nts may be, the riches of a country are
based upon more important pursuits than mining or manufactures, and in
those fundamental sources of wealth,--in agriculture and its kindred
occupations,--the county of Northumberland stands foremost in New South
Wales. Not even the rich valleys of the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers can
excel in fruitfulness or in cultivation that of Hunter's River. Wheat
and maize are among the chief productions of this fine agricultural
district, of which Maitland is the principal town. Potatoes, tobacco,
cheese, and butter are also forwarded to Sydney for sale from this
highly favoured spot. Were it not for the fearful floods to which, in
common with many other rivers in the colony, Hunter's River is liable,
altogether this valley, and the _arms_, or branch valleys, which lead
into it, might well be esteemed among the finest situations in the
world; and now that this liability is well known, and may be provided
against, the objections arising on this score are greatly diminished.
Still, a flood rising suddenly forty or sixty feet, and pouring with
headlong fury down the peaceful cultivated valleys, is a just object of
dread, and a tremendous visitation.

We cannot leave the subject of this rich and beautiful district,
abounding in inhabitants and rural wealth, without borrowing the words
of the Bishop of Australia in describing its recent increase in those
means of grace and hopes of glory, which are, after all, the only true
riches. In 1833, when this neighbourhood was visited, "there was but one
clergyman in the entire tract of country, extending from the mouth of
the Hunter to its source, and the great and growing population on its
banks would have appeared, (if we could have forgotten the ability of
God to raise up children to himself, and to provide them with spiritual
food even from the stones of the desert,) to be abandoned to inevitable
destitution, both they and their children. But it has pleased the
Almighty to cause the prospect to brighten, and now (in 1839) there will
be seven clergymen dispensing the pure ordinances and inculcating the
salutary principles of the Church."[136]

[136] Bishop of Australia's Letter to the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel, dated September 12th, 1839.

It would be at once wasting time and presuming upon the reader's
patience to attempt to describe particularly the remaining counties
of New South Wales, which are yet but imperfectly known and