The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work

hey had not been passed; and until the year 1813, they were regarded as impenetrable. The narrative of the crossing of t

expedition was successful in opening up a way to the interior of the Continent, it is fitting that

y Blaxland, Land

igation, in company with three Europeans and two natives. On this trip he found that by keeping on the crowning ridge or dividing water-shed between the streams running into the Nepean and those that fed what he then took to be an inland river, he got along fairly well. Some time afterwards he accompanied the Governor in a boat excursion up the Warragamba, a tributary of the Nepean, and though there were no noteworthy results, it convinced Blaxland that, could he follow his former tactics of adhering to the leading ridge that formed the divide between the tributaries of the northern bank of this river and the affluents of the Grose, a tributary of the Hawkesbury, he would attain his object and reach the highlands. It will thus be seen that Blaxland acted with a definite and well-thought-out mode of procedure; and that the ridge he selected for the attempt was chose

ck for the succeeding day's stage. Thus literally, the way that ultimately led into the interior was won by foot, and the little pioneering band eventually descended into open grazing country at the head of what is now known

son (1813); Evans (1813); Oxley (1817,

is given here, commencing with

provisions and other necessaries, left Mr. Blaxland's farm at South Creek for the purpose of endeavouring to affect a passage over the Blue Mountains, between the

e.] The W

ains. On the first day, they did three miles and a half in a direction varying from south-west to we

hilly, but with tolerable grass on it. Here they found traces of a former white visitant in the shape of a marked-tree line. Two miles from this point, they met with a belt of brushwood so dense that for the first time they were forced to alter their course; but the subordinate spurs on either side ending in rocky precipices, they

his amounted to, according to Lawson's diary, about two hundred pounds weight for each horse, which, in addition to their ordinary loads, must have been a very weighty packload for uphill work. However, according to Blaxland, "they stood it well." They obtained no water for their animals that night, and what they wanted for their own requirements had to be painfully carried up a cliff about six hundred feet in height. On the succeeding day they suddenly came on what at first appeared to be

t camp that morning they came on a pile of stones, or cairn, evidently the work of some European, which they attribu

goes to show that Cayley followed the valley of the Grose, and was many miles to the north of where the

. The labour of cutting a path each day for the horses for the next day's march had, however, still to be continued; but the crest of the ridge was again wider, though the gullies on each side were as steep as before. That night, in camp, the dog

r energies in hewing a passage, until on the 28th of the month, they camped on the edge of the steep descent that had lately marched beside them. The decline was, however, not quite so abrupt, and the face no longer composed of solid rock. They paused to overlook what lay before them and immediately below, and found the view more gratifying than they had anticipated. What t

o carry the pack-loads down most of the way themselves, as it was too steep for laden horses to preserve their bala

mounted every difficulty. They followed the mountain stream up for some distance and, at the furthest point they reached, ascended a high sugar-loaf hill, which surveyor Evans, who followed in their footsteps, called Mount Blaxland. F

ans a few months afterwards, on the pasture lands of the upper Macqua

umed. We thus see how in the end the impenetrable range, that had so long overawed the colonists with its frown, was overcome, with slight difficulty, when local experience combined with method, was arrayed against it. To liken the former expeditions to Blaxland's is to compare a few headlong assaults with a well-conceived and skilfully worked-out attack. The men themselves write slightingly of the fea

For over thirty years it had laughed at their puny efforts to cross its rugged crest, but its time had come at last; the way to the unknown west was now open, and rejoicingly the settlers prep

ving lived long enough to witness the wonderf