The country we had passed through we found tolerably plain, and little encumbered with underwood, except near the river side.

It is entirely covered with the same sorts of trees as grow near Sydney; and in some places grass springs up luxuriantly; other places are quite bare of it.

The soil is various: in many parts a stiff and clay, covered with small pebbles; in other places, of a soft loamy nature: but invariably, in every part near the river, it is a coarse sterile sand.

Our observations on it (particularly mine, from carrying the compass by which we steered) were not so numerous as might have been wished.

But, certainly, if the qualities of it be such as to deserve future cultivation, no impediment of surface, but that of cutting down and burning the trees, exists, to prevent its being tilled.
To this river the governor gave the name of Nepean.