9. State of the Settlement.—Twelve years after the foundation of the colony, its population amounted to between six and seven thousand persons. These were all settled near Sydney, which was a straggling town with one main street 200 feet wide, running up the valley from Sydney Cove, while on the slopes at either side the huts of the convicts were stationed far apart and each in a fenced-in plot of ground. On the little hills overlooking the cove, a number of big, bare, stone buildings were the Government quarters and barracks for the soldiers.
Attempts had been made to penetrate to the west, though without success. The rugged chain of the Blue Mountains was an impassable barrier. Seventy miles north of Sydney a fine river—the Hunter—had been discovered by Lieutenant Shortland while in pursuit of some runaway convicts who had stolen a boat. Signs of coal having been seen near its mouth, convicts were sent up to open mines, and, these proving successful, the town of Newcastle rapidly formed. In 1800 Governor Hunter returned to England on business, intending to come out again; but he was appointed to the command of a war-ship, and Lieutenant King was sent out to take his place.
CHAPTER III.
THE DISCOVERIES OF BASS AND FLINDERS.
1. No community has ever been more completely isolated than the first inhabitants of Sydney. They were three thousand miles away from the nearest white men; before them lay a great ocean, visited only at rare intervals, and, for the greater part, unexplored; behind them was an unknown continent, a vast, untrodden waste, in which they formed but a speck. They were almost completely shut out from intercourse with the civilised world, and few of them could have any hope of returning to their native land.