the gorges of the mountains. In 1793 Lieutenant Dawes, with Captains Trench and Paterson, put forth equally persistent, but just as unsuccessful, efforts to scale the sandstone cliffs and reach the interior. During this year, also, H. Hacking, of the Sirius, with two companions, penetrated twenty miles into the mountains, passing over eighteen or nineteen ridges or gullies, and returned to the settlement after an absence of seven days. Three years later George Bass, the famous, though unprofessional, navigator and discoverer of the strait which still bears his name, did all that marvels of perseverance could accomplish in the hope of forcing a passage by way of the valley of the Grose. Taking a party on whose courage he could rely, Bass had his feet armed with iron hooks that he might scale the cliffs, after the manner of a spider, and made his men lower him with ropes into the outlying chasms. But it was all in vain. After fifteen days of heroic endeavour, he returned to Sydney, bringing the cold comfort of impossibility of transit. Bass assured his fellow-colonists that a passage over the Blue Mountains did not exist, even for a person on foot. It is possible that this strong statement was disproved almost immediately after. A tradition, not too well authenticated, speaks of a convict of the name of Wilson actually crossing the mountains in 1799. With another advance we get better footing and read of a Lieutenant Barrellier making a similar attempt, but only to add another name to the list of failures. Two
