formerly enjoyed of wandering at will through their native wilds, were compelled to seek a precarious shelter amidst the close thickets and rocky fastnesses which afforded them a temporary home, but scarcely a subsistence, for their chief support, the kangaroo, was either destroyed or banished.  I knew this unhappy tribe, and had frequently met them in their haunts.  In the prosecution of my surveys I was enabled to explore the wildest recesses of these deep mountainous ravines, guided occasionally by one or two of their number.  I felt no hesitation in venturing amongst them for, to me, they appeared a harmless unoffending race.* On many a dark night, and even during rainy weather, I have proceeded on horseback amongst these steep and rocky ranges, my path being guided by two young boys belonging to the tribe, who ran cheerfully before my horse, alternately tearing off the stringy bark which served for torches, and setting fire to the grass-trees (xanthorrhoea) to light my way.

(Footnote.  On my return from the interior in 1835 I learnt with much regret that a war had commenced between my old friends and the mounted police.)

This can scarcely be considered a digression from my narrative of this day’s journey, for Warrawolong was the only object visible, beyond the woody horizon.  We had passed No-Grass Valley, the Devil’s Backbone, and were approaching Hungry Flat, when Mr. Simpson produced a grilled fowl, and a feed for our horses and we alighted most willingly for half an hour to partake of this timely refreshment near a spring.

On remounting I bade Mr. Simpson farewell, after expressing my satisfaction with his clever arrangements for opening this mountain road, a work which he had accomplished with small means in nine months.

The Wollombi.

It was quite dark on the evening of the 26th, before I reached the inn near the head of the little valley of the Wollombi, a tributary to the river Hunter.  Here, at length, we again find some soil fit for cultivation, and the whole of it has been taken up in farms.  But the pasturage afforded by the numerous valleys on this side of the mountains, here called cattle runs, is more profitable to the owners of the farms, than the farms they actually possess, of which the produce by cultivation is only available to them at present, as the means of supporting grazing establishments.  I should here observe, that in a climate so dry as that of Australia, the selection of farmland depends solely on the direction of streams, for it is only in the beds of watercourses, that any ponds can be found during dry seasons.  The formation of reservoirs has not yet been resorted to, although the accidental largeness of ponds left in such channels has frequently determined settlers in their choice of a homestead, when by a little labour, a pond equally good might have been made in other parts, which few would select from the want of water.  In the rocky gullies,