CHAPTER XIII 



THE ROUTE OF THE PASTORALIST 



In picturesque and now, thanks to a host of special 

 researches, tolerably exact detail the story of the 

 Teutonic conquest of England has been told. It reads 

 like a narrative of the settlement of Australia. We 

 learn how the Eagles, Jutes, and Saxons advanced 

 along this great river and up that, how they spread 

 over the quiet, open meadows of a third, how they 

 marched through valley and by estuary, and crossed 

 the heights from one river to another, or went along a 

 ridge of hills, where there were breaks in the dense 

 line of forests.* 



The advance of pastoral pioneering in Australia 

 followed the line of least resistance, and, like the English, 

 crept up the estuaries, the rivers, and their tributaries. 

 In New South Wales it first made its way up the Parra- 

 matta River and occupied the Cow-Pastures, while simul- 

 taneously it moved up the neighbouring Hawkesbury 

 River to the rich agricultural soil of the adjacent valley. 

 For a quarter of a century settlement was cooped up 

 within the narrow strip of land, some thirty or forty 

 miles in breadth, between the Blue Mountains and the 

 Sea. That great Barrier once surmounted, the 'wide 

 country of the plains was thrown open. Then followed 

 the first great pastoral exodus. The owners of stock, 

 who were feeling themselves cramped after a recent 

 drought, climbed the devious and difficult track of 



* Qeeen, Making of England, passim. 

 83 



