We may add, by way of illustrating the regard paid to religious worship, even in Governor Macquarie's time, that Oxley's first expedition into the interior was permitted to set out from Bathurst on a Sunday! See his _Journal_, p. 3. Sunday, indeed, seems to have been a favourite starting-day with Mr. Oxley. See p. 37. [129] See Governor Macquarie's Report to Earl Bathurst, in Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. _Appendix_, No. 8, p. 447. [Illustration: NORTH VIEW OF SYDNEY.] CHAPTER IX. DESCRIPTION OF THE COLONY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. The next objects that demand our notice in Australia are the British colonies, and their present inhabitants. We have already given our attention to the Bush and its wild inhabitants, and the lengthened yet rapid process by which a lonely bay was converted, within the space of little more than forty years, into the flourishing capital of a rising country, has been fully traced. It now remains for the reader to be made acquainted with the natural features, civil divisions, and present state of the British Australian colonies,--especially of the oldest and most important of them, called New South Wales. Were we not already informed of the sad reality of things, we might be tempted to indulge in the daydreams of an explorer, and to join in the bright and hopeful visions of a most pleasing writer, respecting the blessings to arise out of a change of any district from wild bush to civilized colony. But dreams of this nature are little better than vanity, and so our explorer himself tells us at the end of his narrative:--"Whilst I stretched my weary length," says Captain Grey, "along, under the pleasant shade, I saw in fancy busy crowds throng the scenes I was then amongst. I pictured to myself the bleating sheep and lowing herds wandering over these fertile hills; and I chose the very spot on which my house should stand, surrounded with as fine an amphitheatre of verdant land as the eye of man had ever gazed on. The view was backed by the Victoria Range, whilst seaward you looked out through a romantic glen upon the great Indian ocean. I knew that within four or five years civilization would have followed my tracks, and that rude nature and the savage would no longer reign supreme over so fine a territory. Mr. Smith entered eagerly into my thoughts and views; together we built these castles in the air, trusting we should see happy results spring from our present sufferings and labours,--but within a few weeks from this day he died in the wilds he was exploring."[130] So little are the brilliant hopes inspired by discovery to be depended upon, nor less uncertain are the expectations which the colonization of a district awakens in our hearts. We cannot but look for good results, yet frequently are we doomed to disappointment. [130] See Grey's Travels in Western Australia, vol. ii. pp. 29, 30. For the particulars of Mr. Smith's death, see page 27.