Letter to Philip Gidley King
21 November 1802
A 1980 / 2 pp. 67-70
Manuscript letter
One of the first French settlers to arrive in the colony was engineer and explorer, Francis Louis Barrallier (1773–1853). In April 1800, Barrallier arrived in Sydney with the newly appointed governor of New South Wales, Philip Gidley King.
In October 1802, he set out on a short excursion inland to the west, and discovered the Nattai River where he set-up a supply depot for a future attempt to cross ‘the impassable’ Blue Mountains.
In this letter to Governor King, Barrallier reports on his journey; describing the country through which he travelled, and an encounter with a group of Aboriginal people.
The following month Barrallier made an attempt to cross The Blue Mountains, but was unsuccessful. Although his mission was considered a ‘failure’, and was a deterrent for many years to come, his effort to penetrate the mountain range is considered to be the most important initial attempt by a European.
Translation of letter from Francis Louis Barrallier to Governor Philip Gidely King, 1802
MLMSS
6664
Unknown
translator
PAGE
1
Sir
I
received on 19th by way of the cart 200lb or pork, 300lb of flour,
50lb of sugar with 6lb of gunpowder and about 15 or 20lb of lead shot. I had
returned from my incursion into the mountains without being able to find a
passage directly west. But by following the river 4 miles to the north I found
another larger river that runs between two chains of mountains to the N.E. The
plain begins at the confluence of the two rivers. The width of the plain from
the foot of the northern mountains to the southern ones is about one mile and a
half. And the further one goes the wider the plain becomes. The left-hand side
sloping to the south and the right-hand to the west, at stream ‘C’ we
endeavoured to climb to the summit of mountain ‘D’ which appeared the most
suitable for this purpose. As we climbed the obstacles stones broke away from
time to time from under our feet and as they rolled towards us threatened us
with almost ruin. At last in spite of all our efforts we reached only some
hundred feet from the summit and as the rocks jutted up perpendicularly to the
aforementioned summit we were forced to abandon our undertaking having first
gone right round the side of the mountain in all possible directions. It was
beneath this impenetrable wall that one of my servants killed a kind of cangoroo,
the kind that live in the different caves which are scattered about there. One
of the two natives accompanying us, having seen another in a hole near him
tried to seize it by the tail, but the animal, taking advantage of his having
to bend forward, leaped over his head and fell over a 90 foot precipice and
balanced on a rock as well as any….
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