And now the light-ship is passed, piercing the gloom under the cliffs with its stream of radiance, and the troubled waters moan, and heave, and swell, and toss, and stupendous piles of rock rise on either side, frowning through the darkness upon the puny waves that lash themselves into fury at their base, -- leaping with impotent rage up their rugged cliffs, and falling back again in foam and shattered spray. And now harbour, ships, villas, cottages, and city are shut from our gaze by a long line of black beetling cliffs, and we are fairly on the world of waters; and now darkness rests upon the wide expanse of heaving billows, nought breaks the silence but the plashing of the waves. The scene has no further interest, and a certain dizziness admonishes us to go below. As the sun rose, Nobby's Island hove in sight, and before six o'clock we were alongside the Company's Wharf, at Newcastle. This island is a circular mass of sandstone, about one hundred feet high, rising from the midst of rocks and breakers, at the mouth of the harbour, and is connected with the southern shore by a breakwater, the work of prisoners of the Crown, in former times. The ruins of some of their huts may still be seen on the inner slope of the embankment. The town contains a few handsome edifices, and is piled without any appearance of regularity upon the side of a sandstone hill overlooking the estuary of the Hunter, with its numerous islands. From the opposite shore a low marsh, or sandspit, extends to a considerable distance inland, backed by blue ranges that seem to relieve the dreary, aspect of the place. Somehow this town does not appear as yet to have caught the spirit of the sea; it seems to be ashamed of its destiny; you see no flaunting signs, such as are the pride and boast of our English sea-ports. Jack is not in the ascendant; no hope and anchor, no jolly tar, no old salts knocking about and looking with supreme contempt upon the land lubbers, none of, those distinguishing characteristics which so strongly mark our English seaports and without which they would be shorn of half their attractions. Steam may have done all this, and perhaps even in England they are passing away. At Newcastle I overtook the Grafton boat, and found her crowded with adventurers going to try their fortune amongst the wilds of the Timbarra or Touloome. They were a motley crew -- Chinese, Americans, Canadians, English, and rough old diggers from the foot of the Snowy Mountains, with a few who, after rambling over all the gold-fields, were returning to the heads of the Clarence with a renewed faith in their hidden riches. They were of all trades and occupations -- electric telegraphic operators, tailors, sailors, farmers, jewellers, backwoodsmen, clerks, carpenters, shoemakers, &c. Many of them had no more idea of where they were going to or what was before them than if they, were about to land upon the coast of Japan, and will probably be back to the big city in time to eat their Christmas dinner, as they are not of the right mould for the mountains. As we steamed out of the harbour, I counted twenty-one sail of small craft in the offing, all standing to the southward. The weather was what a seaman would log as
"light breezes and fine,"
with a smooth sea, and our course lay along the shore, often sufficiently near to distinguish objects on the sands or amongst the rocks. Flat wooded districts skirted with a long line of glaring white sandy beach, upon which the surf curled and broke, leaving a fringe of white foam as it retreated, to be again driven forward by the advancing waves, was succeeded by black precipices, pierced with caverns, in which the boiling surges roared and raved with ceaseless fury; and these, in their turn, gave place to ranges which, stretching from the endless pile of mountains indistinct in the western distance, rushed boldly into the ocean, forming capes and promontories, and throwing out island sentinels in advance. To the northward of the Bellenger a fine district of champaign country is bounded by a stupendous range, in the midst of which Mount Seaview, enthroned on the lesser hills, hides his crest amongst clouds and fleecy vapours. This range probably forms the southern watershed of the tributaries on the south bank of the Clarence, many of which are large and important streams; rising, like a wall, it connects with the table-land to the south of Glen Innes, forming the southern boundary of our unexplored auriferous region, difficult of access, but not impossible, and I believe that whoever traverses these ranges, and descends to the lower hills and valleys of denudation, will discover more than one gold-field. All the country, within the basin bounded to the southward by the range in question, to the eastward by the table-land, and to the northward by the Macpherson ranges, at a given distance from the ocean, and at a certain elevation, has proved auriferous wherever it has been explored, the greater part has, however, yet to be pressed by a white foot for the first time. I would refer to maps, but there are none published, to be obtained in Sydney, of the slightest value with reference to the ranges and physical features of the colony. We will now continue our voyage: Fifty miles to the northward from this range, is Shoal Bay, and at daybreak on the third morning after leaving Sydney we were laying off the mouth of the Clarence River waiting for a pilot. On the south head is a green rounded hill, surmounted by a signal staff, and on the north shore a low sand-spit extends for several miles along the coast until it meets the range of hills, which, sweeping from the banks of the river some miles higher up, here approaches the ocean; the entrance is narrow, and the channel, close under the north shore, sweeps across to the opposite bank. Within less than a quarter of an hour after the pilot came on board we were in the river, the water as tranquil as a mill-pond, and, on looking back at the breakers on the bar, we could just perceive the narrow passage through which we had entered; this bar shifts frequently, and renders the office of pilot no sinecure, as he can always fill up his time by taking soundings. The bar on this occasion was in its gentlest mood; sometimes, under the influence of a strong easterly breeze, it is terrific, and I have heard the hollow booming of the surf at a distance of thirty or forty miles. On rounding the first point a magnificent expanse of water lay before us, studded with islands and calm and unruffled as a sheet of glass; whichever side you turned nothing but water and foliage met the sight, a single rock, a patch of barrenness of any sort would have been a relief, something for the eye to rest upon, ere it wandered over a foliage so dense of forest trees, and matted shrubs, and tangled vines, and creeping plants, and parasites, and rank tall weeds emulating the giants that they clustered