Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, volume 2.djvu/124

 A period of twenty-five years thus passed away without any information being gained as to the breadth of the Blue Mountain-ranges westerly, or the aspect of the country beyond them. At length, in 1813, the colonists were visited by a most distressing season of drought, in which the country, from the sea-coast to the base of the hills, was burnt up—the secondary water-courses entirely failed, and the cattle of the colonists, hemmed in on all sides, died in great numbers for want of pasturage. Out of evil how often does good arise!—for these most distressing circumstances were the means of opening the country, and saving the colonists. Three enterprising individuals, Messrs. Blaxland, Wentworth, and Lawson, were induced, at this period, to unite and employ their best exertions and experience, in making one other attempt to penetrate through that chain of mountains, which had been considered, for so many years, an impregnable barrier. With this determination they ascended the mountains near the Grose River (a tributary to the Hawkesbury), and by keeping steadily in view, that, which no preceding explorer had ever once thought of, namely, the fall of the waters into the Warragumba on the one side, and into the Grose on the other, they maintained their position on a main range, which although, from its intricate windings, it oftentimes obliged them to follow a course opposite to that which they had intended to pursue, nevertheless enabled them, by adhering to it closely, eventually to penetrate to a distance of twenty-five geographical miles, due west, from the Nepean River, to a terminating point in those mountains. After having traversed a bleak and dreary waste, by a route exceeding fifty miles in length, it may be readily conceived with what joy these laborious travellers beheld, from the rugged brow of this precipice, a grassy, well-watered vale, which appeared to extend some miles to the westward,—a failure of provisions, however, obliged the party to retrace their steps back to the colony. On this occasion, their example being followed up by Mr. W. Evans, Assistant Surveyor, by order of the Government, that fine pastoral country, the Downs of Bathurst, and the rivers Macquarie and Lachlan, were shortly afterwards discovered. During the following year (1814) a practicable line of road was constructed, by convict labour, over mountain-ridges, which in some parts have been since ascertained to be three thousand four hundred feet above the level of the sea; and thus was thrown open that extensive range of sheep and cattle pasturage, which has since been of such immense value to the colony.

The encouraging results which attended this enterprise, naturally suggested the propriety of sending an expedition to explore the newly-discovered streams, which, although they were nearly eighty miles asunder at the points where they were first met, it was nevertheless expected would be found to unite in the interior, and