Page:The Australian explorers.djvu/72

 men, and five pack-horses, carrying provisions for ten weeks, left Parramatta for Bathurst, which was reached on the 5th of April, and then the northward journey commenced. After many weary stages, during which the patience of the men and the strength of the horses were severely tried, they reached the Warrambungle Mountains, which form the southern boundary of the Liverpool Plains; but the difficulty in finding a passage through this barrier appeared to be insuperable. The first fortnight was spent to no purpose in attempting to discover an opening on the south-eastern side. Almost in despair, the party retraced their steps and fell back on a former encampment on the Goulburn River, the principal tributary of the Hunter. Provisions were now getting short, and the allowance had to be reduced; but, in spite of all these dispiriting circumstances, Cunningham still resolved to prosecute his enterprise by making another stru2:2:le to find an entrance from a different point. Turning now to the north-west, and searching along the front of the range, he succeeded at last, on the 5th of June, in discovering a gap which afforded a good passage into the Liverpool Plains. To this entrance he gave the name of Pandora's Pass, believing it would become the chief if not the only means of communication between the settlers at Bathurst and the Hunter River and the occupants of the plains. The following memorandum was buried in a valley immediately below the pass:—

"After a very laborious and harassing journey from