46 , Voyage of the Novara. 



came to a confused mass of coarse, breccia-like sand-stone, 

 constituting what is known as the Sugar Loaf, whence they 

 had to toil laboriously among the rocks till they reached the 

 summit. A marvellous panorama was spread out before 

 them ; the whole county of Northumberland, with its green 

 forest clothing, was stretched out at their feet in all its sun- 

 lit splendom\ To the left far in the distance was visible the 

 township of Maitland, and the navigable part of the Hunter 

 River, which wound along like a silver band till it was lost 

 in the distance, where it fell into the Pacific, on whose seeth- 

 ing billows the stately ships looked like small white specks 

 on a confused, micertain back-ground. Far in the distance 

 to the right, half concealed by the forest, was Lake Macquarie. 

 The colonial members of the party described the latter as 

 very difficult of access, but as a veritable paradise for the 

 sportsman, since it is frequented by black swans in hundreds, 

 the Australian stork, cm-lews, the hook-billed creej)er, cormo- 

 rants, and an infinite variety of water-fowl. The Blue 

 Mountains formed the back-ground of this splendid land- 

 scape. The whole neighbourhood is pretty well settled and 

 cultivated. Here and there wreaths of blue smoke indicated 

 where the huts of industrious colonists lay concealed in the 

 forest. Their conductors were not a whit behind the 

 strangers in their appreciation of the panoramic effect ; they 

 had never scaled the summit before, although the elder had 

 lived 15 years at Ash Island, and had often been as far as 

 the top of the first rocky ascent in searcli of strayed cattle. 



