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The authorities in Sydney and Melbourne must have heard of the existence of the country and of its settlement, but they were content for a time with the receipt of the money paid into the Treasury for depasturing licenses and for assessments on stock.

In the evening after watering our horses, we took them to the camp and gave each of them a feed of corn which we had brought with us for the purpose of strengthening them previous to our starting from Rockingham Bay, on our expedition; but although the grass on which they had been depasturing was coarse, they were with difficulty induced to eat the corn, many of them leaving it almost all behind them.

Moreover, the government was grievously in want of money, and in addition to the fees for depasturing licenses, exacted half-yearly assessments on the unsaleable flocks and herds. But the law exacted payment on live cattle only, so the squatters in their dire distress resolved to kill their stock and boil them, the hides and the resulting tallow being of some value.

The duty of the former was to lead out the flocks daily at dawn, to follow and tend them while depasturing, and protect them from the depredations of the blacks, or the molestations of the native dogs; for which purpose in very remote districts, such as this, they are provided with guns.

By the regulations then in force in New South Wales, Glengarry was entitled, for a fee of 10 pounds per annum, to hold under a depasturing license an area of twenty square miles, on which he might place 500 head of cattle or 4,000 sheep. He selected a site for his head station and residence on the banks of the Tarra.

This had been, however, an exceptionally severe winter. On the way to Government House, my eyes were once more regaled with the gum trees, in the well-accustomed form of open forest, the ground being covered with grass, on which sheep were depasturing. This is the pleasing characteristic of much of Australian scenery.

Here was a clump of trees from which the underwood had been wholly cut away, so as to form a shade for the cattle depasturing in the meadow. As we entered the grove, Jessie exclaimed: "Oh! Mr Slick, do look! Here is a canoe can you use a paddle?"

To the west, a high line of flooded-gum trees extending from the river to the base of the hills which form the west side of the valley before noticed, hides the near elevations, and thus shuts in the whole space. The soil of the plain is of the richest description, and the hills backing it, together with the valley, are capable of depasturing the most extensive flocks.

To the west, a high line of flooded-gum trees extending from the river to the base of the hills which form the west side of the valley before noticed, hides the near elevations, and thus shuts in the whole space. The soil of the plain is of the richest description, and the hills backing it, together with the valley, are capable of depasturing the most extensive flocks.

The cutting of the wood and the depasturing of the grasses upon the sand-dunes converted them from solid bulwarks against the ocean to loose accumulations of dust, which every sea-breeze drove farther landward, burying, perhaps, fertile soil and choking up water-courses on one side, and exposing the coast to erosion by the sea upon the other.