imber, although there are places where the trees are scattered
sparingly, and likewise plains of considerable extent, entirely bare of
trees. Of this description are Goulburn's Plains, which consist of open
downs, affording good pasturage for sheep, and extending twenty miles
southward from the township to which they owe their name, their breadth
being about ten. There are some remarkable lakes in this county, or near
its borders, the two largest of which are called Lake George and Lake
Bathurst. Some of the old natives say that they can remember when these
lakes did not exist; and dead trees are found in the bed of Lake George,
the whole of which was, in October 1836, dried up, and like a grassy
meadow.[131]

[131] See Major Mitchell's Three Expeditions, vol. ii. p. 317.

Bathurst is another inland county, lying nearly due west of Cumberland,
but not adjoining it, which may deserve to be briefly described. In
looking over a map of the colony of New South Wales, it appears strange
that counties, like this, comparatively remote both from the capital and
from the sea, should be more known and flourishing than others lying
betwixt them and these important objects. But when we reflect upon the
nature of the country, and remember that the intervening counties are in
a great measure occupied by the Blue Mountains, with their tremendous
ravines and dreary sandstone wastes, all wonder will cease at finding
the green pastures and smiling country beyond the mountains occupied,
while the rugged tract is suffered to remain for the most part in its
natural state, and instead of becoming populous itself, is employed only
as a channel of communication between the consuming population on the
coast and the producing population of the more fertile interior.
Bathurst is in length seventy-two miles, and in breadth sixty-eight,
in shape somewhat approaching to an irregular square. No part of this
district was explored before 1813. It is, in general, a kind of broken
table-land, in some places forming extensive and bare downs, as, for
instance, Bathurst Plains, containing 50,000 acres. Occasional open
downs of this kind, and not unlike the South Downs in England, extend
along the banks of the Macquarie for upwards of one hundred miles.
Bathurst is reckoned one of the most flourishing and desirable
situations in the whole colony, and the view of these plains from the
high land to the eastward upon the road from Sydney is very interesting.