26552	----	FRUITS OF QUEENSLAND BY ALBERT H. BENSON, M.R.A.C., Late Instructor in Fruit Culture, Queensland Government; now Director of Agriculture, Hobart, Tasmania. BRISBANE: BY AUTHORITY: ANTHONY J. CUMMING, GOVERNMENT PRINTER. 1914. [Illustration: Fruit of Mangosteen.] CONTENTS. PAGE. Preface 5 Introduction 7 Queensland Fruit-growing 17 Climate 18 1st.--Soils of Eastern Seaboard, and land adjacent to it, suitable to the growth of Tropical and Semi-tropical Fruit 21 2nd.--Soils of the Coastal Tablelands, suitable for the growth of Deciduous Fruit 23 3rd.--Soils of the Central Tablelands, suitable for the growth of Grapes, Dates, Citrus Fruits, &c. 24 The Banana 24 The Pineapple 31 The Mango 41 Mangosteen 45 The Papaw 47 The Cocoa-nut 49 The Granadilla 51 The Passion Fruit 51 Custard Apples 53 Citrus Fruit 57 The Persimmon 71 The Loquat 73 The Date Palm 75 The Pecan Nut 75 Japanese Plums 77 Chickasaw Plums 77 Chinese Peaches 77 Figs 79 The Mulberry 79 The Strawberry 79 Cape Gooseberry 82 The Olive 83 The Apple 85 The Peach 87 The Plum 89 The Apricot 89 The Cherry 90 The Pear 91 The Almond 91 Grape Culture 93 List of Fruits and Vegetables Grown in Queensland 102 [Illustration: Map of Queensland] PREFACE. In the more thickly populated portions of the Old and New World, and, to a certain extent, in the large cities of Australia, the question of how to make a living has became one of vital importance to a large portion of the population, and is the cause of considerable anxiety to fathers of families who are endeavouring to find employment for their sons. This difficulty of obtaining employment is a very serious question, and one demanding the most earnest consideration. It is probably the result of many different causes, but, in the writer's opinion, it is due mainly to the fact that for years past the trend of population has been from the country districts to the towns, with the result that many of the great centres of population are now very badly congested, and profitable employment of any kind is often extremely difficult to obtain. The congested towns offer no possible outlet for surplus labour, hence it is necessary that such labour must find an outlet in the less thickly populated parts of the world where there is still plenty of room for development and population is badly needed. Queensland is a country possessing these qualifications; but is, unfortunately, a country that is little known to the general mass of home-seekers, and, further, what little is known of it is usually so inaccurate that a very erroneous opinion of the capabilities of this really fine country exists. The great flow of emigration is naturally to those countries that are nearest to the Old World--viz., the United States of America and Canada--and little attention is given to Australia, although we have many advantages not possessed by either the United States or Canada, and are not subject to the disadvantage of an intensely cold winter such as that experienced throughout the greater portion of those countries for several months yearly. To those looking for homes the following pages are addressed, so that before deciding to what part of the world they will go they may know what sort of a country Queensland really is, what one of its industries is like, the kind of life they may look forward to spending here, and the possibility of their making a comfortable home amongst us. The life of a fruit-grower is by no means a hard one in Queensland, the climate of the fruit-growing districts is a healthy and by no means a trying one, and is thoroughly adapted to the successful cultivation of many fruits; and, finally, a living can be made under conditions that are much more conducive to the well-being of our race than those existing in the overcrowded centres of population. The writer has no wish to infer that there are big profits to be made by growing fruit, but, at the same time, he has no hesitation in saying that where the industry is conducted in an up-to-date manner, on business lines, a good living can be made, and that there is a good opening for many who are now badly in want of employment. The illustrations represent various phases of the industry, and have been specially prepared by H. W. Mobsby, the Artist of the Intelligence and Tourist Bureau. Most of the Illustrations have been taken at an exceptionally dry time, and at the close of one of the coldest winters on record, so that they do not show the crops or trees at their best; at the same time, they give a fair idea of some of our fruits, orchards, and fruit lands. ALBERT H. BENSON. Brisbane, Queensland, January, 1906. INTRODUCTION. Queensland's greatest want to-day is population: Men and women to develop our great natural resources, to go out into our country districts as farmers, dairymen, or fruit-growers--not to stick in our towns, but to become primary producers, workers, home-builders--not the scourings of big cities, the dissatisfied, the loafer, but the honest worker whose wish is to make a home for himself and his family. There are many such in the overcrowded cities of older countries, striving in vain to make a living--existing, it can hardly be called living, under conditions that are by no means conducive to their well-being--often poorly fed and poorly clad--who would better themselves by coming to Queensland, and by whom Queensland would be benefited. Queensland has room for many such annually: men and women who come here for the express intention of settling amongst us and building homes for themselves; who come here prepared to work, and, if needs be, to work hard; who do not expect to become rich suddenly, but will be contented with a comfortable home, a healthy life, and a moderate return for their labour--results that are within the reach of all, and which compare more than favourably with the conditions under which they are at present existing. Queensland's most valuable asset is her soil, and this requires population to develop it: soil that, in the different districts and climates best adapted for their growth, is capable of producing most of the cultivated crops of the world, and, with very few exceptions, all the fruits of commercial value, many of them to a very high degree of perfection. This pamphlet is practically confined to the fruit-growing possibilities of Queensland, and an endeavour is made to show that there is a good opening for intending settlers in this branch of agriculture, but the general remarks respecting the climate, rainfall, soils, &c., will be of equal interest to any who wish to take up any other branch, such as general farming, dairying, &c. The Queensland Department of Agriculture has received a number of inquiries from time to time, and from various parts of the world, respecting the possibilities of profitable commercial fruit-growing in this State, and this pamphlet is intended in part to be an answer to such inquiries; but, at the same time, it is hoped that it will have a wider scope, and give a general idea of one of our staple industries to many who are now on the look-out for a country in which to settle and an occupation to take up when they arrive there. [Illustration: Woombye, North Coast Railway. The centre of a large fruit growing district.] No branch of agriculture has made a greater advance during the past quarter-century than that of fruit-growing, and none has become more popular. The demand for fruit of all kinds, whether fresh or preserved, has increased enormously throughout the world, and it is now generally looked upon more as a necessity than a luxury. Hence there are continually recurring inquiries as to the best place to start fruit-growing with a reasonable prospect of success. It is not only the increased demand for fruit that causes these inquiries, but fruit-growing has a strong attraction for many would-be agriculturists as compared with general farming, dairying, or stock-raising, and this attraction is probably due to a certain fascination it possesses that only those who have been intimately acquainted with the industry for years can fully appreciate. In addition to the fact that living under one's own vine and fig-tree is in itself a very pleasant ideal to look forward to, there is no branch of agronomy that calls for a keener appreciation of the laws of Nature, that brings man into closer touch with Nature, that makes a greater demand on a man's patience, skill, and energy, or in which science and practice are more closely related, than in that of fruit-growing. To all those who are considering the advantages of taking up fruit-growing as an occupation, and to those who feel the attraction I have just described, these few words on fruit-growing in Queensland are addressed, as the writer wishes them to learn something of the fruit-growing capabilities of this State, so that before deciding on the country in which they will make a start they may not be in complete ignorance of a land that is especially adapted for the growth of a larger number of distinct varieties of fruit than any other similar area of land with which he is acquainted either in the Old or New World. Queensland is a country whose capabilities are at present comparatively unknown even to those living in the Southern States of Australia, and, naturally, very much less so to the rest of the world, hence a little general information respecting our country and one of its industries may be of some help to those who are looking for an opening in this particular branch of agriculture. [Illustration: A Tropical Orchard, Port Douglas.] [Illustration: Coochin York Mangosteen, Port Douglas District.] Queensland is a country having a population of a little over half a million, and an area of 429,120,000 acres; the population of a city of the second magnitude, and an area of some seven and one-half times greater than that of Great Britain, or two and one-half times greater than the State of Texas, United States of America. A country embracing 18 degrees of latitude, from the 11th to the 29th degrees of south latitude, and extending from a humid eastern seaboard to an extremely dry interior, some 15 degrees of longitude west. A country, therefore, of many climates and varied rainfall. A country possessing a great diversity of soils, many of which are of surprising richness. A country more or less heavily timbered with either scrub or forest growth, or consisting of wide open plains that are practically treeless. A country of infinite resources, that is capable of producing within its own borders all that man requires, from the extreme tropical to temperate products. A country that, once its possibilities are realised and turned to a profitable account, is destined to become one of the most fruitful in the globe, to support a large and thriving population of our own people; and last, but not least, a country that, from a fruit-grower's point of view, cannot be excelled elsewhere. We have a healthy climate, not by any means an extreme climate as is often represented--extreme cold is unknown, frost being unusual on any portion of the seaboard, but common during the winter months on our tablelands. But even where there are frosts the days are pleasantly warm. Summer is undoubtedly warm, but it is usually a bearable heat, and sudden changes are extremely rare, so that though trying in the humid tropical seaboard, it is not unbearable, and compares favourably with the tropical heat met with elsewhere. This is clearly shown by the stamina of the white race, particularly those living in the country districts, where both men and women compare favourably with those of any other part of the Empire. Except in very isolated places, communication with the outside world and between the different centres of population is regular and frequent; in fact, in all the coastal and coastal tableland districts of the State one is kept daily in touch with all the important matters that are taking place in the world. In the home life there is a freedom not met with in older countries; there is an almost entire absence of artificiality--people are natural, and are interested in each other's welfare. They are certainly fond of pleasure, but at the same time are extremely generous and hospitable. The writer can speak of this from a large practical experience, as for some years past he has annually travelled many thousands of miles amongst fruit-growers and others who are settled on the land, and, without exception, he has everywhere been met with the greatest kindness from rich and poor alike--in short, a hearty welcome--and the best that the house affords is the rule, without exception. In brief, should any of my readers decide on coming to Queensland, the only difference that they will find as compared with the older countries is, that our climate is somewhat warmer in summer, but to compensate for this we have no severe cold in winter. There is more freedom and less conventionality, life to all who will work is much easier, and there is not the same necessity for expensive clothing or houses as exists in more rigorous climates. The people they will meet are of their own colour and race, no doubt fond of sport and pleasure, perhaps inclined to be a little self-opinionated, but solid grit at the bottom. As previously stated, Queensland offers exceptional advantages to the intending fruit-grower, and the following may be quoted as examples. The ease with which fruit can be produced, when grown under conditions suitable to its proper development, is often remarkable, and is a constant source of wonder to all who have been accustomed to the comparatively slow growth of many of our commoner varieties of fruits when grown in less favoured climes, and to the care that is there necessary to produce profitable returns. Here all kinds of tree life is rapid, and fruit trees come into bearing much sooner than they do in colder climates. In addition to their arriving at early maturity, they are also, as a rule, heavy bearers, their fault, if anything, being towards over-bearing. Fruits of many kinds are so thoroughly acclimatised that it is by no means uncommon to find them growing wild, and holding their own in the midst of rank indigenous vegetation, without receiving the slightest care or attention. In some cases where cultivated fruits have been allowed to become wild, they have become somewhat of a pest, and have kept down all other growths, so much so that it has been actually necessary to take steps to prevent them from becoming a nuisance, so readily do they grow, and so rapidly do they increase. The very ease with which fruit can be grown when planted under conditions of soil and climate favourable to its development has had a tendency to make growers somewhat careless as compared with those of other countries who have to grow fruit under conditions demanding the most careful attention in order to be made profitable. This is enough to show that Queensland is adapted for fruit-growing, and the illustrations accompanying the description of our chief commercial fruits will show them more forcibly than any words of mine that my contention is a correct one. Latterly, however, there has been a considerable improvement in the working of our orchards, growers finding that it does not pay to grow second-quality fruit, and, therefore, they are giving much more attention to the selection of varieties, cultivation of the land, pruning the trees, and the keeping in check of fruit pests; as, like other parts of the world, we have our pests to deal with. This improvement in the care and management of our orchards is resulting in a corresponding improvement in the quantity and quality of our output, so that now our commercial fruits--that is to say, the fruits grown in commercial quantities--compare favourably with the best types of similar fruits produced elsewhere. The writer has no wish to convey the impression that all that is required in order to grow fruit in Queensland is to secure suitable land, plant the trees, let Nature do the rest, and when they come into bearing simply gather and market the fruit. This has been done in the past, and may be done again under favourable conditions, but it is not the usual method adopted, nor is it to be recommended. Here, as elsewhere, the progressive fruit-growing of to-day has become practically a science, as the fruit-grower who wishes to keep abreast of the times depends largely on the practical application of scientific knowledge for the successful carrying on of his business. There is no branch of agronomy in which science and practice are more closely connected than in that of fruit-growing. Every operation of the fruit-grower is, or should be, carried out on scientific lines and by the best methods of propagation--pruning, cultivation, manuring, treatment of diseases, and preservation of fruit when grown are all, directly or indirectly, the result of scientific research. To be a successful fruit-grower in Queensland one must therefore use one's brains as well as one's hands; the right tree must be grown in the right kind of soil and under the right conditions; it must be properly attended to, and the fruit, when grown, must be marketed in the best possible condition, whether same be as fresh fruit or dried, canned, or otherwise preserved, and whether same be destined for our local, Australian, or oversea markets. Fruit-growing on these lines is a success in Queensland to-day, and it is capable of considerable extension, so that, in the writer's opinion, it offers a good field for the intending settler. Carried out in the manner indicated, he has no hesitation in saying that Queensland is a good place in which to start fruit-growing, that the advantages it possesses cannot be surpassed or even equalled elsewhere, and, further, that as our seasons are the opposite of those in countries situated on the north of the equator, our fruits ripen in the off-seasons of similar fruit grown in those countries, and, with our facilities for cold storage and rapid transit, can be placed on their markets at a time that they are bare of such fruits, thus securing top prices. [Illustration: Bunch of Fruit of the Coochin York Mangosteen.] Queensland has practically an unlimited area of land suitable for fruit culture, much of which is at present in its virgin state, and is obtainable on easy terms and at a low rate. Government land is worth on an average £1 per acre, and privately-owned land suitable for fruit-growing can be purchased at from 10s. to £5 per acre, according to its quality and its distance from railway or water carriage. We have plenty of land, what we lack is population to work it; and there is no fear of over-crowding for many years to come. We have not only large areas of good fruit land at reasonable rates, but the Government of Queensland, through its Department of Agriculture, is always ready to give full information to intending settlers, to assist them in their selection of suitable land, to advise them as to the kinds of fruit to plant, to give practical advice in the cultivation, pruning, manuring, and general management of the orchard as well as in the disposal or utilisation of the fruit when grown; in short, to help the beginner to start on the right lines, so that he will be successful. [Illustration: Tamarind Fruits--Kamerunga State Nursery, Cairns.] There is also little if any fear of over-extending the fruit-growing industry, as, if it is conducted on the right lines and on sound business principles, we can raise fruit of the highest quality at a price that will enable us to compete in the markets of the world especially now that we have direct and rapid communication at frequent intervals with Canada, the United States of America, the East (Japan, Manilla, &c.), Europe, and the United Kingdom. QUEENSLAND FRUIT GROWING. Very few persons have any idea of the magnitude or the resources of this State of Queensland, and in no branch of agricultural industry are they more clearly shown than in that of fruit-growing. Here, unlike the colder parts of the world or the extreme tropics, we are not confined to the growing of particular varieties of fruits, but, owing to our great extent of country, and its geographical distribution, we are able to produce practically all the cultivated fruits of the world, many of them to great perfection. There are, however, one or two tropical fruits that are exceptions, such as the durien and mangosteen, whose range is extremely small, and one or two of the berry fruits of cold countries, which require a colder winter than that experienced in any part of this State. It will, however, be seen at once that a country that can produce such fruits as the mango, pineapple, banana, papaw, granadilla, guava, custard apple, litchi, sour sop, cocoa nut, bread fruit, jack fruit, monstera, alligator pear, and others of a purely tropical character; the date, citrus fruits of all kinds, passion fruit, persimmon, olive, pecan nut, cape gooseberry, loquat, and other fruits of a semi-tropical character, as well as the fruits of the more temperate regions, such as the apple, pear, plum, peach, apricot, quince, almond, cherry, fig, walnut, strawberry, mulberry, and others of minor importance, in addition to grapes of all kinds, both for wine and table, and of both European and American origin, offers a very wide choice of fruits indeed to the prospective grower. Of course, it must not be thought for a moment that all the fruits mentioned can be grown to perfection at any one place in the State, as that would be an impossibility, but they can be grown in some part of the State profitably and to great perfection. The law of successful fruit culture is the same here as in all other fruit-producing countries--viz., to grow in your district only those fruits which are particularly adapted to your soil and climate, and to let others grow those fruits which you cannot grow, but which their conditions allow them to produce to perfection. The intending grower must, therefore, first decide on what fruits he wishes to grow, and when he has done so, select the district best suited to their growth. The small map of the State shows the districts in which certain fruits may be grown profitably, or, rather, the districts in which they are at present being so grown; but there are many other districts in which fruit-growing has not been attempted in commercial quantities or for other than purely home consumption that, once the State begins to fill up with population, are equal, if not superior, to the older fruit-growing districts, and are capable of maintaining a large population. [Illustration: Typical Clean Orchard.] CLIMATE. As previously stated, the successful culture of fruit depends mainly on the right kinds of fruit being grown in the right soil and climate. This naturally brings us to the question of climate, and here one again gets an idea of the extent of our country, as we have not one but many climates. Climate is a matter of such vital importance to fruit-growers, and there is such a general lack of knowledge respecting the climate of Queensland, that a little information on this point is desirable. I am afraid that there is a very general impression that Queensland has a climate that is only suitable for a coloured race; that it is either in the condition of a burnt-up desert or is being flooded out. That it is a country of droughts and floods, a country of extremes--in fact, a very desirable place to live out of. No more erroneous idea was ever given credence to, and, as an Englishman born, who has had many years' practical experience on the land in England, Scotland, the United States of America, and the various Australian States, I have no hesitation in saying that, as far as my experience goes--and it is an experience gained by visiting nearly every part of the State that is suited for agricultural pursuits--taken as a whole, it is difficult to find a better or healthier climate in any other country of equal area. Our climate has its disadvantages, no doubt, particularly our dry spells, but show me the country that has a perfect climate. We have disadvantages, but, at the same time, we have great advantages; advantages that, in my opinion, outweigh our disadvantages. Our eastern seaboard, extending from the New South Wales border in the south, a few miles to the south of the 28th degree of south latitude, to Cape York, some 20 miles north of the 11th degree of south latitude, contains our best districts for the growth of tropical and semi-tropical fruits. The coastal climate, however, varies considerably, and is governed by the proximity or otherwise of the coast ranges. When they approach the coast there is always more rainfall, and as they recede the rainfall decreases. With one or two exceptions, where the coastal range is a considerable distance inland, the eastern coastal districts have a sufficient rainfall for the successful culture of most fruits, though they are subject to a dry spell during winter and spring. During this period of the year, the weather is extremely enjoyable; in fact, it is hard to better it, even in our extreme North. But as summer approaches, thunderstorms become prevalent, and are accompanied by more or less humid conditions, which, though good for fruit-development, are not quite so enjoyable as the drier months. Summer is our rainy season, and the rainfalls are occasionally very heavy. The weather is warm and oppressive, particularly in the more tropical districts; but these very conditions are those that are best suited to the production of tropical fruits. The climate of those districts having the heaviest summer rainfall is somewhat trying to Europeans, particularly women, but it is by no means unhealthy, and in the hottest parts, having the coast range nearly on the coast, there is, within a few miles, a tableland of from 2,000 to 4,000 feet elevation, where the climate is cool and bracing, and where the jaded man or woman can soon throw off the feeling of lassitude brought about by the heat and humidity of the seaboard. In autumn the weather soon cools off, drier conditions supervene, and living again becomes a pleasure in one of the best and healthiest climates to be met with anywhere. Practically all the district under review has a sufficient rainfall for the growth of all fruits suitable to the climate, though there are occasionally dry spells during spring, when a judicious watering would be a great advantage. This does not imply a regular system of irrigation, but simply the conserving of surplus moisture in times of plenty by means of dams across small natural watercourses or gullies, by tanks where such do not occur, or from wells where an available supply of underground water may be obtained. The water so conserved will only be needed occasionally, but it is an insurance against any possible loss or damage that might accrue to the trees during a dry spell of extra length. So far, little has been done in coastal districts in conserving water for fruit-growing, the natural rainfall being considered by many to be ample; but, in the writer's opinion, it will be found to be a good investment, as it will be the means of securing regular crops instead of an occasional partial failure, due to lack of sufficient moisture during a critical period of the tree's growth. The average yearly rainfall in the eastern seaboard varies from 149 inches at Geraldton to 41 inches at Bowen, the mean average being about 90 inches to the north and 49 inches to the south of Townsville. Were this fall evenly distributed throughout the year, it would be ample for all requirements. Unfortunately, however, it is not evenly distributed, the heavy falls taking place during the summer months, so that there is often a dry spell of greater or less extent during the winter and spring, during which a judicious watering has a very beneficial effect on fruit trees, and secures a good crop for the coming season. The rainfall shows that there is no fear of a shortage of water at any time, the only question is to conserve the surplus for use during a prolonged dry spell. These conditions are extremely favourable for the growth of all tropical and semi-tropical fruits, as during our period of greater heat, when these fruits make their greatest call for moisture, there is an abundance of rain, and during the other portions of the year, when the call is not so heavy, it is usually an inexpensive matter to conserve or obtain a sufficient supply to keep the trees in the best of order. Throughout the southern half of this seaboard frosts are not unknown on low-lying ground, but are extremely rare on the actual coast, or at an elevation of 300 to 400 feet above the sea, so much so that no precautions are necessary to prevent damage from frost. We have, unlike Florida and other parts of the United States of America--great fruit-growing districts--no killing frosts, and now, at the close of one of the coldest winters on record, and one of the driest, nowhere have our pineapples--fruit nor plants--been injured, except on low-lying ground, over in the Southern part of the State, and mangoes, bananas, &c., are uninjured. [Illustration: Burning-off for fruit growing, Mapleton, Blackall Range.] [Illustration: Same land one year later. Fruit-grower's family gathering strawberries.] In the more tropical North frosts are unknown on the coast, and there is no danger to even the most delicate plants from cold. Running parallel with the coast we have a series of ranges of low mountains, running from 2,000 feet to nearly 6,000 feet, the general height being from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, and at the back of these ranges more or less level tablelands, sloping generally to the west. On and adjacent to these ranges in the Southern part of the State, there are fairly sharp frosts in winter, but the days are warm and bright. This is the district best adapted for the growth of deciduous fruits and vines, table varieties doing particularly well. It is a district well adapted for mixed farming and dairying, as well as fruit-growing; the climate is even and healthy, and is neither severe in summer nor winter. The average rainfall is some 30 inches, and is usually sufficient, though there are dry periods, when a judicious watering, as recommended for the coast districts, would be of great value to fruit and vegetable growers. The more northern end of this tableland country has a much better rainfall--some 40 inches per annum--and frosts, though they occur at times, are not common. Here the climate is very healthy, there are no extremes of heat and cold, and, lying as it does inland from the most trying portion of our tropical seaboard, it forms a natural sanatorium to this part of our State. Further west the rainfall decreases, the summers are hot--a dry heat, as distinct from the more humid heat of the coast, and much more bearable. There are frequent frosts in winter, particularly in the Southern part of the State. Fruit-growing is only carried on to a slight extent at present, and then only with the help of water, but when the latter is obtainable, very good results are obtained. Grapes do well, both wine and table, and for raisin-making. Citrus fruits are remarkably fine, the lemons especially, being the best grown in the State. The trees are less liable to the attack of many pests, the dryness of the air retarding their development, if not altogether preventing their occurrence. The date palm is quite at home here, and when planted in deep sandy land, and supplied with sufficient water, it is a rapid grower and heavy bearer. As an offset to the smallness of the rainfall, there is a good supply of artesian water, distributed over a wide range of country, that can be obtained at a reasonable rate, and that is suitable for irrigation purposes. All bore water is not suitable for irrigation, however, as some of it is too highly mineralised, but there are large areas of country possessing an artesian supply of excellent quality for this purpose. It will thus be seen that we have in Queensland, roughly, three distinct belts of fruit-growing country-- 1st.--The Eastern Seaboard, and the land adjacent to it, suitable for the growing of tropical and semi-tropical fruit; 2nd.--The Coastal Tablelands, suitable for the growth of deciduous fruits, vines, olives, and citrus fruits in parts; 3rd.--The Central Tablelands, suitable for the growth of grapes, for table and drying, dates, citrus fruits, &c., but requiring water for irrigation to produce profitably. So far, I have confined my remarks mainly to the climatic side of fruit-growing, and, before dealing with the growing of the different kinds of fruit, I will say a few words about our fruit soils, and will deal with them in districts, as I have endeavoured to do in the case of climate. 1st.--Soils of Eastern Seaboard, and Land adjacent to it, suitable to the Growth of Tropical and Semi-Tropical Fruit. Several distinct types of soil are found that are well adapted for fruit-growing, but they all have one general characteristic which is a _sine qua non_ of success--viz., they must possess good natural drainage, so that there is no danger of their becoming waterlogged or soured during periods of continued or heavy rainfall, as these conditions are fatal to fruit culture under tropical and semi-tropical conditions. Of such soils, the first to be considered are those of basaltic origin. They are usually of a chocolate or rich red colour, are of great depth, in parts more or less covered with basaltic boulders, in others entirely free from stones. The surface soil is friable and easily worked, and the subsoil, which is usually of a rich red colour, is easily penetrated by the roots of trees and plants grown thereon. Occasionally the subsoil is more compact, in which case it is not so good for fruit-tree growth, but is better adapted for that of sugar-cane, corn, grass, &c. These basaltic soils are usually rich, and are covered in their virgin condition with what is termed scrub--a dense mass of vegetation closely resembling an Indian jungle. The scrub growth is totally distinct from forest growth, which will be described later, in that the bulk of the timber growing in it, much of which is of large size, is of a soft nature, and once cut down soon rots away. Imagine a dense wall of vegetation, consisting of large trees running up to 100 or 150 feet in height, with trunks ranging from 2 to 8 feet, or even more, in diameter, and between these trunks an impenetrable mass of smaller growths, all of the most vivid green colours, together with innumerable vines and creepers that are suspended from the branches of the trees, hanging in festoons, creeping palms and bamboos, ferns and orchids of many kinds, both on the ground and growing on the tree trunks, as well as many beautiful foliage plants only found in hothouses in England, and you will have a faint idea of what a virgin scrub in coastal Queensland is like. Much of the timber of the coastal scrubs is of considerable commercial value for building purposes and furniture making, and is, or should be, so utilised prior to felling and burning off. True scrub lands are not by any means the most difficult to clear, though to a "new chum" the work will appear at first of a Herculean character. Brushing the dense undergrowth and then felling the timber at a face costs from £1 10s. to £2 per acre, according to density, size of timber, and proportion of hardwood trees contained in it, and once this is done the fallen mass is allowed to become thoroughly dry, when it is burnt off. A good fire is half the battle, as the subsequent work of burning off the heavy timber left from the first burn is comparatively light. No stumps are taken out, as the bulk are found to rot out in a few years, and their presence in the soil is no detriment to the planting of such crops as bananas or even citrus fruit trees. No special preparation of the land, such as breaking up, &c., is necessary prior to planting. Holes are dug, trees or bananas are planted, and the whole cultivation for the first few years consists in keeping down weed growths with the chipping hoe. Once the stumps have rotted out the plough and other implements of culture take the place of the hoe. These soils are especially adapted for the growth of oranges, limes, mandarins, mangoes, bananas, pineapples, papaws, custard apples, strawberries, and cape gooseberries in the South; in fact, for nearly every kind of tropical and semi-tropical fruit. Some basaltic soils are occasionally covered with forest in the place of scrub, or a mixture, part scrub and part forest. Forest country, as distinct from scrub, is open-timbered country, with little undergrowth, and no vines or other creepers. The timbers are also, as a rule, very hard, and the stumps will not rot out. Such land, when at all heavily timbered, is much harder to clear and get ready for fruit-growing than true scrub, as all timber must be felled and burnt off, and all stumps and roots taken out, so that the land can be thoroughly broken up and brought into a good state of tilth prior to planting. These soils are suitable to the growth of similar fruits to the true scrubs, but, as a rule, they are not as rich. The second class of soils suitable to fruit-growing are of alluvial origin, and are of a sandy, loamy nature, of fair depth. They are usually met with along our creeks and rivers, or in the deltas of our rivers. In their virgin state they are either covered with scrub or forest, or a mixture of both, but the growth is seldom as strong as on the red volcanic soils. Heavy alluvial soils are not suitable for fruit culture, and are much more valuable for the growth of farm crops, but the light sandy loams and free loams of medium character suit all kinds of fruit to perfection. These soils usually are easy to work. They retain moisture well when well worked, and frequently they are capable of being irrigated, either from adjacent creeks or rivers, or by water from wells. These soils are some of our best for citrus fruits, and are well adapted for the growth of pineapples and bananas, as well as most other tropical fruits, when free from frosts. The third class of soils are free sandy loams, either scrub or forest. They are of various colours, and range in texture from light sandy loams to medium loams; they possess excellent drainage, and though, when covered with forest, they are not naturally rich, they make excellent fruit soils, and respond rapidly to systematic cultivation and manuring. They are usually of sandstone or granitic origin, and, when covered with scrub in the first place, grow good crops for the first few years, when they become more or less exhausted in one or more available plant foods, and require manuring. These soils, like the sandy alluvial loams, are easy to work, retain moisture well when kept in a state of perfect tilth, and respond readily to manuring. They will grow all kinds of fruits when free from frost. There are other soils on which fruit can be grown, but those mentioned represent those most suitable. The land on which these soils occur is often much broken, particularly in rich scrub country; it is fairly level when of alluvial origin, and more or less rolling, as a rule, when of a sandy loamy nature. High, ridgy, free, loamy country is usually the most free from frost, and alluvial flats the most liable to it. 2nd.--Soils of the Coastal Tablelands, suitable for the Growth of Deciduous Fruit. Starting from the Southern part of the State, adjoining the New South Wales border, the fruit soils are all of granitic origin. The country is much broken, but between the ridges and along the creek flats there is a considerable area possessing soils varying from a coarse, granitic, gritty soil to a fine granitic soil; that on the creeks of an alluvial nature, but still granitic. These soils vary considerably in quality, but are, as a rule, easy to work and retain moisture well. They are covered with open forest and are particularly adapted to the growth of apples, plums, peaches, and grapes, though other deciduous fruits are grown but not to the same excellence as those mentioned. Proceeding north the fruit soils are either sandy loams or loams of a brownish colour of volcanic origin. The former are suitable for almonds and wine grapes, and the latter for peaches, apricots, pears, apples, and especially olives. Further north a few of these fruits may be grown on loamy soils, together with citrus fruits, but, commercially, deciduous fruits are confined to the southern end of this district, the winter temperature being too high for their successful growth further north, as the trees get no winter rest, hence do not mature their fruit-bearing wood properly. 3rd.--Soils of the Central Tablelands, suitable to the Growth of Grapes, Dates, Citrus Fruits, Etc. At the Southern end of the State the fruit soils are all of a sandy nature. Nothing else is used in any quantity, as sandy soils alone will retain sufficient moisture for the growth of grapes and fruit trees during dry spells, and even then only when kept well and deeply worked. Further north, where suitable artesian water is available, the best fruit soils are also free loams of a sandy nature, either alluvial or open forest soils, but deep, and possessing perfect drainage, as irrigation on land without good natural drainage is fatal to fruit culture. These sandy loams are also easy to work; though by no means rich, they, on account of their depth, grow good crops of fruit by means of irrigation, and the fruit, such as dates, oranges, lemons, grapes, &c., is of very fine quality. The fruit soils of this district are covered either with open forest--the trees being of comparatively small size--or with a scrubby undergrowth through which a few larger trees are scattered. Nearly all the timber of this district is extremely hard, is more or less stunted, and burns readily, hence clearing is not a very expensive item. Having now given a very brief description of our climate and the fruit-soils in our principal fruit-producing centres, we will next consider the culture of those fruits which are grown in commercial quantities in the different parts of the State, as well as that of a few less well-known fruits which show especial promise. We will first deal with our tropical fruits, of which the first to be considered is the banana, as its production greatly exceeds that of any other tropical fruit, and, as far as Australia is concerned, this is the only State in which it is grown in commercial quantities. From tropical fruits we will go on to semi-tropical fruits, then to temperate fruits and vines. THE BANANA. Under the heading of "Banana," all kinds of plantains will also be included, as they belong to one and the same family. The members of this family of plants are all tropical, and produce the most typical and best known tropical fruits. [Illustration: Cavendish Bananas on scrub land, Buderim Mountain.] [Illustration: Cavendish Bananas at Woombye on newly cleared land.] The rank luxuriance of the growth of this class of fruits, their handsome foliage, their productiveness, their high economic value as food, and their universal distribution throughout the tropics, all combine to place them in a premier position. As a food it is unequalled amongst fruits, as no matter whether it is used green as a vegetable, ripe as a fruit, dried and ground into flour, or preserved in any other way, it is one of the most wholesome and nutritious of foods for human consumption. It is a staple article of diet in all tropical countries, and the stems of several varieties make an excellent food for all kinds of stock. [Illustration: Twenty-dozen Bunch, Buderim Mountain.] In Queensland, the culture of bananas is confined to the frostless belts of the eastern seaboard, as it is a plant that is extremely susceptible to cold, and is injured by the lightest frosts. It is grown in favourable locations in the South, where it produces excellent fruit, but its cultivation is much greater in the North, where the rainfall is heavier and the average annual temperature greater. In the Southern part of the State its cultivation is entirely in the hands of white growers, who have been growing it on suitable soil in suitable localities for the past fifty years or even more. I recently saw an old plantation that was set out over twenty years ago, and the present plants are still strong and healthy, and bearing good bunches of well-filled fruit, so that there is no question as to the suitability of the soil or climate. Bananas do best on rich scrub land, and it is no detriment to their growth if it is more or less covered with stones as long as there is sufficient soil to set the young plants. Shelter from heavy or cold winds is an advantage, and the plants thrive better under these conditions than when planted in more exposed positions. Bananas are frequently the first crop planted in newly burnt off scrub land, as they do not require any special preparation of such land, and the large amount of ash and partially burnt and decomposed vegetable mould provide an ample supply of food for the plants' use. Bananas are rank feeders, so that this abundance of available plant food causes a rapid growth, fine plants, and correspondingly large bunches of fruit. Though newly burnt off scrub land is the best for this fruit, it can be grown successfully in land that has been under cultivation for many years, provided that the land is rich enough naturally, or its fertility is maintained by judicious green and other manuring. In newly burnt off scrub land all that is necessary is, to dig holes 15 to 18 inches in diameter, and about 2 feet deep, set the young plants in it, and partly fill in the hole with good top soil. The young plant, which consists of a sucker taken from an older plant, will soon take root and grow rapidly under favourable conditions, producing its first bunch in from ten to twelve months after planting. At the same time that it is producing its first bunch it will send up two or more suckers at the base of the parent plant, and these in turn will bear fruit, and so on. After bearing, the stalk that has produced the bunch of fruit is cut down; if this is not done it will die down, as its work has been completed, and other suckers take its place. Too many suckers should not be allowed to grow or the plants will become too crowded, and be consequently stunted and produce small bunches. All the cultivation that is necessary is the keeping down of weed growth, and this, once the plants occupy the whole of the land, is not a hard matter. A plantation is at its best when about three years old, but remains profitable for six years or longer; in fact, there are many plantations still bearing good fruit that have been planted from twelve to twenty years. Small-growing or dwarf kinds, such as the Cavendish variety, are planted at from 12 to 16 feet apart each way, but large-growing bananas, such as the Sugar and Lady's Finger, require from 20 to 25 feet apart each way, as do the stronger-growing varieties of plantain. Plantains are not grown to any extent in Queensland, and our principal varieties are those already mentioned, the Cavendish variety greatly predominating. In the North, the cultivation of this latter variety is carried out on an extensive scale, principally by Chinese gardeners, who send the bulk of their produce to the Southern States of the Commonwealth. The industry supports a large number of persons other than the actual producers of the fruit, and forms one of our principal articles of export from the North. As many as 20,000 or more large bunches of bananas frequently leave by a single steamer for the South, and the bringing of this quantity to the port of shipment gives employment to a number of men on tram lines and small coastal steamers. The shipment of a heavy cargo of bananas presents a very busy scene that is not soon forgotten, the thousands of bunches of fruit that are either piled up on the wharf or that are being unloaded from railway trucks, small steamers or sometimes Chinese junks, forming such a mass of fruit that one often wonders how it is possible to consume it all before it becomes over-ripe. Still, it is consumed, or, at any rate, the greater portion of it is, as it is the universal fruit of the less wealthy portion of the community, the price at which it can be sold being so low that it is within the reach of everyone. A banana garden in full bearing is a very pretty sight, the thousands of plants, each with their one or more bunches of fruit, as, where there are several stems it is not at all uncommon to find two or more bunches of fruit in different states of development on the same plant, forming a mass of vegetation that must be seen to be appreciated. This is the case even with dwarf-growing kinds, but with strong-growing varieties, such as the Lady's Finger, the growth is so excessive that the wonder is, how the soil can support it. [Illustration: Bananas for shipment at Innisfail.] Bananas do remarkably well in Queensland, and there is practically an unlimited area of country suitable for their culture, much of which is at present in a state of Nature. Only the more easily accessible lands have been worked and of these only the richest. Manuring is unknown in most parts, and as soon as the plantation shows signs of deterioration it is abandoned, and a fresh one planted out in new land, the land previously under crop with bananas being either planted in sugar-cane or allowed to run to grass. This is certainly a very wasteful method of utilising our land, and the time will come, sooner or later, when greater care will have to be given to it, and that once land has become impoverished by banana culture, it will have to be put under a suitable rotation of crops, so as to fit it for being again planted to bananas. The trouble is, as I have already stated, we have too much land and too few people to work it, hence, so far, we are unable to use it to anything like the best advantage. During the year 1904 the production of bananas in Queensland was some 2,000,000 bunches, and when it is considered that each bunch will average about 12 dozen fruit, it will be seen that already we are producing a very large quantity. There is, however, plenty of room for extension, and any quantity of available country, but before this extension can be profitable, steps will have to be taken to utilise the fruit in a manner other than its consumption as fresh fruit, and this in itself will mean the opening up of new industries and the employment of a considerable amount of labour. I have mentioned 12 dozen as being the average quantity of fruit per bunch, but it is frequently much more than this, and I have often seen bunches of 25 to 30 dozen fine fruit grown on strong young plants on rich new land. Although the industry in the North is now almost entirely in the hands of Chinese gardeners, there is no reason whatever why it should not be run by white growers, as is done in the South, and there is no question that our white-grown bananas in the South compare more than favourably with the Northern Chinese-grown article, despite the fact that the latter has every advantage in climate and an abundance of virgin soil. Most of the photos of bananas are, I am sorry to say, not by any means typical of this industry, as they have been taken during the off-season, when the plants look ragged and are showing little new growth, and the bunches also are much smaller than usual. Still, I hope that the illustrations will give some idea of the growing and handling of this crop, and will show what a banana plant and its bunch are like. THE PINEAPPLE. If there is one fruit that Queensland can grow to perfection, it is undoubtedly the pineapple. This is not merely my own personal opinion, but is the universal admission of all who are qualified to judge. On many occasions I have taken men thoroughly conversant with pineapple-growing, and who knew what a good fruit really is, through some of our plantations, where I have given them fruit to test, and, without exception, they have had no hesitation in saying that they have never tasted better fruit. Our fruit has a firmness, freedom from fibre, and a flavour that is hard to beat. It is an excellent canning fruit, superior in this respect to the Singapore article, which it surpasses in flavour. This is admitted by English and European buyers, and its superiority is bound eventually to result in a great increase in canning and the establishment of large works run on thoroughly up-to-date lines. [Illustration: Picking Pines for market--Woombye District.] [Illustration: Pineapple Plantation--showing plants of different ages--Woombye, North Coast Line.] Like the banana, the pineapple is a tropical fruit, and is very sensitive to cold, hence its culture is confined to frostless districts. It is grown all along our eastern seaboard, where, when planted in suitable soils and under suitable conditions, it is, undoubtedly, our hardiest fruit, and is practically immune from any serious disease. Its culture is entirely in the open, no shelter whatever being given, so that we are not put to the great expense that growers of this fruit in Florida and some other pineapple-producing countries must incur if they wish to secure a crop. Here we have no severe freeze-outs, and, though dry spells retard the growth at times, we have never suffered any serious injury from this cause. In the Southern part of the State, the coolness of the winter retards growth somewhat, and occasionally the tops of the leaves and young fruit are slightly injured, particularly in low-lying land, or where the plants are growing on land having a cold subsoil. When grown under more favourable conditions, however, they sustain no injury, and produce fruit, more or less, all the year round. Pines are always in season, though there are times when they are comparatively scarce. There are usually two main crops a year--viz., a summer and a winter crop. The former is the heavier of the two, and the fruit is decidedly the best, as its sugar contents are much higher. The main summer crop ripens in the North from the beginning of November, and in the South from January to as late as March in some seasons. The main winter crop is usually at its best in July and August, but there is always more or less fruit during the other months of the year. The pineapple likes a warm, free, well-drained soil, that is free from frost in winter, and that will not become soured by heavy rain during summer. Sandy loams are, therefore, our best pineapple soils, though it does well on free loams of basaltic or alluvial origin. Unlike the banana, the pineapple does not do too well in newly burnt off scrub land, owing to the difficulty in working the ground and keeping it clean. It requires a thorough preparation of the soil prior to planting in order to be grown to perfection. In the case of new land of suitable texture, the timber should all be burnt off, and all stumps and roots taken out of the soil, which should then be carefully broken up and reduced to a fine tilth, all weed or grass growth being destroyed. It should then be again ploughed, and, if possible, subsoiled, so as to permit of the roots penetrating the ground to a fair depth instead of their merely depending on the few top inches of surface soil. Careful preparation of the land and deep stirring prior to planting will be found to pay well, and turn out far the cheapest in the end. Given suitable soil, well prepared, the growing of pineapples is not at all difficult, as the plants soon take root, and once they became established, they prove themselves to be extremely hardy. Pines will grow and thrive on comparatively poor soil, provided it is of suitable texture, but in such soils it is necessary to supplement the plant food in the soil by the addition of manures, if large fruit and heavy crops are to be obtained. Pineapples are propagated by means of suckers coming from the base of fruit-bearing plants, or from smaller suckers, or, as they are termed, robbers or gill sprouts that start from the fruiting stem just at the base of the fruit. They are also sometimes propagated by means of the crown, but this method is usually considered too slow. Well-developed suckers are usually preferred, as these come into bearing earliest, but equally good, if not better, returns are obtained by planting gill sprouts. The latter have the advantage in that they always develop a good root system before showing signs of fruit, hence their first crop is always a good one, and the fruit is of the best, whereas suckers sometimes start flowering as soon as they are planted, before they are properly established, with the result that the first fruit is small and inferior, and the plants have to throw out fresh suckers before a good crop is produced. Gill sprouts are slower in coming into bearing than suckers, but the results are usually more satisfactory. Like the banana, once a pineapple plant has borne fruit the fruiting stalk dies down, and its place is taken by one or more suckers, which in their turn bear fruit and die. Pineapples are planted in Queensland in several ways, but by far the most common method is to set the suckers out in single or double rows, from 8 to 9 feet apart, with the plants at from 1 to 2 feet apart in the row. The rows soon increase in width by the growth of suckers, and the throwing up of ratoons--surface roots thrown off from the original plant, which send up plants from below the ground as distinct from suckers, which come from the base or even higher up the stem of a fruiting plant. It is not at all an uncommon thing to see the rows grown together, so that the plantation appears to be a solid mass of plants, but pathways have to be kept between the rows to permit of gathering the fruit, manuring, &c. Pineapples have been grown in the Brisbane district for the past sixty years, and I have been shown beds of plants that have not been replanted for over forty years that are still producing good fruit. This shows how well at home this fruit is with us; but, in my opinion, it is not desirable to keep the plants so long in the same ground, as the finest fruit is always obtained from comparatively young plantations, the older ones producing too large a proportion of small fruit. From the Brisbane district this fruit has spread all over the eastern coast, and its production is increasing rapidly in several districts. Once the pine is planted, its cultivation is comparatively simple. If in single or double rows, all weed growth is kept down between the plants, and the ground between the rows is kept in a state of good cultivation by means of ploughing or cultivating, the soil being worked towards the rows so as to encourage the formation of suckers low down on the fruiting plants. Manure is given when necessary, the manure being worked in on either side of the rows. [Illustration: Smooth-leaved Cayenne Pines in fruit, planted 15 months, Woombye District.] The pineapple comes into bearing early, and, except where suckers throw fruit as soon as planted, bear their first crop in from twelve to twenty months, according to the type of suckers planted and the time of year at which they are set. Practically every sucker will produce a fruit at the first fruiting, and these will be followed by succeeding crops, borne on the successive crops of suckers, so that when the whole of the ground is occupied by plants, the returns are very heavy. One thousand dozen marketable fruits is by no means an unusual crop for Queen pines in a plantation in full bearing, and, taking these at an average of 2-1/2 lb. each, you get a return of 30,000 lb., or 15 tons American per acre. The illustrations herewith give a good general idea of the usual method of growing pines, and the method of handling and marketing, as well as of the nature of the country on which they are grown. The illustrations are mostly of smooth-leaved pines, which bear a fruit averaging from 6 to 8 lb. each, but occasionally running up to as much as 14 to 16 lb., though the latter is an extreme weight. The single pine shown is just under 12 lb. Several kinds of pines are grown, which are generally classified into roughs and smooths. The rough, or rough-leaved pines, such as the Common Queen and Ripley Queen, and local seedlings raised from them, are very prolific, and though not equal in size and appearance to the smooth-leaved Cayenne, our principal smooth-leaved kind, are usually considered to be of superior flavour, and to be better for canning or preserving. Rough pines run up to as much as 6 lb. weight each, but this is uncommon, the best average I have met with being about 4 lb. per pine, and they were exceptionally good. The price at which this fruit sells here seems absurd to those living in cold countries, who are accustomed to look upon it as a luxury only found on the tables of the wealthy, as good rough-leaved pines are worth about 1s. per dozen during the summer season, and smooth-leaved pines from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a dozen. Prices are certainly higher during the off-season, but growers would be well satisfied to get 1s. per dozen for rough pines all the year round. I have no hesitation in saying that pines can be grown at a profit at from £3 to £4 per ton, so that the cost of growing is so low that there is nothing to prevent us from canning the fruit and selling it at a price that will defy competition. [Illustration: Pineapple Plantation--Pines packed for market, and showing fruit-grower's home, Woombye District.] Pineapple-growing has been a very profitable industry, particularly in the older plantations of the Brisbane district, and still continues to be so in many places despite the fact that prices are much lower now than they were some years since. The plantations from which the illustrations are taken are comparatively new ones, the land having been in its virgin state from six to eight years ago, and, as shown, some is only now being cleared. The owners of the plantations started without capital, and, by dint of hard work and perseverance, are now reaping an excellent return of some £50 per acre net profit. This is by no means an isolated example, but is one that is typical of what can be done, and has therefore been chosen. There is a great opening for the culture of this fruit in Queensland, and its cultivation is capable of being extended to a practically unlimited extent. We have a large amount of land suitable for the growth of this fruit that is available in different parts of the State, much of it at very reasonable rates, so that there is no difficulty in this direction for anyone wishing to make a start. It is an industry from which returns are quickly obtained, and is a branch of fruit-growing that holds out strong inducements and every prospect of success to intending growers. At present our production is about sufficient for our presently existing markets, but there is nothing to prevent these markets being widely extended. Our present means of utilising our surplus fruits, by canning or otherwise preserving same, are by no means as complete or up to date as they should be, and before they can become so, it is necessary to greatly increase our output. Small works cost too much to run as compared with large canning establishments, hence we are not yet in a position to make the most of our fruit. With increased production we will have an increase in the facilities for utilising the fruit. This requires labour, and there is right here an opening for many industrious workers, a business that I have no doubt will pay from the start, a business of which we have the Australian monopoly, and in which there is no reason that I can see in which we should not compete satisfactorily in the markets of the world. [Illustration: Pineapple Plantation--Showing method of growing the fruit, Woombye District.] Queensland possesses many advantages respecting the growth of this fruit as compared with other countries in which it is grown commercially, which may be briefly enumerated as follows:-- 1st.--Freedom from loss by freeze-outs; 2nd.--The ease with which the fruit can be grown, and its freedom from disease; 3rd.--The large area of land suitable to its culture, and the low price at which suitable land can be obtained; 4th.--The fine quality of the fruit; 5th.--The superiority of our fruit for canning purposes; 6th.--The low price at which it can be produced, and the heavy crops that can be grown. These are enough reasons to show that in the pineapple we have a fruit well suited to our soil and climate, a fruit in the cultivation of which there is room for great extension, and which will provide a living for many industrious settlers. [Illustration: Rough-leaved Pines, Redland Bay District.] [Illustration: Pineapple Plantation--On virgin soil, showing scrub land at back being cleared for fruit growing, Woombye District.] THE MANGO. This magnificent fruit, which is practically unknown outside of the tropics, has become as hardy as a forest tree throughout our eastern seaboard, wherever it is planted out of frost. It has been named, and well named too, the apple of Queensland, as it stands as much neglect, and can be grown with as little care and attention as, or even less, than that given to the apple-trees in many of the Somerset or Devonshire orchards. It will not, however, stand frost. Droughts and floods have little effect on it; it will grow in any soil, from a sand to a heavy loam, amongst rocks, or on a gravelly or shaley land. Naturally, it does best in good land, but there are hundreds of cases where trees are doing well and bearing heavily on land that is by no means fruit land. The mango is one of our handsomest fruit trees; the symmetry of its growth, its large glossy leaves, the delicate colouring of its young growth, which is of different shades in different varieties, the abundance of fruit that it produces, varying in colour from dull-green to yellow, red, or even purplish tints, all render it conspicuous. As well as being one of our handsomest, it is also one of our most widely distributed fruits, being found growing luxuriantly the whole length of our eastern seaboard. A few trees are also to be met with inland in districts that are free from frosts, so that it stands both the dry heat of the interior and the humid heat of the coast. As a tropical fruit it naturally reaches its greatest perfection under our most tropical conditions, the trees there growing practically wild, requiring little if any attention, making a rapid growth, coming into bearing early, and producing heavy crops of fruit. Further south the growth is somewhat slower, though the trees grow to a large size and bear heavily. It is one of the easiest of trees to grow, as it is readily propagated by means of seed. In many plantations thousands of young seedlings may often be seen growing under the old trees, the seeds having taken root without even having been planted. In most cases it is propagated from seed, the stones of fruit showing especial merit being planted either in a nursery, or, better, still, where the tree is to remain permanently, as it usually does better when so planted than when grown in a nursery and thence transplanted to its permanent location. The land should be well worked prior to planting, and the young trees require to be kept free from weeds and undergrowth till such time as they occupy the whole of the ground, when they are able to look after themselves, and require no further attention, at any rate in the warmer parts. It is not at all uncommon to come across a mango-tree, in full bearing, in vigorous health, that is growing wild, the result of a stone that has been thrown away by someone who has eaten the fruit. The young tree has not only been able to hold its own against all kinds of indigenous growths, but has developed into a vigorous, healthy tree, thus showing that it is perfectly at home, and that the soil and climate of Queensland suit it to perfection. The fact that by far the greater portion of our mango-trees have been grown from seed has resulted in the production of innumerable varieties, many of which are of decidedly inferior quality, as one never knows when planting the seed what the resultant fruit is going to be like. One is more likely to get good fruit by planting the seeds from selected fruit of the highest quality, but is by no means certain to do so, as a number of seeds always revert to inferior types. This has had a bad effect on our mango industry, and has been apt to give the fruit as a class a bad name, so much so that we find it difficult to get our Southern neighbours to take to it at all readily. I can quite understand anyone, whose first experience of a mango is that of an inferior fruit, full of fibre, and having a distinctly disagreeable flavour, condemning the particular fruit, but because there are inferior fruits one should not condemn the whole without knowing what a really good mango is like. [Illustration: Mango Trees, Port Douglas.] We have many good mangoes in Queensland, but only a few that are really first-class, and of the latter I have yet to meet the man or woman, who is a fruit-eater, who does not appreciate their exquisite flavour, and who does not consider them worthy to rank with any of the finest fruits. By many a really fine mango is considered to be the king of fruits, and I am not at all certain that they are not right, but, at the same time, a really bad mango is indescribably bad. The mango grows to a large size here, even when comparatively young. I know trees over 50 feet in height, having a spread of the branches of more than 60 feet, a main trunk nearly 3 feet in diameter, that are under thirty years old, and that have borne from 1 to 2 tons of fruit for a single crop. Hundreds of tons of fruit go to waste annually for want of a market, or are consumed by farm animals, as the consumption of the fruit is practically confined to this State, and the production is greater than we can consume, despite the fact that mangoes are in season from the end of September to March, and that they are a favourite fruit with all who have acquired a liking for them. In addition to the consumption of the fruit in its fresh state, a quantity is converted into chutney, but this is so small that it has no appreciable effect on the crop as a whole. The unripe fruit makes an excellent substitute for apples, and is used stewed or for pies or tarts, and when sliced and dried it may be stored and used in a similar manner to dried apples. [Illustration: Mango Tree near Brisbane.] In addition to its value as a fruit, the mango forms a handsome ornamental tree, and one that provides a good shade for stock. It is very free from disease, as with the exception of one or two species of scale insects, which do not cause any very serious damage, it has few serious pests. It is a fruit that is bound sooner or later to come into more general favour, particularly when the qualities of the finer varieties are better known. Until quite recently it was considered to be one of the most difficult trees to propagate by means of grafting or budding, hence its propagation has been practically confined to raising it from seed, but now we have found out how to work it by means of plate-budding, and are able to perpetuate our best sorts true to kind. This is sure to lead to a general improvement of our existing varieties, as old trees can be worked over by this means, or young trees of approved kinds can be grown in a nursery and distributed. The fruit is very wholesome, is much appreciated by all who have acquired a taste for it, can be used fresh or dry, ripe or unripe, and cans well. It is a great addition to our list of purely tropical fruits, and finds a place in all orchards or gardens where it is capable of being grown. THE MANGOSTEEN. Many attempts have been made during past years to introduce this delicious fruit into Queensland, but these always resulted in failure. True, a certain variety of mangosteen has been successfully grown at Port Douglas, also on the Lower Burdekin, and rumours of the existence of the true Java mangosteen (_Garcinia mangostana_) have been received, but, in nearly every case, they have, on investigation, proved to be _Garcinia xanthochymus_, or some other species. At the Kamerunga State Nursery, however, trees of undoubted parentage were successfully raised. It is said that a thriving young plant, which is unquestionably _G. mangostana_, is owned by Mr. Banfield, of Dunk Island. The records of the Kamerunga Nursery show that in October, 1891, a quantity--about 100--of ripe mangosteen fruit was received from the Batavian agency by the then manager, Mr. Ebenezer Cowley, from which some 600 seeds were obtained. Of these, only a few germinated. The next mention is of the distribution, in February, 1892, of six plants to an applicant on the Mossman, and of two more in May of that year. Since then several young trees have been raised at the nursery, and one of them, in January, 1913, fruited for the first time for twenty-two years, and is the first to have done so in this State. Some of the fruit was sent to the Department of Agriculture and Stock, and proved to be fully equal to those of Java. A full history of the mangosteen and of its introduction into Queensland is given in "The Queensland Agricultural Journal" (vol. xxx., June and July, 1913). The photographs were taken from the original fruit. [Illustration: Fruit of Mangosteen.] THE PAPAW. Continuing our list of tropical fruits, we now come to the papaw, one of our most wholesome and useful fruits. It is grown all along our eastern seaboard in situations that are free from frost. It comes into bearing early, and is a heavy cropper. Like the other tropical fruits already described, it does best in our warmer parts, coming to maturity earlier, and producing better fruit. In many of the Northern coastal scrubs it is often met with growing wild, and producing fruit in abundance, the seeds from which the trees have been produced having been dropped by birds or distributed by other natural agencies. The papaw fruit resembles a rock melon somewhat in shape and flavour, the fruit being produced in the axil of the leaves all along the main stem, where they are clustered thickly together. The tree does best on well-drained soils, and is very sensitive to the presence of clay or stagnant water at the roots, hence it usually does best on scrub land or land well supplied with humus. It is propagated entirely from seed, which grows readily in such soils, and under favourable conditions will bear its first fruit when about ten to twelve months old, and continue to bear for three or four years or even longer. When the trees becomes old, however, the fruit decreases in size and deteriorates in quality, so that it is necessary to plant a number yearly in order to keep up a regular supply. It is a very handsome tree, with large spreading leaves on long stems, beneath which is its cluster of fruit--as many as 100 fruits being sometimes found in different stages of development on the one plant. The fruit ranges in size from 2 lb. to some 6 lb. in weight, and when ripe it is of a greenish-yellow or sometimes orange colour. The flesh is yellow, and when quite ripe it is moderately juicy, and of a flavour that it not always appreciated at first, but which one soon becomes very partial to. It more nearly resembles the flavour of a rock melon than that of any other fruit, and the seeds, which are found clustered in the centre of the fruit, have a flavour that closely resembles that of seeds of the nasturtium. Both the seeds and the fruit contain an active principle called papain, which is really a vegetable pepsin, that has the effect of greatly assisting in the assimilation of all food with which it is eaten, hence it is a valuable remedy in the case of dyspepsia, and persons who take the fruit regularly are never subject to this exceedingly troublesome disease. The fruit can be used both as a vegetable and as a fruit, the former in its green state, when it is boiled and served with melted butter, resembles a vegetable marrow or squash, but is superior to either of these vegetables. As a fruit it is either used by itself, or in conjunction with other fruits it forms the basis of a fruit salad. It is largely used in the North, and its cultivation is steadily spreading South, as its valuable properties are becoming better known. Its cultivation is very simple. The seeds are either planted where the tree is to remain, or are raised in a bed and transplanted to their permanent position in the orchard when strong enough to stand shifting, care being taken to select a dull moist day. The young plants are protected from the sun for a few days till they have become established, after which all that is necessary is to keep down weeds and to work the soil round them, taking care not to injure the roots. A good mulch of decomposed vegetable matter round the plants is an advantage, but they are usually so easily grown that little extra care is given to them. The papaw bears male and female flowers, which may be on the same trees, but are usually on different trees, so that it is usual to speak of male and female trees. This is, however, a mistake, as according to Bailey the plant is polygamous--that is to say, male, female, or hermaphrodite flowers may be found on the same or on distinct plants. The male flowers are usually on long scantily-branched auxiliary panicles, whereas the female flowers are mostly in the axils of the leaves close to the stem. The two trees are not distinguishable from each other till they come into flower, hence it is advisable to set the young plants fairly close together--say, 6 feet apart--and thin out the male trees when same can be distinguished by their blossoms. Besides its use as a fruit and vegetable, the papaw makes a fair conserve and an excellent sauce, and its medicinal principle, "papain," is an article of commerce. [Illustration: Papaw in fruit, near Brisbane.] THE COCOA-NUT. Although this palm can be grown for ornamental purposes as far south as Brisbane, its cultivation on commercial lines will be confined to the coast district north of Townsville, and to the islands off the coast, as, in order to develop its fruit to perfection, it requires a tropical climate. Where the climate is suitable it does well, it makes a rapid growth, and bears heavy crops of nuts. Old palms on the beach at Cairns compare favourably with any growing in the South Seas, and I am of opinion that its culture in commercial quantities on suitable land will be found profitable. The cocoa-nut palm does best right on or adjacent to the seashore, in comparatively poor sandy soil--soil that is usually of little value for general crops, though it will grow mangoes well. So far, it is not grown in any large numbers, and although there is a ready sale for the ripe nuts, there is no attempt to make copra or to utilise the coir. Copra is the dried flesh of the nut, from which oil is extracted, and is largely used in the manufacture of soap, candles, &c., the refuse left after the oil has been extracted being used for cattle feed. Coir is the fibre surrounding the nut, and is used for the manufacture of matting, door mats, &c. There is a considerable area of land suitable to the culture of this fruit on our Northern coast, which is at present lying idle, that, in my opinion, can be turned to a profitable use by planting it in cocoa-nuts as, in addition to utilising land otherwise of little value, we would be building up a new industry. The trees come into bearing in about eight years after planting the seed, and will continue to produce crops for many years without any attention. Care will have to be given for the first few years, whilst the plants are small, to keep down undergrowth and to prevent fires from running through the plantation, but, once fairly established, the plants will look after themselves. A cocoa-nut plantation gives a distinctly tropical look to the district in which it is grown, and the palms, particularly when young, are very ornamental; when old the long bare stems detract somewhat from the beauty of the top. It is a palm that I believe has a good future before it in the North, and for that reason I have included it amongst our tropical fruits, though it is cultivated at present more as an ornamental plant than as an article of commerce. [Illustration: Cocoa-nut Palms, Port Douglas.] THE GRANADILLA. A vine, belonging to the natural order Passifloreæ, that produces one of our most delicious tropical fruits. The papaw and the passion fruit belong to this same order. It can be grown all along our eastern seaboard, but comes to greatest perfection in the North. The fruit is of a pale greenish-yellow colour, cylindrical in shape, and varies in weight from about 1 to 5 lb., the largest fruits being produced on a sub-species. The fruit consists of an outer pulpy covering, which can be used for cooking if desired, which surrounds a cavity filled with seeds which are encased in a jelly-like mass. This is the portion eaten, and to use an Americanism, "It is not at all hard to take." It is either eaten by itself, or is used in conjunction with papaw and other fruits to make a fruit salad, a dish that is fit for the food of the gods, and once taken is never forgotten. The granadilla is easily grown from seed, and the plants are trained on an overhead trellis, the fruit hanging down on the underside. It is a heavy bearer, and once planted requires little attention. It requires a free, warm soil, that is fairly rich, to be grown to perfection, hence it is most commonly grown on scrub land. It can, however, be grown on any well-prepared land of a free nature. Unfortunately, it is a difficult fruit to ship any distance, hence its consumption is mainly confined to the districts in which it is grown, and where, needless to say, it is greatly appreciated. It is in fruit more or less all the year round, its main crop being in early spring in the North, and during the summer months further South. It is sometimes made into jam or jelly, but when preserved loses much of its characteristic flavour. [Illustration: Granadilla Vine at Kuranda, Cairns district.] THE PASSION FRUIT. This fruit is very closely related to the granadilla, but is much hardier than it, and can be grown to perfection much further South. It is not injured by frost to any extent in any part of coastal Queensland, and can be grown a considerable distance inland. It is more rightly a semi-tropical than a tropical fruit, though, as it is so nearly related to the granadilla, I have included it amongst the tropical fruits. It is also a vine, and, when grown commercially, is trained along a horizontal trellis, in a somewhat similar manner to a grape vine. It is readily grown from seed, and will produce fruit in less than twelve months from the time that it is planted, and will continue to bear fruit for some years. It does best on a free, warm soil of fair quality, though it may be grown anywhere with care, and often thrives well in very poor soils with the addition of manure. It is found growing wild on the borders of many of our scrubs and elsewhere, the seeds having been deposited by birds or other agencies, and under such conditions it produces an abundance of fruit. The fruit is of a roundish oval shape, and is of a dark-purple colour. It is about the size of a large hen's egg, the outer skin being hard and shell-like, and the centre filled with the seeds, which are surrounded with a jelly-like mass and a yellowish pulp. It is a very fine flavoured fruit, and is universally liked. It is grown in considerable quantities in the Southern part of the State, and is one of our commonest fruits. It has usually two crops a year--a summer and a winter crop--but can be got to produce its fruit at any particular time that is desired by systematic pruning at different times of the year. It is often grown over sheds, dead trees, fallen logs, &c., which it covers with a mass of dense green foliage, and converts what would otherwise be an unsightly object into an ornament. The illustration herewith shows this well, and gives a good idea of the growth of a single vine. Commercially it is grown on trellis, so that the land between the rows can be kept well cultivated, and also to permit of ease in the gathering of the fruit. When ripe, the fruit drops, and the gathering is usually from the ground. The fruit carries well, but will not keep for any length of time, as it shrivels up. It is principally used as a fresh fruit, though it is also made into jam or jelly, and it often forms part of a fruit salad, taking the place of the granadilla. It has few pests, and is one of the easiest fruits to grow. [Illustrations: Passion Fruit, Redland Bay--Showing method of culture (1) and part of a vine in fruit (2).] CUSTARD APPLES. Under this heading I will include all the Anonas, such as the sour sop, sweet sop, bullock's heart, and cherimoya. The sour sop is purely tropical, and is very sensitive to frost, but the other species are by no means so tender, and can be grown anywhere along the coast where the soil is suitable, as well as at many inland places. All the species produce very fine fruits, that vary somewhat in shape, in the roughness of the skin, and in size. The sour sop is the largest, and attains a size of 6 to 8 lb. The fruit is covered with soft spines, and is of an irregular oval, or even pyriform, shape. It ripens very soon after it is gathered, consequently cannot be sent any distance. It is a pleasant fruit of an aromatic sub-acid flavour. The pulp surrounding the seeds is of a woolly consistency, and this is surrounded by a custard-like mass which is much appreciated by those who have acquired a liking for it. It is a comparatively uncommon fruit, and is confined to the tropics. The sweet sop is the commonest of the Anonas, and is grown throughout a considerable part of coastal Queensland. It is usually of an irregular roundish shape, very full of seeds, which are surrounded by a custard-like pulp of very pleasant flavour. It is usually a heavy bearer, and is the variety most commonly met with in our fruit stores. The tree is hardy and is easily grown. The bullock's heart is a stronger-growing variety than the previous one, the fruit is larger, and, as its name implies, heart-shaped. It is also fairly seedy, the pulp of a light-brown colour, and more gritty, and not, in my opinion, of first-rate quality. It is most commonly grown in the North, where it is a very hardy and prolific tree. The cherimoya is the best of the custard apples. The tree is a strong grower, with large handsome leaves, but, as a rule, it is not a very heavy bearer. There are many varieties, the fruit of which varies considerably in size and shape, and the skin is sometimes smooth and sometimes warted, or even covered with short soft spines. It has usually comparatively few seeds, and these are surrounded by a rich custard-like pulp, which in the better kinds is of very fine flavour, and is generally much liked. The fruit is not a good keeper, still, given careful handling and packing, it can be kept for nearly a week. All custard apples are easily raised from seed, but the better varieties are propagated by grafting strong seedlings with wood taken from a tree producing fruit of especial merit. Any good fruit soil will grow them, and they do not require any especial treatment. [Illustration: Custard Apples, Brisbane District.] There are still a large number of tropical fruits that I have not mentioned, but space will not permit of my giving them more than a passing notice, as they are not of any great value from a commercial standpoint at present. Of these fruits the litchi, whampee, averoha, longan, vi-apple, and Chinese mangosteen are practically confined to the North. The guava, of which there are many species, grows anywhere; in fact, it is a pest in many cases, taking complete possession of the land. It is not cultivated to any great extent, as it grows so readily without, and, further, it harbours several pests whose presence it is desirable to remove from the orchard. It is a useful fruit for home consumption, as it stews well, makes an excellent jam, and its jelly is one of the best. The rosella, a species of hibiscus, is an annual fruit that is grown to a considerable extent in several parts of the State, and is used for pies, jams, and jellies. The latter is remarkably good, equal to that made from the red currant of colder climes, and will no doubt become an article of export at no very distant date. The fruit also dries well, and makes an excellent pickle. It is raised from seed, the young seedlings being set out in well-prepared land when all danger of frost is past. It is a rapid grower, and forms a bush some 4 feet across by 4 or 5 feet high. It is a heavy bearer, and the fruit meets with a ready sale. To do well, the plants require a warm, free, well-drained soil, as they do not thrive where there is any stagnant water at or near the roots. The avocado or alligator pear is not grown to any extent, though it thrives well, particularly to the north of the tropic of Capricorn, and can also be grown successfully as far south as the New South Wales border. It is a fruit that deserves to be cultivated to a much greater extent than it is at present, and once it becomes better known I have no doubt that it will be planted in considerable numbers, and prove a very welcome addition to our already long list of fruits, as it is unequalled, in my opinion, as a salad. As far as my experience goes, it is likely to become a profitable fruit to grow, as once persons acquire a liking for it, they become very partial to it, and eat it whenever they can get it. In addition to purely tropical fruits a number of semi-tropical fruits are grown on our eastern seaboard, but are not entirely confined thereto, as many of them are cultivated to a considerable extent in some parts of our coastal and inland tablelands, particularly in sheltered positions. Under the heading of semi-tropical fruits, all kinds of citrus fruits, persimmons, loquats, date palm, wine palm, pecan nut, Brazilian cherry, Natal plum, ki-apple, and many other fruits are included, as well as several fruits that more properly belong to the temperate regions, such as Japanese plums, Chickasaw plum, peaches of Chinese origin, figs, mulberries of sorts, strawberries, cape gooseberries, &c. Of all of these the citrus fruits, which include the orange, mandarin, Seville, lemon, lime, grape fruit, kumquat, citron, and pomelo are by far the most important, and are grown successfully over a very large portion of the State, so that we will consider them first. [Illustration: Sour Sop, Mossman District.] CITRUS FRUIT. Quite a number of fruits are included under this heading, and all reach a very high state of perfection in this State. The whole of the family, the lemon-shaped citron excepted, is noted for the beauty and symmetry of growth that its trees make, and I know of few more beautiful sights in the vegetable world than a well-kept citrus grove in full bearing. Take the common round orange as an example, its well-balanced and evenly grown head, its dark glossy green foliage, its wealth of white blossoms, which perfume the whole neighbourhood, or its mass of golden fruit between its dark-green leaves, render it one of the most beautiful of fruit trees at all times, but especially so when covered with blossoms or ripe fruit. A typical Queensland grove is even more beautiful than those of many other places, as the vigour and size of our trees, their exceptionally healthy appearance, their dark foliage, and the heavy crop of high-class fruit that they bear, are at once evident to a stranger who has never seen the orange grown under such favourable conditions as are experienced here. The yield is often so heavy that the trees actually bend to the ground with the weight of their fruit, and a stack of props has to be used to prevent the tree from splitting into pieces. Those who have seen the enormous crops of apples that are produced on some trees in Tasmania or the old cider orchards of Devon or Somerset can form an idea of the crops; but the writer, who has seen both, as well as our Queensland trees, has no hesitation in saying that a Queensland mandarin can give points to either as a heavy cropper; in fact, if it has a fault, it is its proneness to overbear, particularly when young. This all tends to prove how well adapted Queensland is to the growth of citrus fruits, and were I asked to select a country particularly suited to their culture I should have no hesitation in naming this State, as I know of nowhere where their culture can be carried out with less trouble, or where the trees will produce better fruit or heavier crops. Queensland may well be termed the home of citrus fruits, as we have no less than three native species which are indigenous to the State, and are by no means uncommon in our scrubs. Their presence gives unmistakable proof of the suitability of this State for the culture of fruits of the same family, so that I think a short description of these native species may not be out of place, but will be of some interest to my readers. [Illustration: Young Orange Orchard (6 years old) on scrub land, near Mapleton, Blackall Range. Showing the standing scrub in the background.] _Citrus australis_, the native orange or lime, is both the largest and most common. It grows into a large tree, having a diameter of 15 to 18 inches in the trunk, and a height of 60 feet or more. It produces a quantity of thick-skinned acid fruit, of from 2 to 3 inches in diameter. The skin is full of a resinous sap, and the fruit is of little value. It is a slow-growing tree, though, as just mentioned, it attains a considerable size, is very hardy, and produces a quantity of fruit. Its slow growth, when young, has prevented its use as a stock on which to work improved varieties, but I have no doubt it would make a very hardy stock that would be distinctly disease-resistant. The second variety is _Citrus australasica_, the so-called finger lime, a thorny bush, producing a fruit of from 3/4 to 1 inch in diameter, and 3 to 4 inches long. The fruit has a thin skin, and contains an agreeable acid pulp that varies in colour, in some specimens being of a reddish tinge that resembles the pulp of a blood orange. These two varieties are met with in the Southern part of the State, but the third is a Northern species, to which Mr. F. M. Bailey, our Colonial Botanist, has given the name of _Citrus inodora_, the North Queensland lime. It is met with in the scrubs of the Russell River, and is described by Mr. Bailey as bearing a greater resemblance to the cultivated species than the two former varieties. It produces a fruit over 2 inches long by 1-1/4 inches in diameter, having a thin rind and a juicy pulp of a sharply acid flavour, so that even in its wild state it is a desirable fruit, and takes the place of the cultivated lemon. Where native species flourish as they do here, there is every probability of cultivated species thriving equally well, and this is found to be the case in practice. [Illustration: A young Orange Orchard, Woombye District.] No fruits are more generally distributed or have a wider range in this State than those of the Citrus family, as, with the exception of the colder parts of the Downs, where the winter temperature is too low, the Gulf country, and the dry Western districts, where there is no water available for irrigation, they can be grown from one end of the State to the other, provided that they are planted in suitable soil, and that, in the drier parts, there is an available supply of suitable water with which to irrigate them during the prevalence of long dry spells. The country adjoining the eastern seaboard, extending from the Tweed River in the South to Cooktown in the North--a distance of about 1,100 miles, and extending inland for nearly 100 miles--is naturally suited to the growth of citrus fruits, and there is probably no country in the world that is better adapted to, or that can produce the various kinds of these fruits to greater perfection or with less trouble, than this portion of Queensland. Of course, the whole of this large area is not adapted for citrus culture, as it contains many different kinds of soils, several of which are not suitable for the growth of these fruits, and there is also a large extent of country which is too broken and otherwise unsuitable. At the same time there are hundreds of thousands of acres of land in this area in which the soil and natural conditions are eminently suited to the growth of citrus fruit, and in which the tenderest varieties of these fruits may be grown to perfection without the slightest chance of their being injured by frost; and where the natural rainfall is such that, provided the trees receive ordinary care and cultivation, there is seldom any necessity for artificial irrigation. At the present time there are hundreds of citrus trees growing practically wild in different parts of the coastal country that are in vigorous health and producing heavy crops of good fruit, even though they are uncultivated, unpruned, unmanured, and have to hold their own against a vigorous growth of native and introduced shrubs, trees, and weeds. When the orange, lime, citron, or common lemon become established under conditions that are favourable for their proper development, they apparently become as hardy as the indigenous plants, and are able to hold their own against them, thus showing how well the climate and suitable soils of coastal Queensland are adapted for the cultivation of citrus fruits. The commercial cultivation of citrus fruits is at present practically confined to this coastal area, the most important centres, starting from the South, being Nerang, Coomera, Redland Bay, Brisbane, Enoggera, Gatton, Grantham, Toowoomba, North Coast line from North Pine to Gympie including the Blackall Range and Buderim Mountain; the Wide Bay district, including Maryborough, Tiaro, Mount Bauple, Gayndah, Pialba, and Burrum; the Burnett district, including Bundaberg and Mullet Creek; the Fitzroy district, including Rockhampton and Yeppoon; Bowen, Cardwell, Murray River, Tully River, Cairns and district, Port Douglas, and Cooktown. In addition to these districts a few citrus fruits are grown at Mackay, Townsville, and several other places. Citrus fruits are also grown further inland, but their cultivation here is largely dependent on the ability to supply the trees with suitable water for irrigation during dry spells. Frosts have also to be taken into consideration, for, though the days are warm, the temperature often falls considerably during the night, owing to the great radiation, and citrus-trees in districts like Roma, Emerald, &c., are liable to injury thereby. West of Emerald, at Bogantungan, Barcaldine, and other places, citrus fruits do very well with irrigation. Some of the finest lemons, Washington Navel, and other improved varieties of oranges are grown here to perfection, the lemons especially being of high quality, and curing down equal to the imported Italian or Californian article. The soil in many of the inland districts is well suited to the culture of citrus fruits, and when the trees are given the necessary water, and are uninjured by frost, they produce excellent fruit. I stated, some short distance back, that there is probably no country in the world that is better adapted to the cultivation of or that can produce the various kinds of citrus fruits to greater perfection or with less trouble than the eastern seaboard of Queensland. To many of my readers this may seem to be a very broad statement; but I am certain that, if suitable trees are planted in the right soil and under favourable conditions, and are given anything like the same care and attention that is devoted to the culture of citrus fruits in the great producing centres for these fruits in other parts of the world, we have nothing to fear either as regards the cost of production or the quality of the fruit produced. In order to exemplify this, it may be interesting to compare our capabilities with those of the principal citrus-producing districts north of the equator. To begin with, I will take Florida, which more nearly approaches our climatic conditions than any other citrus-growing country that I know of, and which is noted for the excellence of its citrus fruit, and we find that we have all its advantages except that of proximity to the world's markets, without its disadvantages. We have a better and richer soil, requiring far less expensive artificial fertilisers to maintain its fertility, and at a very much lower price. We can grow equally as good fruit; in fact, it is questionable if Florida ever produced a citrus fruit equal in quality to the Beauty of Glen Retreat Mandarin, a Queensland production. We get as heavy, if not heavier, crops, and our trees come into bearing very early. We have no freeze-outs similar to those which have crippled the industry in Florida so severely in the past that many of their wealthy growers are actually covering in whole orchards of many acres in extent as a protection from frost. This covering-in is accomplished by means of a framework of timber having slat-work or panel sides and tops--in fact, by enclosing their orchards in a huge elaborate bush-house, which is further protected by the heat produced by six large heating stoves or salamanders to each acre of trees enclosed. If it pays the Florida growers to go to all this expense in order to prevent freeze-outs and to produce first-class fruit, surely we can compete with them when a seed stuck in the right soil under favourable conditions will produce a strong, vigorous, healthy tree, bearing good crops without any attention whatever. [Illustration: An Orange Orchard, near Woombye.] [Illustration: Orange Trophy in the Moreton District Exhibit at the Brisbane Exhibition.] In comparing Queensland with the citrus-producing districts of Southern Europe, we have the advantage of better and cheaper land, absence of frost, more vigorous growth, earlier maturity of the trees, and superior fruit; but with the advantage of cheaper and more skilful labour, especially in the handling and marketing of fruit, and proximity to the world's markets in their favour. As compared with California, our soil is no better than theirs, but it costs much less, and their citrus industry is dependent on artificial irrigation, their natural rainfall being altogether inadequate for the growth of citrus fruits. Californian conditions more nearly approach those of our inland districts, such as Barcaldine, with the exception that the only rainfall in California is during the winter, whereas in Barcaldine and similar districts the heaviest fall is during the summer months, but, in both, the successful culture of these fruits depends on irrigation. In Jaffa, also, where the oranges are of large size and extra quality, the trees have to be carefully irrigated and manured, as these operations are found to be essential to the production of marketable fruit. These few instances show how favourably the conditions prevailing in Queensland compare with those of the great citrus-growing districts of Europe and America, especially in the matter of soil and climate, and I feel confident that, if the industry were taken up in the same business-like manner that it has been done in California and Florida, we could easily hold our own against any part of the world. In comparing Queensland with the rest of the world we have the advantage--also shared by New South Wales and South Africa--of ripening our fruit at a time of the year which is the off season in the citrus-producing countries to the north of the equator, so that our fruit does not clash with theirs, their ripening period and ours being at different times of the year. As regards our Australian market, our fruit ripening earlier than that of the Southern States, we are enabled to dispose of a considerable portion of our crop in the Southern markets before the local fruit is ready for gathering. This gives us three markets--first, a local one; secondly, a Southern one; and, finally, when this demand is supplied, an oversea market to Europe, America, and the East. When grown under favourable conditions, citrus-trees are heavy bearers in this State, it being no uncommon thing to meet with seedling or worked orange-trees of from ten to twelve years of age producing over twenty cases of marketable fruit to the tree, averaging about 10 dozen medium-sized fruit. [Illustration: Bunch of Valencia late Oranges, Blackall Range District.] [Illustration: Washington Navel Oranges, Barcaldine District, Central Line.] Citrus-trees of all kinds, particularly worked trees, come into bearing very early, and the returns obtained from an orchard rapidly increase. The illustrations give a good idea of the rapid growth, and a fair one of the crop of fruit the young trees are bearing, but the following examples, taken at random for the crop that was marketed in January, 1906, will show better how our trees bear:-- Mr. A., Blackall Range, marketed 7-1/4 cases per tree from a row of twenty-five Beauty of Glen Retreat Mandarins, planted April, 1900. A return of £1 10s. per tree. Mr. B., from the same district, averaged 7 cases of Washington Navel Oranges per tree from trees six years old, which realised £1 15s. per tree, and 8 cases of Beauty of Glen Retreat Mandarins from trees of the same age. The navels were large, and averaged 5 dozen per case, and the mandarins 10 dozen per case. Mr. C, another district, averaged 6 cases of Valencia Late Oranges, from trees six years planted, and 10 cases per tree from Emperor Mandarins, nine years old. One twelve years old orange-tree in this district produced over 25 cases of fruit. Mr. D., same district as last; Washington Navels averaged 10 cases per tree, ten years planted, and have borne regular crops since three years old. Numerous other cases might be given, but the above are sufficient to show the earliness at which our trees bear, and the crops they yield. Trees in full bearing often yield up to 40 cases, but these are usually old seedlings, which bear a very heavy crop one year and a comparatively light crop the next. All the instances I have quoted are from worked trees, which are found to give the most regular and constant yields. Until quite recently, citrus-trees were almost entirely grown from seed in this State, with the result that we have a very large number of types, and many crosses between different species. This was not advisable, as a uniformity in type is desirable for marketing, hence the greater number of trees now being planted are of selected varieties of proved merit. Many of the seedlings have produced most excellent fruit, but a seedling has usually the disadvantage of being very full of seeds, and having a lot of rag (the indigestible fibre round the pulp) as compared with the worked varieties, which have either no seeds or very few seeds and little rag. Seedlings are also of many types, and they produce a lot of small fruit, thereby making an uneven sample, whereas worked trees produce fruit even in size and quality. Seedlings are probably the hardiest, and will stand the most neglect, but experience is showing that worked trees are the most profitable to grow. The growth of all kinds of citrus-trees from seed is a very simple matter, all that is necessary being a well-prepared seed bed of friable soil that is partially shaded from the heat of the sun, so as to protect the young plants. Selected, fully ripe fruit from well-grown, prolific, healthy trees is taken, and the seeds sown in rows in the seed bed, or broadcast when weeds are not likely to be any trouble. Fresh seed germinates quickly, and the young plants are soon ready to be transplanted into the nursery bed, where they are either worked over or allowed to remain seedlings. At twelve months old, from seed, a tree will have a stem-diameter of about 3/4-inch, and a height of 3 to 4 feet, a growth about twice that made in the Southern States. The general remarks I have given respecting our fruit soils apply with equal force to those best adapted for citrus culture--viz., they must possess perfect drainage, and be of a friable nature. We are growing most of the best varieties of citrus fruit, the original trees from which they are now being propagated having been introduced into the State from the most celebrated citrus-producing districts in the world, and, as stated and shown by the accompanying illustrations, they are all doing well. The Washington Navel, the variety of orange most commonly grown in California, does remarkably well on our rich volcanic scrub soils, where it has proved itself a regular bearer of high-class fruit. The Mediterranean Sweet Orange, Valencia Late, and Jaffa also do well in many parts, the Valencia Late adapting itself to most districts. Many other kinds of oranges are grown, but the varieties mentioned are some of the best, and are the ones now being planted in the greatest quantity. [Illustration: Spray of Orange Blossom.] In mandarins, all kinds do remarkably well, and I never saw this fruit produced to greater perfection in any part of the world than it is in Queensland. The varieties most commonly grown are: The Emperor or Canton, the Scarlet or Scarlet Emperor, Thorny or Tangerine, and Beauty of Glen Retreat, though there are many types of seedlings in addition to these well-known sorts. The grape fruit which is now so popular in America does well, but, so far, has not taken on in our markets. Citrons grow practically wild, and produce good fruit, for which there is a limited demand for peel. Their cultivation could be extended with ease were there a better demand for peel. The Seville Orange, which is used for the manufacture of marmalade, is an exceptionally hardy and prolific tree, and, were it required, we could easily grow enough of this fruit to supply the world. Lemons do best inland, or at an elevation of some 2,000 feet above sea-level, as this fruit is apt to become too coarse in the skin when grown in a humid climate. In suitable localities very good fruit can be grown, which compares very favourably with the European or American grown fruit. The lime does well in the more humid districts, taking the place of the lemon, and one variety--the Tahiti--has proved itself to be a heavy and regular bearer. The West Indian lime, from which the lime juice of commerce is made, is very easily grown, particularly in the more tropical parts, where it is often met with growing in an entirely uncultivated condition, and bearing heavy crops of fruit. Kumquats are easily grown, and are heavy bearers, and all the different types of pomelos or shaddocks do well. Seedlings of the latter are very hardy, as they are deep-rooted plants that stand dry weather well and are, consequently, not liable to injury during dry spells. There is very little demand for the fruit, but I am of opinion that the seedlings will prove to be of value as stocks on which to work our best kinds of oranges. The culture of all kinds of citrus fruits, when grown in suitable soil, is by no means difficult, as it consists mainly of keeping the land well stirred and keeping down all weed growth during dry spells, the keeping of the trees well pruned out in the centre, and the keeping in check of all diseases, both insect and fungus. Although citrus fruits are subject to many pests, they are for the most part easily kept in check by either spraying or cyaniding, or both, provided that reasonable care is taken, and the pests are destroyed before they have obtained control. Taken as a whole, our citrus fruits are remarkably clean, and compare more than favourably with those grown in the Southern States. The culture of these fruits is extending rapidly, with a corresponding increase in production, but, despite this, our prices have been better during the past season than for some years, as the quality of our fruit is such that it will command a good market. When properly handled, it has good keeping qualities, and I have no doubt that we will, in time, be able to supply the markets of the Old and New Worlds with good fruit, in the best of condition, at the time of the year that their markets are bare of locally-grown citrus fruit. There is a good opening for the growth of citrus fruits in this State, as the writer knows of no country where they do better, where they can be produced with as little trouble and expense, where they can be successfully grown over such a large area, or where the soil and climate is more suited to the production of fruits of the highest quality as in Queensland. [Illustration: Lisbon Lemon, Esk District.] THE PERSIMMON. This exceedingly handsome fruit of Japanese origin is grown to a high state of perfection in this State, particularly in the coastal districts south of the tropic of Capricorn. It is a fruit of comparatively recent introduction, the oldest trees being less than thirty years of age, but has already become widely distributed, as well as a favourite fruit amongst many. It is a very showy fruit when well grown, but must be thoroughly ripe before it is eaten, as, if not, it is extremely astringent, and anyone who has tackled an unripe fruit has no wish to repeat the experience in a hurry. There are many varieties of this fruit, some of which are seedless, and others more or less seedy. The seedless kinds are usually preferred, as, as well as being seedless, they are the largest and handsomest fruit. The different kinds vary considerably in the size of tree, habit of growth, foliage, size and colour of fruit, &c. All are easily grown, and most kinds are good and regular bearers. They do well on any fruit soil, and some of the dwarf-growing kinds are well adapted for growing in private gardens, on account of the small amount of room they take up. The trees are deciduous, and, as a rule, are not much troubled with pests. So far, the use of the fruit is confined to its consumption fresh, though in Japan it is dried in a similar manner to apricots or peaches. [Illustration: Persimmons.] THE LOQUAT. A handsome evergreen tree, that can be grown in the more Southerly coast districts, in the foothills of the coast range, and on the coast tablelands. There are several types of the fruit, whose chief value consists in that it ripens its fruit in early spring, when there is a shortage of stone fruits, and that it withstands wind well, so makes a good break for the protection of exposed orchards. Its cultivation is not extensive, nor is it likely to become so. [Illustration: Fruit of Loquat (1/2 natural size).] THE DATE PALM. Although this extremely valuable fruit is grown in this State more as an ornament than for its commercial value, there is nothing to prevent its culture on a scale sufficiently large to supply the Australian requirements. It is grown in many places along the coast, as well as in the foothills country of the coastal range, but it does best in situations that more nearly resemble its natural habitat--viz., in districts having a hot dry air, a deep sandy loam or sandy soil, and a good supply of moisture in the soil. This latter condition does not occur naturally, but can be supplied artificially in our Western lands, where there is a good supply of artesian water of a quality suitable to the plants' requirements. Here the date palm thrives, and produces huge bunches of fruit. Little, if any, cultivation is necessary when once the palm is firmly established; provided it has an ample but not excessive supply of moisture, it is able to take care of itself. The date palm is a dioecious plant--that is to say, the male organs, or stamens, are produced on one plant, and the female organs, or pistils, on another, and this necessitates the growing of the two sexes in proximity to each other, in order that the female flowers may be fertilised and produce perfect fruit. This is best accomplished artificially, the pollen from a fully developed bunch of male flowers being shaken over the bunch of female flowers. Infertile fruit contains no seeds, and is of small size and inferior quality, whereas the fertile fruit is both large and good. The date palm is a handsome ornamental plant, and in the hot and dry Western districts, where it thrives best, it forms a splendid shelter from the sun for both man and beast. So far, very little attention has been given to its growth, few persons knowing how to fertilise the flowers or even taking the trouble to see that they have plants of both sexes. There is no reason why this should be so, as there would be a good local demand for the properly-cured fruit, and I believe that, were its culture carried out in a thorough business manner, it would become a profitable industry, and one capable of supplying our Australian market. [Illustration: Date Palms in fruit at Barcaldine.] THE PECAN NUT. Another little-known fruit which does well in this State. It belongs to the hickory family, and closely resembles the walnut. There are trees now growing in the Maryborough district that are some 15 inches in diameter at the trunk, and from 40 to 50 feet in height, that bear regular and heavy crops of nuts, and that have stood drought and been under flood. For years the trees have received no cultivation, and they have shown themselves to be as hardy as the adjacent indigenous trees. The trees are easily raised from seed, and come into bearing in about eight years. Like all nut fruits, it is advisable to set the nut where the tree is to remain permanently, if it is possible to do so, as it produces a very deep taproot, with few laterals, and is consequently difficult to shift. The soil on which it does best is an alluvial loam, and, if possible, it should not be more than 30 feet to water, as the tree, being a very deep rooter, will penetrate a free soil to that depth. It will do on other free loamy soils, but will not make the same growth as when planted in free alluvials. It has been tested in several parts of the State, and it is probable that it will be found to thrive over a considerable area of the coastal and coastal tablelands districts. It produces an olive or acorn shaped nut, having a thin shell, and of a flavour closely resembling that of a good walnut, and will be a valuable addition to our list of nut fruits once it becomes better known. [Illustration: Date Fruit (natural size).] JAPANESE PLUMS. All varieties of this fruit thrive well and bear heavily in the more Southerly part of our coast country, as well as on the country immediately adjacent to it, the coastal tablelands, and several other parts of the State. The trees are rapid growers, come into bearing very early, and often bear enormous crops of fruit. They are good fruits for home consumption or for the fresh-fruit trade, but are not equal to European varieties of plums for preserving, drying, or jam-making. In this State they have one very great drawback, and that is their liability to the attack of the fruit fly, a pest that very frequently destroys the entire crop. For home use they are, however, a very useful fruit to grow, provided that the trees are kept dwarf, so that they can be covered with a cheap mosquito netting as a protection from the fly, as they are very easily grown, are by no means particular as to the kind of soil on which planted, and are heavy bearers. CHICKASAW PLUMS. This family of American plums does well in the same districts as the Japanese varieties just dealt with, but has the advantage of being resistant to the fruit fly. The trees are usually more or less straggling growers, the fruit is of small size, but good for cooking or jam-making. One or more of the varieties of this plum are bad setters, though they blossom profusely, but this may be overcome either by working two varieties which bloom at the same time on to the same stock, or by planting varieties that bloom at the same time together, as the pollen from the one will set the fruit of the other. It is a good plum for home use or marketing, despite its small size, as it is easily grown, requires little attention, and is not over particular as to soil. CHINESE PEACHES. Peaches of Chinese origin thrive well on the coast, and are extremely hardy. The fruit is not, as a rule, of high quality when compared with that of the Persian varieties, but their earliness and ease with which they can be grown causes them to be planted by many who have small gardens. Like the Japanese plums they are, however, very subject to the attack of fruit fly, and require to be kept dwarf and covered in a similar manner if any good is to be got from them. On the coast, they are practically evergreen, as they never lose their leaves entirely, and are in blossom during the winter. When grown on the tablelands, this early blossoming is a disadvantage, as the blossoms are liable to be injured by frost, but in these districts peaches of Persian origin can be grown instead. FIGS. Several kinds of figs can be grown successfully in the Southern coast districts, the first crop ripening before Christmas, but the second or main crop is often a failure, owing to the fact that it ripens during our wet season, and the fruit consequently sours and bursts. As one recedes from the coast, the fruit does better, and is less liable to injury from excessive wet. The coastal tablelands and the more Western Downs grow it well, and the trees, when planted on soil of a rich friable nature, grow to a large size and bear heavily. Many varieties are grown, which are used fresh or converted into jam, but no attempt has been made to dry them, though it is possible that this industry may eventually be found profitable in the drier parts of the State, where there is water available for the trees' use at certain periods of the year, but not during the fruiting period, as it cannot well be too dry then if a good quality of dried figs is to be turned out. This fruit is easily grown, and is not at all subject to serious pests, so that anyone who will take reasonable care can produce all that is required for home use or local sale, as its softness renders it a difficult fruit to ship long distances in a hot climate. THE MULBERRY. This is one of the hardiest fruits we have, one of the most rapid growers, and one of the most prolific. There are several varieties in cultivation, and those of Japanese or Chinese origin will grow from the coast to the interior, and thrive either in an extremely dry or humid climate. The common English or black mulberry does not do too well as a rule, though there are many fine trees scattered throughout the State, but the other sorts are as hardy as native trees. The fruit is not of any great value, still, as it is so easily grown, it finds a place in most gardens, and in time of drought the leaves and young branches are readily eaten by all kinds of stock, so that it is a good standby for stock as well as a fruit. THE STRAWBERRY. To those who have been accustomed to look upon the strawberry as a fruit of the purely temperate regions, it will be somewhat of a revelation to know that exceptionally fine fruit can be grown right on the Queensland coast, and well within the tropics, and that on the coast, between the 26th to the 28th degrees of south latitude, we are probably producing as fine fruit and obtaining as heavy crops as are produced in any of the older strawberry-growing countries. Not only this, but that we are able to supply the Southern markets of Australia with finer fruit than they can produce locally, and at a time of the year that they cannot grow it. As I have already mentioned when dealing with other fruits, one thing that particularly impresses strangers is the early age at which our fruits come into bearing. This is borne out in the case of the strawberry to a marked degree, as runners set in April fruit in July, and often earlier, and will continue to bear, given reasonable weather, right up to Christmas or even longer. New plants are set out every year, and the plantation is seldom allowed to stand more than two years, as the young plants produce the finest fruit. There is a good demand for the fruit, the larger berries being packed in flat cases holding a single layer of fruit, as shown in the illustration, and being sold for consumption fresh, whereas the smaller berries are packed in kegs and sent direct to the factories for conversion into jam. The strawberry grows well on various soils, but does best with us on a rich loam of medium texture, of a reddish-brown or even black colour. It should be planted in districts that are free from frosts where early fruit is desired, as frosts injure the blossoms, but where jam fruit only is wanted this is not so necessary. The land requires to be thoroughly well prepared, and the plants are usually set out in rows about 2 feet apart, with the plants about 1 foot apart in the row. Under favourable conditions they grow very rapidly, and soon start flowering. Their cultivation is usually confined to comparatively small areas of 2 or 3 acres in extent, as the labour of picking and packing is usually done by the grower himself with the assistance of his family. They are often planted between the rows of trees in young orchards, thus bringing in a return whilst the trees are coming into bearing, and helping to keep the pot boiling. They grow well on our coastal scrub lands, and have proved a great assistance to many a beginner, as one has not long to wait before obtaining a return. [Illustration: Strawberry Garden, Mooloolah District.] The productiveness of this fruit in Queensland is phenomenal, as high as 5 tons of berries having been taken off 1 acre in a single season. There are many varieties of strawberries in cultivation, some of which have been produced locally from seed, and have turned out extremely well, being of better flavour, stronger growers, and heavier bearers than introduced varieties--in fact, local seedlings have adapted themselves to local conditions, and stand our climate better than those varieties which are natives of colder countries. [Illustration: Marguerite Strawberry.] [Illustration: Marguerite Strawberry packed for market.] The case berries, which are used for fresh consumption, fetch a fair price, especially early in the season, but jam fruit sells at an average of 2-1/2d. per lb., at which price it pays fair wages, but is not a bonanza. As a rule the plants are very healthy, and any fungus pests to which they are subject, such as leaf blight, are easily kept in check by spraying, a knapsack pump being used for this purpose. The ground is kept well worked and free from weeds, whilst the plants are fruiting, and occasionally the ground is mulched, as is the case in the plot shown in the illustration. No special knowledge is necessary for their culture, but, at the same time, thorough cultivation and careful attention to details in the growing of the plants make a considerable difference in the total returns. [Illustration: Forman's Strawberry, Brisbane District.] CAPE GOOSEBERRY. This Peruvian fruit, introduced into this State _viâ_ the Cape of Good Hope, hence its name, has now spread throughout the greater part of the tropical and semi-tropical portions of Queensland. Its spread has largely been brought about by the agency of fruit-eating birds, that have distributed the seeds widely by means of their castings. It is one of the first plants to make its appearance in newly burnt-off scrub land, and often comes up in such numbers as to give a full crop of fruit. In other cases it is usual to scatter a quantity of seed on such land, so as to be sure of securing a plant. No cultivation is given; the plant grows into a straggling bush bearing a quantity of fruit which is enclosed in a parchment-like husk. The fruit is gathered, husked, and is then ready for market. The bulk of the fruit is grown in this manner, and as it can be grown on land that is not yet ready for any other crop (grass or maize excepted) it is a great help to the beginner, as a good crop and fair prices can usually be obtained. The name "gooseberry" is somewhat misleading, as it is not a gooseberry at all, is not like it, nor does it belong to the same natural order. It is a plant belonging to the order Solanaceæ, which includes such well-known plants as the potato, tomato, tobacco, &c., and altogether unlike the common gooseberry, which, by the way, is one of the fruits that we cannot do much with. In addition to being grown in the wild manner I have described, it is occasionally cultivated in a systematic manner, somewhat like the tomato, but not to any extent; growers preferring to depend on it as a first return from newly fallen and burnt-off scrub land. As a fruit it meets with a very ready sale, as it is one of the best cooking fruits grown; plainly stewed and served with cream, made into puddings or pies, or converted into jam, it is hard to beat. The jam has a distinct flavour of its own, one that one soon becomes very partial to, besides which it is an attractive-looking jam that, were it better known in the world's markets, would, I feel sure, meet with a ready sale at satisfactory rates. The plant is somewhat susceptible to cold, hence it does best in a district free from frost, but it is not killed out by light frosts, only killed back, and its crop put back. Like all plants belonging to the same natural order, it likes a good soil, rich in available potash, and this is probably the reason why it does so well on newly burnt-off scrub, the ashes of which provide an ample supply of available potash. THE OLIVE. A much-neglected fruit in this State, as it is also in most English-speaking countries. Few English people are fond of either the fruit or the oil, and yet it is probable that there is no tree that for the space it occupies will produce a greater annual return of food than the olive. A number of trees are scattered throughout the State, some of which are now of large size and fair age, but, so far, practically nothing beyond making a few gallons of oil and pickling a few gallons of fruit has been attempted, and this only in a purely experimental manner. The present condition of the olive industry is destined to have a wakening up ere long, as a country that can produce this fruit in such quantities and of such a quality as the lighter soils of the Darling Downs is destined some day to be one of the largest producers of olives on earth. Some years since I planted a number of the best varieties of olives--trees obtained direct from California--on the Darling Downs, in land that I considered suitable for their growth, and which was properly prepared prior to planting. The trees here have made a really phenomenal growth, they came into bearing within three years of planting, and have borne steadily ever since. They have proved enormous bearers, and an experimental crushing showed that the oil was of high quality. There are large areas of similar country to that in which they are planted in different parts of the State, and I feel certain that this really valuable food fruit is bound some day to be a considerable source of our national wealth. So far, the drawback to the growth of olives has been the cost of gathering the fruit and the limited demand for the oil or pickled fruit, but, against this, it has many advantages, one, and by no means the least, of which is its value as a shade and shelter tree on our open treeless plains. It is also a very hardy tree, withstanding drought well, and thriving in land that is too stony for the cultivation of ordinary farm crops. It is a healthy tree, free from most fruit pests other than the olive scale, which can be kept in check by spraying or cyaniding; and last, but not least, it is an ornamental tree whose wood is of considerable value. The olive does best with us in loamy soils of fair depth and basaltic origin, that are moderately rich in lime and potash, and have a fair drainage. A subsoil of decomposed rock answers well. It will, however, do on several other kinds of soil, but it is in the type that I have just described that it does so well, and in which I would recommend its culture on a large scale. It will stand a fair amount of frost as well as great heat, and I have never seen the trees injured by either on our Downs country. I have also seen trees doing well right on the coast, where they have been subject to heavy rainfalls, so that it appears to adapt itself to the conditions prevailing in many parts of our State. In addition to the fruits I have briefly described, there are several others of minor importance that can be grown successfully, but, as they are not of any great value commercially, I will leave them out, and go on to the fruits of our more temperate districts, as, in addition to growing the tropical and semi-tropical fruits which I have already dealt with, Queensland can also produce temperate climate fruits to a very high degree of perfection. The fruits of the temperate regions that we are able to grow include the apple, pear, plum, prune, quince, apricot, Persian peach, nectarine, almond, walnut, chestnut, cherry, &c., as well as some of the hardier fruits which I have classed as semi-tropical--viz., the Japanese plum, persimmon, Chickasaw plum, strawberry, &c. The districts adapted for the growth of the distinctly temperate fruits are mostly situated in the Southern portion of the State, and at an elevation of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above sea-level--districts having a warm summer but a comparatively cold winter, during which frosts are by no means uncommon, but where snow rarely falls; a healthy climate, with warm days and cool nights, to which many visitors go during the heat of summer, when the humidity of the coast is somewhat trying to persons not naturally robust. The Downs country, particularly its southern or Stanthorpe end, is the most suitable; the soil is mainly of granitic origin, and is very suitable for the growth of apples, stone fruit, and grapes, but the latter I will deal with by themselves later on. The country is by no means rich from an agricultural standpoint, and is considerably broken, but, as already stated, it is admirably adapted for the growth of fruit, and within the last ten years at least 100,000 fruit trees, mostly apples, plums, and peaches, have been planted out and are doing well. The Stanthorpe show, which is held annually during the month of February, is always noted for the excellence of its fruit exhibits, which would be hard to beat, both for size, quality, and appearance. The fruits ripen earlier than similar varieties grown in the Southern States, hence supply our markets at a time when there is little outside competition, and, consequently, meet with a ready sale at fair prices. The fruit grown in the largest quantity is the apple, so I will deal with it first. THE APPLE. As a description of this well-known and universally used fruit is entirely superfluous, I will confine my remarks to the types of fruit grown, and their method of growth. Owing to the fact that our fruits ripen much earlier than similar varieties in more southern parts of Australia, we have gone in largely for early varieties of apples, both for cooking and table use, but have not confined our attention to them entirely, as good-keeping sorts are found to do equally well, and have been shown at the annual exhibition that is held in Brisbane during August, in perfect condition, showing that the fruit has good keeping qualities. The soil on which the apple is mostly grown is largely composed of granitic matter, and is of a sharp, sandy, loamy nature, often of a gritty character. It is usually rich in potash, the predominating felspar being orthoclase, but somewhat deficient in nitrogen and phosphoric acid. It is usually easy to work, of fair depth, and retains moisture well when kept in a thorough state of tilth. The trees are usually planted at from 20 to 25 feet apart each