CH. I.] SMALL FARMERS. 161 



been reserved as a township, but then no streets having been 

 laid out, allotments for building could neither be obtained 

 by grant nor purchase. The site for the town was, therefore, 

 only distinguished by a government house, jail, court house, 

 post-office, and barracks ; while the population had collected 

 in 60 or 80 houses, built in an irregular manner on the 

 Sydney side of the river, and at the distance of a mile from 

 the intended site of the town. The consequence of a want of 

 arrangement became equally apparent in the line of approach 

 to the township, for the only road, in use, being very indirect, 

 and passing through a muddy hollow, named "The Bay of 

 Biscay," could not be altered, because the adjacent land had 

 been granted to individuals. Thus, when the good people of 

 Bathurst, prayed in petitions for delivery from their "Bay of 

 Biscay," and a dry and more direct line for the road, had been 

 easily found and marked out, the irregular buildings and 

 private property lay in the way of the desired improvement. 

 All these inconveniences might have been obviated, by due 

 attention to such arrangements in the first instance, when any 

 plan was practicable ; w hereas subsequently, it has been found 

 possible to remedy them only in a limited degree. The 

 streets having now been laid out, a church and many houses 

 are in course of erection, and a new road, leading over firm 

 ground, to the site of the intended bridge, has been opened 

 with the consent of the owner of the property. Part of the 

 reserved land of the township, has been given to small farmers 

 — a class very essential to the increase of population, but by 

 no means numerous in New South Wales — and least of all at 

 Bathurst, where the land is laid out chiefly in large sheep 

 farms. 



A bridge across the Macquarie, has long been a deside- 

 ratum. This river, although in common seasons fordable, 

 and in dry seasons scarcely fluent, is liable, after heavy falls 

 of rain in the mountains, to rise suddenly to a great height, 

 and cut off" the communication between the public buildings 

 on the one side, and the peopled suburbs and great road 

 1 M 



