by Richard Cox
William was not in the mood to pen a panegyric about the scenery, but again the Governor’s secretary subsequently did, giving a much clearer description of what William simply saw as a cold, wet and challenging landscape. ‘The majestic grandeur of the situation, Campbell wrote, ‘induced the Governor to give it the appellation of the King’s Table Land … on the south west side the mountain terminates in abrupt precipices of immense depth, at the bottom of which is seen a glen [the forest ground: Macquarie was a Scot], as romantically beautiful as can be imagined, bounded on the further side by mountains of great magnitude … the whole thickly covered with timber.’ This is what Richard Lewis had reported, more prosaically, to William on 23 October. Macquarie later bestowed endless politically deferential names, now mostly forgotten, on various features, such as the Prince Regent’s Glen and the Pitt Amphitheatre (after Prime Minister William Pitt).
On 2 November William decided to survey it himself ‘as a road must be made to get off the mountain’. The next day, having started off at 6 am with Lewis, Tye and a soldier, he found the descent ‘much worse than I expected … The whole front of the mountain is covered with loose rock … the hill is so very steep about half a mile down that it is not possible to make a good road … without going to a very great expense.’ Never prepared to accept defeat, he therefore ‘made up my mind to make such a road as a cart can go down empty or a very light load without a possibility of its being able to return with any sort of load whatever’. In carriage or wagon transport terms this was tantamount to defeat, although ‘such a road would answer to drive stock down to the forest ground’. In his estimation only fat bullocks or sheep would be able to be brought up and the sheep would have to be shorn at the top.
This scene is just as spectacular today. The long forested ridges are bounded by sheer sandstone escarpments, in places eroded into craggy pinnacles and other weird shapes, and with lone trees clinging to their sides, below which lie forested valleys interspersed with grassy plains. Evans had described how on 24 November 1813 he had come ‘to the very end of the Range from which the Prospect is extensive … the descent is rugged and steep’. Having got down it he found a valley that was ‘beautiful and fertile with a rapid stream running through it [Coxs River]’ and then reached the place where the Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson expedition had terminated, west of present day Hartley, and had named a prominent sugarloaf hill as Mount Blaxland.12 The attractions of this forest ground far below were tantalizingly visible to William. When he managed to get down there on foot he found ‘Grass of a good quality … Timber thin and kangaroos – plenty’. But ‘in returning back we had to clamber up the mountain, and it completely knocked me up’. He was now close to his fiftieth birthday.
Despite the fatigue of middle age, William did not give up. He removed all hands further along, to 45½ miles from the Emu ford, and gave them a gill (140 ml) of spirits each to cheer them along. Ever persistent, on 4 November he ‘sent three men to examine all the ridges and gullies to the north, offering a reward if they found a better way down. All returned unsuccessful.’ He decided to get the bullock herds down to the pastures below, since many were suffering from ‘lameness or poverty’ of feed, remarking that they had ‘not carried a single load of anything for me since Sunday week last’. He must have been feeling deeply frustrated, although he did not say so. He was remarkably restrained about his own feelings and health.
The whole group was now forced to camp at the top of the escarpment. Whether William had the caravan with him at this stage is not stated, but the Governor later praised him for having shared his men’s discomforts in a bark hut. There are still two small waterholes near the track to Mount York (named by Macquarie), close to which his men slept in those huts. They are to be found a few metres to the side of the road, quite small, and in soil thick with leaf mould. The overhanging rock ledges where others sheltered are easily identified, too. William described them as ‘so lofty and undermined that the men will be able to sleep dry’.
Some leaders would have accepted this situation as a stalemate and turned back, as earlier expeditions had. Instead, William ordered the blacksmith to make eight pikes for defence against hostile natives, and sent yet another party to find an alternative route down the mountain – which again failed. There were saplings here like white thorn, which grew tall and straight and could be easily bent, and William resolved to send some to Clarendon, an interesting reflection on his lifelong quest for agricultural improvements, even when facing potential disaster. He wrote to Sydney for more gunpowder and spirits and on 7 November ‘went forward with 10 men to commence operations for a road down the mount’. A historian of the mountains, Chris Cunningham, calls the eventual achievement ‘perhaps the most noble of all the stories involved in crossing the Blue Mountains’. But William and his men were not there yet.