way, when they are either one year or two years old from the graft or bud. They are headed low, so as to shade the ground from the heat of the sun, and also so as to facilitate the handling of the crop when grown, as well as to prevent their swaying about with the wind. The trees make a rapid growth, come into bearing very early, often bearing a fair crop three years after planting, and fruiting even earlier. The fruit of the early varieties has usually a handsome appearance, but lacks keeping qualities, but the later fruits are both handsome, high-coloured fruit, and good keepers. The trees are not very liable to disease, as, thanks to all varieties being worked on blight-resistant stocks, there is very little American blight (woolly aphis). Scale insects do a certain amount of damage, but are easily kept in check by winter spraying, and codling moth is not bad unless grossly neglected, many orchards being quite free from this great pest of the apple-grower. So far, the growing of apples has been confined entirely to the growing of fruit for the local markets, no attempt having been made to export same. A very small quantity is dried, and a little is used for jelly. Many varieties of apples have been tested in this State, but growers have found out that it pays them best to confine their attention to comparatively few sorts that have proved to be the best suited to the soil and climate, as a few good kinds are much more profitable to grow than a mere collection of varieties. Many varieties are prone to overbear, and trees of large size have produced enormous crops of fruit, whereas young trees frequently break down under the weight of their crop. The usual plan is to plant a few varieties that ripen in succession, so as to extend the season over as long a period as possible, and not to cause a glutted market at any one time. Early fruits particularly are not noted for their keeping qualities, and a market glutted with such would entail a heavy loss to growers, hence a succession of varieties that suit the district as well as the market is grown. Nearly all kinds of apples do well, those that are resistant to the attack of woolly aphis are, however, generally chosen in preference, even though they may not be of the highest quality, as their prolificness and freedom from this pest renders them more profitable than varieties of superior quality that are liable to blight, and that are at the same time often somewhat indifferent bearers. It is outside the scope of this paper to go into the question of varieties, but I may mention that such sorts as Irish Peach, Gravenstein, Summer Scarlet Pearmain, Twenty-ounces, Jonathan, Lord Suffield, Rome Beauty, and Prince Bismarck do remarkably well, and many other well-known kinds can be grown to perfection. [Illustration: Prince of Pippins Apple, Darling Downs District.] THE PEACH. This king of the temperate fruits grows with us to perfection. The tree is hardy, a rapid grower, comes into bearing early, and is, if anything, inclined to overbear. It can be grown over a considerable part of our coastal and inland downs, as well as the Stanthorpe district, and thrives in many kinds of soil, from light sandy loams of poor quality to rich loams of medium texture or even heavier. In this State, the peach is always grown on peach roots, the desired variety being either budded or grafted on to a seedling peach, and the resulting tree is planted out when it has made one year's growth. No tree is easier to grow, but if the best returns are desired, it requires very careful pruning for the first three years, after which an annual winter pruning is usually all that is necessary. The young tree is such a strong grower that unless it is heavily cut back it becomes top-heavy and breaks to pieces with the weight of fruit, but when hard cut back for the first two years, so that it has a good main stem and strong primary branches, it will form a strong tree, and stand up well under a heavy crop of fruit. The strong growth it makes necessitates heavy pruning when large fruit is desired--and it is large showy fruit which sells best here--as were the tree allowed to go unpruned, it would bear enormous numbers of fruit, many of which would be of small size. Growers now realise this, and many of our orchards are well pruned, whereas a few years since the trees were allowed to grow pretty much as they like. The peach remains profitable much longer here than it does in California, as the trees do not wear out so quickly, the roots remaining sound up to the last, so that, unless the top is too far gone, the life of the tree may usually be extended for several years by heading hard back and forming an entirely new head to the tree. Trees in full bearing often produce fully 1,000 lb. weight of fruit in a single season. This is, of course, very much above the average, but by no means exceptional. When in their third season, they should bear enough to pay for all working expenses. A very large number of varieties have been tested in Queensland, most of which do well, but, as in the case of apples, we find from experience that it is best to stick to a few kinds, and those that have proved to be most suitable to our soil and climate, rather than to experiment with a large number of varieties. The usual plan is to plant a number of varieties that ripen in succession, as with the apple, so as to spread the season over as long a time as possible, and to stick to kinds that bear well, look well, and ship well, for appearance will usually beat quality, and fetch more money. So far, little has been done in the way of utilising the peach, as the demand for the fresh fruit has been equal to our supply. There is, however, no reason why we should not be able to establish and maintain a fair canning and drying trade, should the production overcome the demand for the fresh fruit, as our peaches are of large size, and will can and dry well--that is to say, varieties adapted to those purposes will do so. The nectarine, which is simply a smooth-skinned peach, does equally well, many varieties bear heavily, and some produce fruit of exceptional merit. I have seen as fine nectarines grown in the Stanthorpe district as I have met with in any part of Australia or America, fruit of large size and the highest flavour, that compared favourably with the finest hothouse-grown fruit of the Old World. [Illustration: Peach Avenue, Darling Downs District.] THE PLUM. As already mentioned, plums of Japanese and American origin (Chickasaw) do well in the more coastal districts. They also bear heavily on our coastal downs and more western country, but some kinds of Japanese plums blossom too early for the Stanthorpe district. European plums, however, do well, and are heavy bearers. All kinds do not bear heavily, the freest bearers being those of the damson family--White Magnum Bonum and Diamond type. Prunes also do well. Plums of European origin do best in the coldest districts, but their cultivation is not confined entirely to these, as some varieties thrive well in warmer and drier parts of the country. So far, there has been a ready sale for all the plums we can produce for fresh consumption, excepting some of the smaller plums of the damson type, which have been converted into jam. It is not a fruit, however, in which there is much money, as it is too easily grown in the Southern States, and can there be converted into jam or canned at a lower rate than we can do here, hence our cultivation will be more or less confined to the growing of large fruits for supplying our local markets rather than to the production of the fruit in quantity. THE APRICOT. Most varieties of this fruit do well on our coastal downs country in the South, and to a certain extent further west. The trees are very rapid growers, and bear heavily. The earlier ripening fruit usually escapes damage from fruit fly, but the late fruit often suffers considerably. The apricot does best in a fairly strong rich soil, when it makes a great growth, and bears heavy crops of large-sized fruit. It also does well on sandier soils, which produce a firmer and better-drying fruit. So far, although a number of trees are planted throughout the State, the cultivation of the fruit is mainly confined to the production of table fruit, drying or canning having been carried out to a small extent only. The apricot grows to a large tree, and lives to a good old age. Like the peach, it is a very vigorous grower when young, requiring severe pruning in consequence, but, when once shaped, the trees require little in the way of pruning other than the removal of superfluous branches and an annual shortening in winter. THE CHERRY. Queensland is almost outside the limit of the successful growth of this fruit, but not quite, as we produce the first fruit to ripen in Australia, which realises a high price on account of its earliness. Many varieties have been tested, but, so far, no one variety can be said to be a complete success in our climate, nor do the trees grow to the large size or produce as heavily as they do in the Southern States, where the winters are more clearly defined than they are in Queensland. Another drawback to the growth of this fruit is that the soils of our coldest district are not the best of cherry soils. The cherry likes a deep, moderately rich loam, whereas we are growing it mostly on sandy loams of a granitic origin. What fruit we do grow is good, and pays well on account of its earliness, but I do not consider that this State will ever be able to compete with the South in the growth of the cherry. [Illustration: Litchi, Mossman District.] THE PEAR. Many kinds of pears do well, but, unfortunately, this fine fruit is very liable to be attacked by fruit fly. It does well generally in the districts that I have mentioned as suitable for the apple, plum, and apricot. The tree is healthy, grows rapidly and to a large size. It comes into bearing remarkably early as compared with the pear in colder climates, and produces excellent fruit. I have grown as good Bartletts here as could be obtained anywhere, and the trees have proved to be good bearers and doers. This fruit does best on deep soils of a medium to strong loamy nature, and of good quality, though it does well in much freer soils, but does not make as good a growth or bear as heavily. It is usually grown on seedling-pear stocks, but the growing of suitable varieties on quince stocks and keeping the resultant trees dwarfed is to be recommended. This method of growing the pear does well here, and dwarf trees can be easily protected from fly, whereas it is practically impossible to deal with big trees, which the pear becomes when grown on pear roots. THE ALMOND. This fruit does well in parts of our coastal tableland country, though its habit of blossoming too early in the season renders it very liable to injury from late frosts. The trees do remarkably well, grow rapidly, and bear heavily when the blossoms are uninjured by frost, hence it is a good tree to grow in selected situations containing suitable soil, as it commands a ready sale, and is very little troubled with pests. A free, sandy, loamy soil is best suited to the growth of the almond, and the situation should be well protected from frost. The trees are usually worked on peach stocks, on which they make a very rapid growth. Several varieties should be grown together, as a better set of fruit will be obtained by doing so, most almonds requiring the pollen of another variety flowering at the same time to render their flowers fertile. The almond grows into a handsome, shapely tree, and, when in blossom, an orchard is a sight not easily forgotten, the wealth of flowers being such that it must be seen to be fully appreciated. The walnut, chestnut, quince, blackberry, raspberry, and one or two other fruits of the temperate regions are also cultivated to a small extent, but are of no great value so far, though there is no reason why the walnut, which does well with us, should not be cultivated to a much greater extent than it is, as there is always a fair demand for the nuts. Blackberries of different kinds have been introduced, and do well, the common English blackberry almost too well, as unless kept in check it is apt to spread to such an extent as to be a nuisance. In addition to the cultivated fruits I have briefly mentioned as growing in Queensland, we have a number of native fruits growing in our scrubs and elsewhere that are worthy of cultivation with a view to their ultimate improvement. Of such are the Queensland nut, a handsome evergreen tree, bearing heavy crops of a very fine flavoured nut. The nut is about 3/4-inch in diameter, but the shell is very hard and thick. It could no doubt be improved by selection and careful breeding. The Davidsonian plum is also another fruit of promise. It is a handsome tree of our tropical North coast, and bears a large plum-shaped fruit of a dark purple colour, with dark reddish purple flesh, which is extremely acid, but which is well worth cultivation. Several species of eugenias also produce edible fruit, and there are two species of wild raspberries common to our scrubs. There are the native citrus fruits I referred to in an earlier part of this paper, as well as several other less well-known fruits that are edible. [Illustration: Tamarind Tree, Port Douglas District.] GRAPE CULTURE. No work on fruit-growing in Queensland, however small, would be complete without due reference being made to the vine, the last but by no means the least important of our many fruits. Although the cultivation of this most useful and popular fruit has not reached to anything like the dimensions that vine culture has attained in the Southern States, particularly in the production of wine, there is no reason why it should not do so at no very distant future. We have many advantages not possessed by our Southern neighbours in the culture of the grape, the first and most important of which is that our crop ripens so much earlier than that of the South that we can secure the whole of the early markets without fear of any serious opposition. Until quite recently, grape culture was in a very backward state in Queensland, the grapes grown on the coast being nearly all American varieties, which are by no means the best wine or table sorts. A few grapes of European origin were grown on the Downs and in the Roma district, but their cultivation was practically confined thereto. Now, however, things have altered very much for the better. Many good varieties of European grapes have been proved suitable to the coastal climate of the Southern half of the State, and many inland districts other than Roma and the Downs have also proved that they, too, can and do grow first-class fruit both for table and wine. [Illustration: Grosse Kölner Vine in Fruit, Roma District (Gros Colman).] [Illustration: Picking Grapes, Roma.] Now the culture of the grape extends over a great part of the State, from the coast to the interior; in the latter, its successful growth depending on the necessary suitable water for irrigation, and on the coast to our knowledge of how to keep fungus pests, such as anthracnose, in check by winter treatment and spring spraying. In the Brisbane district many kinds of excellent table grapes are now grown, which meet with a ready sale, such as the well-known Black Hamburgh of English vineries, the Sweetwater, Snow's Muscat Hamburgh, Royal Ascot, &c., as well as all the better kinds of American grapes, such as Iona, Goethe, Wilder, &c. A little wine is made, but more attention is given to table fruit. [Illustration: A Grape Vine in Fruit, Stanthorpe District.] [Illustration: Madresfield Court Grape.] In the Maryborough, Gympie, and Bundaberg districts, similar grapes are also grown, and do well, ripening somewhat earlier than they do in Brisbane; and in the Rockhampton district, right on the tropic of Capricorn, some of the best table grapes I have seen in the State are produced. Further north a few grapes are grown, but not in any great quantities, and I consider that the profitable cultivation of good table grapes on the coast extends from our Southern border to a short distance north of the tropic of Capricorn and inland to all districts where there is either a sufficient rainfall or a supply of water from artesian bores, or otherwise, to enable them to be grown. Grapes here, as in other parts of the world, like moderately rich, free, loamy soils of good depth, free sandy loams, and free alluvial loams. In such soils they make a vigorous growth, and are heavy bearers. The granitic soils of the Stanthorpe district, that produce such good peaches, plums, and apples, grow excellent grapes, which ripen late. They are of large size, and conspicuous for their fine colour. The sandy soils of Roma and the Maranoa country generally grow excellent wine and table grapes, the latter being of large size, full flavour, and handsome appearance. Wine grapes also do well here, and some excellent wine has been made, both dark and light, natural and fortified. I have no doubt that eventually good rich port and the best of sherries will be produced in this district, as the soil and climate are admirably adapted to the production of these classes of wine. Our difficulty, so far, has been to find out the exact kinds of grapes to grow for this purpose, but now I am glad to say that we are on the right track, and the excellence of Queensland ports and sherries will be a recognised thing before many years are past. There is a big and good opening for up-to-date viticulturists in this State. We have any amount of suitable land at low rates, and, thanks to the generous sun heat of our interior, we can grow grapes capable of producing wines equal to the best that can be turned out by Spain, Portugal, or Madeira. In those districts that do not possess such an extreme climate, such as the coastal downs and the Stanthorpe districts, good wines of a lighter character can be produced, and, as already stated, good wines are now being made on the coast. It is only now that we are beginning to realise the value of the grape to Queensland, as, until our production increased to such an extent that our local markets were being over-supplied, our growers made no attempt to supply outside markets. Now this is being done, and better means of handling and packing the fruit, so as to enable it to be shipped long distances, are now coming into vogue. With improved methods of handling and packing, we have a greatly extended market, in which we will have no local competition, hence will be able to secure good returns, so much so that I consider that grape-growing in Queensland has a very promising outlook for some years to come at any rate. In addition to growing grapes to supply the fresh-fruit trade and for winemaking, our western country is capable of producing good raisins and sultanas. So far, this industry has not been entered into commercially, the fresh fruit realising far too high a price for it to pay to convert it into raisins. Still, with increased production, this will have to take place, and when it does I am of opinion that we will be able to turn out a very saleable article. The growing of grapes here certainly requires considerable experience of a practical nature. This is not at all hard to obtain, and there are no insurmountable difficulties to the beginner, once he has learnt how to work his land so as to cause it to retain moisture during a dry spell, and to plant and prune his vines. These are matters in which any beginner can obtain practical advice from the Queensland Agricultural Department, as the Government of Queensland, recognising the importance of fruit-growing, grape-growing, and general agriculture to the State, have devoted considerable sums of money to the establishment of experiment farms, orchards, and vineyards in different parts of the State. All these Government institutions are under the control of thoroughly qualified managers, who are willing at all times to give any assistance to beginners, thereby enabling the latter to keep free from mistakes, and to obtain the best returns as the result of their labour. Instructors, thoroughly conversant with the State as a whole, are also available for giving practical advice, so that there is no necessity for a beginner, through lack of experience, to waste any time in finding out for himself what his soil and climate are suited for. He can start on the right lines from the beginning, and keep to right lines if he will only take advantage of the advice, based on practical experience, that is given him. Queensland is a good land for the intending fruit-grower. We offer you good soil, a choice of climates, suitable for the growing of practically every kind of commercial fruit, a healthy climate to live in, cheap land, free education for your children, and free advice from competent experts for yourselves. This is a country that has not been advertised or puffed up; that is, in consequence, not by any means well known; but it is a country that, taken all in all, will take a lot of beating when one is looking out for a home. Its natural advantages and the other inducements it offers to intending settlers, particularly those interested in fruit culture, cannot, in my opinion, be equalled, and certainly not excelled, elsewhere; and, as I stated in the beginning of this paper, my opinion is based on practical experience gained in various parts of the fruit-producing parts of the world. [Illustration: Black Mammoth Grape.] [Illustration: Cinsaut Grape.] List of Fruits Grown in Queensland. Almonds, several varieties Almond, Fiji Apples, many varieties Apricots, many varieties Averrhoa Avocada Pear Bael Fruit Banana, several varieties Barberry Blackberry Brazilian Cherry Bread Fruit Burdekin Plum Carob Bean Chalta Cherries, several varieties Chestnut--Spanish Chestnut--Japanese Chinese Raisin Citrons, several varieties Cocoa-nut, many varieties Custard Apples (Cherimoyers) Dates Davidsonia Plum Figs, several varieties Gooseberries--Cape Gooseberries--Otaheitan Granadillas Grapes, many varieties Guavas, many varieties Jujube Kai Apple Kumquat Litchi Longan Lemons, several varieties Limes, several varieties Loquats Mandarins, several varieties Mangoes, many varieties Mangosteen--Sour or Coochin York Medlars Melons, many varieties Monstera Mulberries, several varieties Natal Plum Nectarines, several varieties Olives, several varieties Oranges, many varieties Papaw, several types Passion Fruit, several types Peaches--Persian, many varieties Peaches--China, several varieties Peaches--Ceylon, several varieties Pears, many varieties Pecan Nut Persimmons, several varieties Pineapples, several varieties Pistachio Nut Plums--European, several varieties Plums--Japanese, several varieties Plums--American, several varieties Pomegranate Quince--European, several varieties Quince--Japanese Queensland Nut Raspberries, several types Rosellas Rose Apple Sapodilla Plum Shaddock or Pomelo, several types Star Apple Strawberries, many varieties Tamarinds Tree Tomato Vi Apple Walnut Whampee List of Vegetables Grown in Queensland. Artichokes--Jerusalem and Globe Asparagus Beans of all kinds Beetroot Broccoli Brussels Sprouts Cabbage Cabbage--Chinese Capsicums Cardoons Carrots Cassava Cauliflowers Celery Chicory Chokos Cress Cucumbers Earth Nuts (Peanuts) Egg Plant Endive Eschalots Garlic Herbs--all kinds Horseradish Kohl-rabi Leeks Lettuce Mushrooms Mustard Nasturtiums Ockra Onions Peas Potatoes--English and Sweet Pumpkins Radishes Rhubarb Salsify Seakale Spinach Squashes Sweet Corn Swedes Taro Tomatoes Turnips Vegetable Marrows Yams By Authority: ANTHONY JAMES CUMMING, Government Printer, Brisbane. 
27099	----	[Illustration: THE AUTHOR. 1890.] Reminiscences of Queensland 1862-1899. BY W. H. CORFIELD. BRISBANE: A. H. FRATER, INNS OF COURT, ADELAIDE STREET. 1921 Printed by H. Pole & Co. Limited, Elizabeth Street, Brisbane. To the Men and Women of the North and West. To those who Blazed the Trail, and to those who Followed. FOREWORD The reasons for this book are as follow:--Whilst talking over early days with Mr. Courtenay-Luck, the popular Secretary of the Commercial Travellers' Club, that gentleman suggested that I should write a paper, to be read at a meeting of the Historical Society of Queensland. In writing that paper, so many long-forgotten men, places and incidents came back to memory that I thought my reminiscences might prove interesting to others. I may be occasionally incorrect in dates, or in the sequence of events, but I relate facts and personal experiences. As they are, I leave them to the kind consideration of readers. W. H. CORFIELD. _Sandgate, October, 1920._ Reminiscences of Queensland 1862-1899. CHAPTER I. As it is in the blood of most Englishmen from the "West Country" to seek adventure abroad, it is little wonder that the visit of an uncle from Australia strengthened a desire I felt to seek my fortune in that country. This uncle--H. C. Corfield--was the owner of some pastoral country in the Burnett district, and described in glowing terms life in the Australian bush. I might say here this was not all it had been painted, but that by the way. And so it happened that on a cold, foggy morning in February, 1862, I found myself with an old schoolmate--George Custard--on board of, as it was then customary to advertise, "the good ship, 'City of Brisbane,' 1,100 tons burthen, 'Neville,' Master," which lay in Plymouth Sound, waiting her final complement of passengers for Queensland. Mr. Henry Jordan, who was representing the Colony, came on board to address the passengers, who, he said, were going to a land of promise, where in the evening of his life, a man--as the reward of his labour--would sit in the shade of his own fig tree and enjoy the rest he had earned. Soon the capstan was manned, and the anchor lifted to the old chantey: For tinkers, and tailors, and lawyers, and all, Way! Aye! Blow the men down! They ship for real sailors, aboard the Black Ball, Give me some time to blow the men down. Blow, boys, blow, to Californeo-o-! There's plenty of gold, so we've been told, On the banks of Sacremento! This we found was our good-bye to England, and, towed out by a tug, we commenced our long voyage to Australia. When well clear of the land, the tug dropped us, and with a favourable breeze, we made quick passage to the entrance of the channel. By this time most of the passengers were suffering the usual disabilities felt by landsmen for the first few days at sea. I soon gained my sea legs, and was able to take a view of my surroundings. Here we were--365 human beings, who would be cooped up for weeks in a sailing ship, and with as many different characters, sympathies and antipathies, one wondered if it could be possible to live long with harmony and unselfishness in such daily crowded contact. I suppose we were representative of the many, who, whether in the poop or steerage of similar ships, were looking hopefully towards the far off, not-long-named southern colony, which was becoming known to the people of Great Britain. I was just nineteen, and all things looked bright and cheerful, but I was impatient for the time when, on a bounding steed, I would be scouring the plains, following the sheep and cattle on my uncle's property where, as an employee, I was to begin my adventures. After a passage of 137 days, spent either in glorious runs before favouring winds, wearisome calms, or battling against heavy gales, we arrived in Moreton Bay, and in due course at Brisbane. The city, as it was in 1862, has so often been described, that it is unnecessary for me to say anything as to its appearance. All I need say is that it did not enter my mind to anticipate its growth and importance. Our ship's surgeon was Dr. Margetts, who, for many years afterwards, practised his profession at Warwick. It is to his credit that we had no deaths on the voyage, but immediately after landing, a little girl passenger died. I helped to dig her grave on the ridges somewhere out towards Fortitude Valley. My destination was "Stanton Harcourt," 55 miles north-west from Maryborough, which my uncle held as a station. He was taking an active part in the great developments which, at this time, were being carried out by the squatters. I was directed by my uncle's agents, George Raff and Co., to engage five or six of the immigrants as shepherds. These accompanied me to Maryborough by the old steamer "Queensland." On arrival at Maryborough the shepherds were taken charge of by the local agents, and I was instructed to ride on to the station. I left Maryborough alone the same afternoon, but had not gone far when I found I was bushed. Riding back I struck the main road, and followed it to the public house at the Six-mile, which was a favourite camping place for carriers. My new-chum freshness immediately attracted the attention of the bullock-drivers camped there, who told me of the dangers I would meet from the blacks, unless I propitiated them by generous gifts of tobacco. These stories so much impressed me that I bought a large quantity of tobacco from the publican. After that, when I saw any blacks, even if off the road, I would ride over and give some tobacco, which surprised and amused them considerably. I arrived at the public house, at a place known as "Musket Hat," in time for dinner. A gentleman who knew my uncle happened to be there, and whilst waiting for dinner, said, "Come out, and I will show you a good racehorse." Outside a horse was being groomed by a man, who took some pains to describe his good points. I appreciated the man's kindness, and on leaving handed him a shilling to buy a drink. This he took with a smile, and thanked me. I felt somewhat small when my friend told me that I had tipped the owner of the horse himself, and that he would tell the joke in such a way that it would be long before I forgot it, and this proved to be so. Towards sundown, my friend left me at the turn off of the main road. My first ride through Australian bush was very lonely, and I was very timid. I heard what sounded like revolver shots, loud shouting, and much swearing. This I learned later was the ordinary language used when driving bullocks, while what I took to be revolver shots, was the cracking of bullock-whips. At the time I imagined a battle was being fought with bushrangers, but it turned out that it was merely the station bullock teams going to Maryborough for stores, and to bring up the hands engaged by me, with their belongings. I found the station in charge of a manager, and that my uncle had gone north in search of new country for the sheep. Grass seed and foot rot were playing havoc with the sheep on "Stanton Harcourt." Shortly after my arrival, 1,000 head of cattle purchased from White, of Beaudesert, reached the station. In those days pounds were unknown, and I now had my first experience in drafting cattle in an open yard. An old cow, evidently knowing that I was raw, came at me, and would have caught me, but that my hat fell off and attracted her attention. She impaled the hat instead of me. My next lesson was in bullock driving. I was sent with two loads of wool to Maryborough, having a black boy to drive one team, and another boy to muster the bullocks. These would not allow the black boys to go near them to yoke up, so I had to do this for both teams. After capsizing my dray three times on the road, and pulling down a fence in the town, I delivered the wool. The blacks had a short time before stuck up several drays, and carried the loading in their canoes across the river. On the far side there was a dense scrub through which it was difficult to track them. My boys said I would be stuck up when passing this spot, so I rode on the dray, carrying a loaded revolver. However, I was not molested, probably due to the fact that, unknown to me, Lieutenant Wheeler with his troopers were at the moment busy among the blacks. My uncle had returned before me, but had not been successful in securing country. When lambing came on, Custard and I were sent out without any special instructions to lamb a flock of ewes. Following the strong mob back to the yards in the evening, the lambs tried my temper. I provided myself with stones, and being a fairly good shot, I reduced the percentage of lambs to some extent. One night there was a great stampede in the yard, and thinking it was a dingo among the sheep, I went out with a gun. Seeing an object moving in the dark, I fired both barrels, and the supposed dingo fell. I had shot one of the ration sheep which had been dropped during the day. Being without any control or instructions in regard to the sheep, we decided our working hours to be--rise at 7 a.m., breakfast at 7.30, start work at 8. The sheep remained in the yard until the last-mentioned hour. This did not improve their condition. One morning my uncle arrived before we had turned out, and expressed himself strongly upon the laziness of new chums in general. Excusing ourselves by the fact that it was not yet seven did not calm the atmosphere. My uncle was one who insisted upon plenty of time for a long day's work. I very quickly learned the value of early rising in the bush, and in the interest of the sheep, when necessary, to go without breakfast. I remember my first night alone in the bush. I was sent to an out-station with 300 sheep, and a black boy to assist in driving them. At sundown I could see nothing of the hut. I had read that fires would keep off native dogs or dingoes. I tied my horse to a tree, and gathered wood, forming a ring of fires around the sheep. The black boy said something to me in his own language. Thinking he asked me if he should bring some more wood, I replied with the only word I knew, "Yewi." After a little time I missed the boy, and cooeed for him. He replied as from a distance. I wondered why he had gone so far when there was plenty of wood close by. He did not return, and it was not long before my horse broke away. All night was spent walking around the sheep. What weird sounds I heard, and what strange shapes I saw moving. When one is alone in the bush at night, even after years of experience, the imagination is apt to run riot. Especially is it so at midnight and towards the small hours of the morning. At daylight the sheep commenced to move. I followed them, carrying my saddle and bridle. About mid-day one of the station boys found me, and inquired why I sent the black boy home. It then dawned on me why I had been left alone. The boy had asked to be allowed to go home, and I had said "Yewi"--yes. I suppose I was only undergoing the usual bush experience of the new chum, and had a good deal to learn, but I was undoubtedly learning. CHAPTER II. Following the cotton strike in England during 1863, a large number of Lancashire operatives emigrated to Australia. As the station needed shepherds, the agents in Brisbane were instructed to engage two married couples and three single men. I was despatched with a black boy, three horses and a dray, to bring them from Maryborough. Their luggage filled the dray, but I managed to find room for the two women and the children. The others had to walk. The first day out we reached Mr. Helsham's station at South Doongal. He allotted me an empty hut for the party. At dinner that evening I told him and the overseer how very frightened the emigrants were of the blacks. "Is that so," he said. "Well, we will try them to-night after the boys have had their evening corroborree." A number of blacks were camped there at the time, so he sent word to his station boys to come up. When they did so, he told them to surround the hut, and yell out, "Kill 'em white fella, kill 'em white Mary." We went down to see what we thought was fun. I never had to run harder than I did to reach the station before the new chums, who streamed out of the hut in their night attire, and made for the house. I had the greatest difficulty in pacifying them. They refused to return to the hut, and camped on the verandah, the single men remaining on watch. After their flight from the hut, the pigs appropriated their rations which confirmed their belief in a narrow escape from wholesale slaughter. I felt sorry for the joke, more particularly as for the remainder of the journey they would not leave the dray, or go for water, unless the black boy or I went with them. As shepherds these men were not a success. They were invariably losing sheep, adding to my responsibility as overseer. In September of that year, I had my first experience of shearing--getting through 20 the first day. It was back-aching and wrist-breaking work, and I longed for the day when I went out with the ration pack-horse. In those days the sheep were hand-washed in a water hole, in which we worked up to our middle all day. The blacks had to be watched very closely, as, if opportunity offered, they would catch a sheep's hind leg with their toes, and drown the animal, expecting they would get the meat. I detected them in the act, so I burnt the carcase. This put an end to the practice. Mustering and branding the cattle followed the shearing, and these were much livelier occupations. We had a heavy wet season in that year, and I had plenty of opportunities to gain experience in flooded creeks. About April, 1863, Edward Palmer (years afterwards M.L.A. for Carpentaria), who was in charge of his uncle's station "Eureka," four miles from "Stanton Harcourt," started with the sheep depasturing there for the Gulf country. He eventually settled at Canobie, on the Williams River, a tributary of the Cloncurry. In September one of the new shepherds absconded, leaving his sheep in the yard at an out-station. I was instructed by my uncle to take out a summons, and applied to Mr. W. H. Gaden, a neighbouring squatter, for it. The summons was sent to Maryborough for service. In due time I had to appear as prosecutor. The man had engaged a solicitor, who, when the case was called on, applied for a discharge, as the summons did not state it was sworn to, but only signed W. H. Gaden, J.P. The man was discharged on these grounds. I was not sorry. He was useless as a shepherd, but through him I had obtained an enjoyable ride to Maryborough with all expenses paid. My uncle in the meantime had again started out to seek new country for the sheep, and engaged Mr. Walter Carruthers, of Carruthers and Wood, Rocky Springs station, Auburn River, to take charge of the mob of 12,000, leaving instructions that they were to start before the end of 1864. Great preparations were required to equip the party. We were taking 30 saddle horses, two bullock teams, and one horse team. In addition to the stores, we had to provide all sorts of tools, etc., to build and form a new station. I preferred to drive one of the bullock teams. My duties on arrival at camp were to erect a tent and two iron stretchers for Carruthers and myself, take my watch every night from three to daylight, and then to muster the bullocks. In the case of dry stages I also had to take water to the men. When passing through Gayndah I purchased tobacco from John Connolly (who died lately at the very great age of 102 years), and for which I had to pay £1 per pound. When we came to the Dawson River, near Mrs. McNabb's station, it was in flood. We felled a big tree across the stream, and with boughs and other timber, improvised a bridge. For three days we were working in our shirts only, getting the sheep and--when the water fell--the teams across. Mosquitoes, sandflies, and a hot sun made us nearly raw. Along this road Carruthers had his favorite horse "Tenby" stolen. He had hung the animal up to the verandah post of a wayside public house, to see the sheep and teams pass. After they had gone by, and while Carruthers was having a drink, a man jumped on the horse and galloped away. Carruthers walked on to the sheep, got a fresh horse, and with our black boy followed the thief until they came to the spot where, in a piece of scrub, he had pulled the mane and tail of the horse to alter its appearance. Darkness coming on, they had to abandon further pursuit. The horse was a very fine chestnut. A new saddle and bridle, a pouch containing cheque book and revolver, were taken with him, so the robber had a good haul. There were no telegraph stations out back in those days. When passing Apis Creek, near the Mackenzie River, I met a man named Christie, whom I afterwards learnt was Gardiner, the ex-bushranger. We passed through Taroom, Springsure, on to Peak Downs station, where we essayed a short cut on to the Cotherstone road, but when we had got half-way, the owner made us turn back. I had a very rough time driving the leading dray through the loose, black soil, and was glad to get back on the road, which was well beaten by the teams carrying copper from Clermont to Broadsound. We eventually reached Lord's Table Mountain, where we had permission to remain, whilst I took the drays into Clermont to be repaired, and to obtain an additional supply of rations. Whilst staying at Winter's Hotel, I met Griffin, the warden--afterwards hanged for shooting the troopers guarding the gold escort, of which he was in charge. I also met Fitzmaurice, destined in after years to become my partner in the far west. He had brought in drays from Surbiton station to be repaired. Carruthers then rented some country from Rolfe, on Mistake Creek, on which to shear the sheep. I shore 800. My salary was now £80 per year, for which I acted as overseer, bookkeeper, and giving a hand as general utility at all kinds of work. After shearing, the sheep were taken down to Chambers' Camp, on the same creek, whilst I took the wool to Port Mackay. When crossing the Expedition Range, before reaching Clermont, on my way from Mistake Creek, I rode over to a small diggings to purchase meat. The only butcher was a man named Jackson, whose wife served me. She was a fine, comely woman, whom I afterwards met on the Lower Palmer, where her husband was keeping a store. He was burnt to death on Limestone Creek on that river. Eventually, she married Thos. Lynett, a packer from Cooktown to Edward's Town (as Maytown was popularly known), and who, with Fitzmaurice and myself, was, in later years, one of the founders of Winton, on the Western River. Mrs. Lynett lately died in Winton at the ripe age of 84, her husband, Tom Lynett, having pre-deceased her some years. Like most of the women who pioneered, she had a grand heart, and I learnt how the diggers appreciated her motherly kindness. The early wet season caught me at Boundary Creek, ten miles beyond Nebo. I was stuck in a bog for five weeks, rain pouring the whole time. I eventually delivered the wool, loaded up rations from Brodziak Bros., and started on my return journey. In those days the range was in a primitive state, and coming down my mate capsized his dray. While I was assisting him, I had a Colt's revolver stolen off my dray, presumably by some of the road party who were cutting down the steep parts. After crossing the range, the pleuro broke out amongst my bullocks, and I lost one whole team. I went into Retreat station and purchased several steers. The hot weather and heavy pulling soon killed these, leaving me stranded on the Isaacs River. One day a squatter from North Creek station rode up, and hearing my plight, said there was a team of bullocks running on his country for several months. Who the owner was, or where they came from, was unknown. Acting on his hint, I picked out what I considered the best, and continued my journey to the sheep. Having met my requirements, I turned the bullocks loose. In response to enquiries, I denied that I was the owner of them; they had served my purpose, and I was content to let well alone. The blacks were very bad, and continually worrying the men we had shepherding. One of these was rather daft. One night the rams did not return. I got on their tracks the next day and brought them to camp, but there was no sign of the shepherd. Two evenings after we were surprised to see a couple of Myalls bringing in the lost man. We gave the blacks some tucker, and they left, but not before the shepherd, raising his hat, said to them, "I thank you, gentlemen, most sincerely." His eccentric manner had doubtless saved his life, as the coloured races generally appear to respect a demented person. I had a very bad attack of fever and ague, and managed to ride into Clermont, where I was treated by a chemist named Mackintosh, who kindly allowed me to stay at his house. I shall never forget the kindness of him and his wife in pulling me through. Carruthers in the meantime had taken the sheep back to a creek which is still known as "Corfield's Creek." There the lambing took place. We next moved down to Balgourlie Station, still on Mistake Creek, where we had an early shearing, and left the wool to be taken by carriers to Bowen. I now had my first experience of what was called in those days, "Belyando Spew." Everything one ate came back again and no one seemed to know of an antidote to what appeared to be a summer sickness. The gidya around seemed to accentuate the complaint, until I became a walking skeleton. In the meantime we received word that my uncle had purchased Clifton Station from Marsh and Webster, of Mackay. This country was situated on a billabong 12 miles from Canobie, where Edward Palmer, as I have previously mentioned, had settled down. The travelling away from the gidya scrubs down the Belyando River soon dispelled all signs of the sickness. Previous to leaving Balgourlie Station we had lost a mob of horses, and on our arrival at Mount McConnell Station, the two men who had been despatched to look for them, returned without success. Carruthers then sent me back with an Indian named "Balooche Knight" to make a search. We had a riding horse each, and a pack horse to carry our blankets, tucker, etc. After scouring all the scrubs on Mistake Creek, we arrived at Lanark Downs Station, where a traveller informed me he had seen a number of horses at Miclere Creek, 17 miles on the road to Copperfield. My optimism suggested I should ask the owner of Lanark Downs to lend me a fresh horse. He did so, and I rode away one morning, returning the same evening with the whole of the 17 horses we had lost. I had now to travel over one hundred miles to where I had left the sheep, which were still continuing their journey. It was a most enjoyable ride with only one drawback. The Indian's blankets and mine being together, I had gathered a lively community in my head. Procuring a small tooth-comb at a way-side place, I commenced operations, with the result that soon I had quite a colony on a newspaper in front of me. With the aid of tobacco water, I finally succeeded in driving the pests away. In following down the Belyando River, I proved my expertness as a tracker by recognising the track of a bullock crossing the road. I did not know the beast had been lost, but the peculiarity of the track, caused by the hind feet touching the ground ahead of the fore feet, led me to follow the tracks through a scrub, and there I found him camped. We had over 60 miles to overtake the sheep, and as he could not keep up with the horses, I had to leave him. We had passed St. Ann's and Mt. McConnell's Stations where Lieutenant Fred Murray was stationed with his black trackers. Proceeding up the Cape River, we overtook the sheep at Natal Downs, then owned by Wm. Kellett. We left the Cape River here, and followed Amelia Creek through a lot of spinifex country. On the third camp, in my early morning watch, I noticed several of the sheep jumping. At daylight we found about 60 lying dead on the ground. We learnt that they had been eating the poison bush which abounds throughout what is designated as the "Desert Country." The leaf of this bush is shaped like an inverted heart, and in colour is a very bright green. The flower resembles a pea blossom, and when in bloom the bush is most deadly to all stock. This experience taught us to be more careful, and in one place we cut a track through five miles of it for the sheep to pass. When we reached Torren's Creek, we saw a water-hole containing the bones of some 10,000 sheep which had perished from the same cause. They were a portion of 20,000, which, we were informed, were in charge of a Mr. Halloran, who had preceded us for the Flinders, and owned by a Mr. Alexander. We afterwards passed a green flat, quite dry, but in the wet season covered with water, called "Billy Webb's Lake." I was suffering from a severe attack of sandy blight in both eyes, so had to ride a horse which was tied to the bullock dray. I was _hors-de-combat_ for over a week. Not having any eye-water, the only relief I could get was cold tea leaves at night. Both eyes were so swollen that I was completely blind. Fortunately, we met the McKinlay expedition returning from an unsuccessful search after Leichhardt. The doctor gave me a bottle of his eye-water, which he informed me contained some nitrate of silver; this he instructed me how to use, and I soon regained my eye-sight, but the eyes continued very weak. Shortly afterwards we met some travellers, and enquired how far it was to the jump-up--meaning the descent from the plateau to the level country at the head of the Flinders. They replied, "in two miles you will be amongst the roly-poly." These we found were not stones, as we thought, but dry stumps of a weed which grows on the open downs in the shape of a ball. The strong trade-winds blow the plant away from its roots, and send it careering over the downs, jumping for yards, and high in the air, frightening one's horse when it gets between his hind legs, giving him the impression that he had slept, and dreamt he was young again. We passed Hughenden Station, which had just been taken over by Mr. Robert Gray from Mr. Ernest Henry, and camped the sheep where the town of Hughenden now stands. We then had a long stage of fifteen miles to the bend of the river without water. The remainder of our trip down the river was uneventful. We passed Telemon (Stewart's), Marathon (then owned by Carson), Richmond Downs (Bundock and Hayes), Lara (Donkin Brothers), and Canobie (Edward Palmer). At Clifton, our destination, there was a fine water-hole two and a-half miles long, trees on the banks were crowded with cockatoos, corellas, with galahs in flocks on the plains. Work soon commenced in earnest, and progress made, in building a small house, sheep yards, and the necessary improvements for a sheep station. The country consisted of plains, with patches of scrub between, in which there was abundance of salt-bush, all carrying good feed for the sheep. CHAPTER III. Mr. Carruthers' agreement to take charge of the sheep until they arrived at their destination having expired, my uncle wrote me to take over the station, and advised that if I remained in charge, he would increase my salary to £200 per year. As Carruthers was anxious to return to his station, I accepted the former, but replied that unless the pay for managing was increased to £300 per year, to send someone at once to take my place. In the meantime, the blacks had come into Canobie at night, and attacked three men who were camped on the river, within sight of the station. They killed two, and the third was left for dead. He was found to be alive, and afterwards recovered from the severe battering he received. Palmer sent word asking me to send all the men I could spare to come over to assist in hunting the murderers. I did so, Carruthers taking charge of the armed party. A few days previous to this occurrence I had visited an out-station to count the sheep, taking a man with me to help in repairing the yard. On returning after dark we passed a billabong, from which a very strong stench, as if from decomposed vegetable matter, arose. The following morning we both felt unwell, and vomited a good deal. The man with me was much older than I, and succumbed to the sickness in nine days. After the party had left for Canobie, I was completely prostrated, and had no medicine on hand except Epsom salts. During the night we (the cook, a new-chum Cockney, and myself) heard voices down at the water-hole, which we took as from a party of travelling Chinamen. In the morning we found that, some of the blacks who were implicated in the murder had doubled back, and had taken away every article of iron they could find, our camp oven included, and my clothes, which had just been washed. This so preyed on my mind that when the party returned, they found me delirious. Mr. Carruthers, seeing the helpless state I was in, and the condition of affairs generally, engaged Mr. Reg. Uhr to take charge on my behalf, whilst he took me down to Burketown, distant 155 miles, in a cart, with two horses. The road was almost deserted, and the blacks were very bad. Carruthers would boil his billy at water-holes in the afternoon, and go out to the centre of the plains to camp, with no bells on the horses. As for myself, I was sick and weak. Not being able to eat damper or meat, I was almost starved, lost all vitality, and cared little whether I survived the trip or not. We had to cross the "Plains of Promise." These consisted of an uninterrupted run of about 30 miles of devil-devil country. It was a succession of small gutters and mounds, which, to a sick man in a cart without springs, was intolerable. We arrived at Burketown about November, 1866, and the public house was the only place in which I could get accommodation. There I suffered all the nightly noises incidental to a bush shanty. Burketown at this time was an almost new settlement, with a population of about 50 whites, but the number of graves of those who died within its short life from fever was more than twice as many, and increasing daily. The Burketown fever was more virulent than any other I had hitherto or since come in contact with, and was supposed to be a kind of yellow jack fever, introduced by some vessel from Eastern countries. The danger of a second introduction of the same, or perhaps worse, epidemic does not appear in these days to be realised in Australia. There was no doctor in the town, but a chemist named Peacock was practising as one. Just as I arrived, Captain Cadell, in the old "Eagle," arrived to send despatches of his explorations of the rivers on the west coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, where the party had seen numerous herds of buffaloes. Mr. Carruthers heard that there was a doctor with the expedition, and on his interviewing him, the latter said he would see me, provided I paid the fee to the resident doctor. This professional etiquette was agreed to. The doctor took great pains in diagnosing my case, which he called something between a gastric and jungle fever, and prescribed five grains of calomel every night. This I found later to have loosened my teeth, and 15 grains of quinine daily seriously affected my hearing. The local chemist was then sent for. He felt my pulse, looked at my tongue, and prescribed a box of Holloway's pills. I paid him his fee of one guinea, but almost needless to say which advice I followed. I remained in Burketown about a fortnight, slowly recovering. Before leaving I purchased a microscope which was for sale, and presented it to the doctor of the expedition with sincere thanks for saving my life. During the time I was in Burketown, Mr. Sharkey, Lands Commissioner, came over from Sweers Island, and offered to submit my name for the Commission of Peace, and said Mr. Landsborough, the Police Magistrate, would swear me in. I declined the honour. When returning to Clifton Station we spent a week at Floraville Station, on the Leichhardt River. Here I purchased stores for the station from Mr. Borthwick, who was managing for Mr. J. G. Macdonald. At this station there was a water-hole 25 miles long, and in bathing one would see crocodiles basking on the rocks and bank, but they appeared to be harmless. At the lower end of this hole there was a perpendicular drop of over 40 feet, with a very deep hole at the foot, infested by sharks and alligators. The tides came to this point. We called at Donor's Hill Station, where I first made the acquaintance of the Brodie brothers, one of whom afterwards managed Nive Downs for a number of years. The other--his twin brother--died in New South Wales not long since, after a long and successful business career. At this place I visited a cave containing many skulls of blacks, who had been dispersed by the whites, after committing a series of depredations in the district. I was told the cave was so dark that matches were lighted to allow of aim being taken at the blacks during the dispersal. In later years, I have often thought what fortunes might have been won, or lost, or the settlement of Western Queensland been advanced by years, had the early seekers for pastoral country but known what was west of the so-called desert country, and south of the Flinders. This could only be learnt by forcing a way through the desert to the west instead of skirting its edge and going north. As it was, we, in following the Flinders down, were traversing some of the finest sheep country in the world, and did not realise there were millions of acres lying to the south, unknown, unowned. Ultimately, settlement of the west was affected more from Rockhampton than from northern ports; extending as it did from Springsure towards Tambo, Blackall, and thence north and north-west. It seems, however, the irony of fate that Townsville, which did little or nothing towards the exploration or development of the country south from the Flinders, has obtained the trade of that portion of Queensland. But this is anticipating. Mr. J. F. Barry, who first took up the country on the head of the Western River, was laughed at by residents of Blackall, when he rode in to have his application registered, and described the country. So that it might be recorded that his statements as to its quality would prove correct, he called the country "Vindex," by which it is now known as one of the finest sheep properties in Queensland. But let me quote from "_The Polar and Tropical Worlds_," written by two scientists, one apparently a German, the other designated "Scientific Editor of the American Cyclopedia." The book was published in 1877, eleven years or more after the north-western country was becoming occupied. In alluding to the great deserts of the world, these authorities say:--"Perhaps the most absolute desert tract on the face of the globe is that which occupies the interior of the great island, or as it may not improperly be styled, 'Continent of Australia.' "The island has an area of something more than 3,000,000 of square miles, nearly equal in extent to Europe. "For the greater part of its circumference, it is bounded by a continuous range of mountains or highlands, nowhere rising to a great height, and for long distances, consisting of plateaus or tablelands. "There is, however, a continuous range of water-shed, which is never broken through, and which never recedes any great distance from the Coast. "The habitable portions of Australia are limited to the slopes of the mountains, and the narrow space between them and the sea. The interior, as far as is known, or as can be inferred from physical geography, is an immense depressed plain more hopelessly barren and uninhabitable than the great desert of Sahara." These authorities say more on this imaginary desert, but the quotation is sufficient to show that even scientists do not know everything, although one might believe that they did. I have not learnt that either Messrs. Landsborough or Phillips, who were on the Diamantina in 1866, and crossed from that river over to the Flinders, commented on the quality of the country through which they travelled, and I can only explain that its naturally waterless state up to early in the eighties prevented its value becoming known. During these years immense sums of money were spent in water conservations by the Government of the day and Victorian investors, and in a large measure without meeting success. When I went to Townsville in 1868, the principal, and also the first carrier there, was a man named Courtney, who owned eight bullock teams. He had been taking stores to the different stations on the Flinders as that country was opened up. In conversation one day, he informed me that some two or three years previously his bullocks had strayed many miles across the downs from Richmond Downs. Seeing the beautiful sheep country still extending to the south, he determined to explore it to learn if there were any good water courses. Taking a pack horse with rations, he started on a S.W. course until he found a large river running in a southerly direction. A few miles further north the river runs from west to east. He marked a tree with his initial C., and this was found long afterwards to be on a water-hole between Kynuna and Dagworth. He expected to realise money on his exploration, but the Diamantina country was, as I have previously remarked, occupied by people coming from the Central district. The route from Townsville through long stretches of dry country was out of the running. In after years Courtney took to drink. Finally, after one of his bouts, on leaving Normanton in an intoxicated condition, he camped at a water-hole 10 miles out. His clothes were found, but not the body. It was supposed that he had gone in for a swim, and that alligators, which swarm in these holes, had taken him. I could not learn if he had given any information as to the country, but I have no reason to doubt his statements. After my return to Clifton, I was kept busy preparing for lambing. This did not turn out very successful. The hot, scorching sun so scalded the backs of the lambs, that the growth of wool was greatly retarded. After a month's hard work, I found myself so weak and depressed from the fever that I decided to return to England. In the meantime, Carruthers had left for his station on the Auburn River. I was relieved in mind, by a letter from my uncle, who informed me that my request for a salary of £300 a year was exorbitant, and that he was sending a Mr. Hawkes to take the station over from me. Soon after I was pleased to welcome this gentleman, and left for inside with a young fellow named Carolan, who had been working on Canobie. My uncle visited Clifton late in 1867, and decided to have the sheep boiled down at the works owned by Mr. Harry Edkins, on the Albert River. During his stay at Burketown he became the guest of Mr. Surveyor Sharkey on Sweers Island, and met Miss Huey, sister of Mrs. Edkins, late of Mount Cornish Station, who became the second Mrs. Corfield. His first wife was a Miss Murray, sister of the highly-respected Police Magistrate, who died in Brisbane a few years ago, and also of the late Inspector Fred Murray. Her death on Teebar, in 1853, so affected my uncle that he sold the property for a nominal sum to his head stockman, John Eaton. He then took up and formed Gigoomgan, which he soon after sold to Anderson and Leslie. He afterwards bought Stanton Harcourt from W. H. Walsh, of Degilbo Station. There I joined him in 1862. CHAPTER IV. After handing the station over to Mr. Hawkes, I went to Canobie to muster my horses, which were running on the Williams River, and thence travelled eastward in company with Carolan. On arrival at the Punch Bowl, on the Flinders River, we heard that there was a hundred mile dry stage ahead, so decided to camp. One afternoon, Mr. Roland Edkins, later so long manager of Mount Cornish, and his wife, travelling on their honeymoon, drove up and asked if we had any meat we could spare. I informed him we had none, but that if he had a gun, and lent it to me, I would get some. A mob of cattle had been to the water-hole earlier in the day. Armed with his gun I followed the cattle and shot a clean-skin, which we dressed, and jerked in the sun, not having salt. The supply of meat was sufficient for all our needs. Mr. Edkins informed us that thunderstorms had fallen up the river, so we made a start. While camping in the bed of the river one night the water came down on us rather suddenly. We managed to get our belongings up the bank before they became wet. In those days thunderstorms seemed to be more prevalent during November than in later years. Before we reached Telemon, the river was a banker, flooding the plains, and compelling us one night to camp on an ant bed, which was the only dry spot we could find. Fortunately, the ants were not of the bulldog breed. We arrived at Telemon about noon of a sweltering hot day, and found Mr. Stewart, the owner, lying on his bunk with a tallow cask in close proximity, the grease oozing out on to his bed. He invited us to have some dinner, and we gladly availed ourselves of the invitation. Learning that we were bound for the coast, he advised us to take the short cut up Bett's Gorge. Mr. Stewart had been adjutant of the Cameron Highlanders during the Crimean War, and was then considered to be the smartest officer in the regiment. When he came to Australia, and took up the runs of Southwick and Telemon, he altered so much that he became known as "Greasy Stewart." When spoken to about it, he would say, "When you are amongst savages, do as savages do." Otherwise he was in manners and conduct a gentleman, and a delightful conversationalist. When visiting Sydney he was considered to be a remarkably well-dressed man. He afterwards became the possessor of a large estate in Scotland, where he died. We found the creek running through Bett's Gorge a banker, and had to swim 23 crossings in one day. Being so often in the water, we did not trouble to dress, consequently the sun played havoc with our bodies. All the country for miles around being of a basaltic nature, our horses became very footsore, and when we reached Lolworth Station we asked Mr. Frank Hann, the manager, if he would allow us to spell them. He consented, and invited us to the house. We stayed there about three weeks, assisting him at mustering, and branding the cattle. The Cape River diggings had just broken out, and as I was now getting stronger--the fever was going off gradually--I decided to remain in Australia, and try my hand at gold digging. Both Carolan and myself were novices at the game, especially in putting down a shaft. We decided to go up on a spinifex ridge, out of sight, to sink, what turned out to be a three-cornered shaft, and so gain experience. This we bottomed at 100 feet, obtaining good specimens of shotty gold. Mr. Robert Christison, owner of Lammermoor Station, and Mr. Richard Anning, from either Cargoon or Reedy Springs Stations (I forget which), arrived with two horses and a dray. They camped close to us, and like ourselves, intended trying their luck at gold digging. Whilst working at this, one Sunday evening, we overheard some Chinamen speaking of a flat they were going to in the morning. We decided to watch, and follow them. At daylight they made a rush to peg out claims; we did likewise, and obtained one well placed as to water. The difficulty then was how to work both claims, and it was decided Carolan should get a mate and go on with the deep sinking on which we were working. I was to work the shallow one myself. Our first claim turned out to be on the edge of rich gold-bearing country, which was good while it lasted, but soon petered out. The surrounding claims turned out very rich, and got the name of the "Deep Lead." In the meantime I had bottomed my shaft at eleven feet. It turned out to be a very wet one, so I had to work without my shirt. When I took the first dish down to wash, I noticed a number of men taking great interest in it, especially when the panning-out showed two dwts. of shotty gold in the dish. The men engaged me in conversation. When I returned to my claim, I found my pegs thrown away and fresh ones surrounding the shaft in place of them. I strongly demurred to this, but without avail, until a party of men who were our camp neighbours came over and took my part. Through them I recovered my claim without more than wordy warfare. After doing well out of the claim I found I could not continue it without a mate. Having to throw the wash-dirt eleven feet, a lot of the pebbles in it would come back on and bruise my naked body. Carolan and his mate determined to sink another shaft in the deep sinking to hit the lead again. We had a consultation, and decided I should take in as partner an old miner known as "Greasy Bill," who possessed a horse and cart, cradles, and all the plant required for shallow sinking. For the first month we were getting as much as an ounce and a-half to the load of sixty buckets. As I puddled the wash-dirt he cradled it, and consequently was in possession of the gold bag which held the proceeds from the cradle. Although I could detect no difference in the wash-dirt, the cradling results dwindled down by degrees to a quarter ounce per load. As this did not pay our tucker bill, my mate suggested we should sink another shaft, which we bottomed, and it turned out with similar results. Carolan had now sunk his second shaft with no payable results, and as I was dissatisfied with the result of my new venture, we both decided to go prospecting. This we did, dry-blowing in the ranges with no payable results. I afterwards met "Greasy Bill" at the Cape township, when he informed me that after I had left he had struck it rich in both claims. Others told me he had boasted he had got five hundred pounds out of the claim by abstracting the gold from the bag when I was not looking, and that the claim I pegged out was good throughout. Our experiences as diggers had completely disgusted Carolan and me, so on hearing that carriage of loading to the gold field was very high, we determined to start as carriers. I heard that a Mr. Mytton, of Oak Park Station, had a team of bullocks for sale, and having some money in the Savings Bank at ----, we decided to travel to Oak Park to investigate. On reaching Craigie Station, on the Clarke River, to enquire the way, Mr. Saunders, the owner, informed us that he had seven bullocks and a dray for sale for £120, but I wished to purchase a full team of 12 or 16, such as Mr. Mytton had at Oak Park, and decided to go there. Mr. Saunders kindly lent us a Snider rifle for protection, as the blacks were bad through the ranges, between his station and Mytton's. [Illustration: FITZMAURICE, CORFIELD, AND TOM FOX. (Taken in 1880).] We camped the first night at the Broken River, a weird looking place. This was about May, 1868, and the nights being very cold we would place one blanket under and have the other over us, with our heads on the saddle, and the rifle between us. During the night I was awakened by my saddle being pulled from my head. I immediately caught the rifle, and turning around saw a native dog dragging my saddle by one of the straps. Without waking my mate, who was a man six feet in height, I fired----. Carolan made one leap, taking the blanket with him, saying he was shot. This frightened me also. However, the howling of the dog who had apparently received the bullet through his body, and full explanations restored calm and a feeling of safety. In the morning we tracked the dog to the water-hole, where we found him dead. On arrival at Oak Park, without further adventures, I found Mr. Mytton had leased his team of bullocks and waggon to a man named Jack Howell, who contemplated carrying. The latter was credited with being double-jointed, and I believe it. He was the strongest man I ever met. He afterwards married the widow of Jimmy Morrell, who had lived for seventeen years with the blacks in the Cleveland Bay district. It is related that when he saw a white man after this length of time, Morrell jumped on a stock-yard fence, and called out, "Don't shoot, I'm a British object." The Government gave him a position in the Customs in Bowen, where he died a few years afterwards. I later on attended Jack Howell's wedding. It was held in a house at the foot of Castle Hill, in Townsville. Some, uninvited, came up to tin-kettle the newly-married couple, but on Jack putting in an appearance they showed discretion and scampered away, leaving one of their mates hung up on a clothes line. During our stay of three days at Oak Park, we received great kindness, which led to a life-long friendship with Edward Mytton. Carolan and I returned to Craigie Station to give back the borrowed rifle. I then decided to purchase the seven bullocks and dray, giving Saunders a cheque for the price mentioned. I had to muster the bullocks myself, finding four of them the second day. Mr. Saunders said he would go out to find the remainder, as he knew where they were running. We both started, but in different directions. I found the tracks, and succeeded in bringing the bullocks to the yard, but Mr. Saunders did not turn up until the next evening, having been bushed on his own run. The bullocks were very fat, and had no leaders amongst them, so Mr. Saunders gave me a hand by leading my horse and driving the spare bullock. At every water-hole we came near these brutes would rush in, and I had to go, with my clothes on, after them. Carolan had left me at Craigie, and gone on to a public house at Nulla-Nulla, on the main Flinders road from Townsville. He bought in shares with a teamster, who had two teams, and as there was good grass and water, there he decided to camp. Here I met "Black Jack," who said he was the first white man to cross the Burdekin. Carolan having come out to give me a hand, Mr. Saunders returned to Craigie. There were several carriers camped at Nulla, amongst them being a man named James Wilson, from whom I bought five bullocks. One of these was a good near-side leader, for which I was grateful. From that time Wilson and I became travelling mates. We loaded in Townsville for the Cape River diggings at twenty pounds per ton. As my additional bullocks allowed me to put on three tons, the sixty pounds for carriage enabled me to pay for the bullocks and supplies for the trip. When I returned to Townsville I met Mr. Saunders, who had sold me the bullocks. He informed me that my cheque for payment had been dishonoured, marked "no account." This news was a staggerer. I explained that I had an account in the Government Savings Bank at ----, and that before I left the Cloncurry, I had sent my pass book and a receipted order to the Savings Bank officer, asking him to withdraw the money and place it to my credit in the local branch of the A.J.S. Bank. Also that I had advised the bank of the prospective remittance, and following my request, had received a cheque book. Mr. Saunders was good enough to accept my explanation, and agreed to remain in Townsville while I proceeded to ----. I had very little money, so took a steerage passage in the old "Tinonee," which was conveying a large number of disappointed diggers returning to New Zealand. It was a rough and uncomfortable trip. One had to stand at the door and snap the food as it was carried to the table, not to do so meant going without. On arriving at ----, I put up at a boarding house, which was far from being first class. I called on the Postmaster, and told him my name. When he heard it he became very pale, and agitated, and showed great uneasiness. He invited me into his office, where I stated my business, and added that if my money was not forthcoming at once I would report him. He then told me that he was so long without hearing of me, that he was confirmed in believing the rumour of my death on the way in, and that he had invested the money in some land, which gave promise of soon rising in value. I gave him until the next boat was leaving for Townsville, which would be in four days, to repay the money. I also insisted upon being refunded my expenses, and a return saloon fare from Townsville to ---- and back. He gladly agreed to my terms, and I promised not to proceed further. I had a splendid trip back per saloon. I met Mr. Saunders, who was pleased that I had recovered the money, and remarked, "I thought you had an honest face," etc. He added that he would give me preference for loading to the station. This affair was brought back forcibly to my memory owing to the matter having been mentioned not long since by a friend of later years, who, in his capacity as a Government officer, happened to be stationed in this town some 30 years ago. He told me of a property bought by the Postmaster of the place, upon which there was a fine orchard. This was looked after by a German of gigantic stature, who patrolled the orchard with a loaded shot gun. He said that an old resident of the place had told him that the property had been bought with money drawn from the Government Savings Bank by a man out in the Gulf country, who was reported to have died on the road down, but who turned up some months afterwards, and claimed his money. I did not at any time speak of the matter, and can only conclude that the Postmaster raised the money in the town, and gave the information to the lender. It was peculiar that my friend, fifty years afterwards, should mention a matter in which I was so concerned and without having any previous knowledge that I was the reported dead man. The late Hon. B. Fahey, M.L.C., was then second officer of Customs in Townsville. He allowed me to see the ship's manifests of cargo arriving. I was thus enabled to apply beforehand for loading to these merchants who would be receiving consignments. This was a great help to my mate--Wilson--and myself to obtain loading quickly. When carrying became slack, Mr. Marsh, of Webster and Marsh, of Mackay, arrived in Townsville, and being an old school-fellow of mine, said he would send up two loads from Mackay to keep me going. About this time (1869), I made the acquaintance of Messrs. Watson Bros., of Townsville, who were very kind to me, inviting me to their house to spend the evenings when in the Bay (as Townsville was then generally spoken of). They had two sisters, one of whom afterwards married my friend Edward Mytton, and the other, Mr. Page, in after years of Wandovale Station. They were a cultured family, and the time I spent with them reminded me of home life more than anything I had then experienced since I left England. On my last trip to the Cape diggings, Wilson and I had returned as far as Homestead, when Bob Watson rode up, and enquired for what we would take loading to the Gilbert River. We knew this place to be somewhere beyond Oak Park, and we asked for £30 per ton. This was agreed to, with the proviso that the teams were to be loaded at night on the Lower Cape. At the time the township was honeycombed with shafts, and we had many misadventures driving our teams in the dark. Watson explained the reason for our loading at night was that the Gilbert diggings had only just been reported, and his firm wished to get supplies on the ground early to obtain high prices. We were to travel _via_ the Upper Cape, Lolworth, Craigie, Wandovale, Junction Creek. Lyndhurst, and Oak Park, etc. Long before we reached the latter place droves of people of both sexes, in all sorts of vehicles, on horse back, and afoot, passed us. The news had quickly spread that good gold had been found on the Gilbert. This move of the Watson's was rather smart. They had a quantity of damaged flour to get rid of. We had to purchase our rations from them. The only way in which we could use the flour was to make it into johnny cakes, and eat them hot. Flour was selling at 3/- for half-a-pint, and the damaged flour soon found ready customers at fancy prices. The township consisted of tents, but as the storekeepers required something more substantial than calico, I sold my tarpaulin for a good price, and made contracts to supply bark at 5/- per sheet. We engaged men to strip the bark. This work kept us both busy hauling with our teams, and lasted until the wants of the township were fully supplied. We then started on our 350-mile journey back to Townsville, and reached there about the end of September. Mr. Mytton arranged for me to load for him, and I obtained a load for my mate for Lyndhurst, the station adjoining. This station was managed by a Mr. Smith from the Clarence River. For some reason, I could not learn how, he was known as "Gentle J----." He was a remarkably small man, but was noted as being a very plucky one. His store was stuck-up by a man called "Waddy Mundoo-i," from his having a wooden leg. Smith fought and knocked him out, afterwards giving him help to get along the road. We spent about a fortnight in Townsville having repairs made to the drays, etc., and we started on our return journey to Oak Park on the 14th of November, 1869, making as much haste as possible before the wet season set in. This, however, caught us at the Broken River, where we had to camp for over nine weeks. We were joined here by many other teams loaded for the Gilbert. With us we had an old ship's carpenter, who helped to make a canoe from a currajong tree. On the stern he attached a board, on which was painted "Cleopatra, Glasgow." This boat proved very useful in ferrying over the large number of footmen arriving daily, and saving our rations, as all travellers expected to be fed without payment. One day we ferried Inspector Clohesy and his troopers across the river, which at the time was running very high. After a great deal of difficulty and some danger, we landed them and 2,000 ounces of gold in safety. Before the river was crossable for teams, I cut my name on a tree, bearing date 1870, which I again saw many years later. On arrival, we were warmly welcomed at the station. When in Townsville I had asked Fitzmaurice, who had reached there from Peak Downs and was going to Sydney for a spell, to get a waggon made for me below. I now decided to turn out my bullocks at Oak Park to spell, and take on stock riding and droving fat bullocks into the diggings, where Mr. Mytton, having taken a partner named John Childs to look after the station during his absence, had opened a shop, and was butchering himself. Mr. Childs was married and had one little girl, named Beatrice, now married to one of our greatest sheep-owners. Amongst those who camped a night at the Broken River was a young new-chum Irishman, who asked if we knew a man in "Australia" called Tom Ripley. We replied "Yes, he is now at the Gilbert with his teams." He said, "I am his brother; he has bullock cars, hasn't he?" This remark, simple as it was, a long standing joke among the carriers. In conversation we gleaned that he had left Ireland on the same day that we had left Townsville, had crossed the ocean, and was passing us bound for nearly the same destination as ourselves. As two hundred and fifty miles is to thirteen thousand, so was the speed of bullock teams attempting travelling during the wet season to that of a sailing ship from the foggy seas. CHAPTER V. My mate, Jim Wilson, returned to Townsville after delivering his load at Lyndhurst. Mr. Mytton had purchased Junction Creek Station (afterwards called Wandovale), from Mr. Cudmore, and had left the Gilbert to take delivery, intending afterwards to go on to Townsville to be married to Miss Watson. As the station was short-handed, and Mr. Mytton wished to make some alterations to prepare for his bride, he asked me if I would stay and use my team to bring in the timber, and also to assist Childs with the cattle. I consented to remain for a couple of months. During this time the black boys on the station bolted, taking with them Mrs Childs' gin, and my black boy. A carpenter named Jack Barker and myself started with three horses in pursuit, eventually finding the absconders where the Woolgar diggings now are. On our return we ran out of rations, and lived on iguanas, snakes, opossums, etc. Childs induced me to take charge of a mob of bullocks, and drove them to Wandovale, where Mr. and Mrs. Mytton were now living. After delivering the bullocks at Wandovale, I returned to Oak Park to muster my bullocks and horses, and found a bay mare missing. Although assisted by the stockmen, we failed to find her. I then determined to start for Townsville, and again take up carrying. When I reached Wandovale on my way down, I camped at the station. Returning from putting my bullocks on grass, I saw a number of Chinamen with pack horses preparing to camp at the creek. One of their horses attracted my attention, so I rode over and recognised my mare. I rode on, and watched the direction in which the Chinamen hobbled their horses. Mr. Mytton and I then decided that I should go out before daybreak to bring the mare in. He was to be at the slip rails to allow the animal to be driven into the paddock. In the dark of the early morning I had a difficulty in locating the animal amongst so many horses. Eventually, I found her, but I could not catch her. At daybreak I saw she was long hobbled, and getting near enough, struck her with the bridle, I turned her towards the station. The Chinamen were just starting out for their horses, and seeing me, tried to cut me off, and then ensued a race for the slip rails. I had half-a-mile to go to reach the paddock; however, putting on a spurt, I succeeded in reaching the slip rails first, hunting the mare through them, but I was completely winded. In response to the Chinamen's "Wha for," Mr. Mytton said he was a Justice of the Peace, and dared them to interfere with anything on his property. It ended by my giving my name and address, after stating that the mare was my property, and had been stolen from Oak Park Station. Some time afterwards Inspector Clohesy, who was in charge of the police on the Gilbert, informed me that the Chinamen had come to him for redress, but he remembered how I had helped him and his escort across the Broken River, and assured them that he knew I would not have taken such action unless the mare was my property. The matter ended, and I found out afterwards the mare had been stolen and sold to the Chinamen. Mention of Inspector Clohesy reminds me that he was a remarkable personality, now-a-days not so common--tall, slight and wiry, he could sit a horse as well as the best of riders and hold his own with men of all sorts. Endowed with quick insight into the character of men who were in many instances indifferent to law, he exercised a restraining influence without in any way neglecting his duty as a police officer. His presence and word alone frequently calmed excited diggers in a way that commanded their respect and admiration. When the diggers broke into rioting at Charters Towers, the tact, patience and courage of Clohesy was of more use and value than a posse of police. Many a time I have heard a witty remark, or a pithy Irish phrase from him, turn a likely disturbance into a pleasant laughing meeting. Wherever he controlled, he kept things in order without his hand being felt. When he died about 1879, Queensland lost a good officer, and many a northern pioneer a true friend. When I reached Townsville I procured a load for Ravenswood diggings, which had just been opened. I went to load my new waggon at Clifton and Aplin's store, accompanied by a man named Tom Hobbs, who was also loading at the same place, and for the same destination. When I drove my team and new waggon from Sydney through the streets toward the German Gardens--since the war, Belgium Gardens--where we were camped, I noticed every one laughing as I went by. After crossing the ridge where the Anglican Cathedral now stands, I went around to the off side, and there saw that some wag, while I was loading, had obliterated a letter on the name of my waggon, which Fitzmaurice had christened the "Townsville Lass." Striking the "L" out gave it a different name. I quickly procured a paint brush and renewed the name as it should be. At that time the road to Ravenswood was lined with vehicles and pedestrians, making their way to the new field. Cobb and Co. were running a coach for mails and passengers, driven by Mick Brady, who afterwards was well and favourably known on the very bad road from Cooktown to Maytown. After making a quick trip we returned, and loaded again for the Gilbert diggings. In going up Thornton's Gap, on the coast range, I had the misfortune to lose the top of my third finger on my right hand. We had 36 bullocks on the waggon, and a faulty chain breaking, only six bullocks were left to hold the waggon. The near side ones being lazy, allowed the waggon to drift down towards the steep descent of 500 feet to the bottom. I ran with a piece of heavy log to prevent a smash, but the wheels caught the log before I could release my hand, and completely crushed the top of my finger until the bone protruded. That night I had to lay with my finger in hot water to relieve the pain. The next day I started at daylight for Townsville, had the finger dressed by the doctor, and returned to the teams the same day, having ridden a distance of 60 miles. I was unable to yoke my team, but this my mate, Tom Hobbs, kindly did for me. I was, however, able to drive the team the 350 miles to the Gilbert. On returning from there, I had a bad attack of fever and ague, which compelled me to ride on to Townsville for medical advice, having various difficulties on the way down. I left my black boy to assist my mate to bring down the two teams, by hitching my waggon behind his, and yoking up sufficient bullocks drafted from each team to draw them. My mate, Tom Hobbs, was a "white man," which means a lot, but rather backward as regards education. In leisure moments I would assist him in reading, writing, etc. Before he left the Bay on this trip, he had become engaged to a young lady in the town, and enlisted my services to write his letters for him. I remember the last I wrote before leaving him contained the following:-- But if all goes well on my return, We'll give the Parson some trouble, To write the license for friends to learn We're converted from single to double. In a few weeks after reaching Townsville, under the doctor's care, I regained my usual good health, and found Tom's fiancee and delivered the messages which he had entrusted me with. The wet season of 1871 had set in, and Tom was stuck at the Burdekin River with the teams, so I concocted the following rhyme to send him as if they came from his lady-love:-- Oh! Tom Hobbs, dear Tom, why don't you come back To redeem the dear promise you gave unto me, When you started with loading on the Gilberton track To hail your return as my husband to be. Oh! the days and the hours how slowly they pass, And for me, I fear, there are plenty in store, Since now there's abundance of water and grass, To tempt you to spell your poor bullocks the more. But, dear Tom, do write me a line to say That your love is as fervent as ever it's been. If so, on your return we'll both name the day Which kind friends will finish with tins kerosene. I pray my dear hopes are not born to be blighted, By the tide of misfortune in earth's dreary life, For you know, dear Tom, you have charms which delighted A young girl to be your dear loving wife. And now, dearest Tom, with a squeeze and a kiss That would burst the staves of a six gallon barrel. I pray God to grant you health and heavenly bliss When united for ever to your loving E. Carrol. When I last visited Townsville in 1917, I called on Mrs. Hobbs, who showed me the original of the above, still in good preservation. Tom was a very shy man, and asked me if I could arrange for his marriage to be held by the Registrar at the Court House on a Sunday evening. This I did, the wedding party arriving at the Court House by different routes to avoid publicity. The Registrar had only a candle, which did not give sufficient light, so he asked if I could obtain a lamp. I went down the hill to Evans', afterwards Enright's, Tattersall Hotel, and borrowed a lamp ostensibly to look for lost jewellery for a lady. Several loungers, doubting the reason given, followed me, with the result that at midnight Tom's house was surrounded by uninvited guests, and I had to hand out some bottles of brandy before they could be induced to leave. We kept things up until daylight, when I rode back to my camp at Mount Louisa, six miles away. About this time the carriers were challenged by the Townsville cricket club to a match, to be played on a ground prepared at the German Gardens. A carrier named Billy Yates took his waggon, decorated with boughs and bush flowers, drawn by bullocks, to bring out the town team. The principal bowler for Townsville was L. F. Sachs, of the A.J.S. Bank. Ours were Charlie and Fred Hannaford. After a hard-fought game of two innings each, the carriers won, I having the honour of being top scorer. The particulars did not go into print, so I am unable to give the details, although I remember the happenings connected with and after the match were interesting. I was loaded at Mount Louisa on my way to Ravenswood, when, during the night a man wakened me, and asked if I could give him a drink. I gave him a nip of rum from the jar. Shortly afterwards I noticed the smell of burning, and on looking round saw a dray with a load of wool well alight. I immediately raised the alarm, and the men from several other teams who were camped there ran over, but all that we could save were the bullock yokes. We then tipped the dray up, thinking the ropes had been burnt through, and that the bales of wool would roll off, when we could deal with them. This was not the case, and the wind getting underneath so fanned the flame that soon the wool was burning as fiercely as the wood. The police investigated the matter, and found that the man I gave the drink to had travelled down with this team, and had a grievance about the payment of his wages. The Police Magistrate committed him to the Supreme Court for trial for arson. I was subpoenaed as principal witness, and had to ride back some 70 miles to give evidence. The jury found the man guilty, and he was sentenced to two years' hard labour. As he was leaving the Court, in passing me, he said, "You have only two years to live," but in this he did not prove a true prophet. About this time I first made the acquaintance of the gentleman now known as Sir Robert Philp. He has a reputation throughout this country, to which, if I attempted to add anything would be simply gilding refined gold. But in 1870 the name of Bob Philp, accountant for James Burns, was throughout North Queensland a synonym for business ability, integrity of character, and kindness of heart. This reputation has not been dimmed by the passing of years. It is something of a pleasure to know Sir Robt. Philp, but it is a matter of pride to have known Mr. Philp "Lang Syne," when men of ability, character, and generosity were not rare or difficult to find. I have alluded several times to "partners," or "mates," which was the more popular term. These partnerships were quite common amongst carriers and diggers in bygone days. It was simply chums, owning and sharing everything in common, and without any agreement, written or otherwise. There were many such partnerships involving large sums of money and valuable property which existed only on a complete trust in mates. Among others on the Gilbert and Etheridge, were the mateship of Steel, Hunt and O'Brien. There were several such partnerships on the Palmer, notably that of Duff, Edwards and Callaghan. Of the high characters and generosity of all these men many interesting stories could be told. I doubt if their prototypes now exist. In my own case, in carrying and in business, I carried on with partners for many years without any agreement. The partnerships were based on mutual trust. When it was felt between the partners for some reason or other--generally a mere liking for a change--that the partnership might end, a friendly squaring-up would take place; each would go his own way and probably enter into partnership with some other party. With the exception of the partner I had in a claim on the Cape goldfield, I found all my mates or partners to be men in every sense of the term. I had a very good black boy, a little fellow of about 10 years of age, a native of Cooper's Creek, whom I called Billy. On one of my trips to the Gilbert, when passing Dalrymple, Billy Marks, the store and hotel-keeper, presented me with a well-bred cattle pup and a gin case to put him in. This I placed on top of the load. We had six miles to go over very rough basalt country to our camp. That day I had yoked a steer for the first time, and I intended to hobble him at night. When we reached camp I told Billy to bring up a quiet bullock called Darling, and this I coupled to the steer, instructing the boy to hold the whip-stick in front of the steer to attract his attention whilst I hobbled him. I had just put the hobble on the off leg, and was preparing to put it on the other, when the steer gave a tremendous jump, and the old bullock knocked me on my back on the yokes lying on the ground. When I rose I looked at the boy to see if he was laughing, but he was quite demure. I then saw the pup on the ground. He had caused my discomfiture by jumping on the steer's back, the box having broken open coming over the stones. When I returned from putting the bullocks on the grass, I saw my mate laughing, and to my inquiry he replied: "When you left with the bullocks I inquired from the boy what the trouble was?" The boy said, "Puppy been jump down on the steer's back, and old Darling been throw 'em a good way." My mate said, "You been laugh?" The boy answered, "Baal! me only been laugh alonga inside." He thought I might have beaten him if I had detected a smile on his face. While I was camped just outside Dalrymple, I one day told the boy if anyone wanted me, to say I was in the township. I had just finished a game of billiards at the hotel, when a man entered laughing. He called me on one side, and said he had asked my boy where I was. He said "That fella along public house playing--he got 'em spear in his hand, and knock about things all a same like it duck egg." He added the boy had followed me and watched my actions. CHAPTER VI. I continued carrying to Ravenswood, Charters Towers, the Gilbert and Etheridge goldfields until October, 1872, when I loaded for the latter place, delivering my load towards the end of the year, and just as the wet season set in. My travelling mate at this time was Billy Wilson, and he, wishing to return to port, left me in charge of his team. I camped on the Delaney River, and as there was abundance of grass, the bullocks gave no trouble. On Wilson's return, we decided to purchase two loads of stores from Clifton and Aplin's branch store, to take to the Palmer River rush which had just broken out, owing to William Hann's report on his exploration through the Peninsula becoming known. William Hann was a first-class bushman, but it is quite evident he was very much astray in one portion of the trip, which led to the great gold discovery. On page 13 of his report, referring to his following up the Normanby River, he stated he crossed the divide between the Normanby and Endeavour Rivers, and followed a gully for nine and a-half miles; ... when it became a considerable creek which he called Oakey Creek, it being the first place he saw the familiar oaks. Under date 21st September, 1872, he reports:--"Running this creek down in an easterly direction, and being compelled to cross it several times until it junctioned with a large river running north and south"; he adds "this river was, of course, no other than the Endeavour, of which so much has been said and heard from time to time." In this assumption he was far out. Owing to the rough country, Oakey Creek had to be crossed three times, and while being only one creek its crossings were afterwards known as Big, Middle and Little Oakey. The creek forms one of the heads of the Annan River, so named by Dalrymple. This river coming from the south-east falls into the sea some miles south of Mount Cook, which, with its spurs, divides it from the estuary of the Endeavour. Although there was a qualified surveyor in the party, it does not appear that he put Hann right. I do not mention this with any other desire than to show what difficulties our early explorers met with. [Illustration: JOHN MURTAGH MACROSSAN] The manner in which Hann extricated his party from the terrible rough country at the heads of the Bloomfield and Daintree Rivers stamps him as a fine bushman, resourceful and dauntless. We had a very exciting trip passing Fossilbrook, Mount Surprise, and Firth's Stations, crossing the Lynd, Tate, Walsh and Mitchell Rivers. These were all running strong. When we arrived at the Walsh, two horse teams had been camped there for a fortnight, and the owners told us the river was uncrossable. After putting the bullocks on grass, my mate (who was a splendid bushman), rode into the river. The water being clear, he was able to zig-zag a sand bank, avoiding deep water, and found we could get the waggons across by putting the goods on the guard rails. This we did that night unknown to the owners of the other teams who were camped farther on, but out of sight. In the morning we yoked up, and passed them, stating we were going to attempt crossing. This they declared was impossible, but came down to see us make the attempt. We only had our shirts on, and rode our horses bare-back. We made the crossing successfully, and camped on the northern bank. The river came down again that night, and delayed the horse teams another week. When we reached the Mitchell River, we found there were forty teams of all sorts and sizes waiting to cross. The next day my mate said that the river was fordable, and he would cross. We led the way, followed by the others. Quite a little village of people of both sexes camped that night on the north side of the Mitchell. Our troubles were now over, and we had thirty miles of easy travelling, past Mount Mulgrave to the Palmer River. There was such a quantity of stores arriving at the one time that we could not dispose of ours, so it was arranged that Wilson should take his team to Cooktown, and purchase a load jointly for us, and that I should remain, put up a tarpaulin store for the goods, and dispose of them as opportunity offered. To do this I decided to sell my bullock team and horses, as I did not know how long I should remain. In the meantime, another diggings called Purdie's Camp broke out forty miles up the river, so I purchased some more stores and engaged a horse team to carry all the goods there at £40 per ton. The only grass on the road was that known as "turpentine." This the horses would not eat, consequently we had to feed them on flour and water. On arrival, I disposed of everything at high prices. Thus flour, 200lb. bag for £20, and other things at like values. When at Purdie's camp, a packer--that is, a carrier using pack horses--came in with his horses, one of which had thrown his shoe. This rendered the horse useless to travel over the stony ridges. The packer wanted horse-shoe nails, so, as a joke, a carrier named Billy Yates offered to let him have five horse-shoe nails for their weight in gold. The offer was accepted, and I saw the nails put in one scale and the gold in the other. The packer was receiving one shilling per pound for packing goods eleven miles, and on that day's trip the horse took 150lbs., thus giving him £7/10/-, less the price for the nails. I forget the value of the gold paid for the latter. I was one day in a store kept by a man named T. Q. Jones, locally known as "Three Two," when a digger came in to buy a needle. He demurred at the price asked, one shilling, when the storekeeper remarked, "Good God, man, look at the price of carriage." Query--at 1/- per needle, what would a ton cost? I had only my gold bag--which was fairly bulky--and my black boy, and having again met my old acquaintance Fitzmaurice, from Peak Downs, who had also sold his loading and had sent his teams down to Cooktown, we decided to walk the forty miles back to the Lower Palmer, carrying the gold in our blankets, which we slung over our shoulders. When we reached the township, which was then unnamed, we heard that the cost of carriage from Cooktown had risen to £130 per ton of 2,000lbs. for 165 miles. I learnt that there were some teams camped at the Mitchell River, and having borrowed a horse from a friendly teamster, rode out to try and make a deal for one or more teams. I succeeded in buying 24 bullocks and two old drays, with three horses, for £400, agreeing to take the carrier and his wife to Cooktown, and paid a deposit. The owner had not heard of the high prices ruling for loading. When we reached the township and he learnt this, he offered me £50 on my bargain to repurchase the teams, but I refused the offer. I then bought a new waggon for £60, and sold the two old drays to the blacksmith for £20. This enabled me to have one very strong team. I found out afterwards that this was necessary, as the road was very heavy, notably fourteen miles of sand, known as the "Welcome Water-hole Sand," in which the wheels were buried to the axle. Billy Wilson, my partner, arrived with our joint loading at Palmerville just as I arrived with my newly-bought team, and not liking the idea of remaining as a storekeeper, I preferred to accompany him on his return to Cooktown. We decided to sell our joint load at a price which netted us £70 per ton for carriage. Before I reached Cooktown I met a storekeeper from that town who engaged me to take four tons of goods to what is now called Palmerville, at £120 per ton. This price enabled me to engage a Chinese cook, so that I could devote all my attention to looking after the bullocks. After delivering my £120 loading, I made all haste on my return and succeeded in obtaining another load of four and a-half tons at £100 per ton. Cooktown at this time (towards the end of 1873), was composed wholly of tents. Diggers, who had been more or less successful, were arriving on their way to "the Bay" (Townsville), or farther south. I think that the Palmer was the last real alluvial gold rush in Australia, and the class of men who followed such rushes in the search for gold is now extinct. Imagine to oneself the "lucky digger" in cord pants, top boots, red shirt, and sash with fringes hanging down, the whole topped by a wide-rimmed felt hat, and we have a man who may be seen in present-day picture shows. There were some doubtful characters among the diggers, but they were as a general rule a fine stamp of men, slow to form friendship, but this once made, was loyally given and maintained when fortune smiled, and not withheld when she frowned, on one or other. The digger of the past was not often known to desert or turn down the man or woman to whom he once gave his friendship. Some were highly connected in other countries, some had been "'Varsity men." I once assisted to bury the remains of one whose real name could never be learnt. From the clothes found in his camp, it could be seen that they originally had been marked, but the name had been cut out from each article. I found two volumes from which the names had also been cut out; these were "Sheridan's Works" and "Cicero's Works" in Latin. Many passages in the books were well marked with marginal notes in pencil, and both showed signs of being well studied. Carriage was invariably paid in gold at the standard of £3/15/- per ounce. On sending the gold to the Sydney mint through the banks it realised £4/7/6 per ounce, which, at the time, was considered to be a record price. The bank and shipping charges, and insurance, etc., amounted to 7/6 per ounce, so that we had a clear profit of 5/- per ounce on the gold by sending the gold to Sydney instead of paying it into the banks. At Palmerville I met, for the first time, Dr. Jack Hamilton, afterwards M.L.A. and whip for the National Party in the Parliament of 1888. Among the Palmer diggers Hamilton was extremely popular because of his prowess as an athlete, and his medical ability, which was given gratuitously to all. He was said to have been concerned in some of the many South American revolutions, but although we were friendly from this time until his death, he never alluded to such an occurrence. I realised, however, that he was very reticent as to his early life, and the gossip may have had some foundation. I delivered my load just as the wet season set in, so made my camp six miles down the river from Palmerville. My black boy caught a cold, which, in spite of the medicines I gave him, developed into pneumonia. He was very weak, and as he refused to accept food from anyone but myself, I was a prisoner in camp. One evening he called me over, and made a confession of what he said were lies he had told me at different times. Once when I had sent him to muster some of my horses on the Annan River, near Cooktown, he had returned saying he could not find them. He now told me that when he had reached the river, he saw a lot of Myall black fellows, which so frightened him that he gave up looking for the horses, and camped until sun-down, thus leading me to think he had been looking for them all day. Several other little instances that I had quite forgotten, he told me were lies. In the morning he was dead. I buried him, and put a wooden cross over the grave. He was a splendid little fellow, and I missed him greatly. On returning to Cooktown in 1874, I offered to make an agreement with a Chinese storekeeper to carry for him for twelve months at the rate of £50 per ton. After consulting Joss, he agreed, and I thus had constant employment at a lucrative price. The Chinese storekeepers had sent to China to import a number of coolies to pack their merchandise from Cooktown to the Palmer. The Government had just completed wharves and sheds at the landing, and rented these to Mr. F. W. J. Beardmore, stock and station agent there. This gentleman hearing that a steamer from the north was about to arrive conveying 400 Chinamen, came out to the four-mile, where a number of carriers were camped, to ask if we would assist him at the wharf, as he intended to levy a poll tax of one shilling per head on each Chinaman who landed, and to bring ropes with us. After a consultation, we decided to help him, as these coolies were competing with our trade. Before the ship arrived, we had stretched our ropes across the exit, and marshalled our forces to prevent any leaving the wharf without paying the tax. A stormy scene then ensued, as the coolies strongly objected to the imposition, ending by the swag of each man being confiscated and placed in the shed until payment was made. In carrying this out, we were ably assisted by the sailors and sympathetic civilians. Several of the Chinese attempted to escape, but were caught by their pig-tails and brought back. After a controversy between Mr. Beardmore and the Chinese storekeepers, the latter paid £20, the sum demanded for the release of the swags. The Chinese had no sympathisers to assist them in obtaining redress. The Chinese storekeepers generally packed their goods by their own countrymen, who carried them in baskets hung on bamboo sticks slung across their shoulders. The Chinese packers, through fear of the blacks, invariably travelled in numbers and in single file. Many a time they would draw down anathema of carriers by parading on the off-side of the bullocks, which were being yoked up, dangling their tins in an offensive manner to the animals, which often resulted in the drivers hunting them away with their bullock whips. As a further protection against the blacks, the Chinese kept up a loud conversation, which, if not understood, might be heard some time before they were met. On their return from the diggings these packers were believed to carry back gold in payment for goods. In a similar way it was thought that gold was largely transferred to China. The value of gold known to have been obtained from the Palmer, is estimated at about six millions sterling. If there was such a secret export by Chinese, the value would probably be very much more. Shortly after making my first trip from Cooktown, I met Dr. O. Quinn, the then Roman Catholic Bishop of Brisbane, who was visiting the Palmer, and who with much glee told me he had just come safely through the "Gates of Hell." This was a short cut from the original track from Cooktown, and was opened up by Inspector Douglas to avoid the many crossings of the Palmer during the wet seasons, but was abandoned owing to the hostility of the blacks. Many a digger and several packers were murdered on this route and their remains eaten by the blacks of this locality. It is a sort of long passage, or cut through the rocks, just about wide enough for a pack horse to pass through easily. Overhead large boulders here and there are lying across the passage. CHAPTER VII. Owing to depredations and murders committed by the blacks between Cooktown and the Palmer, it was found advisable for teams and packers to travel in numbers for mutual protection. On the trip to Palmerville, I travelled in company with nine other teams, and after crossing the Normanby River we camped on the bank. Our bullocks strayed some miles down the river, and on mustering them in the morning we found the trend of the river was towards the Deighton, one of its tributaries, and in the direction of where the old road crossed it. A party was formed, of which I was one, to ascertain if it was possible to reach the Deighton without going through the "Welcome Water-hole Sand." We found good, firm country which made it practicable. On returning, we rode our horses single file, thus making a good pad for the bullocks to follow. Our first night out we camped between two lagoons. A mate and I went out to get some ducks or geese, which swarmed on the lagoons. We had previously noticed that the blacks' tracks had formed beaten pads, like sheeps' tracks, round the lagoons. We crossed a soakage running through sand; there were dense patches of scrub near the lagoons, and I had an impression that it was not safe to go farther on foot, and said I would go back. My mate at first demurred, but eventually yielded. When we came back to the wet sand we saw blacks' tracks over our boot prints. It was evident we had been followed, and had we not returned would most certainly have been speared in some convenient place. That night dogs were barking incessantly. My waggon being on the outside, I let the tarpaulin down and slept on the ground instead of on the bunk, rigged up between the spokes of the hind wheels--there was less likelihood of a spear catching me there. After crossing the Deighton we met some empty teams coming down, and told them of the new road we had opened up. The carriers said they would go that way. We cautioned them to be careful of the blacks, as there were numbers of them in the vicinity. Some time after the carriers told us they found that the blacks had covered the road with bushes, sticks and small trees to screen their hunting grounds. They also said they had met a German, his wife and little girl, at the turn-off on the Normanby, and advised them not to go on the new track as the blacks were bad, and they had no firearms. However, the German, whose name was Johan Strau, persisted, saying he was not afraid of blacks, as he had been used to them. On arriving on the Palmer, we met two carriers who were riding down with their gold. We told them also of the new road we had opened up, and they decided to ride that way. We also advised them to be careful as the blacks were numerous near the lagoons, which they would pass. They said they had a revolver, but only three cartridges, which they deemed sufficient for protection, as they were riding. Later these carriers had reported to the police, that on reaching the open space around the lagoons I have mentioned, they saw a large number of natives, and thinking mischief had been done, they discharged the revolver amongst the blacks, who decamped. When the carriers reached the abandoned spot they found Strau's body beneath the dray. The dead body of his wife was a little distance away. A spear had been driven through her mouth, and had pinned her to the ground. Both bodies were warm. Three horses were lying dead, but there was no sign of the little girl. The carriers immediately galloped on to the fifteen-mile bend of the Normanby River, where a number of teams and packers were camped. In the morning a well-armed search party was formed. On arrival at the scene of the murders, scouts were posted to give notice if the blacks were returning. A grave was dug, and the bodies lowered into it. While this was being carried out noises were heard in the scrub. The party proceeded in the direction of the sound and found the little girl, a large gash across the forehead, her stomach ripped up by the blacks' wooden knives, and her eyes picked out by crows. The body was brought in, and buried with the father and mother. Flour, sugar, tea, gunpowder, etc., etc., were heaped up on the ground, but there was no sign of the dray. Inspector Douglas, in charge of the native police, was informed. His detachment followed the murderers across the Normanby River, where they overtook and dispersed them. Portions of the dray, stripped of all the iron work, were also found. The police learnt, through the troopers from some blacks who were captured, that Strau's party was camped for dinner when the blacks attacked them. The man was speared while reading a book beneath the dray, and the woman was sewing, sitting against the wheel of the dray. Before being killed outright, the woman was subjected to horrible outrage by the blacks. It was intended to keep the little girl, but two old gins quarrelled over her possession, and it was decided to kill the child, and so avoid dissension among the tribe. From these murders the lagoons were known as the "Murdering Lagoons." On my way back to Cooktown I camped near the grave. That night I laid down in the centre of the bullocks when they camped after feeding, holding my loaded rifle and horse by the bridle. Bullocks are very sensitive to the smell of wild blacks, and will almost certainly stampede should any be about. Camping among the bullocks is considered the safest place one can find. Some time later, while at this camp, I was mustering my bullocks on the plain between the scrubs, when they stampeded. I looked, I could see nothing, but I knew that blacks must be the cause. On returning to the waggons, I was informed that three troopers, who had run away from Cape York, had been to the camp. They had no clothes, but rusty rifles, and had fought their way through the wild tribes of the Peninsula. My bullock bells were the first sign of civilisation they had met for three months. Mr. William Hann had just arrived at Palmerville with a mob of fat bullocks from his Maryvale Station. I purchased 13 steers from him at £16 per head. The cattle were very quiet after their long droving, and as I was returning to Cooktown with my empty waggon, I was enabled to break them in. At that place I bought another waggon, and with spare bullocks from my first team, I was able to put two full teams on the road. Sub-Inspector O'Connor's camp was at the Laura River. On one occasion, when dispersing some blacks, the troopers, who were all Fraser Island natives, saw the shiny, black skin of an aboriginal hiding in the bush some distance away. They fired, and a little fellow about six years of age got up and ran towards them. The troopers picked him up, and he became a favourite with them. They delighted in instructing him in drill and discipline, and he proved an apt pupil. O'Connor and myself became great friends, and many a happy hour I've spent at his barracks when passing to and fro to the Palmer. Knowing I had no black boy, he gave me the little fellow he had so well drilled. I bought a pony for him to ride, and it was laughable to see him, if we happened to meet the troopers on the road, straighten himself up and salute the officer. O'Connor told me an amusing incident which occurred at Government House in Sydney, when his cousin, Sir Hercules Robinson, was Governor. Invitations had been issued for a reception, at which Captain St. John, the aide-de-camp, called out the names of the guests as they arrived. Presently, he called out "Mr. Smith!" In response, one of those present walked towards the Governor, saying, "I don't think your two-year-old filly will win the Stakes this year," and went on talking racing matters. The captain relieved the situation by informing him that there were refreshments in the other room. When all the guests were assembled, Sir Henry Parkes, the then Premier, asked Captain St. John, how that man, pointing to Mr. Smith, came to be there, and said, "Do you know that he is one of the greatest scamps in Sydney," and added, "For God's sake get him out of here, or there'll be a scene." Captain St. John said he only knew that his name was Smith, but acting on Sir Henry's advice, he approached him, stating that he had by mistake received the invitation intended for another Mr. Smith. The man retaliated by saying in a loud voice, "Oh, ah, very well; I've had two whiskeys and a soda, which comes to eighteen-pence. Here is half-a-crown; you may keep the change yourself." In 1875, I loaded my two teams for a new diggings which had broken out about 40 miles S.W. of Cooktown. The township had been called Byerstown, after Johnny Byers, who had established a business there. Mr. Byers, many years after was appointed Government Land Agent at Hughenden, and subsequently Land Commissioner there. He is now stock and station agent, doing good business in that town. Finding carrying paid well, I purchased another waggon, and by breaking in more steers, established my third team. These I now loaded for Edwardstown. This was the popular name for the main township, about 40 miles up the Palmer River from Palmerville. It was officially known as Maytown, but the diggers would not recognise the latter name. To reach this place we had some very rough country to negotiate by a new road opened from the Laura, over what was called the Conglomerate. Although not as good as the road _via_ Palmerville, it was much shorter. On returning to Cooktown I loaded my three teams for Blacksoil, where there was a store kept by Sam Burns, who, I understand, is still in that locality. The wet season set in much earlier this year, and caught us in the flooded country beyond the Normanby River, but by double banking the teams, and working in the rain, we reached an anthill flat which was so boggy that it was impossible to cross unless we made a sound road. We had passed two teams camped, but as I was within 15 miles of my destination, I determined to push on. My drivers and I cut down saplings, and made a corduroy, across which we sledged the twelve tons of loading. This was rather risky, as we had a quantity of dynamite on, the explosive caps of which were inserted in 50lb. bags of flour. During our work, which took three days to complete, the other teamsters would frequently ride past and say, "That's right, boys, make a good road for us," but did not offer to help. This riled me and my men. Sub-Inspector O'Connor, knowing we were close, rode over with his troopers to give us a hand. When we had got the last of the waggons through, and put the loads on again, it was quite dark. After supper I said it would serve the other fellows right if we took up the saplings and burnt them. The idea caught on with the men, and by the aid of the troopers, we took up every stick and, with some trouble, made a huge bonfire of them. As they were saturated with water it was difficult setting them alight, and the rain continued the whole time. However, by about midnight we completed our job, tired out, wet through, and no dry blankets to sleep in. Next morning, we were yoking to move on when the owner of the other teams came up and threatened us with revenge for burning the timber. When he saw O'Connor and his troopers he calmed down, and returned to his teams, regretting he had not assisted us. He now had to do as we had done, but with all the saplings which had been in close proximity cut down. The next day we reached our destination, and formed a good camp at the Blacksoil to enjoy our Christmas dinner and a well-earned rest. I now began to feel a tinge of rheumatism in my arms through wearing wet clothing continuously. About the new year one of my saddle horses came into the camp with a portion of a spear stuck in his rump. We threw him and cut out the barbed head of the spear, but the wound afterwards remained a running sore. I caught the camp horse, which we always kept hobbled, and started in search of the others. In following the tracks, I found where the blacks had rounded them up--killing two, one my favourite hack--and had taken away the meat for consumption. After mustering the others, I reported the matter to O'Connor, who had just received the information of the murder of two packers, and was preparing for a long patrol. Six troopers, O'Connor and myself, started--all being fully armed. I took them to where the blacks had killed two horses; the boys then followed the track by instinct, as I thought. The rain had washed out all signs to me. When crossing a high ridge, so bare and hard that our horses left no tracks, two of the trackers were riding ahead, the others driving the pack horses behind. I said to O'Connor, "I don't believe they are on the tracks." "Well," he said, "I can't see any, I will call them back." He called out "Sambo!" which was the name of the Corporal, "Where track?" Sambo pointed to a blade of spinifex. I asked "Where?" He answered, "There." So I got off my horse, and there was a tiny speck of blood which had dropped on the root, and had not been washed off by the rain. It turned out the Myalls had been carrying the flesh of my horses, and the blood had dropped here and there. We came to where the blacks had had a great feast on the bank of the Kennedy River. At this spot it was rather wide, with a sandy bed, the water running over it about two feet deep. I found the shoes, tail, and mane of my favourite horse on the bank. We held a consultation, and it was decided to send two of the boys with the pack horses back some distance from the river, and then to travel parallel with it, as the country close to this river was very broken. The rest of the party were to follow the river down towards Princess Charlotte's Bay. We had a boy out on each side to see if the Myalls had left the river bed. They knew we could not track them in the water. We followed the river down for two days, and I shall not forget the torture of walking bare-footed on coarse sand with water running over it. I tried walking in the water with my boots on, but the sand came into my boots and made my feet quite sore. O'Connor was in the same plight as myself. On the afternoon of the third day, the boys saw smoke rising about a mile ahead. We immediately left the river and put up our tents for a camp, short hobbling the horses with no bells on, but could not boil the billy, as smoke from the fire would be seen. The moon rose about midnight, and as the rain had ceased, we decided to start about 2 a.m., leaving our horses and belongings in camp. It was a rather weird procession as we made our way along the river. Five naked black troopers in single file in the lead, their only dress a cartridge belt round the waist and cap on head. They were most particular in wearing it when going into action, otherwise there would be difficulty in recognising them or each other. O'Connor, myself and the corporal brought up the rear. After travelling some distance through grass, which in places was over our heads, we heard a peculiar chuckle on an island in the bed of the river. It was decided to send the five boys round to the other side, whilst we, O'Connor, Sambo, and myself remained, and waited. Towards daylight we heard shots apparently about a mile down the river, and ran in their direction. We had not gone far when a big black fellow sprang up from the river, disappearing in the long grass before I could bring my rifle to the shoulder. I then heard a shot behind me. We afterwards found the Myall dead, and eventually reached the place where the blacks had camped. The boys had previously dispersed most of them. If at any time I felt a compunction in using my rifle I lost it when I thought of the murders of Strau, his wife and daughter, and the outrages committed upon them, and again of the murder, and eating, of two packers a short time before. We burnt all the blacks' weapons and several dilly bags containing the dead bodies of infants which they carried about with them. The stench of burning human flesh was sickening. I went with one of the troopers down the river, where the soil at the roots of a large gum tree had been hollowed out by the water. Underneath it resembled a huge cave. Without saying anything to me, the trooper fired two shots into the cave. I then asked, "What are you firing at?" He replied, "Two fella sit down there." After which he hauled out the dead bodies of two blackfellows. On our way back we met the troopers from the Palmer, who were also out for the same tribe. The Palmer police went on down the river, and we returned to the Laura Camp quite tired out. The troopers told us the reason they did not stop at the island on their way down was because it contained only a mob of old gins, who had knocked up the previous evening, and could not make the camp. When preparing to return to Cooktown, O'Connor prevailed upon me to wait at the police camp while he and the troopers patrolled the road past Murdering Lagoon. On his return, he told me the blacks had been there during the wet season, and had dug up Johan Strau's grave, and carried off the bodies. When I arrived at the place with the teams, I saw the stains made by the chest of tea the blacks had pillaged off the dray on the day of the murder. Sub-Inspector O'Connor was a cultured Irish gentleman. Being possessed of a private income, he would provide money prizes for shooting amongst his troopers, and despite being only possessed of the old Snider rifle, they quickly developed into good shots. Probably this and their known capabilities in tracking induced the Victorian authorities to requisition their services to track the noted Kelly Gang bushrangers in 1878. Mr. O'Connor and his boys, with Constable King, from Maryborough, were at Glenrowan when Ned Kelly was taken prisoner, and the remainder of the gang burnt in the public house. [Illustration: NORTH GREGORY HOTEL. ROBT. FITZMAURICE, LICENSEE. 