If On The Contrary They Run Southerly, Their Junction With Hunter's River Will Equally (It Is To Be Hoped) Facilitate That Object.

September 12.

- We were obliged during the whole of this day's journey, to keep along the ridge bordering on the glen. It is impossible to form a correct idea of the wild magnificence of the scenery without the pencil of a Salvator. Such a painter would here find an ample field for the exercise of his genius. How dreadful must the convulsion have been that formed these glens! The principal glen led us to the westward: there were others that fell into it from the southward; but we perceived that the waters in it ran north-easterly, which gave us strong hopes of soon being enabled to head it. Several times in the course of the day we attempted to descend on foot; but after getting with much difficulty a few hundred yards, we were always stopped by perpendicular precipices. Scarcely a quarter of a mile elapsed without a spring from the top of the ridge crossing our track, forming at its entrance into the main glen a vast ravine. The ridge along which we travelled was, as might be expected, very stony. It was otherwise open forest land, thickly timbered with large, stringy bark trees, casuarinae, and a large species of eucalyptus. Kangaroos abounded on it, and the tracks of emus were also seen.

September 13. - We were too anxious to find a passage across this river (for such we now perceived it to be), to permit us to rest this day. We proceeded on a variety of courses to avoid the deep ravines or glens which conducted numerous small streams of water to the principal one. Our road was very rugged, and our elevation sometimes very considerable, every part heavily timbered. Our course, which led us chiefly west, now terminated at one of the most magnificent waterfalls we had ever seen. The water was precipitated over a perpendicular rock at least one hundred and fifty feet in height in one unbroken sheet, falling into a large reservoir about one third down the whole declivity: hence it wound its way through the glen for about half a mile farther, when it joined the main stream. This grand fall was called Beckett's Cataract, in honour of the Judge Advocate General. It now commenced raining so heavily that we were obliged to stop on the spot, though by no means an eligible situation. We had not seen any place where there had been the slightest possibility of descending; but as we were not many miles from the river which we crossed on Wednesday last, we knew that this rugged country must soon end.

September 14. - The weather preventing us from proceeding, parties were sent out to search the banks of the glen, for a place by which to descend and cross it. Two of the people traced it up so far as to ascertain that the river which we had crossed on Wednesday was the same which had so embarrassed us.

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