Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/484

hitherto barred all progress. The colony was cooped in by a mountain barrier on the west, and by broken sandstone ridges on the north and south. The Hunter river was known, but it was resorted to only as a penal settlement, and as a place where coal and cedar might be procured. In 1817, Captain Wallis, commandant at Newcastle, permitted well-behaved convicts to go to Wallis plains and to the river Paterson, and assist in raising food for themselves and others. The whole free population of the district, viz., the store-keeper, the assistant-surgeon, and the pilot's son, were allowed to take up lands at the same places. But in 1813 the gloom which had so long shrouded the western interior was dispelled.^[1] Gregory Blaxland, William Charles Wentworth, then only twenty years old, and Lt. Lawson, with four servants, four horses, and five dogs, started on the 11th May with six weeks' provisions, from the South Creek near Penrith, to solve the mystery which for a quarter of a century had baffled explorers. The Sydney Gazette recorded their departure with hope, but hardly with confidence. They crossed the Hawkesbury at Emu Island, and by toilsome journeys literally cut their way by slow stages through the tangled underwood and amongst the rocky precipices and broken mountains and gorges. When they found patches of grass they cut it and carried it on as food for their horses. They endeavoured to keep on the dividing ranges between the river Grose and the Western river. Leaving two men to guard the horses, on the fourth day the remainder of the party "cut their way for about five miles." On the fifth day they cut their way two miles further; finding no food for horses. On Sunday they rested, but "found reason to regret the suspension of their proceedings, as it gave the men leisure to ruminate on their danger." On the following day (17th) they loaded the horses with as much coarse rushy grass as they could carry, and the whole party moved on in the path already cut. They camped on a ridge, having to fetch water for themselves up the side of a precipice six hundred feet high. The horses were without water. On the 18th the explorers cut their way for a mile and a half, being compelled to