Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, volume 2.djvu/127

 in a tract of country, where, from extreme sterility, neither water nor pasturage for the horses could occasionally be found; and where the surface, although somewhat elevated above the low plains, which the travellers had just left, being, for a considerable extent, of a light, red, sandy soil, was only capable of producing a scrubby vegetation, alone interesting to the botanist. At length, however, upon passing to the eastward of those arid regions, they leached a better country, and one that improved daily as they advanced. Hills lightly wooded, and grassy to their very summits, appeared before them: these were found to furnish springs, which formed small rivulets in the adjoining valleys, in one of which, of considerable extent and romantic appearance, to which the name of Wellington was given, they found, with no small satisfaction, a river, flowing silently to the N.W. This was the Macquarie, so long the object of their search. The discovery of this river, at a distance of one hundred miles to the north-west of Bathurst, in a measure recompensed the travellers for all their toils on the Lachlan; and Mr. Oxley's report of it to the local government, inducing the hope that it would, when increased by other tributary Streams, find its way to the sea, a new expedition was directed, in the winter of the following year, to explore it downwards from Wellington Valley.

Great expectations were entertained from this second expedition, and the disappointment, therefore, was severe, when the Macquarie was traced to a low marshy interior, in a north-westerly direction; where the hills again disappeared, and the country becoming 'perfectly level,' the flooded river eluded further pursuit, by spreading its waters far and wide, between the compass-points of N.W. and N.E. This expanse of shoal water our indefatigable Surveyor-General explored in a boat, amidst reeds of such height, that having at last 'totally lost sight of laud and trees,' he was obliged to return to the party which he had left encamped on Mount Harris—a detached hill on the river's bank, elevated about two bundled feet above the plane of the neighbouring flats. Having thus followed the Macquarie also to a reedy morass, of apparently unbounded extent, beyond which (in a westerly direction) it was, at that period, perfectly impossible to penetrate, Mr. Oxley determined (with such means as he had at command) to prosecute his discoveries easterly, in the parallel 31° 15', in which latitude his examination of the river had terminated. In that most arduous portion of his journey, he encountered numerous difficulties before he was fully enabled to emerge from the marshes, to firmer and more elevated grounds. In his progress easterly, Liverpool Plains, and a hilly, picturesque, and well-watered country were discovered, and he reached the coast at Port Macquarie, in 31½° S. latitude;