round and strangled in their embrace, -- a foliage so dense that night cowered beneath and hid herself from a cloudless sky and the fierce rays of a noon tide sun, -- a foliage so dense that if you landed and were provided with a good tomahawk, and were not afraid of snakes, and did not mind being impaled upon a monster cockspur, or stung to death by the broad leafed nettle tree, a near relation to the upas, you might if you were active, advance one hundred yards in two hours, and if you did not lose your way you would be able to return in two more; such is the luxuriance of the vegetation, and the fertility of the alluvial flats on either bank of the Clarence. As we glide along our tortuous course groups of the aborigines timidly creep from behind trees, or rise from behind black and mouldering logs to hail the steamer as she passes; they would risk much for a sight of a steamer; to them it is the grandest thing in nature; and if their cooey is only returned they are happy for the day. Presently we reach Broadwater, a beautiful sheet of water, on the margin of which is an out-station belonging to Mr. Clarke Irving. From the moment we entered the river we had been skirting the territories of that gentleman, bounded to the south by the Clarence; and to the north by the Richmond River, a goodly principality, if he had only other subjects than the bovine race. Still winding as we glide onward the larger islands are passed, and the magnificence of the stream becomes apparent, as it rolls past in one unbroken sheet of water bearing the tribute of an hundred rivers to the ocean. We have now reached the Devil's Elbow, a bend in the river, sixteen miles below Grafton, where the town of Lawrence has been located by the late Government with a laudable zeal to make the most of a swamp subject to inundation; however well it may be supplied with salt water; a good drink of clear fresh water is amongst the impossibilities of the place. If any of the new-fledged aldermen of Grafton should incur the penalty of a pint of salt and water and refuse to take it kindly, his Lordship the Mayor may simplify the matter by sending him to rusticate at Laurence. There is here an old station converted for the time being into a comfortable public-house, and a shed used as a receiving store at the wharf, with a slab store at some little distance, about a mile below the wharf a spur approaches the river from the ranges in the rear, in which there are several fine building sites, which will be occupied before long. It is said, I do not know how truly, that many of the purchasers of town allotments here at the last sale forfeited their deposits. The passengers with cargo, for Tooloome and the Richmond, were landed at this place, and the steamer continued her voyage to Grafton. Twelve miles from Laurence, on the old road to New England, a little public-house, formerly deserted, has been re-opened since the discovery of the gold-fields, and is now doing a good business. It is reported that gold has been procured in the vicinity, about a mile further; the road forks, the branch to the left, leading to Tenterfield and the diggings; that to the right to Casino and the Richmond River, distant fifty miles. Our business is now with the left hand track, which conducts you over a beautiful country richly grassed, well watered, and heavily timbered; swelling hills and ridges alternating with undulating flats. Thirty-four miles through this lovely wilderness brings you to Wyom, where a stock-man has a hut on the road-side, at which supplies can be obtained for a consideration. This was formerly a beautiful little station, situated on Myrtle Creek, at the base of the Hogarth Range, but it has been long since absorbed, by one of the largest runs on the Richmond. The head station is about twenty-five miles' distant. Fourteen miles further, and you are at the foot of the Richmond Range, on Busby's Flat. The usual camping-place is near the solitary grave of poor Ben. He fell by a sun-stroke while driving his team down the range, and now sleeps at its foot, beneath that forest which has been so often illumined by his camp fires, and has so many times re-echoed his merry songs, and jibes, and shouts, for, amongst his mates, gathered round the blazing log, he was the prince of bull-punchers.This is a beautiful situation for a village. The land is exceedingly rich, and the broad winding valleys are sufficiently extensive to lay out at least fifty choice farms. Water and wood are abundant. You now commence the ascent of the range, and, after a toilsome journey of about three miles, reach its summit, when three miles of a descent lands you upon an extensive treeless plain, evidently of lacustrine origin, stretching to the north-west; and bordered by low fertile hills that rise as they recede. Much of the land between this place and Tablau is of the richest quality, chiefly alluvial in the broad flats and bottoms, and admirably suited for cultivation. Twelve miles further you arrive at the summit of Currabobilla, and the descent of this hill is one of the worst and most dangerous parts of the road, as it is a succession of jump-offs from one sandstone ledge to another for a considerable distance. Four men, accustomed to road work, would make it safely passable in a month. At the base of this hill you are on the extensive alluvial flats formed by the junction of two branches of the Clarence -- or more correctly speaking, two main tributaries of that stream. These flats -- fertile and beautiful as they are -- have never been offered for sale. Why remains to be explained hereafter. But to the rivers. A stream rising in the Macpherson Range, at the base of Mount Lindsay, distant about seventy miles due north, after winding through a broken country, and receiving many large tributaries, unites its waters with the Timbarra, or Northern Rocky, which has its source in the neighbourhood of Glen Innes, some hundred miles to the south-west, following the windings of the stream. Both these rivers, with their many tributary creeks, are auriferous from their source in the mountains -- the Tooloom, the Tuebra, Pretty Gully, and the Frenchmen's Rush on the one, and McLeod's Creek, the Tableland, and the Mullers on the other, with a host of minor places. Tablau, consisting of a new public-house and a lock-up, and overshadowed by a station, is situated on these flats. Below the junction of the rivers the Clarence is as wide as the Thames at Richmond, but before it reaches Grafton it rivals the Mississippi in its volume, and surpasses it in the grandeur of its scenery and the fertility of its banks. The postman is waiting; I have only time to say that crowds are arriving, crowds are returning -- many are working, many are idle -- some are fortunate, and some disappointed. No one here doubts that gold is abundant; but water is scarce, and we have no prospect of rain at present.