84 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



Gregory Blaxland, in 1813, across the Dividing Range, 

 and accomplished the toilsome feat of driving their 

 stock to the western slopes of the Blue Mountains. 

 Then they inundated the plains of Bathurst and stocked 

 the heads of some of the rivers and creeks. There they 

 settled and fought their first fierce battles with the 

 blacks. The quiet Hunter River, easily approached 

 from the sea, was stocked in these same early years. 

 The easy ascent of the Liverpool Range in the folloAving 

 decade threw open the inexhaustible soil of the famed 

 Liverpool Plains, where Boyd, Wentworth, and other 

 rich pastoralists were the kings and princes of the 

 region. 



Each great discovery initiated a wave of settlement. 

 Thus, Sir T. Mitchell's tracking-down of the Darling 

 opened up the vast country to the westward, and 

 determined a large number of stock-holders in New 

 South Wales to migrate from a drought-stricken country, 

 to one that was more highly favoured. On his way 

 back in 1835 Sir T. Mitchell found stockmen in occupa- 

 tion of a cattle station on a country discovered by him 

 in 1832. A settler from Bathurst followed Mitchell in 

 those years. So early as February, 1838, a migrant 

 relates, a large number of squatters, with their flocks 

 and herds, were on the line of march to the South-West . 

 It was the same as late as August, 1840, when it was 

 said that there were 20,000 cattle on the road between 

 Yass and Melbourne. None tarried by the way or 

 turned either to the right hand or to the left. All 

 hastened towards the Land of Promise discovered by 

 Major Mitchell. The intermediate district, through 

 which the road lay, was, it appears, still very thinly 

 stocked and settled, but (and this must have deterred 

 occupation) it was all nominally taken up. The mi- 

 grating hosts followed " the Major's line," which 

 apparently was " the line of least resistance." * 



On the back of discovery came settlement. The 

 pubhcation in 1837 of Hume's journal of exploration 

 * Victorian Pioneers, pp. 150-1, 210-1. 



