Various authors

“ The hills were in general so gradual in their ascent, that where those of a rougher character were seen, they only gave a certain character to the country, that destroyed the dull feeling of the mind which a mere flat country engenders in many. ”

“ From the double peaked mountain to the coast, is only about thirty miles; we made first seventeen miles to the S.W. 1⁄2 W., then sixteen or eighteen miles to the south. To attempt to say anything of the soil for a considerable distance, except that which we actually trode upon, and the open valleys and swamps, would be absurd; the underwood was so thick, that it was, in many places, with the greatest difficulty that we could get on, and occasionally we were obliged to make a road with our hatchet. ”

“ In these valleys there is a vast quantity of feed for stock, but not sheep: coarse grass herbage and brush—they are dry enough in summer to pass over—some of them are several miles in length, and one or two broad. Within five miles of the sea, you come to sand hills, which are as difficult to pass over as the woods, for the horses, being extremely broken ”

“ The forest trees are, the mahogany, the red and white gum. On the higher hills, and on the poor lands, the former predominated,—on the lower lands, and sides of the hills, where good land was, the latter; there were the usual trees, such as the banksia, tea tree, &c., in this tract ”

“ Anne's Hill in two days, travelling only about twenty miles. These hills are exceedingly rugged, but on them the finest timber, known in the colony by the name of mahogany; in some of the valleys tolerably good soil, of a light hazel colour, with an abundance of herbage, fit for cattle on their way from a good interior country to the coast ”