Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/122

 about eleven feet of water on it; its reaches are longer and wider than those of any other river on the coast of Australia, and are navigable for large steamers from Sydney to a considerable distance up the river; some craft can ascend the Clarence as far as ninety miles from its mouth. A few miles above the entrance of this river is a large island, containing upwards of fifteen hundred acres, and which, when first discovered, abounded in emus. Many other smaller islands occur higher up the river. The brushes near the mouth of the Clarence are interspersed with the beautiful variety of pine I have already described, and which I found not to extend south of Coohalli creek, near the Nambucca river. He country available for grazing at this river is of excellent quality, and much more extensive than that at the MacLeay; for the country bordering on the Clarence and its tributaries is generally level, and the mountains do not attain any great elevation, except at the sources of the streams.

A great number of squatters have formed stations at the Clarence river. The communication between the table land along the main range, and the navigable estuary of the Clarence, is naturally much less difficult than at Port Macquarie; wool-drays can descend from the fine district, called Beardy Plains, (that portion of table land opposite the sources of the Clarence) with comparative ease, to that part of the river where the vessels take in cargo for Sydney.