but little reason to suppose that it could be surveyed and divided as proposed into counties, hundreds, and parishes; and still less was it likely ever to be inhabited, even if such a work could be accomplished.  Nevertheless it was necessary in the performance of my duties that these rivers should be traced, and where the surveyor pronounced them inaccessible to the chain, I clambered over rocks and measured from cliff to cliff with the pocket sextant.  Thus had I wandered on foot by the murmuring Wollondilly, sometimes passing the night in its deep dark bed with no other companions than a robber and a savage.  I could now look back with some satisfaction on these labours in that barren field.  I had encompassed those wild recesses; the desired division of the rocky wastes they enclosed had really been made; and if no other practical benefit was derived we had at least been enabled to open ways across them to better regions beyond.

(Footnote.  My predecessor in office had declared the operation to be impracticable in such a country; but to this general survey I was pledged on accepting my appointment in London.  Two other commissioners for the division of the territory were each receiving a guinea a day, but yet could do nothing until this survey was accomplished; and I therefore set about the work with the resolution necessary for the performance of what was deemed almost impossible.  Universal wood, impassable ravines, a total absence of artificial objects, and the consequent necessity for clearing summits as stations for the theodolite were great impediments; but I made the most of each station when it had once been cleared by taking an exact panoramic view with the theodolite of the nameless features it commanded.  The accompanying facsimile of a page of my field book includes the view between north and north-west, taken for the above purpose from the summit of Jellore, and extends over the ravines of the Nattai to the crest of the Blue Mountains.  Plate 38.)

THE NATTAI.  MOYENGULLY.

In the numerous ravines surrounding Jellore the little river Nattai has its sources, and this wild region is the haunt and secure retreat of the Nattai tribe whose chief, Moyengully, was one of my earliest aboriginal friends. (See Plate 39.)

Marulan, the highest summit eastward of Jellore, consists of ferruginous sandstone, but in the country to the northward we find syenite and trap-rock.  Of the latter, Nattary, a small hill north-east from Towrang and distant about four miles from it, is perhaps the most remarkable.  The elevation of the country there is considerable (being about one thousand five hundred feet above the sea on the level part) and, except near the Shoalhaven and Wollondilly rivers, not much broken into ravines.  It contains not only fine pasture land but also much good wheat land, especially towards the side of the Shoalhaven river.

ARRIVE AT THE LINE OF GREAT ROAD.  CONVICT WORKMEN.