The Weatherboard hut at Wentworth Falls was a supply depot during the road building and was painted by John Lewin in 1815. It became the Weatherboard Inn (Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW [PXE 888 no. 3])
Augustus Earle’s painting of convicts repairing Cox’s road, c. 1826 (Nan Kivell Collection, National Library of Australia)
6 Mount York Defeated
On Saturday 5 November 1814, two days before he began the operations ‘for a road down the mount,’ William had ‘Examined the big mountain, and fixed on the spot where to begin on Monday, having given up all thoughts of attempting it elsewhere. J. Manning sprained his ankle in bringing up a keg of water from the rocks below’. These entries in his journal encapsulate the problems William was now facing. Somehow or other the road had to be got down from the ridge to the forest ground below, in spite of the precipitous descent, illnesses and injuries, and miserable weather. When he achieved the objective it was, in Macquarie’s subsequent admiring words, ‘with incredible labour and perseverance [which] does him infinite honor’.1 A tribute indeed.
If you go to Mount York today, near an obelisk commemorating the 1813 explorers and Cox’s achievement, you will see a short section of the road his men made, which has been restored by the Blue Mountains Council. When the track reaches the lip of the mountain it plunges down, twisting between gigantic boulders, which it was impossible to shift, in places swerving past the very edge of cliffs. The descent was only achieved in a series of semi-circular bends, like a sailboat tacking. The Governor’s secretary, John Campbell, in his account of Macquarie’s tour of inspection in May 1815, described this three quarters of a mile as ‘a rugged and tremendous descent in all its windings’.2 Even when it was finished, horses harnessed to carriages had to be taken down backwards because they became terrified. Great logs were attached to the rear of wagons to slow them – and created a pile of discards at the bottom. When Macquarie’s entourage went down in May 1815 their descent took from 11 am to 2 pm – three hours – and when you look down there you can see why.
That was in the future. Now, when William went forward with his 10 men, there were ‘Light rain and heavy fogs’. In the mountains the climate hardly feels like the Australian summer of the plains below, let alone that there was a drought in the country they were striving to reach. The next day he ‘Employed the same hands in the same manner. Light rain as before. The men very wet and uncomfortable, their clothes and bedding being also wet.’ But at least they were still on fairly level ground, grubbing out trees and creating the track that runs near to the monument. Not far back there is a signpost pointing to the various explorers’ routes across the ridge and a slightly confusing map on a noticeboard.
On 9 November, with his team levelling the ground on top of the ridge quite briskly, William ‘removed to the extreme end of the mountain with the whole of the party’, although the road had not reached there yet. He was glad that ‘The rocks here are so lofty and undermined that the men will be able to sleep dry, and keep their little clothing dry also, which is what they have been unable to do this last fortnight’. This was just as well because there was ‘cold rain’ that day, and
on the next and on 11 November again, after a fine working day and a starlit evening previously, ‘Rain commenced before daylight and continued the whole day. Wind S and very cold.’
Three men were ill, one man called Raddock (Roddicks) so much so that he had to be sent back to Windsor. The other two who were laid up included a carpenter with ‘a cold and swollen face’. The sick list was going to mount dramatically in the next few days. Food was a problem too. On this same day, 11 November, William sent two carts back to the second depot for a re-supply of provisions, though they were managing to kill a kangaroo a day for meat. Infuriatingly, having brought the bullocks to provide haulage, trouble was the only thing they were providing. All the beasts had achieved in the past two weeks was to bring one (presumably very large) bag of biscuits the 43 miles from the first depot on the Emu Plains. One bullock had gone blind, wandered into a gully and had to be extricated. William ordered them all down to the forest ground, where they could recover ‘until we remove forward to the Fish river’. In just under four months his men had constructed only 43 miles of road. By 12 November, mercifully a ‘very fine day’ though cold, the road had been completed ‘to the beginning of the large mountain [Mount York], which we have to descend to the forest ground … Continued to clear away the timber and rubbish through the large rocks, and to the beginning of the bluff end of the mountain. Two men on the sick list.’
