Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/364

 to go on. However, I persuaded then. We kept on mountng and _ till night, when we found a river much more oonaiderable than the Nepemi, niiiniiig to the eaatwa-rd. The next day we followed the course of the li^cr in the direction of ueat, still aHceuding and descending the steepest Tuonnttuiis, between the ridges of which the river ran. Thus we passed anotheT' day, the country sitill a?* iheary a*» that we bad passed." On tliG following; day *'a high cascade" harred the way, mountains/' Ascenduig a ^teej) and lofty peak, even Barrallier xns compelled, l>y a sight of siniilai' rugged country ahead, to give up the task in which lie Jjad pene- trated farther than any other European, but of which the only gain was in a few niineral «pf!ciniens sent to England by King. There were ever Hoating idle riiniourH, such as that which (in the spurioos Harrington volume) attributed to the convict Wilson the credit of having overcome the moimtain barrier. Such stories lieing current al)oat certain men at the Hawkesbury, King tested their value by offering to reward them i when accompanied by an officer, they could pass the mountains. They received supplies, and went to make [>relinnnary observations. In twelve days they returned, after useless wandering. Another candidate for the honour of piercing the moun- tains appeared in 1805, in the person of Caley, who collected specimens for Bir Joseph Banks. King furnished him with **four of the strongest men in the colony." The Bpot he is supposed to have reached was about eighteen miles from the Hawkesl>ury. He had then gained a footing on the dividmg ridge where now the railway runs in the course discovered in 181B. A pile of stones was found by Wentworth and his couipanions in that year, and they attributed it to Bass. But wlien Governor Macquarie in 1815 proceeded on the road then made, he named the spot Caley 's Repulse, because the cairn was "supposed to have been placed by Mr. Caley." The explorer's started from the junction of the Grose with the Hawkesbury, "taking the nortli side of the Grose.*' As Caley **ad^anced he found the country extremely rugged and barren, and the valleys, of whieli many may with more propriety be called chasms, are for the most part impassable.", • • ** Alter incredible fatigue Caley and his party got to Mount Banks,
 * the sides of the river forming perpendicular rugged