I have visited nearly every part of the colony, and although each place has its peculiar charms yet I do not know a more pleasant excursion than that afforded weekly by that beautiful steamer, Sophie Jane

Leaving Sydney about the usual hour for retiring to rest, you are quickly installed into a very comfortable sleeping berth, and on awaking early next morning, find yourself in the port of Newcastle, celebrated for its abundant supply of coals, and as the estuary of the Hunter's River

On landing at Newcastle some painful emotions are excited to find it in a ruinous and nearly deserted state, although a finer situation for a town so far as regards health and scenery can scarcely be conceived. it is now almost wholly possessed by the Australian Agricultural Company and may be fairly estimated as their most valuable possession, coals being now extensively consumed as fuel and rapidly increasing in demand.

Departing from Newcastle, you glide rapidly into a spacious and beautiful bay, studded with numerous little islands, thickly wooded to the water's edge and abounding with pelicans, curlews, plovers, cormorants, ducks, teal, widgeons, sandilords and other birds, and the place may be seen where formerly prisoners were sent from Newcastle to burn lime, as a punishment for misconduct, and hence its name of Limeburners's Bay.

From hence you proceed swiftly and majestically along the verdant bank of Hunter's River, adorned with the most luxuriant vegetation, and studded occasionally with the primitive abodes of new settlers, and the temporary habitations of parties of the aborigines, whose grotesque and singular appearance add not a little to the extraordinary nature of the scene