but farther back to the westward, you
can but now and then meet with as much as will quench the thirst
of a traveller: you may walk many miles, particularly in hot dry
summer weather, without meeting with as much as you may want for
drinking; this scarcity, though I do not pretend to any knowledge
in farming, I cannot help thinking, were water wanted only for
the use of a family, a vast difficulty, and an inconvenience not
to be got the better of, unless it were possible to get water by
sinking wells at every half mile distance.

There have been several attempts made by the gentlemen here,
who had little farms in the neighbourhood of Sydney Cove, to
raise grain of different kinds, for the purpose of feeding a few
pigs, goats, or poultry; but although their endeavours seemed for
a time to promise an ample reward, for the corn shot up very
quickly, yet it no sooner formed into ear, than the rats (with
which, as well as other vermin, this country is over-run)
destroyed the whole of their prospect: the Indian corn, which was
remarkably promising, was destroyed in a night; but I am sorry to
say, that such of the corn as had escaped the vermin,
notwithstanding its very promising appearance in the beginning,
turned out the most miserable empty straws I ever beheld; the
greatest part was mere straw of about two or two feet and an half
high, and the whole produce of a patch of an acre, when cut down,
could be carried in one hand.

Having, since our arrival, examined the error of the
time-keeper, we found it amount to 5' 20", or 1 deg. 20' of
longitude westerly, which made the error, in sailing the whole
circle, only 00 deg. 11' of longitude easterly; and as I had kept
Brockbank's watch going the whole time, I examined its error
also: I have already mentioned that it was, upon our arrival in
Table-Bay, 3 deg. 01' eastward; but upon our return to this
place, it was correct to the fraction of a second; so that
whatever its errors might have been during the voyage, it had
none upon our arrival. I did not keep the account of longitude by
it, but every day, when the sun could be seen, I determined our
place by the time-keeper; in doing which, I generally compared my
own watch with it, both before and after the altitudes were
taken, and carried it upon deck, the time-piece being fixed in
the cabin.

On the 6th of June, I was engaged in a party, with the
governor, on a visit to Broken-Bay, in order to examine some part
of that ha