season. The settlers, however, procured a sufficient supply of good quality from a well, about thirty-seven feet deep, within a few yards of high-water mark.
In selecting a spot for a settlement on the northern coast of New Holland, it is not essentially necessary that there should be water; as abundance of it might be caught during the rainy season, and retained in tanks and reservoirs, which could very easily be constructed. In this respect, therefore, there is a decided advantage over those places where the fall of rain is neither plentiful nor certain. Here it is invariably so;—and it is surprising that this circumstance has never been taken into consideration.
The appearance of the land about Raffles Bay has been compared by some to the coast of Orissa in Bengal, and by others to Demerara;—the fact is that the land here is exceedingly low, as it almost invariably is on the north and north-west coast of New Holland, and in this respect it bears a resemblance to either of these places; but the similarity exists no farther, as here there is neither underwood nor jungles to create and foster effluvia inimical to health.
But low land in a tropical latitude, although generally considered unhealthy, is not invariably so—neither are high lands always healthy. Raffles Bay, although little above the level of the sea, is decidedly healthy; while Timor, not much nearer the equator, although in many places exceedingly lofty, is (as well as Batavia) celebrated as the grave of Europeans.
