Red O'Shaughnessy by J.H.M. Abbott — Read

WHILE the three gentlemen--Captain Axthorpe, Mr. Wentworth, and Mr. Gregory Blaxland--dined, and afterwards as they sat over their wine, the last-named of the trio gave the others a sort of lecture on the story of the various attempts that had been made during the twenty-five years of the existence of New South Wales as a British colony to penetrate the rugged ramparts of the Blue Mountains in order to find out what sort of country might lie behind the seemingly impregnable barrier that had hitherto defied the most strenuous efforts of all who had striven to cross it. Red O'Shaughnessy, waiting at table, was an interested listener.

"You must know, my dear Axthorpe," he said, "that the idea of getting over the western wall that has hitherto confined settlement in the colony to a mere coastal strip of country, is by no means a new one--though I flatter myself that my own plan of doing so is entirely original. Governor Phillip himself came to the foot of the wall in 1789, when he discovered the Hawkesbury River, and others afterwards essayed to escalade it--but all to no purpose. Every effort to get beyond the rampart was defeated by the peculiarly broken, precipitous, and irregular character of a region where, instead of wide river valleys winding through the hills, as in the more usual mountain country, deep gorges seemed to cut across every ridge, and every stream tumbled over a series of waterfalls. There are several records of these tremendous difficulties."