ntend with to submit themselves to be thwarted from
pursuits essential to their immediate safety and comfort, by the
prospect of remote and uncertain advantages. It was by perseverance and
toil alone that they first established and ultimately spread themselves
over that part of the territory, which, flanked by the ocean on the one
hand, and embraced as it were by the Nepean River on the other, is now
entitled the County Of Cumberland. For many years, this single district
supplied the wants of the settlers. Upon it they found ample pasture
for their herds, and sufficient employment for themselves. Nor was it
until a succession of untoward seasons, and the rapid increase of their
stock pointed out to them the necessity of seeking for more extensive
pasturage, that they contemplated surmounting that dark and rugged
chain of mountains, which, like the natural ramparts of Spain and
Italy, rose high over the nether forest, and broke the line of the
western horizon.

MR. CALEY'S ATTEMPT.

A Mr. Caley is said to have been the first who attempted to scale the
Blue Mountains: but he did not long persevere in struggling with
difficulties too great for ordinary resolution to overcome. It appears
that he retraced his steps, after having penetrated about sixteen miles
into their dark and precipitous recesses; and a heap of stones, which
the traveller passes about that distance from Erne Ford, on the road to
Bathurst, marks the extreme point reached by the first expedition to
the westward of the Nepean river.

LIEUT. LAWSON'S EXPEDITION.

Shortly after the failure of this expedition, the sad effects of a long
protracted drought called forth a more general spirit of enterprise and
exertion among the settlers; and Mr. Oxley makes honorable mention of
the perseverance and resolution with which Lieut. Lawson, of the 104th
regiment, accompanied by Messrs. Blaxland and Wentworth, conducted an
expedition into the Blue Mountains. Their efforts were successful: and
the objects of their enterprise would have been completely attained,
but for the failure of their provisions at a moment when their view of
the distant interior was such as to convince them that they had
overcome the most formidable obstacles to their advance, and that in
their further progress few impediments would have presented themselves.

MR. EVANS' DISCOVERIES.

The success of this undertaking induced Governor Macquarie to further
the prosecution of inland discovery, an