Again Campbell’s account gives a clearer view of what William faced than he was able to describe himself, when in the thick of tackling the descent. The secretary wrote:
The road continues for the space of 17 miles, on the ridge of the mountain which forms one side of the Prince Regent’s Glen, and then it suddenly terminates in nearly a perpendicular precipice of 676ft. high, as ascertained by measurement. The road constructed by Mr Cox down this rugged and tremendous descent, through all its windings, is no less than three-quarters of a mile in length, and has been executed with skill and stability, and reflects much credit on him … In order to perpetuate the memory of Mr Cox’s services, the Governor deemed it a tribute justly due to him to give his name to this grand and extraordinary pass.
Campbell went on to identify, without apparently intending to, the expensive result of the Blaxland strategy. ‘Although the present pass is the only practicable point yet discovered for descending by, yet the mountain is much higher than those on either side of it … it has the appearance of a very high distinct hill, although it is in fact only the abrupt termination of a ridge.’3
After he began the descent William’s activities became relatively complicated, since with characteristic energy he was both supervising the road building at the top and exploring the potential of the forest ground below. On 13 November he went down there and ‘from thence to the rivulet, and traced it to the river, about five miles’. Having found the river, which Macquarie later named after him, he went one mile down stream, reckoning it must ‘empty itself into the Nepean River’, then ‘came back on the high lands, exploring the best ground for a road’. This may sound easy but it cannot have been at all so, even though they gratifyingly found the timber was only thin and the grass ‘would be very good pasture for sheep’. But within a week William had to admit that he was overdoing the physical exertion, as he had before.
When he got back up to the work site he found that the horse carts had arrived from the second depot, but had only brought ‘very small loads indeed’. He was irritated and ordered two of them to leave next day for the first depot and return ‘on Sunday next, loaded’. As a result of this disappointment he had to cut the rations. Evidently the men were eating in small groups. He ‘Ordered Gorman to issue 4 lbs. biscuits and 3 lbs. flour for each mess, instead of 6 lbs. each, the biscuits running short, and being also too bulky to bring so far, being 90 miles from head-quarters’. The next day he did note, however, that the men were getting fresh kangaroo at least three times a week, which should improve their health. ‘So many men sick,’ he noted. At noon there was thunder, with rain and hail, a cold east wind and rain all evening.
Any relief was short-lived. That next day, 14 November, also brought worse sickness problems, so that the plaudits William later received at not losing a single man on the enterprise were well deserved. The sick list speaks for itself. ‘F. Dwyer, cold, pains in limbs; S. Freeman, cold and swelled face; S. Crook, cold, bad eyes; V. Hanragan, cold, pains in limbs; S. Walters, hurt by bullock. The extreme wet weather we had for a fortnight before we arrived here has given most of the men colds, but as they are now dry lodged … it is to be hoped they will soon recover.’
What is not said in this record is quite as important as what is said. There is no suggestion that any of the sick men were malingering. Nor did William make any complaint about his own condition; and he must have been every bit as wet and cold as his men. Nonetheless, on 14 November they did get on with a bridge at ‘the beginning of the descent off the mountain, and blowing up the rocks that are in the line of our intended road down to the forest. Find is [sic] difficult work and it will cost us much labour.’ This was generally referred to as the first bridge and was on top of the Mount York ridge. On 15 November the men ‘Fixed two trees as side pieces [to the road] … one 45, the other 50ft. long’.
