now found themselves on what was then termed meadow land, drained by the upper tributaries of the Warragamba; and this country presenting no serious obstacle to their further progress, they rightly concluded that they had now surmounted every difficulty. They followed the mountain stream up for some distance and, at the furthest point they reached, ascended a high sugar-loaf hill, which surveyor Evans, who followed in their footsteps, called Mount Blaxland. From the summit they had an extensive view all around, and Blaxland described the character of the country they saw in the following words: "Forest and grass land, sufficient to support the stock of the colony for the next thirty years."
Just here, let us compare this prophecy with a similar one made by Evans a few months afterwards, on the pasture lands of the upper Macquarie: "The increase of stock for some hundred years cannot overrun it."
The provisions of the explorers were now nearly expended; their apparel, especially their footgear, was in rags and tatters; on the other hand, the work that they had set themselves to do was well done. They had vanquished the Blue Mountains. Their return was uneventful. After breakfast on the 6th of June, they crossed the Nepean, their provisions, with the exception of a little flour, being quite consumed. We thus see how in the end the impenetrable range, that had so long overawed the colonists with its frown, was overcome, with slight difficulty, when local experience combined with method, was arrayed against it. To liken the former expeditions to Blaxland's is to compare a few headlong assaults with a well-conceived and skilfully worked-out attack. The men themselves write slightingly of the feat. Blaxland says: "the passage of the Blue Mountains might be easily effected." Lawson's opinion of the mountain is: "that there would be no difficulty in making a good road"; and Wentworth's verdict is: "that the country they reached is easy of access." Evans, who was hot upon their trail, gives as his opinion: "that there are no hills on the ridge that their ascent or descent is in any way difficult."
The tidings brought back by the party of successful pioneers created the greatest excitement in the little colony. No longer would the mountainous barrier stand defiantly in their western path. For over thirty years it had laughed at their puny efforts to cross its rugged crest, but its time had come at last; the way to the unknown west was now open, and rejoicingly the settlers prepared to follow on the explorers' trail. What the mysterious interior might hold, they could not imagine; but the gates thereto being thrown wide at last, its secrets would be soon known to them.
Blaxland died on the 3rd of January, 1853, having lived long enough to witness the wonderful advance in settlement due to his energies.
CHAPTER 2. GEORGE WILLIAM EVANS.
George W. Evans, Discoverer of the Macquarie and Lachlan Rivers.
2.1. FIRST INLAND EXPLORATION.
George William Evans, Deputy-Surveyor of Lands, came forward at this stage as the most prominent figure in Australian exploration. To him is due the honour, without dispute or cavil, of being the first discoverer of an Australian river flowing into the interior. For some reason he has never received adequate recognition of his important explorations, and he is well-nigh forgotten by the people of New South Wales, the state that has benefited most by his labours. After Oxley's second expedition, his name appears to have been overshadowed by his official superior's. Yet his work was invariably successful, and his labour in the field unremitting.
Evans was born in England, at Warwick, in 1778. When a young man he went to the Cape of Good Hope, where he obtained an appointment in the dockyard, and while there he married his first wife, Janet Melvill. In 1802 he was appointed Deputy Surveyor-General, and came to Australia in H.M.S. Buffalo, in order to take up his official duties. It was while he held this post that he carried out his work of exploration.
When he returned from these explorations, he resumed his duties as Deputy Surveyor-General only, until he was permanently settled in Tasmania, where he remained in office until the year 1825, when he resigned in disgust at his treatment by his superiors.
Evans lived at a time when official jealousies were rife, and men in position often heedless of the justice or veracity of their statements when influenced by party rancour. The machinations of a cabal led by Governor Arthur, and an effort made to deprive him of his well-deserved pension, necessitated Evans's departure for England to defend his claims. In this he was only partially successful, for the pension which it was understood was for life, was stopped in 1832. He returned to Tasmania, and passed the rest of his days at his residence, Warwick Lodge, at the head of Newtown Bay. He died at the age of seventy-four, and is buried in the old cemetery, Hobart; his second wife, Lucy Parris, rests in the same grave.
Evans was a clever draughtsman, and some of his sketches of the country explored are reproduced in Oxley's journal. He also published a book entitled History and Description of the Present State of Van Diemen's Land.
It was on Saturday, the 20th of November, 1813, that Evans, in charge of five men, one of whom had been with Blaxland's party, started from the point of forest land on the Nepean known as Emu Island. He lost no time in following the tracks of the late expedition, leaving the measurement until his return. On Friday, the 26th, he reached Blaxland's furthest point, and thenceforward passed over new ground. It is somewhat amusing to note that his opinions of the country when on his outward way and on his homeward, are widely divergent. He candidly and ingenuously writes, after he has been on the table-land:--
"What appeared to me fine country on my first coming to it, looks miserable now after returning from so superior and good a country."
On Tuesday, the 30th of November, he gained a ridge that he had had in view for some time, though he had been "bothered" by the hills in his efforts to reach it. From this ridge he caught a tantalising view, a glimpse of the outskirts of the vast interior.
There before him, the first white man to look upon the scene, lay the open way to two thousand miles of fair pasture-lands and brooding desert-wastes -- of limitless plains and boundless rolling downs -- of open grassy forests and barren scrubs -- of solitary mountain peaks and sluggish rivers; and, though then hidden from even the most brilliant imagination, the wondrous potentialities latent in that silent and untrodden region. If a vision of the future had been vouchsafed Deputy-Surveyor Evans as he stood and gazed -- a vision of all that would cover the spacious lands before and beyond him before one hundred years had passed away -- the entry he made in his diary would surely have reflected in its style his flight of imagination. Instead, we have the prosaic statement:--
"I came to a very high mount, when I was much pleased with the sight westward. I think I can see 40 miles which had the look of open country."
In a pleasant valley, he came upon a large "riverlett," and on its banks they camped. There they shot ducks and caught "trout" -- as he called the Murray Cod -- the first of the species to tickle the palate of a white man; fine specimens, too, weighing five and six pounds. As he proceeded further and further, he became enchanted with the scenery: "The handsomest I have yet seen, with gently-rising hills and dales well-watered" -- and he finally notes that language failed him to describe it adequately.
Evans named the river that led him through this veritable land of promise the Fish River, and a river which joined its waters with it from the south he called the Campbell River. The united stream he christened, as in duty bound, the Macquarie. Unimpeded in his course, he followed the Macquarie until he was 98½ measured miles -- for they had been chaining since passing the limit of the
