96 FROM SYDNEY TO BATHURST IN 1822 



soldiers, and convicts whose dress proclaimed their unhappy con- 

 dition. With hiui, be has his wife, seven children, and his wife's 

 aged mother ; he had left the country which Britishprs never cease 

 to speak of as " Home," with the expectation of forming a new 

 home in the new southern continent; but how little he can see to 

 remind him of the country and the people amongst whom he 

 had spent the earlier part of his life. After due enquiry, it is 

 decided that Bathurst shall be the land of promise, and the 

 ■Government of the day find him employment. So far good ; 

 but how to get there, that is the then momentous question. He is 

 told of the attempts which had been made from time to time to 

 cross the Blue Mountains — that formidable barrier which he 

 has to cross — and failed. Then he learns that in lylB, only 

 nine years ago, Lawson, Wentworth, and Blaxland had 

 penetrated the hitherto unknown sterile land, and from ?\Iount 

 York had seen open valleys in the distance. He learns, too, 

 that towards the close of the same year. Deputy Surveyor- 

 General Evans, taking advantage of this discovery, had crossed 

 the range and followed the Macquarie River downwards to a 

 point 100 miles due west of the Nepean River; that two years 

 later a road had been formed, and Bathurst laid out at its 

 terminus. The little bush town of Bathurst had only been 

 founded seven years when this new-comer was called upon to 

 convey, as best he could, his somewhat large family from Sydney 

 over the ranges to the place where they were to be permanently 

 located ; he had also to take such furniture as they needed, 

 their cooking utensils, their food, their bedding, and sufficient 

 clothing to last until that quite indefinite time when they could 

 obtain more. And the conveyances by which they and their 

 lares and penates were to be transported to Bathurst were 

 rough drays drawn by bullocks and horses ; their servants were 

 all convicts and their escort consisted of soldiers, none of whom 

 could have had much experience of travelling over the rough 

 roads they had to use. And, in addition to all the difficulties 

 here indicated, came tales of hostile natives and still more 

 hostile runaway convicts who claimed for themselves whatever 

 they could lay their hands upon, and sometimes brutally treated 

 those unfortunates who fell into their power. Mr. Hawkins 

 must at the very outset have realised that the success of his ard- 

 uous undertaking rested almost wholly upon himself. The result 

 proved that he was not only a brave man animated by noble 

 aspirations, but that he possessed abundant commonsense, a high 



