"Bennett, an English medical practitioner and naturalist, gives an account of excursions from Sydney to the Yass Plains and surrounding country in 1832-33. He writes mainly for the botanist, zoologist and anthropologist, and describes in detail the fauna, flora and insect life he encountered. His response to both the Australian landscape and the Aborigines is markedly Eurocentric; he finds the former sombre and incapable of yielding any emotions of 'pleasurable gratification' for the emigrant, while he sees little to admire in Aboriginal culture. His narrative also includes comments on the convicts and their treatment, and on the roads and methods of transport" (Walsh and Hooton 19).
Source
Walsh, Kay and Joy Hooton. Australian Autobiographical Narratives : An Annotated Bibliography. Canberra : Australian Scholarly Editions Centre, University College, ADFA and National Library of Australia, 1993.
19th-Century Australian Travel Writing
George Bennett (1804–1893), medical practitioner and naturalist, details his global tour in the two-volume travel narrative Wanderings in New South Wales, Batavia, Pedir Coast, Singapore, and China. An adaptation of his journal during his travel from 1832-34, Bennett’s book describes the landscape of Australia and his feelings as a potential new emigrant (Bennett returned in Australia in 1836, where he remained for the rest of his life). The preface states that Bennett travelled during periods of the year best calculated for observations in natural history, and these accounts of the natural environment are accompanied with incidences that Bennett thought worthy of notice. Bennett provides a detailed illustration of Sydney—such as the flora, fruits, the theatre, and convicts—as well as the journey from Sydney to the Blue Mountains where he encountered the Aboriginal population, native fauna and flora, and dissected a kangaroo. As a naturalist, Bennett focussed on the uniqueness of plants, the different types of marsupials, as well as the diseases that affect Aborigines and native animals. Both volumes in the Dixson Reading Room in the Mitchell Library are inscribed by Bennett, in his later years. Bennett later wrote Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia (1860).