Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/121

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96
THE CLARENCE RIVER.

is situated at the junction of the Williams river with the Hunter. The site of Raymood-terrace had been a very heavily timbered wood, which had been cut down some years before, and the stumps left standing in the ground. Scarcely any of these stumps had been grabbed up, and they had become perfectly bleached, so that, as I rode into this village in the evening, it seemed as though the houses had been built in the midst of a churchyard, full of upright tomb-stones. Next morning I went on board the steamer from the Green-hills, and arrived in Sydney. that night.

The Clarence, wicch is the next important river, north of the MacLeay, disembogues in Shoal Bay, in 29½° south latitude. Its natural features, and the nature of the country on its banks, are so very similar to those of the MacLeay, that a brief notice of it will suffice. The Clarence river rises in the main range, dividing the eastern and western waters; it receives several very large tributaries, one of which, the Ora-Ora river, rises in the lofty mountains, which, as I have before observed, bound the basin of the Clarence on the south, and divide it from the Bellengen river. The Clarence is remarkable for its great breadth, and large volume of water, compared with other Australian rivers, when the short distance of its sources from die coast is considered.

In common with all other rivers north of the Hunter, its entrance is obstructed by a bar, having