The need to blow up rocks would also have made William glad that he had been so careful to conserve his small supply of gunpowder. Looking at those rocks today makes one realize that he needed skilled quarrymen. On 16 November ‘the rocks cut [were] extremely hard’. On 17 November the men ‘Worked on the front of the mountain. The ground extremely hard, and very large rocks as we dig into it. Some we blow up, but the greater part we turn out with long levers and crowbars. Kept six men cutting and blowing up rocks, two splitting posts and rails, and it is as much as the ‘smith can do to keep their tools in order.’
Happily 18 November saw an inspired piece of innovation. ‘W. Appledon [a former sailor] fixed the blocks and tackle to trees, and got a most capital purchase to turn out an immense large rock at the side of the mountain in the way of our road … two men received slight hurts in doing it by one of the purchases slipping. This rock would have cost me at least 5lb. of powder to have blown it up.’ One can imagine the dislodged monster tumbling down the mountain, crushing undergrowth and small trees on its way to the forest ground below and terrifying any kangaroos that were there.
It was now a full four months since William and his party had set out from the Emu Plains and, if their progress was fast, given the problems, it had a continuing human cost. On 19 November the sick list numbered six and a further six out of the 30 had to be discharged from the mountain work. In the evening they all endured two hours of heavy thunder, hail and rain. Possibly the continuance of the bad weather, the sheer hard work and the constant obstacles tried William’s patience. At all events, on Sunday 20 November he set off early with Hobby, Lewis and Tye to go down the mountain himself. This foray was to leave him soaked to the skin after a near-disaster and uncomfortably aware of his age.
Meanwhile, preparations for bridging the first river on the forest ground below had continued laboriously. The aim was ‘to examine the rivulet, river and ground as far as Blaxland’s mountain, to find out the best passage across the water, as also to mark the road to it’. Evans had described this as a stream going south and joined with one from the west ‘forming a considerable rapid riverlett’, where Campbell recorded that the Governor was ‘much gratified by the appearance of good pasture land and soil fit for cultivation’. Macquarie named it the Vale of Clwyd
in consequence of the strong resemblances it bore to the vale of that name in North Wales … a rivulet of fine water runs along it from the eastward, which unites itself at the western extremity with another rivulet containing still more water. The junction of these two streams forms a very handsome river, now called by the Governor Cox’s River … which empties itself into the River Nepean, near Mulgoa.
Since the Cox River was 56 miles from the Emu ford, according to Campbell, an
d William had reckoned the top of the mountain was 45½ miles from there, this first bridge down below must have been over the Coxs River, were there are still traces of one today. But, as maps show, there were a number of rivulets. What is now marked as the River Lett appears to be Evans’ ‘riverlett’.
Campbell’s account explains the problems which William encountered, both here and beyond. The combined rivulets were too large to cross when they became one river and the terrain beyond was tricky. On Sunday 20 November, William may well have been swearing under his breath as he tried to establish a route across either the river or the rivulets, although he was probably too self-controlled to swear out loud in front of his men. It was a bad day for him. First of all, after crossing a small swamp, ‘my horse got stuck in a bog, and plunged until he fell. I received no hurt, but got wet through.’ He then did the only sensible thing, given that they were all short of clothing: ‘Pulled off my clothes, wrung them and left them in the sun an hour, when they were tolerably dry’. It was just as well that it wasn’t raining. Evidently he had acquired a saddle horse.
Shortly after this, when crossing the lower rivulet, close to the junction, ‘Mr Hobby’s horse stumbled and threw him into the water, which from the last heavy rains was quite rapid’. After all that, despite finding ‘the sort of grass fit for cattle and sheep’, William was further frustrated by the crossing places on the river being so encumbered with rock, and the sides so steep, that ‘I did not fix on a crossing place on it, but intend having both rivulets well examined the ensuing week’. He was just about done for, himself. ‘Came back at 6 p.m., completely knocked up from fatigue.’ It really was a game for younger men. Evans had been only 33 when he embarked on his expedition. To cap it all, that evening they again experienced violent winds and three or four hours of the interminable rain.