The Australian Explorers

Persons who have yet to make their acquaintance with the early history of
New South Wales will learn with surprise that the colony had been
founded for almost a quarter of a century before the Blue Mountain barrier
was crossed. For so long a period it was scarcely possible to proceed more
than forty miles from Sydney in any direction. Many a despairing look
must those early settlers have cast on the frowning ramparts of the range,
which, leaving only a narrow margin between itself and the sea, threatened
to convert the cradle of the colony into a Procrustes' bed, to which its
dimensions would have to conform in the future, as they had done in the
past. This sense of confinement was the harder to bear that it was met with
in a land of freedom; and many a time did the caged eagle dash itself with
fruitless rage against the bars of its prison. A record of the unsuccessful
attempts to get beyond the main range would form a heroic chapter of our
history, and one, too, of which we might well feel proud, if there is any
truth in the saying that in great undertakings it is glorious even to fail.
Within four months after the arrival of the "first fleet" our annals present a
picture of Governor Phillip and party struggling laboriously westward to
the gorges of the mountains.