1879.] On reaching Cooktown I again loaded my three teams for Maytown, returning to Palmerville empty, where I sold one of my teams. On the trip my rheumatism became so bad that I determined to take a trip to Sydney, leaving my teams to camp during the wet season now commencing, in charge of one driver and the black boy. I left Cooktown in the E. and A. Company's s.s. "Singapore" in December, 1875. On board I made the acquaintance of Captain Pennefather, lately Comptroller of Prisons, who, at that time, had a fleet of boats at Thursday Island, engaged in pearl fishing. On arrival at Townsville, John Dean (late M.L.C.), came aboard, and we renewed an acquaintance formed some years before when he was butchering at Townsville, and where I had purchased steers from him. It was my first trip on the coast, and with fine weather, I was delighted with the beautiful scenery. Owing to the early rains the numerous islands were clad in their richest verdure, especially did the Whitsunday Passage appeal to me. Most of the islands in the passage were inhabited by aboriginals, who made a practice of coming out in their canoes to the steamers, picking up food, etc., thrown to them from the ship. One of our crew threw out a loaf of bread, which was attached to a piece of rope. A blackfellow and his gin in a canoe close by the ship caught the loaf, but the moving of our boat tightened the line, which pulled him out, his canoe being capsized, and he and his gin were struggling in the water. However, as they were good swimmers, they soon righted their canoe with the loss only of the loaf of bread. During the trip lunch was spread daily under the awning on the top deck. This was much more pleasant than down in the stuffy cabin. After leaving Moreton Bay the sea became rough. A water spout formed not far from the ship, and it appeared large enough to swamp us had we been under it. The wind made it hard to light matches for a smoke, so Captain Pennefather introduced his flint and steel, and lit a stick composed of dry buffalo manure; this we found very useful with which to light our pipes. CHAPTER VIII. We arrived at Sydney on a Friday night early in January, 1876. John Dean required a rig out, and being a man of 21 stone weight could not buy a ready-made shirt, so had to be measured. We stayed at the Occidental Hotel, in Wynyard Square, and hearing that "Our Boys" was being played at the Theatre Royal, took seats in the orchestra stalls, which consisted of wooden spring seats. We arrived when all was quiet and the play in progress. As John sat down every screw came out of the seat, and he plumped on the floor to the amusement of the audience. The fun was greater when he was seen slowly, but successfully, to lower himself into another seat. After the performance, thinking we had sufficient bump of locality to find our hotel without inquiry, we walked, and continued walking until we found ourselves down at the wharves, which, we had been told, was an undesirable quarter at any time, but especially late at night. From a passer-by, we learnt that the hotel was a long distance off. After receiving instructions, we reached our lodging just as the bar was being closed at midnight. Dean suggested a drink, which we ordered at a side window, and asked the barmaid to bring the liquor into an adjoining room. A man calling himself Count Bismarck, and who was greatly excited about something, was in the bar. He said to Dean, "Aren't you going to shout for me." Dean replied, "No," at which the Count remarked, "Oh, never mind, I have plenty of money." Dean replied, "You must be a mean blooming beggar, then, to ask me to shout." Dean and I sat at a small table discussing the play, when a revolver shot rang out and something seemed to strike us. We immediately rushed for a green baize door, but saw no one. On returning to the room, the barmaid, who was quite pale, asked "Are you dead?" I answered, "No." At the moment I did not realise the absurdity of the question, or that the answer was unnecessary. We failed to find the German, who had disappeared. Mr. Yeo, the landlord, ran in to inquire what the trouble was. When we returned to the room I found a bullet under the chair I was sitting on. It had struck the ceiling, and brought down the plaster. Later, in Melbourne, John Dean heard that Count Bismarck had been sentenced to two years' imprisonment for shooting a man. After a very pleasant time in Sydney, I found the rheumatism had left me, so I deemed it desirable to return north, and to work. On my arrival in Townsville I found the wet season was not yet over. Many friends prevailed upon me to stay back in Townsville, where I put in a most enjoyable fortnight with some of my old pals. At the end of the fortnight, the s.s. "Banshee," a boat of about 100 tons, was advertised to sail for Cooktown, _via_ the Hinchinbrook Channel. I booked my passage by her, and was informed she would sail at 5 a.m. on a certain day. I was staying at the Criterion Hotel, on the beach, where the evening previous to my intended departure, I was given a send-off, which lasted into well-advanced morning. Owing to this I missed the boat. A few hours afterwards it was blowing a cyclone. Spray came over the hotel. It was thought the "Banshee" could not live through the blow, and we were not surprised when we learnt very quickly that she was wrecked about 3 p.m. the same afternoon. It was ascertained later that, finding her engines were not powerful enough to make headway against the wind, the captain tried to weather a rocky point on Hinchinbrook Island, so that he might beach her in a sandy bay beyond. She failed to get around the point, and lifted by a wave over the rocks, became fixed in a cleft, where she soon bumped a hole in her hull. Such of her crew and passengers who were not lucky enough to be thrown far inland were drowned, or crushed to death. One passenger, named Burstall, crawled out on a boom, from which the waves swept him high on to the rocks. A following wave put him out of danger, but left him considerably bruised. Out of thirty-seven on board, sixteen were saved, one a stowaway, who, it was said, walked out of the hole made in the ship's hull by the rocks. A few days afterwards I returned to Cooktown by the s.s. "Singapore," and saw what was left of the "Banshee" in the distance. In February, 1877, the "Singapore" ran ashore on L. Island, off Port Mackay, and became a total wreck. I had left my riding horses in Cooktown, and a day or so after my arrival, I went on to Palmerville to send my teams down to the Port. Having done this, and started them two days ahead, Mrs. Jackson, whom I have mentioned as having met some years previously in the Peak Downs district, asked me to take 200 ounces of gold down to the bank. I agreed to do so, carrying it in my valise on the saddle. I was very glad when I reached the waggons to get rid of the gold, as it proved a very dead weight on my legs. During this wet season (1876), the Government had sent a boat to the Laura River to carry travellers across. These were very few. The boatman was very much alone, and I found that the blacks had taken the opportunity of eating him. While driving the leading team up the bank, I saw numbers of blacks' tracks all around the boat. We drew up a short distance from the bank, and after unyoking, I made my customary visit to water, with towel and bucket, which latter was filled for the cook. The water in the river was running in a channel on the opposite side, and when I was close to it, I heard a chuckle such as the blacks make. Looking towards the crossing I saw a mob of blacks bathing, and one running towards the bank. Without a second look, I dropped the bucket, and sprinting across the sand and up the bank to the waggons, I called out, "Get the rifles ready! The blacks are at the crossing." After waiting some little time we saw Sub-Inspector Townsend and his black troopers riding towards us. He stayed for dinner, and from mutual explanations I learnt it was his troopers' tracks I had seen. They were returning from an inspection down the river, and had camped at the crossing over night. They decided to have a bogey before dinner, and the boy I saw running, went to get his uniform cap to denote a trooper. Had I taken a second look, I should have seen Mr. Townsend with them. He laughingly described me racing, hidden with sand which my feet were scooping up, in my haste to get the firearms. Up to now, carrying had been so remunerative that one would have seen one-time station managers, ex-inspectors of police, old naval men, and all sorts and conditions of other men wielding the bullock-whip and making good earnings, but as competition became keener, carriage fell much lower and more difficult to obtain. The goldfield was falling off, and more in the hands of the Chinese. I had a very hard time to keep my three teams in employment during the year. In December, 1877, I again suffered severely from malaria, and having previously sold one of my teams, I decided to make another trip to Sydney, leaving the driver to bring down the two teams to the Laura, and camp there until my return. The wet season was setting in, consequently we could not procure any loading. I had an uneventful trip down to Sydney, and again met with John Dean at Mona House, in Wynyard Square. I returned to Queensland about the beginning of March, 1878, the malaria having left me. Passing through Townsville, I met Fitzmaurice, who told me that carrying had fallen away between Cooktown and the Palmer, and that he had left that district. He suggested that I should join with him in carrying to the western country, and added that he had been informed by a squatter that there was a good opening for a store at the Conn Waterhole, on the Diamantina River. This is about forty miles down the Western River, from where Winton now is. The suggestion appealed to me, and it was agreed that I should go on to Cooktown, start my two teams overland to Townsville, then return and drive one of his three teams on our western trip without loss of time. On my arrival in Cooktown, I went to the Laura, where the teams were still camped. Everything was in order, and my bullocks fat. I started them on their long trip overland to Townsville, where Fitzmaurice and I had purchased sixteen tons of assorted merchandise from Clifton and Aplin. Arriving in Townsville in a few days by steamer, we loaded up for the far and, to most Queenslanders, what was then unknown country. Both Fitzmaurice and myself were well known to the firm through our carrying for them from the Port to the several diggings. They generously gave us the goods without our paying any cash, and without giving even the scratch of a pen. When I returned to Townsville at the end of 1879 to purchase more supplies, I signed a promissory note for the cost of all the goods at four months. Practically, Messrs. Clifton and Aplin generously gave us the sixteen tons of goods on a credit which extended over twelve months, and which were only paid for when the note matured. It was my fortune to have now met in Townsville a man who was then bearing a high reputation in North Queensland, but who was soon to become famous farther afield. By some reason I cannot even now understand, the diggers very seldom put their confidence or trust in the wrong man, and in John Murtagh Macrossan, they found their idol. Mentally big, physically small, his eloquence, ability and courage brought him, on their behalf, into conflict with strong and powerful influences. I met him later in the Parliament of 1888. In this were many able men, but none, not even the great chiefs McIlwraith and Griffith, could overshadow Macrossan. In his private life, which was most exemplary, I found Macrossan--although it was said he was otherwise--to be most tolerant to all who might differ from him in social and religious matters. Like most of his countrymen, he was, however, in politics, a strong, bitter partisan. Once a question became political, if one did not agree with Macrossan, he made an enemy. Between him and McIlwraith a close, personal friendship existed for years, but towards the end of Macrossan's life they became estranged. This was due to the strong, independent stand Macrossan took on a political matter which gave McIlwraith offence. In a conversation I had with McIlwraith just prior to his leaving Queensland, as it turned out to be, for ever, he spoke most feelingly of Macrossan's memory and their earlier friendship. Although Macrossan had many chances of enriching himself, he died, in 1891, as he had lived, a man, poor in the world's goods, but rich in the esteem and respect of all, not excepting those who very widely, and strongly differed with him on political, national, or religious matters. Had he lived in latter years, I doubt if he would have become a popular leader of what is generally designated as "The People." He was not an opportunist, and he could not submit his independence of mind, character, or principles to any person or junta. His breach with Sir Thomas McIlwraith proved this. If an impartial biography of John Macrossan should ever be written, it will prove interesting and instructive reading. CHAPTER IX. We started the teams from Townsville about the end of July, 1878, and passed a gang engaged on construction of the railway line to Charters Towers at Double Barrel Creek, now known as Toonpan, 17 miles from Townsville. Our destination was Collingwood, more widely known as the Conn Waterhole, where the Government Surveyor had laid out a township situated about 40 miles west of Winton. Having heard that the business men of Charters Towers were offering a reward of £50 to any carrier who would open a more direct road to the western country, and that a road party had left to mark the line, we decided to try and win it. On our arrival at the Towers, we interviewed the merchants, who disclaimed any knowledge of a reward having been offered for opening the road. We decided to follow the road party, who had marked a line to junction with the old Flinders road. On the journey I found a tree on which I had cut my initials when travelling to the Gulf with sheep, some twelve years before. Owing to double banking the teams through the heavy sand bordering "Billy Webb's Lake," we had to camp without water that night. There was green picking on the water-less lake for the bullocks, but they had to be watched. The road party had left an empty cask where they had camped on the lake, and one of the bullocks, a poly, smelling water in the bottom of the cask, forced his head into it. On lifting his head, the cask came with it. The bullock, being unable to see, made for his mates with their bells on, and then a general stampede of the bullocks took place in all directions. Finally, a bell bullock made for the timber, the poly followed him, and running against a tree, smashed the cask. Thus ended an amusing incident, with no damage done except to the cask. The road party left the old road and made a ploughed furrow across the downs to Rockwood Creek, which we followed, and camped the night there. Fitzmaurice, whilst riding after the bullocks, met Mr. Bergin, the man in charge of the party, who told Fitzmaurice that he was instructed to mark a direct line to Collingwood, on the Western River, and that he intended going up Thornhill Creek, cross the divide between the Landsborough and Diamantina Rivers, and then run down Jessamine and Mill's Creeks to the Western River, and thence to Collingwood. We took the road up Rockwood Creek to its head, and crossed the same divide as the road party were going, only farther north, striking the head of Manuka Creek, which we ran down to its junction with Mill's Creek. This we followed to the present site of Winton, which we reached at the end of October. The new road opened by the road party had so many patches of heavy sand on it, and long stages for water, that it was never used by carriers, and some years later Ramsay Bros. obtained permission from the Government to close that portion of it running down Jessamine Creek, on the Oondooroo run. A few years later the Government made tanks on the road between Hughenden and Winton, after which all traffic from Townsville to Winton and the west generally, came that way. Mr. Tom Lynett, whom I had previously known on the Palmer, and who was backed by Burns, Philp and Co. to start a store, had left Townsville for the same destination as ourselves, if the locality was found to be suitable. He did not overtake his teams until they reached the Twelve-mile Hole, on the Elderslie road, where he stopped them while he rode on to Collingwood, the newly-surveyed township, to inspect. He concluded the country was subject to floods, so he turned his teams back, and decided to build on the spot on which we found him camped when we arrived with our teams. We also met a man named Bob Allen, who had been located in the neighbourhood for two years or more. Allen was an ex-sergeant of police, who left Aramac about 1875 to start a store and public house on what is known as the Pelican Hole, one mile west of the site of Winton. Very heavy rains fell in 1876, and we were told he was compelled by floods to remain two days on the wall-plate of his building. When the water allowed him, he shifted what was left of his hotel and store, and re-erected them on the present site of the Queensland National Bank, Winton. Allen, Lynett, Fitzmaurice and I discussed the removal of the building, and forming the town back on higher ground. We offered to do the work without cost, but Allen and Lynett decided to remain where they were. We had to accept the position, and agreed to build in line with the others. This formed the base upon which Mr. Surveyor Jopp laid out the township afterwards. After putting up a skeleton shed covered by tarpaulins, I obtained from Ayrshire Downs two loads of wool for our teams, returning to Townsville. In the meantime, Fitzmaurice had disposed of £600 worth of goods. I was occupied a whole day pasting the pieces of the torn and damaged cheques. I then started for the nearest bank, which was at Aramac, 250 miles away. A drought being on, I had many difficulties in getting through. There were only 5,000 sheep on Vindex, and these were camped on a water-hole which had been filled by a stray thunderstorm. The remainder of the sheep from the run were travelling for grass and water on the coast near Townsville. As a compliment, I was allowed to replenish my water-bag, and to obtain one drink for each of my two horses. My next camp was off the road on East Darr Station, where a mob of kanakas were cutting down scrub for fencing. When I reached Muttaburra, I found the hotel to be a grass hut. It proved to be a very rowdy place, so I decided to camp on the ridge outside the town without food, and have my breakfast when passing through in the morning. I carried £600 worth of cheques in my trousers pocket. This I thought was the safest place. I was very pleased when at last I reached Aramac, after bank hours, and handed the money to Mr. Fulton, the manager of the Queensland National Bank, and the next morning found only £30 of them dishonoured. Immediately on my return to Winton, I started for Townsville to load my two teams with timber and iron to build an hotel. I travelled with Fitzmaurice's teams to assist them over a dry stage to Rockwood. We camped close to Oondooroo Station and when bringing the bullocks in to be yoked in the morning, one of them jumped and tossed his head in the air, and I then saw a tiger snake disappear in a hole near by. The bullocks were yoked up, and after going a short distance the off-side poler of one of the teams dropped dead. On examination, we found two small punctures in the nose. It was the bullock I had seen jump and throw up its head. When we reached Manuka Station there was only one water-hole near the road. The owner of the station was preserving this for his stock. The distance to the next water was 20 miles, so it was absolutely necessary we should obtain a drink for the bullocks before we tackled the long stage. I interviewed Mr. Anderson, the owner, and having explained our position, asked to be allowed a drink for the bullocks. He flatly declined to allow this. After about an hour's pleading, he gave his consent subject to the proviso that the bullocks should be watered in batches of ten at a time, and so preserve the hole from being puddled. We watered the stock in the evening, and by travelling all night, managed to reach Rockwood without mishap. Here I was told I would get water for myself and horses 25 miles further on. The next water after that would be 55 miles to Hughenden, on the Flinders River. I left the teams to make a long road round Tower Hill, which was a good-watered route. When I reached the 25-mile, where I was told I would get water, I found the ground just glassy, the water having evaporated in the December sun. Knowing the distance I would have to go without water, I decided to hobble the horses out on dry grass, and dodged the sun round a tree until the afternoon, when I saddled up. In about ten miles I passed Cameron Downs Station, which was deserted. I reached the water about eight the following morning, very thankful to have come through the 80 miles safely. It had been a glorious moonlight, by which I could see the tracks of numerous snakes on the road. I felt that if my horses were bitten it would mean a perish for me. I remained at the water until about 5 p.m., when I rode into Hughenden township, which was formed on the spot where I had camped with the sheep some twelve years before. I put up at Magnay's hotel, and was glad to have a square meal for dinner. In the morning I resumed my journey, and having previously travelled the track frequently, went miles off it to obtain better feed for the horses to camp. I overtook my own teams between Dalrymple and Townsville, and drove one of them to the camp outside the latter town. After engaging another driver, the timber, iron, a billiard table and some stores were duly loaded and despatched. I remained to sign the four months' promissory notes for these and the goods previously referred to, and to give the teams time to negotiate the 30 miles to Thornton's Gap, as the crossing of the coast range was called at this place. At the foot of the Gap I joined them, and assisted in getting them to the top. I left the teams here and rode on to Winton. On my arrival, I found that Fitzmaurice had sold out of most of the supplies except the grog, which he was keeping for the hotel. He then started on horseback for Townsville to give delivery of the wool, and load up his three teams with stores, etc.; also more timber and iron to build the store. He would also bring his wife and child with him. At this time Winton was the rendezvous of some of the worst characters of the west; fights were frequent on the then unformed streets. The rowdies threatened to take the grog in the store, and as there were no police nearer than Aramac, I deemed it best to dispose of all the liquor to Allen, the local publican, who jumped at the chance to obtain a supply. A few residents formed themselves into a vigilance committee. The late Mr. J. A. Macartney passed through to visit his property, Bladensburg Station, and seeing how things were, wrote to the Home Secretary asking for police protection. My teams had now arrived with the building material, and carpenters were put on to erect the hotel. This was not finished until the end of 1879, when it was opened under the name of North Gregory Hotel. Great difficulty was experienced with the floors, there being no timber for them. We puddled the mud and got the black gins to tramp it down, adding a picaninny to their backs to increase their weight. About July of this year, Fitzmaurice returned from Townsville with three horses and a light dray on which he had brought his wife and little girl. Taking a plan of the hotel with me, I started for Aramac to interview Mr. Sword, the P.M. (afterwards member of the Land Court), to obtain a provisional license. This he refused to grant until the building was erected. When I returned Winton was entirely out of liquor, and Allen did a great business in selling bottles of painkiller as a substitute. It was laughable to see men take a bottle out of their pocket, saying, "Have a nip, mate, it's only five shillings a bottle?" About March, 1880, the Western River was in high flood, and ran miles wide. Sub-Inspector Kaye, of the native police, and Mr. John Haines, the manager of Elderslie Station, were in town, and wished to get to the station 40 miles down the river. We put our carpenter on to make a boat, which carried them and the troopers safely to their destination. Shortly afterwards Sub-Inspector Fred Murray came out from Blackall, bringing with him Sergeant Feltham, who formed the police station in a small building which I rented to them. There was only a log to which offenders were chained. One day Feltham went down to the store, leaving a prisoner chained up. Shortly afterwards he was surprised when he saw his prisoner (who was a very powerful man) marching into the public house carrying the log on his shoulder, and call for drinks. It took three men to get him back to the lock-up. Fitzmaurice's teams arriving, we were enabled to complete the store building, stock it, and the hotel, and resume business, which had been suspended owing to running out of goods, etc. My teams had gone down empty, and were now on their way up with more loading. The original name for the town--now known as Winton--was Pelican Water-holes. Bob Allen, the first resident, whom I have mentioned, acted as post-master. The mail service was a fortnightly one, going west to Wokingham Creek, thence _via_ Sesbania to Hughenden. There was no date stamp supplied to the office, but by writing "Pelican Water-holes" and the date across the stamps, the post mark was made, and the stamps cancelled. This was found to be very slow and unsatisfactory. Allen was asked to propose a name, and he suggested that the P.O. should be called "Winton." This is the name of a suburb of Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, and Allen's native place. We had kept one of Fitzmaurice's teams to haul in firewood, and posts to fence a paddock on Vindex run, the lessees, Messrs. Scott and Gordon, having given us permission to do so. The manager of Elderslie also gave us permission to fence in a piece of ground at the Pelican Waterhole for a vegetable garden. The team obtained employment at Bladensburg, where Mr. Macartney was building a stockyard. As I felt clerical work to be hard on me, I would take an occasional trip with the bullocks to relieve the drudgery. During this year the member for Gregory, Mr. Thomas McWhannell, passed through Winton, and opportunity was taken to bring under his notice the necessity for a water supply for the town. The disabilities we suffered under were pointed out. We had to procure water from a hole in Mistake Creek, two and a-half miles away, the water of which was frequently polluted by numbers of dead cattle. By his efforts a sum was passed by Parliament for water conservation. [Illustration: WESTERN RIVER IN FLOOD. LOOKING SOUTH FROM RAILWAY STATION.] The Oondooroo bullock team had come in for supplies, but the driver started drinking, and was unable to take the team home. Not having forgotten my old avocation, I took his place, and thereby began a close friendship with the Schollick Brothers, who were completely out of rations when I arrived. During this year the town and district were invaded by a plague of rats, travelling from north-east to south-west in hundreds of thousands. The vermin would eat the buttons off one's coat when camping out. Cats and dogs were surfeited from killing them. I told the Chinaman cook of the hotel that I would give him a pound of tobacco if he caught a hundred rats. That night, as I was sleeping on a stretcher at the back of the store, I was several times awakened by what seemed to be a stamping of feet. In the morning I found that the Chinaman had obtained an ironbark wooden shutter, and rigged up a figure four trap with bait underneath, and by this means had obtained a wheelbarrow full of dead rats. These rats had bushy tails, and apparently lived on the roots of grass. These devastated the country through which they passed. It was unknown whence they came from or whither they went. The rats were followed by a plague of dead cats in the water-holes. The rats had gone and the cats having had plenty, did not follow, but died in the water-holes. Our team driver was James Gordon, one of two brothers who owned the selection which later became famous as Mount Morgan. We sold this team to Warenda Station, and James Gordon went with it. During this year (1879), Vindex Station was purchased from Scott and Gordon by Chirnside, Riley and Co., of Victoria, who, like other investors, spent money lavishly to develop the country. The manager was Mr. J. B. Riley. This gentleman died in 1889, but is still affectionately remembered throughout the district. To those who knew him, his death was felt as that of a staunch personal friend. By none was his death more regretted than by those who worked for him, either as permanent or casual employees, and by whom a monument to his memory has been erected on Vindex. Outside the property he controlled, J. B. had three personal hobbies, a good horse, the Winton Divisional Board, and the local Hospital. Of these three hobbies his principal one was the hospital and its sick occupants. On his death it was felt that the most appropriate monument to him would be a new ward for eye complaints to be added to the hospital. This was generously subscribed to by all classes, and the J. B. Riley ward of the institution served to remind us of one who, by his charity, goodness and generosity, was a good man, but whose shyness did not allow of this being known. His brother, Mr. F. W. Riley, and Mr. R. L. Chirnside, who were closely associated with him, carried on his good work, and became as deservedly popular. Throughout this year (1880) the town and district had made progress, and new people were coming in. We were now doing a good business in both store and hotel, consequently we had to depend on drivers for our teams without supervision. It was decided that I should follow the teams to Townsville to in some way dispose of them, and also to bring up a man to assist Fitzmaurice in the hotel. When I reached Dalrymple I learnt that one of Fitzmaurice's teams had been swept over the rocks while crossing the Burdekin River, and that eight of the bullocks were drowned. It appeared that the river, though not a-swim, was running strong at the crossing. The first team crossed safely, but on the other reaching the strong water, the driver of the team rode around to the off-side to keep the bullocks up the stream. His efforts were unavailing. With his horse he was carried into deep water, from which they were rescued in an exhausted condition. Not so with the team. The bullocks were all drowned, and the waggon wrecked on the rocks. Fortunately, being empty, only eight bullocks were yoked to the waggon, but they were the pick of the team. This accident strengthened our desire to dispose of the teams. I sold Fitzmaurice's remaining team at Townsville at a satisfactory figure, and my own two teams were sold on their arrival to one of the drivers on terms. The agreement was that we should provide him with loading from Townsville to Winton at the rate of £30 per ton, until he had paid the purchase money of it. This he did in a few trips. These teams could not carry the whole of the goods I had purchased, so I left an order with Clifton and Aplin to forward the remainder by carriers as soon as they could despatch them. I engaged a suitable man to assist Fitzmaurice, and we left with saddle and pack horses for Winton, taking the shorter road _via_ Charters Towers. This we left at Rockwood, to make a still shorter route across the Downs from Culloden Station, over which the road party had ploughed a furrow across to cut the head of Jessamine Creek, at the back of Oondooroo Station. In crossing the divide between the Landsborough and Diamantina waters, we rode over virgin country which was infested with bush rats, and numbers of tiger snakes gorged after eating them. In one place, which was 25 miles from water, the snakes were so numerous that we had a difficulty in getting our pack horses safely through them. Yet it is argued that snakes are never very far from water. In 1880, Cobb and Co. bought up a number of mail services throughout Western Queensland, and the general regularity and convenience of their coaches served to open up the country. Cobb and Co. carried out its contracts under great difficulty in times of flood, but more frequently of droughts, and their record is one of which the company and its servants might well be proud. Their coaches are now practically of the past, but the time was when Cobb and Co.'s name was a synonym for efficiency and, when humanly possible, for punctuality. There were many less enjoyable ways of realising life than by, say, to be leaving Barcaldine for Aramac in the dark of an early morning on the box seat of a coach behind a spanking team of greys, driven by a master hand with the whip and ribbons. And then if one stayed the night at a stage, where two or more drivers met, and exchanged experiences of the trip, their horses, but more than all of their passengers, what an interesting time might be passed. It was remarkable how observant of passengers the drivers would be, while the passenger all the time laboured under the impression that the driver's time was taken up with his horses. The idiosyncracies of passengers would be discussed by drivers, and it more than once happened I have heard of the peculiarities of certain passengers at places hundreds of miles from where they came under observation. Nearing Charleville, on a road I had not travelled before, I had a trip I had made from Normanton towards Croydon related to me by a driver whom I had never seen until then. I learnt he was told the story by the driver of the Blackall coach, who had heard it in Barcaldine from Tommy Thompson, who was told it in Winton by Tommy Cahill, who received it at Hughenden from Martin Warneminde. I was quite satisfied and did not inquire further. Judging by the way they fulfilled the requests at different mail stages, these men must have been gifted with wonderful memories. At one stage a driver might be asked to call at Smith's, the storekeeper, and "tell him to give you a couple of pounds of tea and some potatoes for me;" at another to get a pair of boots, size three, for the missus; at Jones', to get a bottle of eye lotion, and so on. These orders would be faithfully given on arrival, and the goods obtained before the driver would attend to his own comfort or pleasure. From personal knowledge of Cobb and Co.'s men, in fact to western mailmen generally, one might lift one's hat with respect as a tribute to honesty and faithfulness for work well done and duty honourably carried out. CHAPTER X. In 1880, our young township was becoming heard of, and was honoured with its first police magistrate in the person of Mr. Robert Johnstone. This gentleman had been a Native Police officer, and was associated with Dalrymple in his explorations on the coast north of Cardwell. Dalrymple so much appreciated Johnstone's work that he named the outlet of one of our great sugar districts--and a most beautiful stream--after him. I believe there is only one copy of Dalrymple's narrative of his expedition extant, and that is in our Parliamentary library. This narrative should be re-published as a school paper so that present-day Queenslanders might know something of the history of discovery within their own country. I doubt if many children, or even adults, know of the work done by Dalrymple, Hodgkinson, Landsboro, the Jardines, and many other Queensland explorers. At this time the Court House and lock-up were in the same building, opposite our store, in the main street. It was built originally for a boarding house. All the Winton streets were named after the stations which lay in the direction in which the streets were running. For instance, east and west--Elderslie, Vindex, Cork and Dagworth. Those facing the north were called Oondooroo, Manuka, Sesbania and Werna. Mr. Johnstone conducted the first Government land sale this year, at which Lynett and ourselves secured the allotments facing Elderslie Street on the north side, extending through to Vindex Street at the back, comprising an area of about three acres each. We had put a high figure on our improvements, and we purchased the land at the upset price of £6/10/- per half acre. Allen had only a half-acre facing the same street, and this was purchased by the Queensland National Bank. The bank immediately opened business in a Coffee room, which Allen had erected at the back, pulling down the public house to erect banking chambers in its place. Mr. Doherty was the first manager, succeeded by Mr. Alexander, and by Mr. Arthur Spencer a year or so later. In 1879, Julius von Berger, a refugee from Schleswig Holstein, to escape Prussian rule, commenced business as a chemist. He was clever in his profession, unassuming in character, and behind his retiring disposition was a fund of kindness and simplicity which endeared him to all. He died, much regretted, a few years back at a ripe old age. The Government had now let contracts for building a court house and police barracks in Vindex Street and post office in Elderslie Street. In 1881, a contract was also let by the Government to excavate a tank of 15,000 yards, to a man named Collins. He quickly commenced operations with his plant at Magpie Gully, about half-a-mile from the town. When he had made a hole of about 12 feet deep, a very heavy thunderstorm filled the excavation with water. Previously, he had to cart his water nearly three miles, and he was now desirous of utilising the water in the excavation for his camp and horses. With difficulty he obtained permission from the Government Inspector supervising the work to make another roadway on the opposite bank. When this was allowed, he was able to continue the work until he had got to a depth of 19ft. 6in., or 18in. more than the specified depth of 18ft. He then removed the earth from the opposite side to the required depth of 18ft. When completed, he put in a voucher to be paid for the extra 18 inches, which the Supervising Inspector refused to certify, unless the whole depth across was 18 feet in accordance with the specifications. The earth was taken from one side of the bottom of the tank and deposited on the other, to reduce the whole depth by 18 inches. "Great is Red Tape." There was a change of management on Elderslie by the appointment of Mr. Alexander Gordon. He was a splendid specimen of a man, 6ft. 7in. in height, built in proportion, and most popular. I first met him between Evesham and East Darr Stations. I inquired the distance to the latter station, which he was then managing. He replied, "Oh! a couple of canters and a smoke." It is told of him that when he was travelling on the coach between Charters Towers and Hughenden, he stayed one night at a stage which was a lignum hut, rather small in size. The driver informed the other passengers that when he called Gordon at 4 a.m., he found that he had stretched himself during the night, and that his feet were through the lignum, and so far outside that fowls were roosting on his legs. About this time many of the properties were changing hands. The Schollicks still retained Oondooroo; Elderslie was held by Sir Samuel Wilson; Dagworth, by Fairbairns, who shortly afterwards sold out to Macpherson and Co.; Bladensburg, by John Arthur Macartney; Sesbania, by Manifold, Bostock and Co.; Manuka, by Anderson and Nicol, who sold out to Baillie, Fraser and Donald; Ayrshire Downs and Cork, by McIlwraith and Smyth. The latter gentleman had camped with us when we were on the road to Winton in 1878. He was taking out a blacksmith named Morgan for Ayrshire Downs Station. Morgan afterwards started a blacksmith's shop in Winton. Mr. Smyth was afterwards elevated to the Upper House, and although of a retiring nature, was of a friendly disposition. All these investors were pouring money as if from a stream, and developing their properties. The greater proportion of the capital so spent was from Victoria, and to this State Western Queensland must be grateful for its development. Of all the then owners I have mentioned, and most of whom were resident on their properties, only one remains--John Bostock, of Sesbania. If those men did not win success they deserved it, and no one was more worthy (and there were many worthy men) than John Bostock. Schollick's spent over £100,000 on Oondooroo, and left it practically penniless. Macpherson drove from Dagworth with all his belongings on a buck-board, leaving unprofitable, and lost many thousands of pounds. Fraser, of Manuka, who came a little later, died of a broken heart. Western Queensland is greatly subject to mirages, and it is of the nature of these which deluded many men with bright hopes to spend great fortunes. These men battled on to the end, but being of fighting races, when they went down they were still fighting with never a word of despair or of defeat, and John Bostock alone remains. In this year Sir Thomas and Lady McIlwraith passed through Winton on their way to Ayrshire Downs. The whole of the inhabitants turned out to meet them at the police water-hole (six miles from Winton) after dark. An address was read to Sir Thomas by the aid of a lamp on the road. I had the pleasure of having them as guests in my cottage. This was my first meeting with McIlwraith, and I was greatly struck with his personality. He was a man, big and broad, both physically and mentally. Yet like most strong men, he was very head-strong and impatient of obstruction to or criticism of his proposals. Neither could he understand that it was not given to every man to see quickly and to act promptly, attributes he possessed in a remarkable degree. At this time he had his Trans-continental Railway in mind, and he patiently tried to get me to realise how closer settlement of the western country by smaller areas would obtain under it more than it would, under the conditions by which it was then held, that is, in very large areas. The then short experience of residents of the western country were conditions of drought, and I must admit that I thought his ideas were visionary. I have, however, lived to see the success of the grazing farm system and the great improvements effected by underground water supplies. In 1881, these were practically undreamt of. It is likely that McIlwraith could see farther into the future and dream dreams unthought of by others. The publication of McIlwraith's scheme without doubt gave the hint to Dutton, whose Land Act of 1884 was the inception of our present system of grazing farms. It was unfortunate that the most bitter opponents of McIlwraith's scheme were of the squatting class, who generally resented the cutting up of the vast areas held by them. Had the squatters of the day not defeated his proposals, the grazing-farm system would probably have come into existence some years earlier than it did, and long ago the Gulf country would have had an overland railway. That country would be maintaining a large and prosperous population instead of being, as it is now, almost deserted, and open to danger of occupation by coloured races, and a menace to the safety of Australia. McIlwraith was a far sighted statesman, having the interests of Queensland at heart, and not a politician ready and willing to secure votes. In this year, Fitzmaurice's sight became affected, and he made a trip to Sydney for expert advice. The whole business of the store and hotel was now thrown on my hands. It was found on Fitzmaurice's return, after an absence of six months, that he was almost blind. By mutual arrangement, it was decided I should buy him out, and he left Winton one of the best-liked men connected with its foundation, and as I found him, a good friend and an honest partner. The life of a hotel-keeper did not appeal to me, so I found a purchaser for the hotel at a satisfactory figure, in Mr. W. B. Steele, of Aramac, who took delivery in April, 1882. William Brown Steele was a strange character. I believe he had qualified as a chemist, but followed the different gold rushes from California to Victoria, New Zealand, and Peak Downs, thence to Aramac and Winton. His delight was to be accused of being an unscrupulous gambler--of the type described by Bret Harte. I know he was fairly successful at a game of cards, but this was due more to superior playing than to good luck or manipulation. Still, if one who thought he was Steele's equal, proposed a game, the latter would ask:--"Shall we play the game, or all we know?" If the former was agreed to, the game was strictly honest. If the latter was decided on, well, there was some wonderful playing on both sides. I never knew of Steele playing with one inexperienced, or of transgressing the rules of the game unless he was first challenged by his opponent. Then he did play all he knew, and that was something. For many years Steele ran a consultation on the Melbourne Cup which was well patronised, until the anti-gambling legislation, which drove Adams from Queensland, suppressed it, but did not stamp out gambling. I arranged a partnership with Mr. W. M. Campbell, traveller for Stewart and Hemmant, of Brisbane. He and his wife and family were settled in Fitzmaurice's house by the end of this year. The Bank of New South Wales had also opened a branch in a small building on the south side of Elderslie Street. Mr. Barnier was the first manager, succeeded afterwards by Mr. Alf. Thompson. Major Lewis, a veteran of the Indian Mutiny and Papal war, and a fine old Irish gentleman, arrived to succeed Mr. Johnstone as police magistrate. One of the first cases brought before him was a claim for the return of money, under the following circumstances:--I had received a letter from a man on Hamilton Downs Station, stating he was coming in with the station dray for a load of rations, and was anxious to get married. He asked me to look for an eligible female who was willing to yoke up with him, and enclosed his photograph. Treating the matter as a joke, I read the letter to the girls employed at the hotel. The laundress, a big strapping woman, said she was willing to negotiate with him. On the man's arrival I took him round and introduced him. After a couple of days' courtship a date was fixed for the marriage. As an earnest of his good faith, the man gave the woman a cheque for £26 to buy her wedding trousseau. When the day arrived she refused to carry out the promise of marriage. The man came to me for advice, stating that she would not have him, neither would she return any of the money advanced. I wrote Mr. Conran, the owner of Hamilton Downs Station, explaining the cause of the man's delay, and as the station was short of rations, Conran came in. He and I interviewed the woman, pointing out her dishonesty, but we were told to mind our own business. Mr. Conran then went to consult the P.M. The sergeant of police told Conran the P.M. was engaged, and asked could he do anything for him. Mr. Conran said he had come up about a girl appropriating a sum of money given as a condition of marriage. The sergeant said, "An' shure, an' won't she have yez now." Conran enjoyed the joke of being taken as the rejected lover. Major Lewis and the police eventually recovered a portion of the money, and the man returned sadder but much wiser, and I renounced for the future any desire to act as matrimonial agent. About October, 1882, we received a wire from Hughenden, advising that some teams which were carrying our loading had been caught in a flooded creek, and the goods damaged. I immediately started for Wongalee Creek, about 25 miles the other side of Hughenden, or 170 miles from Winton. I found on my arrival the ground in the vicinity covered with drapery, boots, ironmongery, besides nearly empty salt bags, etc., etc., put out to dry. It appeared these teams had crossed the creek and camped on the flat below the bank. A heavy thunderstorm had fallen up the creek during the night and brought the water down a banker, submerging the waggons, and destroying about £1,000 worth of goods. We had no redress against the carrier, the accident, or incident, being considered an act of Providence. The merchants assisted us by renewing our bills for four months longer. In the same year, we ordered a large consignment of goods from Townsville. It was a dry year, and the teams carrying them were stuck at Hughenden. In those days the Government had not made the water tanks on the road between Hughenden and Winton, and on the high, open downs country permanent natural water was not obtainable only at long distances. Hearing of the teams being stuck up, we immediately wired a duplicate order to Rockhampton. The latter goods were despatched by rail to Bogantungan (the then terminus of the central line), and loaded on teams. The drought conditions, although not so pronounced as in the Hughenden district, also existed in the Central. These teams were also blocked. In about six months after the first order was given, the whole 14 teams with the Rockhampton and Townsville goods arrived on the same day at Winton, and I was called upon to pay £2,000 cash down for carriage alone; while our summer goods arrived in the middle of winter. Fortunately we were able to meet our liabilities. In 1882, we had a visit--and the first--from a clergyman of any denomination. He asked me if there was a place in which he could hold service on Sunday. I told him that the only place was the billiard-room at the hotel. I prepared it for the ceremony by draping a blue blanket over the table, and I put a red one opposite over the cue rack, thinking it might help him to put a little fire into his discourse. When all was ready, I obtained the bullock bell from the kitchen. The Chinaman cook, who was a sporting character, said:--"Wha for, nother raffle, all ri, put me down one pund." He refused, however, to give the money when he learnt it was for a church. When the clergyman was leaving, we decided to present him with a purse of sovereigns in Campbell's house, and I was deputed to hand it to him. In making a short cut to the house I had to pass the hotel stables, into which a squatter in the orthodox breeches, boots and spurs, was riding. He called out:--"I say, Corfield, what are you wearing a coat for?" I replied, "There's a function on; I'm going to present these sovereigns to a parson." He asked, "Any champagne?" I replied, "Whips of it." He then said, "Hold on, till I put my horse in the yard, and I'll come with you." On reaching the house, I introduced him to the parson prior to the presentation, and we had some champagne. With a few words I presented the purse of sovereigns, when we naturally concluded we would be thanked, but instead the parson said, "Let us pray." We all then knelt to our chairs. Suddenly, as if from one in great pain, I heard the word "Ker-ist." Thinking the parson had been bitten by a snake or something, I looked round, but he appeared quite at ease. I then saw over in the corner the young squatter with blood oozing out of his pants. He had sat upon his long-necked spurs. The parson went on with the prayer, but those present were more occupied suppressing their laughter than in listening to the parson's prayers. CHAPTER XI. In 1883, Judge Miller, with the present Mr. Justice Real as Crown Prosecutor, opened the first District Court in Winton. Fred Riley and myself had been put on the "Commission of the Peace," and appeared before the Judge to be sworn in. We then decided that we should without delay show that we were magistrates, and prepared to carry out our duties. We found a good, hard-drinking man, and offered him ten shillings to spend in drink. He gladly accepted the offer, and shortly afterwards we were asked by the police to sit on a case of drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Our man had kept to his agreement, and was brought before us. We severely reprimanded him for his conduct and discharged him. Judge Miller hearing of it, frequently recalled the joke to my memory, and we had many a good laugh over it. Early in this year, Mr. Griffith (afterwards Sir Samuel) and Mr. Dickson (afterwards Sir James) made a tour of the north-west, and travelled by coach from Hughenden to Winton. The party was detained a night at Stack's public house, about midway between the two towns, whilst the mailman rode over to Sesbania with the mail. Mr. Griffith here made the acquaintance of Schofield, who was managing a store near Stack's for Charlie Rowe. Stack's house was not an inviting place, so the two Ministers spent the evening in Schofield's quarters. The latter was shortly afterwards appointed as Government agent on board the "Hopeful." The history of this vessel is well-known in the Law Courts of Queensland. Messrs. Griffith and Dickson were treated to a wine party in Winton. There was but little enthusiasm shown at the meeting, the majority of those present being strong McIlwraithians. Mr. Fraser, the managing partner of Messrs. Baillie, Fraser and Donald, of Manuka Station, had been in the army, and had served through the Indian Mutiny. He was highly respected by all, but was not popular excepting among those with whom he was intimate. They knew him to be very hospitable and kind, and a thorough gentleman. He came of a high Scottish family, and was proud that one of his ancestral relations had his head cut off for loyalty to his King. I remember being a silent listener to the relation of some happenings which at one time or other occurred in Ireland. The postmaster was a man who, rather young in years, appeared to have had some experiences. He was telling Fraser of the ill-feeling which was existent between two British regiments in a town somewhere in Ireland, while he was there. One was the 65th, an English, and the other the 89th, an Irish regiment. It seems that the latter had been formed from the North Cork militia, which, I understand, bore an unenviable reputation from their conduct during the rebellion in 1798. The townspeople had a long memory of this, and in the disturbance amongst the soldiers, supported the English regiment against their own countrymen. Fraser listened to it all, and then said, "By jove, wasn't it bitter; I was captain of a company of the 89th, and some of my men were badly knocked about." I thought it made the world very small to hear such incidents being related in the far west of Queensland. Now that we had two banks, four hotels, a chemist, saddler, besides other branches of industry, we felt that we were being drawn perilously within the influences of civilisation and its drawbacks. [Illustration: SIR THOMAS McILWRAITH] The manager of one of the banks, who was deservedly popular owing to his genial character, the kind way in which he could refuse one an overdraft, and then suggest quite friendly and cheerfully to the applicant: "What do you think; shall we put the gloves on?" This gentleman had a very peculiar hobby, to attend the sick and dying, and to bury the dead. Some incidents connected with his hobby, are as follows:--A tank sinker from Ayrshire Downs died in the hospital. That day a new warder and his wife, who came from beyond Boulia, were put on. The doctor's instructions were that any person dying of typhoid fever, as did the man in question, was to be taken out of the ward and buried as quickly as possible. Immediately the man died, the wardsman was taking the body straight into the morgue, after sending word to the blacksmith, who was also the undertaker, to come up, and remove the body straight away for burial. Some of the patients, seeing the body being carried out, verbally assisted the new wardsman with their suggestions. Thus, the dead man was to be washed, shaved, and have a clean shirt put on. It was late in the afternoon; the wardsman did not like handling the corpse, so the story goes, that he got a bucket of water and a mop, and mopped the body down. This he left on the table in the morgue, and forgot all about the clean shirt or the shaving. There was an understanding between the police sergeant and the bank manager that as there were no clergymen of any denomination in the town, the sergeant would read the services for the Roman Catholics, and the manager for all others. The undertaker-blacksmith would notify the reader required, and funerals were carried out at any hour, day or night. The tank sinker's funeral was timed to leave the hospital about 12.30 a.m. For some reason the bank manager attended this funeral. The body was then in the coffin, and a start made for the cemetery. There were some of the dead man's mates present, and the bank manager heard them complaining that it was a d----d shame to bury a man naked. When the funeral reached the graveside, the idea struck the manager that, as he was wearing a clean, white shirt, it would be the proper thing to open the coffin, put his shirt on the corpse, and this was done. The action gave great pleasure and satisfaction to the men present, who, as a mark of gratitude, on return to town, wished to knock up the public-house people and shout drinks for all hands. One night there was a funeral at which the manager was to read prayers. The undertaker in this case had a small cart, used as a hearse, drawn by a mule recently broken in, and not too quiet. As the funeral party was walking to the cemetery in the dark, some one struck a match. This was too much for the mule, which bolted across the plain at the back of the cemetery. He reached the edge of a small gully and propped. The weight behind, however, forced him over the bank. The coffin fell out, and the top coming off, the body rolled out on the ground. After extricating the mule, the body was put into the coffin again, and the top put on, the nails driven home with stones. As the mourners objected to the further use of the mule, the party carried the body to the cemetery much to the disgust of the undertaker. Going home from Winton one night after a spree, a boundary-rider from Ayrshire Downs got off his horse a few miles out, and fell asleep. He woke up some time in the night, fairly sober, and found his horse gone, so he started to walk, but having got off the road, perished midway between the 20-mile and the Cockatoo dam, well-known places on this road. The bank manager was assisting in the search for the lost man, and happened to be with the police when the body was found, which was buried on the spot. The dead man's wife lived in Toowoomba, and as the manager had been remitting money from her husband to her, he informed her of the latter's death. She acknowledged the letter, and expressed a wish that the body might be dug up and brought into Winton for decent burial. She asked how long the body would have to be buried before the flesh would be off the bones and the remains could be brought in. The doctor advised it would be fully six months. At the end of this time the widow arrived in Winton to carry out her desires. Early one Sunday morning the widow, accompanied by the bank manager and the undertaker, left town to exhume the remains. The party had a white table-cloth in a red gin case with the cover on to carry the bones. It was an extremely hot day as the party reached the grave, and hobbled the horses out. The manager related "that he and the undertaker soon had the bones upon the cloth in a nice little heap. The widow examined each bone as it was laid down, and she missed one of the knee-caps, so nothing would pacify her until it was found. This we did eventually by rubbing the soil between our hands and breaking the lumps. It was now near dark. We had arranged for the priest to be at the cemetery by sun-down, and that the grave would be ready. When we arrived about 10 o'clock at night the priest and the grave-digger had gone. I then suggested that we should take the bones in the box to Lynett's hotel, but the landlady wouldn't hear of the remains being left at the hotel. Eventually we left the box and the bones in the grave. The priest came out the next morning, and having read the service, the remains were buried decently, and the widow was happy." The manager of one of the stations had died at the North Gregory hotel. The body was immediately carried into the manager's private quarters, at the rear of the business part of the bank. The accountant was seen shortly afterwards protesting against the room, which happened to be his, being used as a morgue. He is to this day certain that from the spot where the hand of the corpse struck the wall as it was being put down, knocking may still be heard on the anniversary of the incident. This bank manager was possessed of great energy and perseverance, and a business capacity seldom met with. He was highly respected and extremely popular with everybody high and low throughout the western country, but he is now the head of one of our principal industries. I often wonder if he still has the inclination to bury people. Our firm had been supplying goods and spirits to a storekeeper at Boulia, whose P.N.'s for a considerable sum of money were not met. Early in 1884. I decided to go out to look into matters. I was accompanied by a Mr. Howard, who was on the look out for a hotel. On my arrival at Boulia I found that the storekeeper had erected a building as an hotel on a piece of land which he had made several promises to purchase. I found the owner, bought the land, and claimed the building erected upon it. This I considered as equal to the money owing to us. Thos. Lynett, of Winton, had started a branch store in Boulia, and had been supplying the same customer with goods on credit, having the building as security. When he heard that I had purchased the land and claimed the building, he wired to Brisbane to stop the sale. However, nothing came of it. I sold the property to Mr. Howard, and it was not long before he was able to wipe out his indebtedness. Mr. Eglinton, late P.M. in Brisbane, then held a similar appointment at Boulia. A race meeting, which included a hurdle race, was being held. In this race all the horses baulked at the jumps and delayed the running. It was then decided to let the races wait while the visitors had lunch, etc. The judge joined our party. It was a hot day, even for Boulia; refreshments were generous, and in demand. The judge, in common with the visitors, was a thirsty soul. When we next turned our attention to the course, a race was being run, so the judge decided to get into the box. A grey and brown horse had negotiated the hurdles and were coming up the straight neck and neck. When they passed the post the Judge decided that the piebald horse had won. During my stay at Boulia I camped, by the invitation of Mr. Coghlan, the manager at Goodwood Station, just across the Burke River from the township. Mr. Eglinton, P.M., and Mr. Shaw, manager of Diamantina Lakes Station, were also guests, and we were glad to retire to this retreat after the uproarious happenings incidental to western towns during race time. Before leaving, the P.M. asked Mr. Shaw and myself, who were both magistrates, if we would take a "didemus potastatum" to Monkira, about 100 miles down the river from Diamantina Lakes, and swear in Mr. Debney, the manager, as a Justice of the Peace. We consented; it was an excuse for seeing more of the country, and for a longer outing. After a few days spent at the Lakes, we started with my team and buggy, accompanied by Mr. Shaw's little daughter. We reached Davonport Downs, then managed by Mr. McGuigan. He told us there were several very heavy sand hills to negotiate, and offered the loan of a pair of staunch heavy buggy horses. He suggested leaving my horses to spell. I accepted the offer. Shaw and myself took it in turns to drive. At one of these sand hills the horses stuck Shaw up, and refused, in spite of his persuasions, to budge. After giving them a spell, Shaw suggested I should take the reins. I had prepared my whip with a new cracker, but failed to start the horses. I then addressed the horses in the language of bullock-drivers, and stood up in the buggy to more effectually use the whip. The horses started, and I kept them going. Just then a small voice was heard from the back seat of the trap, "Mr. Corfield, will you please remember there's a lady in the buggy." Shaw and I immediately retired into our boots, but the horses gave no further trouble. At that time I think Monkira was the farthest station down the river. Mr. Debney had come from Adelaide. He and Mrs. Debney gave us a splendid reception. The governess to the family afterwards became Mrs. R. K. Milson, of Springvale, and her eldest son lately was married to Miss Morgan-Reade, of Winton. On our return to Davonport Downs, we found Mr. McGuigan laid up with fever, so I took him into Winton. In November, 1884, Sir Thos. McIlwraith, who had been inspecting his stations, passed through Winton, but while at Ayrshire Downs he received news of his father's death, and refused all demonstrations. I drove him to Vindex. On the road out I told him I contemplated leaving for England the following year. He gave me many hints for my guidance; also a letter of introduction to his brother, William McIlwraith, in London. The western country was now suffering from a very severe and prolonged drought which brought ruin to many men, and heavy loss to those who pulled through. Taking advantage of the dry spell, I had a small tank excavated in my paddock. A heavy thunderstorm, averaging a little over two inches, fell over the town, and being anxious to learn if it had any water, I asked two friends to walk with me to the tank. We plodded about a mile in the heavy soil. I was satisfied with the result of my inspection; not so my companions, who lost their shoes in the boggy ground, and heaped anathemas on me and my dam. Altogether their language on the return journey was of a very lurid nature. This was the first rain for eleven months, and to celebrate it, Winton held carnival for three weeks, during which time no business of any sort was attempted. The time was devoted to sports and jollifications. About two miles east and west of the town ran wire fences, the road passing through gates. The peculiarity of this storm was that no rain fell beyond the fences. It was a strange sight to see green grass on one side of the wires and outside perfectly bare. I have somewhere in this narrative alluded to lignum, and it may not be out of place at this juncture to describe what it is. Lignum is a small shrub which grows in the dry-water courses. It is much used as walls of houses--timber and iron being very expensive--roofing sheds, and such like. It does not keep out the rain, but is sun proof. With the thermometer running well past the 100 deg. in the shade, a roasting hot wind such as obtains in the western country, there are many worse pleasures to be enjoyed in the west than a lignum shed and a canvas bag of cool rain water. Had old Omar known of the canvas water bag, he would prefer to sing its praises rather than those of a jug of wine. Blessings on the man who first thought of it. CHAPTER XII. In April, 1885, I left Winton by coach on my way to England. Mr. J. D. Wienholt, of Warenda Station, and Mr. J. B. Henderson, late Hydraulic Engineer, were fellow passengers. About 10 miles from Muttaburra we were met by a cavalcade of people on horse back and in buggies to meet Mr. Henderson. The coach having stopped, some bottles of champagne were opened, and Wienholt and I were invited to join in. Mr. Henderson accompanied the procession to town. Later in the day we were invited to the dinner to him, to celebrate the completion of the town dam and tank, which were still quite dry. Muttaburra had not had rain for nearly a year. Mr. Henderson left us here to be conveyed by private buggy to Aramac, where we again met. I travelled down the coast from Rockhampton by the old "Keilawarra," afterwards sunk in a collision. The Russian war scare was on, and passing Lytton we had to undergo a strict examination to prove that we were not spies. It can be imagined with what prayers a number of sunburnt, outback Queenslanders paraded to satisfy the defence authorities that they were peaceful and law-abiding citizens. I remained three days in Brisbane, the evenings of which I spent at the Exhibition, which was frequented by ladies and gentlemen indulging in the pleasure of roller-skating. I resumed my journey to Sydney, and left this city by train a few days later for Melbourne. This was my first visit to the latter city, and I enjoyed perambulating through its streets. I joined the s.s. "Sir John Elder" here, and sailed for England. Passing through the Red Sea, we met the New South Wales contingent returning from Suakim, where they had joined the Imperial troops, just too late to take any active part in the Soudan campaign. When we reached Lake Timsah, half-way through the Suez Canal, we were detained because of a dredge having sunk in the Canal and blocked the channel. A party from the ship, having its headquarters at Shepheard's Hotel, was formed to visit Cairo and the Pyramids. The dinner at 9 p.m. was held in a quadrangle of the hotel. The after-dinner scene was very charming. Chinese lanterns were hung in the trees, the ladies in evening dress, the officers of the Imperial Army in mess dress of different colours. Among those present were Lord Wolseley and General Macpherson. Coming down the Pyramid of Cheops, I had an Arab holding each hand, and a boy with a gourd of water behind. The boy had unwound his cummerbund to place under my arms by which to steady me in jumping down from one ledge to the other. Half-way down I suggested a halt, when one of the Arabs accosted me--"Which fella country you come from?" "America?" "No!" "England?" "No!" "Australia?" "Yes!" "Ah!" he said, "very good kangaroo, you!" We visited all the places of interest, including the battlefield of Tel-eh-kebir. We reached our ship, which was still blocked in the Lake. The French people in Ismailia sent their launches out to the ships, so we continued putting time in going ashore every day and riding on donkeys. These animals were generally called after beautiful women celebrities. Mine was called "Lillie Langtry." When we got clear, 40 steamers were blocked. Our ship led the procession through the Canal. There was only just room for us to pass where the accident had happened, and when we leached Suez 200 ships, including several men-of-war, were awaiting our arrival to pass south. We spent a day at Naples, and in time I arrived in Plymouth Sound in mid-summer, having left it 23 years before in mid-winter. As I had accepted an invitation to visit my cousin, Mr. S. P. Newbery, who resided at Plympton St. Mary, six miles out from Plymouth, so I left the ship. This relative was land steward to Lord Morley. He had been selected to judge the cattle at the Royal Agricultural Show at Preston, Lancashire, and I accompanied him. The warm, genial weather added to my enjoyment. We took up our quarters at Blackpool, as there was no accommodation to be had in Preston. The Prince of Wales (late King Edward the VII.) attended the show, and Mr. Newbery was appointed to show him round. I followed as if in the Prince's retinue, and enjoyed the novelty of the situation. Returning to Devonshire I spent a glorious time keeping my cousin's horse in condition, and occasionally following the hounds. Whilst there I made a trip to the Isle of Wight, and was present in Fotheringham Church when Princess Beatrice was married to Prince Henry of Battenburg. I need hardly say I was not present by invitation. During my stay at Plympton St. Mary, the 1886 elections were held, and my relative being in politics a conservative, took an active part in the return of Sir John Kennaway (who died a few years ago, father of the House of Commons). Mr. Newbery was chairman of many of his meetings at which I attended. A polling booth was at the school house at Plympton, and on the day of the poll, I was much amused to see gentlemen's carriages being driven to the poll with the coachmen and footmen in livery, and men in their working dress stepping out to vote. Presently a Devonshire farmer drove up in his donkey cart. I noticed the donkey was dressed in the Liberal colours. The farmer recorded his vote, and came out on the porch, when he was accosted by another farmer, thus:-- "Wull! Farmer Symes, you been an' voted?" "Yus," he replied. "Wull, but how's this, I allus thocht ye was a Conservative?" "So I be." "But look at yer dunkey ther' all dress'd up in the Liberal colours?" "Ah!" he said, "I'm a man, but that's an ass." On returning to London I delivered my letter of introduction to Mr. William McIlwraith, by whose kindness I met many leading business people, as well as Lord Randolph Churchill, who appeared to be built up of fine live wires. I left England in May, 1886, taking my passage through Cook and Son, _via_ America. From New York I made trips to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington. After a week or so I joined the overland train for Albany, visiting Niagara Falls, and other interesting places in that locality. Going on to Chicago, I spent a few days visiting the meat works. Wonderful energy had been shown in re-building the city after the destructive fire which happened a short time previously. From Denver I travelled by the narrow gauge "Denver and Rio Grande" line to Utah. Here I spent a week amongst the Mormans, who are a remarkably industrious and energetic, as well as peculiar people. One of the elders introduced me to a daughter by his tenth wife. I had frequent dips in the Salt Lake, in company with the Mormans, their wives and families. The water of the lake is so buoyant that one might throw up one's hands and remain upright. The body would sink only to the chest. The trains were crowded with men belonging to the grand army of the Republic who were going to San Francisco, where the 20th anniversary of peace, after the Civil War was to be held. The Americans were all very friendly to me. I was invited to join them, and as I was much sunburnt easily passed as one of the veterans. I took up my quarters at the Palace Hotel, which occupied about four acres of ground. I believe it was at that time the largest hotel in the world. I managed to get a room at four and a-half dollars a day. When I entered it I could see nothing but "Corfield." There were mirrors all round excepting where the furniture stood. In the quadrangle, just below my balcony, a band played continuously. 'Frisco was _en-fete_. Arches were erected in Market Street, and bunting was flying everywhere. I spent a week in the city, having for a companion a young doctor, for whom I had brought a parcel from his parents in England. He obtained a _locum tenens_, and gave up the time to pilot me round. We visited every point of interest, including the Chinese gambling dens, in and around 'Frisco, which has a very interesting history dating from the time of the Spanish missions. On the trip across the Pacific we had a nice complement of passengers. A day at Honolulu was spent enjoying the beauty spots. We tried to call on the "King," but as he was enjoying a carousal, he could not receive us. We called at Apia, in the Samoan Islands, and when crossing to New Zealand, we noticed that the sea was covered by what appeared to be pumice stone. On our arrival at Auckland we heard of the eruption of Mount Tarawera. Mr. Rutherford, a gentleman well-known throughout N.S.W. and West Queensland, the principal of Cobb and Co. in Australia, was a passenger with his daughter from 'Frisco. I accompanied them during the three days the boat remained in Auckland. Shortly after our arrival at the Star Hotel, Mr. Rutherford, who had picked up a "Queenslander," said to me, "Who is driving the coach from Muttaburra to Winton?" I said, "Macpherson." "Well," he said, "he won't drive it long when I get back." "Why?" I asked. "Well, here is a paragraph in this paper, which says he capsized the coach in Elderslie Street, opposite your office." We duly reached Sydney in August, 1886, and after spending a week there, I sailed for Rockhampton, and proceeded to Peak Downs Station, which my brother-in-law, Edmund Casey, was then managing for the Messrs. Fairbairn. I found he had broken in to harness for me two Arab ponies which would trot their 12 miles an hour. I trucked these and a buggy I had purchased in Sydney to Alpha, the then terminus of the Central railway line, where my other horses--brought from Winton--met me. Good rains had fallen in July, thus breaking up the long drought which had commenced three years before. I had plenty of grass and water all the way to Winton. I camped a night at Mount Cornish, and met Mr. and Mrs. Edkins for the first time for 20 years, having last met them on the Flinders River when they were on their honeymoon trip, as I have already related. They now had quite a large family, and made me very welcome. I arrived at Winton driving four grey horses, the two Arabs Mr. Casey broke in for me being splendid leaders. A few evenings after my arrival I was the guest at a smoke concert given by the Dramatic Club in Steele's hall in my honour. Mr. Dodd, postmaster, the president of the club, was in the chair. There was some fine speeches, and a splendid display of wit and repartee. On entering the room, my attention was attracted by the drop-scene on the stage representing the Catskill Mountains in America. The members had given a rendering of "Rip Van Winkle," previous to my leaving for England. The scene was a daub of colours with a hole cut in the sky, to which a piece of calico had been affixed at the back to represent either the sun or the moon, I forget which. On returning thanks to the toast of my health, I related many of my experiences since I left them in 1885, but apparently I made a hit when I described my sailing up the Hudson River from New York. Seeing a mountain in the distance, with numerous houses here and there, the afternoon sun shining and throwing different shades over mountain and river, I inquired from a fellow passenger if he could tell me the name of that beautiful mountain? He replied the "Catskill Mountains." I said, "Are you sure?" "Sure enough," he said. "Why?" "Well, because I have seen a painting of it in Steele's Hall at Winton, and it's not a bit like that." The laughter that followed easily made me feel at home with the company during the remainder of a very pleasant evening. Dr. Hawthorne made a great hit in his speech in explaining the anomaly of a bashful Irishman. I found many changes had taken place during my seventeen months' absence. The Schollicks' had left Oondooroo, which had become the property of Messrs. Ramsay Brothers and Hodgson, with Mr. M. F. Ramsay as manager. Winton also had grown quickly. The _Winton Herald_ newspaper, with Mr. Maxwell as proprietor, was issued as a weekly. Roller skating was the rage. I remember one afternoon when passing the Court House, I went over to see what was causing a noise there. Looking through the window I saw all the benches stacked on one side, and the police magistrate practising on skates. He had a pillow strapped at the back of his neck, and another on a lower portion of his body for buffers. He stumbled, and I saw the use for the pillows. The growth of grass in 1886 occasioned extensive bush fires in the end of this and the beginning of the following year. A very large fire occurred at Vindex. I called for volunteers to join in putting it out. The call was readily responded to, and I headed a large party composed of all classes of men to assist the station hands. By our combined efforts we succeeded in putting the fire out, but not until it had burnt many miles of country. In those days there was no ill-feeling between labour and capital, or employers and employee. All united to work for the common good. Subsequently the same generous help was extended to Elderslie and Ayrshire Downs Stations. In 1887, I can say the residents of Winton were as if all were of one family. They made their own pleasures, at which all classes were welcome, and invitations were unnecessary. This proved one of the happiest times of my life. The new owners of Oondooroo were developing their property regardless of cost. Amongst the many innovations introduced by them, but which now have become necessaries, was the system of private telephone lines over the run. In connection with this system was an ingenious idea, something like a compass card, by means of which bush fires were located, and which saved a great deal of unnecessary work and riding. With the exception of Norman, the youngest, who went "west" in France during the late war, I believe the Ramsays are still in the land of the living. It is a pity that Queensland is the loser by not having more men of the same high character as the Ramsay's, of Oondooroo. In November, 1887, John Bartholomew, who was travelling manager for Cobb and Co., asked me--as their Winton agent--to accompany him to Croydon, to which place he was bound in connection with some coach accident which had occurred in that district, and I accepted the invitation. We travelled by coach to Hughenden 150 miles, thence down the Flinders to Cloncurry, distant 265 miles, and on to Normanton, 240 miles. This latter portion was completed under great difficulties, the early wet season necessitating our working day and night to keep contract time. On our way we saw where a bullock-dray loaded with explosives had been blown up. How the explosion happened was never known, but after it occurred nothing remained of the bullocks; some of the iron work of the dray was picked up a mile away. Before we reached Normanton we were reduced to three horses, and the rains having been heavier, we were continually digging the coach out of bogs. At dark one evening I walked on to lessen the load, and on crossing a plain I saw a log on the side of the road on which I decided to have a rest. I sat on it in the dark, and feeling something move, I put my hand down on the cold, clammy tail of a snake. His lordship evidently had his head in a hole, or might have bitten me. The shock gave me increased energy, and I reached the groom's change at 10.30 p.m. The coach arrived an hour later. We were all thoroughly done up, and had a supper of stewed galahs. The stage-keeper was without flour. When we arrived at Normanton we were in a sad plight from our rough experiences. The next day Bartholomew and myself were the only passengers on the coach for Croydon. Unusually heavy rain had fallen during the night, and the road was bad. We reached Creen Creek, half-way to Croydon, that evening. Here we met the coach from that place on its way to Normanton. The driver of this coach gave a bad account of the road ahead. It was decided that Bartholomew and the driver should ride, and pack the mail on horses to Croydon. Mr. Bartholomew arranged with the other driver to take me back to Normanton. The coach was full, and I had to sit on the splash board with my legs hanging over the two mules which were in the pole. We had not gone far before we got into a bog. The three horses in the lead were floundering so much that we had to take them out, but the mules stood quietly up to their bellies in the soft ground. The passengers were all males and turned to. By levering the wheels on to the cushions, we got the coach on hard ground again. This happened so often that I decided to walk on. I came upon a bullock team loaded with timber, bogged. With it was Fred Shaw, who at one time was connected with Cobb and Co., and who was taking the timber to Croydon for building. I offered my help to get the waggon out of the bog by assisting the driver on the off-side with a whip. We succeeded after some time, but not without the use of some language. In soft ground bullocks will stand up to their middle chewing their cud whilst a clear passage is being cut through for the wheels, and if once got to pull together they will invariably get through. Mules are practically the same, hence Cobb and Co. using them. The moment a horse loses his footing he commences to plunge about, and so turns the ground into liquid in which he has no footing. The coach camped at a wayside place that night. I walked on in the morning; the coach overtook me eight miles from Normanton, into which I rode, and was glad to reach the hotel and comfort once more. During the week spent in Normanton waiting the return of Mr. Bartholomew, and also the arrival of a steamer, I made the acquaintance of Mr. Forsyth, who was the resident manager for Burns, Philp and Co., and later on sat in Parliament for many years. At Thursday Island there was no jetty, so our steamer anchored out in the channel. Here Mr. (now Sir Robert) Philp joined us from a tour of inspection of the company's branches. He had not long before been returned at a bye-election for Musgrave. When leaving, he and I boarded the steamer in a boat belonging to the company, with a black crew dressed in white shirts, which gave them quite a picturesque effect. On reaching Cairns, Mr. Philp included me in his party to go by rail to Redlynch, the then terminus of the line. The construction of the line up the range towards the Barron Falls was then going on, but we were unable to view the Falls. On our trip down, Mr. Philp mentioned that the McIlwraith party would require a representative for the Gregory in place of the late Mr. Thos. McWhannell. He hinted to me that probably my name as successor would be acceptable to Sir Thomas McIlwraith. I replied, "I know nothing of politics, and have no desire to take them on." I remained over Christmas in Townsville, and arrived in Winton to celebrate the new year of 1888. Election news was the absorbing topic. I asked Sir Thomas McIlwraith by telegram who was the party's accredited candidate, giving certain names which were spoken of. He replied, "Know nothing about the gentlemen mentioned; why don't you stand yourself?" Mr. J. B. Riley, of Vindex, happened to be in town. I showed him the wire, which he took, and went away. In the beginning of March, Mr. Riley, accompanied by others, presented me with a requisition to become the McIlwraith candidate. This was signed by nearly all the inhabitants of Winton and pastoralists of the district. When handing it to me, Riley said, "Now, I give you two hours to consult your partner, and give me your decision." After consultation with Mr. Campbell, my partner, I assented to the request, and called a meeting of the electors, which I addressed in the Court House in April, 1888. I then started in my buggy alone to hold meetings at the different stations. At Elderslie one was held at the woolshed, where I had a bale of wool as the platform. At Vindex, the meeting was held in the blacksmith's shop, I standing on the anvil block of wood, and so on. Finally, when the nomination day came round, I was the only candidate. So I was returned unopposed. During the Easter holidays in April, 1888, a cricket match, Country _v._ Town, was held at Vindex Station. At any rate, this was the name under which invitations were given by the Rileys, Chirnsides, Ramsays and Bostocks to the townspeople of Winton, as an expression of the goodwill and friendship which then existed among all classes throughout the district. Vindex was noted for its hospitality at all times, but it now excelled itself. A lot of school-boys could not have enjoyed themselves more than did the many grey heads among the company. Woe betide any one, host or guest, who shirked, or did not join in the fun. A visitor from town tried to do so by fixing a nice quiet camp far away from the hurly burly. His actions were observed by the postmaster, who put his bull dog in the visitor's bed, instructing the animal not to allow any one into it. When the visitor who shirked, tried to retire for the night the bull dog tackled him, tore his pyjamas off, and left him as a subject for much raillery. One visitor who had arrived from Rockhampton the previous day, was found wandering in the vicinity of the big dam, where he said he was enjoying the salt ozone. The country won the match easily, but I think they took advantage of the town. This will be understood from the fact that a dozen bottles of whisky, and a two-gallon jar of the same medicine were brought on the ground for refreshments. The town went into bat first, and by the time their innings was finished, so were the refreshments. CHAPTER XIII. When returning from the Court House with my £20 deposit after the nomination, I was way-laid by Sergeant Murray, of the police, who in oily sentences of congratulation suggested that I should give half of the money towards the erection of a Roman Catholic church, then about to be built. I succumbed to his flattery, although my own clergyman was daily expected, and my name was coupled with Father Plormel, the resident priest, on a piece of paper, and inserted in a hole in one of the blocks underneath the building. The church has been enlarged since, and I heard that the paper with our names, and those of the members of the committee, was found in a good state of preservation. This Sergeant Murray was a man of great dry humour and shrewdness. One day I was speaking to him, when one of two partners in a racehorse came up, and told us he and his partner had a dispute; the latter had the horse in his possession, in Lynett's stable, the door of which was secured with a padlock and trace chain. Murray asked him, "Why don't ye lock him up?" "Hang it all, the horse is locked up already; what is the good of my locking him up?" "Well, as your partner has the horse locked up you can't get him out, and if you lock the horse up, then your partner can't get him out." "Oh, I see," said the owner, and immediately bought the lock and chain. This advice was so novel to us that we all visited the stables and were amused to see two locks and trace chains to prevent the removal of the horse by either partner. It proved a common sense way of settling the dispute in a few hours, and the partners became better friends afterwards. On reaching Brisbane to attend the House, I interviewed Sir Thomas McIlwraith, who, after congratulating me on my return, said:--"I intend to put down an artesian bore at Winton." I asked if I might make use of this. He replied, "Well, it rests on me and my party being returned to office." I felt certain that this would follow, so I wired to Winton that I had been promised an artesian bore. The town was painted red on the news. At the opening of Parliament, Sir Samuel Griffith, seeing 45 members to his 27, resigned the Premiership, and Sir Thomas McIlwraith was sent for by Sir Anthony Musgrave. On the House meeting again within a few days, Mr. Albert Norton was unanimously elected speaker, and Sir Thomas McIlwraith asked for two months to construct his ministry. This was granted. I returned to Winton, and on arrival was accorded a typical western reception for obtaining the promise of an artesian bore for the town. At this stage it was only a promise, but the residents had such faith in McIlwraith that they accepted it as a fact. Parliament assembled in July with Sir Thomas McIlwraith as Premier. In the early part of the year a bush fire broke out on the road to Ayrshire Downs, and parties were organised to extinguish it. The police preceded us, and noticing fires springing up further on, decided to push ahead to ascertain the cause. They saw a man near the lighted grass with a box of matches in his hand, and arrested him on suspicion. When brought before the Police Magistrate, the man was charged under the English Act against arson. Through correspondence with the Attorney-General, it was learnt that the English Act applied to artificial, and not to natural, grasses. The offender was discharged with a caution, as the evidence was really only circumstantial. Shortly afterwards he was caught red-handed firing the grass on Warenda Station, on his way to Boulia. He was brought before the Boulia justices, who sentenced him to three months' imprisonment under the "Careless Use of Fire Act." This was the maximum penalty that could be inflicted. On completion of his term the grass-burner was liberated, and vowed he would burn the whole of the d----d squatters out. The pastoralists hearing of it, put men to watch him through their respective runs. I returned to Brisbane with the intention of defeating his designs. On interviewing McIlwraith, he advised me to see Mr. Thynne (who was then Solicitor-General), and explain matters to him, adding:--"Thynne will draft a clause for you in the 'Injuries to Property Act.' You can bring in the Bill for the Amendment yourself." I did so, and found I was saddled with an amendment of an Act of Parliament without any previous knowledge of procedure. However, through the kindness of Mr. Bernays (the clerk of Parliament), I was instructed in this, and successfully carried through the second reading of the amendment to the Act. Under this a man found burning natural grass may be prosecuted under the "English Act against Arson," which meant a maximum of 14 years' imprisonment. In committee, Sir Samuel Griffith suggested I should insert a clause whereby it could be tried at a District Court, and so prevent witnesses having to attend a Supreme Court, held on the coast. The Bill, with this addition, went through committee. I was informed by Mr. Archer, M.L.A. for Rockhampton, that this was the first occasion in Queensland for a member to navigate a Bill through the House in his first Parliamentary year. I thought I had completed my work with the Bill, but was surprised when Mr. Bernays asked me whom I had selected to take it through the Council. I asked the Hon. William Aplin to pilot it through, and the amendment to the "Injuries to Property Act" was assented to on the 23rd of October, 1888. On the second evening after my arrival I sauntered in the Botanic Gardens to kill the time to dinner at 7 p.m. Being a stranger, I was ignorant that the Gardens were closed at 6 p.m. I noticed that the few people I had seen on entering had entirely disappeared. As the dinner hour approached, I went to the gate and found it locked, as were the other gates I tried to pass through. Continuing my walk, I found an opening in the hawthorne hedge, which separated the Gardens from the Domain, in which Government House was then situated. I crawled through, and when I reached the lodge gates, I was asked by a policeman stationed there, if I had been to Government House? I said, "No." "Then where did you come from, my friend?" "From the Gardens." "And how did you get here?" I then explained the circumstances. "Where do you belong?" "Winton." "What's your name?" "Corfield." "Yes, is that so? What are you?" "I am one of the new members of Parliament." Then the blarney came out. "Pass on, Mr. Corfield, your face would carry you anywhere, sir." And so ended the incident. In 1888, £50,000 was put on the Estimates for sinking artesian wells, and a contract entered into with a Canadian company to sink 7,500 feet at certain specified places. Wellshot Station was selected as one, to encourage private enterprise, to try for water at great depths. When at Winton, early in 1889, I was handed a telegram from Mr. Henderson, the Hydraulic Engineer, advising me that the sinking of the well at Wellshot had to be abandoned, and as carriers were not procurable at Barcaldine to take the plant to Winton, it had been decided to send it to Kensington Downs. I immediately called a public meeting, and laid the matter before it. The meeting decided that I should go to Barcaldine the following morning. Owing to accidents to the coach, and want of sobriety at several of the coach stages, we were very much behind time in arrival. I found that I could obtain carriers to take the plant to Winton at a reasonable price, and wired the Engineer, but, although I remained a week in Barcaldine, I did not get even an unsatisfactory reply from that officer. I now received a hint that there were influences at work to prevent the plant going to Winton, and to send telegrams through another place. I arranged a long explanatory wire to Sir Thomas McIlwraith, to be sent from . . . . the operator at that place cutting off Barcaldine while the message was being sent, and the following day I was authorised by the engineer to arrange with carriers for the transport of the plant to Winton. It was very pleasant to witness the chagrin of the local people when they learnt how their engineering was defeated. I learnt now that some Brisbane ladies did not possess politeness, as one of them sat on my hat when it was on my head, and did not apologise. It happened in this way. In those days the Brisbane trams were drawn by horses. I wished to go to Ascot. When near the Custom House I saw a two-decker car just leaving. A lady was mounting the steps to gain a seat on the top. I ran and caught the car, following the lady up the steps. At the turn of the road the driver gave the horses the whip, they jumped forward, the sudden jerk caused the lady to lose her balance and her grip of the hand-rail. She sat on the hat on my head. The article, a hard felt, was pressed down with her weight. The sides opened up, and the rim fell down and became fast over my nose. I saw stars, but not the lady's face. The conductor assisted to dislodge the hat from my nose, and I left the car to purchase a new hat. Probably, I saved the lady's life, but she continued her way to the top, apparently treating the accident as an every-day occurrence. I was unable to make a claim for damages to my hat or self respect. Mr. Tozer (the then Home Secretary), was a lover of deep-sea fishing, and I frequently accompanied him in his excursions. One Friday, when the House was not sitting, I accepted an invitation to join him in a trip to a new fishing ground. I joined the "Otter" at the Queen's Wharf at 2 p.m. Our party comprised Captains Pennefather and Grier, John Watson, M.L.A., and Messrs. W. H. Ryder, A. A. McDiarmid, Primrose and myself, besides the officers and crew. We cruised along Moreton Island and caught sufficient fish for our tea, after which we retired to our bunks, and the steamer made for the Tweed Heads. About 3 a.m., we were awakened by the cry of "Fish Oh!" On reaching the deck we found the officers and crew hauling in schnapper as fast as they could bait their hooks. We were all soon engaged in the same sport. Each line had four hooks on, and the fish were so plentiful that often when a line was pulled up with, as one thought, one big fish on it, there would be three or four, some hooked through the eye, others by the tail. We fished until 8 a.m., and found on counting we had 1,100 fish aboard. Tozer had caught the highest single catch of 155, whilst mine, the smallest number, was 79. The sailors cleaned as many as they could on our return. When opposite the South Passage we sent a boat to the Lighthouse to wire Brisbane for any person wanting fish to meet the boat at the wharf, and to bring bags with them. Many did so, but all could not be taken away, and a quantity was dumped into the river. This was the record catch of the season, and I have never heard of it being beaten. At this time, and for a few years afterwards, I had as partner in a small pastoral property, a Mr. Wm. Booth. He was said to have been mixed up with some troubles connected with Irish affairs, and that the name he went under was assumed. Whether this was so or not, I found him to be a fine, straight-forward man, and was greatly affected when in 1894 his charred remains were found on the run. The mystery of his death remains undiscovered. On his death I wound up the pastoral partnership, and placed the value of Booth's interest in the hands of the Curator of Intestate Estates. Every effort was made to discover his relatives, but so far, I believe, his estate remains unclaimed. To those interested in constitutional law, the Kitt's case, which occurred in 1888, may prove interesting. This incident happened in connection with a pair of boots, but from it was obtained the decision that the Governor should follow the advice of his ministers on matters not affecting the authority of the Crown. It was laid down that they were responsible for giving the advice, not he for accepting it. The incident was a small matter to define a very important point. I think it was about this time that the police were called upon to act in opposition to the Naval Forces of the State, under the following circumstances. The Naval Commandant of the time had a disagreement with the Minister administering the Navy, and ordered the two war vessels, the "Paluma" and "Gayundah" to put to sea, contending he was under the control of the Admiral in charge of the station, and defied the Minister. Steam was up on the vessels, when a rather large body of police, fully armed, was marched down to the Botanic Gardens, and lined the river banks ready to fire on the ships if they were moved. Meanwhile, the wires were at work. The Admiral disclaimed control over the vessels, as it was a time of peace, and the Commandant retreated from the stand he had taken. The matter quietened down, but the Commandant shortly afterwards retired from the service of the State. Mr. W. Little, more popularly known on northern goldfields as Billy Little, represented the electorate of Woothakata in the Assembly. When speaking on the railway which it had been decided should start from Cairns to Herberton, he argued, "S'help me G----, Mr. Speaker, they are building a railway at Cairns over a mountain, down which a crow couldn't fly without putting breeching on." The simile convulsed the House, but did not affect its decision. During this session I could not but admire the patience and courtesy with which Sir Samuel Griffith treated all, even his opponents, after he once expressed himself on a measure. Time and again he would point out defects, which his legal mind detected in the wording of Bills, but which were not perceptible to the ordinary lay mind. In 1889, when the Estimates were being formed, Sir Thomas McIlwraith insisted that £40,000 should be put on for building a Central Railway Station in Ann Street, Brisbane. His colleagues dissented, holding the view that the then existing station would serve for a generation, or longer. McIlwraith resigned the premiership, but retained the office of Vice-President of the Executive Council. Mr. B. D. Morehead succeeded him as Premier, but there were no other changes in the personnel of the Cabinet. During the recess of 1890, I left Winton in March, after a good, wet season, to make a tour of my electorate, visiting the townships and stations throughout the district, and going close to Lake Nash, over the border of the Northern Territory. I held meetings at the places visited, covering a distance of 1,600 miles, yet I was unable to visit the whole district. At Glenormiston, one of the stations visited, the blacks had just returned from the Mulligan River, where they had procured their season's supply of "Pituri." This is obtained from a small bush, and when prepared for chewing, has an effect similar to opium. The "pituri" is much prized by the blacks. It is prepared for use by the seeds being pounded up and mixed with gidya ashes, which the gins chew until it obtains the proper consistency. It then resembles putty, and when not being used as chewing gum is carried by the blacks round their ears. If the native offers one a chew it is a sign of friendship and hospitality. This friendship was offered me, but declined with thanks. I obtained a small bagful of the seeds, intending to give them to Mr. Bailey, Curator of the Brisbane Gardens, but I made other use of it. I was compelled to make easy stages on account of the heavy pulling. The season was bitterly cold; camping on the open downs with no shelter was not pleasant. The distance from Boulia to Springvale is 80 miles, the only traffic along it being the pack horse of the mailman once a week. One of the places I camped at was known as Elizabeth Springs. This spring is a circular hole of about three feet in diameter, in which warm water is continually bubbling up. The overflow runs into Spring Creek, and runs for 15 miles, emptying into a large hole opposite the head station. A peculiarity of this spring is, if one jumps into it, the force of the water causes the body to rebound like a rubber ball, and small particles of sand coming up with the water causes a stinging sensation. The depth of the spring is unknown. About 40 yards from this spring there is another hole, the water of which is quite cold, and of an inky colour. This hole has attributes opposite to the other, that is--a body will sink quickly in its water. The blacks have a tradition that a gin jumped into it, and was never seen again. These springs are on Springvale run. On arriving at the station, I found Mr. Milson was out mustering, but Mrs. Milson, who remembered me at Monkira some six years before, made me very comfortable. I left the following morning to cover the 37 miles to Diamantina Lakes Station. When I reached the Gum Holes, on the boundary of the two runs, I decided to camp. Mr. Milson turned up here, and from him I learnt that the Diamantina River, which was about seven miles ahead of me, was uncrossable, and that it was running about four miles wide. He instructed me that when I reach the river, I was to go to a high ridge two miles back, and make a large bonfire at night. I arrived at the river the following day, when my man and I employed ourselves the whole afternoon in getting wood, which was scarce and some distance away. The closer timber had been used by the mailman to attract the attention of the station people in flood time, as we were to do. The station was about eight miles from the ridge, and we had great trouble during the night to keep the fire burning. The next afternoon Mr. Shaw, the manager, came across in a canvas boat, and camped the night with us. It was arranged I should return with him in the boat and leave the man with the horses, as it was impossible to cross them. We were out of meat, so Mr. Shaw promised to send some to the man the following day. We started on our four-mile pull, Shaw with the sculls, and I in the stern to steer the canoe. In the shallow water between the channels we had to be very careful, as patches of lignum were showing above the water, and our boat being only canvas, a slight prick of the lignum would perforate it. However, we made the crossing safely, and arrived at the station at sun-down. I was very glad to get comfortable quarters once more, and Mr. and Mrs. Shaw and their family treated me right royally. After a stay of five days we found the water had gone down and left several islands visible between the channels. When the flood allowed we started, taking a long, strong piece of rope, provisions, and about ten black fellows. Shaw and I paddled the boat containing the rope and provisions. The black boys swam the channels, and carried the boat across the islands, where we walked. We arrived at my camp in the afternoon, and prepared for an early start on the morrow. Whilst I was away a mob of travelling cattle had come to the camp. The men had killed a beast, and were making a boat of the hide to carry their saddles and provisions across. The mosquitoes that night were something to be remembered, and my man looked as if he had measles. We had a good breakfast at daylight, and then commenced crossing in the following manner:--Some of the boys would wade into the water until it was up to their waist. I would then drive the buggy and four horses up to them, unharness the latter, putting the harness in the boat to be rowed to dry land. The boat would then return for the provisions and every movable article in the buggy. The horses were then swam over, after which the rope was attached to the axle of the buggy and run along the pole, a half-hitch being tied at the point. When all were across, and the rope brought over by the boat, all hands would pull the buggy across. It would, of course, soon disappear beneath the water, and at each disappearance I wondered if I should see it again. Had the pole caught in a stump, the probability was that it or the rope would break. However, we got it safely across the channels, which varied in depth up to 25 feet of water. It was quite dark when we reached the station, all tired out. The black boys behaved splendidly, so I gave them the "pituri" intended for Mr. Bailey. This gift they prized far more than money or tobacco. The next evening I held a meeting at the station, and resumed my journey up the river the day following. Travelling was now easy, the road being good, with plenty of grass and water for my horses. Meeting one's constituents in a western electorate is not a short, pleasant picnic. A rather serious crisis arose during the early part of this session (1890). McIlwraith introduced a measure to levy a tax on all wool exported over the border to New South Wales and South Australia. The intention of the bill was to divert the trade of southern and south-western Queensland to the Queensland Railways. The pastoralists of those districts obtained supplies, and sent their wool from and to the southern Colonies, where the rates were lower than those charged over the Queensland lines. McIlwraith's argument was that Queensland was heavily taxed for the construction and maintenance of these lines; that this Colony was also incurring excessive expenditure for administrative purposes, and if the pastoralists would not give Queensland the necessary revenue towards these services, it should be forced from them. The bill provoked heated arguments from McIlwraith's supporters. The Opposition looked on with some interest, anticipating a Government defeat. The bill passed its second reading by the casting vote of the Speaker. I voted with the Government. McIlwraith promptly tendered his resignation, but was induced by Sir Henry Norman, the then Governor, to reconsider this. McIlwraith said he would reintroduce the bill in committee, and make the recalcitrant members swallow it. He did reintroduce it, those previously against it voted for it, and it was carried by a majority. Those members who were compelled to stultify themselves did not forgive the Premier, and showed their resentment when the opportunity arose. The money collected by the tax was utilised in improving the main roads to the railway, and when I was in that district some years afterwards I saw these cleared two chains wide through the affected districts. CHAPTER XIV. In 1889, the Morehead Government had put on the Estimates £1,000,000 for unspecified railways. This the Opposition, led by Sir Samuel Griffith, strongly opposed. The sitting developed into a stonewall of 96 hours' duration. The Government withdrew the item at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night. Previous to its introduction, I had paired for the session with an Opposition member, as I was anxious to return home to review my business operations, and did not suspect any party measures. At the opening of the 1890 session, I caught a very severe cold in Brisbane, which developed into "La Grippe," and I was confined to my room for seven weeks. During this time the Morehead Government introduced a "Property Tax," which met with strong opposition from McIlwraith--who was still in the Cabinet--and his supporters, of which I was one. Morehead carried his proposals by two. He felt that this majority did not justify his continuing in office, so he retired. The coalition between Griffith and McIlwraith followed. Both knights offered me a position in the Cabinet as Honorary Minister, but as I was to be considered as a Central member, I declined the honour. The House adjourned for two months. I decided to visit my electorate to inform my constituents of the position, and at a meeting in Winton they endorsed my action. I returned to Brisbane overland by coach, _via_ Barcaldine, thence rail to Jericho, and by coach to Blackall, Tambo, Augathella and Charleville, and on to Brisbane by rail. This route was in consequence of the maritime strike, through which all steamers were laid up. [Illustration: SIR SAMUEL WALKER GRIFFITH] At the close of the 1890 session, I made a trip to Melbourne, and made the acquaintance of a gentleman who persuaded me to join him in a trip to New Zealand. We called at Hobart _en route_, and landed at the Bluff, proceeding to Invercargill by rail. By this trip I renewed the acquaintance of bygone years with many old friends from North Queensland, who had become residents of New Zealand. Before leaving the Dominion there were rumours of an intended strike of shearers in Queensland. When I reached Sydney I found this had eventuated, and as the House was in recess, I proposed visiting my electorate, but was prevented doing so because of the heavy floods stopping all traffic. During the Parliamentary session of 1891, there were many stormy scenes and debates in connection with the shearers' strike, which took place throughout the pastoral districts of Queensland and New South Wales. The causes for the strike and incidents are of public history. It is, therefore, not necessary for me to do more than to mention it. After the coalition was formed, Sir Thomas McIlwraith announced his policy of a ten years' extension of the "Polynesian Act." Sir Samuel Griffith, as Premier, foreshadowed this would be brought forward in the session of 1892. I was returned as an opponent of black labour, and thought it necessary to justify my support of the new policy. To do so I obtained a letter of introduction to Mr. Neame, the owner of Macknade, on the Herbert River. I had some practical experience of what it was to work among cane, but did not give any hint of what action I was going to take in the House. Eventually, I informed my constituents of my change of views, and put myself in their hands. From them I received a free hand to act on my own judgment. I voted for the extension, and the House passed the bill. 1893 was the year of the great bank smash when so many institutions went under, and eventually had to undergo reconstruction. In this difficult time, Sir Hugh Nelson as Treasurer showed himself as an able and capable financier. He received help and sympathy from the banks which weathered the storm, but from none more than the General Manager of the institution which held considerable Government moneys. Retrenchment was the order of the day. Members salaries were reduced to £150 per annum. Lively and acrimonious discussions continued during the session, but Sir Hugh Nelson was firm in his resolutions to restore confidence, and backed up by the majority of the members, he soon allayed the panic. A general election took place in this year, and I was again a candidate. On arriving at Boulia, where I addressed a meeting, I learnt that Mr. Wallace Nelson had been nominated by the Labour Party to oppose me, but when I reached Winton after completion of the tour, I found that I had been returned unopposed, Mr. Nelson's nomination paper being informal. At the opening of the session I was twitted by Labour members of having obtained the seat by an informality. In those days I was not altogether a hardened politician, and felt somewhat sensitive on the charge. I returned to Winton, called a meeting to consider whether I should resign and contest another election, or retain my position. The meeting, which was a large one and representative, decided that I should retain the seat. I must say that after taking this course, my opponents made but little allusion to the way in which I had been elected, and then only in a joking, friendly manner. The Government of which Sir Hugh Nelson was now Acting Premier--McIlwraith having gone on a health tour--submitted its railway proposals to a private meeting of its supporters. Very much to my dissatisfaction I found that the Hughenden-Winton line was not included. I will explain here that during the previous session I was invited by Sir Thomas McIlwraith to call at his office. He then explained to me what was in his mind in regard to railways in the west. This was an extension north-westerly from Charleville towards Barcaldine; from Longreach and Hughenden to Winton; from Hughenden to Cloncurry; from Winton to Boulia _via_ Llanrheidol; and from Winton in a north-westerly direction towards Cloncurry and the Gulf, keeping to the higher country, but as low down the rivers flowing into the latter as would be safe. The mineral country which caused the present line to run in a south-westerly direction from Cloncurry was then unknown. The terminus on the Gulf was to be on its western side, if possible in Queensland territory, but if necessary he might negotiate with South Australia for a port in the Northern Territory, from which, if advisable, that Colony might join up with Port Darwin. Such a scheme, Sir Thomas said, would bring the three principal ports, Brisbane, Rockhampton and Townsville, in touch with their western back country, which would also have its choice of ports. Queensland would become connected through its Gulf outlet with the Eastern countries; have a more direct route to Europe, and be practically independent of Sydney and Melbourne. He added that whether the scheme would eventuate or not, it was his intention to have a line from Hughenden to Winton, so as to bring the district within reach of its natural port--Townsville, instead of being forced to Rockhampton. He presumed he could count on my support, which I promised. I submitted the information as being strictly confidential to Fraser, of Manuka, who, as chairman of my supporting committee, would at his discretion disclose the matter to such as he might consider reliable. When I saw Nelson after the meeting, he disclaimed all knowledge of McIlwraith's promise as regards the Winton line, and looking at a map from Townsville out, said the line would be nothing but a "dog-leg business." I explained to him that, acting on the information given by McIlwraith, and with his knowledge, I had told my committee, who had built their hopes upon his promise, and informed Nelson I felt so strongly on the point, that as I could not personally oppose the Government policy on any other matters, I would resign my seat. I explained the position to Fraser, who consulted my supporting committee. It was decided that as the promise given to me by McIlwraith, who was still Premier, as regards the Hughenden-Winton line was not kept, and as they could not ask me to sit opposed to the Government, they considered there was nothing for me but to retire from the House altogether. I submitted the letter to Nelson, who then laughed, and said he had gone into the whole question, and found that McIlwraith had pledged himself. It appeared that Byrnes was in his confidence, and "looking at it again," Nelson said, "it is a good policy in western interests, but what a howl there will be in Rockhampton." Finally, when the railway policy was made public, it was found that the first section of a line towards Winton was proposed. I do not think that any railway proposal received such a searching criticism from its opponents. It was very amusing to see an immense map of Queensland hung in the chamber, and one of the Central members with a long pointer showing the boundaries of the several districts, and how Rockhampton rights would be encroached upon. However, in spite of all, the line eventually reached Winton, but that was the only part of McIlwraith's scheme which became finalised, which I think is a matter to be regretted. In later years a scheme was adopted which put Sydney as near to the Gulf Territory of Queensland as Brisbane, and which, if carried out, will make the first-mentioned the Port of Western Queensland. The construction of the lines under Denham's and Kidston's schemes, is, however, making such slow progress that there is a hopeful probability that they will never be completed. The Parliamentary session of 1894 was, I think, the most exciting in happenings and bitter in feelings than any I experienced during my time in the House. This state of affairs arose out of the shearers' strike, which existed in the Mitchell, Gregory and Flinders districts. So serious was the position of affairs in those districts that the Ministry felt it was absolutely necessary to introduce such exceptional legislation as would give far-reaching powers to the Government and its officers for the preservation of peace. Considerable damage had happened to the property of pastoralists in those districts by fire. In one or two places firearms were used. When Nelson asked for the formal leave to introduce the bill, Mr. Glassey, who was leader of the Labour Party, bitterly opposed the request. The time and circumstances were very serious, but it was highly amusing to see the expression of surprise which came over Nelson's face as he questioned the sincerity of any man who opposed the introduction of a Bill for the Preservation of Peace. The scope of the bill was generally known to members, and the Opposition by Glassey at this stage, and the surprise by Nelson were the usual Parliamentary camouflage. During the passage of the bill through the Assembly, both in the House and Committee, it was very difficult to control the members on either side. There were many suspensions of members on the Labour side, who were, of course, out to oppose the measure. The stormy passage of this bill, which, when it became law, did Preserve Peace, may be read in _Hansard_ of the time. The Government in 1895 organised a Parliamentary tour of North Queensland to enable many members to see for the first time that country for which they assumed they were competent to legislate. The tour was very successfully carried out, and those who were strangers to the North, realised that they knew only a small corner of Queensland, which, compared with what they were visiting, was of comparatively less value. Amongst the 37 requests made to Mr. Tozer (who was Home Secretary) at Cooktown, was one to erect a statue to Captain Cook. It was pointed out a monument had been erected to him, but owing to low finances the scheme was uncompleted. It was thought Captain Cook deserved a monument at Cooktown; but Mr. Tozer, in reply, stated that he realised that Cooktown deserved some recognition of the historical fact that Captain Cook's only lengthy stay in Australia was in the locality, but, he explained, "The position is this: down in Brisbane we have deputations of unemployed asking us for bread; now I have come up here, and you have asked me for a stone." This reply settled the question. Returning to Townsville and Bowen, the party visited Cid Harbour, in Whitsunday Passage. At this place there was a camp of timber-getters. There were two families of women and children who had not tasted meat since Christmas. It was now April. Two sheep were given from the ship, and in return we borrowed their fishing net, with which we caught a beautiful lot of parrot fish. Weighing anchor at mid-day, Captain South took us through the Molle passage, where, sounding the whistle, one could hear the echo reverberating amongst the islands for some minutes afterwards. It is considered that although Cid Harbour has not the extent of Sydney Harbour, it is quite its equal in beauty. During the session, the plans and specifications of a line of railway from Hughenden towards Winton were laid on the table of the House. This gave rise to a bitter discussion dealing with interests of Rockhampton and Townsville, which were in conflict. Those of the western country and residents were not considered. Nelson consented to the request of Mr. Archer, member for Rockhampton, for a select committee, to take evidence as to the desirableness of constructing the line. The Central members on the committee were Mr. Archer, chairman; Messrs. Murray and Callan, MM.L.A. This committee was the first to take evidence on a railway proposed in the Assembly, and formed a precedent afterwards availed of. The committee sat for a week, and in the evidence adduced the majority report to the House was in favour of the line. The Central members, who sent in a minority report, stated that the Winton district belonged to Rockhampton, and asserted that the settled policy of the country was that the lines should be extended due west from the coastal ports. They were apparently oblivious to the fact that the coast line north from Brisbane trended in a north-westerly direction, and owing to this trend Winton was 185 miles nearer Townsville than Rockhampton. The Minister for Railways accepted the majority report, proposed the building of this section, and then followed an acrimonious debate, which resulted in an all-night sitting. I acted as Whip during the night, and allowed my supporters to camp in the Legislative Council Chambers, whence as they were required for a division, I brought them in, to the amazement of our opponents, who thought they had left and gone home. The proposal was carried at 7.30 the following morning. CHAPTER XV. At the end of this year I returned to Winton to prepare for the elections to be held in May, 1896. I addressed a meeting at that town, and received a vote of confidence. I commenced a tour of the district. The season was very dry, and I had to send feed for my horses by Cobb's coach to Boulia. I went over some of the same ground as in 1890, and when travelling between Boulia and Springvale I saw the tracks made by my buggy in the wet of that year. This shows the scarcity of travellers in that country. At the election I was in a minority by three votes in Winton, but the outside places returned me with a substantial majority. Labour gained a few more seats at this election, and the verbosity one had to listen to made an M.L.A.'s life, like a policeman's, not a happy one. Towards the end of the session the Minister for Railways laid the plans and specifications of another section of the Hughenden to Winton railway on the table of the House. Messrs. Kidston and Curtis, MM.L.A., led the Central members in strong opposition to the proposal, but after a short debate it was carried. This section when completed brought the line from Watten to Manuka, or, as the station is now called, "Corfield." The second sections of the railway from Hughenden to Winton were constructed by the late Mr. G. C. Willcocks, and in a record time. He had to carry ballast and water along the whole construction of 132 miles from the Flinders River at Hughenden. His system was to plough and scoop the bed for the permanent way. This being done, a temporary line was laid down alongside, upon which trucks were run to carry on the advance work, leaving permanent work to follow up. As a consequence he was two months ahead of his time, and the line being available to carry traffic on the unopened portion, the Government decided to give him a bonus to hand the line over. Compared with present-day railway construction, as regards expense in time and in money, the Winton line is a monument to Mr. Willcock's ability and energy as a contractor, and to the relative merits of contract and day labour. In 1896, Sir Hugh Nelson had been appointed President of the Legislative Council, and appeared in his Windsor uniform at the opening of Parliament this year. Mr. W. H. Brown, the leader of the Labour Party, who was sitting next to me in the Council Chamber, in a whisper loud enough to be heard around, remarked:--"I am just thinking how many ounces to the dish Sir Hugh Nelson would pan out if he were boiled down." Sir Hugh gave dignity to his new position, which was the reward of years of distinguished loyal and successful service to Queensland. The Hon. T. J. Byrnes was now appointed to succeed Sir Hugh Nelson as Premier, and shortly afterwards visited England. Mr. Byrnes' career and successes were well known in that country, and these, aided by a frank, charming manner, made his tour one of triumph. It was a blow to Queensland that he did not long survive his return to the State. Although Byrnes was not in Parliament when Macrossan was alive, yet those who remembered the latter could not help comparing the two men. I do not recollect having seen Macrossan smile even after a successful speech. On the other hand, beyond a passing frown scarcely perceptible, even in the bitterness of debate, I have not seen Byrnes otherwise than smiling, but when one sat close to either and saw their eyes flashing fire, one could realise the strength and sincerity of both. It is possible that had Byrnes lived to take the field against Federation, as it was thought he would, Queensland might not have become one of the States, except under certain saving conditions. I was present at the funeral ceremony in St. Stephen's Cathedral, and saw many hardened politicians brushing tears off. It was felt that a great man and a good man had passed away. Mr. W. H. Browne, more familiarly known as "Billy" Browne, was a lovable character. Firm in his belief that his principles were right and should be maintained, but without being bitter to those who might differ from him. His death was no doubt a temporary loss to the Labour Party, of which Queensland could easily spare others more bigoted, but less sincere. Sir Samuel Griffith, after giving the best years of his life to Queensland, had now retired to the Supreme Court Bench, and his absence was a loss to Parliament. Most members judged Griffith as being cold and distant, but personally, I have much to thank him for. I found him kind and sociable when approached, and at no time did he assume a patronising manner when doing a favour. Those who knew him intimately told me they found him to be the same. Looking at him from the opposite side, he seemed to be always on the alert to find his opponent tripping. I have known him, when he did so, to generously aid in putting them right, and apparently because he felt it to be his duty to do so. He was different to his great opponent McIlwraith, both in character and mental construction. McIlwraith was by nature impatient and irritable. Griffith, on the contrary, was very patient, and maintained a great control of his temper. This enabled him to frequently have his views adopted when they might not be, if too strongly forced. Had advantage been taken of opportunities, Griffith might have been a wealthy man. But to his honour, and to that of Queensland Parliaments, from the first even to the present, this State has been singularly free from what has been brought to light in other States. The artesian bore at Winton was now completed by the Intercolonial Deep Boring Company. The bore has a depth of 4,010 feet, and a flow of 720,000 gallons of water per day, the temperature being 182 degs. Fahrenheit. It had many vicissitudes during its eight years' sinking. Two other companies went into liquidation in carrying out the work. In 1898, I induced the Government to grant a loan of £2,500 to reticulate the town with water from the bore. As far as I can remember this session was uneventful in a political sense. The bad health of my partner, Mr. Campbell, made it necessary that I should return to active business. I informed my constituents that at the end of this session, which would be the last of that Parliament, I intended to retire from politics. Following Mr. Campbell's death, Mr. T. J. O'Rourke became my partner, and is so still. I feel it would be out of place to express my personal opinion of Mr. O'Rourke. It is enough to say that he who can stand up against the criticisms, and hold the goodwill of western men of all sorts and conditions, needs no expression of opinion or feeling from me. Although the Bush Brotherhood was founded by the Church of England at a period later than that at which I decided should end these reminiscences, it may not be out of place to allude to the good work of the Brethren, and the success of their endeavours to promote the spiritual and oftentimes the material welfare of the west. The members lived a life of hardship and self-abnegation, which was appreciated by people of all and of no religious beliefs. One of its most notable members was the Reverend Hulton-Sams--known as the Fighting Parson--and who was the winner of many friendly fights. He travelled the west visiting stations and shearing sheds with his Bible and prayer-book on one handle of his bike, and a set of boxing gloves on the other, and after preaching an impressive extempore sermon, concluding the service, would invariably say, "Now, boys, we will have a little recreation!" and invite his hearers to put on the gloves. He was not always the winner, however. His manly virtues, the sincerity of his life, and the beauty of his character, made him one of the best loved amongst western men. On his return to England, after the war broke out, he enlisted, and received a commission as a Lieutenant in the "Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry." He went with his regiment to France, and was instantaneously killed by a shell when seeking water for his wounded comrades. He died, as he lived, a Christian hero, and nothing better can be said of any man. The following account of his death, received by his sister, Lady Wiseman, was published in the London _Evening News_:-- The Adjutant of a battalion of the D.C.L.I., said:--"He died a glorious death--that of a British officer and gentleman, commanding a company in an important position, and sticking it where many others might have failed. We were hanging on to the edge of a wood, and the Germans were trying to shell us out of it. That night the Germans attacked us again--bombs and liquid fire. C. Company stuck to it, and through all the terrific shelling they never flinched, although they lost heavily. "They were there at 10 a.m., and I crawled to and talked to your brother several times. He was magnificent and very cheerful. His last words to me were, 'Well, old boy, this is a bit thick, but we'll see it through, never fear.' His company sergeant-major told me that at about 10 a.m. your brother crawled away to see if he could get any water for the men, many of whom were wounded and very thirsty. "He was hit by a piece of shell in the thigh and side, and killed instantly. He died doing a thing which makes us feel proud to have known him. He was a fine officer, a fine friend, and was worshipped by his men." I was but one of a large number of members who, during 1888, entered the House for the first time. To one who had not had the inclination, even if one had the time, previous to this, for politics, everything in and around the House was novel and interesting, but it was difficult to understand why members should in the Chamber be so bitterly hostile to each other and yet as friendly outside. There were, of course, exceptions as regards the latter, but I soon learned that a good deal of what was being said and done was more or less theatrical. Sincerity was to a great extent at a discount, and later years of experience in politics confirmed my impressions that the whole was a game to induce the people to think that their friend was Codlin, and not Short. And the farce is continued to the present time, only more so, and with the same success. It seems to me that the end of my Parliamentary life might be the end of my reminiscences. The opening of railway communication with Winton brought new conditions into our lives. The days of pioneering, bullock-driving, the trips by Cobb and Co., which were not always trips of comfort or of pleasure, were things of the past. In place of the crack of the whip and the rumble of the coach were heard the whistle and snorting of the engine. We were now within civilisation, so far as convenience might go, but whether we were morally and socially better or worse is a very open question. The great distances, the open plains, and the loneliness and monotony which is generally characteristic of the western country, even in these days of comparative closer settlement, have formed the western character. It is a character hard, shrewd, and impatient in good times, but strangely patient and resourceful in times of floods, drought, or difficulty. Invariably maintaining a certain reserve, yet hospitable and generous towards strangers, and ready to give help without question where needed, the western-born man and woman carries a dignity and presence easily recognised, and a friend who visited the west after many years, remarks:--"I say, you have a grand stamp of man and woman growing up in the west, but you are not giving them encouragement to live in and develop their country as you should do." The man of the west deserves much praise, but what might be said of its women. I have seen these following the waggon, or living in domiciles which, even at best, would be a shame to cities. Yet very rarely otherwise than patient, cheerful and hospitable, loving help-mates and mothers. "God bless them," I say. I cannot help thinking that politics are the bane of the west. It is singularly free from religious rancour or animosity. The religious belief of the other man, or if he has any at all, concerns no one. So long as a clergyman does not hold that playing cricket or football on Sunday is wrong, even if he is not popular, he is at all times respected. I remember a Roman Catholic priest (Father Fagan) speaking at a dinner of welcome, remark:--"A brother minister had asked him what good these social gatherings did?" He replied:--"They did a great deal of good, and he went so far as to say that one such gathering was worth twenty sermons. They were simply putting in practice the virtues preached from the pulpit of hospitality, charity and gratitude." It is my sincere hope that such kindliness and charity might continue to the end of time. "FAREWELL." WATER DIVINING: A POSTSCRIPT. "There are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy." Thus wrote Shakespeare, and as the centuries roll by, and the marvels of invention and scientific research are unfolded, this truth of the immortal bard becomes the more and more evident to thinking people of all nations. The faculty or attributes of water divining--that is, ability to locate water running in natural channels beneath the surface--is one which of late years has received great attention in Queensland. In this material and matter-of-fact age it is difficult to place belief in anything savouring of the occult--anything which cannot be explained by recognised natural laws, or which is not readily understood. For this reason, and notwithstanding indisputable evidence of the genuineness of the claims put forward by water diviners, many people regard them all as a huge joke, and laugh outright at the credulity of their patrons. Certainly it is true that the faculty is claimed by many, but possessed by few. After all, however mystifying it may be to the ordinary mind, hard facts cannot be ignored, and proof positive has repeatedly been adduced of the good work done by men possessing this marvellous faculty. In Queensland alone, many western landholders--shrewd, hard-headed, business men--have reason to be thankful that they secured the services of a genuine and expert diviner, whose "magic wand" quickly disclosed the whereabouts of sub-artesian water. Thus, it has happened as a result of the diviner's visit that a bore is driven, and presently by means of a wind-mill, or oil pump, a sparkling stream is brought from the vast caverns which have held it prisoner, turning the oft-times dreary waste into a smiling, life-giving oasis. In my opinion, what constitutes the faculty of divination is an inherent quality that cannot be acquired. Some people describe it as a sixth sense, while Dr. Grasset, a French authority, believes that the ability to find underground streams proves the existence of a faculty belonging to a class of psychological feelings forming what he calls "psychisme inferieur," the study of which is just beginning to attract the attention of the scientific world. Perhaps I should explain that, as a rule, a forked twig, the extremities of which are held loosely in each hand, is used to locate sub-artesian water, and in this connection its movements, so far as is known, can only be affected by natural running streams. The rod, or twig, does not work if carried over water passing through drains, culverts, and such like. My explanation of the movements of the rod is that they are caused by electro-magnetism, the diviner being perhaps highly charged with electricity. The water has absorbed the electricity of the adjacent bodies in the earth, the currents coming to the surface enters the air--ether--and the currents entering his body, he being a non-conductor, agitates him. Most people are conductors, consequently the current passes through them, and they do not feel it. The electric twig in the hands of the diviner forms a part of the connection between the body and the water, and by a law of nature, these two bodies must either attract or repel each other. If the experimenter is a person with a small amount of the electric fluid in his nature, that is negatively charged, the water being positive will draw down or attract the twig, hence the downward movement. If on the other hand, he is surcharged with electricity, or positive, the positive electricity of the water will repel the other, and the twig will bend upwards. The movements of the twig may thus be accounted for, but, comparatively, so little is known or understood of the marvellous influences and workings of electricity that it is impossible to be dogmatic on the question. [Illustration: SIR HUGH NELSON AT WINTON BORE. 1895.] The forks of the twig should be held lightly between the second and third fingers of the hands, pressing the thumbs on the side of the twig with just sufficient force to give the ends a slightly-outward direction. If a person possesses the faculty, and water flows anywhere beneath him, the twig will turn round on its ends between his fingers. In my own case, should I hold the twig tightly over a natural underground stream, it will bend under and round in an endeavour to follow out the movement I have just mentioned. It will, perhaps, be interesting to know that now I only use the twig for the purpose of indicating the presence of streams. The faculty is so sensitive in my hands that I can detect water if I am 20 yards away. I have found by careful observation and study that I can far more effectively decide upon the actual bore site by the indications which my hands give. Holding them downwards, open, and with the palms facing, I have found that as I approach the strongest, and therefore the most suitable, point in the stream for boring, they are thrust forcibly apart and upwards by the same power, apparently, that acts upon the twig. I found this out in a peculiar manner. After marking a site with the twig, I happened to place my hands together, and to my surprise they came up, and I could not keep them together. I must say it was only by accident that I discovered my possession of this faculty. About 1906, a water diviner visited the Winton district, and one day several friends and myself went with him in his quest for water. He explained his methods to the party, and naturally we all provided ourselves with twigs. After living so many years in the dry, western country, I was, of course, very interested in the experiment, and closely following directions was astonished after walking about for some time to find my rod revolving slowly. Members of the party near at hand were equally astonished, and called loudly to the others to "come and look at Corfield's twig." They, thinking it was due to the twig alone, soon ruined it, but I felt that I was possessed of some power, which previously I did not know I possessed, as I knew I was not turning the stick myself. For about twelve months after that I closely studied every phase of the phenomenon, and during that time I discovered good water for many residents in the district. In 1907, an opportunity came to me to employ my faculty for the benefit of pastoralists and the State generally. Mr. R. C. Ramsay, of Oondooroo Station, invited me to ascertain if good water was obtainable in a dry belt of that country, and in this I was entirely successful. It is an interesting fact that I do not require to leave a vehicle by which I may be travelling in order to carry out my search for water. Whilst seated in a train, or motor car, travelling at the rate of 30 or 40 miles an hour, I have by means of the rod located streams. If it were not that the currents were in the air, as I have previously referred to, I should be insulated by the India-rubber tyres of the motor. Reverting for the moment to the extent to which the faculty may be exercised, a diviner is able to fix the breadth of these streams, the position where their current is strongest, and to give a fairly approximate estimate of what their supply may be. Without doubt water can be found by an expert at great depths from the surface (the greatest depth water was got in any of my sites, that I know of, is 950 feet at Sandy Creek, eight miles west of Birkhead, where it flowed over the casing). If the water is stagnant the divining rod is silent. I do not profess to be able to tell if it is salt or fresh, although books on divining say this may be ascertained by placing salt in the hands. Before giving the particulars of my water sites, I would explain that I was under the impression that I could not feel water at a greater depth than 300 feet. I was engaged by the Gregory Rabbit Board to mark a site on very high country on Llanrheidol Station. I found a good stream not far from one picked by another diviner, and I guaranteed that water would be struck at 300 feet. A well was put down to that depth, but no water obtained. On the strength of my guarantee the sinking of the well was abandoned. Later, I was engaged to mark sites on Vindex Station, and it was mainly due to the perseverance of Mr. W. H. Keene, the manager, that water was tapped over 300 feet. He sunk on one to 500 feet, the water rising to within 152 feet from the surface. It was tested by being pumped for six hours, but the 20,000 gallons per day could not be reduced. Water was obtained at all my sites on Vindex. These results proved that my 300 feet depth was wrong. I then contracted to test for water on the Nottingham blocks, which are situated on very high downs country between Hughenden and Winton, at the heads of the Landsborough, Flinders, and Diamantina Rivers. My previous experience led me to believe that about 600 feet was my limit, and bores were put down to over that depth and abandoned without water. Eventually the owners selected a site, and put down an artesian bore, striking a flow at about 2,000 feet. I felt sorry they did not sink on one of my sites to prove exactly how deep I could feel underground water. Another failure was at Vuna selection. The site was on a continuation of the high downs adjoining the Nottingham blocks. The bore was put down over 500 feet at a spot which another diviner had endorsed as being a good site. This and another one were also abandoned without water. At Glendower, near Prairie, on the Hughenden railway line, I selected a site guaranteeing water if there would be at 300 feet, near a site which had been put down 700 feet without water. The latter had been marked haphazard, and I could not detect any indication of a stream. My site at 300 feet was also a failure. At this depth the bore was abandoned. A controversy was started in Charters Towers over a paragraph in the _Northern Miner_, as follows:--"The Dalrymple Shire Council's well on Victoria Downs road, at the _head_ of the 10-mile creek, on the spot picked by Mr. George O'Sullivan, was sunk to a depth of 38 feet, and at that depth water became so heavy that sinking conditions had to be discontinued. The water rises to within 18 feet of the surface. This site was stated to be barren of water by Mr. Corfield." The above requires an explanation from me, which I now give. I was camped at Bletchington Park, where I had been marking sites for Messrs. Symes Brothers, who had just completed one I had previously marked within 100 yards of their homestead. They struck a supply of 15,000 gallons per day, at a depth of 70 feet. In the morning it was arranged that Mr. J. Symes should drive me into Charters Towers, and when on the road, asked me if I would mind looking at Sullivan's site at the 10-mile creek. He said he did not know exactly where it was situated. When we reached the creek we saw some trees stripped of bark close to the crossing indicating the spot, as we thought, but I could find no sign of water there. I did not go to the _head_ of the creek, where I afterwards learnt the site was. Hence the statement that I had declared the site barren of water. I have previously stated that water has been struck on my site in this country at a depth of 950 feet, and I feel certain that in all these instances, if boring had been continued, water would have been struck at a payable depth. I will now relate some of my experiences of the efficacy of the divining rod. It is my custom to use a compass to define the course of the underground stream, which I leave on paper with the manager or owner to show in which direction the stream is running. I was engaged by Messrs. Philp, Forsyth and Munro to mark sites for tube bores on their property at Thylungra Station. After marking several sites on the station, when passing through Brisbane later, on my way to Cowley Station on the same errand, I interviewed Messrs. Philp and Forsyth, who told me there had been a well sunk on my site and no water obtained, but that the contractor had sunk a three-inch bore, where my peg was, and had obtained good water for his camp use. I may state here that where water is unobtainable close to the workings, this was a usual occurrence. As the three partners were about to visit the station, I asked them to discontinue working, and I would meet them there at a certain date. This I did, and found in their presence that the well had been put down two feet outside the breadth of the stream in the opposite direction to which it was running. I advocated a new well being sunk in the proper place, but they preferred driving in the direction to which I had placed the peg. Such action may prove a partial failure, as they might not strike the strong stream. I have not heard the result of their decision, but it is certain that my directions of the course of the stream have not been followed. Either Sir Robert Philp or Messrs. Forsyth or Munro could corroborate the above statements. The Dalrymple Shire Council obtained my services to inspect a well which had been sunk at Oakey Creek, distant about 15 miles from Charters Towers, which they told me would only water twelve horses and then the supply gave out. I found the well was on the edge of a strong stream, the outer edge of which ran through the centre of the well, consequently the rod would not work at the outer edge of the well. I marked the site for a new one about six yards farther in. The members of the Council decided to put down a circular cement well. They tapped the water under 40 feet and obtained an inexhaustible supply. When I received the letter enclosing my fee, it contained a vote of thanks from the committee for the good work done. No better place could be chosen for a demonstration of the efficacy of the divining rod. Later, the Directors of the Carrington United Mine invited me to visit their well at Lion's town, about 30 miles from Charters Towers, which had become dry. I found this well was not on any stream, but that a drive had been put in to drain the soakage from a sandy creek, which was in close proximity, and the season being a dry one, this had also failed to give any soakage. I crossed this creek, and found a stream 13 yards wide, which I marked. Being located on a flat, I had the idea that probably there might be more water further over. My surmise was right, for on investigation I found another stream 14 yards wide, but running in the direction as if it would join the other. This proved correct, the whole width of the two streams measuring 27 yards. I told the manager, who was present, I could get him a good site at a spot most suitable to himself. The site was marked in the centre of the 27 yards. Miners were put on to work night and day, as about 100 men had been thrown out of employment owing to the failure of the water supply. Water was struck at 30 feet, which rose seven feet in the shaft in ten minutes. The sinking was continued to 40 feet, the water rising to within ten feet of the surface. When one considers the well was six feet square, the supply can be imagined. Unknown to the man who was pumping the water to the mill, I later visited the site and enquired if the water could be reduced in the shaft. He replied:--"I have kept the pump going night and day, but cannot lessen the supply." I then asked him if I might lift the slabs which were covering the well. I did so with his permission, and saw the water flowing in a steady stream across it. This satisfied me as to the supply. At Avon Downs Station, near Clermont, a large well had been sunk near a creek, with a diminishing supply of water. On investigation, I found the well had been sunk on the edge of an underground stream. I advised a drive to be put in towards the centre of the stream (which I marked). Mr. Sutherland (the Inspector for the Australian Estates at that time) informed me later that my advice had been carried out, and they had obtained very satisfactory results. At Gindie State Farm, I was accompanied by Mr. Hamlyn (the Public Service Improvement Engineer) to mark sites for the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Jarrott, the manager, took us to a dry well sunk to a depth of 80 feet. I could not feel any indication of water there, but a few hundred yards away, on rising ground, I located two streams crossing each other, and by the assistance of pegs, marked a site in the centre of the two streams. Some months afterwards I met the manager in Emerald, who said:--"Mr. Corfield, when you were marking that site at Gindie State Farm, where the two streams crossed each other, the engineer and myself were laughingly criticising your action, but never more will I doubt your ability to find water." The Secretary of Agriculture later informed me by letter that the top stream only yielded a small supply, but the second stream, struck at 165 feet, augmented the supply that it could not be lowered by the pump more than 35 feet, and that the estimated yield of both streams was 10,000 gallons per day. In 1907, I marked several sites in the vicinity of Winton, and between then and 1911, I travelled by coach and train, but principally by buggy, an approximate distance of 20,000 miles, marking sites at different stations, ranging from Charleville in the south-west, to Granada in the north-west, in the back blocks of this State, besides locating water on several stations on and near the eastern coast, and was successful in locating water to the satisfaction of those interested. On a site marked by me at Mayne Junction, the Railway Department obtained water at a reasonable depth, but the water on being analysed was found to be unfit for locomotives, or for washing the carriages, consequently it was abandoned. I also found a stream within two miles of Nundah railway station, which, on a well being sunk, tapped the water at 30 feet. It rose 18 feet in the shaft. This water is supposed to be of a highly medicinal character, beautifully soft and palatable to drink. I also marked a few sites in New South Wales, and some at Birrallee Station, out from Bowen. All this time I enjoyed perfect health, but in 1911 I began to get very stiff in the legs, especially about the hips. Thinking it was rheumatism, I went to the Innot hot springs, near Herberton. These baths gave me no relief, so I went to Sydney to consult Sir Alexander McCormack, who prescribed electrical treatment and hot air. This I tried for four months without any good results. I then went to Rotorua, in New Zealand, consulting the doctor there, who prescribed all the baths which are so efficacious in removing rheumatism. The doctor, hearing of my having practised water divining so long, diagnosed my case as neuritis, brought on by constant use of my nerve energy in following that profession. From this time I desisted from my occupation, and only used my powers to give a demonstration occasionally. I have tried since the Muckadilla bore water on several occasions, but could obtain no improvement. An amusing incident occurred to me when marking sites on a cattle station in the north-west of Queensland. I was being driven in a buggy drawn by a spanking pair of horses which the driver, who was the manager of the station, could well handle. The manager was a very smart young fellow, a splendid rider, and in every way qualified to manage such a property, and bore a high reputation for considering the interests of his employers before anything else. He was driving me through some ridgy country where the grass in the gullies was very long and rank. I had located a good stream of water, and was describing its direction by the aid of the compass. My companion asked if I could follow it, explaining there was a flat half-a-mile farther on which would be a better place for the site. I replied that I could do so, but asked him to drive along the outer edge of the stream, so that I could detect if it curved away on that side. We also zig-zagged inwards, so that I might be certain it was still going in the right direction. Presently we came to a gully, which was covered with grass, and to all appearance very shallow. On reaching it the horses jumped across it, pulling the front wheel of the buggy into a deep hole. The back of the buggy, caused by the hind wheels lifting, caught me between the shoulders. I turned a somersault, and was thrown head first over the wheels, with my head on the bank, and my legs hanging over the hole. Having the rod in both hands, I was unable to break the fall. I yelled out, "For God's sake, keep the wheels from going over my head." The sudden jerk had also sent the driver over the splashboard, but like a good horseman, he steadied himself with the reins and landed on his feet. I then heard him say, "My God! I've killed him, and he hasn't marked the site yet." Thinking of his employer's interest prevented him giving me sympathy. When I found I was not hurt, and that I could rise without his assistance, I could not but enjoy the situation, although the wheel went over the rim of my hat whilst it was on my head. I eventually marked the site on the plain, but have not heard the result of the boring. Printed by H. Pole & Co. Limited, Elizabeth Street, Brisbane. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | |The following typographical errors have been corrected: | | | |Page 10: A period was added after the sentence ending with "in an | |open yard." | |Page 35: "eZaland" changed to "Zealand" (returning to | |New Zealand) | |Page 53: "myall" changed to "Myall" (he saw a lot of Myall) | |Page 59: "blackboy" changed to "black boy" (Knowing I had no black | |boy) | |Page 73: "lfting" changed to "lifting" (On lifting his head) | |Page 107: Apostrophe added before "Frisco" ('Frisco was _en-fete_) | |Page 111: "evining" changed to "evening" (At dark one evening) | |Page 125: "povisions" changed to "provisions" (strong piece of rope, | |provisions) | |Page 129: A period was added after the sentence ending with "the | |House passed the bill." | |Page 130: "sesssion" changed to "session" (during the session) | |Page 139: "he" changed to "the" (the temperature) | | | |All other spelling and punctuation inconsistencies have been retained.| +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ 
