Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/118

 stopped here nearly an hour. The situation of Gloucester is very picturesque. An extensive flat has been cleared of trees, divided into paddocks, and brought under cultivation, and now presented the appearance of a wide yellow plain, from the dry wheat stubble, and ripened maize which covered it. On the verge of the flat, an abrupt range of densely wooded hills, called "the Buckets," rose to an altitude of about 1200 feet above the plain, their summits being crowned by precipitous masses of naked rock of fantastic contour, which reminded me of some of the castled crags of the Rhine. After leaving Gloucester, the country continued to be tolerably grassy, but the soil was very inferior to what I had passed over to the northward of that station. I next passed a horse station belonging to the Company, and rode through a large troop of mares and foals feeding in a flat. The range dividing the basin of the Manning, from the valley of the Karuah river, was next crossed by the track. There were several sheep-stations on the other side, but the country seemed to be more suitable for cattle than sheep. At one of these sheep-stations there were several Spanish shepherds. I next passed Talligarra, the Company's chief sheep-station, where there are some substantial buildings and stores; and in the evening arrived at the village of Stroud, the head-quarters of the Company, where I was hospitably entertained by Mr. White, the superintendent of stock.