The Birth of Sydney - Tim Flannery (ed.)

This is an entertaining and enlightening anthology of documents relating to the early days of Sydney - letters, journal entries, governmental decrees and later published works by Trollope and Twain. I liked the earlier stuff better, which offers a tantalising glimpse of the first settlers attempts to build a relationship with the Eora people before European expansion caused inevitable conflict and ultimate tragedy.

This is my favourite excerpt, describing a very early encounter between some whitefellas and the locals:

They wanted to know of what sex we were, which they explained by pointing to where it was distinguishable, as they took us for women, not having our beards grown. I ordered one of the people to undeceive them in this particular, when they made a great shout of admiration...