of the sick passing frequently backwards and forwards from the
hospital to the burying-ground with the miserable victims of the night.
Every exertion was made to get up the portable hospital; but, although we
were informed that it had been put up in London in a very few hours, we
did not complete it until the 7th, when it was instantly filled with
patients. On the 13th, there were four hundred and eighty-eight persons
under medical treatment at and about the hospital--a dreadful sick list!

Such of the convicts from the ships as were in a tolerable state of
health, both male and female, were sent up to Rose Hill, to be employed
in agriculture and other labours. A subaltern's detachment from the New
South Wales corps was at the same time sent up for the military duty of
that settlement in conjunction with the marine corps.

There also the governor in the course of the month laid down the lines of
a regular town. The principal street was marked out to extend one mile,
commencing near the landing-place, and running in a direction west, to
the foot of the rising ground named Rose Hill, and in which his
excellency purposed to erect a small house for his own residence whenever
he should visit that settlement. On each side of this street, whose width
was to be two hundred and five feet, huts were to be erected capable of
containing ten persons each, and at the distance of sixty feet one from
the other; and garden ground for each hut was allotted in the rear. As
the huts were to be built of such combustible materials as wattles and
plaster, and to be covered with thatch, the width of the street, and the
distance they were placed from each other, operated as an useful
precaution against fire; and by beginning on so wide a scale the
inhabitants of the town at some future day would possess their own
accommodations and comforts more readily, each upon his own allotment,
than if crowded into a small space.

While these works were going on at Rose Hill, the labouring convicts at
Sydney were employed in constructing a new brick storehouse, discharging
the transports, and forming a road from the town to the brick-kilns, for
the greater ease and expedition in bringing in bricks to the different
buildings.

Our stores now wore a more respectable appearance than they had done for
some time. In addition to the provisions put on board the transports in
England, Lieutenant Riou had forwarded by those ships four hundred
tierces of beef an