.

THE DISCOVERY OF BASS STRAIT.
The patching up of the Reliance not being surgeon's work, Bass, throbbing with energy, looked about him for some useful employment.

The whole of the New South Wales settlement at this time consisted of an oblong--the town of Sydney itself--on the south side of Port Jackson, a few sprawling paddocks on either side of the fang-like limbs of the harbour, some small pieces of cultivated land further west, at and beyond Parramatta, and a cultivable area to the north-west on the banks of the Hawkesbury River.

A sketch-map prepared by Hunter, in 1796, illustrates these very small early attempts of the settlement to spread.

They show up against the paper like a few specks of lettuce leaf upon a white table cloth.