All that country, which remains in a state of nature uncultivated and uninclosed, is known among the inhabitants of the Australian colonies by the expressive name of _the Bush_.[3] It includes land and scenery of every description, and, likewise, no small variety of climate, as may be supposed from the great extent of the island of New Holland. Accordingly, without indulging in surmises concerning the yet unknown parts, it may be safely said, respecting those which have been more or less frequently visited and accurately explored, that the extremes of rural beauty and savage wildness of scenery,--smiling plains and barren deserts, snowy mountains and marshy fens, crowded forests and bare rocks, green pastures and sandy flats,--every possible variety, in short, of country and of aspect may be found in that boundless region which is all included under the general appellation of _the Bush_. To enter into a particular or regular description of this is clearly no less impossible than it would be tedious and unprofitable. And yet there are many descriptions of different portions of it given by eye-witnesses, many circumstances and natural curiosities belonging to it, and related to us upon the best authority, which are likely to please and interest the reader, who can see and adore God everywhere, and is capable of taking delight in tracing out and following the footsteps of Almighty Wisdom and Power, even in the wilderness and among the mountain-tops. It is proposed, therefore, to select a few of the pictures which have been drawn by the bold explorers of the Bush, so as to give a general idea of the character, the scenery, the dangers, and the privations of that portion of the Australian islands. And, having first become familiar and acquainted with these, we shall be better able to set a just value, when we turn to the state of the colonies and their inhabitants, upon that moral courage, that British perseverance and daring, which have, within the memory of man, changed so many square miles of bush into fertile and enclosed farms; which have raised a regular supply of food for many thousands of human beings out of what, sixty years ago, was, comparatively speaking, a silent and uninhabited waste. When the troops and convicts, who formed the first colony in New South Wales, landed at Port Jackson, the inlet on which the town of Sydney is now situated, "Every man stepped from the boat literally into a wood. Parties of people were everywhere heard and seen variously employed; some in clearing ground for the different encampments; others in pitching tents, or bringing up such stores as were more immediately wanted; and the spot, which had so lately been the abode of silence and tranquillity, was now changed to that of noise, clamour, and confusion."[4]