the parent stem! Resplendently may she still glisten as a sparkling gem in the crown of Britain's Queen! Let Britain be true to herself, and her colonies; let her enlightened zeal,-enlightened by the soundest principles of national policy, of social prosperity, of divine religion, and unerring immortal truth,—let her zeal, thus enlightened, preserve as her own, intact and undefiled, that which her enterprise has called into existence, which her energy has created, and her fame shall be extensive as her dominion-enduring as her destiny.

We have desired in these pages to show that, apart from other attractions, our colony may possess, we boast a town of peculiar salubrity, and one too where through the live-long year, in every variety of season, Nature is clothed in her gayest attire, and where Art too has done her utmost to soften the roughness, or enhance the beauty, of Nature's fairest works.

CHAPTER VIII.

CONCLUSION.

BEFORE We entirely release our reader's attention, it will be necessary to introduce some general remarks, serving at once to supply deficiencies in previous statements, to introduce some few points of importance for which no more convenient place could be found, and to present in a condensed form a general view of our actual state. It will be our business, also, to correct some false impressions which have obtained respecting New South Wales; impressions which are equally false and equally dangerous, whether they be derived from the exaggerated praise of our over-zealous friends, or the indiscriminate censures of our prejudiced calumniators. New South Wales is neither Elysium nor Pandemonium, though really some would make us think it possessed the charms of the one, and others that it was rank with the horrors of the other. We shall strive to give an