36399	----	http://www.archive.org/details/missingfriendsbe00londiala Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). MISSING FRIENDS [Illustration: A SWAGSMAN.] _"Adventures are to the adventurous."_ BEACONSFIELD. [Illustration: THE ADVENTURE SERIES.] [Illustration] * * * * * THE ADVENTURE SERIES. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 5s. =1.= Adventures of a Younger Son. By E. J. TRELAWNY. _With an Introduction by Edward Garnett_. Second Edition. =2.= Robert Drury's Journal in Madagascar. _Edited by Captain S. P. Oliver._ =3.= Memoirs of the Extraordinary Military Career of John Shipp. _With an Introduction by H. Manners Chichester._ =4.= The Adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, Mariner. _Edited by Dr. Robert Brown._ =5.= The Buccaneers and Marooners of America. Being an Account of the Notorious Freebooters of the Spanish Main. _Edited by Howard Pyle._ =6.= The Log of a Jack Tar; or, The Life of James Choyce. With O'Brien's Captivity in France. _Edited by V. Lovett Cameron, R.N._ =7.= The Voyages and Adventures of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto. _With an Introduction by Arminius Vambéry._ =8.= The Story of the Filibusters. By JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE. To which is added the Life of Colonel David Crockett. =9.= A Master Mariner. Being the Life and Adventures of Captain Robert William Eastwick. _Edited by Herbert Compton._ =10.= Kolokotrones, Klepht and Warrior. _Edited by Mrs. Edmonds. Introduction by M. Gennadius._ =11.= Hard Life in the Colonies. _Compiled from Private Letters by C. Carlyon Fenkins._ =(_OTHERS IN THE PRESS_.)= * * * * * MISSING FRIENDS Being the Adventures of a Danish Emigrant in Queensland (1871-1880) Illustrated London: T. Fisher Unwin, Paternoster Square. Mdcccxcii INTRODUCTORY. I was born in Copenhagen in the year 1850. My father was a builder there in moderately good circumstances. I was the second son of a large family, and it was my parents' great ambition that we all should receive a good education. My eldest brother was intended for a profession, and I was to be, like my father, a builder, and to take up his business when old enough to do so. My father ruled us with an iron hand. I am sure he had as much love for us all as most fathers have for their children, but it was considered necessary when I was twenty years old to treat me as boys of ten are ordinarily treated. During the time I learned my trade in my father's shop I never knew the pleasure of owning a sixpence. After I had learned my trade, it was just the same. I worked for my father and received my food, clothes, and lodging as before, but I never dared to absent myself for a quarter of an hour even without asking permission, and that permission was as often refused as granted. A rebellious feeling kept growing up in me; but I dared not ask my father to relax a little and give me more liberty. To assert my independence before him seemed just as impossible, and yet my position had become to me unbearable. There was but one thing to do, viz., to run away, and I had scarcely conceived this idea before I carried it into execution. I was now twenty-one years old. One evening, after saying good-night to my parents in the usual orthodox fashion, I went to my room, and when all was still, crept downstairs again and left the house. I had a bundle of clothes with me and a watch, which I pawned next morning. I forget the exact amount I received for it, but to the best of my recollection it was the first money I ever possessed, and it seemed to me a vast sum to do with just as I liked. I dared not to stay in Copenhagen for fear of meeting my father, or somebody who knew me, so I bought a through ticket for Hamburg the same day, and although the purchase of this ticket nearly exhausted my funds, it was with a feeling of glorious freedom that I left Copenhagen. On arriving in Hamburg I obtained work at my trade without difficulty, and soon saved a little money, so that a few months after I found myself on board an emigrant ship bound for Queensland, where I have been ever since; but for fourteen years I never wrote home. After that interval I sent a short letter to my eldest brother, telling him that I was in Queensland, married, in good health, my own master, but that I had not made my fortune; however I owed nobody anything, and was satisfied, &c., and asked only for news. By return of mail came two letters, one from my father and the other from my brother. My brother wrote that our father was now getting to be an old man, and that his one sorrow these many years had been what had become of me, coupled with the fear that I did not remember him as a loving father; that he had always acted as he thought best for us, and that the greatest joy the earth could offer him would be if he might see me again. My father wrote in the same strain, adding that if I could not come home I must write, and that nothing I had done would seem trivial or uninteresting for him to read about. When I had read these letters my conscience smote me. Not that I had ever felt indifferent to my parents. I had thought of them often. I do not think ever a day went over my head during those fourteen years in which I did not remember them. Yet I had never written. But I was now a married man, had children of my own, and I could fully realize how it is that the parents' love for their children is so inconceivably greater than children's love for their parents. Would it not be a hard day for me if ever I should have to bid good-bye to any of my sons, even if they went out of the front door, so to speak, with my blessing? Would the least they could do be to write to me circumstantially and often what they thought, what they did, how they fared? And here was I who never to that moment had been conscious of having done my parents any wrong! Yes; I would write. I began the same evening, and kept writing on about all my wanderings from the day I had left home up to the time of writing, and as I wrote, many things which I thought I had forgotten came clearly to my mind; and so I grew interested in it myself. I had my writing copied. All this took time; but at last the manuscript was posted to my father with a large photograph of myself enclosed. It arrived the day after his death, but before the funeral. They buried the manuscript and photograph with him. These are matters far too sacred to write much about, even anonymously. I only touch upon them to show the origin of the following narrative. The copy I had taken has been lying in my desk now for some years, and when I took it out the other day it occurred to me that as it gives a faithful picture of life that thousands of people lead here in Queensland, it might be of general interest. I doubt if ever a book was written with more regard to truth. I have added nothing to the original manuscript, but I have erased such private matters as, of course, would be out of place in a publication, and I have also considerably shortened the description of the voyage out, as a voyage across the sea is a more than twice-told tale to most Australian people. I have also altered the names of persons and places mentioned wherever I have thought it necessary. It is now several years since the events recorded happened. The incidents themselves are sometimes trifling and always harmless. Should any one who may read this book think they recognize themselves in any part of my descriptions, I must beg them to accept my apology. They will most likely then also recognize the substantial truth of my description and my endeavour not to be too personal. Although it will be seen by the reader that I have often acted foolishly and seldom excelled in wisdom, yet I do not wish it to be understood that I consider my life altogether misspent. As I look back, I think of myself as being always cheerful. It is the privilege of youth to be happy under almost any circumstances, and I was young when these things I here set down happened. If the tale has a moral, I think it will be found sufficiently obvious. Queensland is full of missing friends. Some come to the colony in the hope of making a speedy fortune, that they may go home again and bless the old folks with their good fortune. Others come out with the hope of making a good home, and to bring the old people thither. The successful man is generally a dutiful son too, insomuch, at least, that he lets everybody know of his success; but the man who fails, either from lack of perseverance or from untoward circumstances, too often becomes a "missing friend." It is generally true that a man is valued according to the cut of his coat, but it is not true between parent and son. So! write home, you lonely swagsman on the dusty track of the far interior. Do not think yourself forgotten. If you have parents alive you have friends too, who think of you night and day. If you will only let them know that you yet have a thought left for them, they will bless you. I have nothing else to add to this introduction, except that possibly the book might have been more interesting if it contained more thrilling adventures, but in my opinion the only merit which it may possess lies in the strict regard paid to truth and the avoidance of all exaggeration from beginning to end. CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTORY v CHAP. I. MY FIRST EXPERIENCES ON LEAVING HOME 3 II. ON THE EMIGRANT SHIP--THE JOURNEY TO QUEENSLAND 19 III. MY ARRIVAL IN QUEENSLAND 43 IV. GAINING COLONIAL EXPERIENCE 73 V. TOWNSVILLE: MORE COLONIAL EXPERIENCES 101 VI. ON THE HERBERT RIVER 131 VII. LEAVING THE HERBERT--RAVENSWOOD 161 VIII. SHANTY-KEEPING, PROSPECTING, THORKILL'S DEATH 185 IX. GOING TO THE PALMER 211 X. RETURNING FROM THE PALMER 231 XI. A LOVE STORY 259 XII. BRISBANE--TRAVELS IN THE "NEVER NEVER" LAND 271 XIII. THE END 315 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. (1) A SWAGSMAN _Frontispiece_ (2) LANDING OF EMIGRANTS _To face page_ 55 (3) AN ALLIGATOR POOL " " 145 (4) THE BAKER'S CART " " 190 (5) BREAKFAST IN THE GOLD FIELDS " " 198 (6) ROCKHAMPTON " " 232 CHAPTER I. MY FIRST EXPERIENCES ON LEAVING HOME. Having left Copenhagen in the way just described and arrived in Hamburg, my first care was to get work, which I fortunately obtained the next day. The place I worked in was a large building or series of buildings, four or five stories high, with cabinet-makers' shops from the cellars to the loft. We had to be at work at six o'clock in the morning, and to keep on till eight o'clock at night. Even on Sundays we worked from six o'clock to dinner-time. Some would keep on till it was dark on Sunday evening, and content themselves with knocking off early, as they called it. And such work! Everybody would work as if the house were on fire. It was all piecework. The man who stood next myself had made veneered chests of drawers for thirty years, and never had made anything else. He would turn out two veneered chests of drawers in a week, and the work was faultless. These chests would, I am sure, sell readily in Brisbane for from twelve to fifteen pounds each. He earned about nine Prussian thalers per week. On the other side of me stood a man who made German secretaires. There were nine or ten men in the shop. The master was working too. He seemed just as poor as the men. Whenever work was finished, some furniture dealer would come round and buy it. The men seemed all more or less askew in their bodies with overwork. If ever they had an ambition in their lives, it was to instil a proper sense of respect into the two apprentices. I did pity these two boys. They received their board and lodging from the master, but they could, I am sure, easily have made one meal out of their four daily allowances. They slept in a corner of the shop. They had, of course, to be at work at six o'clock in the morning the same as the men, but while we had half an hour for breakfast and "vesperkost," they were supposed to eat and work at the same time. After work-hours at night they had to carry all the shavings out of the shop to the loft above, from which they were occasionally removed; then they had tea, and finally, if they liked, they were allowed to work a couple of hours for themselves. They would get odd pieces of veneer and wood and make a workbox. When it was finished, they would one evening run round among the furnishers from door to door to sell it. The dealer would know that the materials were not paid for, and of course he did not pay them. A shilling or less is the price a dealer in Hamburg pays for one of those beautiful workboxes which are sold all over the world. I wonder how often the buyers of these boxes think of the lean, ragged youth who has stood late in the night and made it, most often perhaps to buy an extra morsel of bread from the proceeds--because, as a matter of fact, that was what these two boys used to do. The master was accustomed to beat them daily, and if he was at any time thought too sparing with the rod, and thereby neglecting their education, the men would themselves beat the lads. It was winter-time, and daylight only about eight o'clock in the morning. But in order to reach the shop at six o'clock, the men, who lived mostly in the suburbs, had to be up at half-past four. I had rented a small room from one of them, and he and I would generally arrive together. As we scrambled our way up the dark staircase, he would caution me to walk softly because, as he said, he wanted to catch these rascally boys in bed. Poor fellows! If we were the first to arrive they would most often lie in a heavy sleep. Then he would rush at them, tear the bed-clothes off them, box their ears, and call them all sorts of _endearing_ names. The master and the other men, with scarcely an exception, approved of this. It was not breakfast-time before eight o'clock, and very often when the apprentices had been hunted to work in this manner they would get another correction before then for neglecting to wash themselves! Poor fellows, they had no time. But, as is well known, the harder an apprenticeship a boy has served, the more cruel does he in his turn become after his time is out. The Prime Minister himself has not, I am sure, half as serene a contempt for an apprentice, as a journeyman only three months out of his apprenticeship. This work in Hamburg certainly did not suit my ideas of liberty. My head would swim of an evening when I came out of the shop. As already stated, I had rented a small room from one of the men for a mere trifle, and I boarded myself, and very frugal fare I had. This self-denial was because I soon made up my mind that I would not stay in Hamburg; and so I saved all that was possible, and it did not take long before I could commence to count a few thalers in my pocket. On Sunday evenings I used to go and sit in one of the public gardens, and listen to the music and watch the faces of the people there. Sometimes when there was a free show I would be there too, but I never spent any money. With the din of the shop scarcely out of my ears, and Monday morning looming only a few hours away, I almost fancied myself of a different species from such happy, chattering crowds as would pass and repass seemingly without a care in the world. There was not a soul to speak to me. For one thing, I could scarcely make myself understood in German; for another, the men in the shop, who were the only people I knew, if I did go down the street with one of them, conversation had but one subject for which was sure somehow to turn on the quality of the glue we used. They all had a vast reverence for the furniture dealers, and they were just the people I did not like. I was therefore quite alone. I was also wonderfully homesick. Often and often did I wish that I had never run away, but it seemed to me impossible to go home again, and so I used to sit and speculate on what I had better do. I thought when I had saved a little money I would go to Paris, or Vienna. They were nice places I believed; but of one thing I was certain, and that was that as yet I had not seen anybody I liked as well as myself, or any place I liked so well as my own home! One Sunday evening as I walked about the streets, I saw in a window a large attractive placard on which was printed in red letters, "Free Emigration to Queensland, Australia." I am certain I had never heard the name of Queensland before, and my impression of Australia was that it was the place to which criminals were sent; I had also read something about gold-diggings in Australia, but it was in the form of a novel, and I did not believe it. I called to mind what I had read in school in the geography about Australia, and I remembered it well. It was only a short paragraph. It ran thus: "Australia. Travellers who come from this distant continent, bring us very conflicting statements. It seems to be a land in which nature is reversed. The leaves are hanging downwards on the trees instead of upwards. Rivers run from the ocean inland. The interior seems to be one vast lake of salt water. It is the home of the kangaroo and the black swan. Altogether but little is known about it. Captain Cook discovered it in the year 1788. It belongs to England. The Dutch have possessions in the North. It has been used as a penal settlement by England, but this is now abolished. Of late years gold has been found in considerable quantities and in several places. Wool, tallow, and hides are exported. Towns, Sydney and Melbourne." I can scarcely help laughing to myself now when recalling to mind this piece of information about Australia. It was really an ignorant and disgraceful morsel of information for one of the best schools in Copenhagen to offer to its pupils, but it was all the knowledge I had or could get, and it was not much assuredly to give one any idea what Queensland was like. But somehow I determined to find out what I could for myself. There was gold there that might be more easily got, perhaps, than by making chests of drawers, so the next day I presented myself at the office, and asked for information. Yes, it was right. The ship would sail in a fortnight. "Did I want to go? Two pounds sterling please. Only three or four tickets left." "Well--I would like a little information." "Information, yes, we have every information. What is it you want to know? You get, to begin with, all your food, and splendid food I can tell you is provided for you on the whole journey. You also get bed-clothes, and your own knife, spoon, and fork. This will all become your own property on arrival in Queensland. Here is the bill of fare." I hesitated. "When you have arrived in Queensland," cried my informant, "the Government of that country further engages to board you in a first-class hotel for two or three weeks, free of all cost, while you make up your mind what occupation to engage in, and--here it is in the prospectus, look at this!--they further guarantee to find work for you making roads, for at least two years after." "Do you yourself know anything much about Queensland?" I ventured to ask; "I suppose you never were there?" "I, no, I never was there--I wish I had been, I should not have to stand here to-day. But we have every information. They have found gold-diggings again. Here are the statistics of exports; I will read them for you:-- Marks. Marks. Hides, 100,000,000,000,000. Horns, 1,000,000,000,000. Wool, 10,000,000,000,000. Tallow, 10,000,000,000. Cattle, 1,000,000,000,000. Horses, 100,000,000,000,000. Gold, 100,000,000,000. Silver, 1,000,000,000,000. Copper, 1,000,000,000,000,000. Tin, 1,000,000,000,000. What do you think of that now?" What I thought was that it was all Latin to me. I did not know why they exported all this wealth, or why they did not keep it at home. No more did the man in the office, I am sure. I asked, did he think it probable that I should obtain work as a carpenter and joiner, and did he know what wages were going? To that he replied that, of course, I could get work as a carpenter and joiner, and that wages were at least one pound per day, but that if I wanted to go he would have to enlist me as an agricultural labourer, because a whole cargo of carpenters was already engaged, but that undoubtedly it would pay me better to dig for gold myself. I concluded that Queensland was a sort of vast gold-field. I asked what was the cost of living. He said, "If you like to live in an hotel and be waited on hand and foot, of course you can have it at all prices; but if you like to cook your own food, it will cost you nothing. Why man! don't I keep telling you that the cattle are running wild; if you are wise enough to buy a gun before you go, your meat supply is secured when you get there, and all sorts of game are in equal abundance--kangaroos, parrots, and all sorts." I inquired how much, or rather how little, money did he think it indispensable for me to have when I landed. He said as for that, no doubt the less I had, the less chance there was of my being robbed. It would, in his opinion, take some little time for any one to get alongside the people over there, but, once having taken their measure, there was no mistake about the resources of the country. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "In case on your arrival in the country you should decide to establish yourself as a farmer the Government makes you a present of"--I think it was--"eighty acres of land. This land is the best and richest agricultural land in the colony, and you can pick it out yourself wherever you like best in Queensland. I will give you the order which entitles you to your deeds." I felt very undecided. I did not buy any ticket, nor did I go to work again that day. I kept roaming about the streets, thinking of Queensland and the information I had received. Wages a pound sterling per day! if I would only work for it--the price of food scarcely anything--cattle running wild--large gold-fields! How was it, then, that there were hotels where people would wait on the immigrants, "hand and foot." What silly fellows those publicans must be; would it not pay them better to work at a trade, or look out for gold? Truly the order of things seemed to be reversed in that country. And eighty acres of their best land would they give me if only I would go! Perhaps horses were running wild as well as cattle. I might be able to catch some and break them in to plough the land. But what about the plough? Surely nobody made ploughs there; I should have to bring that with me. Perhaps there were saddlers. No doubt it would be a good country for a saddler to go to, as it seemed they had so many hides over there that they had to export them. Probably if a saddler wanted materials, all he had to do was to flay a bullock and carry its hide away. But were there bricklayers to build houses? Certainly I could do the carpentry myself; on a pinch I could do the bricklaying too. Everything seemed so satisfactory. Perhaps I should even find gold enough while I was sinking the foundation for my house to pay for the lot! It need not be such a large piece either. A couple of nuggets, as large only as one brick each, would go a long way. Perhaps, too, if I found them, it would be as well to go home again at once. Then I began to wonder if the fellow in the office would not, if I had asked him, have told me that houses, by careful cultivation, would grow out of the ground themselves in that country. In a word, I gave it up. Perhaps it was all one tissue of falsehood. Perhaps the diggers over there were only trying to get slaves to work for them. That seemed to me more reasonable. Why should the Government of the country make me a present of a large estate? All bosh! But I would go, just to see the land in which swans were black and rivers running from the ocean inland. If I should be caught on my arrival, perhaps I might escape to the interior. There would be no cabinet-maker's shops there, of that I felt certain. The prospectus said that the Government would guarantee to every intending emigrant work on the roads of the colony for two years, if he desired it. I could not think it probable that I desired that, but perhaps it was meant to pay our passage money. Anyhow, I promised myself I should not fail for the want of firearms if I did go, and perhaps we could slay any enemies we found altogether, because undoubtedly there would be others on board ship who would fight for their liberty. Liberty, delightful liberty! To be the captain of a gang of warriors, half robbers, half gold-miners, roaming over the continent of Australia, seemed a delightful prospect. This is, I am sure, quite a faithful picture of my wild ideas of Queensland after I had elicited all the information I could get. The Government of Queensland spends yearly, I do not remember how large a sum, in promoting free emigration. They prepared at great cost, and with elaborate exactness, statistics to show the commercial position of the country. Then they trust all this to the care of some office at home, whose officials know little or nothing about Queensland. The principal in such an office puts a clerk at the counter who has, perhaps, no other qualification for the work than a facility for talking. Fancy a home-bred peasant coming into such a place with the care of a family on his shoulders, and a little money in the bank, and think of the clerk talking to him about gold-fields and firearms and statistics, all the time admitting he never was in the colony himself! I think it is quite enough to prevent any one going out. And yet people of that class are the only class of poor men who really can do well in Queensland, and they are almost the only desirable sort of emigrants for the country itself. The reason is that such a man can, after a very short spell of colonial experience, go on to a piece of crown land, and by residing there for five years, and making certain improvements thereto, very soon get a living out of the soil, and while keeping his children round him, be independent of everybody. But such people are at a premium in Queensland. On the other hand, the towns out here are crowded with men who seek for light work, and I have no hesitation in asserting that for certain people, such as junior clerks without influence, grocers' and drapers' assistants, second-class tradesmen, &c., it is quite as difficult, if not more so, to obtain a living in Queensland as in Copenhagen. The land order I obtained, and which entitled me to eighty acres of land wherever I chose to take them, I did not consider of any value--in fact I threw it away; so did all the other emigrants on the ship: one might have bought a whole hatful for a dozen biscuits! But all this is digression. Still, it is a matter which excites considerable interest in Queensland, and as I think of that time, these thoughts come uppermost in my mind. No doubt if I, in the office, had met a man who came from the colony, and who could have advised me and spoken with confidence about the country itself, I should have made up my mind to go in a far less reckless way, and probably I should never have acquired, after my arrival in the country, that roving disposition which I contracted, and which did not leave me for many years, if it has even left me now. Well, I made up my mind to go. I also made up my mind that it was unnecessary for me to work any more in Hamburg while waiting for the ship, so I took a holiday and went about town every day, spending my money to the last farthing. I had bought a revolver, ammunition, and a long knife. I had bought my ticket too, and so the day arrived when we were all mustered and put on board the ship. CHAPTER II. ON THE EMIGRANT SHIP--THE JOURNEY TO QUEENSLAND. What a motley crew we were: Germans, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, a Russian Finn, and an Icelander. There were many nationalities, but in the majority of cases extreme poverty was evident in their dress and stamped upon their faces, and it was easy to see that the same spirit of recklessness which filled me had somehow also been instilled into them. Nearly everybody had guns, revolvers, and knives, which were promptly taken from us as we stepped on board. Then the Germans would sing in their language of the Fatherland they had left, and in overflowing gush, men, women, and children would hang about one another's necks. Everybody acted in such a mad manner as, I am quite sure, he would never have thought of behaving in any time before. Most of the men were drunk, and as it grew dark at night one would seek for the other, and as no one knew the way about, a perfect pandemonium was raging--singing, fighting, blubbering in all languages. I do believe if I had had a sixpence left, I should have spent it in schnapps too, because my courage had never been tried so hard before. But I had spent my all, and so I made a virtue of necessity, and stood aloof looking round me in silent wonder as to what the end would be. The prospectus said that the best and most wholesome food would be served out to us in abundance, and to look at the bill of fare one would think it enough to satisfy any gormandizer. But we got nothing at all the first day, and I was unspeakably hungry. The prospectus said also that bed-clothes were supplied to us, and these were already in the bunks--it said mattrass, pillow, sheets, and blanket. The mattrass and pillow were right enough. The sheets it did not matter much about--they were no good at all for their purpose. But the blanket, the only thing we had to cover ourselves with at night on a four months' voyage, was smaller than the size of a little dining-table when it was spread out, about the size of a saddle-cloth and much inferior in quality to anything worthy of the name of blanket I have ever seen before or since. As a consequence, those who had like myself put faith in that part of the promises made us, and who had no other bed-clothes, were compelled when we went to bed at night, to put on all the clothes we had and sleep in them. I slept every night for months at a stretch in my overcoat, woollen comforter around my neck, and the blanket, the all sufficient bed-clothes, rolled round my head! I did not, as it may be imagined, sleep at all the first night on board the ship. At break of day the cook came in with a large wooden bowl of hot potatoes, which he put on the table singing out, "Breakfast!" I was thankful because I was very hungry, and I began at once to get out of the bunk so as to lose no time, but I was not half way to the table before a dozen Germans had rushed the dish and stuffed all the hot potatoes into their pockets, their shirts, anywhere. There was not a taste left! We were twenty-six men in that compartment, and now the row of last night began again with renewed vigour. I looked upon it as a lesson in smartness which I should have to learn, and I thought that if I did not learn it soon it would be a bad job. Half of the twenty-six men were Danes--in fact we were fourteen Danes in the compartment against twelve Germans, because I, who hailed from Hamburg, had been classified as a German although I am not. I believe it was a premeditated assault on the potatoes by the Germans, because they were all in it, and not one of the Danes had got a morsel to eat. The twelve Germans gave nothing up. They ate the potatoes intended for us all with great composure while we others were storming at them. Didn't I feel wild! While the dissatisfaction was at its highest point, somebody we had not yet seen came into the cabin. He was a person with a decided military air about him, and he was also dressed in a gorgeous uniform. Two of the passengers who had already been sworn in to act as police constables during the voyage came behind him, and in one of his uplifted hands he held a document which he was waving at us. "Halt," cried he. "Halt, Donnerwetter, I say, halt, while I read this paper." All the Germans without an exception had just come from the Franco-German war, and the sight of the uniform and the determined military air about the doctor, as we soon discovered him to be, had the effect of shutting them up in an instant. Some of the Danes were also old soldiers; anyhow, you might have heard a pin drop while the doctor, who also came straight from the war, where he had been army surgeon, read a proclamation, the exact words of which I forget, but which was to the purpose that he had supreme command over us all, and--"Donnerwetter," cried he, "Donnerwetter, I will have order. If you are not amenable to discipline I will handcuff every one of you. What sort of Knechte are you?" This last remark was addressed to a big strapping-looking German who happened to stand close to him. The German stood as stiff as a statute, saluting with the one hand, while with the other he made a slight movement which threw his overcoat a little to one side and displayed a silver cross which he wore on his vest. "Ha!" cried the doctor, greatly mollified, "I see you have served the Kaiser to some purpose. Don't forget you are not outside the Kaiser's law yet. I hope we shall be friends." Then he marched off to read his proclamation in other parts of the ship. These Germans, I found out by degrees, were not at all bad fellows, but we did not for a long time forgive them the assault on the potatoes, and I have often thought what a peculiar sign of German thrift it was. They had simply taken in the situation more quickly than we; indeed it has become nearly a proverb in Queensland to say that a German will grow fat where other men will starve. After that time order was restored, and no disturbance worth mention occurred on the whole voyage. Nothing can well be more tedious than a sea voyage of four months under our circumstances. The food was wretched and insufficient, and, as I have already mentioned, most of us had to sleep with all our clothes on us. We did not undress; we rather dressed to go to bed! There was not a single individual among the passengers who understood English. It is true I had learned English for seven years in school, but when we came ashore it proved that I could scarcely make myself understood in a single sentence. None of us knew anything about Queensland, and many were the surmises and guesses at what the country was like and what we were going to do there. I remember distinctly once a number of us were sitting talking about the colony, and that one ventured to say that he had heard how in Queensland, when journeymen tradesmen were travelling about looking for work, they needed no "wander-book," and travelled about on horseback; whereupon another got up much offended, and said that he had heard many lies about Queensland, but this last beat all. He did not know so much about the "wander-book," although he had taken good care to have his own in order, but if any one tried to make him believe that beggars went about on horseback over there, then it was time to cry stop. "No," said he, "he knew we should have to walk." We others concurred. One of my companions, I remember, was a shoemaker, and a religious maniac besides. He would lie in his bunk and pray aloud night and day. It was quite startling sometimes in the middle of the night when all were asleep to hear him in a sanctimonious voice chanting a hymn. If the spirit moved him that way, then it was good-bye to sleep for us for a long time after. He would be quite irresistible. Most of us in the cabin were a phlegmatic set who did not mind, but one, a Swiss, was of a very excitable temperament. He was "down" on the shoemaker. When the hymns began in the night one might be quite sure to hear after a minute, from the bunk in which the Swiss lay, a smothered whispered little oath like "Gottferdam." Then ten seconds after he would exclaim in an everyday voice, with, however, an affected resignation, "Gottferdam"; and as the full burden of the sacred song kept rolling on, he would start screaming out of his bunk with a real big "Gottferdam." But the others did not allow him to hurt his enemy. They seemed to agree that even if it was not very nice, yet it must be wicked to hurt any one for practising his religion; but I believe that their motives were not quite so pure, because this shoemaker had an inexhaustible fund of anecdote, and if anything were allowed to annoy him in the night, he would tell them no stories during the day. When all went smooth, it was the practice for him to gather a score or two around, the numbers swelling as he proceeded, and then tell a story, something of a sensational sort about love and murder. His whole soul would then be in it, and he gesticulated as if he felt and believed it all. Every Sunday he was always more or less ready to cry out for hunger, and would at such times sit and look right before him straight out into space. Then he would say, "I wish I had a dish of German dumplings. With cherry-sauce, with cherry-sauce. Not the way one gets in the steam-kitchens, but the way my mother used to make it." Then we would get a long description of his mother's recipe for German dumplings. There is no mistake about it, too, we _did_ fast on that ship. In reading over to myself some of these last pages, I am afraid I have given my readers the impression that the people on board, taken as a whole, were a bad lot. If I have done so, it is erroneous. It is true that my first impression of the emigrants was not a good one, and perhaps few among us excelled or were remarkable for anything in particular, but taken as a whole they were honest, hard-working people, and as I became acquainted with them one after another I found that men of whom I had a very low opinion when we first came on board, were in reality entitled to very much higher estimation. We did not know anything about the country to which we were going. We had an idea that we were to begin a new life somewhat freer than in the old world, and, simpleminded as we were--because I was just as bad as anybody--thought that when we came on board ship we could dispense with such formalities as those the old world had taught us. That is, I am sure, the true reason why so many emigrants, when they leave home as well as when they arrive in a colony, behave so foolishly as to make one think that they never had known the decencies of life before. It is the same with the English emigrants, only they are more quickly absorbed into the general population. Still the word "New Chum" has in Australia much the same meaning as the word "fool." I never felt more bitterly ashamed than once, several years after I came to Queensland, when I saw a number of Danish immigrants just arrived. It was in Toowoomba, and I had come down there from up country on some business, when one of the first things I was told was that there were a lot of my countrymen in the depôt waiting for engagements. Toowoomba is about a hundred miles inland, and they had been sent up from Brisbane. Well, I felt quite pleased, and decided at once to go and see them and to speak a kind word to some of them, if I could not do them any other service. But I came away a great deal less pleased than I had gone. There were some long forms outside the building, and on those forms sat as close as they could find room a score or so of men. Each man had wooden clogs on his feet and a long pipe in his mouth. On his knees sat his girl with her arm round his neck, and there they sat smoking and kissing perfectly regardless of ladies and gentlemen who would walk about looking at them and going on again. One I stood glaring at seemed to me the worst. He was a big ugly fellow, dressed in a blue calico blouse, black trousers and wooden clogs. In his hand he had a pipe five feet long, but on his head he had a sugar-bag. These sugar-bags are of straw and about two feet six inches in length. He had tied in the corners to fit his head. This gentleman would rush about and look in at the doors of houses, throwing side glances in all directions with the evident desire to attract attention. At last he stood in the middle of the street singing an old Danish song and jerking his body about like a maniac. I could not contain myself, so I went up to him and asked him if he did not think he was ugly enough already without trying to make himself still more so, and what did he mean by sticking that sugar-bag on his head? "Oh," cried he, quite unconcerned, "here we are right up on the top of these blue mountains, that does not matter. It is a first-rate straw-hat. Does it not look nice? Why! this is a free country," &c. One very conspicuous figure on board the emigrant ship was the Icelander, Thorkill; he was so unlike anybody else that I would like to describe him, especially as he became my mate in Queensland and we became close friends. His eyes were bluer and his complexion clearer than that of any one else I ever saw. He had long yellow curly hair, and a big yellow beard. He was himself also big and strong, and about twenty-eight years of age--altogether I should say, as far as appearance went, the beau ideal of a man. But as no one is perfect, so had he also a grievous fault, viz., a certain softness, like a woman. He always spoke as with a comma between each word, and although he had plenty of good sense and was, like all Icelanders, well educated, yet he would, I believe, give most people the impression that he was not fit to battle with a wicked world. I often wondered what might have brought him on board that ship, but he was very reticent about his own affairs. Meanwhile I have never known anybody whose mind was so pure, whose thoughts were so lofty as his. But he was unpractical, to a degree. He claimed to know all his ancestors from the twelfth century, when they had emigrated from Norway to Iceland, and he said his father still farmed the same land. Unless as a professor in ancient folklore, I do not know what Thorkill was good for. I had, in school, learned much Icelandic folklore, and to see his eyes sparkle with joy when he discovered this and knew that I was interested in it besides, did me real good, and so we agreed that during the voyage we would refresh each other's memory in "Sagamaal." He arranged to teach me the whole complete "Rümi Kronike." So we bribed the fellow who lay next to me (we had double bunks) to exchange berths with Thorkill, and he and I then lay together, and there we were telling "Sagamaal" from morning to night and sometimes the whole night through. He would make me tell him one of the "Sagas" I knew, although he knew it far better himself, just to see if I had mastered it properly. He would listen with all his might, then he would say: "Excuse--me--for--interrupting you--but--are--you--sure--that --you--are--correct--in--describing--Sharpedin--the--son--of--Hakon--as --a--longbearded--man. The--Rümi Kronike--does--not--say--so--on--the --contrary." Then we would have a long argument about that, Thorkill insisting upon the importance of being exact. He wrote a splendid hand, but from the pedantic ungainly way in which he took hold of anything, I made sure he was not a good worker. He had studied scientific farming at the agricultural college in Copenhagen, and afterwards had been, he said, a sort of overseer on a large farm on the island of Als. Whether he had given satisfaction at that or not, I did not know, but what was the good of all his knowledge, supposing he had any, when he did not understand English, had no friend nor money, and was a bad worker? One day I said to him: "Thorkill, do you ever try to draw a real picture to yourself of how we shall get on when we come to Queensland? I am thinking of this, there are, according to what we have been told, no more people in all Queensland than there is in a good-sized street in Copenhagen, and here are all these people on board ship who will be, the moment they land, ravenous in their competition for something to do, and another ship has sailed from Hamburg a week after us. How will they fare? I cannot solve it. But it strikes me very forcibly that if the sail of this ship were set for Copenhagen harbour instead of Queensland, the only solution to the problem there would be for the police to have some large vans in readiness and to give us a drive in them straight out to the workhouse." "Oh say not so," cried Thorkill, "say not so. God will protect us. You and I will never part." "No," cried I, in the fulness of my heart, "we will stick together, and we will get something to do too, you will see." And then, with a new sense of responsibility on me, I would talk to him cheerfully about Queensland, and the opportunities there would be to do well for both of us, which could not fail, but meanwhile I would rack my brain with thinking about how to make a few shillings to land with. I had not got a cent, and I knew very well that Thorkill had nothing either. It was a bad place I was in for making money, for there was not much of it on the ship, but I now very much regretted that I had spent all that I had before I came on board. Here were all these empty bottles lying about the ship which nobody seemed to claim. Why, thought I, they must be worth a little fortune in Queensland. Good idea! We will collect them all. I communicated with Thorkill. "Oh," said he, "you-- will--make--your--fortune--in--Queensland. They must be worth a mint of money. But is it right to take them? What--a--business--ability--you --have--got. Nobody seems to want them. I think we might have them." So then we went about begging and borrowing empty bottles everywhere, without letting anybody know for what we wanted them, and we piled them up in our bunks so that we could scarcely get into them; then people, when they saw what we were after, put a price on the bottles and came to us to sell. So Thorkill bought five shillings' worth on my recommendation, all the money he had, and still they came with bottles, but the firm was compelled to suspend payment. Then I, who was understood to know a little English, opened a class for teaching that language. My pupils had no money, but I took it out in empty bottles, and by and by we had them stacked by the hundred all round about ready for market. The food we got was so wretched and insufficient that it was scarcely possible to keep body and soul together upon it. I have asked many people since how they fared in other ships, and I have come to the conclusion that our ship was the worst provided of any in that respect. Indeed, the emigrant ships which leave England are well supplied with everything, even luxuries, for their passengers. But in this ship we were sometimes on the point of despair with hunger. We got our week's supply of biscuits served out once a week. Those who were unable to practise self-restraint, generally ate them in a couple of days, and for the rest of the week subsisted on the so-called dinner which consisted of a couple of mouthfuls of salt pork or mutton, with a little sauer-krout to keep it company. Our ration of sugar was a small table-spoonful per week to each man. The tea and coffee we got morning and evening was served in the same wooden trough in which we fetched our dinner, and as the sugar ration was, as already stated, served separately once a week and quickly consumed, our beverage was void of any sweetening. But as for me, I never fooled about all the week with my spoonful of sugar; I always put it into the first pint of tea I got. We also got some butter, and we never troubled much either about the quantity or quality of that article. The trouble was that we had seldom a biscuit to spread it on. The prospectus had said that cordials were served out, and in conformity with that every sixteen men received one bottle of lime-juice per week. These were our rations. There was on that account an amount of dissatisfaction on board verging sometimes on open mutiny. The water was also fearfully bad, with inches of froth on it, but bad as it was, we would drink it as soon as we got it and then feel like dying of thirst sometimes before the time came to serve out the next rations. As a sort of proof of the correctness of this statement, I might mention that one of the passengers had a canary bird which died of thirst because some of us would steal the drop of water in its glass! I have already written that no disturbance worth mentioning occurred on the voyage. When I wrote that, I forgot an incident which happened when we had been out to sea about a couple of months. The doctor, as I have already stated, was also in command of us. He had been an army doctor in the German army during the Franco-German war, and came straight thence. Whether he made the mistake of thinking he was in command of a convict ship full of criminals, or whether it was that his military training was the cause of it, I cannot say, but in one word, he was boss of that ship. Every now and then somebody would be handcuffed and shut up during his pleasure, without anybody taking much notice; but one day he went a good deal too far. One of the single girls had been accused by the woman in charge of them of some fault, upon which I need not farther enlarge more than to say that it was trifling, and that the culprit was a very respectable girl, who shortly after her arrival in Queensland got married to a good husband, and that both she and her husband are, and always were, pre-eminently respectable people. The girl was tied with ropes to the mast, with her hands fastened behind her in such a way that she was exposed to the full view of all the six hundred people on board. I was lying in my bunk when a fellow came in very excited, and said, "Look here, chaps, is not this getting red hot? There is that poor girl, so and so, chained to the mast and crying as if her heart would break. What are we coming to?" The moment I heard there was a girl chained to the mast and crying, I jumped up and registered an oath aloud that she should not stand there one second longer than it would take me to reach the mast. So did every other man who was in the cabin; even meek Thorkill cried out, "It is too bad, too bad." Then I grabbed the wooden trough in which the concoction of roasted peas that passed for coffee was served out in the morning. So did every other man grab at something to strike with--one would take a wooden clog, one a long stick, another a boot, and all something, and in less time than it takes to read this we were all on deck. But to reach the mast was then impossible. The girl had not stood there yet for five minutes, but there was already a surging, impenetrable crowd on the scene of action. As I could not see, and could not content myself to stand still, I jumped up in the rigging, and from there, right enough, I saw the girl and four German constables (passengers who had been sworn in as police) watching her. How shall I describe the scene. It all seemed to me to happen in one instant. Hundreds of men were yelling from behind at the top of their voices, "Throw them in the sea. Cut her down! Where is the doctor? He shall not live another hour." A dozen men were struggling round the girl, some with the constables, and some of the more moderate among the passengers with the aggressors. One towering fellow, a Dane, had one of the constables by the throat, and the wooden bowl swinging over his head, and held back by another man, who implored him to give the doctor a chance to order the girl's instant removal. The doctor was not on deck, but he came running on now, with a revolver in each hand. He kept on the quarter-deck, but he sang out to the constables to cut her down and take her into the hospital. Somehow that was done, and the doctor walked down the steps from the quarter-deck, turned the key in the lock, put it in his pocket, and faced the crowd. Did you ever notice two dogs when they meet, and before they begin to fight? How unconcerned they try to look. They will look at anything, anywhere but at one another. So looked the doctor as he stood there with a cigar in his mouth, smoking away and looking at anything but the sea of faces around him. Around him like a solid wall had the men closed, armed with knives, wooden bowls, sticks, &c., and the howl, "Throw him in the sea," kept on from the rear. No doubt the doctor realized that he had gone too far, and he tried all he could while he stood there not to give further offence, but I watched him particularly from my seat in the rigging. Fear was not in that man. Not a muscle in his face shook, and yet I am certain that his attention was strained to the uttermost, and that the fingers which closed on the triggers of the two revolvers would have caused them to blaze away the moment he had felt any one touch him ever so gently. Behind him again, but up on the quarter-deck, stood the captain and the first mate, with large overcoats on, and their hands in their pockets. I had a suspicion that they also had revolvers--who knows how many--within easy distance. But it was one thing to see a young woman tied to the mast and crying, and it was (the doctor and his revolver apart) quite another thing to look at a closed door and know that she was there and that no further harm would befall her. But most of the men had a few minutes ago been so excited, that it was not in human nature for them to cool down at once. The man who had when I came on the scene taken the most prominent part, was still the foremost person. He stood within three feet of the doctor, and, as I said already, like a solid wall stood the others armed with divers things; but no one touched the doctor, and no one spoke to him, and there was a sort of undecided silence. Then the leader cried, "Well, what are you waiting for? You said throw him in the sea; just give the word and he shall be overboard in a second." My heart beat violently. I thought murder would be committed in an instant, and not a single life either, but perhaps scores would be sacrificed. There was a dead silence. The wind whistled through the rigging, but it was the only sound heard. The doctor did not move; the captain did not move; the mate did not move; and none of the men moved. None dared to give the aggressive sign, and each seemed to feel it just as impossible to beat a retreat. It might have lasted a couple of minutes, perhaps less. It seemed an age to me. Then we all heard Thorkill's voice, he was somewhere in the rigging too, and he cried, "Countrymen--listen--to--me! hear--what--I--say! Disperse! Disperse!--quietly. Let--us--complain --when--we--come--ashore! He--will--shoot--the--first--ten--or--twelve --men--who--touch--him--and--those--who--escape--now--might--be--hung --when--we--come--ashore. Let--us--complain--when--we--come--ashore --and--we--will--get--justice." Thorkill still kept on talking, but the outburst of relief from all sides completely drowned his voice. There was an honourable way to get out of it. "We will complain when we come ashore," "Disperse," "Let it be enough," and similar expressions, were heard on all sides, and the doctor, I suppose nothing loth, had quite a pleased appearance as he stepped up on the quarter-deck again as soon as the road was clear, and disappeared out of sight simultaneously with the dispersion of the men. That day the doctor did not show up again, but on the next, I suppose just to show that he did not consider himself beaten, all the single men were ordered below at sundown as a punishment for insubordination, and with that the matter ended. But now the men were pressing Thorkill to write out a complaint which should embody all we had suffered, and all our supposed wrongs. Thorkill, however, would do no such thing. It was not in his line, he said. Many a talk he and I had about it, but he could not see his way. "All these poor people," said he, "are treated with contempt because they are poor, and I cannot help them for I am just as poor. We do not know to whom to complain; we cannot write English, and what we do will rebound on our own heads. Still," said he, "it--is--a--shame--that--they--should--be--allowed--to--treat--people --like--this." Then I wrote out a complaint in Danish addressed to the Danish Consul, Australia. The exact contents of it I have long since forgotten, but it was to the effect that we had been starved, ill-treated, had had no sick accommodation, insufficient bed-clothes, &c., and from that day I looked upon myself as an important personage on board ship. All the single and married men, with about a dozen exceptions, signed the statement. All the single girls wanted also to sign it, but I feared the woman in charge might confiscate the document (the matron in charge of the girls on our ship was only an ordinary emigrant selected by the doctor, and in my opinion scarcely the best that might have been selected. In English emigrant ships an educated lady is engaged as matron.) Thus I could not bring myself to go among them for the purpose of getting signatures, and so the females were not represented in the complaint. (It might, however, be interesting to English readers, as showing the standard of education on the continent of Europe, that of all the people on board only one, an elderly man, had to sign his name with a cross.) One day while I was getting these signatures, and the men were coming to where I held my levee as fast as they could, the doctor stormed the cabin with two constables behind him and ordered me to give up the document to him. Then the doctor and I talked, I in Danish and he in German, and we had a wordy war. I liked the doctor in my heart, because he was about as brave a man as one could wish to see, and very likely, too, some of the severe discipline on board was not altogether uncalled for; yet he was not going to have it all his own way, and to this day I maintain that whatever else might have been right or wrong, to starve as we starved was scandalous. I write about these things, and I do not know whether my readers may think them of much interest, but all these little incidents seem engraven upon my memory. On board ship there is nothing to think about or to talk about but the same old things. One is cross, perhaps, and everybody talks much about the same thing. "Where are we, I wonder?" "I wonder how many knots we are running?" "I wonder how it will go when we come to Queensland?" "I wonder if any one ever was so hungry as I?" So it goes on, day out and day in, and one has to discuss and answer these questions about five hundred times every day. But now we are nearing Australia, and high time I dare say the reader probably thinks it is; but if my readers are tired out, so were we. Yet there is another of the passengers I must describe, as I intend to mention him again. I will do so in a few words. He was a quiet, gentlemanly man, about thirty years old. He told me he had been a lieutenant in the Danish army, but had been dismissed for insubordination. He managed, without giving offence to anybody, to keep himself completely in the shadow in the ship, and one seemed not to know he was there. I will call him "A." A. understood and spoke English fluently, but nobody knew it. Indeed, when the complaint-fever was on, he denied all knowledge of the language. A young lady was travelling with him--that is, she went as a single girl, but they got married as soon as we came ashore. They had quite a number of things with them to set up house with, and lived for a short time very comfortably on their means; when they went away again I lost sight of them. CHAPTER III. MY ARRIVAL IN QUEENSLAND. Never can I forget the joy I felt, a joy universal to all on board the ship, the first day we saw Australia. It was Sunday. The whole night before the ship had cruised about outside Bass's Straits, and at break of day we ran in. We did not know at all we were so near. We had not seen land for three months when we had made out the island of Madeira. Since then, as far as I remember, we had not even passed another ship. In the Indian Ocean, storm, sleet, rain and cold had been the order of the day. This day, the first time for months, the sun was shining brightly, and a crisp, altogether different air fanned our cheeks. It was blowing very strongly, but every sail the ship could carry was spread, so that the ship lay over very much, and we seemed to fly past the land at lightning speed. This, then, was Australia, our future home--and beautiful it seemed. Land lay on both sides. That on the Australian side was flat, seemingly, but Tasmania showed up with a majestic chain of mountains. I had never seen a mountain before, nor had any of the other Danes, and we wondered whether anything could grow on them, or whether they were all solid stone. People were so glad, that they ran about and shook one another's hands. Three or four of the passengers had telescopes, and we were all dying to have a long look at the coast. It is amusing to myself to think of the amount of ignorance which really existed among us about the land to which we were going. "Do you make out anything over there?" one would ask of the man with the telescope. "Yes," came the answer, "it seems all big trees." "Trees, did you say? I am glad of that. I will lay a wager where all those trees will grow, something else will grow." "This is not Queensland, though." "Oh, well, only let me see plenty of big trees when we come to Queensland, then I am satisfied." "Do you think we shall be allowed to cut the trees down?" "I do! they must be glad to get rid of them. Why, it is self-evident that you can take as much land here as you want; here is so much of it and nobody to use it." "Do you know, I do not believe there is any desert in that land at all!" "No more do I. I am sure there is not. Why should there?" "I am glad I went, now I have seen the land." "So am I." In another part of the ship, as I walked about, I heard a very dogmatic fellow laying down the law to a lot of married men who were discussing their chances of obtaining employment. "Why," cried he, "anyone with a spark of common sense can see at a glance that there must be _plenty_ of work in Queensland. Look around you here on the ship. All these people must have shelter, and food, and clothes; I say they must. That gives work--does it not?" The others did not seem quite convinced by the argument. They appeared to know that there was a missing link somewhere, but, like the Italian smuggler in Charles Dickens' "Little Dorrit," they kept saying, "Altro, altro, altro!" With such hopeful conversation the day wore away, but before night we were out again in open sea, and for another fortnight we saw no more of Australia. Then we made the coast again and sailed along in sight of land. Once more we were out to sea again. At last one morning before daybreak we dropped anchor, and when daylight came found that we were quite close to land, and right in front of a large flagpole and some neat wooden cottages which stood on the shore. This, then, was Queensland--Moreton Bay, and Brisbane, the capital, lay some miles up the river. A man came from one of the houses and hoisted a flag, then another, and another. Our company thought he did it to do us honour, or in joy for our safe arrival, and in the wildest excitement they screamed hurrah! until they were hoarse. Of course, the man was merely making signals to the town, and a few hours after a small steamer came out, and some live sheep were put on board, also fruit for the children, and potatoes--sweet potatoes they are called, different from our potatoes at home and much larger. Kind people!--Good Queensland!--Happy country! No starvation here or smell of poverty. Look at these potatoes, five, six, ten times as large as those we have at home! Who said Australia was a desert? So thought and spoke we while we scanned, with a sort of reverent awe, some ladies and gentlemen who were on board the little steamer, and the pilot who had come on board our own ship. Much to our regret, we found we were not to land here. We were now informed, for the first time on the whole voyage, that our destination was a place called Port Denison, which lies about half way between Brisbane and Cape Somerset, and which was at that time the farthest northern port opened up of any importance. So now we were off again on our interminable voyage. Only our troubles were over. Alas! for the complaint which I carried in my pocket, we were all as healthy and strong a set of people as any one could wish to see, for since we arrived in Bass's Strait we had been served with plenty of food. Just now we lived on roast meat, potatoes, and pudding every day. I could feel my cheeks grow redder and sleeker day by day. Alas! what should I do? As a public man I was, of course, not allowed to change my opinions, but when I looked at all these fellows gormandizing from morning to night, it seemed to me a sort of treason to our cause. And what was worse, I bore no ill-will to anybody. Surely the Danish consul, if there was one, would expect to see a lot of emaciated objects when we had been starved so cruelly, and I myself so anxious to get something to do. I might be hindered, and have to travel about more yet, and, if I could not prove the truth, be cast into prison! I often wish the complaint was as nearly forgotten as our troubles seemed to be. Yet, after all the talk there had been, it was too late to draw back. The ship was now for a whole week longer sailing northwards, always in sight of land--often, indeed, so close that we could almost have thrown biscuits ashore. The whole way along was dotted with small islands, which became more numerous the further north we sailed. There must be some thousands of them if they were all counted, but with the exception of a few of the largest which lie near Brisbane, they are nearly all uninhabited. To look at the coast on the mainland, one would think that the man who said he would be satisfied if he only saw plenty of trees in Queensland, ought to feel contented. It seemed to us one vast forest. Occasionally we saw smoke curling up from among the trees, and at night we could see large fires. This was the dry grass burning among the trees, a very common thing in Queensland, but to us it was a most startling and awe-inspiring sight. We thought that it was the aboriginals who were trying to get on to the ship, and that these were their fires. One night the fires extended for many miles, and a most beautiful sight it was, but no one gave a thought to its being a bush-fire. We simply said, "What a lot of them there must be? Why, there must be more niggers here than there were Frenchmen at Sedan. Look at their fires!" And then we thought it strange that we did not get our weapons back again that they had taken from us when we came on board. I do not think any one was afraid. I myself rather liked the novelty of being so near the "enemy." We would sit and discuss how many we thought we could keep out, supposing, for argument's sake, that they dared to come--and altogether we felt ourselves great heroes. I have a suspicion that the Queensland pilot who was now in charge of the ship, along with the other quality up on the quarter-deck, were having a laugh at our expense. Anyhow, one evening I happened to come near him I pointed round me and towards the sun, which was just going down, and summoning to my aid all my stock of English I said, "Very nice, Queensland." "Yes," cried he, "it looks beautiful. All that red glow in the sky you see there is the reflection from the gold on the gold-fields." I could not understand the meaning of what he said, but I looked deferential and thankful for the information all the same, and for fear I had not taken it all in he called the mate and asked him to explain it to me. Probably he thought I believed it! That same night we sailed in between a mountainous island and the coast, and one of the guns was loaded and fired off. The echo reverberated far and near in a most startling fashion, and perhaps it was for the echo they fired it off, but we were certain that it must have frightened the natives out of their wits. We were even positive we could see them round their fires trying to put them out. Poor harmless aboriginals of Queensland! They little know what respect they are held in by new arrivals! It is only familiarity which breeds contempt in their case. In a few more years the last of them will have joined the great majority. After that event has happened, no doubt the bard will sing their praises and descant about their matchless beauty, their enormous strength, and their bloodthirsty cruelty. We had very little wind in the sails as we came along, and nothing can be thought more beautiful than the climate we now enjoyed. I am now so used to the Queensland climate that I take it as a matter of course, but how can I give the reader an adequate idea of the joy I then felt in the very fact of my existence: the beautiful sun in the day, the glorious sunset in the evening, the full moon, and the sparkling rippling silent water! Then all these islands we passed were so full of mysterious interest, while the vast unknown mainland lay beyond. The reckless spirit of which I spoke as universal when we came on board in Hamburg, seemed now to have taken wings and fled. Indeed, the main trouble on board just now was how we should make a good impression when we landed. It was looked upon as a matter of honour that each should be on his very best behaviour when we came ashore, and I know of several of whom it was thought by the rest that their clothes were scarcely good enough, and who were lent by the others sufficient to appear in better trim and circumstances. The ship was now so clean that one might have eaten his dinner off the decks anywhere. Altogether there was a decided change for the better since the day we first saw Australia. At last, one day after having sailed along the apparently uninhabited coast for eight or nine days, we suddenly rounded a cliff, sailed into a little bay, and dropped anchor. There lay Bowen in full sight of us, and this was Port Denison. How strange it seemed that these few scattered wooden cottages we saw lying there on the beach in appalling loneliness should be the spot that we, through storm and trouble, had all been trying to reach. For some time not a human being was to be seen. There was a long jetty running out into the water for a great distance, but we did not go alongside. We lay, I think, half a mile out, and we were given to understand that we were not to go ashore before the morrow, and that on landing all our wants would be attended to until we obtained employment. Now it began to look lively on the beach. A lot of people came out on the jetty, and at last a boat, with a dozen gentlemen in it, got under way and pulled straight for the ship. These are Queenslanders, thought I, men who had fought with the Blacks and been on the gold-diggings. Rich, no doubt they were. Oh, how we screamed hurrah! for them, and how kind they looked as they came nearer, waving their handkerchiefs and smiling in response to our greeting. They were not at all ferocious looking; really much the same sort of people we had seen before. Yet what adventures must they not have gone through; what stories could they not tell if they liked? But, of course, that would be beneath their dignity. At last they were on board. Most of them greeted the doctor and captain in German, being, in fact, Germans. After a short interval, one of the Queenslanders, who proved to be the agent and interpreter employed by the Government to attend to us when we came ashore, got up on a big box and made a long speech in German, exhorting us to do well, and gesticulating with much gusto and great force. He advised us to take the first work we could get, and while we were accommodating ourselves to the new habits of life and customs existing in this country, to try to feel contented. "Where," cried he, "will all of you be in twenty years? Some will be dead; others perhaps alive. Some rich and honoured; others perhaps only servants to those among you who are more pushing or lucky. These little children who are now running about us fighting for an orange, may become members of Parliament in time. To-day you start with an equal chance, but from to-morrow your fortunes will begin to alter, and for certain not one of you will for ever forget this day; and no doubt in after years you will look back on to-day often, and as you recall to your mind how your time has been employed, wish you had it over again, that you might act more wisely or become better." All this was good advice, and very well and kindly spoken. He said much more to the same purpose, but as good advice is everywhere cheap and plentiful, I will not inflict the whole of his carefully prepared speech upon my readers. He spoke for nearly an hour. At last he congratulated us on our clean appearance, wiped his perspiring brow, and the performance was at an end. We were not sorry, to tell the truth--at least I was not, because this was the day on which our best dinner, grey peas stewed with pork, was served out; and as it was past the usual dinner hour when the sermon was over, not only did I stand right in the tempting smell from the kitchen, but I had also noticed how, gradually, as the speech proceeded, the "skaffers," or men whose duty it was to fetch the food from the cook's galley, had one by one crept away, and now they stood in a long row ready with their wooden troughs while the cook began to dish up the peas. After dinner, when we came on deck again, I heard some one cry out, "Are there any carpenters on board? Carpenters--any carpenters who want employment?" "Yes!" I was one. Five more came forward. One of the Queenslanders said he wished to engage one or two carpenters. Of course some one acted as interpreter. Well, he would give thirty pounds sterling per annum to a good man. He would also give him his board and lodging. We all thought it a fair offer, although scarcely up to our expectations. But then, again, what were our expectations? Half the time we were afraid we should get nothing at all to do, and the other half we thought we were to pick up bucketsful of gold. Anyhow, we were all anxious to engage, and I, with a full regard to the fact that my only property was a partnership in two hundred and odd empty bottles, was not at all sorry to see that I seemed to find favour in his eyes. I was offered an engagement on the above-named terms. Would I kindly step this way to sign the agreement? A document written in English was placed before me for signature. I could pretty well understand the meaning of it, and an interpreter was there ready enough to explain matters, but there were certain very important features in it which never were explained to me, and which I myself totally overlooked, and if I had seen these I should only have agreed to them as a last resource from starvation. As the agreement was just like those signed by thousands every year all over Queensland to this present day, I will give it here. It ran thus: ---- promised to serve ---- for the term of twelve calendar months and to obey all his lawful commands. In return for which, ---- would pay the sum of £---- sterling and rations. Then followed the signatures. I understood that the word "rations" meant my board and lodging, and so it proved in my case, and as it was explained to me; but most of my unfortunate shipmates who signed similar agreements in the same good faith as I found out in a practical manner that to them it had another meaning. It will be noticed that the agreement says nothing whatever about lodging. Legally, a Queensland employer who engages a man for wages and "rations" might let his employé camp under the gum-trees without giving him any sleeping accommodation whatever, and that is very often done. If a man gets a shed or a corner of a stable to live in, it is more than he is entitled to under these agreements. So far as the food is concerned, the word "ration" as used in these agreements means a fixed quantity of certain things, which, therefore, again is all an employé can expect from his master. These consist of twelve pounds of raw beef or mutton, eight pounds of flour, two pounds of sugar and a quarter of a pound of tea. As long as these eatables are tea and sugar, flour and beef, nothing is said as to quality, and the most inferior goods which are in the market are called _ration-tea_ and _ration-sugar_. But what is an unfortunate new arrival, who never made a cup of tea in his life before, to do, when on his arrival at some out-of-the-way place in the bush his "boss," as the employer in Queensland is called, hands him these rations instead of giving him three square meals a day? [Illustration: THE LANDING OF EMIGRANTS.] But what was happening now? The constables were running about among the people telling them to stand here and to stand there. All the single girls were packed together up by the wheel as close as they could stand. Then the married men with their families were told to stand as near them as they could, and the single men were again packed as close to them as possible. All of us were now on the quarter-deck. Then came the Queenslanders, the doctor, the captain, and the first mate, and took up a position in front of us down on the deck. One of our own constables with a very sanctimonious face was also there. What did it mean? The Immigration Agent read out of a large protocol, "Anna Frederica Johnston, come forward." "Anna Frederica Johnston, Anna--Anna, Anna Frederica Johnston. They want you--you are wanted; you have to go." The unfortunate girl was half paralyzed with terror, as she came forward. She was a Norwegian. The immigration agent asked her, "Had she been well and kindly treated on the voyage, and was she satisfied?" This had to be translated from German into Norwegian before she understood it. But scarcely did she understand what they said before she cried, "Oh yes, oh yes, I am thankful and satisfied." "Good," she might pass forward. Then another was called who also testified to her kind treatment, and so on until all the girls, even the one who had been tied to the mast, had said they were satisfied and had been well treated. While this was going on, some of the men who stood nearest to me told me to erase their names from the written complaint which I carried. Others advised me that it was now too late altogether to complain; others again said, "Now is the time." I felt myself surprised beyond measure that the Queensland Government should take the trouble to cause such a question to be put to each individual immigrant, and I felt certain that it could not have been Queensland's fault if we had been badly treated. Anyhow, I saw no reason to tell any falsehoods, and my mind was soon made up how to act. As soon as the last girl had declared herself satisfied, the question began with the single men. The first who happened to be called was rather a dense sort of a fellow, and although he had signed the complaint, still he said he was "well satisfied." So then I thought the time had arrived for me to act. I went forward and presented my document written in Danish and addressed to the Danish Consul, Australia; it was translated from Danish to German and from German to English. Meanwhile I glared at the doctor and the doctor glared at me. I felt in rare good humour, the observed of all observers. As a Queenslander would say on such an occasion, it was the proudest moment in my life. I was asked to stand alongside the doctor and captain, and watch my case. The fellow who had already declared himself satisfied was called back and asked had he signed the complaint, and only passed forward after admitting that he had. Then the question to the remainder became, "Have you signed the complaint?"--to which each of them, evidently pleased, replied in the affirmative. Those who had not signed, on saying "no" were then asked "did they wish to sign?" Every one of them signed it then right before the eyes of the doctor. I would as soon that they had not, because it was easily seen that they signed it more because they were asked to do so and did not want to cause trouble, than because they had changed their minds since they had been requested to do the same thing on the voyage. From that time to now I never heard any more about the complaint. Very likely it was forwarded to the proper authorities, and they perhaps took notice of it although unknown to us. The ship was clean when we landed, so were the emigrants, and we had all a healthy, well-fed appearance I am sure, and that must have been greatly in the doctor's favour. But let me say here at once, that if there had been one amongst us who had known the proper way to punish whoever was responsible for our ill-treatment, I believe it would have been a simple matter to have ruined the owners of the ship. If instead of writing our complaint to the Danish Consul, one of us had been able to issue a writ against the doctor upon some definite matter, he could have had as many witnesses as he chose, ready to hand, to prove what the fare of the ship had been. He might have produced his rag of a blanket in court too, and then have claimed damages. I am certain that no Queensland judge or jury would have said, after seeing it, that such a rag, two feet six inches by three feet, was a sufficient covering on a four months' sea voyage, or that the food we received was either sufficient or that it in any way tallied with what we were promised. Such damages as would then have been awarded to the first plaintiff, could indisputably have been claimed by any other emigrant, and that would have meant more than the ship and all that was in it was worth. My boss told me before the Queenslanders left the ship again that I might, as soon as we landed, come to his house for my food and lodging, and that he would not expect me to go to work for a few days, so that I was well provided for already. Three or four dozen other immigrants had also been engaged by the other Queenslanders, all for thirty pounds a year and rations, on exactly the same agreements as mine. But Thorkill was not among them, and I felt a little ashamed and sorry that it was so, as we had agreed not to part, and I had in this way taken my first chance regardless of him; but he was earnest in his gratulations and certain, he said, he would be right too, somehow. We had all these empty bottles, and we expected nothing less than sixpence, or perhaps a shilling, apiece for them. At least I felt greatly consoled to think of them, and I made up my mind that he should have the whole return from them if he needed it. The next day arrived, when we should go ashore, and, full of excitement and expectations, we sailed up to the jetty. Slow work that; it took us some hours to do it. Every one was hanging over the side of the ship looking to see what the place was like, and watching a number of people who stood there. Now we were alongside, so close that we might have jumped ashore, but still we were forbidden to leave the ship before the doctor, who was ashore, arrived. A man stood on the jetty with a large basketful of bananas, which he offered for sale at sixpence per dozen, and handed them over the side of the ship to any one who would buy. He sold them readily, and my mouth watered to taste them; but I had no money. Thorkill stood alongside me, so he said, "I should like so to taste some of those bananas." "So should I." "He charges sixpence per dozen." "Yes." "I wonder if he would take a bottle for a dozen?" "We will try." I dived into the cabin as fast as I could for a bottle, because the man had only a few bananas left. We had all the bottles, or most of them, wrapped up in paper, and I took one which looked nice and clean, and came out again just in time to secure his attention. Now I had to try to make myself understood. "I give you bottle," said I, "if you give me bananas." "Are you going to shout?" cried he. "What have you got?" I did not know what that meant, but as he had a pleased sort of appearance, I nodded and smiled, and caressed the bottle, saying, "Very good, very good bottle." "All right," said he, "let us see what you have got. I give you some bananas; here you are, hand down your bottle." So I took the bananas with the one hand, and handed him the bottle with the other. He took it, smelt it, shook it, pulled off the wrapper, held it up towards the sun, and cried, "Dead mariner, by Jove." Then every one on the jetty laughed like fun, but I was totally ignorant where the joke came in, and asked, "Is it not a very good bottle?" "Oh, yes," said he, "splendid bottle," and they all kept on laughing and talking at me, assuring me that I would do well in Queensland! I understood that much. Thorkill and I now retired into the cabin to eat the bananas, and while we ate them we had some conversation. "I wonder what they all were laughing at?" "Who shall say? Is--it--not--a--nuisance--that--we--do--not--understand --English--better? I--cannot--talk--to--them--at--all. You--seemed--to-- do--fine--though. My--word--you--did. I--never--would--have--believed-- it. I--will--study--that--language." "Did you notice that he said, 'Dead mariner,' when he held the bottle up towards the sun?" "Yes; now I should translate that as a dead sailor. I wonder what he meant?" "Perhaps it is a slang name for a bottle." "I do not think you will find that a correct explanation. It was a dark bottle; now, I am inclined to think that that sort of bottle may be used for some liquor peculiar to this country called 'Dead Mariner;' the same as in Denmark you have so many different names for nearly the same thing. In that way you might be right in saying it is a slang name; but anyhow, we will find out the true meaning of it some day." "Yes," I replied to Thorkill, "and the sooner we find it out the better. Don't you see, the bottles may have a different value, and I should like to have full value for them. We are now in Queensland, Thorkill, and I do not intend to let any one fool me. So, before we sell to any one, I will find out exactly what they are worth. They did not laugh at nothing down there on the jetty. I am afraid he had too good a bargain." "They seemed to say we would do well with the bottles," remarked Thorkill. "I hope we shall. But see! They are at last going ashore. Now, if you take my advice, one of us will stay on board for another hour or two watching the bottles, while the other goes up to the town to find out their true value, and a customer for them." Thorkill replied to this: "Ah, yes; you go up to the town. I will stay and watch the bottles. I am sure you can sell them to far better advantage than I." Meanwhile, a number of the immigrants had gone ashore, and Thorkill and I were getting the bottles out of their hiding-places and putting them on the table. Some Queenslanders came in. They looked on a little. I said, "How much money you pay me for one bottle?" "Have you got all these bottles for sale?" inquired one. "Of course," said I. He did not answer, but went outside and called out "Mick." In came the man who had sold me the bananas. "Do you want to buy any more 'dead mariner'?" asked the first. "Has he got all these bottles for sale?" inquired the banana man. "Certainly," cried I. (Of course, I did not make myself quite so easily understood as might appear from this conversation, but still I managed both to understand and to make myself understood on this occasion.) "No," cried he; "he did not think he wanted any more just now." "How much money you think I receive for one bottle?" inquired I. "Oh, plenty money," cried he, "my word ready; market, any one buys them." "What do they say?" asked Thorkill of me. "They say the bottles are worth a lot of money." "See if you can find out what 'dead mariner' is." I took a porter bottle up, and then said, "You name that one 'dead mariner'?" Queenslander: "Yes, certainly; that is one 'dead mariner.'" I took up a clear bottle and inquired, "This clear thing, you call that empty bottle?" Queenslander: "To be sure that is an empty bottle. But if you are willing to sell, you take them all up to that large hotel you see there. They give you half-a-crown apiece for them." I then asked, "Which one is most costly, 'dead mariner' bottle or clear bottle?" Queenslander: "Oh, that fellow--'dead mariner'--very dear; three shillings, I think." "Heavens! here, we have made our fortune already, Thorkill," cried I. "Three shillings apiece for these bottles and two-and-sixpence for those. And it appears any one will buy. Are we not lucky?" "Oh, but," said Thorkill, "I shall never feel justified in taking half of all that money. It was your idea. I should never have thought of it. I shall be very thankful to receive just a pound or two." "Oh, no," cried I, "you shall share half with me whatever I get. But, excuse me for saying it, you are so unpractical. Why are we not up and stirring? Why are we sitting here yet? Remember time is money in this country." Then I ventured to ask the Queenslanders if in the town there was any one whom I might ask to assist us in carrying the bottles ashore. "Oh, yes," they all cried, as if with one mouth. "You go up in town and get hold of a couple of black fellows, and then you take them all up that street you see there. Any one will buy them there." Thorkill remained on board keeping watch over the bottles, while I went ashore to see what I should see. Just as I came to the end of the long jetty I saw standing there an aboriginal and three Gins. They were about as ugly a set of blacks as I have ever since seen in Queensland, and I was quite horrified at their appearance. The man had on a pair of white breeches, but nothing else. The Gins were also so scantily dressed that I am afraid of going into details of their wearing apparel. All of them had dirty old clay pipes in their mouths, which they were sucking, but there was no tobacco in them. The gentleman of the party saved me the trouble of accosting him, as he came towards me and inquired my name. Then he informed me that his name was Jack. He next introduced me to the ladies, who, it appeared, all had the same name--Mary. Of course I fell in with the humour of this arrangement at once. It seemed to me a delightfully free and easy way of making acquaintance. They all spoke a lot to me, which I did not in the least understand, and I did the same to them no doubt. They asked me for tobacco, which I had not got; but it appeared that all was grist that came to their mill, for they asked in succession for matches, pipe, "sixpence," and I do not know what else, and even wanted to feel my pockets! Of course I did not like this familiarity, so I began to explain to them that I wanted them to work--to carry burdens from the ship. That was soon made clear to them. Then the "gentleman" of the party was very particular to know what I would pay him. I had thought to get them to carry the bottles up, and, having sold them, to pay them out of the proceeds; but as he seemed anxious to make a fixed bargain, I said, "I give you one bottle." In case he should have refused that, I intended to have gone on further, and to have offered a "dead mariner," but to my joy he accepted the offer with evident satisfaction, which again more thoroughly convinced me of the value of my bottles. I and the black fellow with his three Gins accordingly went back to the ship, where Thorkill sat keeping watch over our treasure. I loaded the four blacks with four bags, in each of which were two dozen assorted bottles, and now we started for town in earnest. I thought it beneath my dignity to carry any bottles myself. I had exhorted so many of the immigrants that it was our duty to one another to try to make a good impression when we first landed, that the least I could do I thought would be to set a good example. Therefore I was faultlessly got up, in my own opinion, or at least as well as the circumstances of my wardrobe would permit. Still, my attire was not very suitable to this country, and indeed, when I think of it now, I must have cut a strange figure. I had on my black evening-dress suit, which so far would have been good enough to have gone to a ball in, but my white shirt, I know, was of a very doubtful colour, for I had been my own washer-woman, and it was neither starched nor ironed. Then my tall black hat, of which I was so proud when I got it, had suffered great damage on the voyage, and brush it as I would, any one might easily have seen that it had been used as a foot-stool. My big overcoat, I, according to the most approved fashion in Copenhagen, carried over my arm. In one hand I had my handkerchief, with which I had to constantly wipe the perspiration off my face, because it was very hot. Still, I felt myself a tip-top dignitary as I stalked along in front of the four blacks, who came, chattering their strange lingo, behind me. We marched up to the main street, and I saw at once a hotel, that pointed out to me from the ship as the place in which to sell my bottles. In the bar were two or three gentlemen, of whom I took no notice. Behind the bar stood the barmaid, whom I profoundly saluted, also in Copenhagen fashion. I had what to say on the tip of my tongue, and indeed I have never forgotten it since. So I spoke to the barmaid thus: "I have bottles I will sell to you. Will you buy? Three shillings every one." She looked bewildered, not at me but at the gentlemen in the bar, as if she appealed to them for assistance, and they began to talk to me, but I did not understand them at all. I could feel myself getting red in the face, too, but I manfully made another effort. I called in the blacks and ordered them to deposit their load inside the door. Then I said with great exactness, "I--do--not--ferstan--thee--thou--ferstan --me. I--sell--this--clear--bottles--to thee--for three shillings every one. This--dead--mariner--I--sell--three--shillings--and sixpence every one. Will thou buy?" Meanwhile I had taken out of the bags two samples, a clear and a dark bottle, and placed them on the counter, and I now looked inquiringly around me. Oh, the mortification which became my portion! The girl seemed to faint behind the bar, and the gentlemen made not the slightest excuse for laughing right out in my face. What they said I do not know, but it was clear they did not want my bottles. I felt insulted, and I determined to pay the blacks off and to leave the bottles here until I could find a German Queenslander to whom I might explain my business, and who might help me to sell them. So I took the clear bottle which stood on the counter, and handed it to the black as payment for his service. He looked viciously at me and said, "That fellow no good bottle." I said, "Very dear bottle that." Then I decided to satisfy him at any cost, and gave him the other one, too, and said, "Very dear bottle this, dead mariner." Now began a scene as good as a play. The blacks appealed to the gentlemen, and the gentlemen howled with laughter, and I wished myself a thousand miles away. What did they laugh at? Why did these scampish blacks not feel satisfied after having received double payment? What did it all mean? More people came in and seemed amused and happy, but I was not in the swim. Something was wrong. But what was it? I began to suspect that my bottles could not be so very valuable, as the blacks had thrown both the bottles out into the gutter. Anyhow, for me to stand here to be made a fool of would not do, so I went out of the bar and down the street. But to get away was no easy matter. In fact I found it impossible. The coloured gentleman with his three ladies were in front of me, behind me, and on both sides, crying, howling, yelling, cursing, and appealing to every one who passed, or to those who came to their doors, "That fellow big rogue. That fellow no b---- good. He b---- new chum. He say he give me bottle, he give me no good b---- bottle; dead mariner no b---- good." This was more than human nature could stand. I threw my overcoat and belltopper into the gutter, and went for the black fellow straight. I got on the top of him in a minute, but the battle was not nearly won by that, because the black ladies were tearing at my coat-tails, which just formed two fine handles for them. They split my coat right up to the shoulders, pulled my hair, and belaboured me in a general way. Now came a policeman and grabbed me by the neck. All the "ladies" ran for their lives out of sight, but I suspect their spouse was too bruised to follow their example. Anyhow, he stuck to his guns yet, and while the policeman tried to march us both down the street, he kept appealing to him, declaring his innocence, and my villainy. That I should have spent the next few days in the watch-house I am sure enough, had not an elderly man stepped out of the crowd of onlookers and spoken to the policeman. Then he addressed me in German. I learned then, through much merriment on his part and heartburning on my own, that empty bottles are in Queensland just so much rubbish. Indeed, after the policeman let me go, he took me round to the backyard of the hotel, and there I saw bottles lying by the thousands, some broken and others sound, ready to cart away. But how was I to have known that? Was it easy to guess that a bottle, which might pass for twopence English money in Copenhagen nearly as readily as cash, would here in Queensland have absolutely no value? It is like all other things one knows, easily explained: here there being no distilleries or breweries for making liquors of any kind, they are all imported, hence empty bottles become a drug in the market. But I was not out of trouble yet. The German who had in so timely a manner come to my rescue, seeing the state of mind I was in, tried to console me by offering me a glass of spirits. I accepted his offer very readily, I admit, and coming into the bar again, which so vividly reminded me of my former shame and all the indignities heaped upon me, I poured out a whole tumblerful of raw brandy--which I should not have done, considering that I came from a ship on which nothing of that sort was served out. But I will draw a veil over the rest of this miserable day. Not but that the worst is told. Intemperance was never my weakness, but I will leave the reader to fill out the picture, and to think of me as I returned to the ship, bleeding, torn, and battered, and there I had to face poor Thorkill, who, in his mild surprise and disapproval, was to me more terrible than if he had stormed and raged ever so much. CHAPTER IV. GAINING COLONIAL EXPERIENCE Having returned to the ship after the incidents related in the last chapter, and having somewhat soothed my agitated feelings, and changed my apparel, Thorkill and I were under the necessity again of returning on shore; which we did, and had no difficulty in finding the depôt or place prepared for the reception of the immigrants. I had yet scarcely noticed anything on land, but we saw now at a glance that the town was very small, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the town was large but thinly inhabited. In Queensland we generally estimate the size of a place by the number of public-houses which it contains, and in Bowen there were three of these institutions. Grass was growing luxuriantly enough in the main street, and altogether it did not, as we came along, strike us that people here seemed remarkably busy. But when we came down to the depôt, the scene was changed. The depôt was a large building, or series of buildings, without particularly good accommodation, but it had the advantage that there was plenty of room for everybody. I felt quite glad to again see the familiar faces of the other immigrants, although we had only been separated a few hours. There was a large kitchen attached to the place, and a vast quantity of bread and beef and potatoes had been left there, more than could possibly be eaten by those present. Two or three butchers among the immigrants, too, were quite in their element here, cutting up the bullocks, and all the girls seemed to have formed themselves into a committee in order to dress the meat in various appetizing ways. But what seemed the most encouraging feature of all was to see thirty or forty saddle-horses "hung up" outside the fence and their owners walking about among the men offering them engagements. The girls were also in great request. A number of English ladies stood about the yard, or went in and out of the kitchen. They all seemed to want the girls who were doing the cooking, and what between the English ladies who kept trying to attract their attention, their own sweethearts--who had now the first opportunity since they left Hamburg to speak to them--and the preparation of food for six hundred and odd people, they certainly had enough to do. It was comical to watch them. Among the men the scene was but one degree less animated. They might, I am sure, all have been engaged that first day if they had liked. A number were engaged, and over and over again were offers made to them of further engagements, until at last they turned their backs to the Englishmen who seemed almost to implore some of them to sign agreements. They were all offered the same terms--thirty pounds for twelve months, and rations. The girls got only twenty or twenty-five pounds a year, but there seemed to be very little difference between the agreements. The Queenslanders would go for the biggest and most able looking of the men first, and when they had secured them, engage the others with the same terms. I saw my "boss" down there, and went home with him for supper. I was received with the greatest kindness by his family, and he himself could not have looked more friendly if I had been a long-lost relation. He proved to be a contractor, and had also a carpenter's shop and showroom attached to his place. He took me into the shop and showed me several things, and asked me could I make this or that? There was nothing in the shop that a boy who had served two years of his life in Copenhagen could not make, but when I said "yes," he seemed greatly pleased with me, and patted me on the back. We could not understand each other very much. After tea, I was shown into a neat room, where stood a nice bed, a chest of drawers, table, chair, &c. This was to be my abode. My "boss," however, returned at once and gave me to understand that he wished me to go with him up to town, and have a general look round. He gave me first of all a pound sterling, which had the effect of greatly raising my spirits. Then he took me from the one public-house to the other, and that made me still more hilarious, especially as he would not allow me to change my pound; and at last he took me to a store, where a German presided behind the counter over a lot of ready-made clothes. Through the German as interpreter, he told me that he would advise me to buy some new clothes after the Queensland pattern, and that he would advance sufficient of my wages to cover the cost. I bought then white trousers, a crimean shirt, a big slouch hat, and a red belt, and put all on at once. This is the orthodox Queensland costume in the bush, but in my own eyes I looked a regular masquerader, as I now swaggered down among the immigrants in my new transformation. I was quite a hero among them at once, being able to boast of my splendid appointment, and I believe I had to relate twenty times that evening what I had had for my supper at my master's place. I might, perhaps, tell it to the reader, because it seemed to me at that time most astonishing, although it really--with very little variation--is the ordinary food everybody eats all over the country, as soon as one comes away from the single man's hut in the bush. In the morning we generally had fried steak, white bread, and butter. No beer or schnapps are ever put on the table in this country, but instead of that one drinks tea by the quart at every meal. At dinner-time the ordinary menu will be some sort of roast meat and vegetables, with a pudding after. At supper one will get more meat and vegetables, and more bread and butter and tea. It is all very good, but there is a frightful sameness about it. I used at first to long for one of those plain yet delicious dishes which the Danish housewives make at home. But I do not believe English people would eat it, if it were put before them. They seem to think that anything which is not a solid junk of roast beef must be un-English. I have almost come to the same way of thinking myself. But that evening in the depôt we did not criticise the bill of fare. The immigrants all thought they were going to fare in the same sumptuous way. Poor fellows, they did not, as a rule. Next day, Thorkill came to me with sparkling eyes, and told me he had been so fortunate. A gentleman from Port Mackay, a sugar planter, had engaged him and twenty-five others, all for thirty pounds a year, and they were to sail again for the plantation next day. He understood it was not far away. We might be able to see one another occasionally. He had told the planter that he had studied agriculture, and the planter had said he was a good fellow. "These--Englishmen--are--so--kind,--I--am sure--he--is--a--nice--man. Perhaps he will make something of me by and by, when I can talk English." Poor Thorkill; I see him in a single man's hut on a plantation among twenty-five others, or with his hoe on his shoulder coming and going to the fields. He went away the next day, and I fully expected he would have written to me, but he did not. I did not know his address, and I did not hear of him again until three years after, when I met him on the diggings. As many of the immigrants were going away--they did not themselves know where--in another day or two, it was suggested by some one that there should be a theatrical display at the depôt in the evening; and the idea was taken up with enthusiasm by some of the leading spirits among us. It had, before I arrived that morning, been agreed that the play should be a French pantomime. For the information of any one who might never have seen anything of the kind, let me say that it was a one act farce, in which the persons act by pantomime alone. Cassander is an old man; his daughter Columbine loves Harlequin, a young man who always dances about Columbine when Cassander does not see them. Then there was Pierrot, the foolish but funny man-of-all-work, who is set to catch Harlequin, but is always "bested"; and the staid old lover whom Cassander wishes Columbine to marry. Not much rehearsal was needed to play the piece, and the dresses were also easily made up on short notice. It had further been decided in my absence that I was to play Harlequin, but I objected very much. At last I was forced into it in a manner, because I was a pretty fair dancer at that time, and they had nobody else. What consoled me greatly was, that I was to wear a black mask, so that I knew that if my feelings should get the better of me while on the stage, that I might make as many faces behind the mask as I liked. The whole town was to be invited, and we gave five shillings to the bell-crier to announce through the streets that some renowned artists had arrived at the depôt, and were going to give a grand performance that night at seven o'clock. We worked away hard that day in rehearsals, fitting of dresses, stage making, quarrelling, and in a few other things which are indispensable on such occasions. In the evening the whole building was crammed full of English people; there were even some ladies. Our own people had all back seats. Everything went well. Our orchestra consisted of three violinists. There were scores of musicians among us, but these were the best, and were used to play together. Then the blanket which served for a curtain went up, and we began to act our parts. Everything went well excepting that Pierrot, whose face was chalked over, began to perspire very much, and the chalk came off; but that was nothing. It was reserved for me to spoil the whole proceeding. It came about this way: the fellow who played Columbine was a big, flabby-looking chap, and he looked very nasty indeed in women's clothes. As it was my part to dance about Columbine and make love to him--or her--as you please, I had also to snatch kisses from him about a dozen times during the evening, but of course I understood he knew sufficient of acting not to inflict the punishment of real kissing on _me_. The first time, however, when my turn came, he turned his face full upon me, and the osculation could be heard all over the room. This happened two or three times, and every time people laughed and applauded; but it made me regularly wild. So as he tried it again I tore the mask off my face before I had time to think, and cried: "Look here, if you do that again I won't play." That brought the house down with great applause and homeric laughter; but I got so upset over it that it was impossible for me to go on the stage again, and the play came to an abrupt end. The only one of all the immigrants that remained at the depôt after a fortnight was over, was a sickly little individual whom everybody on board had been in the habit of pitying or jeering at, as the case may be, and who now seemed quite unable to obtain employment. He was then sent up to Townsville, to try there, and as I happen to know what became of him, and as his short career affords a striking instance of what perseverance will do for a man in Queensland, I will state how he fared. It appears that he at last obtained employment in the ---- Hotel in Ravenswood, to help the girls in the kitchen at cleaning knives, plucking fowls, and the like. He had to sign an agreement whereby he bound himself to remain for three years. The wages for the first year were ten pounds, for the second fifteen, and for the third twenty pounds. These are the smallest wages I have ever heard of in this country for a white man, but our friend thought nothing of that, and stuck to his work. He could cut hair and shave; I think he had been in a barber's shop at home. When he brought the guest's shaving-water in the morning, he would always offer his tonsorial services at the same time. Of course he would be paid. When he was paid, he would generally say, "You have not got a few old clothes you do not want?" Then most people, as he looked so poor and insignificant, would either give him a lot of clothes, or some money to buy with; and it was pretty well known in that town where one might buy second-hand clothing for cash. If a guest went away from the hotel, he would always be there hat in hand, holding the horse. If one said to him, "Will you come and have a drink?" he would answer, "No, thank you, sir; please, I would rather have the money." In that way, while everybody called him "poor fellow," he was scooping in sixpences, shillings, and even half-crowns every day. As he gave satisfaction to his master, he was promised, as a make-up for his small wages, that if he stayed the three years out, he should have as a present permission to build a barber's shop alongside the hotel, and be charged no rent. He did stay the three years out, and although I was in his confidence as little as anybody else, I am very sure he had then his three years' wages in his pocket and a good deal more besides. Then he had built a small shop alongside the hotel. It was very small, but it was in the proper place for doing business; and he began at once a roaring trade. Sixpence for a shave, a shilling for hair-cutting, and half a crown for shampooing! He had also ready-made clothes for sale, hop beer, ginger beer, fruit, saddlery, and much more. People who had anything for sale might go to him and be certain that he would offer them a cash price for whatever it was. He opened his shop at seven o'clock in the morning and shut it at twelve o'clock at night. On Sundays, indeed, he was supposed to shut for three or four hours; but one had only to knock at his door to bring him forward. Meanwhile, I do not believe his old master, or any one else, could have obtained credit from him for a sixpence. The usual thing in his shop was to see half a dozen men sitting in his back room waiting to be shaved or shampooed, and half a dozen standing by the counter in the front room, while he would jump like a cat among them trying to serve them all at once. But now I see I have made a mistake. I have written that "his short career affords a striking instance of what perseverance might do for a man in this country." That might be true if the story ended here, but it does not. He was a great miser. His principal food, as he himself assured me, was the rotten fruit in the shop. When a banana or an apple became quite unsaleable, he would eat it. He had no assistant in the shop, and could, therefore, never possibly take any outdoor exercise. At last he fell sick, and the doctor told him he must go out on horseback every day, and have plenty of nourishing food. He never bought a horse, and he never altered his way of living. At last, when it was too late, he got somebody to stand in the shop for him, for he was then too weak to stand there himself; and he died in the back room a week after. But even the day before he died I saw him sitting in the shop trying to direct the assistant and keeping control over the money-box. I heard how much he had made, but I forget. Anyhow, it was thousands, and all made in a few years! Now I will relate what happened to me the first Sunday I passed in Queensland, and to do that I must recall to the reader's memory another of my shipmates, the naval Lieutenant A. He had got married as soon as we came ashore, to the young lady who I always understood was his intended wife, and they had already rented a little house and made themselves very comfortable. On the Saturday, he came to me and told me that he had carried a letter of introduction from home to a gentleman who was one of the first civil servants in Bowen. This gentleman he had seen, and as an outcome of the interview, he had been invited to come with his wife to the Englishman's place on Sunday forenoon to be introduced to his family, and that Mr. and Mrs. ----, as well as A. and his wife, were all then to walk to a large garden which lay a mile or so outside the town. He promised himself great pleasure and much advantage from the acquaintance, and as a special favour to me, he said: "Now Mr. ---- said to me that I might invite one of our shipmates to come with us, and I shall invite you." I thanked him very much for the honour he did me. "You understand," said he, "that I would like very much to make a good impression, not only for myself, but for our country too. I am not in the least afraid to invite _you_, still excuse me for reminding you that this man has much influence in Brisbane, and I have no doubt he could make it worth your while too to be on your best behaviour." When he was gone, I began to look over my wardrobe, and found that I could yet make a brave show. Still, I had a great doubt in my mind whether it would not be the more correct thing to dress myself in my Queensland clothes--that is, the slouch hat and the moleskins. But as I did not seem to know myself in them at all, I decided that it was best to make the most of the clothes I had with me from home, although it was not without some misgivings that I came to this conclusion. My swallow-tail coat had been torn, and although it was mended by a tailor, it was not good enough to wear again on such an occasion, but I had a nice new jacket I had bought in Hamburg, also a beautifully got-up white shirt and white waistcoat. As to the belltopper, it was done for. No more should I go into society in that belltopper, and the Queensland hat seemed only fit company for the crimean shirt and the moleskins. I therefore went and borrowed a tall hat for the purpose from among the immigrants, and as I came back with it, I bought a pair of gloves for half a guinea in a shop. The next forenoon, punctually at eleven o'clock, I was outside of A.'s house in all my glory. A. and his wife were gone, however, and I then bent my steps towards the house to which I had been directed. As soon as I came near, I saw A. standing outside the house talking to a gentleman, whom I at once understood to be the man who had invited us. He looked a gentleman all over. Yet the same indescribable sort of swagger which I had noticed in everybody else I had yet met in the country seemed also to hover about him. I might here observe that this swagger is not exactly native to this colony. It is only put on for the benefit of new arrivals. As I came up A.'s friend stood with his feet wide apart, and was in the act of lighting a meerschaum pipe. A massive gold chain hung across his well-nourished stomach. I could see that if I had not dressed myself to my best ability, I should have made a grave mistake. Although I had scarcely lifted my eyes to him yet, I noticed these details as A. introduced me to him, while I saluted him as we always salute one another in Copenhagen. Perhaps I was just a little more than usually polite. My hat was at my knee as A. said, "Mr. ----, Mr. ----." But the Englishman did not seem remarkable for his politeness. On the contrary, I felt very angry at his behaviour. He never changed his position in the slightest degree; he seemed only to give a sort of self-satisfied grunt, "How de do, how de do." There is no mistake about it, I began to wish I had not come. It was not as though I had not been polite enough; I felt certain both that I could make a bow with anybody, and that I had saluted and been saluted by greater dignitaries before than he. Why then should he slight me? thought I. Was it the custom in this country to invite people on purpose to insult them? They began to speak to me, and I understood that the ladies who were to take part in the excursion were inside finishing their toilet, and would be out directly. A. could see, no doubt, that I was not pleased, and of course he could also guess the reason. He had been in England too, and was well versed in English customs, so he said to me, "It is foolish of you to feel offended because Mr. ---- did not take his hat off to you. Indeed, it was you who looked ridiculous. I am sure you never yet saw any one take off his hat to another in this country. It is not an English custom. Indeed it is specially distasteful to English people. So do not do it again. Of course it did not matter." When I heard that I was in humour again. I could forgive every one so long as they did not offer me a wilful insult. But was it not strange, thought I? And there he stood, as easy as could be, smoking his pipe in the street. Well, there is nothing like it, after all. What is a man without his pipe? I had mine in my pocket, but I had never dreamed of taking it out till now. I did not know what to make of things, but I thought that if such training as I had received was at fault, perhaps it would be well to imitate those whose training was correct. So I took my pipe out of my pocket and borrowed a match from Mr. ---- to light it with. Mine was only a clay pipe, and I could scarcely help laughing to myself meanwhile, because it seemed to me very strange. But I was determined now to show I knew English manners, and so I puffed away. Just now Mr. ----'s wife came out of the glass doors on the verandah. She had also dressed to make a good impression, because she was rustling with silk and satin, and shining with gold brooches and chains all over. The doors were opened for her by a servant, and Mrs. A. was also there. As Mrs. A. told me afterwards, they had watched me through the glass doors while I was saluting the husband, and probably the Englishwoman was at that moment under the impression that I intended to go down on my knees before her. But if she thought that, all I can say is that she was mistaken. I was not going to look ridiculous this time. She made a bow to me something of the sort, as I take it, that one of the Queen's maids of honour have to practise before her majesty--a most profound obeisance. But I stood brave. With my feet apart, in English fashion, I puffed away at my pipe, and nodded at her, saying, "How de do? How de do?" At this juncture of affairs, I became aware that nobody seemed pleased. The lady drew herself up and seemed surprised. Her husband appeared to regard me with a lively interest. So did two women in a house opposite. A., in a sort of consternation, repeated the formula of introduction. I felt the blood surging to my face, and my courage fast forsaking me. Then it occurred to me that as I myself had not the least idea what the words "how de do" meant which I had employed in saluting her, that perhaps it was not a proper expression before a lady, and that it would have been better if I had said something of which I did understand the meaning. So as A. repeated the form of introduction, Mr.