Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/57

 which behaved so well to me, was the one which subsequently attacked and murdered the cedar sawyers on their first migration to the Nambucca river.

We had been rising from the last stream along a brushy, narrow ridge, with dense brushy hollows on both sides of us, and we now came to a very steep ascent. Although my pack-horse had a very light load, we were here obliged to take it off, and distribute it among the blacks, who carried their burdens on their heads; and dismounting ourselves, we toiled up to the summit, leading the horses after us. I now perceived I was on a high range, dividing the last crossed stream from the deep, narrow valley of another stream, which lay at my feet enveloped in brush. Beyond this was an abrupt range of much greater altitude than the one I was upon, rising in very steep pointed summits, and densely wooded all over;whilst, between each of its narrow, razor-backed spurs, deep gullies, and chasms full of brush, dived down into the glen below. Beyond this range I could distinguish two other chains of mountains, of still greater elevation, and running parallel to it, in an east and west direction; the 'most distant being the elevated level ridge of mountains already noticed, and which evidently divided the Bellengen river from the Clarence river. We descended the range we were on by a steep, grassy slope, which became invaded by the brush as we got lower down; and we now arrived at the last stream which flows to the Nambucca. Here we had great trouble in crossing,