d them inaccessible to the chain,
I clambered over rocks and measured from cliff to cliff with the pocket
sextant. Thus had I wandered on foot by the murmuring Wollondilly,
sometimes passing the night in its deep dark bed with no other companions
than a robber and a savage. I could now look back with some satisfaction
on these labours in that barren field. I had encompassed those wild
recesses; the desired division of the rocky wastes they enclosed had
really been made; and if no other practical benefit was derived we had at
least been enabled to open ways across them to better regions beyond.

(*Footnote. My predecessor in office had declared the operation to be
impracticable in such a country; but to this general survey I was pledged
on accepting my appointment in London. Two other commissioners for the
division of the territory were each receiving a guinea a day, but yet
could do nothing until this survey was accomplished; and I therefore set
about the work with the resolution necessary for the performance of what
was deemed almost impossible. Universal wood, impassable ravines, a total
absence of artificial objects, and the consequent necessity for clearing
summits as stations for the theodolite were great impediments; but I made
the most of each station when it had once been cleared by taking an exact
panoramic view with the theodolite of the nameless features it commanded.
The accompanying facsimile of a page of my field book includes the view
between north and north-west, taken for the above purpose from the summit
of Jellore, and extends over the ravines of the Nattai to the crest of
the Blue Mountains. Plate 38.)

THE NATTAI. MOYENGULLY.

In the numerous ravines surrounding Jellore the little river Nattai has
its sources, and this wild region is the haunt and secure retreat of the
Nattai tribe whose chief, Moyengully, was one of my earliest aboriginal
friends. (See Plate 39.)

Marulan, the highest summit eastward of Jellore, consists of ferruginous
sandstone, but in the country to the northward we find syenite and
trap-rock. Of the latter, Nattary, a small hill north-east from Towrang
and distant about four miles from it, is perhaps the most remarkable. The
elevation of the country there is considerable (being about one thousand
five hundred feet above the sea on the level part) and, except near the
Shoalhaven and Wollondilly rivers, not much broken into ravines. It
contains not only fine pasture land but al