The Australian Explorers

Persons who have yet to make their acquaintance with the early history of

New South Wales will learn with surprise that the colony had been

founded for almost a quarter of a century before the Blue Mountain barrier

was crossed. For so long a period it was scarcely possible to proceed more

than forty miles from Sydney in any direction. Many a despairing look

must those early settlers have cast on the frowning ramparts of the range,

which, leaving only a narrow margin between itself and the sea, threatened

to convert the cradle of the colony into a Procrustes' bed, to which its

dimensions would have to conform in the future, as they had done in the

past. This sense of confinement was the harder to bear that it was met with

in a land of freedom; and many a time did the caged eagle dash itself with

fruitless rage against the bars of its prison. A record of the unsuccessful

attempts to get beyond the main range would form a heroic chapter of our

history, and one, too, of which we might well feel proud, if there is any

truth in the saying that in great undertakings it is glorious even to fail.

Within four months after the arrival of the "first fleet" our annals present a

picture of Governor Phillip and party struggling laboriously westward to

the gorges of the mountains.