---- and Mrs.----, I said with great desperation, "Good day, missis." Then I swallowed a whole mouthful of tobacco smoke (it is such strong tobacco one smokes here, and I had not been used to more than a cigar on rare occasions), and then--I must--expectorate. For the life of me I could not avoid it, but where to do it, whether in front of me or behind me, I did not know, and so I compromised and spat to the side. While all this occurred I felt as guilty as any criminal condemned before a judge, and still where it came in I did not know, because had not A., on whose English experience I wholly relied, told me scarcely ten minutes before, that "to take the hat off to one another was not an English custom--that it was, indeed, specially distasteful to English people"? What then could I think? You may judge of my feelings when A., now shaking with rage and entirely forgetting himself, exclaimed to me in Danish, "You are an unmannerly dog. Has no one ever taught you yet to take your hat off to a lady? There he stands, smoking a stinking pipe right in her face." Oh, yes! oh, yes, indeed, my humiliation was at its highest point. Quarrelling in our own language, and ready almost to fight! Mrs. ---- disappeared indoors again. Mrs. A. dared not follow her, but walked down the street a little, not knowing where to put herself, and Mr. ---- becoming more and more boisterous with me for an explanation. It did not last long, but long enough--quite. Then I went and sat, regardless of all appearance, on the verandah, while A., with much humility, tried to explain the matter to our host. Mr. ---- did not quite seem to relish the joke. He came up to me and informed me with much gravity that A. had explained the matter to his satisfaction. "But," said he, "you will certainly find that in this country it is the custom to salute a lady with a great deal more politeness than you used just now towards my wife. It is a lesson, I assure you, sir, you cannot learn too quickly." Half of this I understood and half I guessed. He did not know, however, that his own mode of salutation would in Copenhagen have been thought just about as bearish as what he was now correcting me for. I rose to bid him good-bye, because I was determined to go home as the right course now to pursue; but as I took off my hat to him again my crestfallen appearance seemed to amuse him, because he began to laugh, and when I had reached the corner of the house he came after me, insisting that I should come back. I declined, until I could see that by remaining stubborn I should only give still greater offence, and so we returned and went into the drawing-room to have a glass of wine. Mrs. ---- came now into the room, and with well-bred kindness tried to put me at my ease again. But although they now seemed to have forgiven me, and were preparing to start for their walk, I felt that I could not go with them, and after asking A. in my presence to offer my apology to the lady herself, I took up my hat, and, bowing profusely to all, went away. The reader may guess that I was not very proud of myself when I came home and flung myself on my bed. My career in Queensland had indeed opened in a very unpropitious manner. I had not been a week in the country yet, and it appeared I had made myself look more foolish wherever I had been than I had thought it possible to do. First the bottles--what disgrace was not that, fighting with the blacks in the street scarcely an hour after coming ashore; and poor Thorkill, who had invested his last sixpence, on my recommendation, in buying empty bottles! Then at the depôt the evening after, when I somehow again had been the laughing-stock of them all--a regular "Handy Andy"; and now to-day, when I had started out with the best intentions, and had only succeeded in making a never-to-be-forgotten picture of myself--and that after having borrowed a "belltopper" to look grand in! Now I had to return that piece of furniture to the owner, and when he asked me how I had enjoyed the company of my grand acquaintances, probably I should have to tell a falsehood about it in order to hide my shame. One consolation was that I had yet the gloves--they were my own to do with as I liked. I had paid ten and sixpence for them, more than half my fortune. Faugh! was ever any one like me? Was that all I had come to Queensland for? But at all events this should not happen again. If I could find an ass bigger than myself, thought I, I should be satisfied, but never again as long as I lived would I seek the acquaintance of people who by any stretch of imagination might think themselves my superiors. Then I called in from the backyard a whole troup of dirty, lazy blacks, who were lying there basking in the sun in an almost naked condition, and made them understand that I would give them all my home clothes if they would perform a war dance in them for my instruction and pleasure. One of them put on my swallow-tail coat and belltopper (he had no breeches), another got my overcoat, one of the ladies put on my jacket (she had nothing else), another put on my woollen comforter, not round her neck but round her waist, where it was of more use. At last I took my flute, and the whole troup kept screaming and dancing about in the backyard while I played, until my "boss" came and interrupted the proceedings. I felt a grim sort of satisfaction. Alas! there is no saying what is to become of any of us before the end is over. Clothes are lifeless things, yet how often had I not brushed them and thought it important that they should look well! I really felt a kind of remorse when I saw these filthy blacks lie wallowing in them amid a flock of yelping curs. And now I fell to work at my trade in earnest. The houses in Bowen are all built of wood, and a very easy affair it is for any one to build them. Indeed housebuilding in the small Queensland towns can scarcely be called a trade, insomuch that any practical man who can use carpenter's tools could easily build his own house. A hammer and a coarse saw was about a complete set of tools on many jobs we did up there. Still, large wooden houses filled with all the most modern comforts are also constructed, and in such none but the best workmanship is tolerated, so there, of course, a tradesman is indispensable. At all housebuilding, too, a man who is constantly at it acquires a quickness which would altogether outdistance the novice, but one may learn as he goes in that trade, and the best men I have met in the carpenter trade out here are men who never served their time to it. There were no saw-mills in the town, nor was there any suitable timber to saw in the bush, so that we depended for a supply on an occasional schooner, or on what the steamers sometimes would bring. At times we had no timber at all. Then we had to make furniture out of the packing-cases in the stores, or the "boss" would buy an old humpy and pull it down, and we had to try to make a new one out of it. My employer had engaged another carpenter besides myself from among the immigrants. This man had got married at the depôt to one of the girls, and they lived in a small house. He had thirty shillings a week, of which, of course, most went to keep house. But Bowen is one of the very few non-progressive towns on the coast, and houses stood empty in all directions, so that he only had to pay a nominal rent. Our "boss" seemed to have plenty of work always, and, besides ourselves, there were two and sometimes three English carpenters employed. We had to work like boys for them, because we could not very well be sent anywhere by ourselves, as we could not speak to people about the work to be done. One thing I might mention here, and which I think very unfair, is this, that nobody took the trouble to speak English to us, but they seemed even to go out of their way to teach us a sort of pigeon English, which, of course, would demonstrate our inferiority to the individual who addressed us. Although I do not dislike either English, Scottish, or Irish people, I think it a great delusion of theirs that they are more hospitable to foreigners, or cosmopolitan in their way of thinking, than other nationalities, but that they are under the impression that they are the salt of the earth is certain. Meanwhile my mate and I did the best we could to vindicate the honour of our country. I felt myself daily getting stronger and more active; the change of air did wonders, and so was it with my mate. After a while, we found we could fully hold our own. The English tradesmen were very fond of showing how much they could do, but as we both began to get up to their standard they would, as we worked under them, knock us off what we were doing and put us to something else, often with the evident intention of making the "boss," when he came, think we had not done much, or did not understand our work. So one day I had a terrible quarrel with the man with whom I was working on that account, and then he began to denounce us all for cutting the wages down. I had no intention of cutting down his wages, and I did not know in the least what wages he got, but when he told me that he received three pounds sterling every week I thought that the "boss" had treated me very badly. I learned then that three pounds are the ordinary weekly wages for carpenters in Queensland, and I told the English carpenter that I would immediately ask the "boss" for an increase in _my_ wages to that amount, and that if he would not give it to me I would not do more work than I got paid for. I had been there six months at that time, and had never taken any money of my wages beyond what I received when I started, but when I asked for three pounds per week my employer was very dissatisfied. I wanted him to cancel the agreement. He refused, and I accused him of having taken an unfair advantage of me. He assured me that as he had got me he would keep me. "Very well," said I, "do your best to obtain your pound of flesh, but do not charge too high a day's wages when you send me away after this; I might not suit." From that day there was war between us, war to the knife. Still I was, and had been, well treated there, and so far I had done my best to deserve it. When I think of it now, I am glad that before this occurred I had an opportunity to show my willingness. What my master's profit on me was I do not know, but it cannot have been large. What with my inability to speak the language, the learning how to handle the different tools used here, and one thing and another, it was unreasonable for me to expect the full wages at once. When I compare my fate with that which befell some of the other immigrants, I ought to have thought myself very fortunate. Some of these were sent out in the bush around the town, and among those who were a few miles distant, I heard much dissatisfaction existed. I will here relate how some, at least, were treated. One man and his wife, and four single men, were engaged at a station fifty miles away. Their agreements were all the same, thirty pounds per annum and rations. The woman, however, was not engaged. When they arrived at the place they found a small house in the middle of the bush. When they asked where were their rooms or place to camp in, their employer told them they might camp anywhere they liked as long as they did not come inside _his_ house. They had then got some bags and branches of trees put together and slept under them, but there was no protection from rain, and the poor woman, who was not well at the time, thought she was going to die. Instead of food, they were served, as I have before stated, with raw beef and flour. The reader may imagine what sort of doughboys they were making. This was strictly and correctly the truth, although these poor people certainly never knew the true intent of the agreement. They would not work, they said, unless they got proper food, but their employer was abusing them every day. They had to fell trees and split timber for fences. Of course such hard work, with no cooked food to eat and no bed to sleep in, was an unreasonable thing to expect from them. After six or seven weeks of this one of them went away, empowered by the others to go to town and complain for the others. He came into town, where he told me what I now relate; but his "boss" was after him quickly, and instead of obtaining redress, he was put in the lock-up fourteen days for absconding from his hired service, and then compelled to go back again! While he was in the lock-up, my "boss" used to send him up three good meals every day. People who may read this at home will no doubt think that there must be great brutality somewhere for people to be treated like this. I agree with them. Yet the same treatment and fare comes light to an old hand. He knows what to expect, and is prepared for it. As men travel about from place to place in search of work, it is absolutely necessary for them to carry everything with them and to be their own cooks too. They have their tent, blanket, food, billy, sometimes a frying-pan, all bundled together with their clothes and strapped on their backs, or, if they are well-to-do, they have a horse to carry the "swag" for them, or even two horses, one being to ride on. There is really no reason why a man should not possess a couple of horses here, but still they as often do not. The billy serves all purposes: in it the meat is cooked, the tea is boiled, and on extra occasions the plumduff too. It is only just to say that the custom of forcing men to camp out in their own tents and to cook their own rations is growing more and more out of use. In most places in the bush the employer now provides at least shelter for his men: in many places they have the food cooked as well; yet there are to this day thousands of people in Queensland who live as I have just described, and who never see vegetables from one year's end to another. The reader will, therefore, see that I was comparatively fortunate in this, that I had both shelter and food while I was learning the language and accustoming myself to the country. But after my request for more wages had been refused, I did as little work as possible, indeed I may say I did scarcely anything. I played quite the _gamin_ with the old gentleman, until one day he offered to let me go, and then free once more I promised myself never again to sign away my liberty. CHAPTER V. TOWNSVILLE: MORE COLONIAL EXPERIENCES. I had now paid out to me twelve pounds sterling as the balance of wages due, so it will be perceived that I had not been extravagant. Yet I am afraid that if I had been taking my wages up weekly I should not have had so much, if, indeed, anything. Yet here were the twelve pounds now, and that was the main thing. It made over a hundred Danish dollars, quite a large sum to me. Then I considered where I should go next. There were some gold mines inland within one or two hundred miles, but I did not know the road, or else I should have gone there. Just then there had been opened another port north of Port Denison, viz., Townsville. I understood that if a man wanted to make money, he should go there; or rather I understood the further north I went the more pay I should get, on account of its being hotter there, but that down south, were the climate was supposed to be better, carpenters where not in demand. So, "Northwards, ho!" was my cry. The steamer left Port Denison the next day for Townsville, and I was among the passengers. It is on leaving one of these small ports on the Queensland coast that I have always more than at any other time been impressed with the utter loneliness in which they lie. One sees the few houses and appurtenances like a speck on the coast, and north and south the long vast coastline. We steamed along all the evening, night, and next morning, and towards noon my attention was directed to some small white specks on the beach. That was Townsville, the new settlement where money was to be made. The steamer I was in could not run close, but lay out in the bay until another very small steamer came out and took us all on board. Then in another half-hour we ran into a small creek, past three or four galvanized iron sheds, and here we were at the wharf in the middle of the main street of the town. Townsville lies on the bank of a small river or creek called Ross Creek, which when I was there was remarkable for being stocked with alligators. One could not very well, therefore, cross the creek without some danger, and at that time all the people and all the houses without a single exception, lay on the south side of the creek. Ross Creek formed, I might say, one side of the main street. Facing it lay a number of small shanties, some made of packing cases and old tin; others again, built with a view to permanency, of nicely dressed sawn timber, and looking like rich relations in contrast to their poor neighbours. This was Flinders Street, or Townsville proper. For about ten chains this row of houses ran, and facing it, on the other side of the creek, was one vast wilderness of swamp, long grass and trees. When one had passed the row of houses composing the street there were turns off to the bush in all directions, and tents, huts, or sheets of galvanized iron stood all about the street. Up behind the street were some tremendous-looking mountains, and here such people as the doctors, civil servants, &c. seemed to have fixed their abode. The most splendid views could be obtained up there right over the sea and the numerous small islands. Then the climate, which at least at that time was supposed to be somewhat unhealthy down below, was very much better on the highlands. While I was in Townsville my greatest pleasure was to take my lunch with me in a morning and then scramble up there to some place from which the best view could be had, and sit there all day. That was a cheap and harmless pleasure, but to do so at the present time would be trespass, because all the land about there is now sold at so much per foot, and no one but the owners have a right either to the soil or the air, or even the view. It seems wrong to me that it should be so. I wonder what will become of poor people when the day arrives when all the world is thus cut up into freehold property! If I had at that time invested the ten pounds I carried in my pocket in a piece of land, it would certainly have been worth thousands of pounds to-day, and I believe I might even have been worth tens of thousands. Then I might without further trouble have been myself a "leading Colonist" to-day! On looking around one would scarcely think that this place and Bowen were in the same country. In Bowen everybody seemed to have plenty of time. The shopkeepers there would stand in their doorways most of their time, or go visiting one another. Then, although Bowen was so much larger than Townsville, there seemed to be no people in it. But here there were crowds everywhere, and seemingly not an idle man. People appeared rather to run than to walk. I walked up the street and looked into a half-finished building where half a dozen carpenters were at work. I watched them well. They were all men in their prime, and if they did not work above their strength they were good men assuredly! There was quite a din of hammers and saws. It was terrible! I felt very much afraid that I should not be able to match myself against any one of them, but on the principle of not leaving until to-morrow what might be done to-day, I asked one where the "boss" was? He pointed to a man alongside who also was working terribly hard, and this gentleman sang out to me from the scaffold, "What do you want, young fellow?" So I said that I wanted work. "All right," cried he, "I'll give you a job, but I have no time to talk before five o'clock; you can wait." Then I stood waiting, and feeling half afraid to tackle the work, until the "boss" sang out "five o'clock." What a relief every man must have felt. Each seemed to drop his tool like a hot potato. I remember well my feelings. I knew before the contractor spoke to me that he was a bully, from the way he spoke to the other man. He came up to me. "Well, what is it you can do?" "I am a carpenter and joiner." "Oh, you are a German." "No, I am not." "What sort of a new chum are you then?" "I asked you if you wanted a carpenter." "Where were you working before?" "In Bowen." "What wages did you get there?" "Thirty pounds a year." "Do you know that I expect my men to earn fourteen shillings a day?" "I will do as much work as I can, and I do not expect you to pay me more than I can earn." "Got any tools?" "No." "I do not want you then!" Did ever any one get such an unprovoked insult? I felt as if I could never ask another man for work again. Although I had learned a little English, it was far from sufficient to allow me to set up and work on my own account. I knew that very well, and although I kept telling myself that most likely here there would be plenty of other contractors to go to, yet I was in very low spirits as I went off looking for a suitable boarding-house. The place I came to did not impress me as being either clean or comfortable. I went in at the door only because I saw on the signboard the words "Diggers' home," or "Bushman's home." I forget exactly what it was, but I understood there was "home" about it, and as I was just then longing very much for such comforts as the word "home" is associated with, I went in. It was just tea-time and about thirty men were sitting on two wooden forms around the one table, eating. The uncouth way in which they were gormandizing was terrible to witness. English working people show, I think, greater anxiety to possess what are popularly called "table manners" than does the same class where I came from. The former hold their knives and forks in faultless style, but they seem never to have learned what is the great point in table manners. This is a point on which I was very strictly brought up, and as one cannot very well criticise another's manner of eating while sitting alongside him at table, I think I might without offence give valuable advice here. It is this. Close your lips while you are eating, gentlemen. It does not matter half so much to some people how you hold your fork. There were among the others at the table two of my shipmates, who, as they told me, were working at their trade for four pounds a week. They were dressed in the height of fashion, and would not speak Danish at all to me. One of them informed me in a sort of language that I am sure no Englishman could have understood, that he had almost quite forgotten Danish. As I had a craving just then for sympathy, I told them how I had fared when I had asked for work, but all the sympathy I received was the remark that it was smart fellows only who were needed in Townsville. They agreed thoroughly about that, and then whenever they could repeat the formula "I get four pounds per week," they did it _ore rotundo_. Evidently they had a heartfelt contempt for one like me, who had been working for only a few shillings a week. After tea, I was, on stating that I wanted to stay for a week, shown into a small room wherein stood six stretchers, or beds, as close as could be. One had scarcely room to squeeze about among them. The middle of the room seemed to be a sort of main passage two feet wide between the beds on each side, leading to rooms beyond, and there the rest of the thirty boarders would tramp in and out. The landlord, on showing me one of these beds as mine, demanded a pound sterling of me in advance as one week's payment. "Beautiful home." "Comfortable abode." I regretted that I had left Bowen, as I thought of my clean private room there. I did not, however, pay for a week beforehand. I paid only for my supper and a shilling for the use of the bed or "home" for that night. I sat there on the bed for a quarter of an hour, listening to all the noises around me. Then I felt that I could not suffer it any longer, so I went out. It was a beautiful moonlight night. To get out past the houses was only the work of five minutes, and I kept walking on along a road I came to until I was well past all signs of civilization. I had taken my flute with me as the best means which yet remained to soothe my troubles, and then I sat down to play. How much better I felt out there under the gum-trees! That foul-smelling boarding-house seemed to trouble me no longer. I would not return to it. Better by far to sleep out there under the open sky! I sang and played and worked myself into quite a romantic feeling. At last I fell soundly asleep. The next day I began more carefully to look out for a boarding-house, but it was all one. There were enough of them indeed, but in all there was not one which did not to my mind look more like a rabbit warren than a "home" or a "rest," or whatever the name might be that was put over the door. A couple of places were kept by Chinamen. They at least seemed more honest, because they made no pretence of offering their guests what they had not got. All the accommodation they offered was a shelf for each man, and there seemed to be an air of "take it or leave it alone" about them which I liked. But none of these suited me, and so I went to the hotels, and for one pound ten shillings per week I got white man's accommodation: a room for myself and every civility. How anybody like my two grandly-dressed countrymen could, if they earned four pounds a week, prefer the other place to this, I did not understand. I might now with much satisfaction have finished my writing here by telling the reader how I obtained work the next day for fourteen shillings per day, and how I saved and persevered until I myself became a contractor--if such had been the case. But the truth must be told, and that is that I kept delaying day by day to ask any one for a job. Every day I would walk about the town, and passed and re-passed houses under erection, but I could not bring myself to go and speak to any one for fear of meeting the same fate that befell me the day I arrived. When I came home to the hotel from such an expedition, I would console myself by recounting my money and reckoning up how many Danish dollars it was. That seemed to reassure me. Certainly it went fast, but on the whole I was in no way alarmed over myself, because I knew very well that when the necessity came a little nearer I should easily get something to do. Meanwhile I could go out every day shooting, fishing, and enjoying myself as best I could. One of the first days I was in Townsville, I went out in the main road leading to the gold diggings, and when I was about a mile or two out of town I came to a house which attracted my attention. It was very small, the walls were built of saplings, the roof was covered with bark, tin, and all sorts of odd materials. The door was made of a sapling frame with bagging stretched across it. Yet the place had a cool, clean sort of appearance, and under the verandah in a home-made squatter's chair sat a man smoking a long pipe. Yet I should probably have passed by without taking notice of any of these details if it had not been that in front of the house, but close to the road, was erected a sort of frame like a gallows, and from it dangled in a most conspicuous way an empty bottle. Underneath was a piece of board nailed to a tree, and on it was written with chalk the one word thrice repeated: "Bier. Bier. Bier." That caused me to look at the man, and I perceived it was one of my shipmates. This man was between fifty and sixty years old when he landed nine months before with his wife and eight children. I am very certain that he did not then own more than I did myself, but he had on the voyage exhibited such a cheerful disposition, and had such a happy knack of always trying to explain things in a way that would make one think that any misfortune that might happen would have been just the very thing wanted, that he had been a general favourite. But when we came to Bowen nobody had engaged him and his eight children, and so he had been sent here, and now I saw him sitting smoking his pipe under the verandah with great gusto. He seemed as glad to see me as I was to see him, and asked me to come and sit on a box which stood alongside him, and to have a smoke out of his long pipe. Then he began to spin his yarn. His girls were at service, the two of them, and had each ten shillings per week, and they brought it all home, for they were good girls. He had got somebody to apply for this land for him on his land order, "and here," he said, "right and left is all mine. Me and mother built the house ourselves; come inside and see." "But," said I, "what is the meaning of that empty bottle you have hung up there?" "Oh," cried he, "did you not see my signboard. I sell beer. I cannot understand their blessed language, but I thought if I showed them the bottle they would know what it meant, and Annie drew that signboard herself last Sunday she was home; she is a splendid scholar, you know--you should only hear her talk English. It fetches them right enough. You will see nearly everybody who comes along the road must be in here and have his beer." Then we went inside, and there were the old lady and her children, as happy as could be. Now I had to tell my history, and after much argument my friend made me believe that the reason the contractor had not given me a job was because I had told him the truth. "You should have said you earned fifteen shillings a day in Bowen, that you would not work under sixteen shillings now; that is the way. Always tell them you can do anything." Good old fellow! How cheerful I felt when at last I went away. I laughed to myself, too, at his important self-confident air. If he has kept his land and sold beer to this day, I am sure he can smoke his pipe now with great complacency--unless, indeed, riches, a circumstance over which he had no control, have spoiled him. In the hotel in which I stayed were several other lodgers, among them an elderly man with a long beard and a most fatherly air. He became daily more friendly to me, and at the end of the first week he told me he was himself a Dane, and that he had been in the Colonies a great many years. He said he had watched me with growing interest; that he generally was chary of offering his friendship to anybody, but that he now was satisfied that I was a respectable, well-meaning youth, and that his heart went out towards me. Of course the least I, under the circumstances, could do was to accept his proffered friendship in the same spirit in which it was offered, and I told him frankly all my business, and how I was still smarting under the insult I had received on my first arrival in Townsville to such a degree that from day to day I could not bring myself to ask for work again, and how, I added, my bit of money was going fast. He, on his part, gave me to understand that he was not a rich man, although several times he had made his fortune. "But," said he, "I never let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. Sometimes, as for instance now, I run myself quite short; it does not matter, I can always make enough for myself as long as God gives me strength." I went with him to church on the Sunday, although I did not understand a word of what the parson said, but my ancient friend had already acquired a sort of proprietorship over me, and as he seemed to be intensely religious, it imparted a kind of holy feeling to me to sit near him. After church, he lectured me on religion very severely, and all the time I knew him he prayed devoutly both morning and evening. A few days after, he told me he had taken a contract from one of the storekeepers in town to cut hay. He said that a man could cut a load of hay in a day, and that he was to get thirty shillings a load for it. He would now, said he, have to buy a horse and dray, and would also have to look out for a partner. I asked him if he thought I might do, and said that if I could not work as much as he I should not expect the same pay, but that I was confident that I would not be far behind. "Well, I might do;" he would like to have me for a partner, but he understood that I had very little money. It would be necessary for his partner to have at least thirty pounds, as the horse and dray alone would cost forty pounds, and we should have to buy tools and to keep ourselves in rations for some time. I was very sorry that I had got only something like eight pounds. "All right;" he would take me if I would do the best I could. He had already an offer for a horse and dray. Then we set about buying a tent and a lot of rations in a store, also scythes and one thing and another necessary for the job. My partner advised me that we should not pay for it just then, as we were to deliver hay for the money. The same day we left with all our things packed in our swags, and went into the bush about four miles, where there was plenty of long grass suitable for haymaking, and there we pitched our tent. Here I worked for a couple of months with the utmost eagerness. It was a time of long summer days, and from daylight to dark was I at it, doing my level best. My partner had bought a horse and a dray, and was taking hay into town every day, but he did not work much at home. Of course, as he said, he was getting to be old, and could not work as formerly; but then he did all the business, and, according to his estimate, we earned a couple of pounds every day. As for me, I worked contented and happy, although we had not yet taken any money for the hay and I had given my partner every sixpence I possessed to help in buying the horse and dray. We lived very frugally, too--at least, I did; my partner had his dinner in town, but that was only a necessity when he was bringing hay in--because, as he said, he did not believe in all this gorging and over-feeding which was customary in these latter days. As for smoking tobacco, he was much against it, and declared it to be not only a wicked but a dirty habit; so, to please him, I had given up the pipe. I made breakfast for him in the morning, and was at work before he rose. I had supper ready for him when he came home at night, and I never spared myself or gave a thought to the unequal distribution of work between us. One evening my partner did not come home. I was very anxious, picturing to myself all sorts of dreadful calamities which might have happened to him. In the morning I went into the town to the storekeeper, whom I understood bought the hay, but I could get no satisfaction there. They had not seen him for a week, they said, and only bought hay occasionally. I thought they did not understand me, and I went to another storekeeper, and got a similar answer. As I stood quite bewildered in the street, I saw the horse and dray coming past, and a stranger driving. On inquiry, I learnt that the man who was driving had bought the whole concern the day before for thirty-five pounds. While we were yet talking one of my countrymen came up and wanted to know about the horse and cart too, and, to make a long story short, it appeared that my mate had borrowed, on one pretext and another, from the Danes in town nearly a hundred pounds in small sums. He had also bought the horse and dray with a very small cash deposit, and sold them for cash, got paid for all the hay we had cut, and owing for our rations in one of the stores besides, he had cleared out. Benevolent-looking old hypocrite, when I found it all out, I felt as if I could have----never mind--what is the good? say no more. I had not got a copper. I went up to the hotel where I had been staying before I had started haymaking, and began to pour out my tale of woe to the publican, with no other object than to get sympathy. The publican looked absent-minded, then he smiled: he always thought old ---- had a "smart look" about him. "And so he has done all of you new chums, eh! Say it again. How was it he did it? You are too soft for this country." I was on the point of leaving, when a man came in and asked me if I was old ----'s partner. I said "yes." Would I be so good as to pay this bill for two pounds odd shillings at once, or if I did not he would make me into sausages. This was too much. I know myself to be good-natured, and I told him so, but if he had any evil designs on me, why I would pull his nose. We had a long conversation on this matter, and at last he agreed not to annihilate me there and then, and I on my part declared myself satisfied if he would give me his pipe and tobacco and let me have a good long smoke as a sort of proof to me that he bore me no ill-will. When peace was thus restored, he became very friendly, and explained to me that he had misunderstood the matter before, and that he was very sorry for me, but that he would yet make my partner pay us all if I would only leave it to him and go home. "Only leave it to him"? I had nothing else to do but to go home, because in the camp there was at least a bit to eat. So home I went. But what a change had now come about in my fortune! Not only the loss of the money--although that was serious enough, but there was the shock to my faith in human nature! Who could I put faith in after this? I began in a sort of mechanical way to cut hay again just to get away from my thoughts. Then I threw the tools as far as I could, and went to lie down in the tent with my mind in a state of blank. Where would I go, and what should I do next? After a while, the man who had wanted me to pay a bill came and posted a bill on a tree. He inquired of me if I had a horse, and seemed very sorry for me when I told him "no." He informed me also that I must not remove anything, as to do so would be stealing. I understood sufficient of the proceedings to know that he also would be very "smart" if he could, and he was scarcely gone, before a man came with another summons, which was pasted underneath the first. This would never do, thought I. Was I to allow myself to be made a cricket-ball of by every one who chose to play with me. I must be "smart" too, and as soon as I got the idea, it struck me as an immense joke. Would it have been wicked, thought I, if I had been able to work a double game on the old swindler who had taken me in? They seemed to show respect for the swindler, and contempt for the dupe; but then there was the risk of cheating honest people, and that I could never do. No, that must not be. But talking about cheating and stealing, as the fellows who had posted the summonses on the trees had done, now they were trying to get paid their score out of the few things which were left in the camp without regard to me, and had the impudence to tell me that I must not remove anything. Bosh! Was it not paid for with my own money? Certainly all there might not fetch ten shillings, but who had a better right or more need of it than I? So, as the first step in "smartness," I remembered that possession amounts to nine points of the law, and for the rest I would in my mind keep a sort of profit and loss account, and I began at once by writing down my present score and leaving open the opposite page for such circumstances as the future might have in store. Dangerous thoughts, I admit, but this is the truth, and having found a weapon in this determination, it did not take me ten minutes to make up my mind what to do. There was a settler living not far away from where we had been cutting hay. This man always seemed to me to have a friendly air about him as he would come past occasionally, and he had always made a point of stopping to speak to me at such times. He had several times invited me to come and visit him, but I had never yet done so. I now thought I would go and see him and ask him his advice, whether he thought that I had a right to claim what there was in the camp, and if so, try to induce him to buy what there was. I accordingly went over to his place and told him all about my trouble. He was an Irishman. "Bad luck to the ould offinder!" cried he, "and so he has run away. This is an awful wurld. Ah, me lad, take my advice, never have anything to do with them Germans. Well, never mind, you are a German too, but that one was worse than a native dog anyhow, and so he was." I asked him what he thought about the things in the camp, whether I might have them: there was an axe, besides two scythes, a bucket, billy, frying-pan, some old blankets and other articles, and then there was the tent. "Oh, that was all right." I could bring it all over to his place, and he would swear to any one that it was his, and he would like to see the man who would dispute it. I might come too, he said, and live with him until I got something to do. He would do much more than that, only that he had no money. This seemed to suit me in every respect, and I began at once carrying over all that was in the tent to my new friend's place; but the tent itself I let stand for any one to fight about as they thought fit, or for the Government to inherit--I did not care which. The next few days I passed with the Irishman. He was not married, and lived quite alone on this piece of land which he had taken up as a selection. The hut had only one room, and the absence of that refining influence which is generally supposed to pervade a place where women live, was painfully apparent. The Irishman knew this very well, for he had always a way of excusing the rampant disorder in the hut by saying "that the Missis was not at home, bad luck." Under the bunk were two bags of corn piled up in the cobs, in another corner lay some turnips and seed-potatoes; we boiled the corned beef and the tea in the one billy, and if the billy was full of meat or potatoes, when we wanted to make tea, it was only the work of a second to topple it all out into the bunk and fill the billy up with water for the tea. I am sure I now ask my friend's pardon for repaying his hospitality by describing these matters, but as I hope this history of my life will be published, it may possibly be read by young ladies, and I cannot resist the temptation to show them the faithful picture of a bachelor's den in the Queensland bush. If it were a singular instance I should not think it worth relating, but it is not; it would be more correct to say it is the general rule. Every day I went into town and looked out for something to do, but I found great difficulty. Work was plentiful, but wherever I inquired if they wanted a carpenter, their first question was about my tools. I had no tools, and they would not engage me. One evening I was in town on purpose to speak to a contractor who had told me to call at his private residence at nine o'clock with a view to engaging me. As I was walking about trying to kill the time, I found myself standing down on the wharf, where I had come ashore the first day I landed in Townsville. I was watching the little steamer that used to run between the town and the bay, and which now seemed to be getting steam up, and in a vague sort of way I wondered whether the steamer out in the bay was going north or south, so I asked one of the sailors. "North," said he; "they go to Batavia, but they call at the pearl fisheries at Cape Somerset. Are you going?" I had, of course, never thought of it till that moment, but as he said "pearl fisheries" it struck me that it must be a delightful occupation to sit fishing for pearls, and that it would be worth running a risk to try to get to that place. Besides, it would be a splendid adventure. So I said, "Yes, I am going." "Have you been there before?" said he; "perhaps you are a diver?" "Yes, I was a diver." I found out next that I should just have time to go out to my camp in the bush, to collect my swag and be back in time for the steamer. I ran all the way there and back, laughing to myself all the time, because there seemed to myself such a splendid uncertainty about how the adventure would turn out. I had got no money, but it only troubled me so far as perhaps it might make it impracticable to get on board. Anyhow, I meant to have a hard try for it. When I came back I stood watching the little steamer until the moment they were about to cast off. Then with a hue and cry I rushed on board. As we sailed down the river the captain said to me, "Are you the diver?" "No savey." "Are you going up to the pearl fisheries?" "No savey." "Have you got a ticket?" "No savey." "Dang that fellow! Are you----Deutcher?" "No savey." "Well, if you 'no savey,' all I can tell you is that you shall not get on board the steamer without a ticket. You savey swim?" "Oh yes, I savey swim belong de pearl all de time?" "Oh, well, I think you had better go back with us again, because they will only give you to the sharks up there, if you try any tricks on them." Here the conversation was interrupted by the captain having to attend to the ship, and I scrambled out of his way. It did not take long before we were out alongside the large steamer, and so as it was very close I watched my opportunity and climbed up the side and on board. There was a large coil of rope lying on the deck, and into that I crept without a thought for the morrow. I heard the ship getting under weigh and then I slept, if not the sleep of the just, at least without dreams. Next day was Sunday. I only woke up as the sun was shining in my face, and then I got up and looked around me. We were steaming along the coast; there seemed to be nobody about but the sailors. I had a walk about the deck and a wash at the pump. Nobody spoke to me for some time, until the steward came and in a most natural way told me breakfast was ready. "Good!" He is a sensible man, thought I, and I went below and had a good meal. As soon as I had well finished, the mate came in and asked me for my ticket. I had formed no particular plan of campaign, but I felt so self-confident and happy, that I was perfectly convinced within myself that it would be impossible for any one to be out of temper with me. It is necessary to bear this in mind to believe what follows. Mirth is catching, and is irresistible when natural, but nothing but the genuine article will do here. So now the mate came up to me and said, "Ticket." I laughed and cried "No ticle." He looked rather surprised at me, and held out his hand saying, "Ticket." "Oh," cried I, laughing, while I grasped his hand, "Ticket--oh I savey you give me ticket?" "Oh, this won't do," said he, although I could perceive my mirth was working on him. "Money, money or ticket"--at the same time he took out half a crown and showed it me. I tried to take the half-crown from him and patted him on the shoulder, saying, "Good fellow you," and when he would not give it me, I told him he was too much gammon for me altogether. At last I got him to laugh properly, and then he said I was too much gammon for him too, but that now I should have to go off with him to the captain, because he could not give me a free passage and could make neither head nor tail of me in the bargain. "Come on," cried he; "to the captain you go." My whole frame shook with laughter. I do not know why, I simply relate the fact. It seemed to me so strange and comical that I was now here, a regular loafer, a sort of criminal, and unemployed, a--what not, not knowing where I was going and not caring; and what would this blessed captain do with me, or think of me? On we came, the mate and I, up to the quarter-deck. There was a good-looking man of thirty odd years of age reclining at his ease in a sort of chair, more in a lying than a sitting posture. He was playing with the hand of a lady who was sitting alongside of him, and they looked so affectionately at one another that I made sure at once they were not husband and wife! Besides these, the only other person on deck was the man at the wheel. On we came, and the mate presented me as a stowaway. I saluted the lady and the captain airily, and he spoke to me, but I paid no attention to what he was saying. I was looking at the lady and thinking of my adventure in Bowen, the first time I saluted a lady in Queensland. My sides shook with laughter until I saw the lady in the same condition; then I exploded. The lady, the captain, the mate, and the man at the wheel all followed suit! I beat my chest and called on all the saints to give me strength to stop, but I could not, and we all kept laughing until, from utter exhaustion, the lady and the captain were lying back in their chairs with averted faces, the mate was hanging over the gunwale, and I was lying on my elbow on the deck, regularly sick. Every time the captain or any of them were looking at me they made me laugh again. At last the captain, after several attempts to speak to me cried, "Go away, go away; I speak to you by and by." I had not been gone half an hour before I was called back again. The lady was this time sitting with her back to me. The captain said, "What have you got to say for yourself?" I somehow felt sure that it was all right, and that the lady was going to say a good word for me, or had done so already. Anyhow I altered my tactics, and told them how it was that I had no money, and how I somehow, perhaps recklessly, but on the spur of the moment, had got on board. When I had finished speaking I felt very foolish, and as the lady turned round and looked at me, I blushed up to the roots of my hair, and felt very much ashamed. Then the captain said, "And what do you want to do at Cape Somerset?" I did not know. "Have you no money?" "No." "No friends there?" "No." "You have been very foolish." After a while he said: "There will be nothing for you to do at Cape Somerset and as little at Batavia. The only thing I can do for you is to put you ashore at Cardwell, here, on the coast. There is a settlement there and some sugar plantations up the river. I will do that for you, if you like." I thanked him very much, and said I did not know what to do with myself. "All right, you can hold yourself in readiness to go ashore." A couple of hours afterwards, the steamer was very close to land, and I saw some houses on the beach. A boat was lowered and manned by sailors, and I was told to get in. But so benevolent did the captain prove, that they bundled in after me a lot of flour, tea, sugar, and meat, also a tent. I felt completely crushed: I sat in the boat and dared not look around; only after they put me ashore I waved my handkerchief, and there, yes, they were waving their handkerchiefs back to me. There seemed to be a big lump in my throat. Was I in love? Perhaps I was, I do not know, but I felt very sure that if just then I had thought that I could have obliged either the captain or the lady on board by drowning myself, I would have done it. They had put me ashore in a place where the houses which formed the settlement were hidden from my view, and I was glad of it, because I did not want to see everybody. I found a little stream of water close by, then I pitched the tent and laid myself down outside, looking after the smoke of the steamer as long as I could see the slightest sign of it. An unspeakable longing for home, a craving for sympathy, was all over me. I suppose most people have felt the same emotion. I did not go up to town for two or three days after; I remained lying on the beach all day looking out over the sea, and half the night I would walk up and down thinking, or, perhaps it would be more correct to say, _feeling_ all sorts of things. If we would all only always remember the value of a kind word, or a little genuine sympathy, how much better the world would be! Who shall say what I might have been to-day, or into what channels my mind might have been led, if the captain had acted towards me as he would have been quite justified in doing--that is, if he had given me in charge of the police when we came to a shore, and if I had been just a week or two in the lock-up? I had been wronged in Townsville, and afterwards I had received the impression that it was a case of each man for himself without fear or favour. What this impression would have led to if it had not been in this happy way checked in the very beginning, is hard to say, but when at last I bent my steps towards the dozen or two of houses which formed the township of Cardwell, it was with a resolution to do my best, but not to sail again under false colours. CHAPTER VI. ON THE HERBERT RIVER. From the glimpses I already had of the settlement, I came to the conclusion that it was of no use looking for carpenter's work here, so I went into the most conspicuous house I could see, viz., the hotel, and asked for a job of any kind. There were three or four men in the bar, dried-up looking mummies they seemed to me, but very friendly, for they began at once to mix in the conversation, and after I had told everybody all round where I came from, how old I was, what I could do, how long I had been in the country, and a lot more besides, they held a consultation among themselves, and agreed that my best plan was to go up on the sugar plantations on the Herbert River. It appeared that the mail for the plantation was taken up the river once a fortnight from Cardwell in a common boat, and my new friends, after standing drinks all round, unsolicited went to the captain about letting me go with him, and pull an oar in lieu of passage money. They asked me into dinner, as a matter of course; and who should I see waiting at the table but a German girl, one of my shipmates. "Happy meeting." Then for two or three more days I was breaking firewood for a living, and meanwhile it seemed as if I was the admiration of the whole community, because Cardwell is, and was then, as well as the Herbert River, a fearful place for fever, and the whole population was in a constant state of disease. As for me, Queensland had so far, I believe, rather improved my appearance than otherwise. Anyhow, it was a case all the day through to answer people how long I had been in the country; then they would say, "Hah! Europe, the old country--that must be the best place, after all. Look at his cheeks!" Then I would be advised to clear out again as fast as I came, or else in three months I should look like everybody around me. It used to surprise me very much, but I could not understand it, because the climate seemed to me excellent; and as everybody seemed so kind, and I was in the best of health, I only laughed at their sayings. Meanwhile I had spoken to the man in charge of the mail-boat, and one day at noon I embarked for the plantations. It was an ordinary rowing boat, and besides myself it had two other occupants--the captain, who was a Frenchman; the other an American. They both, on ordinary occasions, each pulled an oar; but this time, as I was there, the captain took the helm and I the oar. I pulled away as hard as I could, and did not see much of where we were going, but by the time it grew dark we were past the mouth of the river, and in smooth water. We dropped anchor in the middle of the river, because, as the captain explained to me, if we were to run ashore an alligator would be sure to try and crawl into the boat. They had appliances in the boat for boiling water, and after tea they both sat for a couple of hours spinning alligator yarns. I listened with great interest and not without fear, because the river was swarming with the reptiles. The blacks were also at that time so bad that no one dared to go overland to the plantations, unless in a large company. Here in the boat we had two loaded rifles and two revolvers, and before we reached the plantations I saw enough to convince me that it was necessary to be very careful when we had occasion to go ashore. It was also considered always necessary for one to keep watch the whole night, and as I was not sleepy I took the first watch, while the other two laid themselves down and soon snored lustily. Put there staring out into the darkness, with the loaded rifle over my knee, could it really be true, as my two shipmates had just assured me, that I was bound to catch the fever before three months were over? How did people here do when they were sick? I had asked that question also, and they had answered it by asking me if I thought anybody here was running about with a hospital on his back. And when any one died, it appeared that they rolled the body in a blanket and threw it in the river for the alligators to do the rest! These alligators, too, which might at any time upset the boat and eat us! Would it be my fate to serve as food for one of them? Horrible thought. But I had heard that evening so much about alligators; how, if I were at any time to be caught by one I should try to stick my finger into its eye, and that it would then eject me again; the whole thing being just as if it were a most natural and common occurrence here for people to be eaten by these monsters. Then there were the blacks; they were both savage and numerous, and I had got strict orders to listen with all my ears for any surprise from them. I had taken great notice that when boiling the tea my shipmates had been very careful to conceal the fire. Bang! crack! went the rifle. Up rushed the Frenchman and the American, revolvers in hand. I stared at them. They stared at me. "What is the matter?" whispered the captain. "I don't know," whispered I; "the gun went off." It was well for me, perhaps, that I was not familiar with the French language, or else who knows but the Franco-German war might not have been renewed between myself and the captain. He screamed and laughed and swore both "Mon Dieu" and "Sacre bleu," and then he assured me that it was only because I was a German that I was afraid! The Yankee sat and smoked his pipe, and laughed in a peculiar way; and, wild and ashamed of myself, I could not help feeling amused at him, because he laughed, although the grimaces in his face were exactly those another man would make if he were going to cry. By and by the captain began to feel calmer, and as I was disposed only to feel angry with myself for the fear which had caused me to press on the trigger of the rifle until it went off, we were soon friends again. My watch was over, and I laid down to sleep, while the two others took their turn to watch the rest of the night. At break of day we hoisted the anchor and began to propel the boat again. I never remember anything in nature making the same impression on me as the scenery around us. The broad river, or inlet, was dotted all over with beautiful small islands, then on the mainland the hills seemed to rise to immense heights, covered with the primeval forest. The sun rose and shone with that splendour that those who have been in the tropics can alone imagine. Parrots and all other birds flew about in great numbers, screaming as if with joy. At sunrise we went ashore on a small island about half an acre in extent, but verdant with tropical plants, quite a home of summer! Here we had breakfast and a rest before we started again. How inconceivable did it seem to me that this climate should be so unhealthy as they said it was. Anyhow, it seemed to me that to have seen this place would be justification for saying one had not lived in vain, and if the worst was to come, death seemed to me to have no terror if one might be buried on that island. We now started off again, pulling the boat. Shortly after, the sky became overcast and rain began to pour down. First, we had taken all our clothes off and covered them up with a piece of canvas. The rain descended in sheets of water all day, and we had a rare bath all the time; one was always baling the boat and the other pulling. I can never forget that weary day. We could not make a fire, we had no shelter, and scarcely five minutes' rest or interval from pulling. A sort of morose silence seemed to settle over us all. Long after dark in the evening did it keep on raining, and I began to wonder where we should put ourselves that night. As the others said nothing, I did not intend to be the first to knock under. Still, I was ready to drop as I pulled along in the pitch darkness, and it made it much worse that I did not know but that I might have to do it all night. At last the captain took up a horn and blew a tune on it, and a few minutes later we heard a fearful barking as of a score of big dogs. We had arrived at the place where the township of Ingham stands to-day. At that time there was only one solitary house built on high posts, with plenty of room to walk about underneath. I understood the house was the joint property of the planters further up the river, and the place was used as a sort of depôt. There was an old man in charge, the only inhabitant; he lived there all alone, protected by a score of dogs, the most ferocious-looking beasts I ever saw. It was also part of his duty to receive and be hospitable to such travellers as might find their way there. I was told these details while in the boat, and cautioned not to run the boat ashore before we were invited, as the dogs for certain would tear me to pieces. We heard the old fellow cooeing, and shortly after he came down to us. He had a lantern hung around his neck, and two ferocious-looking dogs were held in chains by him, striving and tearing to get at us. Some more dogs, which he said were quiet, but which did not look so, were barking and straining after us at the landing-place. My shipmates had been there before, and at last the dogs seemed to know them; but poor I had to remain by myself in the boat until the old man had got all the dogs chained again. At last I came ashore. Oh, the joy now of a fire, dry clothes, a good supper, a glass of grog, and a good bed! A good bed in the Queensland bush means two saplings stuck through a couple of flour-bags, with two sticks nailed across at the head and the foot to keep them apart. The next evening, after another hard day's pulling, we came to the first plantation. This seemed quite a large place. I cannot now after so many years state how many people there were or what they were doing, if ever I knew it; but let it suffice to say that we were all well received at supper-time in the single men's hut, where a large crowd of men were collected. The French man told me I should be sure to get a job as carpenter from the planter, and that I must demand three pounds sterling per week and board for my services, nothing less. I slept that night on the dining-table, as there was no spare bunk; and I remember that night with great distinctness, on account of what I suffered from mosquitoes. The next morning I saw the planter, and asked him for a job as carpenter. "Yes," said he; I was the very man he wanted. He intended to build a house of split timber; I might give him a price. He would order a couple of horses, and we would ride out to look for timber, and if I liked the trees, so much the better. This was a thing I did not then understand anything about, and I told him so. "Never mind," said he, "I will find you something; you can make me a waggon." I told him waggons were not in my line. "What is in your line, then?" inquired he. I understood the carpentry needed in brick-building, or at least part of it, and I could make joinery of sawn timber. "Very well; when he wanted a brick building, or joinery made of sawn timber, he would send for me." Then he walked off in a bad humour, and I had to go back to the boat to tell my shipmates how I had fared. That same day, at dinner-time, we arrived at the next plantation. I was by this time in very low spirits, because I did not know what was to become of me. Everybody seemed to have an errand and something to do except myself, and I did not see how and when my services would be called into requisition; but my two shipmates kept telling me it was my own fault, and that I should take anything I could get to do. So I would, but what was it I could do? Anyhow, they kept telling me that here was the only likely place left, and I there _must_ get a job. I must say I could do anything. After I had dined, the Frenchman kept poking at me and pointing out to me the planter, telling me I must ask for a job. So I mustered up courage and went up and spoke to him. "What can you do?" "Anything." "Can you cook?" "Do you mean making dinners?" "Yes." "No, I cannot do that." "Can you split fencing stuff?" "No." "Can you make brick?" "No." "Can you chip?" "What is that?" "Kill weeds with a hoe." "I never did it before." "I am afraid it is difficult to find you a job. You say you can do anything: what is it you can do?" I was again quite crestfallen as I said, "I do not think I can do _any_thing." "Well, then, I cannot find you anything to do." With that he went his way, and I came back to where the Frenchman sat, and I had to tell him once more of my hard fate. At this he began to swear in French like one demented, and asked me had I never told the planter I was a carpenter. "No." "Mon Dieu! oh, Mon Dieu, was any one like this infant!" Then he ran after the planter and spoke to him, and soon they both came back. The planter then said he had been told I was a carpenter, and that he was prepared to find work for me at that trade, but that he would prefer me to go into the boat to the next plantation, as he knew his neighbour was much in want of me. If I did not get on there he would employ me as I came back. What a relief I felt, especially as I understood they did not expect me to build houses out of growing trees! The next evening we passed the place where I was told I could get work, but it was on the other side of the river. A man stood down by the water's edge hailing the boat. He sang out to us if we thought it possible he might get a carpenter in Cardwell. It was music in my ears. The Frenchman cried back: "We have one on the boat." The man on shore replied he wanted one to make boxes, tables, and the like. I was ready to jump out of the boat with anxiety, but I had to content myself, as my shipmates would not let me off before the return journey, and so I had to ply the oar until, far out into the night, we arrived at the furthest point of our journey, viz., the Native Police camp. I may say a few words about this establishment. Round about in Queensland, on the furthest outskirts of settlements, some official will be stationed in charge of half a dozen aboriginals, trained in the use of the rifle and amenable to discipline. It is the duty of this official, with the assistance of his troopers, to fill the aborigines with terror, and to use such means to that end as his own judgment may dictate. White men to hunt the blacks with would be useless, as they could never track them through the jungle, and would no doubt also be too squeamish to fight the natives with their own weapons. But the blacks themselves delight in being cruel to their own kind. Often while I was on the Herbert, would I see them coming past, like regular bloodhounds, quite naked, with their rifle in their hand and a belt around their waist containing ammunition and the large scrub knife. Their bodies would be smeared over with grease, so as to be slippery to the touch. They would then be out on an expedition. It no doubt requires all the authority their officer can command at such times to temper the wind to the shorn lamb. As the district becomes settled the aboriginals grow quiet, and the native police camp will then be shifted further on. While I was on the Herbert I never saw any other blacks besides the police, although the blacks were about then in great numbers. We often saw their tracks, but they never showed themselves unless when they could not help it. We arrived at the police camp about two or three o'clock in the morning, and were received at the landing-place by two of the troopers, who stood there without saying a word, as if they were watching for us. They were black as the night itself, and as I never saw them until I was out of the boat, I fairly ran against them. One of them had a pipe in his mouth, and the only thing that indicated his presence was a glowing bit of coal he had stuck into it. The other one, as I already stated, I ran against, and I was quite startled as I looked into his gleaming eyes and as I stretched out my hands felt his greasy cold flesh! So I sang out, "Hi! vot name? Where you sit down?" that being the usual greeting to a blackfellow, but although none of them spoke a sentence, I was reassured in the next moment, as I saw a gentlemanly young man, dressed in a pyjamas, coming down to greet us. This was their officer, and as he led us towards the house I thought that it must be a cruel life for any white man to lead alone in such a place with nobody but a lot of howling savages to exchange a thought with. I do not think the whole clearing was more than half an acre in extent. In the middle of it stood a house built on posts eight feet high. It contained two rooms. This was where the officer lived. In the yard, or whatever you liked to call the clearing, was a fire, and around it sat or lay all these black troopers. Australian blacks will not sleep in a house if they can possibly avoid it, so this was their regular camping-place. A more wild and desolate spot than this looked to me, with all these naked savages lying in the yard, and with weapons piled about both outside and inside the house, cannot be conceived. The next day, on our return journey, I parted company with my two fellow-travellers, and went ashore at ---- plantation, where I got a job as carpenter for two pounds ten shillings per week and my board. This was a place which scarcely could be called a plantation yet, as it was only just formed. The owner and his family lived there in a large slab-house, erected on wooden piles ten or twelve feet out of the ground. There were also a few outbuildings, but any real work was not going on, only one man, a bullock driver, being engaged on the premises. My "boss" told me, though, that he expected a hundred Kanakas shortly from the South Sea Islands, and that he wanted me to fit up bunks for them, put together tables, troughs for making bread in, furniture for his own house, and such like. I perceived a few thousand feet of sawn cedar lying about, and there and then I started work to astonish the natives. I never worked with greater perseverance than then. The tools were in a fearful condition, but I soon got them into some shape. Then I rigged up a bench and made a sunshade out in the yard, where the young lady could see me working, and then it began to rain tables, sofas, chairs, and bunks, so much that I am not afraid to say that I quickly became a favourite. I found out here that I was more capable than I myself thought, because I even made a first-rate boat, in which I had the pleasure of rowing about the river with Mr. ----'s daughter, and in which she and her father afterwards travelled to Cardwell. Miss ---- had been with her parents on the Herbert for a year, and shortly after I arrived on the scene she went to a boarding-school in Sydney. On his return journey from Cardwell Mr. ---- brought home a servant girl, who proved to be the German girl I already have mentioned as having seen in Cardwell. I relate this matter not because I took any particular interest in this girl, but because I have by and by to write about what happened to all of us. My "boss" was in my eyes a regular hero, or Nimrod, if you like. I went out shooting with him both morning and evening, and all Sunday as well, and became after a while quite a good shot. But one thing troubled Mr. ----; it was this: that although alligators were a daily terror, he had never yet been able to shoot one. When we went out shooting he had always a rifle with him, loaded with ball, and we would crawl about some fearful places and follow the tracks of alligators, but still we had no luck. As for me, I professed to be very sorry too, that we did not run right up against one. I had great faith in Mr. ----, and I do not think he had any suspicion that I was really afraid; still I always drew a sigh of relief when we came home from one of our expeditions. There is so much boasting going on in Queensland about alligators, that it is next to a proverb here when one is telling an untrue tale to say that it is "an alligator yarn," and I am, therefore, almost ashamed to write about it. Still alligators are a reality, and up there we knew it. On the river-bank, in front of the house was a spring, from which we got the water supply for the house but so nervous were we that no one dared to go to it without the utmost precaution. Every morning Mr. ---- would come and ask the bullock driver and me if we were prepared to fetch water. Then he would get his rifle and take up a position on the river-bank from which he could overlook the surroundings, while we went down to carry up a supply of water. [Illustration: AN ALLIGATOR POOL.] And now I will relate an alligator story, although I have been much tempted to pass it over for the reason already stated. One day after dinner Mr. ---- came to me much excited, and told me that an alligator had taken one of the working bullocks which had been lying down a few hundred yards from the house, in broad daylight too. We then went down to see about it, and there were the tracks of the bullock and the alligator. It showed plainly that the alligator must have taken the bullock in the hind-quarters and have dragged it along, because the earth was regularly ploughed up where the bullock had been holding back with its head and forelegs; it had been dragged right down to the river's edge and then killed and partly eaten. As we ran the tracks down, we saw the alligator by the bullock, but it dropped like a stone into the water on our approach. Mr. ---- turned to me with sparkling eyes. "Now is our chance," cried he; "to-night and to-morrow night it will come again and eat of the bullock. Then we can shoot it." Was it not fun? Anyhow I said I would make one of the shooting party, and then he began to unfold our plan of campaign. To begin with he thought it best to delay till the next evening as the alligator would then be sure to be more quiet. We were to take up a concealed position to windward of the bullock's carcass, and await the arrival of the monster. And so the next evening came, and after tea, while it was yet light, Mr. ---- came and asked me if I was ready. "Yes," cried I. I was ready, and in a very ferocious spirit besides! Well, then, we would get the weapons. The two rifles were loaded, and each of us had a six-chambered revolver as well. As for me, I stuck a butcher's knife in my belt also, as a last resource, but Mr. ---- laughed at me for doing it and assured me that before I could find use for that I should be in the alligator's stomach. Then we went, Mr. ---- first and I close behind. The river-bank nearest the water was very steep for about thirty yards, then there was a gentle slope for another twenty yards or so, and on that slope the carcass of the bullock was now lying. We were very careful to have the wind against us, as the alligator is very shy as a rule, and Mr. ---- said it would be sure to clear off if it could smell us. Then we lay down behind some bushes in a most overpowering smell from the bullock; but what will one not do for glory? It was agreed between us that we should both fire at the same moment, and that Mr. ---- should give the signal. We were lying flat on the ground, and one of Mr. ----'s legs was touching me, and it was further agreed that I was not on any account to fire before he with his leg pressed mine in a certain way. Then I was to fire into the mouth of the alligator, while he at the same moment would try to send a ball through its eye. We were lying in this position nearly up to midnight, when we heard some heavy body come creeping up the hill, but still out of sight. Now and then the noise would cease for a minute or two, then it would come on again, until at last we saw the dark mass of the alligator come crawling up to the bullock and begin to tear at it. I was not a bit nervous, because I could see it quite distinctly, but I was very impatient for the signal to fire which did not come, and I dared not move round sufficiently to look at Mr. ---- either. The alligator was turning this way and that way. Now, I thought, is the time. Still no signal. Then it turned right round, and at one time I thought its tail was going to sweep us away. Just when our chance was best we heard another alligator coming crawling up the bank. It was at that moment quite impossible to fire according to the position in which the first alligator was lying, but as it was moving about rapidly I thought it best in any case to ignore as well as I could the presence of the second alligator, which we could not yet see. At last the first one began to snap its jaws in that peculiar way which only one who has seen a live alligator knows. Then came the signal. Bang! went the rifles. The beast never moved a muscle. It was quite dead, and we could hear the other alligator tearing and rolling down into the water again. Mr. ---- got up and wiped his face. "I was afraid of you getting excited," said he. I admitted I was thankful the sport was over, and without giving ourselves time to measure the reptile we decamped out of the smell as fast as we could. It was fairly overpowering, and it took the best part of a bottle of Scotch whiskey, which the "boss" introduced, to make me believe that it was possible to go through such adventure and still live. It had for a long time been the wish of Mrs. ---- and the children to visit their nearest neighbour, who, however, lived some fourteen miles away. One evening preparations were made for the whole family to start at daybreak next morning on the bullock dray. It was quite a perilous journey for a lady and children to undertake, as the track was through the dense jungle most of the way, and through grass eight feet high at other places, and swamps, creeks, and gullies had to be crossed. Mr. ---- told me that he could not possibly be back before the next night, and that he entrusted everything at home to my care while he was away, the girl included, and that I might take a holiday until they came back, so that I on no account left the premises. He also advised me that as it was possible I might have a surprise from the blacks I had better sleep for the night up in the house, which, as I have already stated, stood on high piles, and was only accessible by means of a narrow staircase. The next morning, then, they all went away, the bullock driver and all the dogs included. Twelve bullocks pulled the dray, into which a lot of bed-clothes were piled. There sat the lady and the children. Mr. ---- was on horseback, armed with his rifle and revolvers. The driver cracked his long whip and all the dogs barked and jumped about. I stood by seeing them off and feeling quite important too, as I was the garrison left to defend the home until the travellers should return. About dinner-time that same day two travellers came in a boat from one of the plantations and asked to speak to Mr. ----. This was rather remarkable, as we scarcely ever saw any other people than the boatmen when they brought the mail, and occasionally the black trackers from the police camp, but I told them that Mr. ---- and the whole family had left that morning in the bullock dray. They seemed surprised. "All of them, did you say?" "Yes," replied I. "It means good-bye," said they both. "You will never see any of them again; they have cleared off." I was surprised and incredulous. My friends seemed quite sure. "And what did he say to you when they left?" inquired one. "He told me I need not work until he came back, but that I must not leave the premises. He also said that he entrusted everything to my care." "My word," said they, "it is a nasty trust. Why, the blacks will be sure to rush the place one of these days, perhaps to-night, for they are certain to have seen the others going away." Then they began to commiserate with me on what was to become of myself and the girl, as we were sure to fall into the hands of the blacks, and they offered to take us both away in the boat with them. But I could not see it in that way. I knew that in all probability we should have no visitors for ten or eleven days until the mailman came. But where was I to go? I had now a good deal of money coming to me. Who was to pay me? Besides, it might only be all nonsense. Still the responsibility seemed great. I took the girl aside and asked her if she liked to go in the boat and leave me. She began to cry, and said she would rather stay, and did not like the fellows. If there is anything that could ever make me desperate it is to see a woman cry. So I began to give the two strangers the cold shoulder, and to show them that I had a rifle, six fowling-pieces, a revolver, and any amount of ammunition, and that I would, if it was necessary, defend the place against all the blacks in the district, but neither the girl nor I would budge out of the place before we were paid, and that, moreover, we did not believe that the "boss" had cleared off, but that he would be back the next evening. After these fellows were gone I held a council of war with the girl. We turned and twisted probabilities for or against, were they coming back or were they not? Evening came and we sat up in the blockhouse and dared not go to bed. Wherever I moved there the girl was after me. I had all the guns standing loaded alongside me, but we dared not light a lamp for fear of attracting the blacks. We sat whispering and listening. Every time the wind would rustle the leaves in the garden the girl made a grab at me and cried, "There they are! There they are!" At last I induced her to go to her room, and then I dozed off myself, and did not wake up before it was broad daylight. The first thing we did that morning on coming downstairs was to look for tracks from the blacks, to see if they had been about. I was not a very good tracker then, but we found what proved to our entire satisfaction that the aboriginals had been about in great numbers. This terrified the girl completely, and she upbraided me for having slept during the night, and implored me not to do so again; also she wished she had gone with the strangers the day before; and then she began praying in great excitement that it might not be her fate to fall into the hands of savages. Of course all this had its influence on me, and as the day went on we completely discarded the possibility of our employers returning, and only thought of how best to protect ourselves from the blacks. I made up my mind, therefore, that the time had now arrived for me to show myself great and brave, and at all events to sell my life dearly. Good generalship, however, was likely, thought I, to do more for me than bravery unassisted by judgment, and for that reason I began to think how to act so as to be prepared for the worst. I knew this much, that the greatest danger from a surprise would be about sunrise. But as I was alone I could see that it would be impossible for me to defend the whole property. I must therefore retire to the main house, which, standing isolated and on high piles, would offer a good fortification. But if I had to abandon the outhouses, they would then fall into the hands of the enemy and he would be enriched by all there was to be found in them. I must, therefore, while I had time, carry everything I could up to the house, and, perhaps, it would be better to burn the outhouses down afterwards, so that they might not serve as a hiding-place for the blacks. I would see about that, but my first duty was to carry everything upstairs, and at all events commenced. No sooner said than done. The girl and I carried everything we could lay our hands on, upstairs. I also carried up water enough to last us for a fortnight or more, three large tubsful. All the firewood that was lying handy I also humped up, although there was no fireplace upstairs; but I wanted to do all I could, and in my energy I could not be still. In this way the day passed and evening came again. As no one had returned what hope we might have had was now dead, and as for me I felt like a glorious Spartan, quite certain that the blacks would come and that I should let daylight through every one of them. All my guns, of course, were loaded, and I was showing them off to the girl, explaining to her that it was my intention, after having defended the door as long as I could, to retire from room to room and keep up the war all the time. But she was nevertheless timid, and I feared much that she should, by taking hold of me, which indeed she did all the time, prevent me from firing, and I asked her, therefore, again to retire to her room. She implored me to let her stay with me, and said she did not mind so that we might die together. Then she began to hug me. What new and unexpected horror was this? Was this a man-trap, or what? Was there not trouble enough already? Surely, thought I, if ever a man needed a stimulant to keep up his pluck, I am that man. Happy thought! I knew where the "boss" kept his whiskey. I went to the cupboard and took a long, deep pull at the bottle. "Dearest Amelia," cried I, "remember that in the time of our glorious forefathers it was the duty of the Danish maidens to hand the cup to the warriors, both before they went to battle and when they came home. Do now! Let me. Oblige me to drink of this bottle. It is only schnapps. Do! That is right. Here is luck! And death and destruction to our enemies! And now retire to your room. Good-night. Nothing shall harm you. Barricade the door from the inside. Let me lock it from the outside. And now," cried I, "I make it impossible for anyone to get near you. Here goes the key." With that, having turned the key twice in the lock after her, I threw it out of the window as far as I could! I felt then as bloodthirsty as any savage. Why did these blacks not come? The only thing that puzzled me, as I traversed the house from one shutter to another, was what I should do if they came underneath the house. They might then fire the building. No, they should not. I would have them yet. I would take the two-inch augur and bore holes all over the floor, so that I might shoot through. I was soon boring away making holes for a long time right and left, when the girl whispered, "What are you doing?" "I am boring holes," cried I, "in the floor to shoot through. Shall I bore a hole in your door? Then you could kill half a dozen with a revolver. If you have a mind, I will." "Oh, there they are!" cried the girl. "Ha, where? Come on!" "Stop, you fool, it is the master and the missis. Don't you hear the whip? Let me out." "Master and missis? I cannot let you out. I have thrown the key away." Then it dawned on me what a fearful ass I must presently appear. It is impossible for me to keep on with the particulars. I could not find the key again and let the girl out. The floor was spoiled, the house upside down. I should have been game to have fought his Satanic Majesty himself, but to face the contempt of the "boss" and good, kind Mrs. ---- was terrible. So I talked through the door at the girl and told her to say, if any one made inquiries for me, that I was not at home. With that I decamped, and did not present myself before the next midday. After a while the matter was only referred to as a joke. I should have liked very much to have been able to write a detailed account of the whole twelve months I spent at this place. I am quite sure that if truly written, much of it would prove interesting to people who never were so far north, but I must of necessity pass quickly over many things of which I should have liked to write more fully, or else I shall never come to the end of my travels. Suffice it, therefore, to say that the Kanakas arrived in great numbers; that the "boss" and I went to Cardwell on horseback to fetch them; that a lot of white men were also brought together on the plantation; that I was overseer, or "nigger driver," over part of the Kanakas for some time; that I, during the twelve months, gained a good deal of colonial experience: learned to ride, drive bullocks, split fencing stuff, &c., also how to build slab-houses, as they are called--that is, to go into the bush, and with the help of a few tools, single-handed, to make a good house out of the growing trees. All this I learned, more or less, and then when I had been there about twelve months I caught the fever. This fever is, I believe, peculiar to certain parts of North Queensland; it is not deadly, but very common, indeed my impression is that there was not a man on the Herbert River who had not got it more or less. It comes with shivering of cold, followed by thirst and utter exhaustion, once a day or once every second day. Most people are able to work all the time they have it until they feel the "shakes" coming over them. Then perforce they must lie down, but they generally get up to their work again after the prostration which follows is over. With me it was different. A couple of weeks of it made me so weak that when I felt myself strongest I could only stagger about with the help of a big stick. I had built a carpenter's shop, and my room was off that. Then I would lie down of an evening on the bed, with bed-clothes piled on me enough to smother one, and still the gasping and the "shakes" would gradually commence. The very marrow in one's bones seemed frozen, while the teeth would rattle in the head, and the breath would come and go with fearful quickness. After a couple of hours of this, heat and prostration would follow, coupled with terrible thirst. Of course there was no hospital, and there was no one to hand one a drink. When I properly understood the matter, I would always place my wash-basin in the bed, filled with water, so that when the time came I could lean over and drink, because I was too weak to lift a billy can or a pint pot off the floor. But when I upset this basin, which happened once, my sufferings were intense. I remember on two or three occasions when I had no water how I tried to get out of bed, how I fell and lay on the floor for hours, then crept on my hands and knees out around the shed to where a bench stood with a tub of water on. There I would sit or lie over the water for hours and drink. Such a matter as this excites no sympathy in a place like that. There were now a lot of other men, and most of them had a touch of the fever as well. If I had slept among other men I have no doubt some one would have given me a drink, but to ask any one to sit up with me, or disturb their night's rest on that account, would have been asking too much, I fear. Then when I had been alone before the new hands arrived, I had shared pot-luck with my employer and his family, but now it seemed as if one was only lost in a crowd. I had nothing to eat but half-putrid corned beef and bread, served on a dirty tin plate, tea of the cheapest sort, boiled in a bucket, and sweetened with dirty black sugar, was my fare too. How could any sick person eat or drink such stuff? As I write now it seems to me it is enough to cause a strong man to die of slow starvation, and yet it is the ordinary average diet put before working men all over the Queensland bush twenty-one times a week. One day Mrs. ---- came down and asked me very sympathetically how I was getting on. So I showed her my plate with my dinner on, covered with flies as it was, and very unappetizing indeed, and upbraided her and her husband for serving such rations. "Dear me, how shocking! None of the other men complained. Was the meat bad?" Then she assured me I should have anything I wished for, and for the last few days I was there I was constantly invited to their own table, although I scarcely could eat anything even there. But I thought I had been there long enough, and when the mailman came in his boat I took a friendly leave of my employer and his family, and was assisted down into the boat. I had with me then my cheque for a hundred pounds sterling, and another for seven or eight pounds. CHAPTER VII. LEAVING THE HERBERT--RAVENSWOOD. I had again no particular idea as to where I would go, further than that I wanted to regain my health. But oh, for the sweetness of liberty and money! I needed not to say anything about money to my old travelling companions in the boat; they knew I must have a good cheque, and their attentions were in proportion! Perhaps I wrong them. Perhaps they would have been just as careful to my wants if they had known me to be penniless. At any rate, a sort of bed was made for me in the stern of the boat, and offers to procure for me anything I wanted from the stores on the plantations were profuse. But I wanted for nothing more than to lie as easily as I might, because I really was very sick. There had been a public-house built somewhere a mile from the river-bank since I had passed that way before, and when we came to the place where a track led from the water up to it, my two oarsmen proposed to go up to have some refreshment, and promised to be back directly. Of course I could not go with them. When they were gone some time a little pig which they had in a bag in the boat began to find its way out. I thought it a pity to allow it to escape, and yet I had not strength to get up, but without calculating the consequences I rolled myself over until I lay on the top of it. Never shall I forget the howling of that pig in my ears, for I believe over an hour, until the men came back. The bag had somehow got mixed in my clothing, and I could not either free myself or the pig, else I would gladly have let it go. At last the men came back and got us separated. When I came to Cardwell I thoroughly enjoyed, although I was sick, the luxury of lying in a clean bed with white sheets, and mosquito curtains all around me, and to have one of the servants at the hotel coming to my door all day long asking if she could do anything for me. There was neither doctor nor chemist in the place, but one of the storekeepers came and looked at me, and sold me some medicine which in a short time drove the fearful "shakings" I had away. Meanwhile, as there was no other communication with the outer world than "the schooner," which ran between Cardwell and Townsville, I had inquired when the schooner would be in as I had decided to go to Townsville again. On the same day that the ague had for the first time left me, I was told that the schooner would be ready to run out at eleven o'clock at night. I was then so careless of myself, or so foolish, that I, at that hour of the night, for the first time in a fortnight, got out of my bed and went on board the craft. It was only a sort of fishing smack, rowed by two men, who had a small enclosure somewhere on board where they could be dry. For passengers there was no accommodation whatever. In the hold, which was open, was nothing but some old sails, rusty chains, empty boxes, and the like. Two or three more passengers came on board, who at once secured the best places in the hold, while I, who for the first time for many weeks felt remarkably well, sat up on the deck enjoying the strong breeze, and even tried to smoke a pipe. But any North Queenslander will tell you that when one has had fever he has to be extra careful of not catching cold. I did not know that just then, but in a very short time I did. I got a fearful toothache. My enervated system did not feel able to hold up against this new affliction, and so I threw myself down among the ropes and boxes in the hold. There I lay, while the pain gradually increased. The wind was against us, and it took eight or nine days before we reached Townsville. During that time my agony grew more acute every day. I had neither strength nor energy enough to stand on my feet. My head swelled up to a fearful extent. My mouth was in such a state that I could not swallow, and I gradually lost power to open my mouth or to speak. When we had been two days out I raised myself on my elbow to try to drink some tea and eat some mashed bananas, which some one gave me in a pint pot. I could not swallow, so I laid myself down again and did not after that touch food. I heard them speak about me on deck, and say that they ought to have found out my name, because I should scarcely last out unless the wind changed. I heard this distinctly, and laughed to myself, because I knew I was not going to die just yet. Still to all their inquiries I could not reply. One day I heard a Dane speaking in my ear; where he came from, or where he went to, I do not know, but he asked me, "Are you a Dane?" I grunted. Then he said, "What is your name?" I tried to stutter it out from between my teeth time after time, but he could not understand, and kept on, "Say it again." At last he gave it up. Then he asked me if there was anything he could do for me? what ship I had come out in, and so on. But I was so disgusted with my own inability to use my tongue, that otherwise so ready a friend of mine, that I made no further attempt to speak, and my countryman disappeared again. There was now only one thought that possessed my mind, viz., to get to Townsville, and when there to have all my teeth pulled out. Of course it was more a relapse from the fever that was wrong with me than toothache, but I did not know it. I lay in a daze day after day, every time the boat gave a lurch my head would strike against something, and the agony I suffered cannot be described. At last the skipper took hold of me and cried, "Well, stranger, here we are in Townsville; where shall we take you to?" It came on me so unexpectedly that it seemed again to send the life-blood through me. I stared around me and saw that we were lying close to the wharf. Up I jumped, to the great surprise of the skipper, and leaving my swag behind me, and holding on with both hands to my head, I staggered ashore. It was about eight o'clock in the morning when I landed. I knew it because I heard all the breakfast bells ringing from the hotels, and although I did not feel hungry, yet it reminded me that I had eaten nothing for two weeks. On I staggered like a drunken man. People seemed to look surprised at me, and to go out of their way for me. I came to a chemist's shop. He also looked at me in a disgusted sort of way. I took up a pen and wrote to him that I wanted all my teeth pulled out. He felt my pulse. "My friend," said he, "I think you had better go to a doctor." I gave him to understand that I was tired, and did not know where the doctor lived. "Wait," cried he, "I will get a man to go with you." Then he went out of the shop. As I turned round I saw a very large mirror, in which I beheld my own image from head to foot. At first I did not realize it was myself as I stared at it. Would my own mother have known the picture? I hope not. Unkempt, unwashed for nearly a fortnight, my hair hung in matted knots about my face. My whole head was swollen to such an extent that to describe it as I saw it would seem exaggeration. Add to this a graveyard complexion in the face, and an emaciated form, dressed in an old crimean shirt, dirty moleskin trousers and blucher boots, and you have the picture I beheld of myself as I stood looking. I felt my knees giving way under me, made a grab at the counter and fell. The next thing I remember was that I was lying on a nice bed, in a room which proved to be in the adjoining hotel, and that a doctor was there. With consciousness my agony returned, and I again preferred my request in writing that he should pull all my teeth out. "Yes, that is all very well," said he, "but we must first try to break your mouth open. You must go to the hospital. I will give you a ticket. What is your name? Have you no money?" I took out all I had got, my one hundred pounds' cheque and some change, and laid it on the table. At the same time I wrote to him on a paper and asked him to take charge of it and give me the balance when I asked for it. I also asked him to order anything I wanted and to spare no expense. Then the doctor suggested to call in a colleague that they might consult, and when the next doctor arrived they agreed to give me chloroform, but after great preparations had been made and a sponge held to my nose for a minute or two without having any effect on me, they again decided that I was too weak for chloroform, but as I, half crying, beckoned to them to do in my case what had to be done, one of them, with his knee on my chest, put an instrument between my teeth while the other held my head back and somebody else sat behind my chair and held my arms. My mouth came open. I will not unnecessarily prolong the agony, only to state that I felt relieved shortly after and that somebody with the utmost tenderness was bathing my head. I had now nothing to do but to allow people to wait on me. I stayed in the hotel for two days, when the doctor's own buggy came for me and I was driven to the hospital. So that the reader may not be under the impression that I wear false teeth, I would like to say that not a tooth was pulled or any other surgical operation performed. I now got better rapidly. It seemed impossible to feel sick in that hospital. I had a large private room and broad verandahs outside. From my bed I could lie and watch the ocean all day and try to count the islands. My friend, the doctor, came also every day, and any extra comfort I wanted was quickly procured. As I grew better I would sit and bask in the sun down among the rocks by the shore in that half-unconscious but blissful condition which I believe is common to all convalescents, or a couple of hours before meal-time I would lie on my bed watching the sun and its shadows on the floor so that I might be prepared and lose no time the moment the man came with the dinner. Oh, for the ravenous hunger with which I could eat! Although I had double the ordinary allowance, yet after a month's stay in the hospital, I had to leave it for very hunger's sake. I then settled my bill with the doctor, who charged me very moderately, and went to live in a hotel in town. When I was perfectly cured and myself again I could easily have obtained work in town at my trade for four pounds per week, but I had a sort of dislike to the place, which decided me to go up to the gold-diggings and try my luck there. The nearest diggings were at Ravenswood, some hundred and thirty miles inland. Other diggings were scattered behind that place, but to reach them I understood I had to go to Ravenswood first, and that it was as good a place as any. I bought two horses, with all necessary appendages, such as saddle, pack-saddle, bridles, &c. They cost me about thirty pounds. I put thirty pounds more into the bank as a sort of reserve fund in case of accident, and after paying my way so far, and buying a few necessary clothes, I had only some nine or ten pounds left. So one morning I packed the one horse with my swag, containing clothes and blanket, in the large saddle-bags. I had small bags containing flour, tea, sugar, and other necessary things for a journey through the bush, because, although the road I had now to travel was a beaten track, yet it is a Queensland custom on all occasions to be as independent as possible. Besides, when one sets out for a ramble, there is no saying where one is going to pull up, and it seems so pleasant to know that one is all-sufficient in his own resources, without requiring any aid from wayside inns. So at least did I think as I rode out of the town; and as this was my first experience of what we in Queensland call going on the "wallaby track," I enjoyed it immensely. The way a man acts when travelling like this, is just to please himself. When a fair day's journey is done, one begins to look out for a likely spot for grass and water, and having found that, you get off the horses and hobble them out--that is, having freed them of their load, their forefeet are tied together with a pair of strong leather straps in such a way that they can only totter slowly about. Having done that a fire is made, the billy is slung on for tea, and when supper is over, a smoke, a yarn--if there is a mate--and then a roll in the blanket with a saddle for a pillow. There is often a lot of argument about what is a fair day's journey on horseback. Of course it is a matter which never can be decided, because so much depends upon the horses, the road, what the horses get to eat, &c., but I do not believe many careful travellers will take their horses more than twenty miles a day for a long journey, and then rest them occasionally, but to hear some people talk one would think their horses could go a hundred miles every day. In Queensland travellers have sometimes to ride forty or fifty miles between watering-places. Most horses can do it, if taken care of, but not every day. When travellers meet on a Queensland road their first question after greeting is, "How far is it to water?" and the distance between watering-places is practically what decides a day's journey. In times of drought these water-holes get scarce or dry up completely; rivers stop running; then it behoves the traveller to look out where he goes. If misfortune happens, or he has not calculated rightly the endurance of his horse, or the water-hole on which he depends should be dried up when he arrives there, then he is likely to perish! As for myself, I have on more than one occasion arrived in a parched condition at a water-hole, only to find a lot of dead cattle bogged in the soft mud, and still have been compelled to drink the pint or two of putrefied water that might be left. The reader will therefore see that travelling in the Queensland bush is not exactly a perpetual picnic. Nothing of importance happened to me on this road, unless I were to mention that when I was about half-way I met a swag's-man, that is, one who carries his swag on his own back and has no horses. This fellow asked to let him put his burden on my horse, which I let him do. I then, by talking to him as we went along, found out that he had neither money nor rations, and as we were only a few miles from Hugton Hotel I promised to pay for dinner at that place for us both. Arrived at the hotel, I ordered a first-class dinner for two; it was five shillings. The table was laid for us with a big roast of beef and a plum-pudding. After we both had eaten what we wanted, my fellow-traveller put nearly all the remaining food into his bags and decamped, in spite of my protestations. I remember well how scandalized I felt! Otherwise the road was not lonely; every day I passed waggons hauled by sixteen or eighteen bullocks each and filled with merchandise for the diggings. There were also other travellers, both on foot and on horseback, but I did not go myself in company with any, and so at last, one forenoon, I saw the township of Ravenswood lying before me. I stopped the horses to have a good look. At last I was on a gold-field. What a magic spell there seemed to me in the words. All the old fallacious ideas connected with the word crowded into my mind. Runaway nuns dressed in men's clothes, princes working like labourers, and labourers living like princes--"looking for gold!" Had I not better begin at once? As I came nearer I saw what seemed to me wells on all sides and tents near the wells. Then as I looked at the ground again I became fearfully excited. Big nuggets of shining gold were lying all around on the road. Was it possible? Surely I knew gold when I saw it. I got off the horse and picked it up. Not pure gold, though. But surely half of it was gold. It glittered all over. I picked pieces up as I went along and fairly howled with joy as I filled my bags. Think of those fools coming behind with their flour-bags and of all the empty waggons I had met going down, while I was finding a fortune before I reached the diggings! At the place where I had now come, they could have loaded all the waggons quickly. I could not carry more as I went further, ruminating over the matter. Now the whole ground right and left was glittering all the way into town. I threw the stuff all away again. It could not be gold! Then, with a voice shaking between hope and fear, I asked a man who came by, what that was. He told me at once it was "rubbish." "Did you think it was gold?" asked he. "No; but I thought there might be gold in it." "Yes," said he, "so there was, but it did not pay to extract it." In this way somewhat sobered, I rode further and arrived in town, where the next day I pitched a tent I had bought somewhere handy to the other tents, put the horses in a paddock and looked about me. I will not attempt a long description of this the first gold-field I was ever on. There was an ordinary street composed of hotels, boarding-houses, and stores, on both sides of the road. Behind the street were tents in which the diggers principally lived. Everywhere were earth-mounds where some one was or had been busy rooting the ground about. The reefs were each surmounted by an ordinary windlass, where a man would stand hauling up the quartz all day long. Such was the picture presented at a superficial glance at Ravenswood, and I think the description answers for all other Queensland gold-diggings. Nearly all the people boarded in two boarding-houses kept by Chinamen, one on each side of the street. I think there must have been two or three hundred boarders in each. They were both alike, two large bark-houses, no floor, only two immense tables with forms on each side. On these tables were at meal-times every conceivable delicacy in season, and up and down between the tables an army of Chinamen would run round waiting on their guests. During my various fortunes in Queensland, I have often paid two or three pounds per week for board in hotels, and I have paid half-a-guinea for a ticket to a public feast, but it has always been my impression that nowhere was such good or luxurious food served out as in these boarding-houses. It would simply be impossible to compete with them. The charge was one pound per week, payment beforehand, and those of their customers who wanted sleeping accommodation might, without extra charge, fix themselves up as they liked in some sheds behind. There were also many hotels in town, but, as far as I could see from the outside, their "takings" were more across the bar than otherwise, as the Chinamen seemed to monopolize the boarding-house trade. All over Australia, but especially in Queensland, there is a bitter feeling against Chinamen. People say that they ought to be forbidden to come to the country, because they work too hard and too cheaply, and eat too little at the same time; consequently we shall all go to the dogs. How is this? Surely "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark." A white man is always praised if he is hard-working and frugal. It seems a contradiction to abuse one for what is commended in another! This is an awful world. Some people say we are poor because we work too much, and run ourselves out of work. Others say we do not work half enough, and that that is the reason. Some say that Protection is a panacea for poverty, others swear by Free Trade. In Australia they want to turn out the Chinamen because they work too much; in China they want to turn out the whites, I suppose for the same reason. Of all countries, I believe, Australia certainly included the greatest majority of the people living in different degrees of poverty, and work is getting to be as scarce here where the population does not count one to the square mile, as it is in Denmark where there are four hundred inhabitants to the square mile. Of late years one more theory has sprung up, and its disciples aver that all our poverty, despite our hard work and frugal fare, is due to the fact that the earth on which we live is sold in large or small parcels in the open market like tea and sugar, and that the owners of the earth can in the shape of rent extract the greatest part of our earnings. I ask the reader's pardon for this little digression, but it seems to me to be an interesting question, and it would at least be desirable if we all could agree whether it is Chinamen, Free Trade, or Protection, or what not, whom we really want, because there _is_ "something rotten in the state of Denmark." I took my board, like everybody else, with the Chinamen and lived in my tent not far away. I occupied myself in prospecting, or learning how to prospect, but what little gold-dust I could find was not worth coming all the way for. I soon got tired of that, and one day I went and asked for a job of carpenter's work in a large Government building I saw going up. Before I proceed further I must explain that a certain fixed scale of wages existed here for most occupations, and this scale was very jealously guarded by the people. It was three pounds per week for miners in dry claims, three pounds ten shillings in wet claims, bricklayers sixteen shillings per day for eight hours, carpenters fifteen shillings, &c. I had heard this but I had not believed it. I took it that those figures represented what men would like to get rather than what they actually got, and while I worked for a master I always preferred to put my pride in earning what I got, rather than, perhaps, getting what I did not earn. I understand the importance now of keeping up wages, but at that time I did not, and when the carpenter said he would give me twelve shillings a day and find tools not only did I think myself well paid, but I had no idea or care whether others got more or less. Beside myself there was an American negro employed as carpenter. He seemed a very morose sort of individual, but I took no notice of him and was hopping about all day, giving as I thought as much satisfaction to others as to myself. I often heard the "boss" grumble at the negro, and occasionally I would be set to put him right about what he was working at. This happened one afternoon as the "boss" went away shortly before five o'clock, and I was consequently explaining to him out of my wisdom, when he suddenly asked what wages I was getting. I told him with great pride I was getting _twelve_ shillings a day. Squash came a stick down over my head, then he flew at my throat and kicked and belaboured me in a terrible way. At last he flung me with awful violence out on the verandah, got hold of me again and threw me outside. He was two or three times as big a man as I, and I could not at all defend myself against him, nor had I any idea why he had thus maltreated me; but as there was no one to appeal to, I, in a terrible rage, ran home to my tent for the gun. It stood there loaded, and I took it up and started back again along the main street. The blood was running down my face, and I howled to myself with rage as I ran. I meant to shoot him as dead as a herring. "Halloa!" cried the people, "there is a fellow running amuck," and soon there was a whole crowd behind me, intent on watching the sport. But I must now go back in time a little. There was at that period in Ravenswood a Danish digger, whom I had met and who had been very friendly to me, and both because he plays an important part in the next few pages I have to write, and because I have entitled this book "Missing Friends," I think he deserves mention, as he indeed had been, and is no doubt yet, "a missing friend." He had been a farmer in Denmark, what we in Danish call a yardsman, who owned his own freehold. When the war with Germany in 1864 broke out, he was called on to serve in the artillery. He was married then, had two children, and was, like all Danish farmers, in extremely good circumstances. During the war he was taken prisoner by the Germans, but was by some mistake reported dead by the Danish authorities. He told me that he wrote home as soon as he could, but the letter never reached his wife. Shortly after he tried to escape from the Germans, and, being caught, defended himself desperately. For this offence he was condemned to three years' hard labour on the fortifications of some place in the south of Germany. For one reason and another he did not write from there. Partly he was not much of a writer, partly he objected to the enemy reading his efforts, and as he knew his wife had plenty to live on, and that his neighbours at home would help her to run the farm, he neglected writing, and as the time went on pictured to himself in rosy colours the happy surprise he would give his wife and them all at home when he _did_ return. At last the time arrived when he was set free, and started for home. Meanwhile his wife had bemoaned him as dead, and what little hope his friends might have had for him died when he did not return at the end of the war. It did not take long before one suitor after the other presented themselves, and a couple of years later the wife got married again, with the full consent and approval of all concerned. One day, when sitting at dinner on the farm, the wife saw her first husband coming in at the door. With a scream of joy and excitement, she rushed towards him. (Tableau.) Husband No. 2 was as honourable a man as husband No. 1. There was a second family. What was to be done? They made a sad but friendly compact. My friend took the eldest child with him, and went to Australia, after having got back a fair amount of his own cash. This man now came from his work, and as I rushed down the street, we met. I did not see him, but he saw me. "Hulloa, countryman, what is the matter? Stop! where are you going?" I tried to escape him, but he had hold of the gun. We struggled for possession and the stock broke. When the gun broke my hope of revenge fled as well, and in the relaxation which followed I sat down on some steps and actually cried. I admit that it is sometimes as hard for me to write about my weakness as about my folly, but I will ask the reader to remember what I already have written here. The truth must be told. There was now a large and sympathetic crowd around us, to whom I related how the negro had maltreated me without any provocation, and while I spoke I could see that the chances were that I would yet have revenge, because all sorts of remarks would fly about, such as: "The poor fellow had pluck, by Jove;" "Would you have shot him?" or, "Such a rascally negro should not be allowed to strike and half kill a white man;" "I think I can flog him;" "So can I, and I will;" "No Bill! you cannot!" "Let me, you are not heavy enough!" "No," cried the Dane, and struck a crushing blow in the wall of the house by which we stood; "he is my countryman, and any one who strikes him, him I will strike. Where is that negro? Only let me see him." I went with a sort of pious joy in front of the whole crowd up to the negro's tent. When he saw us all coming, he thought they were going to mob him, and only asked for fair play. He would fight them all, man for man, and as for me, he had only struck me in open fight because I was running down wages, working for twelve shillings a day. I was surprised how much sympathy this statement created, but my countryman cut it short by saying he would fight first and argue after. "All right, I'm your man," cried the negro; "only pull off your shirt. I am dying to commence." They both pulled off their shirts, and some willing assistants from the crowd got behind each combatant to watch his interest in the coming struggle. It was easily seen now that my countryman was a very strong man. His arms, his shoulders, and his deeply curved back were swelling with muscles. In his face sat a determination which boded his opponent no good. Still, my heart sank as I looked at the negro, who was prancing about as in irresistible joy over what he deemed his easy victory. He seemed little short of a giant. They were just beginning to spar, when a seedy-looking individual came forward and cried, "Hold on, gentlemen, hold on, just one minute. It seems that we are going to see a splendid piece of sport, and I think we ought to improve the occasion a little. I will lay two to one on our coloured friend--two to one on Mr. Jones!" Nobody took him up, when the negro said, "I don't mind if I lay a pound or two on myself; any one on?" I looked at my countryman. He said, "Have you got any money on you?" "Yes," said I, "I have got over ten pounds!" "Lay it all," said he. "Oh, but if we should lose?" "Death and destruction, we don't lose; lay it all." "Right you are! I lay ten pounds to twenty against the nigger--ten to twenty--ten to twenty--who will take me up?" At last the amount was gathered, but the question arose in my mind whether the first promoter of the "sweepstakes" might be trusted with the stakes. I asked my friend in Danish, before I handed the money over; he said, "Just give it to him; it is all right. If we lose, we have nothing more to do with the money, but if he won't give up the stakes to us after I have flogged the nigger, I will flog him too!" Now began the terrible fight. The negro had both strength and science, and for a long time it seemed as if my countryman was utterly done for. It began to get dark and still they fought, but the longer it lasted the more equal seemed the battle. At last it began to turn; at every round my countryman would charge the negro with a loud hurrah; in another quarter of an hour it was simply a matter of knocking him down as fast as he got up; at last the negro was lying on the ground with his nose downward, and could not get up again, while the Dane, stronger than ever, was jumping all over the ring calling on him to get up. As he did not get up, the Dane ran up to a man who held a riding-whip in his hand, wrenched it from him, and belaboured the negro's head and back with it until he quite lost consciousness. I admit if I had dared I would have tried to prevent that part of the performance, but neither I nor anybody else stirred. Of course I was not sorry when my friend and I went home together, our ten pounds having swelled to thirty. Another advantage I had over this matter was that I had to promise not to work under current wages again, and when I came to work the next morning the "boss," who had heard of the fight, at once agreed to pay me fifteen shillings a day. As for the negro, he did not turn up and I have never seen him since. CHAPTER VIII. SHANTY-KEEPING, PROSPECTING, THORKILL'S DEATH. Some time after this my friend and countryman came to me one evening about nine o'clock with a very important air, and told me he had heard of a new find of gold some thirty miles distant, and that there would be sure to be a terrible rush as soon as it became generally known. As for him, he would like to go if I would go with him and be his mate, because, as he put it, he was sure I was lucky. He could not well have made a greater mistake, but anyhow I was flattered and agreed to go. Then I found he wanted to go at once. I had a few days' wages coming to me, but I went to my employer's house at once and got my cheque. That we changed in a public-house and went to our tents, saying nothing to anybody about our intentions. Having got our swags ready, we, more like thieves than anything else, knocked the one tent over and were off. My friend's tent remained, and my horses were in a paddock with saddles and belongings; there was no time to get them, and suspicion would have been created had we tried. We rather ran than walked, but we were scarcely a mile out of town before we overtook some six or seven others bent on the same journey. The first twenty miles ran on a good road; that would be as far as we could go that night, because the next ten miles were only a blazed track right through the bush made by the prospectors, and could only be safely traversed in the daylight. On the whole journey we were both overtaken ourselves, and overtook other people, until, when we arrived at the camp, we numbered a score or more. Here we found another score of diggers sleeping or smoking, waiting for daylight. It was a moonlight night, and I could see that we had arrived at a place where a few humpies stood in seeming disorder round about. There was also a public-house, and it was in the street in front of that, that the whole army halted. I was both hot and tired, and as my mate suggested that we had better get an hour or two of sleep, I laid myself down and slept. I woke up again as my mate was shaking me. It was just break of day; still we seemed late, for everybody was up and stirring. There was no time for a billy of tea, or for ever so slight a stretch: it was up and away. Oh, how tired I was, and stiff, and footsore! I would not have minded if I might have started quietly, but this seemed like a race. Although I lost no time, yet I was the very last through the little street with the heavy swag on my back. My mate was beckoning to me as he, also late, ran a few hundred feet in front, and then disappeared amongst the trees. I felt irritable, as I often do before I have had my breakfast. I came by a baker's shop, over the door of which was written, "Cold refreshing summer drinks sold here." The baker and his wife, and a young girl also, were peeping out through the half-opened door, and seemed to enjoy the spectacle of the crowd racing down the street. I said to myself, "Bother running like a fool here, I am going for a bottle of beer." The baker asked me if I was going to look for gold out there, or was I looking for a job? "Because," said he, "if you think of finding gold in that place you will be mistaken." He then told me he had been on the spot the previous day, and that it was a "duffer," but still there would be a rush, and he would much like to get somebody to ride out with bread every day and sell it at the place. I told him I could not leave my mate like that, but the baker just invited me in to breakfast, and offered me the loan of a horse, and said also that he himself would take bread out as soon as we could be off. "Perhaps," said he, "if my mate did not like the place, as he was sure he would not, I might take a job from him." I therefore rode out with the baker after breakfast and found my mate, who, as the baker predicted, was in no way enthusiastic about finding anything as good as he had left, and before evening he was satisfied to return to Ravenswood before any one could jump his claim there. As I did not like going back, but wanted the change to ride up and down with bread, I engaged with the baker for one pound ten shillings per week and board. My duty now was to load a pack-horse every day with bread, and, having another to ride, to take the bread to the "rush" and sell it. The butcher at the "Twenty Mile" also engaged a man to ride up with beef, and we generally rode in company. But it soon proved that it did not pay our employers to keep us on, and after about three weeks' time we both got notice to leave. That brought me to think that as there were many men on the "rush," it might pay me to get my two horses up from Ravenswood, and, buying myself both bread and meat together, sell it on my own account. To that all parties were willing, and as one thing brings another with it, I went to the Chinamen's shop with a view to seeing what profit he would give me on groceries. As "Johnny" strongly advised me to sell a little grog for him, I bethought myself that I had while with the baker learned to make hop-beer and ginger-beer, and found that I could make it for a penny a big glassful and charge a shilling. I resolved, therefore, to take up that industry too. There was nobody at all who had anything for sale at the "rush," and I determined to go out and build a hut and start a general store and shanty. I now went out to the "rush" again, and got two men to help me in the building. The hut I put up was very primitive. Just one room about fourteen by twelve feet, made of saplings, packing-cases, bark, or anything I could get at all suitable. The roof was bark; the counter was bark also, and at night had to serve for my bed. The door was an artistic piece of rubbish, if I might use that term, but somehow it all hung together and could be locked up. Outside I made a sunshade with tables and chairs under. That was managed by four forked saplings put into the ground, and other straight saplings resting as wall-plates in the forks. Again a row of lighter sticks lay across them and leafy bushes on the top, and the chairs were a lot of logs cross-cut at a height of eighteen inches. The job was completed in three or four days; then I went up to Ravenswood for my horses, and on my return got out a cask to make hop-beer in, some buckets, and a few groceries. I was now my own "boss," and wonderfully proud and happy I was in my little shanty. Besides my own two horses, the butcher and baker each lent me a horse to carry the bread and meat on, and I had quite enough to do--indeed my energy knew no bounds. Just about the time I started, the Palmer diggings came to the front, and a great rush set in to that place from the south. But as no one seemed to know properly where the Palmer was, and as conflicting and disparaging statements soon arrived from the Palmer, and the wet season was coming on, the north was everywhere swarming with men who were ready to camp and prospect anywhere, just to abide time. As soon, therefore, as I started for myself, numbers of men would arrive every day, and I had so much to do that I did not know sometimes how to fling myself about quick enough. Long before daylight I was up and got my four horses together. I had a little yard for them. Then, in a racing gallop, I had to tear into the butcher's, baker's, and grocer's, at the "Twenty Mile." My goods would stand ready for me when I came. I would just fling the stuff on the horses, leave my orders for the next day, and be back again in time to sell bread and meat for breakfast! When that was over I had to carry water from the creek to brew a cask of hop-beer, clean up shop, serve people with grog, and feed the horses, make breakfast for myself, chuck out a loafer or two, and other matters, all at the same time. Thus it went on all day. In the afternoon I had sometimes to send a man off with the horses for more rations, and from five o'clock to ten, eleven, twelve, and sometimes all night, there would be a lot of fellows drinking outside the shanty. [Illustration: THE BAKER'S CART.] The reader may understand that I quickly gathered in money. Five pounds a day was nothing. But what a life it was! I was never out of my clothes, and I was very seldom dry. Sometimes for weeks together I would be like one hauled out of the sea. That required stimulants, and they were near and handy, nor was it practically possible to be a Good Templar in my position. But all my better instincts were revolted. Still another glass of grog would make me see things in a different light, and somehow it never seemed to have any other effect on me than sharpening my wits; indeed, although I know myself to be a temperate man by nature, and but seldom touch spirits, I believe that if I had not then freely indulged in the cup that cheers, I could never have stood the strain on my constitution which this life necessitated. My troubles were many. One was that fellows would get drunk and grow quarrelsome every day; if they were not very big I did not much mind, but if they were too big then I tried all devices to make them laugh and be in good-humour, or I would sometimes even have to keep two retainers in free grog to assist me in the "chucking out" business. I was often knocked about myself. Another trouble or fight with my conscience, which I successfully overcame, was the falsifying the spirits. The storekeeper where I bought it, as well as one good friend after the other, would show me how I could save two-thirds of the rum and still keep it over-proof by mixing it with water and tobacco. So with brandy, all sorts of vile poison and most disgusting stuff was offered me to mix it with. I did not do that, although my advisers thought me very foolish. I mixed my spirit with water of a necessity, but I saw enough to convince me that few shanties or public-houses ever sell pure spirits. But my greatest trouble was what to do with my fast-accumulating money. I did not trust anybody about me. There was no bank nearer than Ravenswood. There was no police, and nowhere to put it. At last I hit on a plan. Under the big cask in which I made beer I formed a hole in the ground, and at night, when all at last was still, and the cask was empty enough to move on edge, I, having first carefully ascertained that no one was about, would thrust in all I had, and put things around it again so as to prevent suspicion. This mode of banking did not altogether satisfy me; indeed, I was always very anxious about it, but I could think of nothing better. And so the time went on. The bucket which stood under the cask came at last to be nearly full of money, and while on the one hand it was my great consolation, it also caused me more anxiety than all the rest of my work. One day somebody came and told me that a countryman of mine was in his tent, and was apparently hard up, as he had asked for something to do whereby to earn a bit of rations. The man was, I understood, camped somewhere about. I asked them to show him to me, that I might give him what he wanted and have a talk with him. What was my surprise and joy to find that the stranger proved to be no one less than my long-lost friend and shipmate, the Icelander Thorkill. He seemed to be as glad to meet me as I was to see him, and we exchanged our colonial experiences as far as they had gone. It