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 CHAPTER III.

passion for exploration was not yet allowed to slumber. Deputy-Surveyor Evans's discovery of the Bathurst Plains, with two promising rivers, only whetted the desire for further knowledge. It was presumed that the Lachlan and the Macquarie united their waters in some part of their course and finally disembogued in an unknown part of the eastern coast. But all this was mere conjecture, which required to be cleared up by actual exploration. A new expedition was accordingly set on foot by the Governor, and a fit person appointed to the post of leader. This was the Surveyor-General, John Oxley, R.N., who appears to have been both an able and amiable man, combining the fortiter in re with the suaviter in modo. Allan Cunningham, who was his close associate, always spoke of Oxley in terms of admiration and endearment. Among other meritorious services he had the credit of giving to New South Wales the first map of her immense territories, a task for which he was well qualified by extensive colonial travel in his official capacity,

I.

This expedition, as finally organized under the conduct of Oxley, consisted of Allan Cunningham, as