Baron Charles von H�gel was an Austrian diplomat, army officer and courtier, and was celebrated across Europe, during the mid-nineteenth century, for his magnificent gardens and his cultivation of exotic plants, including the fashionable 'New Holland plants'.

In 1831 he set out from Europe on six years of travel. He spent most of 1834 in the young Australian colonies of Swan River, Van Diemen's land, Norfolk Island and New South Wales, observing the flora and collecting the seeds for his gardens. This is H�gel's journal of his travels on this continent. Translated into English for the first time and previously unpublished, it is an insightful record of the flora he found here and the people he met, interspersed with acute and generally unflattering commentaries on British administration, the transportation system, Sydney social life, missionary efforts, and the treatment of Aborigines.