NEW SOUTH WALES. 



93 



tramway nor riding way whatever within the caves, but difficult foot-paths 



and painful steps, and slightly hazardous creeping places, and ladders to 



ascend, and narrow parts to pass, and a good deal of labour to be performed 



to see even a little of the treasures which have so far been unlocked. 



There are, to the traveller who has leisure and who is content to live hard 



and sleep hard, so that he may delight his more refined faculties, four days' 



good sight-seeing in the caves — four days through which the world and all 



the things therein may be left 



behind, and glories as of a 



kingdom of old may be fully 



enjoyed — four days through 



which he may imagine himself 



entering into such a land as that 



held by Lytton's ' Coming Race,' 



domes of the world above you 



vast as the dome of heaven 



without. Far down below the 



strange black river, running — 



' Through measureless caverns to the 

 sea ; ' 



mysterious echoes meeting you, 

 great white ghostly figures ap- 

 pearing suddenly in the fitful 

 illumination, alabaster lakes, 

 V.pools, baths, spotless, stainless 

 marble sanctuaries, and palace 

 halls, which, lit by the sudden 

 flash from the magnesium wire, 

 seem bespangled more thickly 

 and gorgeously than any royal 

 crown with glittering jewels. 

 You are filled rather with 

 wonderment than admiration, 

 and the whole world without 

 seems utterly contemptible to you, whenever you return to the cave's 

 mouth. 



There are green fields at the bases of great timbered hills all the 

 way to Bathurst, where the oldest and most considerable of all inland cities 

 of the colony sits beside the Macquarie river, on the crown of the down 

 country which rolls, rich with grass or grain, for leagues around. On the long 

 north-eastern flight we may hover a while over Bathurst, may note with pleasure 

 the fair country homes amongst the gardens and bowers, the church spires of 



Waterfall at Govett. 



