It savours strongly of an Irishism to say so, but the chief inhabitants of Bathurst live at some distance from it; many of the wealthy, and also higher class of settlers, having farms and good residences within a few miles, which renders the society superior to that of Colonial settlements in general. Nearly all are situated on the verge of the plains, combining both the flat and hilly country in their surrounding scenery, and their gardens and vineyards, which at the time we were there were slowly recovering their former verdure and luxuriance, seemed morsels of a brighter world, when compared with the arid waste around the township. Among these the pretty and picturesque residence of our good and venerable friend Captain Piper is as much distinguished by its beautiful situation as by the long-proved worth and hospitality of its owner, than whom I heard of no person in New South Wales more universally respected. Hospitality is so general a feature in Australian society, and I remember with so much pleasure the kind attentions which I, as a “stranger in the land,” received for my husband's sake, that only a very remarkable preeminence would induce me to break my prescribed rule of abstaining from all personal allusions in these pages.

About three miles from Bathurst, near a pretty cottage on the Macquarie (in a district chiefly granite), is a singular group of low rocks rising abruptly from the turf of the plains, and perfectly white; they appeared to me to be masses of pure quartz, of which many specimens occur a few miles higher up the river.