284 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE 



encamped, pursuing the western route along the line of 

 marked trees through a small portion of scrub which brought 

 lis to another PuUencea brush, as lofty and compact as those 

 we passed yesterday — a space upwards of a mile and a half 

 being occupied by it. Occasionally the timber is stately and 

 of regular growth, and consists of Blue gum. Stringy bark, 

 and Turpentine trees; and in these situations where the thicket 

 or underwood was more open and less difficult to penetrate, 

 some patches of grass are to be met with where cattle 

 can feed ; but no water was observed to cross the' marked 

 track, being only to be sought successfully in the neighbour- 

 ing gullies. The country continues very level, through which 

 a good road could be formed with the labour simply of cut- 

 ting down and eradicating the underwood and thickets, the 

 timber being generally at such distances as not to require 

 felling. At the 14th mile-tree a dry scrub succeeds the 

 brushwood of the forest, where Banksia serrata of large size, 

 laomatia silaifolia., Isopogon anemonifolius, Telopea speciosa, 

 Lambertia formosa, and several other plants of Paramatta and 

 its vicinity were flourishing in their usual soil of decomposed 

 sandstone. Another mile brought us into forest brushes 

 formed of Indigofera australis, Bursaria sp., Daviesia nlicinai 

 Acacia longifolia bound together by Sniilax aiistralis, Cissus 

 sp.y Cassytha paniculata, and Clematis coriacea, constituting so 

 compact a thicket as scarcely to be passed by packhorses 

 without great labour, and by many circuitous digressions 

 from the surveyor's route. This brushy forest continues more 

 or less difficult to the nineteenth mile, when having passed 

 a stony scrub, we arrived at a range of broken country ob- 

 served from Bell's View. Traciiicr the marked route, we 

 ascended the side of the mountain through much fallen tim- 

 ber, large rocks concealed by luxuriant ferns, and much 

 brush — we with great exertion to our packhorses gained the 

 summit, when having passed just within the verge of the dark 

 lofty forests which clothe its higher parts, we encamped on 

 the spot where the Surveyor's party had rested, finding water 

 of a tolerahle quality in a neighbouring gully. The summit 



