NEW SOUTH WALES. 273 



those are chiefly due to the planning of the engineers. The road is 

 constantly ascending or descending, and on every side, as far as the 

 view extends, is a succession of mountain ridges, their summits 

 rising in detached peaks, and their declivities terminating in narrow 

 and deep gorges. Their sides are sometimes clothed with a scanty 

 growth of dark evergreens, but in very many places presented only 

 bare and rugged masses of brown sandstone rock. The whole scene 

 for the first forty miles, is wild, dismal, and monotonous beyond 

 description. In the latter part of the route through the mountains, 

 the scenery begins to improve, and finally becomes very striking, 

 the sandstone being succeeded by trap and granite. The descent of 

 Mount Victoria is celebrated for its beauty throughout the colony. 

 This road was laid out by Major Mitchell, the Surveyor-General of 

 the colony, and by him the mountain was named. The descent of 

 this mountain is more than a mile in length, and in some parts is 

 inclined at an anode of five degrees. The road is cut in the solid 

 rock, it is hard, smooth, and accurately graduated, and notwithstand- 

 ing its great angle of declivity, heavily laden teams ascend with 

 less difficulty than would be supposed. At the foot, the road is 

 carried along a high embankment or viaduct, which has been thrown 

 across a deep chasm, and the river flowing on either side is fine. On 

 the left is a wide deep gorge, encircled by high and naked precipices, 

 topped with the sombre hue of the gum trees; on the right, an 

 open valley, with a rivulet winding through it, sloping gently towards 

 the northeast, gives a totally different current to the feelings. Go- 

 vernor Macquarie has named this the Vale of Clwyd, after a similar 

 scene in Wales. 



A little beyond this descent is the Weatherboard Inn, the land 

 about which is, according to Major Mitchell, the only spot among 

 the mountains fit for cultivation. He mentions, in order to show the 

 difficulties the surveyors had to encounter, that one of them, a Mr. 

 Dixon, penetrated the valley of the Grose, which, until then, had not 

 been visited, where he was lost for four days, having been bewildered 

 by the intricate character of the valleys ; and when he finally emerged 

 from them, he in his official letter, " thanked God he had found his 

 way out of them." 



Shortly after leaving the inn, two small rivulets are passed, pur- 

 suing opposite directions. One of them falls into Cox's river, a 

 branch of the Hawkesbnry; the other, the Fish river, discharges 

 into the Macquarie. Not far distant is Mount Lambie, the last and 



vol. ii. 69 



