DEPARTURE FOR THE INTERIOR.

On the 5th, our preparations being wholly completed, and the loads
arranged, the party was mustered, and was found to consist of myself and
Mr. Hume, two soldiers and eight prisoners of the crown, two of whom were
to return with dispatches. Our animals numbered two riding, and seven
pack, horses, two draft, and eight pack, bullocks, exclusive of two
horses of my own, and two for the men to be sent back.

BANKS OF THE MACQUARIE.

The morning of the 7th December, the day upon which we were to leave the
valley, was ushered in by a cloudless sky, and that heated appearance in
the atmosphere which foretells an oppressively sultry day. I therefore put
off the moment of our departure to the evening, and determined to proceed
no further than Gobawlin. I was the more readily induced to order this
short journey because the animals had not been practised to their full
loads, and I thought they might have given some trouble at starting with
an unusual weight. They moved off however very quietly, and as if they had
been accustomed to their work by a long course of training. We took our
departure from the settlement at 3 p.m. and, crossing to the right bank of
the Macquarie, a little above its junction with the Bell, reached Mr
Wylde's station about half-past five. Thus we commenced our journey under
circumstances as favorable as could have been wished. In disengaging
ourselves on the following day from the hills by which Wellington Valley
is encompassed on the westward, with a view to approach Mr. Palmer's first
station, we kept rather wide of the river, and only occasionally touched
on its more projecting angles. The soil at a distance from the stream was
by no means so good as that in its immediate vicinity, nor was the timber