other hand, would listen to no objections. He only
stipulated (with great care and consideration) that, during his absence,
his wife and child should remain at Sydney under our protection, and be
supplied with provisions.

But before we set out, let me describe our equipment, and try to convey
to those who have rolled along on turnpike roads only, an account of those
preparations which are required in traversing the wilderness. Every
man (the governor excepted) carried his own knapsack, which contained
provisions for ten days. If to this be added a gun, a blanket, and a
canteen, the weight will fall nothing short of forty pounds. Slung to the
knapsack are the cooking kettle and the hatchet, with which the wood to
kindle the nightly fire and build the nightly hut is to be cut down. Garbed
to drag through morasses, tear through thickets, ford rivers and scale
rocks, our autumnal heroes, who annually seek the hills in pursuit of
grouse and black game, afford but an imperfect representation of the
picture.

Thus encumbered, the march begins at sunrise, and with occasional halts
continues until about an hour and a half before sunset. It is necessary to
stop thus early to prepare for passing the night, for toil here ends not
with the march. Instead of the cheering blaze, the welcoming landlord, and
the long bill of fare, the traveller has now to collect his fuel, to erect
his wigwam, to fetch water, and to broil his morsel of salt pork. Let him
then lie down, and if it be summer, try whether the effect of fatigue is
sufficiently powerful to overcome the bites and stings of the myriads of
sandflies and mosquitoes which buzz around him.

Monday, April 11, 1791. At twenty minutes before seven o'clock, we started
from the governor's house at Rose Hill and steered* for a short time nearly
in a north-east direction, after which we turned to north 34 degrees west,
and steadily pursued that course until a quarter before four o'clock, when
we halted for the night. The country for the first two miles, while we
walked to the northeast, was good, full of grass and without rock or
underwood.

Afterwards it grew very bad, being full of steep, barren rocks, over which
we were compelled to clamber for seven miles, when it changed to a plain
country apparently very sterile, and with very little grass in it, which
rendered walking easy. Our fatigue in the morning had, however, been so
oppressive that one of the party knocked up. And had not