138 NEW SOUTH WALES. [chap, xix 



Blackheath is a very comfortable inn, kept by an old soldier ; 

 and it reminded me of the small inns in North Wales. 



I8th. — Very early in the morning-, I walked about three miles 

 to see Govett's Leap : a view of a similar character with that 

 near the Weatherboard, but perhaps even more stupendous. So 

 early in the day the gulf was filled with a thin blue haze, which^ 

 although destroying the general effect of the view, added to the 

 apparent depth at which the forest was stretched out beneath our 

 feet. These valleys, which so long presented an insuperable 

 barrier to the attempts of tlie most enterprising of the colonists 

 to reach the interior, are most remarkable. Great arm-like 

 bays, expanding at their upper ends, often branch from the main 

 valleys and penetrate the sand^stone platform ; on the other hand, 

 the platform often sends pronion^^ories into the valleys, and even 

 leaves in them great, almost insulated, masses. To descend into 

 some of these valleys, it is necessary to go round twenty miles ; 

 and into otliers, the surveyors have only lately penetrated, and 

 the colonists have not yet been able to drive in their cattle. But 

 the most remarkable feature in their structure is, that althougli 

 several miles wide at their heads, they generally contract towards 

 their mouths to such a degree as to become impassable. The 

 Surveyor-General, Sir T. Mitchell,* endeavoured in vain, first 

 walking and then by crawling between the great fallen fragments 

 of sandstone, to ascend through the gorge by which the river 

 Grose joins the Nepean ; yet the valley of the Grose in its 

 upper part, as I saw, forms a magnificent level basin some miles 

 in width, and is on all sides surrounded by cliffs, the summits of 

 which are believed to be nowhere less than 3000 feet above the 

 level of the sea. When cattle are driven into the valley of the 

 Wolgan by a path (which I descended), partly natural and partly 

 made by the owner of the land, they cannot escape ; for this 

 valley is in every other part surrounded by perpendicular cliffs, 

 and eight miles lower down, it contracts from an average width 

 of half a mile, to a mere chasm, impassable to man or beast. 

 Sir T. Mitchell states that the great valley of the Cox river with 

 all its branches, contracts, where it unites with the Kepean, into 



* Travels in Australia, vol. i., p. 154. I must express my obligation to 

 Sir T. Rlitehell, for several interesting personal communications, on the 

 subject of these great valleys of New South Wales, 