appeared that Thorkill had not stayed long on the sugar plantation in Mackay, where he had first been engaged. That did not surprise me. His employer, he said, had offered no opposition to his agreement being cancelled, and with the money he had earned he had bought a ticket for Sydney in one of the steamers. He had thought to get something to do in Sydney more suitable to his ability, but for a long time he failed, and was, through want of money, driven to all sorts of extremities, even to sleeping out at night. Then he at last got a job to drive a milk-cart into Sydney for fifteen shillings a week. He had also tried other things, such as pick and shovel work; had been assistant in a slaughter-yard, and more besides. "But I do not like it," said he, "people seem so rude." At last he had scraped enough together to come back to Queensland; he had walked all the way from Townsville, and here he was. "And you are going to look for gold now?" asked I. He scarcely knew; he was so glad and surprised to see me again that he could think of nothing else. "Well, Thorkill," said I, "do you remember you said once that you and I would never part? Let us now renew that agreement. Last time it was, perhaps, my fault we parted, but this time it shall be yours; and to show you I am in earnest I will ask you, without further formality, to consider yourself a part proprietor of this hotel and all there is in it." "Oh! what do you mean?" cried he. "You must be making a great deal of money here and I have none; nor do I understand your work." "Never mind," said I, "we are partners if you like; you do not know how badly I am off for some one I can trust. Think of my being all alone here; I cannot do it much longer." But say what I would Thorkill would never hear of it, and so I in a sort of way engaged him to do what he could for me. He carried water and swept the floor, but the only time he tried to drive the horses to the "Twenty Mile" he lost them both! He had his tent not far from the shanty, but we had seldom time to speak. His heart was not in my work, and I often, nay always, when I saw him, felt an uneasy sort of conscience. One Saturday night, or perhaps more correctly Sunday morning, when a lot of men were drinking outside my hut under the sunshade, and when I myself had imbibed more than was good for me, I began, against all the rules of common prudence, to boast of my money. The party appeared as if they did not believe me, on which I got excited, and called them all into the hut. There I asked them to look under the cask while I tilted it over. What a sight! A bucket was buried in the ground nearly filled with silver, gold, and notes! How much there was I did not know myself, but there was more than I liked to say for fear of being doubted. Now began a drinking bout such as had never been before. Everybody had to stand drinks all round. At last they went away, but my recollections thereof are not clear; I only know that I slept on the counter, and that some one was shaking me and grumbling in very unparliamentary language over my not having been away after bread and beef. I sat up and looked around. It was about the time I ought to be back from the Twenty Mile. The door was open, and nearly a score of men were coming along for bread and meat. Now I remembered all about the previous night. My first thought was my money. I went and peeped under the cask. The bucket was gone! I gave the cask a push that capsized it. "Thieves and robbers, who has stolen my money? Speak!" There was lying a pair of hobbles on the counter, and as one of the party began to laugh, I struck him with it. This was the signal for a fearful orgie. The whole crowd flung themselves forward and struck, kicked, and tore me until I fainted right away. When I came to again they did not leave me alone. The whole shop was sacked from end to end, and in their drunken frenzy they pulled it down! In the midst of it all came Thorkill, and putting me on his back carried me off into his tent. There I lay while he bathed my wounds and consoled me as well as he could, assuring me it might have been all for the best. The next day the butcher and the baker came out and took their horses away. They wanted me to start again, and both of them offered me money and credit, but I was so disgusted with myself and the whole business that I told them I would not be a shanty-keeper again for all the gold in Queensland. Thus was it with me. To lie in Thorkill's tent and listen to his quiet, peaceful way of talking--how different was that from the noisy, drunken orgies of which I had for about five months been a daily witness! I took a violent dislike to the very place, but where to go I did not know. I felt as if I only wanted to get away from everybody but Thorkill. I did not care where I went. As for him, he thought he would like to go south again. This place and these people were too much for him. He had now learned to write pretty well in grammatical English, and he thought he might get something to do in Brisbane. As for me I had never seen a place yet where I could not get something to do; so far as that went I did not care, but I thought of him that he came straight from Sydney, where he had not been successful. He had such a mild, pedantic air about him, which no doubt would look well in an antiquary, but which would scarcely prove a recommendation for a grocer's clerk, or, indeed, for any other position for which I could think him eligible. So I said to him one day, as we were again talking about going away, "I am sick and tired of looking at anybody but yourself. What do you say if we go prospecting for twelve months? I have got thirty pounds in Townsville bank, and thirty pounds in Ravenswood, besides a few pounds here. You have got twelve pounds you earned while with me. Then we have the horses, and you have got the tent. It is sufficient for a twelvemonth's trip. I am now a pretty good bushman, and if we only get to where there is gold I think we shall find it. If we don't I do not care. What do you say?" This proposal met at once with Thorkill's approval, and we both went into Ravenswood, where I drew out my money. Here we loaded up the horses with as many rations as they could carry, also pick, shovel, basin, and other necessary things. Then we went back the same way we had come, until we arrived at Condamine Creek, twenty-five miles out. From there we ran up the creek, as near as I can guess about forty miles, prospecting all the time. Then we turned northward, up another creek, and knocked about so that it would be difficult to describe where we went. But we did not care. I was as happy as a bird, and so was Thorkill. We had our guns with us, and we could every day shoot as many birds as we could eat, and kangaroos besides. Sometimes we would camp, and Thorkill would fish while I prospected about. When it rained we would lie in the tent and talk about Denmark and Iceland. That was a theme on which Thorkill never could be tired, and he had such a fund of genuine information on that subject that I was never tired of listening to him. [Illustration: BREAKFAST IN THE GOLD FIELDS] We had been out prospecting in this way for about three months, and were now in the vicinity of Cape gold-field, when we struck a place where we thought there was payable gold. We had for several days been following on, through a very mountainous country, a river, the name of which we did not know, until we reached the place of which I now write, where it ran through a valley, hemmed in on all sides by big mountains. The river was still of considerable volume. Here we found a nugget of gold about an ounce in weight the first time we tried, and although our good luck did not repeat itself, yet we decided, as it was such a beautiful spot, that we would camp for a month or two there, so at least to give the place a fair trial. We pitched our tent, therefore, on a little knoll not far from the creek, and made ourselves comfortable. The next fortnight we washed for gold from morning to night, and each made about an ounce per week. We considered this very satisfactory, and were talking often about what name we should call this new field when we could not conceal it any longer and a "rush" should set in; because we knew very well that if we, as strangers, by and by rode into the Cape, or any other place, to buy some rations, and there try to get our bit of gold changed, that we should be tracked back to where we had got it, unless we were far more clever than I gave myself credit for being. But neither of us minded that. We were, on the contrary, quite proud of having to figure as successful explorers, and it used to be one of our recreations of an evening to sit and talk about what name to give the place. Thorkill was of opinion that we ought to find a name which should remind all who came here of both Denmark and Iceland, but as it did not seem possible for us to invent such a name, at last I accepted Thorkill's suggestion to call it Thingvallavatu, that being the name of a large lake and river in Iceland not far from his home, and as it seemed a well-sounding name, I thought it suitable; and although I do not know if ever a white man has been there before or since that time, yet as often as I think of the place I remember the name we gave the river--Thingvallavatu. On one evening that is for ever engraven on my memory, we were lying in our tent--Thorkill and I. It had been raining heavily all day, and we had not been able to be about. We felt pretty miserable, our usual stock of conversation seemed to be exhausted, but far out in the evening it revived again, so much indeed that Thorkill began to tell me of things of which he had never spoken before. He told me of his parents, of his brother and his sister, and explained to me where their farm in Iceland was, giving me the address, describing the road leading to it, and every detail, until I said to him that if we were lucky enough now to get a bit of gold we would both go home to Iceland and settle down there. From that conversation drifted to other things, and was at last almost at a standstill, when he called me by name, and, in a bashful sort of way, observed, "I say, were you ever in love?" This was a theme on which we had never enlarged: partly because there had not been much opportunity yet for either of us in Queensland to indulge in such a luxury, and partly because I do not know, to the best of my recollection, that it had ever been mentioned between us, so, as I recognized that he wanted to tell me something, I said, a little surprised, "Why do you ask?" "I have," said he. "While I was overseer on that farm in Alo, I knew a girl. Oh, how good she was, and how beautiful! I sometimes would go and visit her in the evening. She was only a servant girl, and her father was working there too. One evening I kissed her." "I am afraid," said I, "you have not forgotten her yet." "No; her I can never forget." "Why did you not marry her?" said I. "I suppose as you went visiting her, she would have had no objection?" "How could I?" replied he. "If only I had been an ordinary working man I would willingly have asked her; but I was not that. Her father always spoke to me as if I owned a mansion, and yet I had scarcely sufficient salary to pay for my own clothes. No, I never asked her." "Does she know you are out here?" inquired I. "No, neither she nor my parents, nor anybody; they must think I am dead." I had nothing to say. I was lying thinking about matters of my own. A little after this I thought I heard him crying. Was it possible? I did not like the idea. I listened again. Yes! there was no mistake. Thorkill was really crying. Deep, big, stifled sobs. I asked what was the matter. Two or three times I asked before he answered. At last he said, "I could not help it; I cried because I know very well I shall never see Reikjavik" (the only town in Iceland) "again." After that I kept talking for some time to him in a sort of overbearing way about that, saying we need not cry, surely, about that, if that was our only trouble; that we had money enough to get home now, and if we had not, what then? As for myself, if I set my mind on going home, rather than cry over it I would stow away on a ship or work my passage. But I got no answer from Thorkill. I could not sleep, and soon after the day broke. The rain had by this time ceased, and as I saw that Thorkill had now fallen asleep, I thought it a pity to waken him, and crept as quietly as I could out of the tent to make a fire and get a drop of tea for breakfast. As I sat by the fire an hour after, eating my breakfast, I saw Thorkill coming, creeping on his hands and feet out of the tent, with his head screwed round, looking up in the air over the tent. I somehow thought he was looking at a bird, and wondered he had not got the gun, so I sat still and said nothing, but kept watching him. When he was a long way out of the tent he got up, and, still looking up in the air, pointed fixedly at something and cried, "See! oh, look there!" I stole behind him and looked, but could see nothing, so I asked, "What is it?" "Oh, don't you see? See! a large Russian emigrant ship flying through the air." "Are you going altogether insane?" cried I, beating him on the back. The next moment with a deep groan he fell right into my arms. I asked him what was the matter. Was he sick? Was he bitten by a snake? I do not know half I asked him, but all the reply I got as I laid him in his bunk again, was, "Go for a minister." My mate was dying, and I knew it now. Dear reader, whoever you may be, if you have seen your nearest friend die, then you know how bitter it is. But if you at such time have been among others who have shared your grief, and had a doctor to take the responsibility off your hands, then you may only guess at what _I_ felt when I saw Thorkill lying there perfectly unconscious. We had as it were for a long time been everything to each other, and the disappointments and mishaps we both, so far, had suffered in Queensland, had, it seemed at that moment, made him simply indispensable to my existence. How could I go for a parson? I jumped out of the tent and ran round it three or four times before I recollected that I did not know of any human habitation within fifty miles! Then I went in again and spoke to him. There was no answer; not a movement in his body. He lay as if in a heavy sleep, a high colour in his face. One of his arms was hanging out over the bunk, and would not rest where I put it, so I took a saddle and placed that underneath it, and as it was not yet high enough, I put a pint pot on that again. There I balanced it, and there it remained. I had not much medicine, only some quinine. That was no good. Then I thought he must have been taken by an apoplectic fit. I took the scissors and cut off all his hair and beard. Then I went outside and worked desperately at making a sunshade over the tent, because the sun was beating down on us so fiercely; next in again, and out. I did not know what to do. I could not for a moment remain still. Sometimes I carried water from the creek and bathed his head with it. Then I feared I was only tormenting him, and knocked it off again. As I sat looking at him in the afternoon I could not avoid thinking about how he had in his last hour of good health made such a complete confession about matters he always before had been so reticent about. Why? I ask the question now. Can any one answer it. It is _not_ fashionable in our age to believe more than can be rationally explained, but I believe most people in their lives have had similar strange experiences. If I make the remark that I am superstitious, then I know I shall lay myself open to ridicule, and yet it is only a form of admitting that I do not know all that passes in heaven and on earth. In the afternoon, as Thorkill still lay in the same immovable trance, I thought I must find out whether he was conscious of my being there or not, so I knelt down and spoke in his ear, and called him by name. "Thorkill," cried I, "if you _can_ hear me and know that I am here, try to give me some sign." Then as I watched him I thought he breathed extra deep, but I was never certain. Anyhow, although I had myself no Bible, and never had used one before, I got his out of his swag and began reading at the commencement and kept on until it was too dark to read any more. During the night the rain and storm began again. I could hear in Thorkill's altered breathing that the end was near, but I had no other light but a match I struck occasionally, and it seemed to frighten me when I struck one and saw his altered face. At last I knew he was dead, and in an agony of sorrow and excitement I began praying to Balder, our ancient god of all that was noble and good, to come and fetch his own. I was fearfully agitated, and remember well how I walked outside the tent singing the old "Bjarkamsal," and almost fancying I saw all the ancient gods coming through the air. It is a common saying of a person who has died, that he was too good to live, but if ever that saying was true of any one, it was true of Thorkill. A pure descendant from the ancient Vikings, yet how different was he from his forefathers. And all Icelanders are more or less the same. Honest, frank, and kind, he could not understand why everybody else was not also honest and good, and I know very well he declined the contest of life; he could not match his simple faith with the cunning and brutality of the ordinary set of people one meets with when the pocket is empty. Better, perhaps, he should have died then and there. Why was I sorry? Why did I not rejoice? Who knew but that I some day might not die in great deal more lonely and in much more friendless way than he? He had lost nothing, and it was I who was the loser; but for his sake I would be glad. In this strain of mind I passed the remainder of the night, but when at last daylight came it brought with it the grim reality of death such as it is, and life such as it is, and also a sense of what was now the only favour I could show the remains of my friend. It was three or four o'clock that afternoon before I had managed, as decently as I could, to bury the body, and then all my energy was expended. Yet as I sat resting myself for a moment, I was aware that I must be off somewhere before evening, far from that spot. I had a splitting headache; my legs seemed unable to carry me. Yet I must be off to get the horses. I found them, but when I came home with them it was evening and I had to let them go again. I could do no more, and not altogether with an uncomfortable feeling was it that I that evening laid myself down in Thorkill's bunk, thinking that perhaps after all we need not part. I was sick now myself, and fancied I saw fearful visions all night. The next morning I could scarcely raise myself to a sitting posture, but during the day I managed with the instinct of self-preservation to carry some water up from the creek and to bake a damper. My recollections for some time after this are very indistinct. It may have been a week or it may have been two weeks. All that I remember of that time are glimpses of myself sitting by Thorkill's grave, singing, or playing the flute. The first clear recollection of that time which I have, was one afternoon when I was lying in the bunk watching, in a lazy sort of way, some rats nibbling at the flour-bag, which had somehow fallen down from its place. The flour lay scattered about the tent, and everything seemed in glorious disorder. I lay a long time looking at the rats, and wondering where Thorkill was--whether he was making breakfast, for I felt very hungry. I had no remembrance whatever of his being dead. I called him; my voice seemed curious and weak. I grabbed a poker to strike at the rats with it--how heavy it felt! Then I got up and went outside, and stood staring for a long time at the grave before I recollected that he was dead, and that I myself was or had been sick. Everything outside the tent bore evidence of having been thrown about as if by a maniac, and I felt a thrill of horror running through me as I thought of myself, how perhaps I had walked about here at night alone, sick and delirious. I felt quite myself, however, although very weak. I was hungry, and felt that I must have something to eat, get it where I could. I staggered about looking for food. Not a vestige of tea could I find; there was no meat except a few nasty bones which I found in the billy, and had to throw away; then I discovered a little sugar, and I scraped together some flour. My next trouble was that I had no fire and no dry matches. It took me all my time to get a fire, by rubbing a hard and soft stick together, but at last I succeeded, and then made a johnny-cake in the fire. Out of sugar I made my supper, and sat by the fire dreaming and living it all over again. With the help of my gun I got some birds the next day, and stewed them in the billy with flour and figweed. I also found the horses all right, but I was too weak to think of shifting my quarters just then, much as I would have liked to do so, because there seemed to me to be a sort of haunted air about the whole place. I busied myself all day, when I was not hunting for food, with repairing my clothes, but I had a great longing to see somebody of my own species again, and to sit there every day talking to or thinking about a dead man had something sickly in it that I did not like. I could not for a couple of days find either my money or the bit of gold we had got. Whatever I had done with it was to me a complete blank. I found it all at last in this way: that somehow my hat did not seem to fit me, and when I looked it over, there was all the money stuck under the lining, but I never had any recollection of putting it there. I read all Thorkill's letters and took them with me when I left. They were from his parents and his sister, addressed to him while he was in Denmark, telling him of all sorts of small home-news, and hoping soon to see him again. These he had been carrying with him everywhere, and I had often seen him reading them. There were also photographs of all his family, and I made them all up into a small parcel intending some day soon to write to his people. I confess I never did write. I could not bring myself to do it. I thought of what he had said--that they must think him dead. Why, then, reopen their wound? Let him remain "a missing friend." As I had no settled abode for a long time after this, I carried his papers with me everywhere for many years. One photograph, of his sister, a very handsome girl, I had until after I was married, and treasured it greatly. I think Mrs. ---- must know what became of it at last. CHAPTER IX. GOING TO THE PALMER. When I left Thorkill's grave I made a course as near as I could for the Cape gold-field. This place I found almost deserted, as most of the diggers had left for the Palmer. The few people who remained there had seemingly nothing else to speak about but the fabulous richness of that field, and they were all deploring each his untoward circumstances which kept him from going thither. And so it came to pass that, while gradually recovering my spirits, I made up my mind to go to the Palmer too. But to go to the Palmer was at that time easier said than done. The Palmer gold-fields lay somewhere in a totally unexplored country, and none had been known to reach the Palmer from the Cape after the commencement of the wet season. Many unsuccessful attempts had been made, and the returned parties spoke loudly of the "impossibilities" on the road, such as swollen rivers, swamps, marshes, mountains, blacks, and what not besides; and what seemed to me the worst, no supplies of any kind were to be found on the fields. One had simply to carry with him rations sufficient to last until he returned. Add to this that a pint pot full of flour cost half-a-crown on the Cape, with other things at a proportionate rate, and it made me decide another way. A new port had been opened on the coast by the shipping companies as the most feasible spot from which to reach the Palmer. The name of this place was Cooktown on the Endeavour River; and the spot is identical with a place mentioned in Captain Cook's travels, where he ran his ship, the _Endeavour_, ashore to carry out some necessary repairs to that vessel. To get to Cooktown from the Cape I should first have to go to Townsville and thence take ship to Cooktown. Although the distance from the Cape to Townsville was as great as from the Cape to the Palmer, yet, as it was possible to travel the one road and not the other, I decided to go there, and from that port take ship to Cooktown, whence after having obtained supplies, I would try to reach the Palmer. I will not tire the reader by describing my journey to Townsville. My horses were well rested and in good mettle, and I let them trot out every day, so that I reached the coast very quickly. I found Townsville crowded with people who wanted to go to the Palmer. The steamers could not take them fast enough, and in trying to secure a passage for myself and my horses I was disappointed time after time. Money, however, was flying about all over the place. I was offered work in several quarters--in fact I was nearly implored to take it up for fifteen shillings a day, or there was piecework, by which I could easily have earned double that amount, but, of course, I could not think of it. At last I obtained a passage in a schooner which had been fitted up for the voyage. There was accommodation below decks for forty horses, and fully that number were hoisted on board. On the deck was accommodation for as many passengers as could find standing room, and I think there must have been over a hundred people altogether. Indeed, we were so crowded that, if the skipper had a right to complain of anything, it certainly could not be that he had not a full cargo. I paid five pounds apiece for the passage of the horses and two pounds ten shillings for myself. We had to find our own forage, too, for the horses, and also to provide our own food. Water, however, the skipper had to find himself--no light matter on so small a ship. We were supposed to make the run in forty-eight hours, and carried water enough for double that time. I had corn and hay to last my horses for a fortnight, but some of the others had scarcely any fodder. At last we started, and when the little steamer which hauled us out of the creek had cast us off, it was proved to my entire satisfaction that my run of bad luck was not yet at an end. A strong wind was blowing, but although the ship was tearing through the water at a terrible rate, yet we did not make real way, as the wind was straight against us. It may seem strange that we should start with such an adverse wind, but once the horses were on board the skipper had to go. The first evening we were out the captain and mate fought and nearly knocked each other into the sea. I mention this, however, only because I remember it; I don't think our troublesome journey was due to neglect or bad seamanship, but the wind was against us, and kept so day after day until at last it blew a perfect hurricane. The horses, of course, suffered very much. At one time they would stand nearly on their heads, at another, the other way, now on one side, then on the other, as the ship was jerking up and down. I was working down below with my two horses all the time, trying to ease them all I could. I tied my tent, clothes and blankets round about the stalls to lessen the force of the knocks a little for them. All the horses, however, did not fare so well as that, for their masters themselves were, for the most part, lying in a helpless condition up on deck, and the air below was so foul that it took a good pair of lungs to endure it. The horses soon began to die off, too; and to haul the poor dead brutes up and throw them overboard took us all our time, seeing that very few of us were capable of such work. Upon deck it was indeed a sight. Some were completely gone with sea-sickness and had tied themselves to the bulwarks, others were lying "yarning" and laughing as if nothing were the matter. Many of these men must have known that even if the ship could weather the storm, yet with the death of their horses all hope of a successful journey was at an end for them. Yet one heard no complaint; and I should like here to pay this compliment to Britishers: that, whether English, Scotch, or Irish, they are, as a rule, brave men. Ours was not a momentary suffering either. It was a constant drenching with the waves, day after day. The horses, our most valuable property, hauled overboard as fast sometimes as we could get them up, and our own lives in constant danger! Yet no one complained. They would "yarn," laugh, or crack jokes all day long. The only exceptions to this rule, I am sorry to say, although I hope they were not typical, were two Danes who had come on board. One of them had informed me as soon as we left Townsville that he intended to run away from his wife who lived there. Now, when the storm was blowing, he became intensely religious and declared it to be a punishment from Heaven for his wickedness and he made me most sacred promises, one after the other, that he would return to her bosom if only God would spare him this time. The other declared the ship to be a regular pirate craft and Queensland an accursed country. I had to cook for them both, hand them their food, and cheer up their spirits all the way. One day we spied a large steamer flying the flag of distress. She came from the south too, and was, like ourselves, trying to reach Cooktown. As she came labouring through the waves we saw that it was the _Lord Ashley_. The deck was black with people and I do not know how many hundred horses. This heavy deck-cargo caused the ship to rock so that it looked as if it were about capsizing every time it lurched over. Two of her masts were already overboard, and as our schooner ran past her we saw the people engaged in throwing the horses overboard alive. Nearly all the horses were sacrificed in this manner. To see the poor brutes try to swim after the steamer or the schooner was heartrending. We on the schooner could give no assistance; indeed, after all, the steamer was better off than ourselves, insomuch that it kept on its way while the schooner had to tear up and down and to do its best not to be blown south again. When we at last reached Cooktown, some days after, the _Lord Ashley_ was lying there; but it was her last journey. She was so knocked about that, to the best of my belief, she was sold as lumber afterwards. All our water was now used up, and we had either to try to effect a landing or go south again. As the mate declared he knew a place on the coast just where we were, where there was a fresh-water creek, it was decided to call for volunteers among the passengers to man the boat and get some water. As I had two horses on board and was not sea-sick, I declared myself ready to make one. There were six oars to be manned. The other five volunteers, although passengers, were yet old sailors. The mate was to take the helm. Before the boat was lowered great care was taken to lash the empty casks in their proper position and to have everything in order. Then the captain took the wheel and ran the schooner in towards the land further than customary when we tacked. As we turned the boat was lowered. The men and I jumped down. Off flew the ship: it seemed miles before I realized that it was gone. And we in the boat--talk about the big swing at home in Tivoli; that was only child's play to the rocking we now had! My hat blew off and flew towards Townsville; my hair, and even my shirt, were trying hard to follow! One could scarcely get the oars in the water. But, in spite of all, we paddled as best we could, and shortly after were inside a little harbour, where the water was comparatively smooth and where we effected a landing. How peaceful and quiet it all seemed here under the mountain. I felt, as I trod the firm soil under my feet, that I should never make a good sailor, and it was a terror to me how we were ever to reach the schooner again. We rolled the casks up to the little creek and filled them. The mate said he had been there some years before when he was with a New Guinea expedition. As we were roaming about, waiting for the right moment to get out again, we found a lot of wreckage, old rotten spars, a cabin door, &c. Then we came on the skeleton of a man, not all together, but scattered about. There were also remains of some old clothes, and we found a purse with silver in it, something less than a pound. The mate declared this money to be an infallible charm, and suggested that we should each take a piece and say nothing about it. There were only six pieces of money, and we were seven to share it. No one would stand out for any consideration, so we drew lots. I secured a two-shilling piece, and, whether for good or for bad luck, I have it yet, and used to carry it for years in the most approved fashion round my neck. We had no tools with us, so we could not bury the bones. There they lie, perhaps even yet, the remains of another "missing friend." We came on board the schooner again somehow. Opinions differed much amongst us as to why we had not been drowned, and no verdict was arrived at. The mate said it was the charms we carried which had done it, others said that God held His hand over us, but the one who had no charm said it was because we were the very refuse of the devil. I express no opinion myself, only that it was certainly surprising. As the storm gradually veered round a little we reached Cooktown. Out of the forty horses only sixteen were alive; one of mine was dead, and the other did not look as if it could live long after I got it out of the ship, yet it gradually came round and proved a very good horse afterwards. Cooktown is now reckoned among the old-established towns of Queensland, but when I landed there it looked wild enough. To describe it I ask the reader to think of a fair in the Old Country, leaving out the monkeys and merry-go-rounds. There were some thousands of people all camped out in tents. Those who intended to start business in Cooktown had pegged out plots of ground in the main street and run up large tents or corrugated iron structures in which all sorts of merchandise was sold cheap enough. But the wet season kept on, and there was no communication with the Palmer. People left town to go there every day in the rain and slush, but many returned saying it was no use trying, as the rivers could not be crossed. There was at that time a very mixed lot of people in Cooktown. All the loafers, pickpockets, and card-sharpers seemed to have trooped in from Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, looking for the gold in other people's pockets, and the robbing of tents was an everyday occurrence. Then, although it had been made known far and wide that any one who wanted to go to the Palmer must either starve or carry six months' rations with him, still many destitute and good-for-nothing people could also be seen wherever one looked: these form a class of men as easily distinguished from the _bona fide_ miners as if they belonged altogether to another species. No work of any kind was going on for more than one-tenth of the people who looked for employment, and any one who wanted a man might easily get him for his "tucker." I believe one could have got them to work all day for their dinner alone. Men would walk about among the tents in droves, and wherever they saw rations there they would beg. While this was the true state of affairs in Cooktown just then, I remember well standing outside the newspaper office, reading the paper, the leading article in which described in glowing terms the bustle and activity going on in this rising city, and declared that any man who could lift a hammer was welcome to a pound sterling a day! Of course I did not look for any work, so I did not care. There was also a great deal of sickness, especially dysentery, and the doctors required cash down before they would even look at any one. If one took a stroll up among the tents, it was a common, indeed an inevitable, sight to see men lying helpless, writhing with pain on the ground, some of them bellowing out for pity or mercy. Very little pity or help, as a rule, did they get. Men would pass such a poor object with the greatest apathy, or at most go up to him and give good advice, such as that he ought to be ashamed of lying there and ought to try and crawl into the tent again! Such was life in Cooktown during the first "rush" there to any Queensland gold-fields. I had not at that time got much money. If my second horse had lived, I should have been, as I thought, all right; but as horses worth six or seven pounds could not be bought under thirty or forty pounds, I could not buy another to replace the one I had lost, and had therefore to be content with one. So one day I loaded up my horse with rations and went on the road. As I was going to the Palmer, where money was of no value whatever, and as everything depended on my being able to carry a sufficiency of provisions, I had bought the best of everything regardless of cost. I had cocoa, extract of beef to make soup of, preserved meat and such like in large quantity. Then I had tea, sugar, and one hundred and fifty pounds of flour. My wardrobe, on the other hand, was not extensive. It consisted of one shirt, over and above that I wore. Fifty pounds of my flour with the tent, half a blanket, billy-can, pint pot, knife, gun, &c., I carried on my own back; the remainder, including spade and basin, I strapped on the back of the horse. I had then only a few shillings left of all my money when I started, but going through the town on my road out the burden on my back began already to feel heavy. I therefore thought it wise to carry no unnecessary loads, and seeing some fellows standing in the street who looked as if they needed some refreshment, I called them together and had a big "shout" in a public-house as far as the money would go. That relieved my mind and my pocket! The road, if it might be called one, was really a track or belt of morass, some ten chains wide, in which one had to wade at times up to the knees. I was prepared to endure great hardships; but to understand the suffering to man and horse in dragging oneself along that road one must have tried it for himself. Twice that day the horse and I got bogged. To get clear again I had first to crawl on my hands and knees with part of my own load up to some fallen log and deposit it there, then back to the horse for more. When the horse was quite unloaded, I had to take it round the neck and let it use me as a sort of purchase by which to work itself out. Then load it again and wade along. I made eight miles that day, and I knew that no one who left Cooktown with me came so far. At the eighth mile there was a large camp of diggers, who said they could get no further nor yet back to Cooktown. I should have remained there; but as I saw next morning some prepare to get a little further, I started with them, and soon left them behind too. That day and the next the road was better although still very bad. I crossed a river the third evening I was out. It was as much as I could do to get over, and, as in the night it began to pour with rain, I concluded, what really proved to be the case, that the creek would rise and so effectually cut off my retreat. The next day the road was worse than ever. The horse got bogged time after time, and I was myself on the eve of being knocked up. The whole road so far, almost ever since I had left Cooktown, was strewn with clothes, boots, saddles, rations, in such quantities that there would have been enough to have opened a good store with if one could have got it all together. I had also passed at least a score of dead horses, sticking in the mud with the saddles, and, in some cases, rations on them; and I met scores of men, who, having thrown everything away, were struggling to reach Cooktown again on foot. But with dogged obstinacy I kept on trying to accomplish the impossible. At last the poor horse got bogged again worse than ever. I could not get him out. He looked so pitifully at me! I am sure it knew the predicament we were both in. I struggled and tried hard to get it out, but I could not. As it settled deeper and deeper into the quagmire I thought I might as well finish his sufferings and my own. So I put my gun to his ear and shot him. There I stood in the pouring rain alongside the dead horse, full of anger with myself that I had not, by using more judgment, saved myself and my poor, faithful companion from such a hard fate. I am not poetically gifted, and do not understand the science of making much out of a little, so I cannot say how miserable I felt. Yet it is nevertheless true that I was ready to burst with grief. I was wet through, and had been so all day, nor had I anything dry to put on. Evening was coming on too. Up and down the "road" there was nothing but a quagmire, into which I sank to the knees whenever I moved. Here also lay my hopes of redeeming my fortunes. I know very well if I were placed in the same position now, I should not have strength either of body or mind to extricate myself. As it was, when I think of it now, after so many years, I can truly aver that I mourned for the horse more than for myself. I had met no travellers that day on account of the rain, but I knew I was about eight miles from the Normanby River, on both sides of which large bodies of miners were camped--those on my side being desirous of reaching the Palmer, and the camp on the other side being full of men who had come from the Palmer and wanted to go to Cooktown. But both parties were prevented from getting further as the Normanby River was in full flood and half a mile across. I could not continue to stand looking at the dead horse. I felt a great longing to reach the other men that I might, by talking to them, forget a part of my own trouble in thinking of theirs, so I managed that evening, and with even a part of my goods, to reach the camp, and the next few days I devoted to fetching the remainder of my stores from where the dead horse was lying. On the banks of the Normanby River there was at that time a sight which might well furnish food for reflection. I doubt if fiction could invent anything more strange. Several hundred men were camped on the south side of the river waiting for the flood to subside so that they might get over. We had rations in any quantity, but, speaking for myself, I can truthfully say, if the others were like me, we had no money. On the other side of the river was an equally large camp. The men there were the diggers who, when the first news of the Palmer broke out, had, before the wet season set in, gathered to the "rush" from the Etheridge, Gilbert, Charters Towers, Cape, and other outlying places, and who, having eaten their rations and gathered their gold, were now trying to get to Cooktown to purchase supplies. A perfect famine was raging over there. The country around is very poorly off for game; besides, they had no powder, and so they had been eating their horses, their dogs, and at last their boots! It is a fact that they used to boil their blucher boots for twenty-four hours and eat them with weeds! It takes something to make a Queensland miner lie down to die, yet it was the general opinion among men who had been to all the Victorian and New Zealand "rushes," that they had never suffered such hardship before or seen country so void of game or life of any sort. There we were, looking across at one another--they shaking their gold-purses at us, and we showing them the flour-bags. Two came across to us. The way they managed was this: first they took off the rag or two which yet served them for clothes and strapped them on to the horse, then getting on the horse and forcing it into the water it would soon be borne with the current down the stream; they would then slip off, and getting hold of the tail with one hand swim with the other. They both managed to cross, but it looked so desperate an undertaking that the others did not venture. The two men who came over brought the first reliable news from the Palmer for a long time, and were besieged with questions. As I do not care to return to the matter again, I will say here that among the tales of suffering on the Palmer by the first batch of diggers, was that of one of my shipmates from home, who had arrived there from the Etheridge, and who, while looking for gold in one of the tributaries to the Palmer, had been cut off from the main camp by the river rising so that he could not cross to get away. His dead body was found in his tent after the wet season. He had died of hunger, yet under his head was a bag with eighteen pounds' weight of gold in it. Poor fellow! the last time I saw him was in Port Denison, the first year I was in the country; he had then earned five pounds sterling, and had come into town to get it sent home to his father and mother. On our side of the river we passed the time as best we could. There was a large band of German musicians, and I joined them with my flute, which I always carried. It really seemed strange, in the heart of the wilderness, where a few months before no white man had ever put his foot, to hear the tones of Strauss or Offenbach. As a general thing, though, men would sit in their tents while the rain came pouring down in sheets of water. At night we suffered very much from mosquitoes, and in the daytime from flies, the common little house-fly, which was a perfect nuisance all day. Dear reader, I know you expect of me that the least I can do for you who have followed my fortunes so far is to tell you now how I somehow proceeded to the Palmer, and there in a month or two accumulated at least twenty thousand ounces of gold, with which I returned and got married to some nobleman's daughter. I should not be sorry to write this if I only had the gold somewhere handy, but as you no doubt would, after all, prefer the truth, whatever it is, I must confess that I could not at all see my way to go on any further. When the weather settled and people began to cross the river I had a good look at the poor emaciated fellows who came across, some of them with very little gold, and all of them more or less broken in health. Then I began to ask myself whether the game was worth the candle. The Germans who constituted the band offered to take me as mate in their party, and to put my rations on their horses; and for that I was greatly obliged to them, but I seemed all at once to have taken such a dislike to roaming about, and was picturing to myself the comfort I could have had and the sum of money I might have saved by constant employment at my trade, that I refused their kind offer, and instead of going on towards the Palmer I sold my rations for a good price and returned to Cooktown. CHAPTER X. RETURNING FROM THE PALMER. I sat in my tent one day in Cooktown, while the rain was pouring down outside, when my attention was attracted by four men who stood in a desolate sort of way in the road. They seemed to me to have such a pitiful, aimless, vacant way about them as they stood there while the rain ran down their backs in bucketsful! But I do not suppose that I for that reason alone should have given them a second thought, because misery and want were such common sights in Cooktown. What, however, riveted my interest in them was that I could see they were Danes by their clothes, and also that they had only been a very short time in Queensland. So I thought I would have a lark with them at my own expense if, as I guessed, it should prove true that they could not speak English. I therefore called to them in English, and invited them to come into my tent out of the rain. They came quickly enough. My point was to let them think me an Englishman and to prove the old proverb that he "who hears himself spoken of seldom hears praise." So I questioned them from what country they came, how long they had been in Cooktown, where they were going, how long they had been in Queensland, and all such matters. It appeared then that they had arrived in Rockhampton a few months before, had taken a contract there to burn off a piece of scrub, by which they had saved a few pounds, and having heard of the Palmer, had bought tickets for Cooktown in the _Lord Ashley_, that steamer we met in the storm. All their swags had been washed overboard, and since they arrived in Cooktown they had not only spent their money long ago, but had since been unsuccessful in all they undertook. They subsisted on scraps and odd pickings among the tents--but they did not mind so much now that they had got used to it! They liked Rockhampton and the job of scrub-burning, "that being a lively game," but Cooktown they did not like; anyhow, as soon as they could get a job and save enough to buy some rations, they would go to the Palmer. What aggrieved them most was that they had a Danish five-dollar note (worth about ten shillings), but they could not get it changed because the Englishmen said it was a false one. This they told me in a sort of English a great deal more broken than my own, but yet they had not the slightest suspicion about my not being myself a thoroughbred Britisher. Indeed, the conversation was full of interjections in Danish from the one to the other, such as: "I wonder if the beggar is going to give us some grub when he has done questioning?" or, "He has got nothing himself to eat; let us get out of this;" or, "Wait a minute, I will ask him for some flour." When I had carried my game as far as I cared, we had some tea and a real good meal, after which, as it began to get dark, I invited them all to stay in my tent until I left Cooktown, because I was only waiting for a steamer. In the night, as we all lay as close as we could in the little tent, I had the satisfaction of lying listening half the night to their praise of myself, as they were talking in Danish, thinking I did not understand. They seemed to have a terrible grudge against some Dane in Cooktown whom I did not know, but to whom it appeared they had applied in vain for assistance; and now they compared me as an Englishman to their own countryman, and came to the conclusion that strangers were always the best. I did not like to undeceive them, and I never did; but it was so very pleasant to lie and listen to one's own praise, and I really felt quite benevolent over it, so I thought I would do what I could to deserve their praises. [Illustration: ROCKHAMPTON.] I had decided that I would go back to Port Denison and ask my old employer there for a job, which I never doubted he would give me. It seemed to me it was the place where I had been treated best as yet in Queensland, and although we had some differences of opinions, yet I was quite longing to see him and his family again, and also my old shipmate and his wife. I had no doubt, somehow, he was there still. It seemed to me almost like going home, to see them all again, and as I was in the tent lying listening to the Danes, I thought that I would get my nice old room once more as soon as I came to Port Denison and have everything provided for me, and that I could therefore spare this tent, and the gun, the billy-can, pint pot, &c. When I left Cooktown I gave all these articles to my countrymen there, and, as I was going in the boat, even offered to exchange their "false" Danish five-dollar note. I had finally only half-a-crown left. I have written about this, not because I wish the reader to know how benevolent I was, but to make it clear how it was that I parted with these things. It will be perceived, as my history proceeds, how sorely I was afterwards in need of them myself. It was early morning when I was put ashore in Port Denison in a boat, because I was the only passenger for that port. I had been away about four years, and as the memory of my first landing in this place forced itself upon me I felt that I had not made very good use of my time so far. Yet as I went along I consoled myself with the reflection that even if my pocket was empty, still I was more like a man than I had ever been before, and if I was not rich, no one could say he was poor on my account. I walked along the jetty and up the street before I met any one; then I saw a man I remembered as one to whom I had spoken several times formerly. I rushed up to him, laughing and smiling, and shook him by the hand. He seemed surprised and looked cold upon me. At last he remembered me. "Oh, yes! How are you? Come by a steamer? Nice morning." How many have never known the bitter disappointment of being repulsed in this manner? I sneaked away, and began to ask myself if it was possible that my old "boss," or, perhaps, even my shipmate and his wife, would greet me in the same manner. I had only half-a-crown left in my pocket. My wardrobe was also in a sad condition; yet I was clean, and had, while on the ship, polished my boots and scented my handkerchief, so who should say that I was not the successful digger? Still, I felt very shaky about meeting a new disappointment, and walked about for an hour or two, not caring to present myself at Mr. ----'s place, and not being able to find out where my countryman lived. I was soon reassured, however, for presently I saw the "boss" himself, out for a morning walk, and he seemed both glad and surprised to see me. After we had given the public debt a lift in a public-house just opened, he made a few inquiries about how far I had succeeded in making my fortune, and offered me there and then a job, although he said he was by no means busy. My shipmate was with him yet, and had two pounds ten shillings per week, and he would give me the same, he said, in the hope that work might soon be more plentiful. When we separated I went to look for my countryman, who also was glad to see me, and at once insisted on my staying at his house for the present. How well off he seemed to be! It was his own house, and he had made a nice lot of furniture himself for the rooms. He had also a fine garden, where, as he said to me, he took his recreation in working it up. But, best of all, he had a kind, good wife, who also had been my shipmate, and two little boys. When he came home of an evening the wife came with his slippers and his smoking-cap, and there he was, while I, who had gone through more hardships these four years than many people do in their whole life, had seemingly done no good either to myself or to others. I had, of course, told them at once that I intended to go to work in the old place again; and it was my intention at the first favourable moment which offered to ask my friend for a few pounds to renew my wardrobe a little, but so far I had said nothing whatever to anybody about my circumstances. In the evening, as we sat talking on the verandah, my countryman quite suddenly asked me if I was short of money, as he was prepared to let me have some if I wanted it. It seems a strange contradiction to my previous confession, but nevertheless it is true, that he had scarcely spoken before I blurted out that I was not at all short of money, and that it was a great mistake on his part to think so, that I had quite enough to serve my purpose at any time, and more to the same effect. "Well, then," said my mate, "I am glad for your sake; but as that is the case I will tell you what I otherwise would have said nothing about. The 'boss' was to-day passing one or two jokes about your being so anxious to make your fortune quickly when you left here last, and as we have scarcely a stroke to do, I would not, if I were you, give him the satisfaction to begin work again, because I am sure he thinks you are very hard up." "Does he?" cried I. "Well, he makes a mistake, and so do you. Perhaps you think because I haven't a paper collar on that I am ready to beg?" "Oh, no, no!" cried he; "I only meant, in a friendly way, to offer you what you perhaps needed, so do not get angry where no offence is meant." "Oh, I was not angry," said I; "but I certainly would not work for Mr. ---- again, as he thought I could not do without him. Had I not for a fact passed Townsville, where wages were higher and work more plentiful, to come here? And now he thought he was the only man in Queensland where I could earn my living! But I would show Mr. ---- different. I would go to Port Mackay, where there was plenty of work and no family arrangement about it. That was what I would do." After some more conversation of the same sort, I went out in the street for a walk, and to get an opportunity of thinking quietly over my now desperate circumstances. With the exception of the clothes I wore upon me, "All my fortune was a shirt That was ragged and full of dirt." I walked about the streets for some time, trying to make a song in honour of the occasion, which was to begin with the above words, and set it to music, and as I succeeded better than I thought I correspondingly got into high spirits, and took it all as an immense joke. There seemed to me only one way out of the difficulty. I could walk to Port Mackay, which is another and larger town, more prosperous than Port Denison. It lies on the coast also, and the distance by road between the two places is one hundred and thirty miles. The road, however, is very little frequented, as what little communication there is is all by water. There were, however, half a dozen stations on the road, and I made no doubt I should be right somehow. The blacks in that district had, indeed, a bad name for spearing cattle and being very wild and ferocious; but of that I took no heed. The most important thing just then was for me to get away from my countryman's house without exciting in him any suspicions about the state of my exchequer. I felt some strokes of conscience certainly over thus repaying his kindness with such insincerity, but I could at least truthfully say that I had not meant it, and that circumstances over which I had no control, &c. So the next morning I put on a reserved, dignified air, and after breakfast told my host that I intended to shift my quarters. They both kindly protested, until I had to say that I had business somewhere in the bush, and would come back to their house as soon as I came to Port Denison again, but that I had to go now, and might not be back for some time. Then Mrs. ---- pressed me to take some sandwiches with me for dinner, for which I was not sorry, and then I started for Port Mackay. The first station on the road was thirty miles out. That place I meant to reach before evening. The sandwiches went down like apple-pie long before dinner-time, and a little before evening I gained the station. I was even at that time so much of a "new chum" that I took it for granted that a traveller would be made welcome anywhere in the bush whenever he might call. In the gold-fields where I had been people were ashamed of refusing hospitality--at least, I had not seen it done. This was the furthest south I had yet been in Queensland, and as I stood by the creek that evening and looked over to the neat little homestead lying there so isolated, it seemed to me quite a beautiful place, and I congratulated myself that I had reached it just before I got tired and in good time for supper. I had a bath in the creek and straightened myself up all I could before I went up to the house. It was getting nearly dark as I came up the track leading into the garden. I heard some one crack a whip close behind me, and saw a man on horseback coming along with nearly a dozen big dogs, who now barked in angry rage all round me. I stood there a complete prisoner while the man on horseback looked daggers at me. I suppose he had been out after cattle and had not found those he looked for; anyhow, he did not appear in a good humour. "Where are you going?" asked he. "I thought I might have a bit of supper and a camp here to-night," said I. "Supper and camp!" cried he. "Why the ---- don't you camp in the bush? Ain't you got no rations, neither?" "No," said I. "I should be obliged to you if you would sell me something to eat." "Would you not be obliged to me if I would show you a public-house?" cried he. I was too innocent to see his jeer, only I perceived that he did not want me, so I said, "Public-house? yes, I should be glad;" and added, "I did not know there was any; how far is it?" "Oh, not far," said he, and he moved on, and at last called his dogs off me. I was in a rage as I moved on, but just past the house the road branched off, and I thought it necessary to find out which to take, so I sang out to him, "Which is the Mackay road?" "The _right_ one," cried he. And along the _right_-hand track I went mile after mile, but no hotel was there. At last I found it was only a cattle track, and that I had come out to a big creek, where it branched off everywhere. The moon was just going down, and it was far out in the night when I laid myself down to sleep. It was raining heavily by this time, so that I could light no fire, but, tired and worn out as I was, I slept as well as if I had lain on a feather bed. When I woke up again it was daylight, and I felt quite stiff in all my joints and so cold that I could scarcely move. Three or four native dogs were circling round me, but retired to a more respectful distance when I sat up. These native dogs are, I believe, peculiar to Australia. Miserable, cowardly curs they are. They will often follow a man for days when he is lost until he drops, but I do not believe it has ever been recorded that they have actually attacked a man before death has made him oblivious to all. Not so, however, with the crow. The crow is found all over Australia in the most out-of-the-way places, and many a brave man has had his eyes picked out before he has had time to die! These birds seem to have a sort of instinct to know when any one is in distress. If a man is lost and the "trackers" are out after him, they know that he is not far off when they see a lot of crows hovering over a particular spot. He may not be dead, but he is certainly dying. Although I was wet, stiff, and cold, and without any food, yet I was worth twenty dead men yet. I saw that the only thing I could do was to retrace my steps to the station the same way as I had come; so along the road I went, and that in a very bad humour, most of all because I could see no other remedy than to beg assistance where I had been already so badly treated. When I could get on the right track there were thirty miles to the next station. I had only half-a-crown. What could I do if nobody would help me? At last, at two or three o'clock in the afternoon, I came back to the place I had started from the evening before, when I had been shown the wrong track. As soon as I saw the house again I felt neither hungry nor tired. I only felt as if I could walk for ever without rest or food. I would ask for nothing. I would take nothing. I would just go on. But still I had to find out which was the Mackay road. Yes, I would go up to the house to ask that question. As I came up to the place I saw a young woman standing outside the back door washing clothes, and about a dozen blacks were squatted about the ground in all sorts of lazy positions. I noticed especially a very tall young gin, who stood leaning against the wall, with a long spear in her hand. I asked the girl which was the Mackay road, and she, looking round rather surprised at me, said, "There--that one to the left." She did not look at all vicious, and seemed disposed to enter into conversation, but, true to my determination, I turned on my heel to go again. I had scarcely turned, however, before I heard her sing out in an excited voice to the blacks, "Don't! Drop that spear! Look out!" Turning round once more, I saw the tall gin with the spear, holding it high above her head, ready to hurl it at me. I never spoke, because, to tell the truth, I never realized that she intended to kill me. I looked her full in the face, and, as I felt pretty indignant at the time, my look disarmed her. Anyhow she quailed before my eyes and dropped the spear, and I went my way. The blacks were at that time very bad in that district, spearing cattle, &c., and as I was going along the road I accounted to myself for their presence on the station in this way--that perhaps the squatter thought it cheaper to feed them than to allow them to rob him. That they were not very quiet blacks I felt sure, and the more I thought of the gin and her uplifted spear the more anxious I became. They might, thought I, set out after me yet and finish me off. Moreover, as I had thirty miles to walk before I could hope for any food, I made up my mind to stagger on as long as my feet could carry me. But I did not go so fast as the day before. Slowly and painfully did I drag along. The road was simply a track on which a horse might come along, and a sort of coarse grass eight or nine feet high grew on both sides. How fervently I wished I might meet another traveller--anybody had been welcome--but no one seemed to have been along there for ages. On I went. Every half mile or so I would come to a running brook crossing the road. I became too fatigued to take off my boots and socks every time, and this made my feet sore; but still I staggered on. It was now evening, or, rather, late at night, but just as the moon was going down I came to a creek which seemed larger than the rest, inasmuch that I could not in the darkness look across, and taking a couple of steps into the water I went in nearly to the middle; still it grew deeper. I therefore concluded that as necessity knows no law, I must camp and wait for daylight before I attempted crossing. A large tree was growing close to the water and on the track. Down by the roots of that tree I threw my swag, and laid myself upon it without undressing and without a fire. My matches were all wet, and I was too tired to walk one unnecessary step. I was lying there looking up at the stars, feeling so unspeakably tired, when, after a while, just as I was going to sleep, I heard a noise not far from me for which I could not account, but it brought me to speculate upon the probability that there were alligators in the water, and that it was scarcely prudent to lie there as I did, with my feet almost in the stream. So I got up and went back some twenty yards or so, on the rising ground, where there had been an old camp years before. There I lay myself down again with a big stick in my hand. I had just gone off to sleep when I started up again in terror. A peculiar indescribable noise was coming from down the creek, where I had been before. What it might be I did not know. Never had I heard the like before; it was a noise sufficient, as they say, to raise the dead. The water seemed agitated as if an army of blacks were coming across, the bushes and grass were cracking as if a stampede of cattle was taking place, and through all these noises ran a piercing continuous yell such as no human being or animal I knew in nature could utter. The thought ran through me as I started to my feet: either it is the blacks who have come to kill you, or it is an alligator on the same errand. In any case, thought I, my only chance was to show fight. With that I grabbed my stick, and sang out, to gammon the blacks, "Here! hie! Bill! Jack! Jimmy! Here they are. Get the guns; we will have a shot at them!" While I screamed at the top of my voice like this, I struck the long grass with my stick, and, to frighten the alligator, if any were there, ran right down to where I had been before, yelling all the while. The noise kept on in front of me, but died away with some splashes in the water, just as I came down. When I stopped screaming all was silent. I stared around me, but the darkness was perfectly impenetrable. Was there an alligator now crouching at my feet ready to swallow me in a couple of mouthfuls? Or was I surrounded by a mob of savages, perhaps, lurking alongside of me, and seeing my helplessness? Or was it evil spirits? I did not know what it was, or where it had gone, and yet the hair seemed to rise on my head. Do not talk to me about bravery or cowardice! I believe most men are capable of screwing their courage up to the necessary point at any time, providing they know what is before and behind them, but if I knew where there was a man who would not have felt fear if placed in the same position as I stood in there, then I would fall down and bow before him. I crept back to where I had been lying when I heard the alarm and lay down again, and so exhausted was I that I fell asleep at once, and did not wake up before the sun was shining in my face. My first thought, of course, was the noise in the night, and I went down to the creek to look for tracks or signs of some sort. There, close by the tree, on the very spot where I first had laid myself down, was the half of a large kangaroo. It seemed bitten off right under the forelegs, all the rest was gone. On the road and in the soft mud by the water were the tracks of an immense alligator, and where it had come out and gone into the creek again a deep furrow as from a sulky plough had been made by its tail. I had never yet been so near death! It seemed plain to me that the first noise I had heard which induced me to get up and go further away from the water must have been the alligator stealing upon me, and that the unfortunate kangaroo afterwards unwittingly saved my life. But as there is scarcely anything that cannot be turned to good account, so I also tried to turn this accident to my advantage, because I took up my knife and cut some steaks out of the kangaroo, which I had to eat raw, as I could make no fire, for I could not find any of the wood with which I had learned by rubbing two sticks together to make it. It was with fear and trembling that I crossed the deep creek. The water went up over my armpits; but it had to be done, and once on the other side I made a speech to the alligator, thanked him for my breakfast, and wished him, "Good-morning." I walked all day, but so slowly and painfully that I did not go very far. One of my boots was chafing my foot so that I had to take it off, but after having carried it some miles I threw it away. In the evening I came to an empty hut and a stockyard, but as no one was living there I concluded it was put up for the purpose of mustering cattle. It was locked up, so I lay down outside and seemed to find some company in looking at the house. The next day was Sunday. I felt when I got up that I could not walk much further. Fortunately, perhaps, I got some encouragement from thinking myself near the station, as fences and cattle began to appear. Yet it took me from break of day to afternoon before I came out on a large plain, and there at once I saw the house lying in front of me, but yet about a mile distant. It seemed a large and "fashionable" house for the bush. As I came a little nearer I could see people under the verandah, and as I came still nearer I made out three ladies and a gentleman sitting there. They seemed to have a telescope, which they passed from one to the other, and whoever had it pointed it straight at me. Ah! what a disgrace, thought I. I would not mind so much, but I felt revolted at the idea of standing as a beggarman before young ladies. If I could have run away I am sure I should have done so, but I was altogether too weak. Still, I seemed to straighten myself up somehow under their eyes, and I threw the long, ugly stick I carried away, and went on with as sure a step as I could command up to the verandah and saluted the company. I remember well the following scene. The gentleman, a portly, elderly man, had one of those bluff-looking, high-coloured faces which, even while they try to look cross, cannot hide their evident good nature. He was now smiling in a benevolent sort of way upon me. The elderly lady who sat by his side also looked very kind, while two young ladies, who also were in the verandah, regarded me with a mixture of dignity, curiosity, and pity. When the gentleman began to speak he looked very cross. "Coming from the Palmer?" inquired he. "Yes, sir." "Hah! did I not tell you so? Did you find any gold there?" "No, sir." "Didn't I say so?" These aside remarks were addressed to the elderly lady, who silently acquiesced; and then she turned towards me and inquired, with a sort of anxiety, "Did you happen to meet a young man up there by name Symes? David--David Symes, that was his name." I was very sorry that I had not met him. "How do you think he should know him?" cried the gentleman, in a great rage. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "that will teach you fellows not to run gallivanting about the country again in a hurry, I'll swear. All your bit of money clean gone?" "No, sir." (I had my half-crown.) "Then you want nothing from me, I suppose?" "Indeed, sir, I do, very much." "Ah! I thought so. I knew it jolly well, I did." "Father," cried the lady, "why do you keep tormenting the poor man so? You go and sit there under the sunshade, and I will tell the girl to bring you some dinner. Poor man! walked all the way from Palmer." I went and seated myself by a large table which stood in the yard, and as soon as I sat down I fell asleep; then I would start up again, and fall asleep again, and every time I opened my eyes I saw them all sitting on the verandah watching me. The servant-girl brought a large supply of roast beef and potatoes, also a plum-pudding, but I could eat nothing. When I had tried a couple of mouthfuls the squatter came down to me and said he would show me a bed where I could lie down. "And when you have had a good sleep," said he, "then I will find you a job of some kind, if you want it." I slept for nearly twenty-four hours, and when I had fully recovered, which took me three or four days, I had a job at ring-barking trees for the squatter for ten shillings per week. That was all he offered me and I did not care to ask for more--indeed, I was very well pleased. When I had been there two or three weeks, and I thought we were about quits, I asked for my wander-book again--in other words, I explained that I was a carpenter and expected to earn better money if I could get to Mackay. I am glad to say that he would have liked to keep me, and he offered me a job as stockman for a pound sterling a week, but still that did not suit me at all, so I went my way again with a few rations in my bag and twenty shillings in my pocket. I will not ask the reader to follow me step by step on this memorable journey. No doubt it will quite plainly appear that I have gone through a terrible lot of hardships in my time, but although I admit I should not care to have to do it again, yet it is a fact that, when I think of myself at that time, I seemed in no way crestfallen. On the contrary, I was always in the best of humours, and never doubted for one moment that good fortune would come again. It has always been a fact in my case that when I, as on this journey, have had very scanty food for some time, my voice becomes much better and clearer. So that as I came along the road, or in the night when I was camped, I would enjoy myself by singing as well as if I had been a performer at a concert. Alas! many matters which unfortunately would not interest me much now, had at that time great attraction for my mind--a bird, a wallaby scudding across the road, a strange plant, all such things would set my imagination going. It is only as we grow older and get more sense that such trivialities cease to amuse! The next place on this journey where anything worth relating occurred was at a sugar plantation about sixteen miles from Mackay. I arrived there at eight or nine o'clock one night, but as I came past the place, some men who were camped in a tent by the road good-naturedly offered me a drink of tea, and when I had drank it and was just ready to start again one of the men, who had been away for half an hour, came back and said that I had to go up to the kitchen, where there was a countrywoman of mine who wanted to see me. I was in no way caring for a lady's company at the time, so I asked him to make my excuses to this countrywoman of mine and to say that I was gone; but all the men began chaffing me, and were nearly going into fits of laughter about her good looks, wishing they were me, that such a girl was not to be seen every day, &c., so at last I unwillingly went up to the kitchen. I never thought to see anybody more than some uninteresting sort of country girl, and I only intended to ask her, as shortly as possible, what she wanted, and then go on again. In a word, I was in rather a bad humour. The door was opened for me by a very lady-like girl, and I was quite doubtful at first whether it was the lady of the house or only the servant. All at once I seemed to remember how torn my clothes were, and my poor appearance, and felt as if I did not like to go in; but the girl seemed bent on patronizing me. "Come in," cried she, in Danish; "be not afraid. If Danes meet in this country I think it is the least they can do to speak to one another. I know it right enough there is many a brave fellow in this country suffering hardships such as they do not dream of at home. Come in, come in!" I did not know at first whether to feel angry or not over this speech, but--she was so pretty, and she meant well, and she _was_ my countrywoman after all, so I took her by the hand and thanked her for her sympathy, admitting that I was rather down on my luck just then, but that I had great hopes that things would soon take a turn for the better. Then she offered me a cup of tea, and by and by we were chatting away like old friends. It was now about ten o'clock, and I thought it high time to take my leave, when we heard some one approach the kitchen from the house. The girl seemed to get quite terrified. "Oh," she whispered, "that is Mr. ---- himself. He has forbidden any of the men to come to the kitchen; he is sure to be angry." The gentleman came in, and while he was staring in a sort of haughty and surprised way at me the girl was sitting bending over her sewing as if she had committed a crime. I did not like the prospect of being turned out very much, and I felt also sorry for having brought unpleasantness upon her; but, after all, the want or possession of a little tact will alter matters wonderfully even at such a moment as this, so, more for the girl's sake than for my own, I saluted him in my politest manner and begged his pardon for having come into the kitchen. I said I had been travelling past, intending to walk to Mackay, but that the men on the place had told me that a countrywoman of mine was here, and that I had not been able to resist the temptation to call in the hope that it might be some one I knew. I hoped he would excuse me. "Oh yes," said he, "that is all right; I am sure Sophy will be glad to see a friend of hers. Have you given your countryman some supper? Don't let him go away hungry. Surely you are not going to walk to Mackay to-night? There is a place over there where you might sleep: you will show him, Sophy. Good-night." What a relief we both seemed to find at the turn things had taken! Quite a grand supper was now put before me, a white damask table-cloth was spread, silver coffee-pot and cream-jug and all sorts of delicacies appeared. When all was ready, we both sat down to the cheese, and when at last I went to seek my bed we both candidly admitted to each other that this had been a red-letter day and one never to be forgotten. I slept and dreamed, and when I woke up again I could distinctly remember what I had dreamed; and that dream I have never forgotten since. I dreamed that I saw a snake which crept on the floor, and this snake seemed to me of wonderful beauty, but I was not at all afraid of it--on the contrary, I wanted to take it so that I might keep it; for that purpose I bent towards it, but as I did so the snake seemed to rise on end until it was nearly as tall as I, and while I stretched my arm out to take it, it hissed, and when I touched it, then it bit me. I now perceived it was no longer a snake, but that young woman who had entertained me in the evening. I woke up at once, and grasped the whole dream in my mind. Then I thought it must surely be a warning. I fancy I see the sceptic smile who reads this. I should like my readers to believe in the truth of my assertions; and to those who are disposed to so believe me, I will say they may, for nothing is truer. I was lying the remainder of the night thinking of my dream and congratulating myself that there was no cause for me to feel uneasy, as I should be going away in the morning, and probably should never see that girl again. But when morning came the sun dispelled my fears, and I was soon sitting chatting with Sophy while I had breakfast. I felt wonderfully sorry that I should now have to go, never to see her again. It was, however, ordained otherwise. By the time I had the swag on my shoulder she had been into her mistress, and, without my knowing or asking it--for indeed I only wanted to get to Mackay--had interceded for me, asking that I should be offered work. Mr. ----, therefore, came out to me and said he had been told that I was a carpenter, and that he had a lot of carpenter's work he wanted done. He had no time to go into details then, but he would be obliged to me if I would glue together for him a case of chairs he had, and then he would speak to me again the next day. How could I refuse? I got out the case of chairs and stood all day gluing them together, outside the kitchen, but I could not help thinking of my dream every now and again, and I realized that there was great danger, and that if I engaged myself for one week it would be impossible for me to either tear myself away or for any one else to trust me. In the evening I sat by the fire in the kitchen, with my elbow on my knee and my head in my hand and was in a bad humour, although the girl was sitting chatting more sweetly than ever by my side. To talk about a week before I tore myself away! was it not too late already? If I had to stay here, thought I, until I could not tear myself away, then I must be weak indeed. It must never be. I will go at once--this moment. I got up and said I was going to Mackay as soon as I could get time to roll my swag together. She looked at me as if she thought I was mad. Then she asked me if she had offended me, and insisted on telling Mr. ---- I was going, so that he might pay me for my day's work; but I would not risk the effect of any pressing invitation to stay, and groped my way in the darkness down to the road and away. Never have I felt more poor and miserable and lonely in my own eyes, as I went along, than I did that stormy, bitterly cold night. As soon as the imaginary danger was over I pictured to myself in rosy colours how things might have turned out if I had only remained. And all this I had made impossible for the sake of a miserable dream which most people would have forgotten before they were properly awake. Oh, yes, I deserved surely as much bad luck as fate could heap upon me! But now it was too late. "Too late!" I kept repeating, and then I would make plans for going away to the end of the world, as soon as I should have sufficient money to pay my way. I could not in the darkness cross the Pioneer River, which runs twelve miles from town, and as I had plenty of time I sat on the bank of the river all night, wishing an alligator might take me, indulging in romantic sentiments; but the next morning, as I was nearing Mackay, hope sat on her throne again as I passed by the one beautiful plantation after the other and saw enough work going forward on all sides to convince me that I should get plenty to do for myself, and possibly some day, perhaps, myself own one of these plantations. CHAPTER XI. A LOVE STORY. I obtained work at one of the plantations for three pounds sterling per week. For this money I was expected only to work eight hours a day and five hours on Saturdays, that being the ordinary tradesman's hours of work all over Australia. But as my employer was busy and I was tired of remaining poor longer than I could help, I obtained leave to work two hours overtime every day, for which I was paid at the rate of eighteenpence an hour. When I arrived in Mackay I had gone into a Chinaman's boarding-house, as being the most suitable place for my means and condition, but although a similar place had suited me well enough in the gold-diggings, the class of men who stayed here and the accommodation I received did not now suit me at all. I seemed to shrink into myself and gradually got into a morbid and unhealthy state of mind. I was as good, at least I thought myself as good, as most of the clerks or well-dressed young fellows I saw knocking about the town, doing very little work; but that they were of a different opinion was evident from the scathing contempt one or two of them managed once or twice to put into their manner towards me the first week I was in town when I by accident had addressed them. Do clothes make the man? thought I; was it necessary for me to conform to their habits, and to imitate them, to secure respect or even civility? I would not do it. What would be gained? All was vanity. Another little incident which had not been without its influence upon me, I mention to show that such unconsidered trifles make the sum total of ordinary life, was this: the day I arrived in town, but when I was yet about half a mile from it, I had met four young ladies, who I suppose were out for a walk. They were evidently dressed in their best clothes and looked both nice and pretty, and as youth always recognizes a sort of relation in youth--or, if you prefer it, young men always take an interest in young women, and _vice versâ_--I was looking closely at them and they at me as we neared each other on the road. They took no trouble in concealing their verdict of me. I will not say they were so ill-bred as to make grimaces at me, but they might just as soon have gathered their skirts about them and held their noses. I saw that they considered me an undesirable party. I was just then in rather high spirits, which could not be damped all in a moment, so as I met and passed them I took my stick up and held it in military fashion close to my shoulder as I marched by. I could hear them giggling behind me, but I did not look round, and lovelorn as I was--because you must remember my adventure of the day before--it had a depressing effect upon me, which grew as time went. So, after staying for a week in the Chinaman's boarding-house, with the first money I got I bought a tent and pitched it right away in a lonely spot, and there I lived by myself, like a regular hermit. I thought of Thorkill who was dead and of his lonely grave, that dream for which I could not account, and I thought, too, of my own home from which I had heard nothing now for years, and I brooded over my own friendless condition. Then I thought of the girl on the plantation I had left behind me, but it never entered my head for a moment to go and visit her. Far from it. I would travel to the end of the world to put it out of my power rather than do that, or for two pins I would then have put an end to myself! It seems to me as I write, that, this being simply true, it should not be without a salutary warning to other young men not to allow themselves to drift into the same state of temperament, because it is dangerous and may spoil a life which otherwise might become useful; nor is there any merit in such misanthropy, as the subsequent pages will show, and but one little straw one way or the other will have its effect during the remainder of one's life. One thing which it is difficult to write about, as it seems to have no logic or sense in it, but which, nevertheless, was of great importance to me, was this: I worked like a tiger, not because I was fond of work nor to get away from my morbid feelings, because I did not struggle against them, nor because I was fond of money, as I had very little use for any, as I thought, and as my wages were the same whether I worked like an average man or did more, but I worked because in my morbid brain I liked to fancy that the girl on the plantation was in great distress, and that her life and liberty depended upon my doing certain work in a certain time. When I got a piece of work to do I would think to myself in this way: here is a week's work for any man, but unless I can do it in four days, then--all sorts of misery will happen. Therefore I really worked as if my life depended on it, and I would be perfectly intolerant of any obstruction to my progress. My "boss" took in the situation very soon, because he let me stand by myself and dared scarcely speak to me for fear of putting me out. This state of affairs had lasted about three months, and during that time I can almost count on my fingers the words I had said; I do not think I had spoken to any one one unnecessary word. It cost me only five or six shillings a week to live. I had bought merely the most necessary clothes, and all the rest of my money and cheques I had received were in my possession, lying in a pickle-bottle in the tent. One afternoon as I came from my work I saw in front of me in the street the girl from the plantation. I ran after her. "Sophy, Sophy, is that you?" Happy meeting! She had been in town for a month and was now a dressmaker; but let it be enough to say that I went at once to the tent and got out the money and bought the best clothes I could get in town, that I went to stay at an hotel, and that, as time went on, I kept two horses in a paddock, ordered a side-saddle, and for sixteen months after used to boast to myself that no one among the tradesmen in Mackay had a prettier sweetheart, was a better dancer, kept such good horses, or earned so much money as myself! I reckon this time as being among my most pleasant recollections. People did not seem to me so egotistic or the world so black as it had appeared while I lived in the tent; on the contrary, I was often invited among very nice people to their parties and family gatherings, and I was a constant attendant at both Oddfellows' and Caledonian balls, and, in short, anything that was going on. I was intending some day in the near future to marry and settle down, and for that reason had bought an allotment for twenty-five pounds, and I meant to build a house on it. I had only one fault to find with the lady who honoured me with her approbation. It was this: she was fearfully jealous and excitable, and would at such times be in a perfect rage if I had done anything which she thought not becoming; but as I took it as a proof of the value in which she held me, I rather liked it, and even sometimes went so far as to excite her suspicion on purpose just to get up a "scene." This happened again one day when I had been sixteen months in Mackay. The occasion was that I had, as it was Sunday, been out for a ride with another young lady--I had things so handy, the two horses, one with side-saddle and all, and the temptation to a little extra flirtation was always great--but when that evening, in a most dutiful mood, I went to see my "only love," she, I remember, was very angry indeed with me. She was sitting sewing in her room, and I was sitting also at the table in a careless position, with my head on my hand and my elbow on the table, smiling at her and enjoying matters very much, although, as I have written above, she was very angry, and even crying. She rated me terribly, too, for my wickedness, and I was defending myself mildly. "Dear," I said, "I only took her out to-day as a mark of the respect in which I hold her." "I'll mark you!" she cried, and she struck me in the mouth with terrible violence. The blow not only knocked me off the chair, but sent one of my front teeth spinning round the room, and to this day I am marked by the absence of that tooth. I got up; she stood gasping with excitement, looking at me. I cannot give the reader any idea how handsome she was, or how fond I was of her. Still, this would never do. I took the lamp from the table and began looking for my tooth on the floor. I never spoke, neither did she say anything. I can well remember. When I had found the tooth I took my hat up and went away. This would never do, thought I, I must be off somewhere by the next steamer, never to return; because I knew very well that if I stayed in Mackay I should just go and make love to her again. I therefore decided I would be off, never mind where I went; and in that mood I arrived at my hotel. On the verandah stood one of the boarders who was the captain of a labour schooner. For the information of my readers who may not know what that means I will state that the plantations round Mackay and elsewhere in Queensland employ a great many South Sea Islanders, and that these men are brought to Queensland under a certain system. It is this way: a number of planters unite in sending a ship out among the South Sea Islands to engage all the Kanakas the ship can hold, and who are willing to come. The ship so engaged is under Government orders, and the Government sends an agent with the ship, whose duty is to watch that no coercion is employed in order to get "the boys" to engage, and that they understand their agreements with the planter. These agreements are all uniform. The Kanakas engage for three years' service, for which the planter gives them their food and six pounds per year; he also defrays the cost of bringing them to Queensland, and when their time is out he sends them at his own cost back to the island whence they came. As I now came up on the verandah the captain spoke to me and invited me in to have a drink with him. He had been staying in the hotel for about a month and I knew him very well, so we went into the bar and began to talk about his affairs. He intended to start for the South Seas the following night, if all went well; the only thing that upset him just then was that his cook had deserted the ship and was not to be found. He did not care except for this reason--that he could not afford to keep the ship waiting, and on the other hand he did not know where to get another, as he could not do without a good cook. "Faith, then," said I, "I am a good cook, as cooks go in this part of the world, and, what is more to the purpose, not only do I intend to leave Mackay to-morrow if I can, but I have a great longing to see the South Sea Islands, and therefore I am your man, if you like." He could not see that at all for a long time, and thought I was having a lark with him, but when at last I said there was a lady at the bottom of it, he winked and thought he knew all about it. So at break of day the next morning we went on board the schooner, and I started in the cook's galley making breakfast for all hands. I peeled potatoes and flogged the steak as if I had never done anything else in my life, because the captain would not engage me before I had shown my capabilities; but after my trial he was quite satisfied and engaged me for the trip at eight pounds per month, and then I stipulated before signing articles that I should have leave of absence until break of day next morning, as it was necessary for me to put my affairs in order before I left Mackay. After having given my word of honour to return, I went ashore again. There was enough for me to see to. My "boss" did not owe me anything, as I had received my last cheque on the previous Saturday; but there were my tools to dispose of. These went for a trifle among the other men: one took one piece, one another, and the "boss" gave me his cheque for the lot. Then there were the horses and saddles; these also were got rid of before dinner-time, and when evening came I had sold my allotment which I had bought for twenty-five pounds, for one hundred and fifty pounds, and had all the money lodged in the bank. I had not, therefore, done so badly in Mackay the eighteen or nineteen months I had been there. Not only, on an average, had I enjoyed myself pretty well, but the sum total which I now had to my credit was as near two hundred and fifty pounds as possible. After tea I had nothing to do but reflect on the wisdom or otherwise of the step I had taken. I walked about the streets for a long time, and as I knew very well that my sweetheart expected me as usual I found myself circling round the house in which she lived. She did not, of course, know that I was going away, and as she usually expected me about seven o'clock of an evening, my feet seemed perforce to carry me towards the house. I did not go in; at eight o'clock I saw her sitting by the window, at nine o'clock she was there still, at ten o'clock I saw her sitting by the window as I came past the place, at eleven o'clock she was standing outside, and I was right up to her before I saw her. The reader must not expect too much confidence from me; I cannot repeat what she said, and will only say this--that I have never seen her since, and that with a heavy heart I went on board the schooner next morning, when we hoisted anchor and left for the South Sea Islands. Dear reader, if I were to tell you all that happened to me on this journey in the same detailed way as I have told you about my travels through Queensland, it would take me too far away and also occupy too much space, so I have thought it better to leave it all out and take up the thread of my history at the point when I again arrived in Port Mackay about nine months after. Should this effort of mine meet with the approbation of the public, I shall be very glad to write another book about my adventures in the South Seas, but at present I will content myself by saying that although many things I saw upon this journey were new and startling to me, yet on the whole we had a good journey, and that I was paid off in Mackay when we came back, and at once took a passage in a steamer for Brisbane. CHAPTER XII. BRISBANE--TRAVELS IN THE "NEVER NEVER" LAND. I went on board the _Black Swan_ on taking leave of the captain and my other friends on the schooner, and after an uneventful passage arrived in Brisbane. Times had altered greatly in Queensland, for the worse I thought, since I was there last. The rich people had grown richer, and the poor poorer. It is sad at the present day to walk about the town and look at all the semi-destitute people whom one sees on every side, and then think of the "booms" which used to be a few years ago. My objects in coming to Brisbane were many. I had now, as I thought, sufficient capital to establish myself in a small way at my trade, and I intended to look out for a suitable place near town where I might begin. I was also on the look-out for a wife; but that was only in a general sense, and when all is said, I believe that what I considered most important was to enjoy myself. In any case, with over three hundred pounds in the bank I felt pretty independent and considered myself entitled to spend all I could earn so long as I could keep this nest-egg safe. The town was busy, work was plentiful, but although I went about every night and spent all I earned, yet I by no means liked Brisbane. I do not propose to criticise the inhabitants thereof in a general way, but so far as it concerns my narrative at this point I must say a few words. I was very unsuccessful in finding any girl whom I thought might suit me for a wife, and who, at the same time, herself approved of me for a husband. The reason, as I understood it, was this: Brisbane was, and is, crammed full of young women who are glad to stand in a shop from morning to night for half-a-crown a week and find themselves. Whether such girls can or cannot make a cup of tea I do not know, but my general impression of them was that they would rather not, if they could avoid it. Then as for servant-girls, it is a common delusion to believe that they are well off in Brisbane; the fact is that the majority of people who keep a servant both overwork her and use her as a coat-of-arms wherewith to set themselves off, and one never by any chance reads a book either in Australia or elsewhere in which a servant is spoken of as possessed of even common sense. Of course, the better class of girls will revolt at contemptuous treatment, and they are, therefore, scarce in Brisbane, and have always been. In the bush of course it is different: there the servant is not spoken of as the "slavey" and thought of as a fool, and as a consequence they are neither the one nor the other. But a tradesman in Brisbane has no opportunity whatever of meeting any young woman outside these circles, because the greatest possible social distinction exists between such people as, say a bank clerk, or even a grocer's clerk, and a tradesman or a labourer; so is it between a music-teacher, shop-girl, dressmaker, or a servant. I found it so, and that had a great deal to do with my dislike to Brisbane; but, apart from that, I had been so used to the free life of the bush, and more lately then to the changing scenes among the South Sea Islands, that I could not endure for long the everyday life of the shop and the boarding-house, and the boarding-house and the shop. I therefore engaged myself as carpenter to a squatter who had a large station on the Darling Downs, and right glad was I when I shook the dust of Brisbane off my feet again. But before leaving this city I should like to speak about the last piece of work I did there, because it is in such striking contrast to the state of the carpenter's trade at the present time. One Saturday morning when I came to work, my employer asked me to put a few tools in my basket and go out to his private house to perform certain work there. As I crossed Queen Street a man came running after me and asked me if I wanted a job of carpenter's work. I said "No." When I came a little further up, along George Street, a publican came running out of his door, smiling all over his face, saying I was the very man he wanted, as he could see by the basket I carried that I was a carpenter. I told him I was not open to engagement; but he would not take "no" for an answer. After a long conversation in the street, in which he implored me to do just this little job for him that he wanted, while I explained that I was on my road to work for which I already was engaged. I was on the point of cutting it short by going away, when he asked me in any case to come into his hotel and have a glass of beer. When I came in he renewed the attack in this way--he asked me just to oblige him by looking at the work and telling him what it was worth. He then showed me a large shutter which stood under a rough window opening in the yard, and told me that all he wanted was for a man to fit this shutter to the opening and put hinges on it; he had the hinges. Now, what was it worth? I saw that he intended me to do it if he could get me, but I by no means wanted to. I said it was worth thirty shillings at the least: "All right," cried he, "do it, and I will give you thirty shillings." I was caught now, so I gave in. I took my saw out and fitted the shutter, screwed the hinges, and took my thirty shillings, all in less than an hour. This is eleven or twelve years ago. I have not worked in Brisbane since, but I know a friend of mine who two years ago put a shilling advertisement in the papers for a carpenter to do a few days' work, and in less than half an hour after the paper was out he had thirty-two applicants! I was now working on one of the largest stations on the Darling Downs. I had only come there in a roving sort of way, under a six months' agreement which was made in Brisbane, and I had no intention whatever of staying longer, but although the wages were less than what I could earn in Brisbane, or in any other town, I thought I should like to see a large sheep station, and I was told by the agent in town that I should be sure to like it. The property itself covered I do not know how many square miles, divided into paddocks, and in each or most of these paddocks stood a house in which the boundary rider and his family lived. The duty of this man is not fatiguing; he has to look out that the fences are in good repair and report to the head station when anything is out of order. Therefore his day's work is generally done when after breakfast he has been jogging round the boundary fence. For this work the wages are about thirty-five pounds sterling a year with double rations, a free house, use of cow, &c. These boundary riders are by no means the only employees on the station. There were general labourers, carriers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, storekeepers, carpenters, and a host of people who came and went without my knowing they did so, but the whole formed quite a little township at the head station. Once a year, when the wool was clipped off the two hundred thousand sheep there, it was an extra busy time. Then the shearers would arrive, sixty in number, and with all their assistants they would make nearly a hundred persons. Besides these there were the washers, who washed the sheep by elaborate machinery. There would be so many people that I do not know how the "boss" knew them all. Every one of them earned good money, although in various degrees. The shearers earned three shillings and sixpence for every score of sheep they could shear. An average day's work is from fifty to a hundred sheep. Then the wool-packers, who pressed the wool into bales, had also piecework, and this was a favourite job reserved as a reward for old hands. They earned at it a pound or more a day. This was of course for a short time only out of the year, but when one station is done shearing another generally begins, and the men can, therefore, keep on for at least six months at a stretch with very little lost time. The tradesmen on the station seemed all part and parcel of the station, old identities, who had made their homes there years before and did not intend to shift. I heard it whispered that the squatter meant to try and break through the monopoly that some of the old hands had created, and that some new blood might be infused, and I believe that I had been engaged to hang as the sword of Damocles over the other carpenters' heads, but I refused the _rôle_. The head carpenter was an old, worn-out man with a large family. He had been there seventeen years. He had one hundred pounds a year and double rations, with a free house, wood, water, and many little perquisites. I daresay he had saved a little money, but any one may easily understand that a man over fifty years of age, with a large family and a settled home where he has been for seventeen years, does not like the prospect of change and to have to make a new start in life. Such a billet as that of tradesman on a station is much sought after, and in many respects is incomparably better than the position occupied in town by a married man who works for wages. But neither the one nor the other suited my ambition. If I had been doomed to choose between the two, I think I should, after all, have taken the lot of the man in town, for he is more independent if he is poorer. It is all very well to work for a master when one is young, but as one gets on for thirty years of age he likes to be his own master. At least that was my opinion. There seemed to me something so forbidding in the ringing of the large bell on the station. It would ring at a quarter to six on a morning for all hands to get out of bed and dress. Then it rang at six o'clock for starting work. It rang for dinner, and it rang when we were to start again. It was all correct enough; I have no fault to find with it, I cannot suggest anything better, but all the same I did not like it. My work on the station was otherwise both pleasant and independent enough. A great deal of it consisted in making and hanging gates for the various paddocks. These would be made at home in the shop and afterwards carted out to their places. Then I would get a labourer with me and we would drive off in a spring-cart from one gate to the other, and hang them. It was a regular journey across the paddocks, and involved about a fortnight's trip every time. The man who earned the most money of all the employees on the station was the shearers' cook. The shearers had a large house to themselves and managed their own housekeeping, inasmuch as they engaged and paid their own cook and bought and paid for anything they liked to eat, so that they should not grumble over the provisions. But that object has never yet been attained with shearers, either with the lot on this station or any other set of shearers I have ever seen. They are the most frightful grumblers, and who is so fit an object for their displeasure as their servant--their own servant, the cook? One thing, they pay him well. The wages of a shearers' cook is the shearing price of a score of sheep per week, or three-and-sixpence a week for every shearer. You will therefore see that in a large shearing shed like this, with sixty shearers, the cook earned ten guineas per week besides his food. But for this money he had to do more than an ordinary man can do, and take more insults than an ordinary dog would tolerate. First of all, the shearers always insist on having their table spread with good things, puddings and cake every day. He had also to bake bread, chop wood, fetch water, keep the hut clean, and in short everything else that was wanted. Nobody but the very smartest men can do it. But his work is not everything. When the bell rings for meal-time, I have seen shearers come out of the shed, making for the hut, howling at the same time: "I wonder if that ---- of a cook has got that ---- breakfast ready!" Everything has to stand ready for them to "rush;" and even if it does, yet one seldom hears other conversation than such as: "I say, cook, do you call them ---- peas boiled? D---- you! If I had my way you should be kicked out!" But as the majority only can dismiss their cook, he is not sent away notwithstanding, and it is quite understood that it is part of his duty to assume a respectful demeanour towards his employers. Yet, unless a cook is a good fighting man, it is not a billet that I would recommend any friend of mine to come all the way from Denmark to fill. When I had been on the station for six months I took a trip in the train to the surrounding towns of Dalby, Toowoomba, Warwick, and Stanthorpe, with a view to seeing if there was an opening for permanent business in my line. It did not seem to me that the prospect was good enough for more than a bare living, because bad times seemed suddenly to have set in, and competition for work and contracts requiring small capital was very keen. I therefore went back to the station again and bought two horses, intending to go out west. I had my three hundred pounds safe in a Brisbane bank, and I did not mean now to work for any employer, but to keep my eyes open as I came along and to take any opportunities for contracts that might come in my way and for which I could obtain a reasonable price. I started from Roma, which is a town lying about 350 miles west of Brisbane and 200 miles from the station on which I then was located. It was fearfully dry weather when I started and there was not a blade of grass anywhere for the horses. I made long stages of thirty to forty miles a day, but how the horses endured it I do not know. When I camped out at night I would have to tie the horses to a tree alongside of me, as there was nothing for them in the bush to eat, and they would have rambled away never to be found again if I had let them go. All the food it was possible for me to provide for them was a little bread which I bought at the inns on the road at intervals of seventy or eighty miles, and in the mornings when I got up I would take a pillow-case I had and a knife and walk about in places where the ground was inaccessible to horses, such as the brinks of a gully or between large stones; there I would manage to find some dry, withered stuff, wherewith I filled the pillow-case and shared it between them. It was all I could do, and when I arrived in Roma they were both very far gone for hunger, and there, in town even, there was nothing for them either--the last bushel of corn had been sold for two pounds sterling. I fed them on bread, but even that seemed like a forbidden thing. People appeared to regard the proceeding with evil eyes. Flour was scarce and getting more scarce. There was no prospect of rain, and soon all would have to starve! In St. George, which is another town 150 miles south of Roma, I was told a perfect famine was raging. For fear of being misunderstood by people who do not know much about Queensland, I would say that want of money had nothing to do with this state of things, it was only the want of rain which prevented teams from travelling and supplies from coming forward. I left Roma again. There was nothing to do there, scarcely a prospect of getting enough to eat. I rambled away with my two horses out west, and I am now anxious, for obvious reasons, not to particularize too closely where I went. It had now become of more importance to me to save the lives of my horses than to find anything to do for myself. I travelled for a month or more at slow stages, and was now right away in the "Never Never" country. Occasionally I would find a little for the horses to eat, but very often it was scanty fare they had. I arrived at a station where shearing was in full swing, and as both grass and water seemed more plentiful there than I had seen it for hundreds of miles, I turned the horses out for a month's spell, while I made myself comfortable in my tent and occupied myself by reading such literature as I could borrow from the shearers on the station. Among the shearers was a man with whom I grew to be on very friendly terms. He was a big, strong, good-looking young fellow, about thirty years of age, and seemed to me at all times so polite and well-informed that I was always seeking his company. What interested me most in him was a peculiarly sad expression in his face, and I often wondered at the cause of it. When the shearing was over all the shearers went in a body to the nearest hotel, as is customary, to have a jollification. It happened to be located the way I had come, so, though they did not actually pass me, I saw them ride away, and thought it rather shabby of my acquaintance not to come and say good-bye to me. I was mistaken, however, as I shortly afterwards saw him coming up to the tent on a really good horse and leading another. "Well," said I, "are you off? I thought you had left with the others; how is it you did not?" "No," said he, "I know my weakness. If I had gone with them I should probably have got on the spree and drunk all I possess. But I am now already pretty well-to-do, because I have a cheque for over thirty pounds and these two horses besides. All I want is just another shed, and then I will make tracks for Ipswich where my people live." "But," said I, "there is a public-house this way too." "Ah, yes," cried he, and winked, "but they do not catch me this time. I have worked for the publicans for seven years, but I will never enter such a place again." With that we parted, and two or three days after I got my horses up and followed along the same road that he had taken. About noon I came to the hotel. I did not intend to go in because the money I had with me was getting scarce and I did not wish to draw on what I had in the bank. I carried, too, all sorts of necessaries on my horses and wanted for nothing. But when the publican saw me passing the door, he came running out. "Good-morning, young fellow; good-morning. By Jove, that is a splendid horse you have there. Are you travelling far? Surely you don't mean to take your horses along in this weather. Why it is too hot for a white man, too hot entirely. Come in and have a bit of dinner; it is all ready. I won't charge you; I never charged a b---- man for a feed yet. I do not think it right, do you?" Pressed in this way, I went inside; but my suspicions that was a robbers' den in disguise were aroused, and if I had not felt sure of myself I should probably have preferred to dash the spurs into the horses and tear away; but although I thanked him for his hospitality and agreed with him that it was very wrong to charge a man for food, yet I made up my mind that he would have to be clever to outwit me. On the verandah sat a forbidding-looking man on his swag, and I saw at once that he was a poor swagsman who need have no fear of being robbed. In the bar were three men standing drinking, but yet moderately sober. The publican began to bustle about behind the bar. I kept one eye on him and one on the horses. Scarcely five minutes had elapsed before a blackfellow made his appearance outside, and began to lead my horses away. I went outside and took them from him. "Are you taking my horses away?" cried I; "don't do it again." I used a little more persuasion, but it does not look well in print. "Master said I take him Yarraman along-a-paddock," whined the blackfellow. Now the publican came out again. "What is the matter?" cried he. "I told him to take and give the horses a feed; they look as if they needed it." "Not at all," said I; "they have had a month's spell, and I can scarcely hold them." "All right, you know best. Are you going to have a drink?" "Yes," I said, "I don't mind." "What is it going to be?" "Rum," said I. "Right you are. I almost thought you were a teetotaler." I watched him closely, and saw he picked out a particular glass, and before I let him fill it I took my handkerchief up and wiped it carefully all around the inside. I looked at him and he at me while I did it. I also noticed that he tapped the compound from the ordinary cask, and I was therefore not afraid to swallow it, nor did it do me any harm. The reason I was so careful to wipe the glass was that I knew it to be a common trick of dishonest publicans, when they see a man coming along the road whom they wish to catch, to take a dirty pipe and blow some of the thick, foul-smelling stuff that it contains into an empty glass, and then have it ready for the customer. A very little dose will make the strongest man intoxicated for the whole day, and if it is not nicely adjusted, but just a speck too much, it will knock a man down in a dead swoon for many hours. I had been told this on the gold diggings by more than one person at the time I kept shanty there myself, and I knew that there were people who travelled about the country selling to publicans the secrets of tricking and falsifying spirits. I, therefore, knew pretty well where to look for danger, and where I might take the risk; but now dinner was announced, and we all went into the dining-room. On the floor of the room I saw a man who was lying there smeared all over with blood and filth. Still I recognized him at once as my friend the shearer. I went up and shook him until I got a little life into him, and he sat up and recognized me. "Hullo," bawled he, "is that you? Ain't I a fool? Publican, give me my horses, I want to go with this young fellow. I am going away this afternoon. Don't go away without me." "All right," said the publican; "I will see to get the black boy to find your horses for you, but he says one has got out of the paddock." Then we had dinner--that is, I had a good meal; but the drunken shearer could not touch food, and presented a terrible picture of sickness and misery. By this time I was not on good terms with the publican; but I did not care. I only studied how I could get the other poor fellow away, and I could not as yet see any way. As soon as we came from the table he staggered into the bar and called for drinks for all hands. The publican then called his wife, four or five children, a seamstress, the servant-girl, myself, the man in the yard, the black boy, the bushman I had seen, the traveller on the verandah, who had had no dinner, and himself, and they all had their drinks! It was a shilling a glass. Then the shearer asked him to be kind and let him have the balance of his cheque, which, it appeared, he had given the publican to change for him when he came; but that good Samaritan simply told him that he would not do such a thing, as he was too drunk to take care of money. When he went away he should have it. The shearer, who was getting more intoxicated again after this last glass, hung over the counter, and, in a plaintive sort of way, cried, "I am a ---- fool! Never mind, let's have another. Here, fill 'em up again." I could do no good, so I went away without paying for my dinner. I met the shearer two years after, when he told me all about it. It appeared that he had tried to pass the place in the same manner as I, and that the publican had persuaded him to come in. He had not liked to take his dinner for nothing, and had given the publican the cheque he had for changing. He had been promised the money in half an hour, but was shortly after intoxicated, and had never been able to get either the horses or the money again. After having been in the state I saw him for about three weeks, the publican presented him with a bill, from which it appeared that he owed him for "refreshments" more than the amount of the cheque added to the value of horses, saddles, and bridles. The publican had, therefore, kept the horses, but had kindly given him a bottle of grog to take with him on the road when he went away! This process is called in bush parlance, "lambing down," and is going on every day, year after year! I had not gone far from the hotel before I saw a man coming after me. He called me to stop, which I did, and when he came closer I perceived that it was the man who had been sitting on his swag in the verandah at the hotel. He said he had come after me because he had neither rations nor money, and did not know how to get along the road unless I would be good enough to let him travel with me. He wanted to go to ---- station, and try to get some shearing to do. It happened that I intended to turn off the road about half a mile further on, and that according to the place to which he said he was going we should travel in almost opposite directions, and I told him so. I said also that if he was pushed I would help him with a few rations, but that I had not time to accommodate the pace of the horses to his walk, as I had already been travelling for a much longer time than I liked. Of course he said he would be glad of anything, and so I got off the horse and had a fire lighted, by which we made some tea, and he had his dinner out of my provisions. After the meal he suddenly made up his mind that he might as well go the same road as I, and try to get a job at a station which we should pass some forty miles from where we then stood. I did not like this much, because he seemed to me a man whose company I should not appreciate, but, as the loneliness of the bush always appeared to me to engender a sort of fellowship towards whoever is there, I did not find it easy nor did I deem it right to say I would have nothing to do with him. On the contrary, I said that we would push on together then for the day, and that I would walk while he put his swag on my saddle-horse. In this way we now went several miles, and my travelling companion had very little to say. He seemed to know the road to perfection, and about four o'clock in the afternoon he suggested that we should camp at a certain spot at which we had arrived, but about a hundred yards off the road. I objected. I said he was free himself to camp or not as he chose, but if he wanted to travel with me he would have to walk a good deal further, as I had by no means come as far yet as I considered a day's journey required. After that we started again, but my new friend seemed frightfully morose, and had not a word to say. As the horse he held was a better leader than mine he gradually forged ahead of me, and try as I would I could not keep up with him. I was just wishing myself well rid of him when I saw him suddenly turn off the road, leading the horse after him, and although I called again and again, he neither turned round nor answered me until he came to a deep water-hole about a mile off the road. Here he took the load off the horse, and hobbled it out. I was not only angry, but I was also to a certain extent afraid. I had already agreed with myself that I could not lie down to sleep alongside of him; but what, of all things, did he mean by leading me to this place? As soon as I came up I asked him what he meant, and how he dared to take my horse off the road. I had taken the bridle belonging to the saddle-horse to go and catch it again, for I intended now at all hazards to get rid of him. At this juncture he came towards me. "Here is grass, and here is water," cried he, "and out of this spot shall neither I nor any ---- German or ---- Dutchman come to-night. Let go that bridle!" Then he grasped the bridle. You know the old proverb that "There is a time when patience ceases to be a virtue," and in my opinion that time had now arrived. I had not been so long in Queensland without learning to defend myself, so I closed with him. What a fearful struggle we had! As far as I was concerned, I felt as if it was a struggle for life, and I fought accordingly. Now we were up, now down. Sometimes I was on the top of him and sometimes I was under, but whatever happened I must not give in, because I felt sure I should receive small mercy if I did. At last I had him. My hands were round his throat, and my knees on his chest, while I felt his hands slide powerless off me. It was not victory yet. If I let him go he might renew the attack, so I pressed his throat until he was nearly black in the face, and I sat on him as heavily as I could, because I was angry, and when at last I let him go, it was not before I thought I had taken all his fighting humour out of him. While I loaded my horse again I called him all the names I thought it probable would insult him most, in case he might have any honour and shame in him, and at last I threw his swag at his head and cried, "There, you old loafer!" Then I got on the horse and rode away; nor did I stop that night before I had put fully twenty miles between him and me. I was now following down the ---- River, towards the town of ----, which I was anxious to reach as soon as possible. The weather had so far continued fearfully dry, and the heat was every day intense, but when I was within ninety miles of the township it began to rain. It rained as if it intended to make up for a two years' drought. The river I followed was nothing but a dry sand-bed when the rain began, but in three or four days it became a roaring torrent. I saw that we were in for a first-class flood and became anxious, as the country on which I was camped seemed to me very flat. Just as I had made up my mind that such was the case I met a party of stockmen, or, more correctly, they came to my tent. They had been out helping to shift some shepherds and their sheep to rising ground, and they assured me that the place I was in would be flooded. As they directed me to what they thought a safe spot, I shifted my tent at once to that place. It was a low, narrow ridge about a mile from the river. Here I prepared myself to weather it out. Next morning when I got up, I saw the river much nearer than the evening before. During the day it rose on all sides, and before evening again I was a complete prisoner on about ten acres of land, while the water roared and hissed on all sides of me as far as the eye could reach. This state of affairs lasted about three weeks. Anything more appallingly lonely than to sit there in the tent, and look out on the awe-inspiring sight of the flood with its swiftly running, destructive water cannot be conceived. As I had but little room for exercise in my prison I could not sleep at night, and so I would sit and sing or play on the flute, and think of all sorts of things. The waters did not go down at the same time as the rain ceased, and I had it all to myself some beautiful moonlight nights. I had heard the stockmen speak about an old shepherd who, with his sheep, was camped on a sort of island, which was formed by the river opposite the place I was in, and about a mile and a half distant. He was, therefore, my nearest neighbour. I could hear him at night sometimes felling trees for exercise, and occasionally he would answer me when I cooeed. Little did it matter to him whether the flood was on or not. At ordinary times he would probably never see any one for weeks or months, as no one could have any business there excepting the ration-carrier once a week, and the shepherd, as a rule, did not see him, as he was away with his sheep when the carrier arrived in his hut. I used to speculate as to who he was--an old man, with wife and family dead, perhaps. What a sad existence! Or, worse still, an old bachelor, crusty and tired. Surely he would have some one he longed to see, and who longed for him! How many years, thought I, had he been there, or in places like that? What did he do with his money when he got it once a year? Would he go with it to the nearest hotel, and as he saw other men wonder why they were not as glad to see him as he to see them? Would he purchase their good-will with grog? What else could he do, or was he likely to do? Anyhow, when it was all spent, and he would get angry when people would have no more to do with him, would he be kicked out? Would he then come back here for another year? What else could he do? I have, among shepherds, seen many men who must have been what is called well educated. They count in their ranks both lawyers and parsons, but disappointed and embittered silence is generally the stamp of them all. Sometimes the reverse is the case; then they will talk as if they could never stop. I like solitude myself to a certain extent, but it must surely be an unnatural life for any man to lead quite alone in the bush. When at last the floods subsided I had the greatest trouble in making my way, because there would be the most treacherous boggy holes where one least expected them. I had also fared hard on very short rations, so as to make what I had last until I could purchase more, and when I started away from my camping-place I had only one more loaf of bread; all the rest was gone. I was, therefore, very sorry to hear at the nearest station that they would sell me nothing whatever, and when I came to the next one again it was just as bad. I travelled for some days in this way, and had had scarcely what would make half a meal for each day, when at last I arrived at a place only twenty-four miles from town where I should have to cross the river--if I could--so as to get on the main road leading into the settlement. It was about ten o'clock in the morning when I neared this place. It was only a small cattle station, but I thought that whatever happened I must try to get some rations here. I came along at a pretty brisk gallop, but when I was about twenty chains from the houses which formed the place my horses shied violently at a man who was lying in the middle of the road. I was, on the spur of the moment, put out of temper, and began to rate the fellow for choosing his camping-place there. "Oh, let me lie!" he cried. "Accursed be the day I came to Queensland! I have laid myself down to die here. Shall I not be allowed to lie? Leave me alone. O God, O God!" I looked closer at him. It seemed that he was in earnest, and the wonder was that he was not dead already, as he was lying there in the terrible sun without the least attempt to get into the shade. He was a short, slightly built man and had a terribly emaciated, woe-begone face. It took a long time and much persuasion before I could get him to tell me what was the matter. Then he said he was dying from hunger. "Pshaw," I said, "right here in front of the station! I am hungry too, but in half an hour I shall be back to you with something to eat." He laughed bitterly. "Have you got it with you?" said he. "No; but I have money, and I will buy some up here." "You might save yourself the trouble to ask for it," said he; "you will get nothing." "Why," cried I, "I will tell them that a man is dying with hunger outside the door." "They know it. The squatter hunted me yesterday when I told him that I could not cross the river or get further without food. Oh, accursed Queensland, and the day I saw it first! Let me lie; I only want to die." I could not understand it, and I came to the conclusion that it must be the man's own fault, and that the people on the station had no idea about the despairing state he was in. I looked at the river. It was swollen yet, and not fordable on foot, but I had no fear but that I could get over with the horses, and I was, therefore, in a position to promise him that he should be with me in town that same evening. On hearing that he brightened up a little, but I was myself so hungry that I thought I would go up to the station and get some food for both of us. I therefore hobbled out the pack-horse after the swag was off him, and rode up to the place, promising my despairing friend to be back to him with all possible speed. When I came into the yard my horse made a dead stop outside an old stable. I got off, and looking into the stable saw another man lying on his face in one of the stalls. "Halloa," thought I, "it appears that all the people here are off their legs!" and I sang out to him, asking him whether he was dying of hunger too. "No; but I am blind," said he. "Who is that?" I told him I was a traveller, and that I just wanted to buy a few rations. "It is not you who were here yesterday?" inquired he. "No," said I, "that poor fellow is lying out in the road, and says he is dying for hunger. Surely it has not come to that!" "I was awfully sorry for that man yesterday," cried he, "and only that I cannot see at all, for I got the sand-blight a fortnight ago, I should have given him something." Then, as with a sudden inspiration, he said, "Are you his mate?" No, I was not his mate, I was only sorry for him and very hungry myself. "Will you swear you will give him the half of what I will give you?" Yes, I would swear. "All right! Then look in that other stall there under the bags and you will find a piece of bread, but remember he is to have the half." "Yes, yes," cried I, while I looked under the bags and found about half a pound of stale bread. "But are you really so very hard up here? Surely you must have plenty of beef." "So we have," said he, "but I have been blind for two weeks and cannot kill a beast if we run out, and the super himself is a bad hand. We are nearly out of flour and everything else, and there is a party of fencers cut off by the flood that we expect in now every day. We must keep something for them; still, that super is a skunk, or he would have given the man a piece of beef, but he won't give anything or sell either, so there is an end to it. You might save yourself the trouble of asking him. Are you gone?" "No," said I, "I am here yet. I am only looking at an old grey-bearded man who is coming out of the house and putting a saddle on a horse." "That is he." "Is he the only one at the place besides yourself?" "Yes, unless you reckon the old woman in the kitchen." "Could I not get round her after he is away?" "Not you; you will get nothing out of either of them." I then went up to the squatter and saluted him. Would he kindly sell a few rations? "No, I will do nothing of the sort," cried he. "You do not know how short we are here. I have got no rations." "But," said I, "you surely do not know that there is a man lying out there on the road who says that he is dying of hunger. Just sell me a piece of beef." "Dying of hunger. Ha! ha! ha! that is too good. Why, he is a regular loafer. He was here for rations a fortnight ago, and he was here yesterday. Let him go into town. I cannot keep him." "That is all very well," said I, "and I cannot pretend to say what the man is. But how can you get to town, when you cannot cross the river? He told me he has been