Page:The three colonies of Australia.djvu/77

 precipices, sliding down ravines, and cutting paths through impenetrable brushwood, like the early pioneers; but easily travelling, and grumbling as they go, at the ill-kept condition of a macadamised road which has been conducted with admirable engineering skill in a series of ascending and descending gradients, over which even loaded drays can travel with ease.

Within fifteen months from the discovery of the first pass over the Blue Mountains, Governor Macquarie caused a practicable road to be made. He never lost any time in planning and executing such works. Some governors would have occupied as much time in preparing a despatch as he did in completing the work. Many settlers, without waiting for the road, contrived to transfer portions of their live stock to the new pastoral El Dorado. In April, 1815, the governor himself, with Mrs. Macquarie, accompanied by his principal officers and Mr. Lewin, painter and naturalist, set out on a progress to view what he called "his last conquest."

The results of this progress, made two months before the battle of Waterloo, are recorded in the following extracts from a "General Order:" certainly one of the most curious documents of the kind ever published.

MACQUARIE'S JOURNEY ACROSS THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. "The commencement of the ascent from Emu Plains, through a very handsome open forest of lofty trees for twelve miles, was much more practicable and easy than was expected. At a further distance of four miles a sudden change is perceived in the appearance of the timber and quality of the soil, the former becoming stunted, and the latter barren and rocky. Here the country became altogether mountainous and extremely rugged. From henceforward to the twenty-sixth mile is a succession of steep and rugged hills, some so abrupt as to deny a passage altogether; but at this place an extensive plain is arrived at, which constitutes the summit of the western mountains, and from thence a most extensive and beautiful prospect presents itself on all sides to the eye. On the south-west side of this table land [query, King's Table Land?] the mountain terminates in an abrupt precipice of immense depth. At the bottom [the governor does not mention how they got to the bottom] is seen an immense glen, twenty-four miles in length, terminating as abruptly as the others, bounded on the further side by mountains of great magnitude, to which the governor gave the name of Prince Regent's Glen. Proceeding hence to the thirty-third mile, on the top of a hill, an opening presents itself on the south- south-