nevertheless he had struggled across the worst
of the flat country, and in the north-east had come to a new river, which
he named the Castlereagh. He was absent ten days, and on his return Oxley
determined to abandon the Macquarie, which had proved even more deceptive
and elusive than the Lachlan, and to strike out for the higher lands
which Evans reported having seen.

He left Mount Harris on July 20th, first burying a bottle there
containing a written scheme of his intended movements, and some silver
coin. Ten years afterwards, Captain Sturt made an ineffectual search for
this bottle. Oxley had also buried a bottle at the point of his departure
from the Lachlan. Mitchell search for it without success, and learned
afterwards that it had been broken by the blacks.

On July 27th, the party reached the bank of the Castlereagh, after
fighting their way through bog, quagmire, and all the difficulties common
to virgin country during continued wet weather. As the direction they
were steering was towards a range seen by Evans, and named Arbuthnot
Range, their march was again interrupted by finding the new-found river
this time running bank-high, having evidently risen immediately after
Evans had crossed it on his return journey. Here, perforce, they had to
stay until the water subsided, and it was not until August 2nd that the
river had fallen enough to allow them to cross. The ground was still
soaked and boggy, and the horses having had to carry increased pack-loads
since the abandonment of the boats, the party suffered great toil and
hardship in their efforts to gain Arbuthnot Range. The Range was reached,
however, and rounding one end of it by skirting the base of a prominent
hill which they named Mount Exmouth, the harassed explorers at last
emerged upon splendid pastoral country.

As Oxley, from a commanding position, surveyed the magnificent scene
spread out beneath him -- gentle hills separating smiling valleys, which
in their turn merged into undulating plains all ripe for settlement -- he
must have felt that Fate had at length relented, and granted him a
measure of reward as the discoverer of this beautiful land. He called the
locality Liverpool Plains, and the name has long been synonymous with
pastoral prosperity. Their journey to the eastward, which carried them
through the heart of this rich and highly-favoured country, was now less
arduous; and though the ground was still wet from the late soaking rains,
the su