for any valley that would enable him to pierce the barrier, and had to
retrace his steps and seek more to the west. Here he came upon a pass,
which he called Pandora's Pass, [See Appendix.] and which he found to be
practicable as a stock route to the plains. He returned to Bathurst on
the 27th of June.

In October, Oxley started from Sydney on a very different kind of
expedition to those lately undertaken by him. His mission now was to
examine the inlets of Port Curtis, Moreton Bay, and Port Bowen, with a
view to forming penal establishments there. On the 21st of October,
therefore, 1823, he left in the colonial cutter MERMAID, accompanied by
Messrs. Stirling and Uniacke. At Port Macquarie, Oxley had the pleasure
of seeing the settlement that had so rapidly sprung up on his
recommendation of the suitability of the port. Further on, they
discovered and named the Tweed River. On the 6th November, the MERMAID
anchored in Port Curtis. Here the party remained for some time, and found
and christened the Boyne River. Oxley's report was unfavourable.


"Having," he says, "viewed and examined with the most anxious attention
every point that afforded the least promise of being eligible for the
site of a settlement, I respectfully submit it as my opinion, that Port
Curtis and its vicinity do not afford such a site; and I do not think
that any convict establishment could be formed there that would return
either from the natural productions of the country, or as arising from
agricultural labour, any portion of the great expense which would
necessarily attend its first formation."


As it was too late in the season to examine Port Bowen, the MERMAID went