the
excellence of its situation alone, must become a place of
considerable importance.

The views from the heights of the town are bold, varied and
beautiful. The strange irregular appearance of the town itself,
the numerous coves and islets both above and below it, the
towering forests and projecting rocks, combined with the infinite
diversity of hill and dale on each side of the harbour, form
altogether a coup d'oeil, of which it may be safely asserted that
few towns can boast a parallel.

The neighbouring scenery is still more diversified and
romantic, particularly the different prospects which open upon
you from the hills on the south head road, immediately contiguous
to the town. Looking towards the coast you behold at one glance
the greater part of the numerous bays and islands which lie
between the town and the heads, with the succession of barren,
but bold and commanding hills, that bound the harbour, and are
abruptly terminated by the water. Further north, the eye ranges
over the long chain of lofty rugged cliffs that stretch away in
the direction of the coal river, and distinctly mark the bearing
of the coast, until they are lost in the dimness of vision.
Wheeling round to the south you behold at the distance of seven
or eight miles, that spacious though less eligible harbour,
called "Botany Bay," from the prodigious variety of new plants
which Sir Joseph Banks found in its vicinity, when it was first
discovered and surveyed by Captain Cook. To the southward again
of this magnificent sheet of water, where it will be recollected
it was the original intention, though afterwards judiciously
abandoned, to found the capital of this colony, you behold the
high bluff range of hills that stretch away towards the five
islands, and likewise indicate the trending of the coast in that
direction.

If you afterwards suddenly face about to the westward, you see
before you one vast forest, uninterrupted except by the
cultivated openings which have been made by the axe on the
summits of some of the loftiest hills, and which tend
considerably to diminish those melancholy sensations its gloomy
monotony would otherwise inspire. The innumerable undulations in
this vast expanse of forest, forcibly remind you of the ocean
when convulsed by tempests; save that the billows of the one
slumber in a fixed and leaden stillness, and want that motion
which constitutes the diversity, beauty, and sublimity of the
other. Continuing th