22nd.--I commenced my return, and followed a new road called Lockyer's
Line, along which the country is rather more hilly and picturesque.
This was a long day's ride; and the house where I wished to sleep was
some way off the road, and not easily found. I met on this occasion,
and indeed on all others, a very general and ready civility among the
lower orders, which, when one considers what they are, and what they
have been, would scarcely have been expected. The farm where I passed
the night, was owned by two young men who had only lately come out, and
were beginning a settler's life. The total want of almost every
comfort was not attractive; but future and certain prosperity was
before their eyes, and that not far distant.
The next day we passed through large tracts of country in flames,
volumes of smoke sweeping across the road. Before noon we joined our
former road, and ascended Mount Victoria. I slept at the Weatherboard,
and before dark took another walk to the amphitheatre. On the road to
Sydney I spent a very pleasant evening with Captain King at Dunheved;
and thus ended my little excursion in the colony of New South Wales.
Before arriving here the three things which interested me most
were--the state of society amongst the higher classes, the condition of
the convicts, and the degree of attraction sufficient to induce persons
to emigrate. Of course, after so very short a visit, one's opinion is
worth scarcely anything; but it is as difficult not to form some
opinion, as it is to form a correct judgment. On the whole, from what
I heard, more than from what I saw, I was disappointed in the state of
society. The whole community is rancorously divided into parties on
almost every subject. Among those who, from their station in life,
ought to be the best, many live in such open profligacy that
respectable people cannot associate with them. There is much jealousy
between the children of the rich emancipist and the free settlers, the
former being pleased to consider honest men as interlopers. The whole
population, poor and rich, are bent on acquiring wealth: amongst the
higher orders, wool and sheep-grazing form the constant subject of
conversation. There are many serious drawbacks to the comforts of a
family, the chief of which, perhaps, is being surrounded by convict
servants. How thoroughly odious to every feeling, to be waited on by a
man who the day before, perhaps, was flogged, from your representation,
for some trifling misdemeanor. The female servants are of course, much
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