Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.3)

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 worse 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 Une 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 off the road, and not easily found. I met on this, and in-