where a servant of Governor Phillip's resides, who is charged
with the superintendence of the convicts and the cultivation of
the ground; to which charge he is very equal, and is of the
greatest service to the governor, as he has no other free person
whatever to overlook any piece of work carrying on by the
convicts. Near to this farm-house, there is a very good barn and
a granary. The convicts houses form a line at some distance, in
front of the barracks, with very good gardens before and behind
each house: indeed, the whole, joined to the pleasantness of the
situation, makes it a beautiful landscape.

In 1789, the quantity of ground sown with wheat here, and at
Sydney-Cove, was twenty-two acres; with barley, seventeen acres;
flax, Indian corn, and beans, three acres. The quantity of wheat
raised was two hundred bushels; of barley, sixty bushels; flax,
beans, and other seeds, ten bushels: the wheat is a fine full
grain. This year (1790) near one hundred acres will be cleared at
Rose-Hill, of which forty are to be sown with wheat.

After dinner, I accompanied the governor from Rose-Hill to
Prospect-Hill, which is about four miles distant: we walked
through a very pleasant tract of country, which, from the
distance the trees grew from each other, and the gentle hills and
dales, and rising slopes covered with grass, appeared like a vast
park. The soil from Rose-hill to Prospect-Hill is nearly alike,
being a loam and clay. It is remarkable, that although the
distance between these two places is only four miles, yet the
natives divide it into eight different districts.

Prospect-Hill is a small elevation, which commands a very
extensive prospect of the country to the southward: a range of
very high mountains bound the view to the westward: these
mountains, which lie nearly north and south, are about forty
miles from Prospect-Hill; and the intervening country is a thick
forest: the northernmost of these mountains is called
Richmond-Hill, at the foot of which the Hawkesbury takes its rise
from a bed of fresh water coal.

A river has been discovered by Captain Tench, of the marines,
which runs near the foot of Lansdown-Hills; its direction appears
to be north and south, but how far it runs to the southward
cannot be ascertained, though there is great reason to suppose it
runs a considerable way, as it does not empty itself into
Botany-Bay, it therefore appears probable that it may come into
the sea about Long-Nose, or C