The messenger
setting out immediately will not allow me to revise or correct it.
"I have the honour to remain, with the greatest respect,
Your excellency's most obedient and humble servant,
(Signed), J. OXLEY, Surveyor General."
To His Excellency, Governor Macquarie, etc., etc., etc.
* * * * *
APPENDIX.
PART II.
No. IV.
DIARY OF MR. EVANS, DEPUTY SURVEYOR GENERAL, FROM THE 8TH,
TO THE 18TH OF JULY 1818.
Wednesday, July 8. - Left Mount Harris about nine o'clock. For six miles
the country tolerably good; afterwards, to the end of my day's journey,
it was alternately acacia pendula scrubs, and cypress brushes; the soil
light, and full of holes; abundance of water, but, latterly, no grass. In
the evening halted on the bank of a gully, having gone about twelve
miles. Mount Harris bearing 8. 35. W.
July 9. - Set forward at eight o'clock, and continued travelling until
five in the afternoon, chiefly through very thick brushes, consisting of
various shrubs, with casuarina and dwarf box trees; the country nearly a
marsh and almost impassable, so much so, that I had great difficulty in
keeping my course, being the greater part of the day up to our knees in
water.
I estimate my distance this day to be about fifteen miles, on a
north-east course.
July 10. - The country worse than yesterday, being exceeding low and
marshy, with many thick scrubs. About eleven o'clock it opened, being
more thinly clothed with the acacia pendula: having travelled about ten
miles, we arrived on the borders of a large apparent plain, on which I
had proceeded about two miles, when we were suddenly stopped by deep
water among reeds; from hence I could distinctly see Arbuthnot's Range,
the north end of which bore N. 101., and the other part connected by a
low range bore from N. 108 to N. 112.
The country from north-west to north-east was open with the horizon,
being covered with water and reeds, as far as the eye could distinguish;
we saw immense numbers of wild ducks, many black swans, pelicans, and
birds resembling the sea gannet: I altered my course to east, and shortly
afterwards to south-east.
I estimate the distance travelled this day to be eighteen miles. Being
rather late, we were much at a loss to find a place dry enough to sleep
on: the north end of Arbuthnot's Range bore N. 98.
July 11. - Finding our efforts to travel in any direction north of east
useless, I altered my course for the north end of Arbuthnot's Range. The
country continuing nearly as yesterday, brushes and marshes alternately,
having gone about twelve miles, the last quarter of a mile of which was
at an almost imperceptible rise above the general level, I came to the
edge of a river, the stream of which was thirty or fort yards wide, but
the bed nearly one hundred yards, the banks being eight or nine feet
high:
