Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/85

 from the coast. I was the first to notice this range in my previous excursion. There is no other lateral range from the great main chain dividing the eastern and western waters, which, so far as I am aware, is equally conspicuous and important, and which extends so high and unbroken to the coast as this; and it is worthy of remark that it exactly coincides with the Nundawar range of Sir Thomas Mitchell, which is the only great lateral range thrown off on the opposite side of the main chain into the comparatively level country, that characterizes the interior to the westward of it.

When we had arrived on the summit of the range, dividing the Bellengen and Odalberree, I perceived that we were about sixteen miles distant from the sea. We now walked about a couple of miles eastward, along the crest of the range, and then turned down a spur leading to the Odalberree. This slope was covered with good grass, and variegated by the graceful tree-ferns, which formed a beautiful underwood to the large black-butt trees, predominating on these hills of micaceous talc. It was quite dark before we had descended into the brush of the valley, and as the blacks with me wished to ascertain whether there were any strange natives in our vicinity, Wongarini Paddy set up a most dismal and prolonged howl, being an exact imitation of the atrocious noise made by the Australian Dingo, or wild dog; for he knew that if there was a tribe in the neighbourhood, the dogs would begin barking on hearing the howl. We entered the brush at the subsidence