NEW SOUTH WALES. 275 



a seventy-four, are now inconsiderable ponds; swamps have been 

 converted into dry pasture-lands ; and there is hardly a river which 

 now continues running- throughout the year. It is remarkable, that 

 in- these lakes and ponds, which have become dry, there are found the 

 stumps of large trees, showing conclusively that these places must 

 have been dry at some former period, and that they had continued 

 so for a long time, giving rise to the opinion that the country must 

 be subject to long periodical alterations of climate. 



On the morning of the 16th, Mr. Hale started in the mail-cart 

 for Wellington. For the first twenty miles the road was a mere 

 cart-track, through a piece of hilly country called the " Rocks," which 

 is a repetition of the Blue Mountains on a smaller scale. Beyond, 

 there is a succession of valleys, bounded by ranges of low hills, and 

 covered with open woods, like a continuous orchard. This kind of 

 country continues to Wellington Valley, and for the distance of a 

 hundred miles beyond, when it gradually subsides into a level plain, 

 in which many exploring parties have continued their progress for 

 weeks, without meeting any elevation deserving the name of moun- 

 tain. These plains stretch away towards the interior of the continent, 

 but of their extent in that direction nothing certain is yet known. 



Twenty miles from Bathurst brought them to an inn kept by a 

 man named Luck, which had been, about six weeks before, the scene 

 of a tragical incident. During the absence of the landlord, a party 

 of Bush-rangers entered the house at night, and began to plunder. 

 Although they had taken the precaution to disguise themselves with 

 masks of black crape, the landlady recognised one of them, and was 

 so imprudent as to threaten him with the consequences of his crime, 

 whereupon the robber without hesitation drew his pistol, and shot 

 her dead on the spot. What will add to the illustration of the state 

 of society here, is the fact that the murdered woman, though living 

 with Luck as his wife, was not married to him. The laxity of morals 

 which prevails throughout the interior among the lower orders, can 

 hardly be exaggerated. 



The next public house to Luck's was a low tavern, in which it was 

 not unusual for stockmen, sheep-shearers, wagon-drivers, &c, to meet 

 and spend a week in drunkenness and debauchery, dissipating, not 

 unfrequently, the earnings of a year, amounting to twenty or thirty 

 pounds. Another inn was kept by the brother of the proprietor, he 

 having committed some crime for which he had been transported to 

 Norfolk Island. The last of the public houses was kept by a native 



