7 
practically cut off from regular and ready communication 
with the capital and with other parts of the Province ; the 
character of its soils has not been made known, its re¬ 
sources have been hidden, its climate has been but imper¬ 
fectly investigated ; and the settler has been debarred 
from entering it because of the difficulties of the road and 
his want of knowledge of its adaptation for culture. 
For a long period after the first entry of settlers into 
Gippsland — which took place in 1838—the only practica¬ 
ble route for stock was south-westwards from New South 
Wales*. The lofty ranges of the Cordillera were not 
* Andrew Hutton, a man well known in Gippsland, travelled in 1838 from 
Nangutta on the Genoa River to the entrance to the lakes with 500 head of cattle 
and five men. They travelled along the coast, crossing the mouth of the Snowy 
Itiver. They stayed at the entrance about a week, the natives hunting the party 
all the time, and finally driving them away and killing the cattle. 
Some two years after McMillan came in from Omeo and Count Strzelecki 
came down on McMillan’s tracks. 
Wilkinson took up Buchan with 100 head of cattle immediately before McMillan 
came down. About the same time McIntyre took up Gelantipy, also before 
McMillan arrived. 
When Hutton was hunted away from the entrance, at the time of his first 
arrival, he found the wreck of the schooner Shaw , trading from Sydney to Ilohart 
Town. He buried either four or five of the sailors. This was near the \\ ingan 
River. — From information furnished to Alfred W. Ilowitt, Esq ., P.M., by Andrew 
Hutton , 17 th February 1874. 
The following additional information respecting the first occupation of Gipps¬ 
land has been furnished to Mr. Howitt by Mr. John Campbell Maeleod, formerly 
of Bairnsdale and late of Ensay : — 
‘‘McMillan passed through Maneroo in May 1839 on his way to form Nurala- 
mungee (the old name for Ensay), on the Tambo River, as a cattle station for 
Lachlan and Mathew McAlister, of Clifton, N.S.W. 
“From what the blacks told him at Omeo, he went to Gippsland in 1840 with 
Big Johnny and Ingubiri and Friday down a native track to Bruthcn ; this is where 
the road is now. They then struck the Nicholson River below the bridge. 
“ The party consisted of Angus McMillan, Mathew McAlister, Angus Cameron, 
and Thomas Bath. # 
“ These were not the first people, i.e., whites, who got into Gippsland. A black- 
fellow, of Sale tribe, called Malabar, told me that three whitefellows with kangaroo 
dogs and guns, made their way to Buchanans, on Lake Wellington. I hey fiiu at 
the blacks, who surrounded them and killed them ; they are said to be buried at t le 
head of a little salt-water creek, on the lower road to Port Albert, near 
