Victoria into the Vale of Clydd. The view from the top of the hill was very beautiful, the flat vale filled with trees, and surrounded by an escarpment of cliffs, looked more verdant and park-like than anything I had seen. A wreath or two of smoke, curling into the air, showed that a few settlers lived among the trees, and two or three little white houses in the distance, proved to be the village of Hartley. The road was conducted down the hill with a gentle slope; a steep, blue-looking abyss yawns on the left of the road, and formerly, even some time after the country was settled, there was great difficulty in the ascent and descent; the bullock-waggons laden with wool being hauled up and let down with ropes. I dined at the little village of Hartley, which possesses a neat church and a very fair inn, kept by a bustling Scotchwoman. In the evening, after a tedious ride, thirty-four miles from the Weatherboard, I stopped at Solitary Creek, a lonely looking house, well worthy of the name. The next day I reached Bathurst. The plain in which this little town is built, is almost flat, and is covered with shaggy grass, but without a tree-a curious change, after passing through the interminable gum forest which clothes the mountains. Through the middle of the plain winds the Macquarie river, which, though it drains so extensive a country, is in the dry season little more than a line of waterholes; I saw it to advantage, as a strong rolling stream. It runs from Bathurst into the interior, forming one of the head waters of the Darling, which, after a long circuitous course, joins the Murray, and at Adelaide falls into the sea. Bathurst is quite a new town, laid out with a large square and broad streets, but with few houses, and those of mean |