lying about in all this rain and flood, and the wonder to me is that he is not dead already." "Is that your horse?" inquired he, pointing to where I left it standing. "Yes." "Well, then, just take my advice and get into town yourself." "And won't you sell me a piece of meat?" "No." "Not if a man were dying of hunger?" "Don't talk to me about dying of hunger. It is too rich, it is indeed! Good-morning." With that he rode away, and left me standing there meditating upon what he had said and at free liberty to decide in my own mind whether, after all, I had any right to expect people in a place like that to provide the necessaries of life for travellers. But one cannot argue with the stomach, and, ravenously hungry as I was, my sympathy was with myself and with the man whom I left out on the road, and I therefore thought I would make one more attack, this time on the old woman in the kitchen, who, during my conversation with the super, had twice come round the corner to empty slops, and who, I suppose, as a mark of the respect in which she held me, had thrown them so close to me that it had sprinkled me all over. She did not look very hospitable, but I had at that time great faith in my power to charm the fair sex, or, as Englishmen less gallantly call them, the weaker sex. I, therefore, wreathed my face in smiles and put myself into the most graceful position I could assume, while I knocked at the kitchen door. No one answered my knock, so I went inside, still retaining my charming appearance. On the other side of the kitchen stood a row of saucepans with something cooking in them, which emitted an odour that did not go far to prove the theory of want raging in the place. Here is my luck again, thought I, I will get a good meal at last. The old lady now came running in from one of the rooms--a most forbidding object to make love to! "You can't get no rations here," cried she. "Clear out of the kitchen!" Then she took up a piece of firewood and struck at me with it. How could any one expect me to look happy under the circumstances? I knew I was getting to look ugly. Then I pulled out my large knife and rolled my eyes in my head. That seemed to please her. She now only mildly protested, while I took the lid off one of the saucepans and lifted out five or six pounds of meat, with which I made my escape. When I came out with this to the traveller on the road his joy was a pleasure to look at. He could not understand how I had got it. So weak was he that he cried like a baby. The tea, of which I had yet a supply, was made, and then the feast began. I counselled him not to eat too much, but between the two of us there was scarcely anything left when we were both satisfied. Then he began to tell me his story, of which I can only give the general outlines as I have forgotten the details; but a more terrible tale of misery I had never heard, and any one who will fill in the picture for himself might easily understand that he must have suffered almost enough to justify him in lying down to die at last, when all hope seemed gone. He said that travelling along he had been overtaken by the flood, and had camped by himself in a similar place to the one where I had been a prisoner, only with this difference--that he had had no tent. He had managed to keep a log on fire all the time, and had hung his blanket over a pole to form a fly, but of course he had been as wet all the time as if he had been hauled out of the sea. By the time the water went down he had eaten every scrap of provision he had, but had nevertheless reached this station about a fortnight since. Here, as already stated, they would neither sell nor give him anything. He could not cross the river to get into town, so, in a terrible condition from hunger, he had turned back in another direction, some twenty miles or more to where there was another small station. The country was all flooded on his way, and for five miles in one stretch he had waded through water to his shoulders, only being able to know the direction in which he wanted to go by following along a fence, the top of the posts of which were out of water. I forget how long it took him to reach this place, but when he did arrive there it was only to be told that he could get nothing. Being apparently the sort of man who would bend his neck to any stroke of misfortune, he had meekly turned away, he did not know himself whither, when by good luck as the issue proved, he had fainted when close to the house. A man had then come out and given him something to eat, besides a little to take with him, and had told him that twenty-five miles in another direction was a place where he could procure supplies. He had gone thither, but as the people there had proved but one degree more merciful than their neighbours, they had only kept him alive a couple of days, and then started him back here to where I found him. All his money was seven shillings. The squatter here, as already stated, would neither sell nor give him anything, and as he saw he could not cross the river for several days on foot, not being able to swim, he had laid himself down to die when I arrived on the scene. While he told me all this, he was gradually getting very sick. The sweat hung in large drops on his pale face, and he threw himself about writhing in agony. I need scarcely say, perhaps, that he had eaten with less moderation than he ought. I bustled about him, trying or wishing to do him good, but I did not know how. I was also very anxious for us both to be off, because I heard the squatter fire a gun in the yard, and I concluded that he had come back and that the old woman had told him what had happened perhaps, or most likely drawn on her imagination at the same time. As the bishop said when he saw a criminal on the road to the scaffold: "But for the grace of God, there go I." The reader of this truthful narrative may decide for himself who deserved hanging most--the squatter or I; but whatever the opinion may be, I had undoubtedly committed robbery under arms, and, in my opinion, the man who would see another die outside his door if he had it in his power to save him, might also add such small particulars to the tale as would make his case strong and interesting--especially as there was a lady in the case. I had doubtless committed a crime which, according both to the spirit and the letter of Queensland law as among the greatest for which a criminal is punished. Just imagine how the case might have appeared in court. There the old grey-bearded super, the worthy pioneer, and the interesting, inoffensive old lady, who in a fainting condition, would tell her horrible tales; here a fat, bouncing Crown Prosecutor; and lastly the two loafers in the dock, whom nobody knew or would have believed. As after events proved, the super was either too much of a gentleman or too much of a coward, as he neither came out and remonstrated with me nor prosecuted me afterwards. Six weeks after this event happened I was an employer of over a dozen men, and as time went on I was looked upon as a rising man in that town toward which I was now going, and no one thought themselves too good to know me. Among my acquaintances was this same super. He did not at all recollect me from this adventure; but one day I reminded him, and told him what I thought about him. Begging the reader's pardon for this digression, I will return to where we still sat in the road. While I, for the above-named reasons, perhaps not clearly defined in my mind, was anxious to be off, and my travelling companion was writhing with pain before me, an accident happened which I at the time thought one of the greatest possible misfortunes. My best horse--my saddle-horse--got drowned in the river. It came about in this way: ever since the flood the air had been thick with countless millions of sand-flies; it was so bad that one could scarcely exist unless when sitting with the head over a fire enveloped in smoke. The horses suffered fearfully from their attacks, and just then they both became as it were quite maddened, and galloped straight for the river. I managed to catch the one, but the other, as if it premeditated suicide, jumped right in, and being hobbled could not well drown just then, but was swept down the current and away. Next morning we had eaten all our provisions and were as hungry as ever. The river, however, was falling fast. I got on the one horse and tried the river in several places, but nowhere was it so low that the horse could walk across. I could get across myself on the horse, but it reared and bucked when the other man tried to climb on it too; as he could not ride he began his lamentations again, imploring me not to leave him behind. I had no idea of doing that, but it cost me not a little trouble to think out what was best to do. Unfortunately neither of us could swim, and as he was of very short stature, the river would have to fall until he could walk over almost dry-footed before he would dare to attempt it. I was a head taller than he, and as the day went on I kept walking in the river and trying it with a long pole to find the shallowest place. The current was very strong, but the water was falling fast, and tired out by my companion's lamentations and the whole misery of the situation, I told him that we would a couple of hours before sundown try to cross the river or die. It was a dangerous undertaking, because not only was the water still very deep, and I had only a general idea of it being fordable, but the current was so strong that I did not know whether I should be able to keep on my feet when I came to the deepest part. First of all I wrote a few words in pencil to the manager of the bank in which I had my money, telling him what to do with my account in case I should not claim it. After having put it into an envelope, because I always carried these things, I gave it to my fellow-traveller, and without letting him know what it contained, exacted from him a promise that he should post it in case I got drowned. It was the least he could do certainly, because as a reward I said he might have all the rest of my belongings, always supposing, of course, that I should have no further use for them. Then I helped him on to the horse, and told him just to sit still until he saw me safe on the other side, and that the horse would come to me when I called it as long as he did not pull it about. Having done all this, I took off all my clothes and strapped them on to the pack-saddle, and lifted the whole burden on to my head so as to give me extra weight. I also got a pole about fifteen feet in length to stand against, and then I faced the river. The river was not very broad--I should say about three chains. From the side where I was it gradually sloped towards its deepest part which was near the other side, and there was at least one chain in width where I did not exactly know the depth more than that the horse so far had had to swim across earlier in the day when I had tried it. The river was still falling every hour, and I was determined for both of us to get across then. I waded into the water, and it all went well until I came to the middle. Somehow I thought I must have got to shallower ground than where I had tried it before. The water rushed round my sides, and every time I had to lift the pole and put it forward it took me all my strength to do it. The last step forward had brought me into still deeper water, and my strength seemed exhausted--perhaps it would be more correct to say that to hold the pole in position and keep myself on my feet demanded as much force as I ever had. I seemed to stand dancing on the top of the big toe while I could feel with the other foot that it was still deeper in front of me. I pressed on the pole to keep me down, but I felt that I had neither strength nor pluck enough to shift it either forwards or backwards, nor even to keep standing where I was very long. Yet how tantalizing; in front of me, just another step, and I might grasp the boughs of a large tree hanging out over the water. And must I die there? As in a panorama my whole life seemed to pass before me in review: At home--my schoolmates, I saw them all--then Hamburg--the emigrant ship--Thorkill--the gold-diggings--the South Seas--Brisbane--all along this miserable journey and back where I stood. I turned my head and looked behind me to where the Englishman sat on my horse. He laughed loud an unpleasant ha! ha! ha! ha! It was his way to cheer me on, but it jarred on my ear. My heart began to beat as if it would burst. Have you travelled so far, I thought, and have you seen and suffered so many things on purpose only to drown in this muggy stream? Never! I gathered myself together for a supreme effort. I threw the pole from me, rushed forward, rolled, lost the saddle, but grasped a bough, and the next moment I climbed up the other side, when I fainted for the first and only time in all my life. When I recovered the other man had come over and stood alongside of me with my horse. We intended to travel all night, so as to be in town as soon as possible, and my friend seemed quite gay at the prospect before us. Where we stood, however, was only on a sort of by-road, and I understood that the main road to ---- was a couple of miles distant. I, therefore, suggested to my companion that he should walk off as fast as he could, while I was pulling myself a little together, and that I would overtake him on the horse before it got dark. But--I had not got a stitch of clothes to put on! and I had to ask him to let me have some of his. Then he began to talk while he pulled his swag open. He had only two shirts and two pairs of breeches that he had paid fourteen shillings for in Liverpool, but of course I should have them. Were they worth ten shillings? Was the shirt worth five shillings? I would not get the like under eight shillings. If I thought it was too much, I might have the breeches he had on for five shillings. I was completely amazed. Was this the man for whom I had risked my life, and as nearly as possible lost it? For whom--call it what you like--I had begged and taken by force at the station what I thought necessary to save his life? For whom I had lost my horse which had carried me so many hundred miles, and the saddle and all my clothes? Here I sat as naked as the day I was born, all to save his life, and my reward was to see him in front of me; but he had not perception enough to know that he owed me anything. The money I had--three or four pounds--I had on purpose taken out of the swag before I crossed the river, and given to him so that it might not be unnecessarily lost. I had, therefore, that, but I wondered whether he would give me any clothes without money if I had none, or whether, if so, I would have to force them from him. I asked him, and said, "What if I have no money?" "Oh, but you have," said he; "I saw in your purse you have plenty of money." Then I bought the clothes and paid him what he asked for his breeches, for which he had given fourteen shillings in Liverpool. I bought his shirt also for five shillings, and a dirty, nasty towel he had was thrown in as a present for me to wind round my head instead of a hat. Then he went away quite happy, asking me not to be long behind, as he was to ride half-way on my horse, and I dressed myself in my new clothes. I did look a terrible picture. The breeches were six inches too short, the shirt would not button round my throat, I had neither socks nor boots--and then the towel as a turban round the head! The horse fairly snorted at me with terror. I sat where I was till it was nearly dark. I had no wish to see the other fellow any more. But I made a vow, never, if it was possible to avoid it, would I travel like this again. But I was in dejected spirits--not, I believe, so much for what money value I had lost, or for any fear that I could not put a stop to this sort of travelling about almost whenever I liked, but for the conduct of that man. As I rode along I kept saying to myself, "It shall be a valuable lesson." Still, I fear that that sort of lessons are generally more sad than valuable. It was now all but dark, and when I had ridden so far as to make me wonder that there was no sign of the main road yet, I got off the horse and began to look closely at the track along which I had come. I then found that it was only a cattle track, and that the horse must have left the right road without my noticing it. Then I began to run the tracks of the horse back again. But the tracks were confusing, crossing and recrossing each other so much that I lost my cue, and by the time it was quite dark I stood in dense brigalow scrub and had to acknowledge myself lost. I tied the horse to a tree and sat down alongside. It was no use to walk about further before daylight. I had a general idea where the town was lying, but I knew there were no houses or people living between where I was and there. I was also afraid that if I did not strike the road I might pass the town within half a mile and not know it. As for making back for the river and station, that would be out of the question, because it would have made me no better off. But on the whole I was not afraid that I should be unable to find my way somewhere, the question was really--how long could I keep up without food? The idea occurred to me that I could at all events eat the horse as a last extremity, but I drove the thought away as soon as it came. To be there, and look up at the horse--my only friend--and to think that I intended to kill it, seemed to me both criminal and impossible. I sat the whole night smoking my pipe and waiting for the sun to rise so that I might take the bearings of the country, and make up my mind in which direction I would look for the road and town. At sunrise I started, leading the horse after me, because it was no use now to follow the cattle tracks, and where I had to go was through the brigalow, where I had quite work enough to do in twining in and out among the trees and the brambles. As the day wore on I came into country a little more open, but yet I could not ride among the trees. The sun shone with terrible force, and the sand-flies followed us in clouds. There was a ringing sound in my ears. I kept arranging and rearranging the towel on my head; still, I feared that I had sunstroke, or that something serious was the matter with me. The air seemed full of phantoms--vicious-looking creatures. Then I saw a whole army of ladies and gentlemen riding past, jeering me and lolling out their tongues at me. I knew it was delusions, and I kept walking as fast and, as it proved, as straight as possible, but still I felt myself laughing, crying, and yelling at all these phantoms or at the unoffending horse. "Shoeskin," cried I to the horse, "you old dog, do you know that it was to save you from hunger's dread that I went on this journey? And now you have enough to eat, while I must die of hunger! but to-night I will kill you--do you know that? Oh, Peter, Peter! is it not strange, so vicious as you have got to be? Holloa, is that a frying-pan over there on that log? So it is; and full of fried eggs and potatoes. Good luck. Look at him eating it all. Stop, you rascal! No, it is a woman. Do you call yourself a lady? You are no woman at all; only a devil. It is all devilry. Peter, take no notice." About noon I had a bath in a water-hole I came to, and ate some snails I found in the water. After that I felt somewhat better, and shortly after I came on to the road. I became quite collected in my mind at once, and jumping on to the horse tore away at full gallop for the town, which proved to be only five or six miles distant. As I came riding up the street at a sharp trot I knew myself to be quite sane, but I had a suspicion that I looked very much the other way with the towel round my head and the short tartan plaid breeches. CHAPTER XIII. THE END. With this John Gilpin's ride the present part of my adventures, which are contained in the manuscript I wrote to my father, comes to an end. So does practically what I care to publish. I have seen many ups and downs since then, but from this point in my narrative I could no longer lay claim to be a "missing friend." I am not a novel writer, and I could not continue the history of my life and still preserve my _incognito_ unless I wrote fiction. As my object in publishing these papers is to give a faithful picture of Australian life, I should feel very doubtful of attaining the desired end. 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FISHER UNWIN, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.C. * * * * * Transcriber's note: page 3: "Hamburgh" changed to "Hamburg" for consistency. page 24: "sactimonious" changed to "sanctimonious" (to hear him in a sanctimonious voice). page 30: "workohuse" changed to "workhouse" (straight out ot the workhouse). page 39: missing closing bracket ")" added (... engaged as a matron.)) page 61: removed duplicate "not" (They did not laugh at nothing). page 85: word "I" added which appears to have been misprinted (next forenoon ... I was outside). page 143: "Kankas" changed to "Kanakas" (expected a hundred Kanakas shortly). page 216: "dassengers" changed to "passengers" (volunteers, although passengers). page 221: "draging" changed to "dragging" (horse in dragging oneself). page 306: "monoply" changed to "monopoly" (break through the monopoly). page 330: "ou" changed to "out" (A man had then come out). page 348: "Pal." changed to "Pall" (Pall Mall Gazette). 
51704	----	book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.) FERN VALE OR THE QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. A NOVEL. BY COLIN MUNRO. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL II. LONDON: T. C. NEWBY, 30 WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. MDCCCLXII. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY THE CALEDONIAN PRESS, "The National Institution for Promoting the Employment of Women in the Art of Printing." CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I 1 CHAPTER II 32 CHAPTER III 48 CHAPTER IV 77 CHAPTER V 105 CHAPTER VI 128 CHAPTER VII 146 CHAPTER VIII 180 CHAPTER IX 205 CHAPTER X 232 CHAPTER XI 253 CHAPTER XII 287 CHAPTER XIII 325 FERN VALE. CHAPTER I. "What are these, So withered, and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, And yet are on't?" MACBETH, _Act 1, Sc. 3_. "Those fellows have been up to some mischief I am certain," said Tom when the blacks departed, as described in the last chapter. "I am confident my brother has not given them anything; and if they have got any rations at Strawberry Hill, they must have stolen them. However, if you intend going over to their corroboree, I'll accompany you." "I do intend going," said John, "for I have never seen them in such force as they'll be to-night, and I am curious to see the effect. Do you know what is the nature of the ceremony of their kipper corroboree?" "I can't exactly say," replied Tom, "their ordinary corroborees are simply feasts to commemorate some event; but the kipper corroboree has some mystery attached to it, which they do not permit strangers to witness. I believe it is held once a year, to admit their boys into the communion of men; and to give 'gins' to the neophytes, if they desire to add to their importance by assuming a marital character. I believe it is simply a ceremony, in which they recognise the transition of their youths from infancy to manhood; though they keep the proceedings veiled from vulgar eyes." "When, then," continued John, "the kippers are constituted men, and get their gins, are their marriage engagements of a permanent nature; I mean does their nuptial ceremony, whatever it may be, effectually couple them; and is it considered by them inviolable?" "I believe," replied Tom, "the ceremony is binding on the gins, but their lords are permitted to exercise a supreme power over the liberty and destiny of their spouses. The gins are merely looked upon as so many transferable animals, and they are frequently stolen and carried off by adventurous lovers from their lawful lords and masters; and as frequently made over with the free consent of their husbands, the same as we should do with flocks and herds. Most of the quarrels among the tribes arise from such thefts; and the wills and inclinations of the gins are never for a moment considered." After this remark the conversation of the young men turned into other channels. About sundown they prepared themselves for their visit, and mounting their horses started off to the Gibson river; which, owing to the darkness of the night, and the difficulty they experienced in threading the bush, and avoiding the fallen logs, they did not reach so quickly as they had anticipated. They, however, crossed by the flats, and guided by the noise of the blacks, and the light from their fires in the scrub, they soon came upon the "camp;" where they found Dugingi, true to his promise, waiting for them. The camp was composed of about fifty "gunyas" or huts, formed in a circle; in the midst of which were several of the natives, talking and gesticulating most vociferously and wildly. The gunyas were small conical structures of about five or six feet in diameter; formed by pieces of cane being fixed into the ground in an arched shape, so as to make ribs, which were covered with the flakey sheets of the tea tree bark, and laid perfectly close and compact, in which position they were fixed by an outer net-work of reedy fibre; making, though primitive and meagre in accommodation, a dwelling perfectly impervious to the weather. Into these burrow-like domiciles, crowd, sometimes, as many as five or six human beings, who coil themselves into a mass to economize space, and generate caloric in cold nights; when they have a fire in front of the opening which serves for a door. In warmer weather, however, they generally stretch themselves under heaven, with only a blanket to cover them; and, with their feet towards the fire, a party may frequently be seen radiating in a circle from the centre of heat. When the camp was approached by the young men, the host of dogs, which are the usual concomitants of a black's tribe, gave warning of the visitors' presence; and Dugingi, who was by that means attracted, first removing their horses to a place of safety, led them within the mysterious periphery. As they emerged suddenly from the obscurity of the scrub into the open space where the corroboree was in full progress, they were not a little startled at the scene before them. In the centre was an immense fire; and around it, about one hundred and fifty men were assembled in a circle, except at a gap at the side from which the visitors approached. Here sat, or rather squatted, the gins, the piccaninies, and the males incapacitated from senescence or infirmities. The blacks having ceased their exertions as our friends arrived, the latter had a good opportunity of surveying the picture at their leisure. In the spot where the blacks had made their camp the ground was naturally clear, and was covered with a smooth sward; while immediately beyond the circumscribed limits of the natural clearance, the thick scrub was, to any but a black fellow, perfectly impenetrable; thus presenting to the eye of the beholder, the appearance of an umbrageous amphitheatre especially created for those savage orgies. The men were all more or less bedecked and besmeared; and, at the moment of our friends' contemplation of them, stood taking breath preparatory to the repetition of fresh exertions. The immense fire was being continually replenished by the gins, and threw a fitful glance over the whole scene that struck the mind with an indescribable sensation of mingled awe, dread, and disgust. While those sensations were traversing the minds of John and Tom Rainsfield Jemmy Davis stepped forward from amidst the group, and saluted them with the greatest urbanity. But such was his metamorphosis that our friends did not, until he had declared himself by speech, recognise in the painted savage before them an educated and civilized black. His hair was drawn up to a tuft on the top of his head, and into it had been thrust numerous of the most gaudy parrot and cockatoo feathers. When he walked this top knot acquired an eccentric oscillation, which gave his head the appearance of a burlesque on the plumed cranium of a dignified hearse horse; and was the only part of his ornature that was of a ludicrous character. His forehead was painted a deep yellow; from his eyes to a line parallel to his nose his skin shone with a bright red; while the rest of his face showed its natural dirty brown colour. His body was fancifully marked in white, delineating his ribs; with grotesque devices on his breast and back. His legs and arms were as black as charcoal could make them; and with a necklace of bones and shells, his toilet was complete. It has been facetiously stated that the New Zealander's full dress consists of a shirt collar and a pair of spurs; but Jemmy Davis had no such useless appendages; and, as he stood before his guests in the conviction of his costume being complete, and in the pride of conscious adornment, he never dreamt but that his own self-gratulation was also shadowing their admiration and delight. In a few minutes John and his companion were left alone; and the corroboree commenced afresh by the resumption of the musical accompaniments, which, as they were peculiar, we may as well describe. We have already said, the gins were squatted on the ground near the circle; and, we may now add, they had composed their ungraceful forms in the oriental fashion. Some of them had their hands half open, or rather their fingers were kept close together, while the palms were made to assume a concave shape, as if for the purpose of holding water. With them in this form they struck them simultaneously on their supine thighs, with a metrical regularity, which made an unearthly hollow noise, and formed the base of their orchestral display. Others of them beat a similar measure on their waddies, or sticks; while the whole burst into a discordant vocal accompaniment, in which they were joined by the men and piccaninies in a dull and monotonous cadence. This was their song; which, to adequately describe, would be impossible. Some idea, however, may possibly be formed of it, when we say that they all commenced in a high mournful key, in which they unintelligibly mumbled their bucolic. On this first note they dwelt for about half a minute; and descended the gamut in the same metre, resting only on the flats, and expending their breath in a prolongation of the last, and deepest, note they could utter; terminating in one eructation something between a grunt and a sigh, or a concentration of the idiosyncratic articulation of the London paviers. And as they dwelt upon this note for about a minute, the combined effects of their mutterings, and the noise of their feet, were not unlike the distant fulmination of thunder. Their dance too, was conducted totally different to the wild gestures of other savages. The participators in the ceremony, as we have already explained, stood in a semi-circular line. Slightly stooping, they swung their arms backwards and forwards before their bodies, and with their feet beat a measured tread on the ground; while they continued to contract their frames, almost into a sitting posture, and to accelerate their pendulous and stamping motions; until, with an universal convulsion, the last sigh or grunt was expatriated from their carcasses. After a dead stop of some few seconds, with a recommencement of their femoral accompaniment, they erected their bodies with their voices, and proceeded _de capo_; presenting a scene more like a festival in pandemonium than a congregation of human beings in "this huge rotundity on which we tread." The feelings of the young men, as they stood and watched this performance, were varied; neither of them had seen a corroboree on so grand a scale before; and they were for a time lost in wonder at an exhibition, which no description can truthfully depict. John was dreaming of the emancipation and improvement of a race, which he believed, could be made to ameliorate their condition; and felt sorrowful that, in the midst of civilisation (with its examples before their eyes, and the inculcations which had been instilled into the nature of one of their number), the blacks should be still perpetuating the emblems of their barbarity and degradation. Tom's meditations were of a different nature; though he advocated kind treatment to them in the intercourses of life, he still believed them an inferior race of sentient beings; if not altogether devoid of the mental attributes of man. He, moreover, thought he read in their manner, despite all the suavity of Jemmy Davis and Dugingi, something that portended evil; and fancied he heard more than once, his own name uttered by them in their song. It might have been only fancy, he thought; but an idea of something premeditated had seized upon his mind, and he could not divest himself of it. Our young friends by this time, having seen quite enough to satisfy them, and being unnoticed in their position, quietly left the spot; and, having procured their horses, retraced their steps to the river. They there mounted, and having crossed the stream, returned almost silently to Fern Vale, and retired to rest. On the following morning Tom took his leave of his friend; while, almost contemporary with his departure, John's black boys, Billy and Jemmy, presented themselves to resume their former life on the station. We may remark that Billy had by this time perfectly recovered from his castigation, though he, and also his companion, did not fail to stigmatize in very strong, if not in very elegant, or pure English, phraseology, the conduct of Mr. Rainsfield; and as much as insinuated that the tribe were in no very friendly way disposed towards him. This, John Ferguson was seriously grieved to learn; for he dreaded the consequence of an open rupture between the aborigines and his neighbour. He knew, if the blacks became more than ordinarily troublesome, that Rainsfield would enlist the sympathies of his friends, and his class generally; when blood would inevitably be shed, and the poor natives hunted from the face of the earth. He therefore determined, if he should not see Tom in a day or two, to ride over and call upon Mr. Rainsfield; and while adverting to the treatment received by his black boy from him, warn him of the danger, not only to himself, but to all the settlers in his neighbourhood, by his persisting in his stringent course. With this intention, a few days after the corroboree, not having seen his friend in the interval, he rode over to Strawberry Hill. As he approached the residence of the Rainsfields, despite his struggles to suppress it, he felt his heart beat high with the anticipation of seeing Eleanor, for the first time since his meeting with Bob Smithers. John had, of late, striven hard to wean himself from what he attempted to believe was his wild infatuation; and thought that he had sufficiently schooled his mind, so as to meet her without the slightest perturbation. But he had deceived himself; and as he approached the house, and felt a consciousness of her proximity, he experienced that strange agitation over which mortals have no control. He, however, determined to avoid giving any outward indication of his mental disquietude, so as not to cause any uneasiness to Eleanor from his visit; and for that purpose he stopped his horse in the bush, before he came within sight, and collected himself into a settled calmness. Having performed this little piece of training he proceeded, and was passing the huts on his way to the house, when he was accosted by Mr. Billing; who informed him that Mr. Rainsfield had desired him to intimate, that if he, Mr. Ferguson, desired to see that gentleman, he would meet him at Mr. Billing's cottage in a few minutes. This request John thought rather singular; but he turned his horse's head to the direction of the cottage, at the door of which he alighted; and, after fastening his horse to the fence, he entered. "You will no doubt think it exceedingly rude in me, Mr. Ferguson," exclaimed the little man, "to intercept you in your road to the house. Though you perceive me, sir, in a menial capacity, I am perfectly conversant with, as I am also possessed of the feelings of a gentleman; therefore I feel a repugnance, sir, in wounding those feelings in another. You are doubtless aware, sir, we have had another marauding visitation from those insolent savages; and Mr. Rainsfield is not only greatly enraged at them, but has become, sir, extremely irascible and truculent towards myself; and has conceived a notion that you are in some way influencing and encouraging them in their depredations. The pertinacity with which they annoy him, sir, is certainly marvellous; and he is confirmed in the belief that it is in a great measure owing to your instigations; therefore he gave instructions that, in the event of your calling, I should request you to step under my humble roof, while I sent him notice of your presence. This, sir, I have done, so you may expect to see him in a few minutes. I merely mention these circumstances, sir, not in disparagement of my employer; but to account to you for my rudeness, and exonerate myself from the imputation of any voluntary violation of good breeding." "Pray, don't mention it, Mr. Billing," replied John; "I don't imagine for a moment that you would intentionally commit any breach of decorum, even if the interruption of my passage could be termed such; but I must confess, I can't understand why Mr. Rainsfield should wish to prevent me from calling upon him in his own house." Though John said this, his heart whispered a motive for such interruption. "I am flattered, sir, by your good opinion," said Mr. Billing, "and I thank you. I believe, sir, you're a native of the colony, and have not visited Europe; but you are a man of the world, sir, I can perceive, and will readily understand the anomalies of my position. I, who have been bred, sir, in the mercantile community of the cosmopolitan metropolis, being subjected to the petty tyrannies of a man, whom I consider mentally my inferior. I am disgusted, sir, with the incongruities of my situation, and harassed by the thought of my trials being shared by Mrs. Billing (who, I assure you, sir, is an ornament to her sex); and the total absence, sir, of all those comforts, which a man who has been in the position I have been in, sir, and who has come to my years, naturally expects, tends to make this occupation distasteful to me." John, we are ashamed to say (at the moment forgetful of his own) felt amused at the sorrows of the little man; though he smilingly assured him that he thought a man of his evident abilities was thrown away in the bush, and that he believed it would be considerably more to his advantage, if he forsook so inhospitable a pursuit, as that in which he was engaged, for something more congenial to his nature and compatible with his education. "My dear sir," replied the enthusiastic storekeeper, "I again thank you. I perceive, sir, by your judicious remarks, you are a gentleman of no ordinary discernment. The same idea has often struck me, sir; in fact, I may say the 'wish is father to the thought;' but, unfortunately, 'thereby hangs a tale.' If you have no objection to listen to me, sir, for a few minutes, I will explain the peculiarities of my position." John having expressed himself desirous of hearing the explanation, Mr. Billing proceeded. "You must know, sir, that after finishing a sound general education at one of the public schools of London (you will forgive me, sir, for commencing at the normal period of my career), my father, who was a medical man of good practice but large family, sent me, sir, to the desk. I, in fact, entered the counting-house of my relatives, Messrs. Billing, Barlow, & Co., of Upper Thames Street, in the city of London, a firm extensively engaged in the comb and brush line, and enjoying a wide celebrity, sir, in the city and provinces. I continued at my post, sir, for years, until I obtained the situation of provincial traveller, which place I continued to fill for a lengthy period. I need hardly say, sir, that in my peregrinations my name was sufficient to command respect from our friends and constituents, who naturally imagined that I must have been a partner in the firm I represented; consequently, sir, my vicissitudes were almost imaginary, and my comfort superior to the generality of commercial travellers. I did not, of course, sir, enlighten the minds of our constituents on their error, the effects of which I every day enjoyed; more especially as the firm, from my long services, had solemnly pledged themselves to receive me into their corporate body as a partner. The mutations of even our nearest relatives, sir, are not to be depended upon; for I found in my experience, that the word of a principal is not always a guarantee. Upon urging the recognition of my claims, I found a spirit of equivocation to exist in my friends; and such conduct not agreeing, sir, with my views of integrity, I uttered some severe strictures on their scandalous behaviour, and withdrew, sir, from the connexion. "I must remark, sir, that about three years before this event (ah, sir! that was a soft period of my life), I took unto myself an accomplished lady as the wife of my bosom. I had been at great pains and expense, sir, to consolidate our comfort in a nice little box at Brixton; and had been blessed, sir, with two of our dear children. About this time the fame of the Australian _El Dorado_ had spread far and wide; and, after my rupture with my relatives, I was easily allured, sir, from my peaceful hearth to seek my fortune in this land of promise; I say a land of promise, sir, but I impugn not its fair name when I add that if it ever was one to me, it failed to fulfil its obligations. I fear, sir, I am tedious," said Mr. Billing, breaking off in his discourse, "for this is a theme I feel I can dilate on;" but being assured by his companion that he was by no means tiresome, he continued: "I told you, sir, that I had taken great pains and expense to furnish my house at Brixton; and I felt a reluctance to submit it to the hammer, and to sever myself and family from the blissful fireside of our English home. However, sir, avarice is strong in the minds of mortals; and visions of antipodean wealth decided my fate, and caused the sacrifice of my contented home on the altar of Plutus. I had heard that the difficulties of the diggings were insuperable to genteel aspirants after gold; and I, therefore, determined, sir, to be wise in my own generation, and, instead of digging for the precious metal, to open an establishment where I could procure it, sir, by vending articles of every-day use. For this purpose, sir, I invested my capital in stock of which I had had practical experience, that is, in combs and brushes; conjecturing, sir, that they would be articles which most speculators would overlook, and, consequently, be in great demand. In due time, sir, I arrived in the colony with my goods, and lost not a moment unnecessarily in repairing to the diggings. I need not recount, sir, the many difficulties which beset my path; I believe they were common to all in similar circumstances; and you, are no doubt, sir, sufficiently acquainted with such scenes yourself. Suffice it to say, sir, that eventually I reached my destination, and discovered, as we would say in mercantile parlance, that my goods had arrived to a bad market. I assure, you, sir, the horrid creatures who congregated at those diggings, notwithstanding that their heads were perfect masses of hair, disdained, yes, absolutely disdained, sir, the use of my wares. "I then asked myself what was to be done; and while meditating on a reply, sir, a viper was at hand to tempt me to my ruin. A plausible, well-spoken gentleman, sir, introduced himself to me as a Mr. Black; and proposed that as my goods were of no value on the diggings, but were very saleable in Melbourne, I should take them back and commence business there. He at the same time remarked, sir, that to commence business it would be essential for me to have 'colonial experience;' and doubting if I possessed such an acquirement, he, therefore, begged, sir, to offer his services. He, in fact proposed that he should join me in the undertaking; stating, sir, that through his general knowledge of business, he was convinced that the speculation would succeed; and suggested that we should at once proceed to Melbourne, sir, with my goods. He would embark, he said, his capital in the concern, and purchase an assortment of goods for a general business, which we were to carry on under the name and style of 'Black and Billing.' This he facetiously made the subject of a witticism, by remarking that it would be rendered into 'Black Billy'[A] by the diggers when they visited town; and would of a certainty ensure our success. I must confess, sir, I was taken in by the scoundrel's wiles, and readily entered into his scheme; the result of which is easily related. With the expense of carrying my goods and myself backwards and forwards from the diggings, my spare cash was all but expended; and when, sir, I rejoined Mrs. Billing, whom I had left behind me, sir, in Melbourne, until I should have become settled, I found myself almost penniless. However, sir, although I'm a man of small stature, I am possessed of considerable energy and, therefore, sir, set myself earnestly to work. I soon procured a shop, though with miserable accommodation, and at an enormous rental; but my partner assured me it was no matter, as we would soon reap our harvest. I got my goods, sir, into the place, and shortly afterwards my partner procured an extensive assortment also; when we commenced our business, as I thought, under very favourable auspices. But I soon discovered my mistake; for one fine morning I found Mr. Black had decamped with all the money of the concern, after converting as many of the goods into gold as he could. I then discovered, sir, that the stock he had procured was upon credit, on the strength of that which I had in the place at the time; and finding his defalcations were greater than I could possibly meet, and my creditors being fearful that I would follow his example, I was compelled to relinquish my property to liquidate their claims. I then, sir, found myself not only destitute, but homeless; with my wife and children dependent upon me for their subsistence. [Footnote A: A name applied by the diggers to the tin pot in which they boil their water, as also to black hats.] "I managed, sir, however, to procure employment by driving a cart; and, after saving sufficient money, succeeded in getting round to Sydney, where my wife, sir, had relations. They, sir, promised me assistance, and after a short interval fulfilled their promise by establishing me in a store at Armidale; where I got on, sir, pretty well, and would have succeeded, but for the chicanery of some scoundrels, sir, by whom I lost considerably, and was a second time reduced to labour for a support. Through various vicissitudes, sir, I have come to this, and, you may well imagine, that a man of my sensitive feeling and appreciation of honour, in this menial capacity meets with nothing but disgust and mortification. But, sir, I do not repine; however dark is the horizon of my fate, despair does not enter my mind; the clouds of depression must necessarily some day be removed; and then, sir, the sun of my future will burst forth with a refulgence, the more resplendent from its previous concealment. I desire, sir, in fact it is the fondest wish of my heart, to return to Old England; but at present that cannot be, for means, sir, are wanting; the all potent needful is required; money, sir. But things must improve, they cannot last for ever thus; to think that I, a gentleman, and Mrs. Billing a gentlewoman, should waste our very existence, sir, in this wilderness; banished, sir, from the very intercourse of man; expatriated, sir, from all we hold most dear, and, forsaken, sir, by the society whence we are ostracized. The thought, sir, is harrowing; yes, sir, harrowing beyond measure." Mr. Billing was now getting pathetic and rather lachrymose; and his confessions might have become of a confidential, and a painful nature, had they not, very much to the relief of our hero, been cut short by the opportune entrance of Mr. Rainsfield, who, when Mr. Billing had left the room, addressed himself to John: "I must apologize for keeping you waiting, Mr. Ferguson, but I was engaged at the moment I heard of your call; and I thought by your meeting me here it would save you from that pain which, otherwise, your visit might have occasioned you, after the circumstances which transpired when you last favoured us with your company." "I am particularly indebted to you for your solicitation," replied John; "but I may remark, I had sufficient confidence in myself to feel assured that I would have neither received, nor given any pain in the manner in which I presume you mean. And I may also state that, but for the desire I had to give you some information that may be of vital importance to you, I would have disdained your bidding." "Then, may I beg to know the object of your call," enquired Rainsfield. "I have two," replied John, "first I have been informed by one of my black boys that you severely maltreated him; and considering myself aggrieved by the act, as it was the means of depriving me of his services, I beg you to explain the cause for so unwarrantable a procedure." "I justify my acts to no man," exclaimed Rainsfield, "and recognise no blacks as others than members of their general community; who take upon themselves to perform various acts of aggression. The laws of our country not being potent enough to protect us from their marauding, we do it ourselves; and if you think fit to gainsay our right, you know what course to pursue; and now, sir, for your second object." "I might with equal justice," said John, "decline to afford you the information I by accident obtained, but I have no desire to show such churlishness, and I believe that by judiciously acting upon it, you may save yourself from some calamity; which I have good cause to believe is impending. My two black boys who left me after your assault on one of them, and who were only persuaded to return after their great corroboree by my conciliating their chief, have informed me, in an imperfect manner, that some overt act of aggression, on the part of the tribe, is meditated; and it is to put you on your guard against this that I have ventured to trouble you with my presence." "Then it was at that corroboree on the spoliation of my property that you heard this?" exclaimed Rainsfield. "My goods were purloined to feast those imps of darkness, and you lent your presence to grace their proceedings? I always thought you encouraged the villains in their infamies, and I now perceive my suspicions were well founded. However, sir, I am perfectly independent of you, and your so called information. I have decided upon my course of action, and will not therefore trouble you further to interest yourself in my behalf. You will no doubt readily perceive that your presence here at any time would be extremely unpleasant; and I must therefore request that you absent yourself from my house as much as possible. I shall now wish you good day;" saying which Rainsfield quitted the room. John Ferguson was so taken by surprise at the violent tirade he had just listened to, that he had had no idea of defending himself from an accusation, the manifest absurdity of which merely struck him as contemptuous. But he felt a source of grief at being summarily estranged from the other members of the family; and whatever his feelings had been when he came to the station, he left it with a heavy heart, and returned home to meet the cavalcade, which we have seen in a previous chapter had gone over. CHAPTER II. "I have it, it is engender'd: hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light." OTHELLO, _Act_ 1, _Sc._ 3. "Then should I know you by description; Such garments and such years." AS YOU LIKE IT, _Act_ 5, _Sc._ 3. Despite his professed contempt for John Ferguson's information Mr. Rainsfield felt an uneasy apprehension at the growing confidence, and contumacious freedom of the blacks. He even began to doubt if he would be able to maintain his position single-handed against them, and thought seriously of the advisableness of calling a meeting of the surrounding settlers, to organize a league for their mutual protection. But then he remembered the blacks directed all their _animus_ against himself, and it was therefore questionable, he imagined, if he could induce more than two or three of his neighbours to join him; besides which, even they could not constantly be on the alert; while he must, consequently, be frequently open to surprisal. A thought, however, struck him, or rather we should have said, a diabolical idea suggested itself to his mind; and, after cogitating and arguing with himself for some time, he determined to act upon it. The pestilence, so he mentally soliloquized, had now reached its height, and something must be done; for he was not only robbed of his station supplies, but he was frequently losing even cattle; while, instead of seeing any prospect of amendment, he only perceived that the successes of his despoilers were emboldening them to fresh adventures. He knew that an application to the government for protection was absolutely useless; for they hadn't it to give. It is true he might stir the district to agitate the settlement of a native police detachment in that quarter; but he also knew, even if he succeeded in obtaining such a location, that the force would be necessarily so miserably small as to be perfectly inadequate to the contingencies. (Possibly three or four men stationed in the centre of fifty square miles to protect the scattered population against as many hundred savages.) The idea was preposterous, and he scouted it. No, he thought, he must depend upon himself for protection, and would therefore adopt a line of policy that would check, if not annihilate, the nuisance; while the exigencies of the case would justify him in his measures. Such, then, were the thoughts that passed through the mind of Mr. Rainsfield after his interview with our hero. He returned to Mr. Billing's cottage after John Ferguson's departure, and accosted his _employé_ in his blandest and most suasive manner. "Mr. Billing," said he, "I am about to enter upon a crusade against the native dogs, which I find are becoming very troublesome to the sheep in the upper part of the run; and, to effectually destroy them, I intend to poison some carcasses to be left for them to make a meal of. I would therefore like you to ride over to Alma, and explain the matter to Mr. Gilbert, the storekeeper there; and procure for me a supply of strychnine and arsenic. I would not trouble you, but you are aware that he would not give it to a shepherd without a request from me; and it is hardly safe to send any of the men. I would be particularly obliged to you if you would undertake the task, as I can confidently depend upon your judgment to prevent any mistake." This little piece of what the Yankees would designate "soft sawder" on the part of Rainsfield, had the effect, not only of removing any objections his diminutive confidential might have had to such a journey, but of inducing him to acknowledge the compliment in a series of corporeal oscillations; while he replied to the blandishment, in the following strain: "It would afford me, sir, the greatest earthly pleasure to comply with your wishes; even to the considerable personal inconvenience, sir, and bodily suffering of your humble servant; but you must be aware equestrianism sir, is an accomplishment I never deemed it necessary to acquire. During my mercantile career, sir, I was reputed, and I think I may add justly too, sir, one of the best amateur whips in the city of London; and had my transit, sir, to be effected by a vehicular means, I flatter myself, sir, none could accomplish the mission better." "That I am convinced of," replied Mr. Rainsfield; "but I fear, Mr. Billing, I shall have to defer the pleasure of witnessing your skill in handling the ribbons until I am induced, by the existence of roads, to treat myself and my family to the luxury of a carriage. But, with regard to the journey I have mentioned, I can provide you with a quiet horse; and I have no doubt a man of your various accomplishments will find no difficulty in adding to them the art of riding. In fact, unless you had mentioned it, I would never have imagined but that you were a perfect equestrian; your stature and figure are just such as would show to best advantage on horseback; and, with the constant opportunities which present themselves here, I really am surprised that you don't ride. You know 'it is never too late to mend;' so you must really permit me to persuade you (irrespective of this journey) to commence at once practising the art, and take a regular course of riding. I am convinced you will not only find it pleasant, but beneficial to your health." "I appreciate your kindness, sir," replied the little man. "As you say, it is never too late to mend, and I really think, sir, it is ridiculous that I should not be able to ride; but the fact is, to be candid, sir, I have always dreaded the first lesson." "There is really nothing to fear, Mr. Billing," said Rainsfield. "You will find, once on your horse, riding will come natural to you; the only inconvenience you will experience is being at first a little stiff after it." "When would you desire me to start, if I took this journey?" enquired the would be equestrian. "Well, I should prefer it at once," replied his tempter. "If you were to start within half an hour you would have at least six hours of daylight; and the distance is only about twenty-five miles, so you could reach the town at your leisure before dark, and return to-morrow." "I have decided then, sir," exclaimed Mr. Billing; "you may command my services, and I will be at your disposal before the expiration of half an hour." "That's right, Mr. Billing," replied his superior; "and I'll get a horse in from the paddock for you; and by the way, will you just leave the keys of the store with Mrs. Billing. When you are away I purpose removing all the stores into the house, and have prepared a room for their reception; so if our black visitors should favour us with a call during your absence they will find themselves disappointed." "Most assuredly, sir, as you desire," replied the quondam commercial; "I will hand the badges of my office into your hands myself, to prevent, sir, the possibility of any mistake:" saying which the two separated; Mr. Billing filed with the importance of his mission, to communicate it to his wife, and obtain her aid in a speedy preparation for his hazardous journey; and his employer, with a complaisant smile of satisfaction on his features, to give instructions for the immediate capture of a steed. Within the specified time an animal was brought by Mr. Rainsfield up to the door of Mr. Billing's abode duly caparisoned for the journey, and with an old valise strapped upon the saddle. At the same time the adventurous storekeeper also made his appearance; having undergone by the careful assiduity of his wife a perfect transmutation. On his head stood erect a black cylindrical deformity, designated in the vulgar parlance of the colony "a Billy," but which he, while he smiled benignly at the ignorance of the _canaille_ (as he gave it the extra rotary flourish of the brush, while he read "Christy's best London make" in the crown), called a hat; and the only proper head-dress for a gentleman. He was encompassed in a coat of the gigantic order, possessed of many pockets; a garment truly noble to look upon, and one that had done service to its owner in days of yore; when on cold and wet mornings Mr. Billing nestled himself in his wonted position in the Brixton 'bus, to be conveyed to his diurnal bustle in the city. In this habiliment evidences of an affectionate wife's forethought were visible in the protrusion from the pockets of sundry pieces of paper, denoting the occupation of those receptacles by certain parcels; the contents of which, should the reader be anxious to know, we are in a position to disclose. In the lower pocket on the right hand side, we are enabled from our information (which is from the most reliable source) to inform the curious, was a parcel (thrust by Mrs. Billing with her own hands) enclosing two garments, of a spotless purity, essential for a gentleman's nocturnal comfort. In the contemporary pouch was a package of humbler pretensions, containing sundries to appease a traveller's appetite; while in another was deposited that necessary paraphernalia for a morning's toilet, embraced in the apparatus known as a "gentleman's travelling companion." His legs were encased in trousers that had been brought specially to the light. They were of a questionable colour, something between that of kippered salmon and hard bake; and were strapped down to his feet with such powerful tension that he was threatened every moment with a mishap most awkward in its consequences. When he walked he effected the exercise with a sprightliness that appeared as if galvanic agency was that which had set his nether limbs in motion; and his feet started from the ground at every step with a spring that promised at each evolution the protrusion of some part of his crural members. In this perfect costume Mr. Billing considered himself adjusted for the road; and construing the smile of amusement that played on the features of Mr. Rainsfield as a mark of affability returned it in his most winning style. The horse provided for this Gilpin excursion was an animal of no mean pretensions. He boasted of having in his veins some of the best blood of the country, though, now perhaps, that blood was somewhat vapid, and he rather patriarchal. He had served many masters, and performed various duties; from racing to filling the equivocal position of a station and stockman's hack. Though once possessed of a spirit that required a strong arm and determined will to maintain a mastery over, he was now as quiet and subdued as a lamb; although he was as sagacious as most of his riders, and as knowing as any "old hoss" in the country. He had settled into an easy-going stager, that neither persuasion nor force could induce to deviate from the "even tenor of his way;" while his general appearance, at this stage of his life, was long-legged, raw-boned, lean and screwed, with the additional embellishment of being minus his near eye. Mr. Billing surveyed the beast that was to carry him to Alma with about the same comprehension as a ploughman would contemplate a steam engine; while the horse returned the gaze from the corner of his sound eye, and winked in a manner that might have been interpreted into a request "to wait until he got him on his back." Mr. Billing, however, was perfectly unacquainted with the significance of his horse's looks, and perhaps well for him that he was; for we are convinced, had he known what was in store for him, he would never have risked his valuable person and life on the back of so perverse a dispositioned animal. We have heard that an inclination of the head is equivalent to the closing of one eye to a quadruped whose ocular organs are in a state of total derangement; and we therefore presume that the momentary stultification of our quadruped's vision had the same effect upon our Cockney-born viator as the craniological recognition mentioned in the aphorism would have had on his horse. Consequently, he was in blissful ignorance of the trials that awaited him; and, under the directions of Mr. Rainsfield, he prepared to mount with an alacrity which he prided himself as pertaining to a "city man of business," and which he still retained in his animated anatomy. For some time he experienced considerable difficulty, in fact he found it absolutely impossible, to so far stretch his limbs as to get one leg high enough from the ground to reach the stirrup; and not until, at the suggestion of his highly-amused employer, his loving spouse produced a chair from the cottage, had he any prospect of reaching the saddle. However, being elevated by the chair, he made a bound on to the back of the steed, but unfortunately with too great an impetus; for he lost his equilibrium in attempting to gain his seat, and measured his length on the ground. This mishap tended to cast a gloom upon his spirits, but he was soon rallied by Mr. Rainsfield, who told him he would be all right when once in his saddle and on the road. Upon a second attempt he exercised more caution, with better success; and, as he seated himself in his saddle bolt upright, he gazed about him, and below him, with a proud consciousness of the elegant symmetry of himself and horse; and doubted not he would, as he then stood, be a prize study for any sculptor. His following remark will not therefore be wondered at. "As you a few minutes ago affirmed, sir, now that I am possessed of my seat, I do feel myself all right. I experience, sir, a confidence in myself that, if called upon, I could do any equestrian prodigy, even to eclipse the stupendous leap of Martius Curtius; or to perform, sir, any other feat that my destiny may decree." "I am equally confident in your abilities, Mr. Billing," replied his master; "but I trust they will never be put to so severe a test. I will walk with you to where the roads to Alma and Brompton diverge. It is not more than a mile beyond the Wombi, so, though I can tell you yours is the left hand road, I may as well accompany you to the junction. From that you will have no difficulty in keeping to the track, if you just give the horse his head; for he has been so used to the road that he will know perfectly well where he has to go. You will perceive I have strapped a valise on your saddle; it is for you, when you procure the poisons, to put them into it, and keep them out of harm's way; while it will save you the annoyance and trouble of carrying them." When they arrived at the spot where the tracks separated Mr. Rainsfield parted from his colleague; and looking after him for a few minutes, until he was lost from view by a turn in the road, he burst into an inordinate fit of laughter, and turned on his heel to retrace his steps. After walking for some time in abstracted silence, apparently absorbed in deep meditation, he suddenly started with the ejaculation, "Yes! by Jupiter, that'll stop them. I expect they won't trouble me much after that." But while we leave him to his cogitations and silent walk, we will pursue Mr. Billing and accompany him on his ride. CHAPTER III. "His horse which never in that sort Had handled been before, What thing upon his back had got, Did wonder more and more." COWPER When he departed from his master, as we have described in the last chapter, Mr. Billing went on his way with a joyful heart. But, thinking the slow walking pace of his steed might safely be improved upon; and also considering, that if he could only prevail upon the horse to walk a little faster, it would facilitate his journey amazingly; he commenced a series of exhortations that were excellent adjuncts to the theory which advocates the superiority of persuasion to the application of force, but extremely ineffective in practice, when the subject is a quadruped of rather a stubborn nature, and perfectly ignorant of the vernacular in which he is addressed. Thus, when Mr. Billing endeavoured to accelerate the speed of his animal, by the utterance of such pathetic and endearing appeals, as "now, come along, poor old horsey;" "there's a good old horse;" "ge up;" "now, don't be angry" (as the beast showed signs of uneasiness); "walk a little faster, like a good old horse;" we say we would not have been surprised, had the horse paid no more heed to Mr. Billing's entreaties than we should be likely to do, were we addressed in a lively asinine interpellation, by one of those animals, whose peculiar idiosyncrasies are proverbial. But, strange to say in this case, the horse did notice the requests of his rider. Whether he was an animal of superior discernment, and detected the wishes of Mr. Billing in the tone of that gentleman's appeals; or, whether the intonation sounded to his ears strange and novel, and stimulated him with a desire to accommodate the applicant; or, whether he himself became anxious to reach his destination, to realize his visions of a stable and a feed, we cannot venture to say. But we simply record the fact, that Mr. Billing's request to the "old horse" was complied with; and the quadruped went off in a step, which was an incongruous mixture of a shambling walk, a canter, and a trot. That fable of the frogs, who in answer to their prayer for a king, obtained a carnivorous monarch of the aves genus, has no doubt been forcibly impressed on the memories of our readers during their scholastic probation. They will readily, then, understand the feelings of Mr. Billing, when he imprecated his rashness for disturbing the equanimity of his horse's pace; and we are convinced that the animals in the apologue never prayed more fervently for a discontinuance of their visitation than he did for an alleviation of his misery. All his "woa's," and "stop old horse's," were perfectly unavailing; the quadruped proceeded without the slightest notice, and with the greatest unconcern. But the torment to the biped was dreadful. What was he to do? He had uttered the talismanic syllable, that had called up the spirit; while he was not possessed of the power to exorcise it. His agony of body, was only equalled by that of his mind. He remembered Mr. Rainsfield had said the animal never went out of one step; and if that in which he then was should be the step, which he would of a necessity continue during the whole of the journey, what would become of him? The thought was horrible and insuperable; but he, Mr. Billing, the quondam pride of Thames Street, could not answer it; and in a stoical distress of mind he gave vent to a sigh, which seemed to jolt out by inches the centre of his little fastidious anatomy. He a thousand times wished himself back again, safe alongside the partner of his bosom; when no power on earth should persuade him to submit again to so ignoble a position and spectacle, as a ride on horseback. But something must be done, he thought; for as the horse proceeded in his jogging step, so did Mr. Billing continue to be battered by his jolting. The unfortunate equestrian was a perfect picture of distress. At every step of the animal, he was almost bounded from his seat. He could not speak, for the breath was almost shaken out of his body; while he dared not look around for fear of losing his equilibrium. He had also lost his hold of the bridle, which he dropt on the horse's neck; while he seized the pommel of the saddle for his further security, with the air and grasp of a resolute man who preferred even torture to the indignity of being unseated. What Mr. Billing's appearance was, when he was undergoing this ordeal, our readers who have witnessed a first riding lesson can easily imagine; and would, no doubt, were they witnesses of the scene, be ready to laugh at the victim's sufferings as we penitently confess ourselves to have done. Our friend's torture, however, continued as he turned over in his mind the best means of obtaining relief. If he should be so far fortunate as to meet any one in the road who would kindly stop the refractory animal, he thought, how grateful he would be; but of that he feared there was little chance. A thought, however, struck him and suddenly illumined his perturbed spirit. Why could he not stop him himself? It never occurred to him before, but now he experienced a gleam of hope; he thought, if he could but pull the bridle, the animal would cease his torturing career. But then how was he to effect this? If he relinquished his hold, he might lose his seat; however, he determined to try, and, summoning all his energies to his aid, he suddenly relaxed his grasp of the saddle, seized the bridle, and gave it as violent a tug as his strength would permit. His object, however, was not gained; for in his avidity to stop the horse he had pulled on the one side of the bridle, and his Rosinante, instead of slackening his speed to the desired pace, turned his head and looked Cyclops-like at his rider, in a way that said as plainly as looks could: "What is it you want?" But we have already stated that Mr. Billing was not versed in the significance of horse's looks, so he understood it not; but continued to tug with a violence that threatened his own downfall, and the dislocation of the quadruped's jaw. Servants, however industrious and painstaking, may sometimes find it difficult with petulant employers to ascertain the precise wishes of their superiors; and not unfrequently have we witnessed some truculent master abusing his menials for an act, the very nadir of which had previously met with his disapprobation; leaving the abusees in a state of doubt as to what really were the desires of "the master." In the same way was the horse in our narrative. He turned his head in the direction indicated by Mr. Billing's tug; and finding it still continued, he followed with his whole body; and, possibly under the impression that he was required to return home in the same leisure trot, he commenced a retrogression. That was not, however, what his rider required, at least while his journey was unaccomplished; for though, for his personal comfort, he devoutly desired it, such a course of action could not be thought of. Mr. Billing was a man of honour, and volunteered to perform the duty; had even pledged his word; while his respected master had told him that he relied upon his good judgment; therefore, was such a confidence to be misplaced, and his integrity to be called into question? "Never!" Mr. Billing mentally ejaculated; even if his life were to be sacrificed in an expenditure of sighs. An imputation of such a dereliction had never been cast upon the name of Billing, and should he be the first to disgrace the family? He mentally replied with an emphatic and forcible negative, and tugged away with increased energy at the bridle he continued to hold in his hand. It is needless to say the horse became bewildered at the manoevering of his rider. He had never experienced such treatment before, and could not comprehend its meaning. He stopped; the tugging continued. He turned again, and the tugging ceased. He thus discovered the desire of his director; and being at the time somewhat accommodatingly disposed, he proceeded at a snail-paced ambulation. Our readers will have by this time discovered that Mr. Billing's Rosinante was an animal of rather a peculiar temperament; and will therefore be prepared to hear that, having gained some experience of the style of individual on his back, he gave evidences of a disposition which caused no little uneasiness to the sensitive mind of the Strawberry Hill Mercury. This highly to be deprecated perversity, displayed itself in various "little games" of his own, which were performed with a degree of _nonchalance_ highly edifying to an admirer of coolness, though extremely alarming to our friend. Some of the most salient we may mention, were, grazing in the bush at the side of the track; rubbing himself against the trees; taking erratic turns in search of water-holes; and finally stopping altogether. This trial was worse than all, and brought Mr. Billing's patience to a culminating point. That the poor animal should desire a drink he thought in no way extravagant; but to coolly stand still, and decline any further progression, was the height of assumption; which even he could not tolerate. He therefore grew importunate in his demands for locomotion; and vibrated his legs like pendulums, while he shouted in a voice that betrayed anger. He again seized the bridle, and tugged away with equal violence as before, only varying the operation by pulling alternately, one side, and the other. Under this, or some unaccountable influence, the horse regained his amiability, and returned to the road; and, moreover, took the right direction for Alma; which, though at a pace by no means so fast as Mr. Billing could desire, yet in one which he thought preferable to that, the inconveniences of which he had had such tangible proof. However, he now jogged on at his leisure, and would doubtless have continued to have done so without any further adventure, had he not been disturbed from his equanimity by the unmistakeable sounds of an approaching bullock dray. The idea of meeting this threw him into a perfect state of perplexity, and he therefore thought of getting off the track to allow it to pass; but how to guide his perverse animal he knew not. The sounds came nearer, but his horse paid no attention to his admonitions; so, with visions of being gored to death by bullocks, he relinquished the contest with his animal, and gave himself up for lost. The dray slowly dragged its course along, and approached within sight of our adventurous friend; when its companions, amused at the figure before them, halted their team to have a little conversation with one whose appearance was truly enough to excite their risibility. Mr. Billing's horse, in like manner, aware that it was expected of him to halt, also did so; and the individual, who officiated as driver to the team, addressed the equestrian in the following easy style of familiarity: "I say, mate, don't you think you'd better get inside?" The force of this coarse joke was duly appreciated by the utterer's travelling companions; though it was entirely lost upon our friend, who gazed in mute astonishment at his questioner. While he indulges in this visual inspection, we will crave permission to make a slight digression, for the purpose of describing the parties thus unceremoniously introduced to the reader's notice. The driver of the dray, and the individual who had addressed Mr. Billing, was a man of ordinary stature; slight in make, and past the meridian of life. His features were sharp; his hair was tinged with gray; his eyes were of the same colour, and somewhat sunken in his head; on his chin and lip was hair of about a week's growth, having very much the appearance of a worn-out scrubbing brush, and of quite as course a texture. He was clad in the usual bushman's style, and carried the long whip of his order. At his side walked a young man, in appearance and manner a considerable improvement on the old one; and high upon the laden dray were perched two females. One was an old dame with features of the nut-cracker cast, and apparelled with an evident desire to combine in her person all the prismatic hues. Her more juvenile companion, while emulating the same laudable disposition, was certainly superior in looks to her, in the same proportion as the young man was to the old. The appearance of the whole party was such as proclaimed them at once, to the practised eye of Mr. Billing, to be of a class having no pretensions to gentility; though there was an air about them of careless freedom and easy comfort that, to him, ill accorded with their position. He had satisfied himself on this point, by his scrutiny, when he ventured to reply to the before mentioned remark of the old man by making the following observation: "May I be permitted, my good sir, to enquire the nature of the expression you just made use of? I presume you must have spoken in metaphor." "Not a bit, old cock," replied the man, "I guess I spoke in English. You didn't seem to enjoy travelling that ere way, so I just axed you if you'd get inside." "And pray, sir, what did you mean by that?" asked Mr. Billing, whose choler began to rise at what he considered the rude insolence of his interrogator. "Oh! nothing," replied the young man, who saw that their new acquaintance was likely to be a little irascible, "my father was only joking." "And pray, young man," said Mr. Billing, "is not your father aware that it is a gross breach of decorum his attempting to pass his jokes off on a gentleman? eh, sir?" "Certainly," replied the young fellow, "he is quite aware of it, but he has got such a way of joking with people that he does it all the same with friends and strangers; and I have no doubt he could not resist the temptation of having a slap at you, when he saw so elegant a rider and gentleman." This attempt of the young witling, while it highly amused the various members of the travelling menage, pacified Mr. Billing; who failed to perceive any irony in it; and, addressing the elder of the party with his usual suavity, he said, "May I be so bold as to enquire sir, the point of your destination? As I am not aware of the expectation of any one at our place, I presume you are bound for our neighbours at Fern Vale?" "No, we ain't, old fellow," replied the party addressed, "we are going to our own place, t'other side of Fern Vale. I 'spose you don't know us? My name's Sawyer, and this 'ere chap's my son: that there's my old woman on the dray; and our gal alongside on her. I've bought a run on the Gibson river, and am going to settle on it now. So, as you know all about us, take a 'ball,' and tell us who you are." With which he handed to Mr. Billing a bottle, containing some alcoholic fluid; and took out his pipe which he inserted between his teeth, and made to give forth a whistling sound, to satisfy himself upon the non-obstruction of the passage, preparatory to replenishing it with the weed. Mr. Billing having smelt the contents of the bottle, which had rather a rummy odour, returned it to old Sawyer with the remark: "You really must excuse me, sir, for I invariably make it a rule to abstain from spirits in the middle of the day, and never at any time drink them raw." "We can give you water old 'bacca' breeches, if you like it best that way," replied Sawyer, sen. "Not any, I thank you," said Billing, "I would prefer, I assure you, sir, to be excused; at the same time I value your kind attention." "Well, here's luck to you, old feller," said the other, as he took a pull at the bottle. "I don't believe in watering grog, it spoils good liquor. But I say, old cock, who are you?" "I, sir," said Mr. Billing, not exactly relishing this unceremonious style of questioning, and with difficulty suppressing his indignant ire, at being so vulgarly addressed by a low-minded besotted man. "I, sir," he repeated, "am Mr. James Billing of Strawberry Hill, and late of the firm of Billing, Barlow, & Co., of the city of London." He said this with the air of a man who would strike his interrogator with a sense of that forwardness that could prompt so rude a query as that which had been made by the head of the Sawyer family; and as one resolved to maintain the honour of his position, and claim that respect which was due to him as the representative of that class which is the acknowledged source of England's greatness; viz., the mercantile community. "I 'spect Strawberry Hill ain't yourn?" said Sawyer, unmindful of the reproof conveyed in the tone and language of Mr. Billing. "I believe it belongs to a chap of the name of Rainsfield, don't it?" "Mr. Rainsfield is the proprietor of the station, sir," replied Billing, "and I am his confidential assistant." "Oh, the 'Super?' I suppose," exclaimed the other. "No, sir," replied our friend, "his accountant." "Oh, I see," cried the old man, as the nature of his interlocutor's position flashed across his mind, "the storekeeper, that's all, eh? and where are you going now, mate?" "I can't see, sir," replied Mr. Billing, "how that can interest you in the slightest degree. I am not called upon to submit to your catechising; you must be perfectly aware that your questions are bordering on the impertinent; and but that I am a man of peace, I would resent your inquisitiveness, sir, as an insult." "My father meant no offence, sir," said the young man, while his parent gave vent to his amusement in a prolonged whistle, "it is only his way." "And a most unwarrantable way too, sir," said the now irate commercial man. "You need not get your rag out, old fellow," said the senior Sawyer, "if you can't take a bit of chaff you oughtn't to live in the bush." "Of that, sir, I'm the best judge," replied the indignant Billing. "No man is justified in offering chaff, as you call it, to a gentleman; more especially when the parties are perfect strangers. I made no rude and inquisitive remarks to you; and am surprised that you should have ventured to utter them to me." "Well, old fellow," said the other, "I ain't agoing to quarrel with you no how, so if you don't mean to tell us where you're going, why, you can just please yourself." "That, sir, I intend to do," replied Mr. Billing; "so, if you have no further enquiries to make, we may just as well part company." "All right, old chap," said Mr. Sawyer, "we'll go;" and while he put his team in motion, with his whip, he imparted a slight titillation to the flanks of Mr. Billing's horse, which caused that eccentric animal to go off in the step most torturing to his rider, amidst the united cachinnations of the Sawyer family. Mr. Billing experienced a return of all his former horrors; but his efforts this time to reduce his horse to a tractable obedience were fruitless; the animal persisted in keeping to his own pace, notwithstanding the various tugs, bridle sawings, admonitions, and solicitations of our disconsolate equestrian. He was fain at last to give up the contention, and submit to his fate; and, be it mentioned to his commendation, he bore his torture to the end of his journey with a degree of fortitude perfectly astounding. It was night when the horse stopped in front of the "Woolpack" inn, at Alma, and well was it for Mr. Billing's sensitiveness that it was so; for it saved him from the cruel jeers and laughter of the unsympathising ignoramuses who would have been sure to have made his misfortunes a subject for merriment. He was aroused from the abstraction of his calm resignation by the cessation of motion; and he perceived, with a lively joy, that his troubles were for the time at an end. How he got down from his saddle we are as ignorant as he was himself; though we can affirm that he scrambled off in such a manner as to bring himself to the ground in a prostrate position. Upon recovering from his surprise, after carefully brushing the dust from his apparel, he noticed that his horse, who was apparently well acquainted with the _locale_ of the place, had entered the yard, and was standing at the stable door, waiting with an exemplary patience to be admitted. Leaving him there, to be attended to by the proper authority, our friend entered the house with a step somewhat resembling the progression which, is to be assumed, would be that of an animated pair of compasses. He was met in the passage of the hostel by an individual of the masculine gender, who, with a sardonic grin, asked him "if that 'ere 'oss what was in the yard belonged to him;" and being answered in the affirmative, and that the repliant desired to be shown to the coffee-room, and required supper and a bed, he remarked, "I suppose you come from Mr. Rainsfield's? I know'd his old 'oss the moment I seed him, and he knows us as well as he does his master." "Indeed!" replied Mr. Billing, "it's very probable, my good fellow; but I have no desire to enter into a discussion with you respecting the merits or acquaintances of the animal. I would be exceedingly obliged to you if you would show me to my bed-room, and let me have some supper as soon as possible." "I don't think you've been much used to a riding of 'orses, sir," said the cool stable functionary, as he eyed our travel-worn friend from apex to base. But Mr. Billing was too indignant to answer him. He really thought that all the vagabonds in the country had conspired to insult him, and he determined to submit to their contumelies no longer; so, turning round upon his questioner, with a look of indignant scorn, he said: "I'll suffer no impertinence from you, sir, and I have to request you'll refrain from indulging in any further offensive remarks and queries, sir. If you are the landlord of this hostlery, sir, you are evidently unacquainted with your business; and if you are a servant in the establishment be good enough to inform your master that I desire to speak to him." "All right, sir," replied the man, "if you want to see the gov'ner I'll tell him." Saying which, the facetious servant took his departure with an evident risible excitement. In a few minutes the landlord himself made his appearance; and received Mr. Billing's order, and complaint against the domestic, with as much indifference as if they were matters not worth noticing; and without deigning any acknowledgment or reply beyond that which he put to his visitor in the following words. "Do you want anything to drink?" "Not at present, I thank you," replied the urbane son of commerce; "I desire first to have something to eat." "Oh! then you'll have to wait," replied the landlord, "for we don't cook meals at this time of night." "Well, my good friend," replied Mr. Billing, "I don't wish to inconvenience you, and your household; but I am perfectly voracious, and desire something solid. I am not fastidious and would be content with something cold, if your larder contains such." "No, we ain't got nothing cold," replied the master of the "Woolpack;" "we never keep it:" and with a grunt this specimen of politeness left the room. The unfortunate Mr. Billing was now subject to another species of annoyance; and we verily believe, had he not been the personification of patience, he would have been perfectly driven to distraction. Though shouts of revelry, and indications of drinking, emanated from the bar, he was not surprised or disturbed, for he expected it; but he heard sounds in the passage as of suppressed laughter, accompanied by stifled expressions in a strong Hibernian dialect. Whether the utterance was by male or female, it was difficult to conjecture; but Mr. Billing's doubts (if he had had any on the subject) were soon put to rest, for he plainly discerned the frontispiece of a biped; which, by the manner of arranging its natural scarlet covering, plainly proclaimed itself as belonging to the order of feminine. The features displayed a broad grin; and an inquisitive glance met that of our friend, as he stood facing the door. The head was hastily withdrawn when its owner perceived it had been noticed; but a laugh succeeded its withdrawal, and another cranium was protruded into the aperture, and retired in its turn with a laugh, to make way for another. Mr. Billing submitted to this scrutiny with the assumed fortitude of a stoic; and attempted to allay his rising ire, and deceive his perturbed spirit, by whistling one of the favourite airs from Norma. Now, Mr. Billing prided himself upon the accomplishment of whistling; for he did consider it an accomplishment, notwithstanding that some people call it vulgar. He had given it his study; and when in the height of conviviality, when he was at any time induced to favour his friends with a specimen of his art, he would throw his whole soul into the performance, and remain an unconscious spectator of passing events until the last note of his �olian melody died away amid the vociferous plaudits of his friends. He therefore, on this occasion, resolved to indulge in a little music to save himself from a knowledge of the annoyance of the menials' gaze, and to show them his utter contempt both for them and their unparalleled rudeness. With his eyes, then, firmly fixed upon a cleanly-dispositioned fly on the canvas ceiling of the room, as it was going through various crural manipulations on its cranium, he warbled forth a stanza in his most enchanting strain; so exquisitely sweet as to have softened the hearts of heathens had they been present. At least so says Congreve, in his oft-used sentiment, such is the opiate influence of phrygian chords on unsophisticated natures; but in the auditory of Mr. Billing it was otherwise. They possessed no taste for music, and only greeted his performance with screams of laughter. Human nature could not quietly submit to this fresh indignity, and Mr. Billing advanced with undisguised chagrin, and banged the door upon the sounds of retreating merriment. He was annoyed, disgusted, and ill at ease; and mentally made a resolution to get out of the place as speedily as possible, and never to darken the door again. It was fully an hour before his expected repast was put upon the table; and with a disturbed spirit, and body racked with pains of unutterable puissance, he partook of his meal and early sought the consolation of his pillow. On the following morning he habited and arranged himself with punctilious neatness; and waited upon Mr. Gilbert, the principal or rather the only storekeeper in the town, for the purpose of obtaining the articles required by Mr. Rainsfield. Upon his procuring these he arranged them in the valise prepared for them, and settled his reckoning at the inn previous to taking his departure. At his desire the horse was brought to the door; and, being provided with a chair, he effected a mounting with less difficulty than on the previous day. But his trials were not yet at an end; for not only the whole inmates of the Woolpack inn, but almost the entire population of the township (some hundred people), assembled _en masse_ to witness the start of the potent personage. The horse was set in motion by an admonitory application of a stick by one of the bystanders, which started him off in the step which was the dread of our friend; while he was hailed on all sides with a deafening cheer and shouts of laughter, which rung in his ears for some distance on his journey. CHAPTER IV. "What dire offence from amorous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things." POPE. We last left John Ferguson returning to Fern Vale after his interview with Mr. Rainsfield; and he had reached his home, and had actually dismounted from his horse, before the merry laugh of his sister roused him from his reverie. When Kate and the rest of the party had reached the house, they were surprised to find John absent; the more so as they were informed he had ridden over in the morning to Strawberry Hill. They certainly had not passed him on the road, and they thought there was no probability of his having been diverted from his purpose; they therefore could not understand where he had got to, though they agreed the best thing they could do was to await his return. William had taken them all over the place, and through the house that was only waiting the arrival of the furniture, to claim its pretty little visitor as its mistress; and the party were just emerging from the building, when Kate spied her brother John approaching, apparently absorbed in deep thought, and perfectly deaf to the sound of the voices of herself and her friends. When she, however, saw him alight from his horse, at the huts a short distance off, and perceived that he was perfectly abstracted, she could restrain her spirits no longer, and ran laughingly to throw herself in his arms. It was at this moment, that John Ferguson was made alive to the fact that his home had been honoured by the visit of his friends; and he advanced to meet his sister, and greeted her with a fond inosculation, as a token of fraternal affection. We do not approve of the constant eduction of scenes of affectionate union, where the thoughts, contemplations, and utterances, the spontaneous ebullitions of love, are dragged before the gaze of all. We deem them at all times too sacred to be made subject to the comments and criticism of uninterested parties; and therefore, in the case of Kate's meeting with her brother, would beg to draw a veil over the scene, and wait, in the resumption of our apologue, until they join their friends. The various greetings and congratulations were soon ended; and Tom Rainsfield commenced the general conversation by asking of his friend: "What on earth became of you, John? When we arrived here we were told you had gone over to our place; but you had not been there before we left, and if you had gone by the track we should have met. I suppose you were emulated with a desire for discovery, and attempted to find a short cut through the bush, eh?" "No indeed," replied John, "I kept to the road; but, I imagine, I must have been at Strawberry Hill just before you started, for, as I was coming up to the house, I saw saddled horses at the door. I was called in by Mr. Billing as I was passing his cottage, as he said he desired a little conversation with me; so I presume that, owing to that circumstance, I missed you." "What could have induced that inordinate old humbug," continued Tom, "to have drawn you into his den? I suppose to tell you all about his family affairs." "Yes," replied John, "he certainly did treat me to a long dissertation on his misfortunes in life; the greatest of which was his coming to the colony, and which appears, _prima facie_, to be the head and front of his offending." "But didn't you ask for us?" enquired Tom; "or did you see my brother? and did he not tell you that we had gone over to your place?" "I did see Mr. Rainsfield," said John, "but to tell you the truth, I did not go up to the house." "And you didn't even ask for me?" enquired Mrs. Rainsfield. "I could hardly have believed in such thoughtlessness in any of my friends, and especially in you. Pray, sir, will you make some explanation? I am almost inclined to be angry with you. But, as we intend to retain possession of your sister for some time, we shall demand of you, as penance; a constant attendance upon us at 'The Hill.'" "I fear, my dear Mrs. Rainsfield," replied John, "I must decline to enlighten you on my remissness; and I am afraid also I shall prove a refractory penitent; for, in the first place, I think it highly improbable that I shall have the pleasure of visiting Strawberry Hill again; at least for a time. And I must take an early opportunity of relieving you of the protection of Kate." "What does the man mean?" exclaimed his good-natured lady visitor, in mock astonishment. "Am I to understand that you not only refuse to come and see us, but that you are churlish enough to desire to seclude your sister with yourself in mutual confinement? You are really becoming perfectly mysterious, John Ferguson. I do not understand all this, and must insist upon a solution. Tell me, now," continued she, as she went smilingly up to him, "what is it that makes you estrange yourself from us, and studiously avoid our society? I think I can read you better than to ascribe it to that little fracas at our pic-nic." "I do not wish to pain you, my dear madam," replied Ferguson, "by making an explanation that I am confident will be extremely disagreeable to you; rather let me remain as I am, and retain your esteemed friendship, and believe me I have good cause for absenting myself from your house." "Nay, I will not be satisfied with that," replied Mrs. Rainsfield, "you are only intensifying my curiosity by endeavouring to evade my demand; something has occurred, I am sure, to make you so determined in your avoidance of us; and I must know what it is. If you decline enlightening me on the subject I must seek information from Mr. Rainsfield, or Eleanor; so you had better make a virtue of necessity, and tell me at once." "I had much rather the subject had not been broached," said John; "but, as you are determined to know the cause of my elimination, I suppose I must communicate what I would sooner have buried in oblivion. It appears that your husband has formed some prejudice against me, the cause of which I am unable to account for. I accidentally learnt from my black boys that some espionage, in connexion with your station, was meditated by the Nungar tribe; and I took an early opportunity of going over to Strawberry Hill to apprise Mr. Rainsfield of the fact. He received me with marked coolness, for what reason I am at a loss to conjecture; and actually accused me of exercising an incentive influence over the tribe to his detriment. I would willingly believe that he has formed some misconception of my actions; but to impute such a motive to me is simply ridiculous. He loaded me with invective, and wound up his inflammatory tirade by requesting that I would discontinue my visits to his house; and before I recovered from my surprise I found myself alone; though, even if he had remained, I question if I should have succeeded in disabusing his mind, for he seemed in no disposition to listen to reason. I have no doubt but that he will very soon discover his error; but until then, you will perceive, Mrs. Rainsfield, it is utterly impossible that I can pay my respects to you at 'The Hill;' and it would also, under the circumstances, be highly inconsistent in Kate stopping longer with you than can be helped." "I am truly grieved," replied the lady, "to hear of your rupture with my husband, Mr. Ferguson; it gives me great pain, I can assure you. I can't think he can be prejudiced against you, for he always entertained the highest esteem for you. It is possible he may have formed some erroneous impression with regard to those horrid blacks; but, whatever is the cause of the ill feeling, I will endeavour to dispel it; and have your friendship reestablished upon the old footing. But, in the meantime, it is impossible that you can take Kate away from us; you can't put her into an empty house, and you certainly would not have the cruelty to lodge her in those huts of yours. You must leave her with us, at least until you have made a comfortable home for her; and even then, I don't think the poor girl will have a very enviable life, living in seclusion, without a female near her." "I have already thought of that," replied John, "and have hired a man and his wife; the latter, who is a professed cook, will be entirely under Kate's direction. Besides, our little black fellow, Joey, whom we brought from New England with us, is as useful, if not more so, as half the female servants in the country. So I think, on that score, we will be able to make our sister perfectly comfortable." "At all events," said Mrs. Rainsfield, "it is understood you leave her with us until your furniture arrives." "Very well," replied John, "I suppose it must be so. I need not beg of you to refrain from mentioning to any one in your house, not even to Kate, that any unpleasantness exists between our families; your own good judgment will convince you of the non-necessity. But suppose we join our friends, for we appear to have wandered quite away from them during our conversation;" and John Ferguson, and Mrs. Rainsfield, returned to the spot where the rest of the party stood. "Well, it is to be hoped you two are satisfied with your 'confidential,'" remarked Tom, as the parties thus addressed joined the _menage_. "We were beginning to think you were meditating an elopement, and were just proposing giving you chase. We are agitating the question of return. Miss Ferguson says she does not like this dreadful wilderness of yours, John, and is anxious to get back to Strawberry Hill, and within the bounds of civilisation." "Oh, what a dreadful falsehood!" cried Kate, "you know I never said such a thing; for that I am half disposed to stop here at once, and if I thought it would be any punishment to you, I would. I am sure my brother would make room for me if I desired it." "I offer an abject apology, my dear Miss Ferguson," exclaimed the culprit; "we could not dream of losing you now; so I will make any reparation necessary to appease you." "Well, then behave yourself, sir, and adhere to the truth," said Kate. "I think, my dear," said Mrs. Rainsfield, "we really had better return, or it will be dark before we get home; so if Tom did not read your thoughts, his fib suggested an expediency." Kate now took leave of her brother; and Mrs. Rainsfield, she, and Tom mounted their horses, and departed; the latter turning in his saddle as he left the station, called out to John, "I'll be over in the morning;" and the party were speedily lost to sight. Mr. Wigton and the brothers turned into the hut, and were soon engaged in a conversation, which, though interesting to themselves, it is unnecessary for us to follow. Towards the close of the evening as they sat before their hut, the brothers enjoying their pipes over the fire that was boiling the water for the infusion of the temperate beverage that graced their board at the evening meal; and while Joey, who officiated in the culinary department, was preparing the repast in the interior of the domicile, the dray that we have met already on the road from Alma, was seen to wind slowly off the face of the ridge and down the vale to the creek that ran through it. Here it stopped, while the driver seemed to hold an altercation with his companions, and appeared to be undecided as to some course they were meditating. "Who are those people, William?" said his brother. "Where on earth can they be going? Just step down and see; for they must surely have gone out of their way, and find themselves now at a stand still." William walked down to the spot where the dray had halted; and returned in a few minutes with the information, that the travellers were on their way to take possession of a "run" one of the party had bought, on the river below their own place, from Bob Smithers; and stated that he had told the fellow that he might camp where he was, and go over and form his station on the following day; he had also invited him to come up to the hut in the evening and smoke his pipe, which the man had promised to do. His name, William said, was Sawyer; and he appeared to be an individual who had not been blessed with either much cultivation or education. "He is," said William, "a regular specimen of an old hand, and I expect has seen much service." In the course of the evening Mr. Sawyer made his appearance with his "old woman," as he familiarly designated his wife, and daughter. The family was unaltered in appearance since we last introduced it to the reader; and while the females took their seats on two stools, provided for them by the Fergusons, in a stiff and formal manner which they intended for a distinguishing mark of good breeding, the old man threw himself down on the grass before the fire. After collecting a few sticks, and throwing them on himself, he lit his pipe with a "fire stick," and commenced the following conversation; which he continued between the intervals of his smokey eructations. "I suppose you ain't been here long, mate," said he, addressing John; "you look as if you had newly settled, and the country here can't have been long taken up." "It is true," replied John, "we have not been resident here very long, not yet twelve months. My brother tells me you have purchased the block of country below us; may I ask if you are about to stock it?" "Well, I ain't agoing to do nothing else. You see I have got my dray down there with my rations, and traps; and I am now going over to fix upon a place for my station, and put up some huts and yards. We have bought our stock on the 'Downs,' and my other son is there now, waiting for me to go back, to be there while the sheep are drafted. We must get a place up first to put the old woman and the girl in, and then we will look after the stock." "But," said William, "you surely are not going to leave your wife and daughter alone, while you go back to the Downs for your flocks? It can't be your intention to leave them unprotected, in this part of the bush? Are you aware of the freedom of the blacks here?" "No," replied Sawyer, "I don't know much about the blacks in these parts; 'cos I ain't seen much of them yet; but I know just exactly what they were on the Hunter twenty years ago; and I be sure they arn't worse here than they were there; and my old woman has had as much to do with them as me. Do you think I am afraid to leave her by herself? Lord bless you, sir; my word! she is 'all there' to take care of herself; and in her own house I'll back her against any dozen white men and any fifty blacks." "You are quite at liberty," said John, "if you like, after you have built your huts, to leave your wife and daughter and your stores and things here to await your own return." "I am obliged to you, young man," exclaimed old Sawyer; "but I'd rather leave them at our own station, and I reckon they would rather stop there themselves; besides if I built my huts, and then left them, the blackguardly blacks would most likely burn them." "Well, Mr. Sawyer, you can please yourself," replied John, "but you are quite welcome to make use of our place if you like." "All right, sir," replied he addressed, "I've no doubt; but you see I've no fear of my old woman being alone, so I shall just leave her to bide until I come back. Howsomdever we shan't be long away, and I don't think I shall be so lucky as to find, when I do come back, that anybody has run away with her." "I trust, Mr. Sawyer," continued John, "you may have no cause to reprehend yourself for your confidence in your wife's ability to protect herself and her daughter; and, if we can be of any service to them, I trust you will make no scruple in commanding us; for we desire to live on terms of amity with our neighbours, and it is essential to be mutually obliging at times." "In course, young fellow; you are a brick, so give me your hand," cried the head of the Sawyer family, as he started to his feet, "we must have a nobbler on the strength of that;" saying which he abstracted a bottle from the breastine recesses of his garments, and handed it to John, who called to Joey to bring some pannikins and water. "I must apologize," said he, "for not offering you a glass of grog myself before this; but, to tell you the truth, we have not got any on the station, and here we don't usually drink it; but to keep you company, I don't mind taking a small drop." The bottle was handed to Mr. Wigton, William, and the women in succession; the two former of whom declined, and the latter partook; while the dispenser himself filled out a jorum for his personal libation, and drank success to himself, and the world generally, in that comprehensive aphorism which seemed to him to answer for all occasions; viz., "here's luck." He felt disappointed, however, when, upon a second presentation of the "homiletical stimulator," he found no one to join him, and he remarked with an apparent degree of truth: "Why, I never did see fellers like you refuse good liquor. I can't think how you can do it; for my part, I'm blow'd if I ever do: it's a sin." "Don't you think, my good man," said Mr. Wigton, "it's rather a sin to indulge too freely in its use? If you do not think so, I can assure you that it is; to say nothing of the moral degradation of the drunkard, the lavish squandering of your means, and the injury to your health." "Lor' bless you, sir," replied Sawyer, "I never felt the worse of my liquor. I might ha' been a bit drunk now and then, but what's the odds of that? I get all right again in a giffey; I wouldn't give a snuff for a fellow that couldn't take his grog, and get drunk now and then like other men. When I was an overseer on the Hunter some years ago, a mate of mine and me got two gallons of rum up to my hut, to have a spree one night. One of my fellows, who was an assigned 'un, was a decent cove, though he never spoke to the other men, 'cos he thought hisself a real gent. Well I pitied this coon; and seeing him that evening, I asked him if he'd come up to my hut, and have 'a ball' or two with us; but bless you, he flew into a pelter, and called us all sorts of names, because, he said, we wanted to make beasts of ourselves; just as if having a bit of a spree, was making of beasts of ourselves, and as if we hadn't a right to drink our own grog. Well, thinks I, you are a chicken; but I lets him 'ave his own way; and what do you think, sir? He took to bush-ranging and was hanged. Now, do you think he was better than me, for not getting drunk that time?" "In his refusal, he certainly showed an appreciation of right, whatever his previous or after career may have been," replied Mr. Wigton. "But, Mr. Sawyer, you must really permit me to impress upon you the absolute uselessness of drinking to excess; its sinfulness I will be able to convince you of afterwards. In the outset of your spree, as you call it, you provide a stock of spirits, which you lay yourself out to drink, uninterruptedly, until it is finished. After the first hour you become quite unconscious of everything around you, while you continue to drink mechanically, without actually knowing you are doing so, and certainly without your palate experiencing any gratification. So that the greater portion of the spirits you have drank has been consumed without affording you any satisfaction; in fact, wasted; and your money thrown away. Now, consider, what are the effects of this spree? If you are of a good constitution, and escape _delirium tremens_, are not your sufferings still very acute? far more so than to be commensurate to the wild excitement of the debauch? You are sick, your head seems every moment ready to split; you are for days absolutely wretched and ill; and not until your constitution works off the ill effects of your dissipation do you recover your wonted health; whereas, if you had confined yourself to drinking your grog in moderation, you would have enjoyed it for a lengthened period, escaped all the unpleasant symptoms I have mentioned, and not injured your health; so you will perceive that drunkenness is useless. I am well aware that it is difficult to convince men such as you, who like their grog, to such a belief; but if you could only be induced to try abstinence I have no doubt you would readily agree with me, with regard to its sinfulness." "Oh, never mind that," cried Sawyer, "I don't want to have no sermon; if I like to buy grog, and drink it all at once, it don't hurt nobody but me; and if I choose to do it, why, it is my look out, and don't matter to anybody else. But come along, old woman," he continued, addressing his wife, "we must be going down to our camp;" and turning round to John, he said, "we left our boy down with the dray, and he will be thinking the time long without us." "I'll come over to you in the morning," said William, "I may be of some assistance to you, as I have no doubt you will want to get up a covering for the females as soon as possible." "All right, young man, we will be glad to see you," replied Sawyer; saying which, and uttering a general "good night," that was echoed by his accompanying helpmate and progeny, he bent his steps towards the light of his own fire; and was speedily lost in the gloom. "I could have desired," said Mr. Wigton, as the Sawyers departed, "more eligible neighbours for you than those people, and should recommend you, at the outset, not to permit too much familiarity from them; nor to cultivate a very close degree of acquaintanceship. It is as well to preserve a good feeling as neighbours; but for Kate's and your own sakes I would recommend that you let them understand at once, by your manner, that you do not intend to admit them on an equality. The example they would set to you all, especially to your sister, I consider highly reprehensible; and it is better to avoid at once the possibility of contamination than discard it when once the infection is made palpable." "I think with you," said John, "that they are by no means desirable neighbours; and I will certainly follow your advice. I did not like the appearance of the people from the first; and the offer I made them to remain here I could not in common civility avoid; however, I am happy they did not accept it, and only regret that William should have promised to go over to them." "Oh," said William, "I only want to learn something of that man's history. I know his life must have been an eventful one from the few remarks he made while here. You may believe me, otherwise I have no desire to devote much of my time to his or his family's society." "You are quite right William," said Mr. Wigton; "but tell me," said he, turning to John, "what arrangements have you made for the reception of your sister? I see you have got a very nice little cottage, but it will surely take you some time to put things in perfect order for her." "I expect," said John, "a dray up every day with furniture, and the necessity utensils for the commencement of our housekeeping. If anything is amiss we must fall back on William, for he selected them. When they arrive they shall be put in as good order as possible; I have engaged a man and his wife, and with the assistance of the latter, I think Kate will get on swimmingly. She will have very kind neighbours at Strawberry Hill, who are extremely anxious to keep her with them; and I am sure will be very attentive to her when she settles herself with us. So I think, so far, everything appears auspicious; though I would considerably have preferred having the house ready for her at once. To-day I came to an open rupture with Rainsfield, and he forbade me his house for the future; under which circumstance I think it is hardly right for one member of our family to be partaking of his hospitality." "I am grieved to hear of your quarrel," remarked Mr. Wigton; "how did it occur? is it possible to heal the breach?" "Why, for my own part," said John, "it were easy; but, judging from the animus displayed by my opponent, I do not think it would be readily accomplished. Mr. Rainsfield is under the strange hallucination that I am influencing the blacks in their depredations on him; and when I called upon him, to put him upon his guard against impending danger, he attacked me with surprising virulence. I fear the quarrel is irremediable, and I only now desire to get Kate away; I have got every thing here comfortably arranged for her, and am only waiting for the furniture to complete her home." "I think you are perfectly right," replied the clergyman, "in your desire to bring your sister under your own roof; though, I have no doubt, she would desire to remain a short time longer with the kind ladies whose friendship she has been fortunate enough to secure. But it is only proper that she should join you when you complete your arrangements, in which, I think you have certainly shown some judicious management. I am sure Kate will reward you by settling into a first-rate little house-wife. She is a good, kind-hearted, affectionate girl; and, from what I have witnessed, I only think you will be speedily called upon to part with her; for, you may depend, such a treasure as she is will soon be discovered, even in this remote spot." "I expect that will be the result of our training," said John, laughingly; "but, if our sister's happiness will be furthered by the severance, I will be truly happy to make the sacrifice; though I don't think we have much fear of losing her for some time to come. But tell us, my dear friend, about your own movements. I trust you intend favouring us with your company for some lengthened period." "I can remain with you for some little time," replied Mr. Wigton, "perhaps a fortnight or more; but next month I am expected to be in Brisbane, and will, therefore, have to leave you in time to reach town before the middle of next month. I am particularly desirous of having some interviews with the blacks of your neighbouring tribe, to endeavour, if possible, to ameliorate their wretched condition; and, if you have no objection, I will get you to pilot me to their camp." "With all my heart," said John, "I am quite at your service whenever you desire to go, and I am sure William will join us too; what do you say, Will?" "By all means," replied he, "I'll go over with you, if you like, to-morrow afternoon, when I return from those people below us. You will have a good opportunity of speaking to them, Mr. Wigton, as the greater part of the tribe is assembled in the scrub just now." After making the best arrangements they could for their visitor in their limited accommodation, the brothers and their friend retired for the night; and, on the following forenoon, William mounted his horse and rode over to the Sawyers' run, to satisfy his curiosity with regard to the Sawyer paterfamilias. CHAPTER V. "I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul." HAMLET, _Act 1. Sc. 5._ William leisurely followed the track of the Sawyers' dray for about an hour, when he came up to their encampment, where they had apparently fixed upon a spot for their station. They must have been early in their departure from Fern Vale, and industrious in the interval; for, at the moment of William's arrival, they had got up a tent, under which they had placed the loading from their dray; while, amongst the various packages, the fair Hebe of the previous night was to be seen busily plunging, tugging, and sorting. Already pegs were placed at various distances in the ground to point out the boundaries for their respective enclosures and establishments; and a large tree lay stretched on the sward, in the spot on which it had fallen when succumbing to the axe of the younger Sawyer. The paternal couple were engaged dissecting the monster in sections of about nine longitudinal feet, and were plying the cross-cut saw with a will; while the son was driving an iron wedge into one of the lengths, thus dissected, to split it up into slabs for the erection of their hut. William had approached close to this industrious family, before their attention was diverted from their work by a knowledge of his presence; and the old man raising his head from his stooping posture, as the saw cut through the log, greeted him with a "good morning," that was echoed by the group. "There, old woman," said her husband, "you can go help Mary Ann in the tent, and I'll go on splitting with Reuben. Well, young un," said he, turning to William, "yon chap at your place, last night, I guess was a parson; he wanted to give me a sermon, but I didn't see it, so I cut it short; what does he do there with you?" "Nothing," replied William, "he is merely a friend of ours, and only came to the station with me yesterday; he is a kind-hearted excellent man, and I am sure whatever he would have said to you would have been sound advice." "Oh, I never doubt him," said the other, "only I don't like those parsons, and never get into any arguments with them; whatever you say they twist so to suit their own ways and sayings. Who would ever have thought that he would have said that fellow, as I was a talking of, was any better for a blackguarding of me for offering him of my grog." "What were the particulars of that story?" enquired William, "you did not tell us last night." "Well, if you wants to hear it," replied Sawyer, "I don't mind having a pull at my pipe for a few minutes while I tell you." "I would like exceedingly to hear," replied William. Whereupon the old man took his seat upon the log he had been splitting; filled his pipe and lit it; while Rueben was resting on his maul, and William, who had affixed the bridle of his horse to the stirrup, and allowed him to graze about the spot, took his seat at the old man's side. After ejecting from his mouth a volume of smoke he commenced the following narrative; which, for the sake of perspicuity, we will take the liberty of clothing in our own words. Old Sawyer was "an old lag," and had been a long time in servitude (and afterwards in freedom) on the Hunter river. During the latter part of his career in that district he had been pretty successful as a farmer, and had accumulated some little means; but agriculture, in his opinion, ceasing to be a profitable occupation he had determined to turn to squatting; and had consequently sold his farm, and taken up the run on which he was then settling. It is of his early career, however, that we have at present to speak. At a primary era of his penal servitude he was, in common with most of his class, assigned to a master in the district in which he was located; and, after a time, was made by his master an overseer over the other servants. Amongst those under his supervision, were two young men who had held some posts of trust in England, and either from some fraudulent delinquencies, or culpable dereliction of duty, had made themselves amenable to the then stringent laws of their country, and were transported to the penal colony. They were both men of education and gentlemanly bearing; and, from a life in a clerical appointment, they were both totally unused to manual labour, and unfit to grapple with the trials of the convict discipline. They were, consequently, awkward and clumsy in the performance of their allotted tasks; while their inability was construed, by their truculent master, into perversity and stubbornness; and he swore, by increased toil and exactions, to break their gentlemanly pride, as he termed their unskillfulness. The two young men were put on one occasion, by the direction of the master, to fell some large trees, and they were given a cross-cut saw for the purpose; but on the first tree, on which they tried their hands, they broke their saw. As soon as the circumstance became known to their employer, he sent them to the magistrate; and had them sentenced to fifty lashes each for insubordination; and, after the execution of the sentence, to be sent back to work. They returned to their work, but from that moment they were altered men. The crushing influence of the convict system had done its work; they had undergone the demoniacal transition; and two more victims were added to that mass who breathed only for vengeance on their tyrants. It was during the period between this punishment, and the accomplishment of their vengeance, that Sawyer, who really pitied the poor fellows, had given the bibulous invitation, and met with the rebuff. Not long after this, the two convicts made their escape, and took to the bush; which was scoured for months, over an immense extent, for their recovery, but ineffectually. Nothing was heard of them for nearly two years, when one, famished and emaciated, gave himself up at the settlement; reported the death of his companion; and confessed to the participation in one of the most horrible crimes on record; that which we are about to relate. About six months after the escape of himself and his companion, when it was supposed they had perished in the wilds of the bush, the man whom we have mentioned as their master was suddenly missed. Upon instituting a search his body was found; but in such as state of putrefaction, and presenting such a hideous spectacle, that it was not removed; but a hole dug at the spot where it was discovered, and the remains, like any other vile carcass, shovelled into its last resting-place. The event at the time was thought of little moment, as the man was generally detested, and had no friends to agitate the matter; so it was hardly conjectured who were the perpetrators of his murder, and not until the criminal himself had confessed to the crime, were the authorities at all acquainted with the matter. It appeared that the young men, when they effected their escape, secreted themselves in gullies and crevices of the rocks; only venturing out in search of food during the darkness of night. In this way they existed; enduring the greatest privations, and living only for the hope of revenge. They waited for the opportunity that was to throw their victim into their hands, with a patience worthy of a better cause; and watched with an eagerness and vigilance, almost perpetual, until the happy moment arrived, and they possessed themselves of the person of their late detested master. He had been returning over-land from Sydney, and was leisurely approaching the settlements of the Hunter, when he was espied by the convicts. Great was their joy at this moment; though they knew, that even now that he was within their reach, they would experience great difficulty in securing him; more especially, as they were convinced he would be armed, while they were not. However, they determined to risk their lives in the attempt, for his death to them was sweeter than the preservation of their own lives. They secreted themselves, one on either side of the road along which he had to go; and, at the moment when he was just about passing them, they simultaneously rushed from their ambush; and, before he was hardly aware of their presence, they had seized him by the arms, dragged him from his horse, and deprived him of the fire-arms he had had no time to use. They then bound him, and led him away into the bush, leaving his horse to find its way home at pleasure. The captors, after pinioning the arms of their victim, took him through the country, over ranges and across gullies, into the recesses of the bush, where they had taken up their abode; not deigning to enter into any conversation with him by the way. He, however, treated his captivity lightly, imagining that they were merely removing him from the road, to give themselves a surer opportunity of escape when they released him. He had no doubt but that their object was simply to rob him; and, by withdrawing him from the chance of assistance, they were only securing their retreat, in the event of his returning to arrest them after regaining his liberty. He was therefore consoling himself that he had very little on him to lose; and would experience very little difficulty in finding his way to the settlement. Very different ideas traversed the brains of his captors; though they preserved a uniform taciturnity to his jocular sallies; and, except that they well guarded against the possibility of his escape, they took not the slightest notice of him, and treated him with the most marked contempt. After walking thus for about two hours, they came to a deep gully, through which rippled a small limpid creek; on the sides of which, and extending up the faces of the gorge, were masses of rock piled in endless confusion. Here they halted, and having secured their prisoner to a tree, while one lit a fire, the other disappeared among the rocks, and returned with some edibles, scanty in quantity, and mean in quality. Having with these appeased their hunger, and quenched their thirst at the stream; they sat down by the fire, and conversed together in a low tone; protracting their conclave until darkness enclosed the scene. The fears of the wretched victim were at length aroused by these mysterious proceedings. A horrible sensation crept over his mind; he felt no doubt that the convicts were holding a consultation as to how they would dispose of him; and he entertained a secret suspicion, that their object was not plunder, but murder. He still, however, argued with himself, that they could have no object in taking his life, by which they would gain nothing; whereas they might enrich themselves by robbing or ransoming him. He therefore attempted a parley to induce terms. "I say, young fellows," he shouted, "how long are you going to keep me here? you may as well take what I have got and let me go; or if you demand a ransom, let me know the amount, and provide me with pen and ink, and I will give you a cheque on the bank in Sydney." "Silence, wretched man!" replied one of the convicts, advancing to him and presenting one of his own pistols at his head, "or I'll blow out your brains; we scorn to appropriate an article belonging to you. Even these instruments of death shall be left with you when we leave you; we do not desire booty. Your time has come, when you are called upon to atone to man for your many iniquities: and to-morrow you will have to account to your God." "What! you surely do not mean to kill me?" screamed the terrified captive, in a voice that echoed in a thousand keys through the cavernous glen: "what have I done to deserve death from you? I have never wronged you to my knowledge; if I have, I will make all the reparation in my power; but spare my life, and I will give you whatever you demand." "'Tis useless, you dog," replied his inquisitors. "If we desired plunder, we know you too well to believe in promises, extracted from you under such circumstances as these; and we are also aware of the impossibility of our procuring the ransom you may offer, or, even if we got it, of enjoying it." "No, by heaven!" exclaimed the frantic wretch, "I swear to you on my soul, spare me my life, and I will give you whatever you ask, one hundred, five hundred, or a thousand pounds." "Your prayers to us," replied his captors, "are of no avail, to-morrow you die; so in the meantime, make your peace with your Maker, if such be possible." "But why kill me?" screamed the agonized man, "what have I done to deserve death?" "Wretch! do you want a recital of your sins?" replied his quondam servant; "have they been so insignificant that you cannot call any to present recollection? Are they not rather as numerous as the hairs on your head? does not the black and heinous catalogue rise before you, and darken your very soul? You have asked us why you are to die; I will tell you, and let God judge between us whether your fate is not your just reward; while you, vile reptile that you are, answer if you can, if we have not just cause to require your death to expiate your crimes. "How have you fulfilled the government requisitions to your assigned servants? How have you fed them and clothed them? Have not their coverings been such, as to be as bad or worse than none? insufficient for any season; causing paralysis in winter, and sun-strokes in summer? Has not their food been unfit for pigs? Have you not tyrannized over them, and submitted them to unheard-of cruelties; simply to gratify your insatiable thirst for witnessing torture? Have you not, when you had a willing servant, who was anxious to conduct himself orderly and give satisfaction, made some paltry excuse to have the man punished; because you feared you would lose his services, by his obtaining his 'ticket of leave,' for good conduct? Have you not done all this? Yes! and more. You have even compelled your men to intoxicate themselves; and then accused them before a magistrate of stealing the spirits, to obtain the cancelling of their tickets. You have by your cruelty driven men mad, to the bush, or to a lingering death; you have crushed the germ of contrition in the breasts of hundreds, and degraded them to the level of beasts; while the only sounds grateful to your ears, have been the yells of anguish of your victims; and the only spectacle pleasing to your sight, the application of the lash. You have done all this, and even more in hundreds or thousands of cases. You have done so to us; you have heaped ignominy upon our heads; and with starvation, exposure, and accumulated toil, you have caused unjustly our backs to be lacerated by the lash, and our spirits to be broken by your barbarity. Life to us has lost its charm; we thirst only for your blood; vengeance is now in our hands, and you shall die." The yells of the wretched man, that followed this denouncement, sounded through the glen as the shrieks of a demon or a maniac; and his cries might have been heard far into the bush, had there been any one near to help him. But they were lost on the wilderness' air; and he at last sank exhausted in his bonds, while his captors watched alternately at his feet, with his own loaded pistols ready for use in case of emergency. The morning dawned as brightly as ever; though the stillness of the bush cast a gloom upon everything within its umbrageous influence. The convicts were up and stirring by daylight, and their first task was to arouse their unconscious victim (who seemed to doze in a lethargic indifference), and prepare him for his approaching fate. He was speedily denuded of his attire, and bound hand and foot; in which