In the infancy of a distant settlement, the want of timber to
carry on the necessary buildings, will be allowed to be a very
great inconvenience; but we were here in the middle of a wood, in
which were trees from the size of a man's arm to twenty-eight
feet in circumference; but they were either so very crooked, so
rent, or so very rotten in the heart, that we could scarcely get
one sound or serviceable in a dozen; and what in our situation
was a very great misfortune, we had not as yet found one piece of
timber that would float in water. The wood is so exceedingly
heavy, that when a large tree was cut down, in order to clear a
piece of ground, it would sometimes take a party of men three or
four days to dispose of it, or move it from the place.

We arrived in this country in the end of January, 1788; the
weather was then very fine, though warm; the sea and land breezes
pretty regular, and Farenheit's thermometer was from 72° to
80°.

In February, the weather was sultry, with lightning, thunder,
and heavy rain; this sort of weather continued for a fortnight,
with few and very short intervals of fair weather; a flash of
lightning fell one night near the camp, and struck a tree near to
the post of a centinel, who was much hurt by it; the tree was
greatly rent, and there being at the foot of it a pen in which
were a sew pigs and sheep, they were all killed. Towards the
latter end of the month the weather was more settled, little
thunder, lightning, or rain, and the thermometer from 65° to
77°.