On approaching Sydney, a stranger cannot fail of being delighted with his first glance at the noble estuary which spreads before and around him.  After sailing along a coastline of cliffs some 200 feet in height, and in general effect and outline not unlike those of Dover, he observes an apparent breach in the sea-wall, forming two abrupt headlands, and ere he has time to speculate upon the cause of that fancied ruin, his ship glides between the wave-worn cliffs into the magnificent harbour of Port Jackson.  The view which solicits the eye of the sea-wearied voyager as he proceeds up the harbour, is indeed well calculated to excite a feeling of mingled admiration and delight—­the security and capacity of the port—­its many snug coves and quiet islets with their sloping shores, sleeping upon the silver tide—­pretty white cottages and many English-looking villas peeping out here and there from their surrounding shrubberies, and the whole canopied by a sky of ethereal blue, present a picture which must at once enchant the most fastidious observer.

We found lying in the famous cove of Sydney, H.M.S.  Alligator and Britomart, commanded by Captain Sir Gordon Bremer, and Lieutenant (now Captain) Owen Stanley, going to form a settlement at Port Essington on the North coast; an expedition of much interest, particularly to us, from having some old shipmates engaged in it.

CONTRAST WITH SOUTH AMERICA.

On first arriving at Sydney from South America, I was much struck with the strange contrast its extensive and at the same time youthful appearance presented to the decrepit and decaying aspect of the cities on that continent.  We had then been visiting colonies and settlements founded centuries ago, by a nation at that time almost supreme in European influence, and planted with every circumstance of apparent advantage upon the shores of a fertile and luxurious continent given by the immortal Genoese to the crown of Spain.  We had found them distracted by internal commotions, disgraced by ignorance, debased by superstition, and defiled by slavery.

COLONISATION.

In Sydney we beheld with wonder what scarce half a century had sufficed to effect; for where almost within the memory of man the savage ranged the desert wastes and trackless forests, a noble city has sprung as though by magic from the ground, which will ever serve both as a monument of English enterprise, and as a beacon from whence the light of Christian civilisation shall spread through the dark and gloomy recesses of ignorance and guilt.  The true history of our Australian possessions; the causes which have led to their settlement; the means by which they have been established; the circumstances by which they have been influenced; and the rapid, nay, unexampled prosperity to which they have attained; present some of the most curious and most important laws of colonisation to our notice.  Without attempting so far to deviate from my present