the colony.

The bulk of the population is composed of settlers, who have
farms in the neighbourhood, and of their servants. There are
besides a few inferior traders, publicans and artificers. The
town contains in the whole about six hundred souls.

The Hawkesbury here is of considerable size, and navigable for
vessels of one hundred tons burden, for about four miles above
the town. A little higher up, it is joined by, or rather is
called the Nepean river, and has several shallows; but with the
help of two or three ferries, it might still be rendered
navigable for boats of twelve or fifteen tons burden, for about
twenty miles further. This substitution of water for land
carriage, would be of great advantage to the numerous settlers
who inhabit its highly fertile banks, and would also considerably
promote the extension of agriculture throughout the adjacent
districts.

Following the sinuosities of the river the distance of Windsor
from the sea is about one hundred and forty miles; whereas in a
straight line it is not more than thirty-five. The rise of the
tide is about four feet, and the water is fresh for forty miles
below the town.

Land is about ten per cent. higher than at Parramatta, and is
advancing rapidly in price. This circumstance is chiefly
attributable to the small quantity of land that is to be had
perfectly free from the reach of the inundations, to which the
Hawkesbury is so frequently subject. These inundations often rise
seventy or eighty feet above low water mark; and in the instance
of what is still emphatically termed "the great flood," attained
an elevation of ninety-three feet. The chaos of confusion and
distress that presents itself on these occasions, cannot be
easily conceived by any one who has not been a witness of its
horrors. An immense expanse of water, of which the eye cannot in
many directions discover the limits, every where interspersed
with growing timber, and crowded with poultry, pigs, horses,
cattle, stacks and houses, having frequently men, women, and
children, clinging to them for protection, and shrieking out in
an agony of despair for assistance:--such are the principal
objects by which these scenes of death and devastation are
characterized.

These inundations are not periodical, but they most generally
happen in the month of March. Within the last two years there
have been no fewer than four of them, one of which was nearly as
high as the great flood. In the six years