I have now, my dear Bowling and Ann, brought you to the end of my journey, but I cannot close this long letter without adding a little more. I tell Hawkins that had it been possible to have gone any further (as he was always famous for moving us about) we should have done it, but beyond here there is no road. Mother bore the fatigue uncommonly well. A journey such as I have described of eighteen days was, at her age, a very great undertaking, but she has recovered from it, and is better than I am, for I am very thin and not very strong. Our children are all well and happy.
On this side of the river the land is chiefly belonging to Government; on the opposite side to the settlers, or, more properly speaking, grants to gentlemen, who as yet have only huts there for the stock-keepers to reside in, and they pay only occasional visits.
The Governor is coming in the spring, when great improvements are expected. Two hundred men are to be employed on the roads to make them passable, and a plan for a town will be laid out, and if a chaplain and surgeon are sent we shall have a little society. They are beginning to build a very good brick house for us, which Sir Thomas, on account of our family, has consented shall be of two storeys. It will be some time before it is ready for us, but when we get in we shall be very comfortable. The one we now occupy contains three rooms and a pantry, all brick floors. The front door opens into the sitting room, immediately opposite is the back door, between the two is a ladder which leads into a loft, to which, as yet, there is no trap door. Our bedrooms, likewise, lead from the room, and where we all at present sleep is open to the roof, which is shingled slips of wood, which at a little distance look like slates. Mr. Lawson, the commandant, who resides in the Government House, has ordered two additional rooms to be added, and in another month I hope to be able to sleep in them. We shall then be much more comfortable, for though in England this would be considered but a homely residence, here it is thought a very good one.
We are allowed certain rations for six months, of meat, wheat, tea and sugar, sufficient for our family and servants. In respect of the situation10, the nominal value of it is but five shillings a day, with rations for Hawkins and servant, but there are many advantages attached to it sufficient to supply the wants of our family and prevent our wanting any ready money for house-keeping. We live very well, get excellent fish, and the wild ducks are delicious. We are supplied with vegetables from the Government garden, and we are allowed the use of two cows, which, with two we have of our own, give us butter and milk. You must not judge of the produce of four cows here by what they give in England, for, being naturally wild, and the calves never weaned from them for fear they should not thrive so well, they can only be milked once a day. I am desired by Eliza and Mary to tell their cousin Ann they churned the first butter. The Government carts bring us a good supply of firewood, so that, altogether, my dear Ann, we have no reason to complain of our present situation, if retirement and seclusion from the world is not considered a trouble, which I am happy to say it is not. I often wish we could have beer and yeast to make bread, for not having the means of properly dressing our wheat, our bread is not English bread. Our candles we make ourselves.
Before I entirely take leave of the mountains I must tell you that the tree which we chained at the back of the last dray when descending the big hill was forty-eight feet long, and at the extremity, on the boughs, were seated three men. By this necessary precaution you will be enabled to judge better than I have described it to you the steepness and hazard for luggage to descend. Till bridges are thrown over the river, and the road much improved there can be little communication with this country, but that is to be done after Sir Thomas has crossed the mountains". The land on this side is so good for rearing cattle that nearly the whole consumption of the colony depends upon it, and many who cannot obtain land here are glad to send their cattle. In addition to our cavalcade, we had thirty-four head, which belonged to our landlord, on the following terms: — 0n third of the produce to be ours, to be divided at the end of seven years. We have had an increase of one calf since we have been here. Although we have not got our own land marked out for us yet, Hawkins has selected his spot, and applied for it, still until then we can have the use of as much as we want for any cattle we may possess.
I think there can be no doubt but we shall do well, and in a few years prosper; but I would never persuade anyone with a large family as mine and slender means as we possessed, to leave England, for not one in a thousand could expect to be as fortunate as we have been, for without the appointment we have, and the assistance of the Government to bring us here, 'we never could have come, or without it we must have been subject to many hardships and privations that we have never felt. But I do wish that a few respectable families, who on their arrival here would be in possession of a few hundreds or one thousand pounds, would come, for with such means they must do well -there can be nothing to prevent it.
The Commandant's eldest son took Tom last week to visit their men and cattle. They returned with a bullock to kill and put in store. Yesterday they again left us to be absent a week. He has huts on different parts of their land where their men reside who take care of their stock; at these huts they will rest at night, and he desired me to give his love to his cousin Tom and to ask him how he would like to sleep before a large fire on a sheep-skin laid on bark, and in the day to go into the woods and hunt the kangaroos. He has gone away very happy, mounted on a large horse, accompanied by young Lawson and a man with seven or eight dogs, and he promised to bring home a kangaroo, an emu and a wild turkey. We must encourage him in this kind of life, for in a few years I hope he will be of great service to us.
The greatest drawback in this country are the snakes, which are so extremely venomous that no person who has been bitten has been known to live many moments. They will not attack you unless molested. The only one I have seen was brought home by Tom the other day. It rose to bite the dog that barked at it, and the man killed it. Tom and the children are all well; George is the most delicate; little Edward, the plaything of our leisure moments, and the darling of all. He has ever been a treasured babe from an idea that he was deprived of those little comforts attached to infants; he is a most healthy and lovely child, and it will be worthy of remark that, born in England, his first birthday was spent at Bathurst, the day on which his father took on himself the duties of commissariat. No child so young, I should think, ever travelled so far.
I hope, my dear friend, I have not wearied you in the perusal of this long letter, which has not been written without many interruptions, but I cannot undertake to correct its errors. And now, and forever, may God bless you all.
Bathurst is 137 miles from Sydney, we were eighteen days on the road.
