Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/489

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HAMILTON HUME DISCOVERS GOULBURN PLAINS.

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named the Hastings) reached and named Port Macquarie, twelve weeks after leaving the Macquarie river. Even then his journey to Sydney was full of hazard. Horses died of exhaustion; the Manning river was only crossed by means of a stranded boat seen on the shore twelve miles off, and by great exertion carried by men to the river. Oxley reached Newcastle on the Hunter with an advance party, and obtained provisions to relieve his companions.

Early in Macquarie's reign a man born for exploration appeared, and succeeded in all his attempts. Hamilton Hume (the son of a commissariat officer, who after being wrecked in the Guardian with Riou, reached Sydney in the Lady Juliana), was born at Parramatta in 1797. The ease with which he could move from place to place in a mountainous and thickly wooded country,—seeming intuitively to divine the most practicable course,—was wonderful in the eyes of those who accompanied him. When seventeen years old, he, with a brother and a black boy, went beyond the Cowpastures, threaded his way through Bargo Brush, and discovered the country about Bong Bong and Berrima. Two years afterwards he led Mr. Throsby to that neighbourhood, and afterwards discovered Goulburn Plains on the Wollondilly, and Lake Bathurst. For this exploit Macquarie granted him three hundred acres of land.^[1] Thus in a few years were the bounds of the colony extended, and new regions made known, and Macquarie was in imagination the master of the ceremonies, presenting a fertile continent to his country. Exploration by sea was continued during his rule. Captain Phillip Parker King, son of the late Governor King, was selected

↑ The settlement made at Goulburn Plains was remarkable for being one of the few at which there was no fend between the black and white The first settlers were circumspect and kindly to the natives, who responded amicably. One stockman indeed detained by force a native woman. The tribe remonstrated, and told the man they would kill him rather than allow him to keep their countrywoman from them. The man was confident against them, but they kept their word. An inquiry was instituted, but when the facts were known, no steps were taken by the authorities to avenge the stockman's death. No other victim fell on either side subsequently.
Familiar with the district, the author knows these facts on the authority of W. P. Faithfull, Esq., one of the first who went thither; who long resided in it with the esteem of all; and was one of its earliest representa tives in the Legislature.

[1] The settlement made at Goulburn Plains was remarkable for being one of the few at which there was no fend between the black and white The first settlers were circumspect and kindly to the natives, who responded amicably. One stockman indeed detained by force a native woman. The tribe remonstrated, and told the man they would kill him rather than allow him to keep their countrywoman from them. The man was confident against them, but they kept their word. An inquiry was instituted, but when the facts were known, no steps were taken by the authorities to avenge the stockman's death. No other victim fell on either side subsequently.
Familiar with the district, the author knows these facts on the authority of W. P. Faithfull, Esq., one of the first who went thither; who long resided in it with the esteem of all; and was one of its earliest representa tives in the Legislature.

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