WESTERN HIGHLANDS, TASMANIA. 791 



peaks which may be in sight, such as Mount Wedge, Mount 

 Anne, Mount Picton, and the " trigs " on characteristic peaks 

 of the Arthur, Frankhn, and Wihiiot Ranges. It also gives 

 the traveller a great advantage in judging where to pierce a 

 barrier thicket of vegetation at its narrowest point : indeed, 

 no horizontal or other scrub should be encountered in this 

 country before some local eminence has been ascended for 

 the purpose of taking careful bearings of the day's course. 

 It may be imagined, therefore, that progress in such a country 

 is a slow and toilsome one, even to those capable of the 

 greatest physical endurance. The difficulty of progress in 

 the rugged horizontal scrub ravines and slopes between Lake 

 Pedder, Mount Wedge, and The Thumbs, on the Gordon 

 River, may be best illustrated by describing a day's toil of 

 our party when endeavouring to cross the barrier ridges 

 between the lake named and the open Denison Plains along 

 the course of the River Wedge. After four days' fighting 

 and tunnelling among the formidable scrub, we did not 

 succeed in piercing in any one direction more than five miles 

 from our old camp by Lake Pedder. In our final struggles 

 to reach a white-crested peak — rising out of the sea of scrub 

 — which we thought might bridge us over our difficult barrier 

 northward, we were very much disappointed to find, on 

 reaching its summit (only a mile distant from the last camping 

 ground) that it was a solitary pinnacle, standing as a sentinel 

 rock amid dense foliage on every side. There was no help 

 for it but to retrace our steps in order to find a clear space to 

 camp for the night. Only a httle patch of green open ground, 

 seemingly a mile below, was visible, and that too in the 

 direction from whence we came. Reduced to one day's 

 supply of food, we also reluctantly resolved to make a forced 

 march back to supplies at the Picton, which would at least 

 give us three days' hard travel. To be without food for at 

 least two days was not a pleasant prospect, but the attempt 

 must be made. Taking careful bearings of our course, we 

 struggled down the steep, bare slopes, over chasms and 

 precipices. Then commenced a most determined fight with 

 the dense scrub. No description can convey an adequate 

 conception of this short but hazardous struggle. At times 

 we were in perfect darkness in the cavernous chambers of 

 the moss-enshrouded branches; nor could we form any idea 

 what height we were above the ground. 



" The mode of progress is necessarily single file — the fore- 

 niost doing- all the hard work of cutting- and bending aside 



