Thus encumbered, the march begins at sunrise, and with occasional halts continues until about an hour and a half before sunset.  It is necessary to stop thus early to prepare for passing the night, for toil here ends not with the march.  Instead of the cheering blaze, the welcoming landlord, and the long bill of fare, the traveller has now to collect his fuel, to erect his wigwam, to fetch water, and to broil his morsel of salt pork.  Let him then lie down, and if it be summer, try whether the effect of fatigue is sufficiently powerful to overcome the bites and stings of the myriads of sandflies and mosquitoes which buzz around him.

Monday, April 11, 1791.  At twenty minutes before seven o’clock, we started from the governor’s house at Rose Hill and steered* for a short time nearly in a north-east direction, after which we turned to north 34 degrees west, and steadily pursued that course until a quarter before four o’clock, when we halted for the night.  The country for the first two miles, while we walked to the northeast, was good, full of grass and without rock or underwood.

Afterwards it grew very bad, being full of steep, barren rocks, over which we were compelled to clamber for seven miles, when it changed to a plain country apparently very sterile, and with very little grass in it, which rendered walking easy.  Our fatigue in the morning had, however, been so oppressive that one of the party knocked up.  And had not a soldier, as strong as a pack-horse, undertaken to carry his knapsack in addition to his own, we must either have sent him back, or have stopped at a place for the night which did not afford water.  Our two natives carried each his pack, but its weight was inconsiderable, most of their provisions being in the knapsacks of the soldiers and gamekeepers.  We expected to have derived from them much information relating to the country, as no one doubted that they were acquainted with every part of it between the sea coast and the river Hawkesbury.  We hoped also to have witnessed their manner of living in the woods, and the resources they rely upon in their journeys.  Nothing, however, of this sort had yet occurred, except their examining some trees to see if they could discover on the bark any marks of the claws of squirrels and opossums, which they said would show whether any of those animals were hidden among the leaves and branches.  They walked stoutly, appeared but little fatigued, and maintained their spirits admirably, laughing to excess when any of us either tripped or stumbled, misfortunes which much seldomer fell to their lot than to ours.