260 NEW SOUTH WALES. 



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 mountain. 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. Al- 

 though 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 

 of the colony, and was the best met with. This was another instance 

 of the good character and general deportment, and temperate habits of 

 this class, who in spite of their unhappy parentage, evil example, and 

 inauspicious connexions, offer a remarkable example of the improve- 

 ment which education, when aided by a change of condition, may 

 effect in a single generation. 



