Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/132

England, but I see by the latest Sydney papers that the settlers in the vicinity of Moreton Bay are now going to send their wool direct to England from that harbour. Notwithstanding the near approach of this district to the tropic, Moreton Bay being in about 27° south latitude, the climate is quite as salubrious as any other part of New South Wales, and the traveller in the "bush" there can sleep uncovered on the bare ground, ford rivers, ride on in wet clothes, and expose himself to every variation of temperature, with the same impunity as in the more southern parts of New South Wales. The great exposure, to which settlers and travellers in the Australian forests subject themselves, would, in any other clime, infallibly entail upon them fevers, rheumatism, affections of the lungs, &c.; yet their extraordinary exemption from these ill effects has become proverbial, and is the best argument that can be adduced in favour of the salubrity of those parts of New South Wales hitherto colonized. During my surveys at the MacLeay and Nambucca rivers, I found it often necessary to carry lines through extensive reedy swamps, in which I myself and my men were frequently immersed for hours together in stagnant water, which sometimes reached as high as our shoulders; yet although several of the men attached to my surveying party were evidently not of strong constitutions, none of them ever suffered any bad effects from these long continued soakings; they were generally rather pleased on those days