derive any benefit from it.

Native green currants grow wildly, and make an uncommonly fine
jelly. A wild cherry is also found in the settlement, growing
with the stone on the outside, of a red colour, but nearly unfit
to eat; as also a wild fig, equally nauseous, full of seed, but
eaten by the natives. Strawberries grow to fine perfection; but
no English currant, gooseberry, or cherry trees, are to be seen
in the country: Some were brought from England by Captain Kent,
of the royal navy, and were in a flourishing state, with some
gingers, from Rio de Janeiro, when a fire happened upon that
gentleman's farm, and consumed the whole, which has been a very
great loss to the colony. Pines, far exceeding in size those of
England, are now growing there, but they are scarce; melons, on
the contrary, are very large and plentiful. Botany Bay greens are
procured in abundance; they much resemble sage in appearance, and
are esteemed a very good dish by the Europeans, but despised by
the natives. The bark of a tree called Carajong, which grows like
a willow, is manufactured into ropes of considerable strength. A
single nectarine tree only has been known to bear fruit, which is
in the Government Garden. Some coffee trees were planted by a
Frenchman (Mons. Declambe), but he unfortunately died before he
could bring them to perfection.

The shrubs and plants of this country are all evergreens, and
numbers of them are to be seen, covered with beautiful blossoms,
at all seasons of the year. Jeraniums flourish in such abundance,
that, in various parts of the settlement, they are made into
hedges, and are so thick as to be almost impenetrable; they are
always in leaf and flower, and emit an odour of the most fragrant