528 



NEW SOUTH WALES. 



Jan. 1836. 



Bathurst has a singular and not very inviting appearance. 

 Groups of small houses and a few large ones are scattered 

 rather thickly over two or three miles of a bare country, 

 which is divided into numerous fields by lines of rails. A 

 good many gentlemen live in the neighbourhood^ and some 

 possess very comfortable houses. A hideous little red brick 

 church stands by itself on a hill ; and barracks and govern- 

 ment buildings occupy the centre of the township. I was 

 told not to form too bad an opinion of the country by judging 

 from that on the road-side, nor too good a one from Bathurst ; 

 in this latter respect I did not feel myself in the least danger 

 of being prejudiced. It must be confessed that the season 

 had been one of great drought, and that the country did 

 not wear a favourable aspect ; although I understand it was 

 incomparably w^orse two or three months before. The secret 

 of the rapidly growing prosperity of Bathurst is, that the 

 brown pasture which appears to the stranger^s eye so 

 wretched is excellent for sheep-grazing. 



The town stands on the banks of the Macquarie : this 

 is one of the rivers whose waters flow into the vast and 

 scarcely known interior. The line of watershed, which 

 divides the inland streams from those of the coast, has an 

 elevation of about 3000 feet (Bathurst is 2200), and runs 

 in a north and south direction at the distance of about eighty 

 or a hundred miles from the sea-side. The Macquarie figures 

 in the map as a respectable river, and is the largest of those 

 that drain this part of the inland slope ; yet to my surprise 

 I found it a mere chain of ponds, separated from each other 

 by spaces almost dry. Generally a small stream is running, 

 and sometimes there are high and impetuous floods. Scanty 

 as the supply of the water is throughout this district, it 

 becomes still scantier further inland. 



January 22d. — I commenced my return, and followed a 

 new road, called Lockyer^s Line, in which the country is 

 rather more hilly and picturesque. This was a long day^s 

 ride ; and the house where I wished to sleep was some way 

 ofi* the road, and not easily found. I met on this, and in- 



