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to go on. However, I persuaded them. We kept on mounting and descending till night, when we found a river much more considerable than the Nepean, running to the eastward. The next day we followed the course of the river in the direction of west, still ascending and descending the steepest mountains, between the ridges of which the river ran. Thus we passed another day, the country still as dreary as that we had passed."

On the following day "a high cascade" barred the way, "the sides of the river forming perpendicular rugged mountains." Ascending a steep and lofty peak, even Barrallier was compelled, by a sight of similar rugged country ahead, to give up the task in which he had penetrated farther than any other European, but of which the only gain was in a few mineral specimens sent to England by King.

There were ever floating idle rumours, such as that which (in the spurious Barrington volume) attributed to the convict Wilson the credit of having overcome the mountain barrier. Such stories being current about certain men at the Hawkesbury, King tested their value by offering to reward them if, when accompanied by an officer, they could pass the mountains. They received supplies, and went to make preliminary observations. In twelve days they returned, after useless wandering.

Another candidate for the honour of piercing the mountains appeared in 1805, in the person of Caley, who collected specimens for Sir Joseph Banks. King furnished him with "four of the strongest men in the colony." The spot he is supposed to have reached was about eighteen miles from the Hawkesbury. He had then gained a footing on the dividing ridge where now the railway runs in the course discovered in 1813. A pile of stones was found by Wentworth and his companions in that year, and they attributed it to Bass. But when Governor Macquarie in 1815 proceeded on the road then made, he named the spot Caley's Repulse, because the cairn was "supposed to have been placed by Mr. Caley." The explorers started from the junction of the Grose with the Hawkesbury, "taking the north side of the Grose." As Caley "advanced he found the country extremely rugged and barren, and the valleys, of which many may with more propriety be called chasms, are for the most part impassable." . . . "After incredible fatigue Caley and his party got to Mount Banks,