t entrance, and did not examine it. While he was at
breakfast, the look-out man at the mast-head--a man named
Jackson--reported that he saw the entrance to what seemed a good
anchorage; and so the captain, half in derision, named it "Port
Jackson." The Heads seemed to me only about four hundred feet apart
from each other, the North Head somewhat overlapping the South. The
rocks appear to have broken off abruptly, and stand up perpendicularly
over against each other, about three hundred feet high, leaving a
chasm or passage between them which forms the entrance to Port
Jackson. When the Pacific rolls in full force against the Heads, the
waves break with great violence on the cliffs, and the spray is flung
right over the lighthouse on the South Head. Now that the sea has gone
somewhat down, the waves are not so furious, and yet the dash of the
spray half-way up the perpendicular cliffs is a grand sight.

Once inside the Heads, the water becomes almost perfectly calm; the
scenery suddenly changes; the cliffs subside into a prettily-wooded
country, undulating and sloping gently to the water's edge.
Immediately within the entrance, on the south side, is a pretty little
village--the pilot station in Watson's Bay. After a few minutes' more
steaming, the ship rounds a corner, the open sea is quite shut out
from view, and neither Heads nor pilot station are to be seen.

My attention is next drawn to a charming view on the north shore--a
delicious little inlet, beautifully wooded, and surrounded by a
background of hills, rising gradually to their highest height behind
the centre of the little bay. There, right in amongst the bright green
trees, I observe a gem of a house, with a broad terrace in front, and
steps leading down to the clear blue water. A few minutes more, and we
have lost sight of the charming nook, having rounded the headland of
the inlet--a rocky promontory covered with ferns and mosses.

But our attention is soon absorbed by other beauties of the scene.
Before us lies a lovely island prettily wooded, with some three or
four fine mansions and their green lawns sloping down to the water's
edge; while on the left, the hills are constantly varying in aspect as
we steam along. At length, some seven miles up Port Jackson, the
spires and towers and buildings of Sydney come into sight; at first
Wooloomooloo, and then in ten minutes more, on rounding another point,
we find ourselves in Sydney Cove, alongside the wharf.