on the twelfth day after he left "Richmond Hill." Caley
himself reported thus on the appearance of the country:
"On looking to the westward I saw no large valleys except the one close to us, from which the ground apparently kept rising gradually as far as the eye could see. In a few places there appeared swamps, in others no trees, and very scrubby. By these appearances it might be imagined easy to travel over that space, provided the inaccessible valley close at hand was crossed. Yet there is no doubt but what others of a similar nature would present themselves, as I am too well convinced now of their rugged and impassable state, which becomes at every step an Ha! Ha!"
Nature's gigantic hah-hah, where the fosse may be two thousand feet deep, abounds in the valleys and tributaries of the Grose, and Caley aptly described it. One of his muscular companions, seeing two crows flying over the desolation, exclaimed that the birds "must have lost their way.
Knowing the trustworthy character of his envoy (whose name was often mentioned as Cayley), King sadly wrote:
"I cannot help thinking that persevering in crossing these mountains, which are a confused and barren assemblage of mountains with impassable chasms between, would be as chimerical as useless. Few possess the bodily strength and enthusiastic mind which Caley does to encounter such researches; yet with these qualities within himself, being well equipped, and having the strongest men in the colony to assist him, nothing but his enthusiasm could have enabled him to perform that journey. From its ill effects he did not for some time recover."
For a time "Caley's repulse" was accepted as final. The secret of the mountains was not to be extorted by main strength. There had been two ways of obtaining it. By kindness to natives, such as Phillip enjoined, it could have been had for asking. By such astuteness as was displayed by Wentworth and his companions it was to be had with toil. After Phillip's departure there had been no man wise enough or firm enough to secure the first and better way, which the Hawkesbury settlers had by ill-treatment of the natives made impossible.
It is a melancholy thing that King, resolute in other things, was incapable of restraining, or unwilling to punish, the brutalities of the whites. It is doubtless true that the increase of population and its distribution at more numerous places rendered the task of supervision more difficult than it had been in the earlier days. But all was not done that could have been done to establish peace, and much was
