168 NEW SOUTH WALES. 



tion to the interior of this interesting country, its productions, and its 

 original inhabitants. The narratives of several of these journeys will 

 be given hereafter, but so much of what they learned as is general, 

 together with such additional information as was gained from other 

 sources, will form an appropriate introduction to the account of their 

 tours. 



The interior of the country, for a distance of sixty or eighty miles 

 to the north and south of Sydney, presents the same characters which 

 have just been described, except that deep gorges are from time to 

 time met with, and that some parts of it are of a more undulating 

 character. 



On proceeding inwards from the coast, the country at a distance 

 seems to be traversed by ridges, but on approaching their apparent 

 position, they melt away into rounded elevations, of very gradual 

 inclination. Still farther to the westward, the undulating region is 

 bounded by inaccessible declivities and lofty mural precipices. These 

 are the edges of the Blue Mountains, which are seen from Sydney, 

 skirting the horizon like low hills, which have so little appearance of 

 elevation that it at first seems to be difficult to conjecture how they 

 came to be called mountains, when seen only from the coast. This 

 ridge runs north and south, and rises at some points to the height of 

 three thousand five hundred feet. 



It is not many years since this ridge was considered as inaccessible, 

 and the deep gorges which intersect its sandstone rocks as impassable. 

 Its peaks rise in many places abruptly, and present such difficulties, as 

 to have deterred travellers from attempting to scale their summits, or 

 from seeking a passage through the ravines, which in the season of 

 rains are swept by impetuous torrents. 



The same description will apply to the mountains which bound the 

 Illawarra district to the west, where sandstone also occurs, broken 

 into precipitous heights, and deep gorges. At the Kangaroo Pass, 

 the Illawarra Mountain is nearly two thousand feet high ; its rapid 

 acclivity is covered w r ith a dense vegetation, until within three hundred 

 feet of the summit; whence upwards a perpendicular face of rock is 

 exposed. The path through this pass winds among the narrow breaks 

 of the rock, and is toilsome to both beast and rider. 



In one of the gorges which open upon this pass is a beautiful water- 

 fall. The deep narrow glen opens abruptly upon the passenger, and 

 exhibits its bare rocks, and the tiny stream is seen leaping from one 

 projection of the rocky shelves to another, which break its headlong 

 course, until, lost in spray, it reaches the bottom, where its waters 

 collect, at the depth of two hundred and fifty feet below its upper edge, 



