Which I ever undertook in the country I am describing was in July 1791, when Mr. Dawes and myself went in search of a large river which was said to exist a few miles to the southward of Rose Hill. We went to the place described, and found this second Nile or Ganges to be nothing but a saltwater creek communicating with Botany Bay, on whose banks we passed a miserable night from want of a drop of water to quench our thirst, for as we believed that we were going to a river we thought it needless to march with full canteens.
On this expedition we carried with us a thermometer which (in unison with our feelings) shewed so extraordinary a degree of cold for the latitude of the place that I think myself bound to transcribe it.
Monday, 18th July 1791. The sun arose in unclouded splendor and presented to our sight a novel and picturesque view. The contiguous country as white as if covered with snow, contrasted with the foliage of trees flourishing in the verdure of tropical luxuriancy*. Even the exhalation which steamed from the lake beneath contributed to heighten the beauty of the scene. Wind SSW. Thermorneter at sunrise 25degrees. The following night was still colder. At sunset the thermometer stood at 45 degrees; at a quarter before four in the morning, it was at 26degrees; at a quarter before six at 24 degrees; at a quarter before seven, at 23 degrees; at seven o'clock, 22.7 degrees; at sunrise, 23 degrees, after which it continued gradually to mount, and between one and two o'clock, stood at 59.6 degrees in the shade. Wind SSW. The horizon perfectly clear all day, not the smallest speck to be seen. Nothing but demonstration could have convinced me that so severe a degree of cold ever existed in this low latitude. Drops of water on a tin pot, not altogether out of the influence of the fire, were frozen into solid ice in less than twelve minutes. Part of a leg of kangaroo which we had roasted for supper was frozen quite hard, all the juices of it being converted into ice. On those ponds which were near the surface of the earth, the covering of ice was very thick; but on those which were lower down it was found to be less so, in proportion to their depression; and wherever the water was twelve feet below the surface (which happened to be the case close to us) it was uncongealed. It remains to be observed that the cold of both these nights, at Rose Hill and Sydney, was judged to be greater than had ever before been felt.
[*All the trees of New South Wales, may I apprehend, be termed evergreen. For after such weather as this journal records, I did not observe either that the leaves had dropped off, or that they had assumed that sickly autumnal tint, which marks English trees in corresponding circumstances.]
CHAPTER XV.
Transactions of the Colony to the end of November, 1791.
The extreme dryness of the preceding summer has been noticed. It had operated so far in the beginning of June that we dreaded a want of water for common consumption most of the little reservoirs in the neighbourhood of Sydney being dried up. The small stream near the town was so nearly exhausted (being only the drain of a morass) that a ship could not have watered at it, and the 'Supply' was preparing to sink casks in a swamp when rain fell and banished our apprehensions.
June, 1791. On the second instant, the name of the settlement, at the head of the harbour (Rose Hill) was changed, by order of the governor, to that of Parramatta, the native name of it. As Rose Hill has, however, occurred so often in this book, I beg leave, to avoid confusion, still to continue the appellation in all future mention of it.