Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/273

 AND EXPLORATION. 167: sion and an ocean voyage. But a little consideration will be 1788-92 enoQgli to show that any snch conclusion would be unjust to the founder of the colony. If his performances will not bear comparison with those of his more distinguished suc- cessors in the same fields it is because the difficulties in his Difficulties path were, after all, as great in their way as any that others Lpioren. had to contend with. We have only to realise the position in which he was placed in order to see that, under the condi- tions he had to contend against, it was scarcely possible that the work of exploration could be attended with any marked success. The only means by which it could be ac- complished at that time was by boats ; for the moment that an exploring party set out to face the bush their progress was checked at every step. They took no horses either to no hor«?». ride or to carry provisions ; consequently every man in the party had to walk, carrying his own supplies as well as his arms and ammunition ; and as no one could possibly carry more than enough to supply him for eight or ten days, the limits of their exploring powers were very soon reached. If we add to all this the extreme fatigue of travelling in such a manner, without any means of fording a river or even a creek, without even a tent to sleep in at night, and No tents. with the constant apprehension of an attack from the natives, it will be seen that exploration under such circumstances was all but hopeless. But for the discovery of the Hawkesbury, it would hardly gj**^*"^ ^ have been possible to have made any way at all into the surrounding country. It was almost equivalent to the making of a road. Followed as it was shortly 9»fterwards by the discovery of the Nepean, it enabled Phillip to gain some insight into the character of the country inland. Had the work of exploration been understood in his days, the advantage thus gained might certainly have been turned to better account. A dep6t, for instance, might have been Noidepdts. established at the foot of Richmond Hill, which would then have become a basis for further operations ; and from that point excursions might have been made to the north-west Digitized by Google