1832.

CHAPTER 1.1.

A Bushranger's story.
My plan of exploration.
Preparations.
Departure from Sydney.
A garden.
Country between Sydney and the Hawkesbury.
Beyond the Hawkesbury.
Summit of Warrawolong.
Natives of Brisbane Water.
The Wollombi.
Valley of the Hunter.
Fossils of the Hunter.
Men employed on the expedition.
Equipment.
Burning grass.
Aborigines and Colonists.
Cambo, a wild native.
A Colonist of the right sort.
Escape of the Bushranger, The Barber.
Burning Hill of Wingen.
Approach Liverpool Range.
Cross it.
A sick tribe.
Interior waters.
Liverpool Plains.
Proposed route.
Horses astray.
A Squatter.
Native guide and his gin.
Modes of drinking au naturel.
Woods on fire.
Cross the Turi Range.
Arrive on the River Peel.
Fishes.
Another native guide.
Explore the Peel.

BUSHRANGER'S STORY.

The journey northward in 1831 originated in one of those fabulous tales
which occasionally become current in the colony of New South Wales,
respecting the interior country, still unexplored.

A runaway convict named George Clarke, alias The Barber, had, for a
length of time escaped the vigilance of the police by disguising himself
as an aboriginal native. He had even accustomed himself to the wretched
life of that unfortunate race of men; he was deeply scarified like them
and naked and painted black, he went about with a tribe, being usually
attended by two aboriginal females, and having acquired some knowledge of
their language and customs.

But this degenerate white man was not content with the solitary freedom
of the savage life and his escape from a state of servitude. He had
assumed the cloak and colour of the savage that he might approach the
dwellings of the colonists, and steal with less danger of detection. In
conjunction with the simple aborigines whom he misled, and with several
other runaway convicts he had organised a system of cattle stealing,
which was coming into extensive operation on Liverpool plains when,
through the aid of some of the natives, who have in general assisted the
detection of bushrangers, he was at length discovered and captured by the
police.

After this man was taken into custody, he gave a circumstantial detail of
his travels to the north-west along the bank of a large river, named, as
he said, the Kindur; by following which in a south-west direction he had
twice reached the seashore. He described the tribes inhabiting the banks
of the Kindur and gave the names