Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/222

It is well that this idle tale bears with it such intrinsic proof of its untruth. All that Hacking did was known to the government which trusted him; but no government reported the finding of the salt as a fact.^[1]

It will be convenient to summarize the incidents of Australian discovery at this period, when (from H.M.S. Reliance) Bass and Flinders infused fresh life into it.

In Dec. 1789, Lt. Dawes, being sent to explore, returned after nine days. He had encountered ravines almost impassable, and failed to pierce the mountains. The same fate attended an expedition under an officer (Tench) in Aug. 1790. The Nepean River was seen in these excursions, and was named by Phillip. In 1793 Captain Paterson, by means of small boats, ascended the river, which he named (after the Acting-Governor) the Grose; he returned after ten days. In 1794 Henry Hacking, formerly quarter-master in the Sirius, with "a companion or two," boldly ventured "twenty miles further than any other European." He reached the mountains, and toiled over "eighteen or nineteen ridges of high rocks," and when he gave up the task "still had in view the same wild and inaccessible country." In Feb. 1795 Paterson, the Acting-Governor, sent Grimes, the surveyor, to explore Port Stephens, taking with him Wilson, the convict, who could converse with natives.

One Cummings, an officer in the New South Wales corps, on a small expedition to the south of Botany Bay, heard from natives that there were horned animals running in the interior, and hopes were excited of regaining the cattle lost from Sydney in 1788. Cummings vainly searched for them afterwards. When Governor Hunter arrived in 1795 he sent Henry Hacking, in whom he confided, to ascertain the truth. Hacking returned successful, and piloted Hunter, with Collins, Waterhouse, and Bass (18th Nov. 1795),