"The finest terra’s, lawns and grottos, with distinct plantations of the tallest and most stately trees I ever saw in any nobleman’s ground in England, cannot excel in beauty those wh. Nature now presented to our view. The singing of various birds among the trees, and the flight of the numerous parraqets, lorraquets, cockatoos, and maccaws, made all around appear like an enchantment; the stupendous rocks from the summit of the hills and down to the very water’s edge hang’g over in a most awful way from above, and form’g the most commodious quays by the water, beggard all description." [Arthur Bowes Smyth’s journal entry for January 26, 1788, as his transport Lady Penrhyn glided up the harbour into what would one day be called Sydney. From The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes.]
I’m in Australia for a few weeks; rough notes to follow.
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