2. Sheep-farming is an industry that demands great stretches of suitable land for sheep-runs. The sheep-farmers of New South Wales, soon found it difficult to get enough elbow-room. You may think this strange, considering the vast expanse of Australia. But in the early days of the colony, the settlers occupied merely a narrow strip between the mountains and the sea. The Blue Mountains, which rose at the back of Sydney, seemed to hem them in, and to cut them off from the unknown country beyond. 3. For the first quarter of a century, few serious efforts were made to cross the range. The early governors, indeed, discouraged all such attempts; for they were afraid of its being made too easy for the convicts to escape, since they were not kept in prison, but put out to farm-labour. But with the coming of Macquarie, as governor, in 1810, all this was changed. He made it his chief business to prepare the colony as a suitable place for free settlers from home, and for such convicts as had served out their time and became free men. He at once set to work to rebuild Sydney, to make roads and bridges, to clear the forests, and to improve the public property in various ways. 4. Seeing the importance of enlarging his domains, he encouraged the free settlers to range as far afield as possible, and induced Blaxland and two others to face the perils of the mountains, and try to find a way to the interior. All previous explorers had failed because they tried to find passes, as is usually done, by following the valleys. But in the Blue Mountains the valleys end in perpendicular cliffs, which say, as plainly as a man can speak, _No road this way_. Blaxland and his companions determined to try the ridges, keeping as high as possible all the time. For several days they pushed through a wild and barren land, cutting every afternoon the track along which their horses, with their packs of provisions, would travel the next morning. On the seventeenth day they stood on the last summit, and saw with great joy the grassy plains that lay beyond. 5. On their return the delighted governor sent off another party to follow the same route and to explore still farther. They reported, on coming back, that the new country was "equal to every demand which this colony may have for extension of tillage and pasture lands for a century to come." The convicts were forthwith set to work to make a road across the Blue Mountains. This difficult undertaking was finished in two years, and in 1815, two months before the Battle of Waterloo brought peace to Europe, the road was ready for traffic.