NEW SOUTH WALES. 



261 



The stopping-places for the next two days were the hats of stock- 

 men, and dwellings of settlers, all of which resembled each other in 

 their construction. The sides were made of slabs of wood placed 

 upright in the earth, and were sometimes fastened to a frame; the 

 roof was composed of strips of the bark of the gum tree. In the better 

 sort of houses there were chimneys of brick, and glazed windows ; 

 but these were comparatively few; and in the others an elevated 

 hearth of clay, in a recess of the hut, supplied the former, the smoke 

 escaping through the roof. A cupboard, a camp bedstead, a rude 

 table, with a few stools, supplied the want of furniture. In houses of 

 this description, were living gentlemen of education and refined habits, 

 who were submitting to a few years of hardship and banishment from 

 social life, in hopes of realizing rapid fortunes. 



On the 18th, Wellington Valley was reached. It is a beautiful 

 plain, about fo'ur miles square, bounded by low hills, and watered in 

 seasons of freshet by the Bell river, which winds through it, and falls 

 into the Macquarie about two miles below the station. During the 

 season of Mr. Hale's visit the channel was dry. 



The buildings at Wellington consist of a dozen small brick houses, 

 erected formerly as barracks for soldiers, and having undergone some 

 slight alteration and repair, they are now inhabited by the missiona 