condition he was laid over the bed of an ant's nest, and tied by his extremities, in a state of tension, to opposite trees; in such a manner as to keep his body immoveable over the nest. The wretched man soon awoke to the horrors of his situation, and implored, with the earnestness of a dying man, of his murderers to save his life. But he appealed to feelings and sympathies that were dead; that had, in fact, been strangled by himself: it was in vain. After the most desperate resistance he was secured in his place of torture, while the very skies rang with his cries of anguish and despair. His body was no sooner prostrate on the heap, than the ants in myriads attacked it vigorously; in a few minutes making its surface black with their swarms; penetrating into his very flesh, and making use of the natural channels to affect ingress to his inner system; and travelling in continuous streams in and out of his nostrils, ears, and mouth. The horrors of the picture it is impossible to describe; and the expression of his features it is equally difficult to conceive. The colour of his skin speedily changed to deep blue; the veins and muscles stood out in bold relief; his eyes projected from his head, and rolled, bleared as they were, in sockets of livid flesh; he gnashed his teeth in his unutterable agony, and rent the air with horrible and impious imprecations; while the utterance was almost diabolical by the vermin that choked the passages of his system. No human being could long bear this excruciating torture; and at last the body perceptibly swelled, the coeliac or cavernous parts becoming horribly distended, and the spirit fled to its heavenly judgment. Not till then, did the two calm spectators leave the spot, where they had witnessed the death of their victim, and where they now left "nature's scavengers" to finish the work they had commenced. The sufferings of the two convicts from this time must have been fearful; for one shortly succumbed to them, while the other bearing it for some months longer, gave himself up to the authorities, and met his fate on the gallows. After the relation of the above tale of woe the elder Sawyer and his son resumed their work, and the conversation took a general turn; while William, who found he could not be of any service to the settlers, caught his horse and took his leave. When he returned to his own place he found that, during his absence, the expected dray had arrived from town with their furniture, which lay strewn on the ground, in front of the cottage, where it had been discharged. And he at once became busy in unpacking and sorting the things; while his brother superintended the refreighting of the vehicle with what return loading they had for it. The man and wife who had been hired for them, and who had accompanied the dray, busied themselves in arranging the things in the cottage. The proposed visit to the blacks, by this opportune arrival, was necessarily postponed; and it was determined that William should, that very afternoon, ride over to Strawberry Hill; inform Kate of the orders of things; and desire her to join them as soon as possible. John impressed upon his brother the necessity of urging Kate to lose no time, as the place would be quite ready for her by the following day; and he did not think, under the existing circumstances, it was consistent for her to remain longer with the Rainsfields than was absolutely necessary. "Of course," he said, "Kate would be perfectly ignorant of the rupture between myself and Mr. Rainsfield, and might therefore battle against so speedy and abrupt a termination to her visit." But he left the matter, he told William, to himself to manage, without entering into any explanations to their sister, which would necessarily be painful to all parties; besides which, he had no doubt, when Mrs. Rainsfield perceived it was his desire to have Kate home with them, she would offer no objection to her departure, as she would understand his motive for desiring it. William was accordingly dispatched on the errand; and returning in the evening, in company with Tom Rainsfield, gave an account of his diplomacy. As was anticipated by the brothers, Kate could with difficulty be persuaded to break off her engagement with the Rainsfields; but that when she saw that both her brothers desired it, and that she was not pressed to prolong her visit, she reluctantly acceded to her brother's request; and promised to be ready to come over to Fern Vale on the following morning. So William had engaged to return for her the next day. "It is lucky for you, my fine friend," said Tom, "that I was not at home, when you persuaded your sister to such an ungracious determination; for I, most assuredly, would have annihilated you, and kept her in captivity. It is really cruel just to leave her with us sufficiently long to cause us all to adore her; and then snatch her away from us in such an unceremonious manner. What on earth can you mean by carrying her off in this way?" "Why," said John, "we are afraid of losing sight of you altogether, Tom; you would have forgotten us entirely while you retained possession of our Kate; and besides we want to make some use of our idle little sister. But tell us now, if you were not at home when William was at your house, pray, where did you spring from?" "I have been over to the black's camp, to try and conciliate the rascals," replied Tom, "but I am sorry to find they are death on my brother for his treatment of them." "You seem to have agitated them by your visit," said John, "for they have made a fearful disturbance all the afternoon." "They were holding some discussion when I arrived there," said Tom, "but they were quieted upon my presenting myself." "They appear then only to have been 'called to order' by you," said John, "and maintained it simply during your stay; for did you ever hear such a Babel of voices as are screaming now; it is enough to deafen us even at this distance." CHAPTER VI. "If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly." MACBETH, _Act I, Sc. 6._ When Mr. Rainsfield parted from Mr. Billing, after escorting him to the junction of the Alma and Brompton roads, he returned home to carry out his contemplated arrangements; in the concatenation of which, his first step was to remove the stores from the building used as a store to an apartment in the house; and he had barely effected this, before Tom, his wife, and Kate returned. When the ladies retired in the evening Tom asked his brother if John Ferguson had been at Strawberry Hill in the morning; and how it was that he had not been seen by any other inmate of the house. Rainsfield replied that John Ferguson had certainly been there in the morning; and that the cause of his not having been seen by the family was an interview that had taken place between himself and Ferguson by which he, Mr. Rainsfield, had learnt that the blacks were meditating some fresh outrage; and he would therefore be glad if Tom would undertake a mission to them to mediate a pacification. Rainsfield was playing a deep and hazardous game, and he felt it himself. Even to his brother he had recourse to dissimulation to blind or divert him from a perception of a stratagem in which he was aware he could not procure Tom's concurrence. He therefore wished to get him out of the way while he worked his diabolical machinations. He knew that whatever the purpose of the blacks might be, they would not be diverted by the persuasion of Tom; and, as he naturally conceived their object to be pilfering, he intended to be perfectly prepared for them. At the same time he wished none of his own family to witness the preparations he was making. "Very well," said Tom, "I will go to-morrow; for, to tell you the truth, I have myself thought for some time that they were hatching some mischief; and my suspicions were the more aroused when I witnessed, along with John Ferguson, their last corroboree. It struck me then, more than once, that I heard your name uttered by them in their song." "Were you then at the corroboree?" enquired Rainsfield. "Yes," replied Tom. "But tell me what information John Ferguson imparted to you, and how he obtained it." "Well, I can hardly tell you now," said Rainsfield, "for I was so agitated at the time that much of it was lost to me; but I believe he said his blacks boys, who had returned from the camp after the corroboree, had informed him that the tribe intended something; though what the exact nature of the meditated aggression was, they were unable or unwilling to explain." On the following day Rainsfield was anxious to get Tom off before the arrival of Billing, whose absence he had not perceived. And he wished, if possible, to prevent the necessity of accounting for the storekeeper's journey to Alma; the very circumstance of which, unusual as it was, he knew would excite the wonder of Tom. While, if not perfectly satisfied with his explanation, he feared his brother might be induced to seek further information from Mrs. Billing; whom Rainsfield felt no doubt was a confident of her husband, and acquainted with the object of the journey, at least such object as was assigned to it by himself. So he urged upon Tom the advisableness of dispatch, to prevent the blacks from carrying out their plans, if they meditated anything that night. Tom promised to go about mid-day, or early in the afternoon, and to stop with them until late in the evening, so as to detain them, if they meditated any outrage on the station, from its execution; and about one o'clock he took his departure, much to the relief of his brother. Not long afterwards the horse that was supposed to be carrying the burden of Mr. Billing's body presented himself at the door of the house, though minus his rider. The valise was instantly removed by Mr. Rainsfield, who perceived that the desired articles were therein; and he then dispatched one of his men, with the horse, to go back and look for the missing equestrian; without allowing the sensitive nerves of that doating creature, the sharer of all his earthly troubles, to be unnecessarily agitated by a knowledge of her husband's abasement. The rider was not long in returning with the lost representative of commerce, who had in the agony of his motion, and in a futile effort to stop the career of his carrier, lost his balance in his saddle, and described what in skating counties is designated a "spread eagle." He, however, found himself less hurt than he at first anticipated, and he speedily adopted a sensible resolution to make the best progress he could on foot. While the horse, after relieving himself of his encumbrance, and getting beyond the reach of capture, must have taken his leisure, for Mr. Billing was no very great distance behind him. "Well, Mr. Billing," said his master, as that individual addressed made his appearance in a sorry plight, "how did you enjoy your excursion to Alma? I am sorry to see you have got thrown; I trust you have not hurt yourself." "I am happy, sir, to assure you," replied Mr. Billing, "that, through the gracious dispensation of Providence, I have sustained no osseous fractures; though, sir, I may add, my mental agony, and bodily sufferings, have been such as I never wish again to experience." "You must expect to have some inconvenience in your first ride, Mr. Billing," said his master; "but you will find, upon your second attempt, that the unpleasantness will be diminished." "That second attempt, sir," replied the little man, "will never be made by me. I have a positive abhorrence for a horse, sir, and no power on earth, sir, would induce me to become a chevalier." "Very well, Mr. Billing," replied the other, "I'll not attempt to persuade you against your own inclinations; I can only thank you for your services on this occasion, and if you will meet me in the store, when you have recovered yourself a little, we will proceed to business;" saying which, the couple parted. In the store where Rainsfield entered were, besides sundry articles that were not strictly alimentary, the carcass of a sheep, suspended from one of the beams, and a bag of flour; or rather a bag that had contained flour, for the bag was suspended supinely by two ropes, with its mouth open; and on a sheet on the floor was heaped the flour it had contained. To this heap, after closing and locking the door, Rainsfield advanced; and, first taking a furtive glance around, to satisfy himself that he was unnoticed, he stooped down and deliberately mixed with it the arsenic that had been brought by Mr. Billing. He had performed this operation, and had just rebagged the flour, when Billing turned the handle of the door, at the sound of which Rainsfield started like a detected thief. At no time are the words of the immortal bard, "thus conscience doth make cowards of us all," more forcibly displayed than when an honourable or upright man steps from the straight path of honour and integrity to perform a despicable or criminal action. Thus Mr. Rainsfield could not quiet the chidings of his conscience, which did not disguise from him the enormity of the crime he was committing; and when he heard the step of his storekeeper at the door he felt the weight of contemplated guilt, and for some moments had not the power of articulation. Mr. Billing was just turning away, thinking his master was not in the building, when Mr. Rainsfield opened the door with a blush on his cheek, and a lie in his mouth, to support his first deception and subsequent interruption. "I hardly heard you, Mr. Billing," said he, "when you tried the door, as I was busy, and I had locked it to prevent being disturbed. You see," he continued, as his confidential entered, "I have had a sheep killed for our purpose. This we will now inoculate with the strychnine you have procured; and we will send it out to the plains for the dogs to consume to-morrow; and we can continue the operation at frequent intervals until the animals disappear. The arsenic, I think, we may keep for the present, and see first how this acts. You will perceive I have removed all the stores into the house with the exception of this one bag of flour, which I discovered to be slightly damaged, so had it sifted. I was just packing it again as you came to the door, and being so much occupied I did not hear you. By the way," he repeated to himself, "I may as well close it up;" and turning to Billing, he resumed: "will you be good enough to step into the house and get me a needle and string?" Mr. Billing went for the required articles, and during his absence, Rainsfield removed the sheet on which the flour had been spread, and destroyed all traces of his labour; so that, upon Billing's return, the work, or that portion of it, was accomplished, and the bag was placed in an upright position against the wall. The sheep was then removed from the beam, and the inside was well rubbed and besmeared with the poison; after which it was placed in its former position, and the outside submitted to a similar manipulation. This completed the pair left the store; the door was locked by the master, and the key taken away by him to prevent, as he said, the possibility of accidents. "Do you not think," suggested Mr. Billing, "we had better have the flour removed into the house?" "Oh, no, it does not signify to-day," replied Rainsfield, "it will take no harm there until the morning, and we can have it removed then when we send the fellows up to the plains with the meat." In the meantime Tom took his way to the blacks' camp, where he found a large number of the tribe collected; and all in apparent agitation. He at once perceived that some event was about to take place, and he conjectured that what was intended was a sortie on his brother's station. The men were mostly standing before the entrances to their "gunyahs," facing one another in the circular enclosure; and carrying on a united disputation at the highest pitch of their voices, all at one and the same time. They were supported occasionally by the opinions of the gins, which, though volunteered by those soft, if not fair creatures, were, as is usually the case even with their civilized contemporaries, totally unheeded by their lords; who continued their ratiocination with unabated ardour. Whatever was the nature of the discussion in progress, it ceased as Tom rode into the midst of the disputants; and to the sound of the human hubbub succeeded that of the canine, which, but for the reverence the blacks had for their dogs, Tom would have silenced by knocking the brains out of a score of the brutes. He, however, resisted the temptation, and made his way straight up to the abode of the chief, dismounted, fastened his horse to a tree, and advanced to the sable scoundrel with a smile; which was returned by a malignant scowl. This was not lost upon Tom, though he pretended not to have seen it; and, as he sat down upon a log in front of Dugingi, and lit his pipe from a fire-stick, he said: "Well, Dugingi, what are you up to now? I see you have got something in the wind." A grunt was the only answer he got to this query; but he pushed his enquiries and demanded: "Are you going to pay us another visit at Strawberry Hill, Dugingi?" Still he elicited no information, and began to be rather disgusted. "Do you mean to answer me at all, you black thief?" he exclaimed; "see here! if you won't be civil and open your mouth beyond those grunts, I'll break your head." And he raised the heavy riding-whip he carried, as he spoke, in an attitude of menace that made the black shrink to the entrance of his gunyah. "What's the matter, Mister Tom?" said Jemmy Davies, who came up at this juncture, "why are you 'riled?' Has Dugingi been saying anything to you?" "No, Jemmy, it is because the wretch won't speak that I am put out. I have asked him what is the cause of this uproar; and what he is up to with the tribe; and the brute won't utter a word, but only answers me with grunts. I am of a good mind to treat him to a sound thrashing for his insolence; but you tell me, Jemmy, what you are after here?" "Nothing particular, sir," replied the black; "some of our fellows are kicking up a row, and they won't be quiet." "Well, what are they kicking up the row about, Jemmy?" "One feller said, that another feller hit the other feller's gin, because the gin beat the other feller's gin's piccanini." "Well," said Tom, "that is a very lucid explanation of the subject of discussion in your conclave, Jemmy; but I strongly suspect it is not strictly true. Now, tell me, were you not hatching some mischief against us?" "No, sir, 'pon my honour," exclaimed Jemmy Davies, "we never thought of such a thing." "Now, it's no use telling that to me," cried Tom, "I am confident you were; and I know you have been thinking of it for some time. Were you not talking about it in your last corroboree; and was not this talk to-day the continuation of the plot? You may as well confess it to me, for I know it all; you intend my brother some injury." "Well, sir," replied the black, "suppose we were talking about Mr. Rainsfield we would not hurt you." "I am not at all afraid of your hurting me," exclaimed Tom; "for it's short work I'd make of a score of you, if you were to try any violence to me; but why annoy my brother?" "You see, sir," replied Jemmy, "we all like you, because you are good to the black fellows; but your brother is bad to us, and the tribe hate him. They would not kill him because he never killed any of them; but they still hate him and take his rations." "That's it!" said Tom; "it is just because you steal his rations that he is so severe on you; if you had not molested us, he would not have molested you; but we are obliged to keep you away, because you have made yourselves dangerous. Why don't you behave yourselves to us, the same as you do to the Fergusons? and we wouldn't prevent you coming to the station; but if you persist in stealing I am afraid my brother will some day be disposed to shoot some of you." "We don't interfere with Mr. Ferguson," replied Jemmy Davies, "because he is good to us; and I have told you the reason why we hate Mr. Rainsfield is because he is bad to us. I don't believe the tribe would ever like him now however good he would be." "Will you just try and persuade them, Jemmy, to be a little more civil," said Tom, "and depend upon me to get you justice. It is of no use our always living like this; and you may be sure my brother will shoot some of you if you continue to steal. Tell me now the truth; are you thinking of robbing us again?" "No, sir," replied the black, "don't you believe it. Some of them want to, and some do not; I don't; I will try and keep the others back." "That's right, Jemmy," exclaimed Tom, "exert yourself, for depend upon it it will be better for you, and the tribe too, to remain friendly to us." Tom Rainsfield had some confidence in, not only the word of Jemmy Davies, but also in his influence with the tribe; and therefore believed the ingenuous story the black told of the animated discussion; his refusal to acquiesce in the meditated theft; and his desire to deter the others from its committal. He therefore felt relieved in his mind for the time being; and determined to impress upon his brother the necessity, for his own security, of adopting some lenient measures towards the blacks. In this train of thought, and accompanied by Jemmy Davies, he left the camp, and returned to the crossing-place of the river, where he parted with his companion, after obtaining a re-assurance from him that no outrage would be committed with his concurrence. Tom, after crossing the Gibson, and directing his steps homewards, fell in with William Ferguson, returning from Strawberry Hill, and was easily persuaded to accompany him and remain the night at Fern Vale; where, in the meantime, we will leave him to revert to Mr. Rainsfield and his expected visitors. CHAPTER VII. "Of darkness visible so much he lent, As half to show, half veil the deep intent." POPE. "Man's inhumanity to man, Makes countless thousands mourn." BURNS. After he left the store with Billing Mr. Rainsfield gave particular instructions that the flocks should be well watched; and he anxiously waited for the approach of night. When the family retired to rest he found some excuse to detain him in the sitting-room; and, wondering at the protracted stay of his brother, he paced the room with a disordered step and agitated mind. He desired to see Tom back, to hear his report, and see him retire to his bed; but he waited in vain; while the idea never occurred to him of the probability of his going over to the Fergusons. He, however, as the night grew on, extinguished the light in the room; and, the night being pitch dark, sat with the French light open, with his eyes and ears strained to their fullest distention to catch the appearance of any moving object, or any sound in the direction of the store. He had remained thus until past midnight when he thought he detected the sound of voices uttered in a low cadence; and he strained his auricular organs so as to endeavour to catch some convincing proof of the proximity of his victims. Again the same sound struck him. It must be the voices of the blacks, thought he. "It is, by heaven! they are here," he mentally exclaimed, as their subdued conversation (which could plainly be distinguished in the still night air) was again heard. He was not long either before he had ocular demonstration of their approach; for round the corner of the store, he could discern, through the obscurity, the dusky form of a black stealthily and cautiously creeping. The vision, however, was only transitory, for in a moment Rainsfield lost sight of the figure, and believing that the fellow's mission might have been to steal up to the house, and reconnoitre while his confederates were effecting an entrance to the store, he all but closed the window; though he still kept his eyes and ears on the alert through the aperture. Again his ears caught a sound: "ah! the fellow's trying the door," he muttered; "perhaps you would like the key, my friends? However, I suppose you won't allow yourselves to be disappointed by a trifle of a lock; burst it open," he continued, "no one will hear you. Ah! there you are again! back to your companions, practised burglar! I suppose your confederates keep in the background, while you try the premises. You are quite safe; I'll guarantee you shan't be disturbed this time. Get in any way you like, but don't burn the place." Such were the mental ejaculations of the proprietor of Strawberry Hill, as he continued at the window of his sitting-room, holding open a leaf in each hand, and gazing with breathless attention at the quarter where the late apparition momentarily disappeared; and with intense anxiety did he continue to pierce the darkness, in the hope of witnessing a reappearance of the nocturnal visitant. Nor had he to wait long to be gratified; for presently a similar object showed itself at the point which was the focus of Rainsfield's gaze; and almost immediately after another, and another; and then the obscurely luminous passage was perfectly darkened with human forms. This incident was not lost on Rainsfield; he saw at once that the blacks were determined to effect their purpose; and he secretly indulged in a fiendish gratulation at the pertinacity with which they were throwing themselves into his trap. "Ah!" said he, continuing his meditations, "you are in force are you? why, you must have your whole tribe with you. Well now, how are you going to manage your business? hark! surely that must be the door unlocked; yes! there the hinges creak! Well, you beauties, you have done that cleverly." So he continued to cogitate, and watch the progress of his scheme's effect, till the dark forms of the sable thieves could be discerned evidently treading on each other's heels, while they bore off their purloined prize. Desirous as he was to satisfy himself whether or not they had decamped with the poisoned meat and flour, he dared not venture out for fear that some of their number lurked about the station to cover the retreat of their friends; and not until he heard from the distance the call of the blacks vibrating in the bush did he consider himself safe to examine his own premises. He crept from his ambush with as much stealth as the thieves had approached his own property; his heart beating almost audibly, and his eyes glancing furtively around him, attempting to pierce the darkness; while he started at the sighing of the faintest breath; shrinking at the sound of his own footsteps, and conjuring the wildest phantasies in the midnight air. Conscience was at its work, and he felt already the hot blast of guilt searing his very soul. He approached the store; the door was open; he entered; the darkness seemed doubly dark, and nothing could be distinguished in the internal gloom. He mechanically went to the spot where he had left the bag of flour; groped with his hands about the wall and on the floor, and found it gone. He walked across the room, with his arms extended in such a manner as to come in contact with the suspended carcass if it had been there; but he found it gone also; and when he had satisfied himself upon that point, his arms dropt to his side, while he stood musing in the middle of the building. "So they have robbed me again, have they?" he muttered; "well, they will have to answer for their own deaths; it is their own voluntary action." Conscience, however, refused to be silenced by such sophistry, and, as the homicide wrapt himself in his self-justification, startled him from his quietude by uttering in the still small voice, "Thou shalt not kill." The effect of the rebuke was but momentary, for the man argues: "I do not kill them, they kill themselves. Surely I may poison meat for the extermination of vermin; and how more securely can I keep it than under lock and key? Then if they steal it and eat it, and meet their death in consequence, surely no blame can be attached to me." "Thou shalt not kill," still urged the silent monitor; "thou knewest well the poisoned food would be stolen by the ignorant savages, and thou didst poison it for that purpose." "But if the villains persisted in stealing what was poisoned," urged the guilty man, "they commit the crime of theft; and thereby evoke the punishment in the death which follows. The fact of its being poisoned involves no criminality on the part of the owner, because the property is surreptitiously acquired; thereby relieving him of any participation in their death by the fact of its means being obtained, not only without his sanction, but in violation of his precautions to preserve it. If," continued the mental disputant, "I had given them the meat intentionally to destroy them, then would I have been guilty; but having placed it in what I believed a perfect security, the blacks having voluntarily rushed upon their doom, am I to be blamed? Did not Achan, when he appropriated of the spoils of Jericho, meet with the just reward of his disobedience in his death?" "Thou shalt not kill," repeated conscience; "and God hateth false lips, 'he that speaketh lies shall perish.' Thou knewest the blacks would steal the meat, notwithstanding your boasted security of it; and, moreover, thou didst desire that they should. Their death will not be upon their own heads, notwithstanding that they meet it through the committal of a sin. Their sin they commit in ignorance, and God only shall judge them of it; thou takest their life knowingly, meanly, and cowardly, and God shall judge you for it. Achan met his death by the command of the omnipotent Judge, for the disobedience of the divine command; while your victims have no conception of their infringement of any law. Dost thou remember the judgments that fell upon David for the murder of Uriah? Your act is far more atrocious than his; for with him, the victim was one, and might have been said to have been through the fortunes of war; while your victims are many, and are murdered in a cold-blooded way, to screen you from the laws of your country, and the opinions of men. Heavy is the curse on him who sheddeth man's blood, and verily the curse of the Lord will smite thee, thou worker of iniquity. If thou desirest not their death hasten now after them, and prevent them from eating of the food." "They would not believe me if I told them it was poisoned," argued conscience's opponent, "but would simply imagine that I was endeavouring to recover my property." "Offer them other for it, or tell them to try it first on their dogs," suggested conscience. "I dare not show myself to them at all," replied the man; "I believe they would kill me if I did; besides, if they choose to poison themselves let them. It is no business of mine to prevent them; they have long been a source of annoyance to me, and no one can blame me for their death. No jury in the world would convict me of murder; then why should I fear? Is not self-preservation the first law of nature? and is not a man perfectly justified in adopting any measure to preserve his life and his property. If I am to be taxed with the death of these wretches, whose riddance from the earth will be an inestimable blessing to the district and civilisation, no one would be justified in killing an attempted assassin or a burglar; and a landowner, who sets spring-guns for the protection of his preserves, becomes a murderer if his instruments of destruction take effect. In fact the law itself has no right to exercise its jurisdiction in the disposal of life; and the execution of a condemned criminal is nothing more than a forensic murder. But why need I allow my morbid fancies or sympathetic feelings to overcome justice and my own judgment, or frighten me into a belief that I am committing a sin? No! if it be necessary, I will blazon the matter to the world, and let my fellow-men judge me; and I am convinced I will be exonerated from all criminality." Conscience was stifled for the time; and Rainsfield left the store, taking care to leave the place precisely as it was vacated by the blacks; and as the first gray streaks rose above the horizon, heralding Aurora's approach, he returned to the house as cautiously as he left it; entering by the open window of the sitting-room, and seeking his bed to sleep the troubled sleep of a disquieted mind. At an early hour of the morning, as Mr. Billing resumed his daily vocations, the robbery on the store was discovered; and the intelligence was speedily communicated by that individual to his master, who affected the utmost surprise at the theft, and the deepest concern at the inevitable fate of the wretched aborigines. "Poor creatures," he exclaimed, "I would not have cared for the loss of the rations; but to think that the poor deluded beings are unconsciously the instruments of their own deaths, through the gratification of their own cupidity, is truly melancholy. I am vexed at myself for leaving the meat in the store, for now I see it was the most likely place where it would be molested. I would give anything to save them; what can be done, Mr. Billing? can they be warned of their danger before it is too late? I would not for worlds that the poor wretches should be poisoned, even though it were through the consumption of stolen food, and, notwithstanding the thorn they have been in my side; I wish Tom were here. Speak, Mr. Billing, what can be done?" Shall we say that this philanthropic consideration for the poor ignorant blacks was the spontaneous ebullition of a genuine contrition; or a mere verbose eruption of assumed sympathy, studied and expressed with the view of disarming suspicion of the sheep being intentionally poisoned and placed in the store as a trap? Without wishing to be harsh or uncharitable, we must conscientiously express our fears that the latter was the case; and that Rainsfield's apparent sorrow for the fate of his victims was a predetermined link of his scheme. "I fear nothing can be done, sir," replied Mr. Billing to the query of his master; "they have evidently been possessed of their booty, sir, some hours; and, doubtless, by this time it is consumed. I cannot venture, sir, to suggest any remedy; and would merely recommend that until we are aware, sir, of the extent of the evil, you would not allow, sir, the circumstance to prey too much on your mind." "Do you not think, my dear sir," said Rainsfield, "some good might be done by sending some one over to warn them of their danger?" Instant visions of his late journey occurred to the mind of Mr. Billing; and when he hastily replied, "no, sir, I really think it can be of no service," he might have been under the impression that it was the intention of his master to send him as the warning messenger he alluded to. "I assure you, sir," he repeated, "it can be of no use; for as I have already stated, sir, I believe that ere this the whole of the provisions have been consumed." "But tell me, Billing," enquired the suddenly created philanthropist, "how was the store entered? because I imagined, that having locked it, it was perfectly secure." "It appeared, sir," replied Mr. Billing, "that the cunning scoundrels, when they discovered the door to be secure, managed, sir, to wrench one of the slabs out of the back; and from the inside, after effecting an entrance by that means, they opened the door, sir, for their greater convenience, and decamped; performing the whole so noiselessly, sir, that even I who was in their vicinity was not disturbed. And, sir, both Mrs. Billing and myself are extremely uneasy in our rest. I can assure you, sir, the slightest noise is likely to arouse either of us. I remember on one occasion, sir (if you will permit me to make an observation on my private experience?), before my evil genius prompted me to break up, sir, my pleasant and comfortable little home in the mother country, to seek my fortunes, sir, in this inhospitable land, I resided, as I believe I have already informed you, sir, in the genteel suburban neighbourhood of Brixton. My means then, sir, enabled me to possess some of the luxuries of life, of which a cheerful and comfortable home, sir, I believe to be not the least. However, upon one occasion, sir, when Mrs. Billing and I had retired to rest; for we were early people, Mr. Rainsfield, very early people and had a strong objection to late hours; believing, sir, that they destroy the constitution, without imparting any satisfaction commensurate to the loss. Well, sir, as I observed, we had retired early to rest one evening; and the reigning stillness of the house, sir, was hardly broken by the musical voice of my wife. I will do her the justice to remark, sir, that she is a sensible woman, a very sensible woman, sir; notwithstanding that she was treating me on that occasion, to a little dissertation on her system of housekeeping; though I would have you distinctly to understand, sir, not in a style of eloquence peculiar to that good lady, Mrs. Caudle. That, Mr. Rainsfield, is not one of my wife's idiosyncrasies; but she prided herself upon her domestic economy, and she was making a voluntary explanation of her expenditure; while I was dozing under the influence of her soporific lullaby. My spirit would have speedily fled to the land of dreams had not my sense of hearing, sir, detected a sound that was inimical to our peace, and I started erect in my bed, sir, with my forefinger raised to Mrs. B. to enjoin silence; while I listened with an ardent attention. "'What on earth is the matter, James?' exclaimed my wife, sir, 'you quite frightened me; what made you start in such an extraordinary manner.' "'Don't you hear anything, my love?' replied I; 'can't your quick ear detect sounds that portend to an unpleasant visitation?' "'No,' she replied, sir, 'what do you mean, James? what sounds?' "'The sounds of the housebreaker,' I replied, 'attempting to violate the sanctity of our dwelling. Are you so deaf, my love,' I said, 'that you cannot hear the regular grating of a saw at work on some of our doors or shutters?' "'I can certainly hear some sound,' she replied, 'but it is only the gnawing of a rat, or a mouse in the wainscot of the room; rest your mind easy, James,' she continued, 'no thieves would think it worth their while to molest us.' "'I am not so sure of that, my dear,' I replied; 'but, even if I were, do you imagine that I would lie dormantly in my bed (while I was convinced some nocturnal villain was attempting to enter my premises), perhaps to see the wife of my bosom murdered in cold blood before my very eyes, and possibly have my own throat cut afterwards to complete the tragedy?' "My apprehensions were not entertained by my wife, sir, for she urged me to lie down. 'Do not frighten yourself at nothing,' she exclaimed, 'and alarm me so at your dreadful imageries; allow me to convince you it is all fancy; besides if thieves tried to get in, all the places are too well secured for them to gain an entrance.' "'Ah, my wife!' said I, 'there you show your inexperience; a practised housebreaker would not be deterred by the presence of bars, bolts, or locks; the greater the supposed security, the greater are the chances of his success; besides while my suspicions are aroused, I could not rest until I had satisfied myself that they are groundless, and that is speedily done. So I am determined to see;' with which I got out of bed, and with many cautions from my wife, in the event of my discovering any thieves, not to venture into danger or to allow myself, sir, in my indignation, or courage, to be exposed to either the ruffians or the night air, I hastily threw some clothes over me to guard against the risk of catching cold; for I was always susceptible to cold, sir. I quietly crept down stairs, sir, and the sound that greeted my ears distinctly proclaimed the fact that the thieves, sir, were at their nefarious work. When I reached the passage I perceived, sir, they were not at the front door; so, hastily entering the parlour and convincing myself, sir, that they were not there, I seized a poker for my personal protection, and descended, sir, towards the basement of the house. As I turned for this purpose, sir, the sound which had momentarily ceased, now recommenced, and I could detect it, sir, almost in my very presence. It was at a door leading into our garden and back premises, and in the indistinct light of the spot, I had almost said total darkness, sir, I perceived a saw at work cutting through the panel of the door. It was being industriously plied, sir, by some one on the outside, and at the time of my arrival, sir, had almost completed its work of extracting a piece sufficiently large to allow a man's arm to be thrust through, by which means I imagine, sir, the operator intended to unfasten the door. However, sir, the instrument, which I discovered was of a tender description, I snapped asunder with one blow, sir, of the weapon I held in my hand; and, with as truculent a voice as I could assume, informed my visitors, sir, that unless they instantly decamped, I would fire on them. My interruption to their proceedings, sir, was hailed with a volley of combined expletives; after the utterance of which, sir, I had the satisfaction of distinctly hearing the sounds of their retreating footsteps, and could see from one of my back windows, to which I had removed to prospect, two ill-favoured looking rascals clambering over the garden wall. So, sir, if it had not been for my quickness of hearing on that occasion, I should of a certainty have been robbed, and most probably murdered." "You certainly made a happy escape, Mr. Billing," said Rainsfield, after listening, or appearing to listen, to this episode in the history of his storekeeper; "but I regret your hearing did not render you much service on this occasion, and surely the blacks, to have taken out one of the slabs in the store, must have made some considerable noise." "No, Mr. Rainsfield," replied the bland _employé_, "I assure you, sir, there could have been no noise; otherwise, sir, with my keen hearing, I would of a certainty have been disturbed; but their movements, sir, are like cats, and I defy any one, I say, sir, any one, to hear them, even were an individual awake, and as close to them as I was when sleeping." Rainsfield smiled, possibly at the conceit of the little man, but at the same time, probably, at his knowledge to the contrary; however, it was not his object, either to quarrel with Billing, or to enlighten him, so he remarked: "I think you had better go over to the Fergusons, Mr. Billing, and see if Tom is there; I imagine he is; and explain the circumstances to him, and tell him I would like him to see what effect the unhappy event has had at the camp. I think it is better that you should go in preference to any of the men, as the circumstances are better known to you. You can either ride over, or if you prefer it, which possibly you may, you can take the ration cart; and I have only to entreat you to use as much speed as possible. I am desirous of disabusing the minds of the blacks (if any, indeed, survive) of any intentional harm to them being meditated by me; and I am aware no one could better undertake such a mission than my brother." Mr. Billing readily agreed to visit Fern Vale, the more so, perhaps, as he imagined by offering any objection he might be required to perform a less agreeable journey. So as he was not to undergo another edition of the punishment of the Alma trip, he readily agreed, and was, therefore, speedily on his way to Fern Vale, to look for Tom Rainsfield. After Billing's departure, Mr. Rainsfield again visited the store, to witness in daylight the success of his trap; and he contemplated the gap in the wall, and the absence of the flour and meat with a degree of complacency and satisfaction that would almost have impressed a beholder with a belief that he was inwardly comforting himself with the meditation of a recently performed charitable action. "Well, I begin to think," said he to himself, "that my plans have been executed pretty cleverly. Everybody will believe that the blackguards have been poisoned by mistake; and their own mistake too. So that no blame can be attached to me; and I shall have the immense advantage of having effectually stopped their depredations. I wonder what my friend John Ferguson will do for his _protegés_? will he pine for them? Perhaps he may recriminate me for my treatment of him, and try to accuse me of their murder; but he can't, and he dare not. The law will protect me; and if he dares to breathe one word against my name he shall rue the day he uttered it. I hate that young viper as intensely as formerly I liked him. He has thwarted me in more ways than one; he dares to oppose Smithers in his suit with Eleanor, and to show his contempt for me by carrying on his intrigue under my very eyes, and in my own house too. But he shall not have her; so long as there is breath in my body I will not permit it, in fact I cannot; she must be Smithers', and, by heaven! she shall. He has dared to show fight after I cautioned him; the villain! and then to inflame those infernal blacks against me; the vile dog! he shall smart for it. His lively blacks have already got their deserts; and, I have no doubt, by this time are rotting on their own ground." "Thou shalt not kill," suggested conscience. "Oh, bah!" exclaimed the culprit, "what a fool I am, to be continually chiding myself for the fate of these wretches. They die by their own act, so let their death be answered for by themselves;" saying, or rather thinking which, the conscience-stricken man turned on his heel and left the store. In the meantime let us retrospect for a few hours, and trace the movements and proceedings at the camp. When Jemmy Davis left Tom Rainsfield at the crossing-place, he returned to the camp, where the discussion, interrupted by Tom's arrival, was renewed with increased force. The excitement of the disputants ran so high that any one unacquainted with the verbose inanition of such argumentary proceedings, and the natural antipathy of the blacks to bellicosity, would have imagined that the termination of the meeting would have been of a tragical character. However, it ended, as all such meetings usually do with them, viz., in words; and, towards midnight, the animated disputants sank under the fatigue of their disquisition, and in a short time all was hushed. As the embers of the fires gave a fitful glare on the now silenced camp a head might have been seen protruding from the aperture of one of the gunyahs; and, after surveying the scene for some time, and putting its ear to the ground to catch, if possible, any sound that would denote watchfulness on the part of the tribe, it, or rather the body to which it belonged, crept from the habitation in that posture designated in nursery parlance "all fours." With spear in hand it passed round to the back; where the individual assumed a more upright position, though he still crept under the shade of the gunyahs. Then lightly striking in succession the bark structures with his spear as he went along he was joined by about twenty men; whose appearance was so sudden that they almost appeared to have been called into instantaneous existence by the potent wand of the conjurer. This was Dugingi and a select band of confederates, his supporters in the late discussion; and they moved away from the camp, to carry out their predetermined plot of robbing the store of the Strawberry Hill station. The opposition to the scheme had been strenuous; and the disapproving blacks, headed by Jemmy Davies, being the most numerous and loud in their condemnation of the project, had retired, fully convinced that the idea had been abandoned by Dugingi and his party. But they had been deceived, for Dugingi was only quieted, not dissuaded; and the present secret expedition was the result of the defeat on his motion for a general movement. He was determined, in his own mind, to rob the premises of Mr. Rainsfield; and, if he could not obtain the concurrence of his tribe, he was resolved to perform it simply with the assistance of some of his own party. We have already seen how he affected an entrance to the store; so we need not trouble our readers by tracing his movements while perpetrating the theft. Suffice it to say, that at an early hour in the morning, the party returned to the camp with all the rations they could lay their hands upon in the store; and which, we have already noticed, consisted of the carcass of a sheep and a bag of flour. Their first proceeding, then, was to heap up their fires; on which they threw their meat to roast, and then set the gins to work with the flour to make "damper." These preparations soon aroused the entire camp, who were in a moment alive and stirring. At the first glance Jemmy Davies detected the state of affairs; and saw that he had been outwitted by Dugingi; who, while he (Jemmy) and his party slept, had committed the theft, and were now preparing to feast on the spoil. He was grieved at the sight; because he had given his word to Tom Rainsfield that he would prevent any outrage if possible, and he had a sincere desire to pacify his countrymen in their animosity towards Mr. Rainsfield. He therefore cautioned his partizans against tasting the food; and, in the language of his tribe, addressed them in the following words: "My brothers--our brother Dugingi has behaved bad to us; and bad to the white fellow. Bad to us, because he went away to the white fellows' 'humpey,' when we wanted him not to go, and when, if we had known him going, we would have prevented him; and bad to the white fellows because he steals his 'rations.' The white fellow is very strong, and very brave; and has plenty of horses and guns; and he will take revenge on the black fellow. Dugingi steals the white fellow's rations, and the white fellow thinks all the Nungar tribe steals it, and he will hate all the Nungar tribe. I have been to the great country where the white fellows 'sit down.' Our fathers thought once that when the black fellow dies he afterwards 'jump up white fellow;' but white fellows come a 'long way more farther' than big waters, and have gunyahs higher than the tall bunya tree; and with very many humpies in them. Some of them would hold all the Nungar tribe. Now, my brothers, do you think we can fight against the white fellows? The white fellows will fight us, if we steal their rations; and we cannot fight them, for they must kill us if we do. Now, the white fellow _will_ fight us, for Dugingi has stolen his rations; he has brought upon us this trouble; for he did it when we wished him not to; and the white fellow will think all the Nungar black fellows did it. "Now this is what I say. I have been telling the white fellow Tom Rainsfield, that we would not steal from his brother; and I've been telling him that we want to live, and we want to be friends with him and his brother, as we are friends with the white fellow Ferguson and his brother. And the white fellow Tom Rainsfield says he is friends with us. Now what do you think he will say when he finds the black fellow has been stealing his rations? He will say all black fellows are rogues, and all black fellows liars; and he will no longer be our friend. But, my brothers, you take not the food from Dugingi that he has stolen from the white fellow. Touch it not; but let him and his friends eat it if they will, and let them give it to their gins if they will; and may it choke them, and may they die. But I will go to the white fellows, and will tell them myself, that Dugingi and his friends did steal the rations, and not the Nungar tribe; so we, my brothers, will be friends with the white fellows." At the conclusion of this address Jemmy Davies left the thieves in possession of their prize, and was followed by the majority of his supporters; notwithstanding that the savoury smell of the roasting meat was particularly grateful to their olfactory nerves, and they were sadly tempted to remain and partake. Dugingi little heeded the harangue of his opponent, which was greeted with a shout of derision from the whole of the foraging party; who continued with their culinary operations in the highest possible state of hilarious loquacity; rending the air with their shouts, and making the bush reverberate with their laughter. The sheep was speedily so far cooked as to serve their purposes, and tearing it to pieces amongst them they were soon busily engaged in the process of mastication. The "damper" was devoured with equal avidity; and when they had all eaten to satiety, as the sun rose resplendent to walk his diurnal course, they stretched themselves to sleep with the complacency of satisfied gormands. No such comfort, however, was allowed them. First one, and then another, became restless; a gnawing pain devoured their stomachs; an insatiable thirst consumed them; and then the first painful wail was heard that proclaimed the poison at its work. The wail increased; the agonies of the victims became insufferable; and, in their anguish and suffering, many rushed to the river to drink their last draught; while others threw themselves into the fires or on the ground, gnashing their teeth and biting the earth in the intensity of their torments. All now bemoaned their fate, and cursed their participation in what they plainly saw was their funeral feast. Jemmy Davies calmly, though sorrowfully, gazed upon the scene. He imagined the cause of his countrymen's sufferings, for he had, in the days of his civilisation, seen his master poison meat for the native dogs, and he had seen them die from the effects of the poison. He therefore understood its mysterious workings, and at once detected its operations in the suffering beings before him. Not so his countrymen; they imagined their fate was produced by his curse; believing that he possessed the secret power of working their death by some spells or occult influence he had acquired from the whites; and they therefore crouched before him and implored his relief. But he, poor semi-savage, could do nothing for them, and he knew they must die. The melancholy scene before him overcame his fortitude, and he burst into tears as he exclaimed: "I can't help you, my brothers; I do not kill you, it is the white fellow that kills you for stealing his rations. He has made his meat to kill you because you eat it; if you had not eaten it you would have lived." CHAPTER VIII. "In Lybian groves, where damned rites are done, That bathe the rocks in blood, and veil the sun." CAMPBELL. As the residents of Fern Vale early bestirred themselves on this eventful morning their astonishment was great at the continued altercations which seemed to agitate the black's camp. None of the party had ever heard them continue their discussions so unceasingly; and the Fergusons and their friends were disposed to think that it presaged some evil. They therefore proposed, that their intended visit for that day should be made at once, so that they might learn the cause of the strange agitation; and acting on this decision the four horsemen were speedily mounted and on their way to the "flats." They had reached the bank of the river, and were about entering the water to cross, when they were stopped by hearing a voice in their rear calling upon Tom Rainsfield. He instantly turned towards the new comer, whose appearance greatly surprised him, and anxiously demanded of him the nature of his message. This was given in as few words as Mr. Billing's habitual sinuosity of expression could devise utterance; and hastily desiring the storekeeper to remain where he was with the cart until his (Tom's) return from the camp, he joined his friends and rode through the ford. "What is the matter with you, Tom?" said William as they passed through the water, "you seem quite nervous and agitated? Has Billing brought you any news that has annoyed you?" "He has indeed, my dear fellow," replied Tom, "brought me news that overwhelms me. How my brother will be able to reconcile the act to his conscience I do not know; when I, who, as God knows, had no participation in it, feel the weight of murder on my soul." "Murder!" exclaimed his friends. "What on earth do you mean Tom? you're surely raving! How murder? explain yourself," said John. "I wish to God I was raving," replied he; "that my fears were only a fantasy of the mind; or that that prating idiot Billing had merely dreamed the story he has just now told me. But it seems too substantial; all the circumstances that have transpired, and those that are at this very time transpiring, lead to prove it. There! hear you that wail? that is the death-cry of scores of those wretched blacks. Hark! there it is again; does not that cry rise up to heaven? and will not our family there be judged for this? If I could but think it were accidental I would be satisfied; though I fear, I fear, oh, horrid thought! murdered by my brother." "Calm yourself, my dear sir," said the minister, who had with deep sorrow been witnessing the outpourings of his companion's grief. "Though you have not mentioned to us the nature of the communication received through the messenger from your home, we would infer from your remarks that some dreadful calamity has come upon this tribe through the agency of your brother; whom, God forbid that you should condemn, without being thoroughly convinced of his guilt. It affords us consolation to hear you express only a fear that your brother has not acted up to the precepts of his Maker, and the dictates of his conscience. I sincerely trust, as I believe, that your fears are groundless, and that you over-estimate the criminality, if any criminality exist. I pray you dispel any such belief from your mind, until at least you have indubitable proof of your brother's crime; and, in the meantime, be charitably disposed towards him, for you may be doing him an injustice by your harsh suspicions. It is true we are unacquainted with the circumstances which arouse them, but we sincerely trust you will find you have been deceived." "I would readily, oh! I long to believe," exclaimed Tom Rainsfield, "that it was unintentional; but my heart tells me there has been duplicity. I feel a portion of the mental load, consequent on crime, attached to me; for only the night before I pledged my word to those who may be now in the convulsive agonies of death that I would befriend them and bring about a reconciliation with my brother. I know his nature well; he is hasty and impetuous; and, though kind-hearted and generous, he is severe and even cruel where his passions are aroused; so I fear the worst. But I will tell you the cause of these people's wails. It appears that my brother, after I had left the station yesterday, poisoned a sheep for the purpose, he said, of destroying the native dogs on the station. That sheep was left in the store during the night, when it was stolen by the blacks, who have, no doubt ere this, feasted on it, and are meeting their fate in a violent death. Now, the circumstances which I am surprised at, and deprecate, are these:--Leaving the poisoned meat in a place above all others where, if the blacks intended to visit us, they would go first; sending Billing clandestinely into Alma for the poison; and having all the stores removed into the house during his absence, leaving nothing in it but the poisoned meat, and a bag of flour, in the full expectation, I am afraid, that the blacks were going to rob us. But the most extraordinary part of my brother's conduct is, that he kept me in entire ignorance of Billing's journey, which in itself was unusual, for he never before left the station on any pretence; and the next incongruity was this crusade against the dingos, which have given us no annoyance for some time past. Many smaller events now flash across my mind, which tend to stimulate my fears; however, as you kindly remark, I ought not to judge too harshly of my brother; and I will try, until I see more definite cause for my alarms, to believe him innocent of any intentional murder. But listen to those poor wretches; are not their cries piteous?" Truly they were; and as the shrieks and howls of the victims pierced the ears of the quartette, as they crossed the river and entered the scrub, all their feelings of compassion were aroused; and they accelerated their speed, hoping to be of assistance, where no human efforts could avail. The picture that presented itself to their astonished vision, as they emerged from the mazy labyrinths of the scrub into the area of the camp, was fearfully sickening and revolting. Scattered on the ground, in indescribable postures and contortions, were writhing bodies of men women and children, giving vent to cries that would have melted a heart of stone; anon starting from their recumbent position, to stand erect in the freshness of the morning breeze, only to enjoy a momentary respite; and then flinging their arms wildly in the air with an agonizing shout, to fall again prostrate to the earth, and yield, with a convulsive shudder, their spirits to their Maker. Our party had gazed upon this scene for some minutes ere the miserable objects before them noticed their presence; the extent of their sufferings absorbing all their faculties, and our friends remained unnoticed or unheeded spectators of the dire destruction working around them. However, they were at last perceived; and, before they could devise the meaning, many of the suffering objects crawled to their feet, and with imploring looks and gestures, sought relief from that death which they imagined was the result of some mysterious agency caused by the will of the white man. The malady had reached its exacerbation; and the miserable sufferers, as they prostrated themselves at the feet of their white-skinned brethren, sank in groups to rise no more. The picture was more than affecting (even if such existed) to natures possessed of no spark of human feeling; while to Tom its contemplation was fearful, and he turned from the spot to conceal his emotion. Mr. Wigton, recovering from a momentary abstraction into which he had been cast by sorrows of the event, addressed to the sufferers in their own language words of commiseration and comfort. He did not, however, disguise from them their condition; but told them they would not live, for that they had eaten of that which destroyed life, even the white man's life; and that no white man could help them. "Then why did the white man kill us?" they piteously asked. "My brothers," replied the messenger of peace, "the white man made the food for the dingos which kill his sheep, and your brothers did steal the food, and did eat it, and will die; but the white man is sorry that you eat it, and is sorry that you die. We would all save you if we could, but we can't; and, my poor brothers, we can only ask the great Spirit in the skies to look down upon you and save you if He will. He is a good and great Spirit and could save you, if you would be His children and His brothers; He loves even the black fellow, if the black fellow will love Him; and He knows all about the black fellow, what the black fellow likes, and does, and thinks. He lived a long time ago down on the ground with us, and told us all these things, and He now lives in the skies, and sees all that the black fellows do. He saw the black fellows last night steal the food, and He was very angry with them; but He would forgive, even as the white man forgives them, if they would be sorry for doing bad things, and would do them no more, but love the great Spirit. But the great Spirit says some of you have been very bad, and that you will not love Him; and so you must die. But if you will love him, He will save some of you, even some of you that have eaten the white man's food." The wail that followed this _petite_ sermon of Mr. Wigton was the death knell of many; while the preacher himself was so overcome by the horrors of the scene that he had not perceived the approach of a ferocious black, who, leaping over the bodies of the dead and dying, advanced to within a few feet of him. This being confronted him in a menacing attitude almost face to face, and held a spear poised in his uplifted hand ready to bury it in the heart of the clergyman whenever he should so determine. He was a tall athletic black, of good make, and, for an aboriginal, considerable muscular development; he had a determined and ferocious aspect; his eyes were blood-shot and swollen; his nostrils were dilated, while they exuded a fetid secretion horribly offensive. He foamed at his mouth, and the sinews and muscles of his face contracting spasmodically under the influence of the agonies caused by the poison he had taken, he presented a most hideous spectacle. Instantly upon confronting the clergyman, he accosted him thus: "You not know me, white man? I am Barwang; brother belonging to Dugingi, and he is dead. The white fellow kill him, and kill plenty of black fellow: but I live. I not die, though very sick. I live to kill all white fellows. You like to see black fellow die: you think black fellow cannot kill white fellow, you shall see." He stretched his arm with the poised weapon to pierce the heart of Mr. Wigton; but just at that moment, when the spear was leaving the fingers of Barwang, it was suddenly snatched from his grasp by a black, who sprang from some covert, and, passing behind his countryman with a bound, deprived him of the offensive weapon; and stood in his turn with it balanced towards the frustrated homicide. At the same moment Tom Rainsfield, who had witnessed the danger of Mr. Wigton, leapt forward to protect him with his person, though the opportune act of the friendly black rendered such unnecessary; while Barwang, thus seeing himself assailed on both sides, made good his retreat. "Thank you, Jemmy Davies," said Tom, "that was nobly done, and an act I will not forget. I have been looking out for you ever since I have been in the camp, but have never seen you until this moment. At last I began to fear that you had fallen a victim to this dreadful malady, but am pleased to see that you at least have escaped. This has been a fearful business, Jemmy, and it has given me much sorrow; from what I told you last night, and from what you told me, I thought we would have been able to have established a friendship between your tribe and ourselves, and I felt perfectly satisfied that our hostilities were at an end. I did not go home last night, Jemmy (perhaps if I had I might have prevented the robbery, and averted the fate of so many of your tribe); and this morning my brother sent over to tell me that the black fellows had robbed his store, and taken away a sheep that he had poisoned for the native dogs. So you see, Jemmy, your tribe came by their death by persisting in stealing our goods. Many would say that they merit their fate, but I, Jemmy, am very very sorry, and would have given anything I am possessed of to have prevented it." "I believe you, Mr. Tom," replied the black. "I know you are a good friend to the black fellow, and would not do him any hurt; but Dugingi and his friends behaved bad to us, and to you, and have died, and it is well. They left the camp in the night, after promising me and my friends that they would not steal any more from your brother; and we went to sleep, believing them that they would not go. But they did go, and stole the meat and the flour, and the first that I knew of it was, in the morning, hearing them make a noise as they were roasting it. I saw at once what they had done, and spoke to all the tribe. I told them they would never live in their country if they stole from the white fellow, because the white fellow was strong and would kill them; and that it was better to be friends with the white fellow and live. But the friends of Dugingi would not hear me, and they did eat; but all my friends, that wished to be friends with the white fellow, would not eat it, and I told them they were right, for the food would do them no good. But Dugingi laughed at me, and roasted the meat and made damper with the flour; and he and his brothers and friends eat the meat, and they gave the damper to their gins and piccaninies. They all died, except Barwang and two or three more, who quarrelled over their shares, and had it eaten by the others. So they have not died because they did not get enough to kill them. If they had seen you alone they would have tried to kill you; and it was because I saw Barwang coming to you that I watched him and took his spear. He won't stop with us now, he will be too frightened, and will go with his friends to the tribe in the mountains." "Did you say," asked Tom, "that the gins and piccaninies only eat the damper? did they not get any of the meat? Surely they did not die by only eating the damper?" "Yes, Mr. Tom," replied the black, "only damper, and they died too. The damper and meat were both poison together; the black fellows eat the meat and they died, and the gins and piccaninies eat the damper and they died." A cloud came over the brow of Tom Rainsfield as he heard this. "As I dreaded!" he muttered to himself. "I would almost have given my life, Jemmy, to have prevented this; but it is done, and it cannot be remedied. The only satisfaction I feel is that you were wise, Jemmy, and would not let yourself or your friends taste the poison, thus saving yourself and them. I will stop with you now a little while, and see what I can do for you; but wait;" and turning to his friends he said to them: "I will remain here with Jemmy Davies for some hours, but I need not detain you. Leave me here, and return home; and if you will merely mention to Billing what you have seen, that will be sufficient for him to communicate to his master." "William was going over to your place this morning," replied John, "and he may as well depart at once; but for ourselves, I will remain with you, and I have no doubt it is the intention of Mr. Wigton to do the same." The latter gentleman having expressed his determination to wait at the camp William was dispatched to join Mr. Billing, to whom he was to communicate the tidings of death, and then proceed to Strawberry Hill to take home his sister. The three whites, accompanied by their black friend, now walked through the camp; and for the first time saw the extent of the devastation. It was now stilled. Bodies lay scattered in every direction, while no strife or contention now agitated their minds. It appeared as if the destroying angel had spread his arm over the devoted tribe, and hushed their voices for ever; for death had done his work with an effectual hand; and though only a portion had suffered, the rest, from a fear to face the grim tyrant in the majesty of his presence, lay concealed within the precincts of their own habitations. When we stand by the couch that supports the frame of some dear friend or relative, while the spirit wafts itself from its earthly shrine to that ethereal haven of its rest where it "beacon's from the abode where the eternal are;" and when the slightest utterance of grief is suppressed in the solemn silence that we maintain to catch the last breath of the departing loved one: and when that soul is fled, and we gaze on the placid features, and fear ourselves to breathe lest we should disturb the sleep of the quiescent and unconscious clay, and recall its spirit to a renewal of its earthly trials: when we visit the scene of some mighty conflict (sombred and silenced by the shades of night), where the powers militant have exhausted their strength, and left their best blood and blossom of their countries to bleach upon the battle plain: when we walk through the desolate streets of an infected city, where pestilence has cut off the first-born in every family, and where no sound is heard save the faint cries of the dying, or the distant rumbling of mortals' last mundane vehicle: wherever, in fact, and whenever we gaze upon scenes where the grave reigns paramount, then we feel the true force of the expression "the stillness of death prevailed." And as Tom Rainsfield and his party threaded the corpses of young and old, men, women, and children, they felt the awfulness of the scene, and were too much absorbed with their own thoughts, to break a silence that was a mutual comfort and respite. "Here is some of the damper, sir," said Jemmy Davies, as he pointed to the lifeless form of a gin, with a large piece in her hand, clutched as in the agony of death. "You see, sir, she has been eating that, and it has killed her; for the black fellows themselves eat all the meat." What the feelings of Tom were, when he stooped to release the pernicious food from the grasp of the woman, we cannot describe; but sorrow was depicted in his countenance, and his strong manly features were disturbed by the force of his mental sufferings. He silently broke off a small piece from the lump; and, kindling a flame from the embers of one of the fast dying fires, burnt it to endeavour to detect the presence of arsenic by its exhalation of a garlic odour. Not satisfying himself by this test, he put the remains into his pocket while he said to the black, "I will take this with me, Jemmy, and see if it contains any poison; but I trust to God you are mistaken, and that these poor deluded wretches have at least in this eaten wholesome food. "Oh, harrowing thought!" he exclaimed, "to think that my brother should have been the witting instrument of this people's destruction." "By this," said Mr. Wigton, "it would certainly appear strange; but we must not deprecate your brother's conduct on mere suspicion. You know the Scriptures tell us that we are to 'judge not lest we also be judged;' and also that vengeance rests with the Almighty. If your brother has committed this great wickedness and sinned against his God, let his Maker be his judge, and his own conscience his scourge; for 'cursed are they who worketh iniquity,' and 'the judgment of the Lord overtaketh the evil-doers,' even in this life; while in the next, 'the wages of sin is death.' He may escape the punishment of a human judicature, but he can never wholly satisfy the still small voice of conscience, nor at all escape the high tribunal of his Maker. When the last trump of the archangel shall summon him before the 'great white throne,' to give an account of the deeds done in the body, then shall the true nature of this action be known, whether it was the result of a mere inadvertency, or the premeditated plan of murder. In the meantime, with all sincerity, I pray God that it may be the former; and that the soul of your brother may not be inscribed with the guilt of so diabolical a crime as the destruction of so many of his fellow-creatures. It is but right that all justice should be given him; and therefore, in the first place, I think you are correct in determining whether or not the flour contains poison, as surmised by Jemmy Davies. If it does, submit the fact to your brother for explanation, and afford him an opportunity (if it be possible) of exculpating himself." "I agree with you perfectly, Mr. Wigton," replied Tom; "let the Almighty and my brother's conscience be his judges, if he has committed this crime. But I feel for these poor blacks, the more that I have endeavoured to bring about a reconciliation, and only last night pledged myself to befriend them." "I know and all my friends know, Mister Tom," exclaimed Jemmy Davies, "that you would not do us any harm, and we all like you; yet most of our tribe hate your brother for this, though Dugingi did steal the meat, and they did not want him to. I am not angry with your brother, but my friends are; and I am afraid they never will like him. You will not be troubled any more with us, for my friends will never steal from your brother; but they will always be frightened to take anything from him as friends." "I am exceedingly sorry to hear you say that," said Tom, "as I had hoped, even out of this catastrophe, some good might have resulted. I had thought that since the removal of our implacable opponent we could have lived on terms of amity with your tribe; and I yet hope to accomplish that aim. However, in the meantime, let us see what can be done with the bodies." "If you will permit me to make a suggestion," said John Ferguson, "you will let me go home, and get one or two of our men with spades, that we may dig one grave for the whole of the bodies." "No, Mr. Ferguson," replied Jemmy Davies. "My tribe would not like them buried that way; they would rather do it their own way, thank you. We will bury them here in the camp, and then leave it for ever. We will bury them all to-day, and then good-bye. You had better not stop Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Tom; leave us now, and we'll say good-bye." "My friend! permit us to stay," said Mr. Wigton; "we wish to befriend you if it be in our power. Let us help you to bury your dead, and when you have finished let me say a few words to your tribe." "You can all stay if you like," said Jemmy; "but we are many and we don't want you to help us, it is not work for white fellows. I will tell my tribe you want to stay, and they won't heed you; and I will tell them you want to speak to them, and they will hear you." With this Jemmy Davies shouted some words in his own vernacular, at which the survivors of the tribe emerged from their concealment; and he continued to his visitors: "They say that if the white fellows wish they can stop, and if the budgery (good) white fellow who woollers (talk) belonging to great Spirit, wishes to talk to them, they will listen." CHAPTER IX. "And say supernal powers! who deeply scan Heaven's dark decrees, unfathomed yet by man, When shall the world call down, to cleanse her shame, That embryo spirit, yet without a name." CAMPBELL. The blacks commenced their obsequies with a lugubrious mien; and after collecting the bodies, which numbered nearly a hundred, prepared to entomb them according to their own peculiar custom. Usually, upon the death of a black, the surviving relatives bemoan their loss by besmearing themselves with coloured clay or mud, and venting their grief for days in fasting, frantic gestures, and wails; while the gin (if the deceased be a man possessed of one) covers her head with white feathers, which species of mourning she wears for a "moon," _i.e._, a month. On this occasion, however, the deceased were nearly all the members of separate families, and the survivors had little sympathy for them, except in common; consequently, the last rites were performed in uniform silence. For each body was erected four forked posts (standing about four feet high), on which were formed a platform of boughs, so as to make a sort of foliate table to support the lifeless clay. The bodies, when duly placed, were then over-spread with long dry grass, and, afterwards, with an outer covering of boughs, which, to be prevented being removed by the weather, were tied together at each end as a bundle of sticks. These impromptu sepulchres were elevated from the ground just sufficiently to prevent the access of the native dogs, and protected overhead from the molestation of carnivorous birds by the covering we have described. They are, however, no more defended, than a subterranean tenement would be, from the depredations of insects and vermin; the most numerous of which, who attack this, or any other carrion in the Australian bush, being ants; which have rightly been designated "nature's scavengers." In such encasements it is not to be wondered at that the flesh is speedily removed from the bones; and, after a short time, they stand inoffensive monuments to the memory of departed friends. They remain intact for years; until, either consumed by some bush fire, washed away by some gigantic flood, or the supports give way under the decay of successive seasons, the sepulchre and its enshrined contents fall together to the earth to reunite with their parent dust. When the blacks finished their toil, the cemetery had a most extraordinary appearance. With nearly a hundred four-legged tombs, of various size placed side by side, and their heads set facing the rising sun, they almost filled the centre space of the camp; and, with the conical gunyahs around them in a wide circle, they presented, at the cessation of the buryer's work, one of the most novel and picturesque scenes that could be imagined. Upon being informed by Jemmy Davies that he could now speak to the blacks Mr. Wigton called them together, and addressing them in their own language, said: "My friends! you say I am the white man who speaks of the great Spirit; I would speak of him to you now. I know that you say there is no good Spirit, only an evil one; but you are wrong, for there are both; and of the good one I will now tell you. A very long time ago he made all the big hills, and large rivers, the plains, and the great sea; and he made man, and all the beasts, birds, and fishes; he made white men, and black men; he made everything. When he made the first man, he told him he would love him, and teach him great wisdom, if he would do what the great Spirit wished. He gave him a wife and put them both in a large country, where was plenty fruit that possums and parrots like, and which was very good for man. But one tree was there that they were not to touch; because it belonged to the evil spirit. The good Spirit told man, that if he eat the fruit that grew on that tree he would be wicked, and the good Spirit wouldn't love him. But when the good Spirit left him, and the man and his wife 'walked all about,' and saw a very fine country with plenty of fruit to eat, and plenty of animals who would not do him any harm, but come to him when he called them, he was very much pleased. But the evil spirit presently came to the woman and said to her, 'Now, you take that fruit that the good Spirit says belongs to me, and that is not good; you will find it very good, the best in the country; it belongs to me and you may take as much of it as you like.' Now the woman did not care what the good Spirit had told her, so she took it, and gave some of it to the man, after telling him what the evil spirit had said to her, and they both eat it. But when the good Spirit knew it, he was very angry; and told the man and the woman, that as they had done what he had told them not to do, and had stolen the fruit off the tree which he told them not to touch, he would turn them out of the country into another country where there was no fruit growing, and where the beasts were all wild and where they would have to work for their food, and always be in danger and trouble. So you see the first trouble that there was in the world, was from stealing and disobeying the good Spirit; and the man and woman were punished, though they did not die like your friends this morning. "Well, my friends, the man and woman lived a long time together, and they died; and others grew up, and they died; and so on, until by and bye a great many people lived on the earth, who forgot all about the good Spirit; just as you have done. Then the good Spirit was very sorry for them, because they did as the evil spirit told them; and when they died, they all went to the evil spirit, and lived with him in fire. But the good Spirit wished them to live with Him in a beautiful country, where they would never want to eat and drink, but would always be happy. So He sent them His Son to tell them what to do to please Him, and make themselves happy, when they 'jump up' again in the sky, after they die on the earth. He told them what to do, but very few of the people did it; for the evil spirit always persuaded them not to notice Him, or believe Him. But the good Spirit did many good things for them. He brought to life again some of their friends after they had died; and He made food 'jump up' when they were hungry, their clothes never to wear out, and plenty such things. And He told them that if they did as he said they would go to His Father's country in the sky, and live there with Him in happiness and never die; but that if they would not do as He told them, they would have to go to the evil spirit, where they would be always burning, and never die either; while their sufferings would always continue. To escape this, and procure happiness, He told them what they must do. The good Spirit loved them; so they must love the good Spirit. The good Spirit hated murder, theft, lies, and cruelty; so they must hate them too. They must be peaceable and kind to one another, and, next to the good Spirit Himself, they must love one another, especially the poor; and He told them if they would do all this, the good Spirit would be very pleased, and would take care of them; but if they would not do so, then He would be very angry and punish them. Now, a good many people believed what the Son of the good Spirit said, and did as he told them; and when they died they all went to the good Spirit. But the evil spirit persuaded a great many more not to believe Him; and they didn't, but killed Him; but He 'jumped up' again and went back to his Father, the good Spirit, and the people that killed Him, when they died, all went to the bad spirit to be punished. Now, the bad spirit is always telling people to do bad things, to vex the good Spirit, and get the people himself. They are very foolish, and do what the evil spirit tells them, and therefore get sent to his place of fire, and are very wretched. And I must tell you, my friends, both the Good and evil spirit still live, and are always walking about. They are both here just now, and were here last night; the good Spirit told you not to steal the white man's food, and you were good and did not steal it; but the evil spirit told Dugingi and his friends to go and steal it, and they did, and died. "Now, my friends, which of these would you like for your master? The good Spirit? then do as he tells you. Love him and give up killing one another, and stealing, and telling lies, and hating the white man. I will stop with you, and teach you how to love the good Spirit; so that when you die you will go to the good Spirit in the sky. But if you will not love the good Spirit, and will not do as He tells you, then you will be the friends of the evil spirit, and be burnt up with him in his fire. The evil spirit is a very bad spirit, and will tell you all sorts of things to make you not to love the good Spirit. He will tell you it is of no use; that the good Spirit does not care for you, and will not trouble about you, and that he only cares for the white man; but do not believe him, for he wants to get you for himself. You try to live as the good Spirit tells you, and you will not only enjoy the happiness with the good Spirit when you die, but you will be happy while you live here; and now, my friends, I will pray to the good Spirit for you." Mr. Wigton then lifted his voice in earnest supplication to his Master, to beseech in His unbounded beneficence, that He would dispel the darkness from the minds of the poor benighted heathen before Him, and reflect on them the light of His gospel. He concluded his exhortation and prayer, and found Jemmy Davies still standing by his side, where he had remained during the whole time of the short discourse, deeply interested with the truths that flowed from the preacher's mouth. Not so, however, the rest of the tribe; for Mr. Wigton had noticed with pain, that after the first few minutes of his addressing them, they lost all interest in his gospel story, and showed evident signs of impatience and uneasiness; even indulging in frivolities, and taking no notice of his speaking at all. Though grieved at this, he yet did not despair of bringing them to a knowledge of the truth. He had frequently on former occasions preached to the blacks with similar success; but his heart was undaunted; he persevered in his work; and, in the tribe to whom he was then appealing, he had hopes (with the blessing and assistance of God) of planting the seed in their sterile souls and, by the aid of heaven's grace, of seeing it germinate and "bring forth fruit meet for repentance." That such a hope was visionary, all his friends were in the habit of telling him; they repudiated the idea of the possibility of infusing the truth of the gospel into the natures of the blacks; but he had a more exalted faith, and believed the omnipotence, as well as the mercy of the Almighty, would still work the regeneration of this outcast race. He was, therefore, stimulated to pursue his course in the instruction of these rude children of nature, to endeavour to impress upon them an application of things divine; and he determined to remain in their neighbourhood as long as possible, and devote to the work as much of his time as he could command. The party now took their leave of Jemmy Davies and his tribe, and left the scene of the late distress for the home of the Fergusons; where they found the news of the massacre had preceded them, and their two black boys, Billy and Jemmy, decamped to join the remnant of the tribe. But in the meantime we will trace the steps of William Ferguson, after he left the camp to join Mr. Billing. William found the storekeeper waiting very patiently for Tom Rainsfield's return; and he rather sententiously communicated to him what he had witnessed, leaving him to conjecture much of the detail. As he felt in no humour to be bored by Billing's loquacity, he excused himself from accompanying him on the road, on the plea that he was anxious to get to Strawberry Hill, his sister being there waiting him; and he left his companion, and rode on. When he arrived at the Rainsfields' house he met Mrs. Billing and the children going out for a walk; and, upon enquiring for the ladies, he was told they had been expecting him for some time, and were at that moment taking a stroll towards the bridge. After leaving his horse, thither he followed them; and found that his sister was ready habited for her ride, and her friends had stepped out for a short walk with her before she took her departure. When they saw William, they all rallied him on his dilatoriness and want of punctuality; but he, finding that they knew nothing of the tragedy amongst the blacks, refrained from making any explanation; simply pleading guilty to the indictment of his fair friends, and begging leniency at their hands. His sister replied that she had intended, if he had not made his appearance before their return from their walk, to have taken off her habit and stopped at Strawberry Hill, just to teach him punctuality. But stepping up to him, and laughingly patting his cheek, she said that, as he had acknowledged his negligence, she would not disappoint him, but start whenever he pleased. William and his convoy returned to the house, where they found the table spread with a light repast ready waiting them; after partaking which, the girls took an affectionate leave of one another; and, with repeated mutual regrets at parting, promises from Kate to speedily revisit them, and many extorted pledges and solemn obligations from William, to frequently bring his sister over, they parted; and Kate and William left Strawberry Hill at a canter, at which pace they continued until they reached Fern Vale. Upon their arrival there, the little house-keeper was received with all honours, and duly installed in possession of her domicile and in the importance of her office, with a gaiety which even Kate's unpractised eye could detect to be assumed. There was a gloom upon the whole party, particularly Tom Rainsfield, that ill accorded with their usual manner; and it did not fail to strike her. She saw there was some mystery; and, looking from one to the other in a state of perplexity, at last requested an explanation. Tom excused himself from the task, possibly from a feeling of delicacy in shocking her young and innocent mind with a recital of the horrible events of the past twelve hours; but her brother John, thinking it better that a knowledge of the circumstances should be imparted to her by themselves, in preference to their reaching her ears through some other channel, communicated to her as much as he deemed necessary in the meantime for her to know. To say that the story horrified her would but inadequately describe the sensations with which she heard the dreadful narrative. She wept! though not at the usual standard of young ladies' tears that are shed upon the most trivial occasions when effect is deemed by them desirable; such tears are easily conjured into existence, and have no impression on the beholder other than as the sparkling dew on the morning flower excites the admiration or pleases the fancy of the florist. Her's were tears of true sympathy, gushing forth from a warm and affectionate heart; and the burst of feeling grief of one who was always joy and sunshine touched the hearts of her assembled friends; and more than one strong man, that had calmly looked on the misery of the poor victims in the very presence of death, now turned away their heads to conceal their moistened eyelids. As soon as Tom Rainsfield could sufficiently muster his courage to speak, he took the two hands of Kate in his, and said in a voice tremulous with emotion: "My dear Miss Ferguson, your kind sympathy for these poor blacks does you infinite honour and credit; but pray calm yourself. Much as the circumstances are to be regretted, it is more than probable they will be found to result to our benefit, as the greatest ruffians of the whole tribe have been removed; and we may now hope to live without fear of any molestation." The rest of the day passed ordinarily enough. The Fergusons were fully occupied in putting their house in order; and Tom took his leave to see his brother and communicate to him details that he could not expect from Mr. Billing. He promised, before he went, to return the following morning and join Mr. Wigton in revisiting the camp and sepulchres of the blacks. True to his engagement, the next day Tom presented himself at Fern Vale; when he, Mr. Wigton, and John, took their departure on their meditated errand; leaving William at the station, to superintend some work which required the presence of either him or his brother. As the trio rode on their way, Tom was the first to break the general silence, by remarking, "I am sorry to say Jemmy Davies was only too correct, when he surmised that the flour had been poisoned as well as the meat. I have tested it on some animals, with a fatal result; which leaves it beyond doubt that it contained poison; while my brother's explanation of the fact is very equivocal. He may be, and I trust he is, sincere in his asseverations; but I must confess that the whole matter appears to me inexplicable. He denies the possibility of the flour being poisoned, unless it were from contact with the meat, or by their own inadvertent use of the arsenic; which he says they must have taken from the store with the other things, under the impression of its being sugar. Now, though it is possible that the blacks might have made use of the fat of the meat in making their damper, in the other supposition I don't think there is a shadow of probability. However, let it rest between his conscience and his God. I only trust he will enlighten his wife on the subject, for I would not like that duty to devolve upon me, as I could not so far dissemble as to disguise from her my suspicions; and I know the knowledge of her husband's criminality would break her heart." "You need not doubt, my dear sir," said Mr. Wigton, "but what she will hear of it from your brother. He will be sure to tell her, if it is only to prevent her crediting any other version that she may hear; so you need have no apprehension on that head. But let us consider now, that we are about to revisit these wretched blacks, what we can do to ameliorate their condition." "I share with you, Mr. Wigton, your sympathy for these poor creatures," said Tom, "and would gladly render you all assistance that lies in my power; though that assistance will necessarily be limited. But I fear their regeneration is a task of far greater magnitude than you conceive; and I am afraid you are too sanguine." "Why so? my dear, sir," asked the clergyman; "nothing is impossible with God! and with his blessing I have no fear, but that I shall be able to work great changes in them." "True," replied Tom, "you may with the blessing of Providence; but you must excuse me, my dear sir, if I remind you, that we must not expect the Almighty to deviate from his prescribed laws of nature, and work miracles in the conversion of these savages." "I don't quite understand you," replied the minister. "I will explain," said Tom. "You are aware that these people's habits and customs, are totally different from ours, and their peculiar prejudices are deeply rooted. Now, I don't deny for a moment the possibility of the application of the gospel to them, or the probability of a few of their number accepting it (though of that I must confess I have little hope); but I certainly do think that no great progress will be made until you can get them to assimilate their ways to those of civilisation; and that is the point where you will find the difficulty." "For the sake of argument," said Mr. Wigton, "and to hear your views, I will grant your theory that civilisation must precede the preaching of the gospel; as I take it, that is what you mean. Then I would ask; what is to prevent their being induced to domesticate themselves, and live as we?" "Nothing," replied Tom, "that I see, except their inherent antipathy to a settled life, and an existence where they require to labour to gain a subsistence. Numerous attempts have been made to wean the blacks from their wandering, lazy, and unsettled habits, but without success. You could not have a better instance than Jemmy Davies; one perfectly civilized you may say, yet living a savage life. But for the influence of his tribe, and his home associations (which he could not be induced to renounce), he might have been made a respectable member of society; and may yet become one, for he has had the rough edge of his savage nature worn off. You may have another instance in John Ferguson's black boys, who are better specimens than the general class. You see they, at the slightest breath of excitement, leave their work and join the camp. Any attempts to cultivate their intellects like Jemmy Davies would be useless, unless like him they were removed from the influence of their people. Again, you have another instance in little Joey; he has been taught to accommodate himself to the ways of the whites, and never desires to change his condition. But that is owing to the fact that he has known no other, by his having been taken from his home when quite young, educated with whites, and never having imbibed the prejudices of his race. "To christianize the blacks I believe they must be civilized; and to be civilized they must be removed from the influence of their natural predilections and superstitions; for if they are not thoroughly and effectually eliminated from all domestic influence they will never retain their civilisation, but return to their tribes upon the earliest opportunity. On the other hand if they are segregated, and kept beyond the contamination of their kindred, they become, from the absence of their natural habits, alienated from them; and of necessity they assimilate their ways to civilisation. I could mention examples of these, but need only advert to the native police; who, possibly you are aware, when they are drafted from their tribes, are instantly removed to a distance for active service. The consequence of this is that they remain in the force because they have no opportunity of leaving it without coming into contact with other tribes; the natural animosities of whom against one another are such as to render a passage through them to their own tribe extremely perilous. There is no propinquity or friendly intercourse between them; and the native police are therefore retained in service, if not from choice, at least from a knowledge of security. "Do not imagine, Mr. Wigton, that I argue the impracticability of your scheme from any spirit of opposition; nothing is further from my intention. I am far rather desirous to accomplish their disenthralment, though I fear it cannot be effected without alienating them first from their own peculiar habits." "I will not attempt to argue with you on the subject," replied Mr. Wigton, "because I cannot but deny the theory that questions the attributes of the Almighty. I will rather hope to prove to you the fallacy of your sophistry by results. You say that Jemmy Davies is educated; I can see that he is civilized; and can also perceive, from his attention to me yesterday, that he is willing to be instructed, and susceptible of the Christian impress. And I ask, why cannot the others of his tribe be made the same? His training has been purely of a secular kind; whereas it would have been as easy, while he was being taught the rudiments of the English language, to have had the truths of the gospel inculcated; and he would now have been in all probability, if not a Christian, at least a moral man, and less prone to return to his former barbarous nature. I would propose, while instructing the mature, to have a school for the young, so as to put them under a regular course of training; and I have no doubt whatever that the result would be a speedy regeneration." "Then, my dear sir," replied Tom Rainsfield, "to effect it you would have to remove the children entirely from the influence of their parents; as otherwise you would never be able to retain them under you care. The parents would soon begin to feel the restraint of your tuition, and would remove to escape it; while the children, nothing loath to resume their freedom, would gladly accompany them. To make such a system effective I believe you would require to detain the children, even against the wishes of their parents; and, when their education was complete, remove them elsewhere to learn some handicraft so as to accustom them to labour. Then having been brought up in the comforts of the whites, and having learnt to earn a livelihood by the use of their own hands, they would have lost all yearnings after the life of their kindred; especially as their parents, by that time, would have been taught to look upon them as lost. In a word, to accomplish their amelioration, you must carry out a system of domestic expatriation, continuing to separate the young from the old until the former will all have been reclaimed, and the latter in the course of time (as a new generation grows up) will have totally disappeared." "I think there is some feasibleness in your separation scheme," said Mr. Wigton, "but I think it would be a cruel alternative to dismember families in that way; and I do not despair of effecting the desired object without such stringent measures, which I question if the government and society would sanction. However, here we are at the camp; we will see the result of our present interview, and then have an opportunity of further speculation on this theme." But as the party rode into the area of the camp they were surprised to see that it was empty. Not a black was visible; and to our friend's repeated "cooeys" not a return sound was to be heard, not even the distant bark of the aborigines' dogs. So they concluded that the camp had been broken up, and Jemmy Davies and his tribe retired to another part of the scrub; and as they turned, disappointed to retrace their steps, Tom said to Mr. Wigton, "I think you have in this conclusive evidence of there being no guarantee that without restriction the blacks will ever receive instruction." CHAPTER X. "Come let us fill the flowing bowl Until it doth run over; For to-night we'll merry be, To-morrow we'll get sober." OLD SONG. Some time had elapsed since the events mentioned in the foregoing chapter had transpired; but few changes had come over the scene of our narrative. Kate Ferguson had settled down into the circle of her domestic duties with a spirit that charmed her brothers and enchanted every one about her. Mr. Wigton had, at an early date, left Fern Vale for Brisbane. The blacks had entirely disappeared from the country, and Mr. Rainsfield had almost, if not entirely, forgotten their existence and the dreadful means he had adopted for their expatriation; while Tom Rainsfield, if he continued to remember it, never allowed any mention of the circumstances to pass his lips. The whole of the events were of course, by "the thousand tongues of scandal," speedily noised about the country; but the general feeling exculpated Rainsfield from any blame, and the judicial enquiries were extremely superficial. The government being perfectly satisfied with the report of the magistrates of the neighbourhood; who in their turn were content with the unsubstantiated version of their colleague Mr. Rainsfield. Tom Rainsfield was a constant visitor to his friends at Fern Vale; while William Ferguson and his sister made repeated visits to "the Hill," though their brother John rarely moved off his own run. The spring had set in with its calm salubrious atmosphere, and plenty and contentment pervaded all nature. At nearly every station shearing had been completed; and, except at some of the remote localities where labour was only with difficulty obtained, the excitement and bustle incidental to that time had subsided, and the squatters had settled down into the monotony of their usual routine. At a pretty little spot on a tributary creek of the Gibson river, about ten miles from Brompton, was situated the station of Clintown, the residence and property of a retired medical man of the name of Graham. This gentleman was rather a portly individual of stupendous dimensions; with a body rather obese, and limbs of great power. His face was decidedly rubicund, and, kept scrupulously free from hairy excrescence, displayed a pair of pendent cheeks. His nose was not much out of the common, except that it was possessed of a certain erubescence, which, increasing in intensity towards the extremity, gave some indication of the owner's predilection for spirituous comforts. His cranium on the summit had a decided tendency to sterility, notwithstanding the continual exudation of an unctuous nourishment; and, but for the stamp of the voluptuary which was unmistakably impressed upon his visage, and other slight defects, would have been considered by phrenologists a fine head. If not respected in the district Dr. Graham was at least tolerated; perhaps more from dread than any other feeling his presence or society was likely to create. Among the lower orders he was generally detested; he was abhorred by the shepherds whom he employed, and who never could be induced to stay with him longer than they were absolutely compelled; while many were the charges of rapacity brought against him, by those who had been in his service, and had been defrauded of their wages on some unjust pretext. His bellicosity was well known; and bold indeed was the man who would dare to risk an encounter with the self-dubbed "champion of the Downs." He was reputed wealthy; or rather his means were supposed to be considerable, though there was a story attached to their acquisition, which, if true, reflected lasting opprobrium on this worldly medicus. He was said to have been located at one time as a practitioner in a distant part of the colony, and to have conceived the idea of establishing an hospital in a certain town, centrally situated in the bush. To accomplish this end he travelled the country soliciting subscriptions; and such was the confidence reposed in the individual, whose disinterestedness and zeal were generally admired, and the desideratum that such an edifice was considered, that he was eminently successful in his canvass. The squatters readily and munificently subscribed to the project, and Dr. Graham soon found himself in possession of a considerable sum of money. That this money was applied to the purposes for which it was contributed is more than doubtful; for the hospital was never erected, while Dr. Graham shortly afterwards became possessed of the station of Clintown. It was said that some of the subscribers, not relishing the manner in which they were taken in, insisted upon a return of their money, or its legitimate application; and in some few instances, to quiet the importunities of those who were disposed to be turbulent, the money was returned. But in the majority of the cases the parties were too timorous or indifferent to make any demands; and the subscriptions and hospital scheme remained in _statu quo_, the one in the pocket, or rather represented in the sheep of Dr. Graham, and the other in the fond expectation of the deluded subscribers. Whether this tale be true or false we are not in a position to say; but it was darkly brooded about, no one daring to venture an open assertion, in consideration of the pugilistic accomplishment of the party most concerned. One thing, however, is certain that the Doctor, prior to the scheme, was always supposed to be in debt, from the difficulty "those little accounts" could be extorted from him, while after the successful ruse, he suddenly became possessed, to a remarkable extent, of a laudable desire for honourable liquidation. The general characteristics of Dr. Graham's nature were as peculiar as his personal appearance. He was parsimonious and exacting in his intercourse with his neighbours, and inhospitable to those not his boon companions; to whom again, he was lavish and profuse. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than the society of a companion who could join him in copious libations; and upon one occasion he carried out his principle in a remarkable manner. He was detained on business for a short time in Sydney, and was disposed to enjoy himself in "a little bit of a spree;" though, unfortunately for his happiness, he could not fall in with a concomitant spirit to join him in the way of friendship. None who knew him were disposed to submit to his imperiousness; so he was driven to the necessity of procuring, by engagement, the companionship of some congenial nature. He, therefore, hired a man who was recommended to him for the purpose; an individual who was famous in his generation for his bibulous capabilities, and willing to submit to any indignity for a gratuitous supply of the inebriate's nectar. The debauch commenced and was conducted with considerable spirit so long as it lasted; but the principal and his co-adjutor soon parted, owing, as the former used to say, to the fellow's incapacity to take his liquor. His contentment in loneliness was another feature in his character; which was also exemplified by another tale often told about him. He was an enthusiastic lover of whist, and when he could make up a rubber with three of his choice spirits he was content; though still without them he was equally partial to his hand, and was actually discovered on one occasion sitting with his usual solace, his grog and his pipe, silently going through the formula of playing with three dummies. In the sitting-room pertaining to the dwelling of this worthy individual, who, we may mention, had never thought it advisable "to settle in life," sat three specimens of the genus homo--the proprietor of the station, a neighbouring squatter of the name of Brown, and our old acquaintance, Bob Smithers. At the moment of our intrusion upon this triumvirate, they were assiduously attentive to a dark-coloured opaque receptacle, containing a brown stimulating fluid, and which was circulated (to use an antithesis) in a triangle from one to the other of this trio, and followed by its usual concomitant, an earthenware vessel of a porous nature (containing a more translucent liquid), and vulgarly denominated "a monkey." In fact these gentlemen were what steady, sober, and sedate people would call drinking; but what they, choice sons of Bacchus, simply designated "taking a nobbler." They were also emulating the example of the first potent initiator, and "blowing a cloud," from three diminutive and jetty instruments, that were retained in their dental position, irrespective of any inconvenience to expectoration or without any hindrance to the conversation, which was carried on in an animated manner; the only proceeding that called for a removal from their ivory fetters being that which was necessary to alleviate thirst. At the moment which we have chosen to introduce this company to our readers a head was thrust into the room, and a voice called the master of the establishment, who instantly left the apartment, after telling his visitors not to mind his absence. This was an injunction which was perfectly needless, for, in the presence of the before mentioned stimulator, the parties addressed seemed in nowise disconsolate at his leaving them. The Doctor's absence was only of short duration, for in a few minutes he returned with a bottle in his hand, which he set down upon the table with the following aphorism: "May we never want a friend, and a bottle to give him;" while he continued addressing Smithers: "Here, Bob, old fellow, here is a spiritual visitant in the shape of as good brandy as ever you drank. I have plenty more, so don't be frightened of the liquor. I am obliged to keep it in my bed-room, or I would not have a drop in the house in twelve hours; those confounded rascals of mine would rob a church if they could get any drink out of it;" and then turning to his other friend he said: "How are you getting on, Brown? take another 'nip,' and don't shirk your grog;" at which little pleasantry of his own he burst into a laugh. Brown did as he was desired with very little show of reluctance, and asked of his host what had occurred to make him so merry. "Why," said the Doctor, "I have had a little adventure with one of my fellows, who wanted to be master; but I soon taught him submission. My overseer came to tell me that one of the scoundrels had refused to work, so I quietly went out to him and knocked him down. I hate to have words with the fellows; that's meeting them on their own ground. I like to deal with them pointedly; so when the blackguard got upon his legs again I told him the next remedy I would try would be a stock-whip, and if that failed I would summon him before the bench. That sent him to work, for my fellows know it is a bad game to come before the magistrates with me; so telling him to 'keep his eye on the picture' I left him, and I'll vow he won't trouble me again in a hurry." "But," said Brown, "how have you managed to establish such a wholesome dread of the bench in the minds of your men? For my part, if ever I have any of my fellows up, I not only rarely obtain any satisfaction, but am put to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience." "Oh, I suppose you don't know how to manage it," replied the Doctor. "I never let any of my fellows have a case against me. If they have at any time the impertinence to serve me with a summons, or lodge a complaint, I always prevent them getting any of their own witnesses, by finding them something to do to keep them out of the way of a subpoena; whereas that overseer of mine is an uncommonly useful fellow, he always sees things in the same light that I do." "But still I can't see," said Brown, "if the fellows are determined to be troublesome, how you are to punish them unless they commit a breach of their agreement; and they are generally wide awake enough to keep all right there." "Nothing easier in the world," replied the Doctor. "I'll just tell you how I served one fellow that gave me a great deal of trouble. He was a 'new chum,' just out from home. My agent in Brisbane hired him from the ship when he arrived, and he was an infernally saucy fellow, as all those new chums are; for they not only demand higher wages, but are always more difficult to satisfy, readier with their objections, and lazier and less handy with their work, than men with 'colonial experience.' Now, this fellow gave me some cheek one day, and I thrashed him; but what do you think of his impertinence? he actually summoned me for assault. Well, Bill, my overseer, very conveniently saw him raise his hand to strike me, so I was forced, you perceive, to knock him down in self-defence, and the case was dismissed. But I was determined to break my fine fellow's pride, and let him see that he had got into the wrong box when he fancied he could ride rough-shod over me; and I wasn't long in giving him the lesson. I had him engaged as a shepherd, in the usual way, 'and to make himself generally useful;' so one fine Sunday morning, when he had dressed himself in his 'Sunday go-to-meeting clothes,' I found a nice little job for him that I knew he wouldn't relish. I had a couple of horses in a paddock at the other side of the creek; which had been flooded just previously, so that the paddock was nearly half covered with mud and water; and to get over to it there was no other way than to ford the creek, which I give you my word was none of the cleanest to cross. I ordered the fellow to fetch me one of the horses, knowing perfectly well that, as there was not another on the station, he would have to accomplish it on foot. I was sure this would try his metal, and guessed he wouldn't half like the idea of soiling his clean clothes; and I was right. He didn't like it; and positively refused to go, saying that he was not obliged to work on a Sunday beyond what was absolutely necessary, such as tending his flock, for which he was engaged. I, however, put a boy to mind his sheep, and then ordered him again to bring in the horse for me; but he still refused. So I just had him up, under 'the Masters and Servants Act,' for refusing to obey my lawful orders, and he was fined forty shillings and ordered to go back to his work. But he declined to do that, and was then committed to gaol for a month, at the expiration of which he was sent back to his work, whether he liked it or not. Well, sir, he was always civil after that; but I determined that he should remember the lesson. So when his term expired, and I settled with him for his wages, I charged him with twenty sheep that had been missing out of his flock while he had refused to work. He was fool enough to decline receiving the balance of his wages, and actually sued me; but I produced my stock-book before the bench, when the loss was shown, and my overseer swore to the deficiency, so my gentleman had to submit; and, being rather abusive upon his defeat, I quieted him by threatening another thrashing, and told him to 'keep his eye on the picture,' unless he wished to be still farther treated to a drilling." "Well," said Brown, "but suppose a fellow like that should persist in giving you trouble, his services would not at any wages be worth having, considering the nuisance of continually dragging him before the bench; and he might get a lot of your men as witnesses against you; and even if he did no good for himself, he would do you considerable injury, by drawing the men away from their work." "I never have any bother in that way," replied Dr. Graham. "I told you I never allow any of my fellows to have witnesses, if I can help it, and I generally can; so you see I don't lose their time in that way; and as to their being of any service to the fellow who wants to complain, I don't believe it, for I get it all arranged before their case is heard. You know, I am generally on the bench myself; and before we commence business, I, and whoever may be sitting with me, have a talk over the cases on the sheet; and, of course, there being one in my name, I just explain the matter to the other fellows, and we easily settle between us what the chap shall have. So that when my case is called, I sink the magistrate for the time, and leave the bench for the witness box, where I give my evidence and obtain the sentence I require. Only the last case I had was one brought against me by a bullock-driver I had employed, and who, not having done his work as he ought to have done, I gave a thrashing to, and he summoned me for assault. Now it happened, the day my case came on, I was on the bench with Ned Telford, who had a case against one of his men; and we arranged between ourselves, that while he sat to hear and dismiss my case, I would hear his, and give his fellow a fortnight in the lock-up. The thing was done as easily and quietly as possible, without any trouble or annoyance to either of us. What is the use of 'the Master and Servants Act' if we can't make the fellows obedient? It is high time that the blackguards were brought to their senses, for they have had their own way far too long, and I don't half so much trouble myself with them now as I used to do; they begin to know me, and understand that I will not put up with any of their nonsense." "You certainly," said Brown, "manage to keep them pretty subordinate so long as they stay with you, which, I imagine, is not longer than they can help; but, for my own part, I am not so fortunate, for I am continually having trouble with my men. They are principally 'fresh emigrants,' and are always grumbling and growling, notwithstanding that they get higher wages than other men, and have less to do than usually falls to the lot of older hands. I begin to find that 'new chums' are the worst class of men that can be had; I would sooner have black fellows if they could be got to stick to their work." "So would I," replied the Doctor, "if we could only make the black devils work, but that no one on earth can do. You see we are obliged to get new chums, at least I am, for the old ones disappear somehow; as soon as ever they get paid off, they bolt off down the country, and we see no more of them." "Just so, Graham," said the other, "I find it equally as difficult to get men that have colonial experience as you do. The fact of the matter is simply this, some fools particularly busy themselves in spreading reports down the country that the blacks are fearfully troublesome in this district, and that no man's life is safe; the consequence of which is, that no one will engage to come out here but 'new chums,' who have not had time to hear the idle stories. I hear that emigration from home is likely to cease from the representations of a set of scoundrels in Sydney and Melbourne that the destitution there is great. If emigration is stopped, I don't know what we, in the outlying district, are to do for labour; what do you think Smithers?" "I think," replied that individual, "that if the people in the large towns complain of the scarcity of work it is only because they won't go into the country to look for it. The fools won't stir out of the town, notwithstanding that there are too many of them there, and that their labour is wanted in the country. If the blackguards will not come into the bush when work is offered to them I would send them to work on the government roads." "Yes, by Jove! you are right," said Brown; "but then that can't be done without some stringent enactment of government; which I am certain would be afraid to go in so heavily. One thing is very certain, labour we must have of some sort or another; for at present we are not only at the mercy of our men, but we have to pay them ruinously high wages, to be treated with contumely, have our work neglected, and our property sacrificed." "For my part," said the Doctor, "I would sooner have the old convict times back again; then we could compel the fellows to do their work, and keep very civil too, unless they wanted a little buttering with the lash. Besides, it was far more satisfactory to have the scoundrels under our control, and not so expensive as paying the men, as now, forty and fifty pounds a year and their rations; but, halloo! who have we got here?" CHAPTER XI. "I am his Highness' dog at Kew, Pray, tell me, sir, whose dog are you?" POPE. The last remark in the preceding chapter was elicited by the appearance of a stranger, who, at the moment of its utterance, rode up to the station, and knocked at the open door of the house. Upon being desired in the stentorian voice of the owner of the place, from the room in which he sat, to "come in," a rather gentlemanly-looking man of about the middle height and relative age, presented himself before the conclave; and said: "I have to apologize, gentlemen, for intruding upon your privacy; have I the pleasure of addressing Dr. Graham?" "That is my appellation," replied the individual in question. "And mine, sir, is Moffatt, of the Sydney firm of that name, wool-buyers; possibly it may be known to you. I am purchasing wool, and if you have not already disposed of your clip, will be happy to make you an offer. I have come over-land, right through the New England district, and having consumed more time on the road than I intended, I find I am rather late for the stations in these northern parts; they having got most of their clips away." "Well, sir, I have got mine off too; all but a few bales," replied the proprietor of Clintown. "If you have not already made any arrangements relative to its disposal," remarked the buyer, "I can judge of your clip by what you have remaining, and make you an offer for the whole; and, if we come to terms, you can intimate the sale to your agents before its arrival at port, and instruct them to deliver it to my order." "All right," exclaimed the squatter, "we'll talk about business presently; join us in a nobbler, there is the bottle. You will find a glass over there," and he pointed to an hermaphrodite piece of furniture, standing at one side of the room. The stranger thanked his host, and taking his seat, while he assisted himself to a "stiff ball," said, "Pray, don't let me disturb the conversation that you were engaged in at the moment of my abrupt entrance." "Well," said Brown, "to resume our topic, I differ from you Doctor. I don't think we, even as a class, would be benefited by a return of the old penal system, and I will tell you why. In the first place, I don't believe that their labour was cheaper than that of free men, for never could the convicts be made to do a proper amount of work; they had no will to do so. What they did was only what the compulsory system had the power of enforcing; just so much as not to be actual idleness, which they were only too ready to indulge in when they momentarily escaped the strict surveillance of the overseers; who frequently were necessarily men of their own class, and connived with them in their derelictions. Besides, then we were never free from bush-rangers, and, with all practicable vigilance, sometimes the convicts would escape to the bush, and continually place our lives and properties in danger; so all things considered, bad as our straits now are, I would not wish to see a return of the penal times." "You have forgotten to mention another drawback to the system," suggested the stranger, "and that is the immoral influence such a class of men have upon the community, and the contamination to which your family is liable." "Hang the immoral influence, as you call it," exclaimed the Doctor; "whose morals are they going to effect, I should like to know? Ours? my word! if we can't take care of them, I would ask you, who can?" "By Jove! Graham," exclaimed Smithers, laughing, "it would be hard for any fellow to vitiate yours." At this sally of Bob's, the man of physic laughed too, and replied: "Well, I mean the prisoners have only got themselves to mix with, so what signifies any consideration for their morals; they can't make themselves worse than they were when they are first convicted." "There, sir, you are mistaken," said Moffatt. "You will admit that there were many who were serving their time as convicted felons who had come to that position by some false step in life, of which they deeply repented; but that, being mixed up with the vilest ruffians indiscriminately, they were subjected to this immoral influence of which I speak. We are perfectly aware that many (but for their one offence) honourable and exemplary men, who would scorn to do even a mean action, as derogatory to their natures, have been so subjected; and what has been the result of their contact with these vilest of the vile--villains whose hearts and souls were devoted to the practice of infamy--wretches, whose hearts, as Tom Hood said, were "inscribed with double guilt?" Has it not been a general debasement, and a levelling in most instances of the would be virtuous, to the standard of the despicable criminals themselves? I know it has been argued by many that an honourable man would shun the influence of such; and that the ruffians themselves, having no kindred feelings with their conscientious companions, would not trouble them, but afford the penitent every opportunity of avoiding a contact. But it was not so. What escape had a man of feeling, education, and penitential desire, from society such as was general among the convicts? None! He was compelled to endure it; and, upon a perpetual exhibition of vice and infamy before his eyes, hearing it highly spoken of, joked upon, and even lauded, he too frequently ceased to abhor it; began by degrees to look upon it with a callous indifference, and then to acquire, and practise, what before the very contemplation of would have been revolting to his nature; and ultimately he became as hardened a wretch as any of the rest. I say this was too frequently the case; and only shows that there was an immoral influence at work, even amongst the prisoners themselves. The employers of the men were sufferers by it likewise; for, by the cultivation of penitence in a willing subject, the employer secured the services of a valuable servant; whereas if the moral dispositioned man became as debased as the vile ones he was as unprofitable as they. But the evils of the system, in a moral point of view, were more particularly felt by the employers in the fearful example made to their families. Just picture to yourself rearing a young family subject to the dreadful contamination of such a school; the influences of which tuition all the academies of punctilio in the universe would be unable to eradicate. Happily for us, and for posterity, those times are past and never can nor will return, however much individuals in certain classes may desire. The mass of the population would never permit the re-introduction of such an incubus on civilisation, Christianity, and morality; but pardon me, sir, I am warming on the subject; it is one I have always abhorred, for I have constantly witnessed its fearful iniquities." "What you say," replied Dr. Graham, "may be all very well with regard to people that have families and live in towns; but you must remember that squatters are the stay of the colony, and must be supported. What would the colonies be but for their exports of wool? and how, I would like to know, is that staple commodity to be obtained if the squatters are not enabled to procure labour? At present we pay higher wages than any other country in the world, notwithstanding which we cannot get sufficient labour to do our work. It is a question that affects the entire country; for if we do not get labour our staples will decrease, and that, you will admit, will be a public calamity. The long and the short of the matter is simply this, we must have labour, and the government must exert itself to procure it. If it does not, we ought to advocate a return of convicts." "Well, sir," replied Moffatt, "I don't pretend to dictate to you personally, presuming that you are the best judge of your own affairs. Wages in the colonies are certainly high, but then the employers can well afford to pay the high rates; and, but in these remote parts, I have heard few complaints of the scarcity of labour. Until your district becomes more settled you will have to expect it, for it is one of the inconveniences of an unsettled country; but as soon as it becomes better known and more occupied, I think you will find that labour, as in everything else where there is a supply and demand, will find its own level." "That's very true," said Brown, "but, remember in the meantime, we are sufferers; what are we to do?" "I can scarcely tell you," said the other, "but fear you will have to put up with it. It is, as I have said, a contingent incidental on your remote location. You can't force labourers to settle in a country, of which they know little, and that little disparaging. You must offer some inducements to tempt men out into these wilds other than high wages. What militates considerably against you, I imagine, is the current belief that the blacks are rather dangerous neighbours." "It is all very well for people that are not affected as we are, to tell us we must put up with it," said Brown; "but, assuming that labour would find its own level as you state; that is, I imagine, by offering security against the blacks, if we admitted that the blacks were dangerous (though we deny it); does it not follow, that we, in these districts, are entitled to some consideration on the part of our rulers? We contribute to the support of the state, and are therefore entitled to protection from the government; but are we likely to get that? I don't believe it. We are just allowed to struggle on as best we can. But it will result in this; we will have to take the remedy into our own hands; labour we must have, and if our own countrymen will not accept our employment, even at exorbitant wages, we will have to procure it from some foreign source." "May I enquire," said Mr. Moffatt, "the source you would propose?" "It is immaterial which," replied Brown; "whatever would be found the most advantageous, the people that would be most industrious, and whose labour could be obtained at the cheapest rate of wage. I have often been at a loss to understand why the Victorian government has adopted such stringent laws to endeavour to keep the Chinese out of Melbourne. They are essentially an industrious class of people, and just the very sort of men we want; they make excellent shepherds, more attentive to their work than Europeans, less difficult to please in their rations, and can be obtained at far less wages." "I can enlighten you," said the wool-buyer, "if you are ignorant as to the reason of the Victorian people desiring a restriction on the immense influx of Chinese immigrants. They have been landed in that colony in thousands, and may be said, though forming an integral part of our population, to be a distinct people and nation. They speak their own language only, have their own religion, are proverbially the laziest, filthiest, and most immoral people contained in the state, and come without their females. So that they do not settle amongst us; but those that are sufficiently fortunate to make money return with their gains to their own country to excite the avarice of their countrymen; while those that are not successful are left to starve and die, or commit depredations on our settlers. They swarm together in large numbers in small tenements in our large towns; and, by their vice and filth, generate noisome diseases amongst themselves, and pestilence in the neighbourhood in which they live; and their abodes and their persons are alike mephitic. They are in fact the scum of our population, and far more degraded even than the denizens of the vilest purlieus of Britain's metropolis. They, as doubtless you are aware, live and migrate in large bodies, from one to other of the diggings, blighting each locality in their transient passage, as swarms of locusts. They stab one another, and commit murder amongst themselves, of which the authorities never hear. They commit depredations on the whites, for which they are never punished from the difficulty in detecting the delinquent; and, as I said before, they spread disease wherever they go. They are therefore no benefit to the country; for, with the exception of rice and opium, they consume no mercantile commodities, but annually drain a considerable quantity of gold from it. It is considering these facts, and that they are filling places that could be advantageously occupied by our own countrymen, that the colonists of Victoria have attempted to restrict their entrance into the country, by the exaction of a ten pound poll-tax. I am only sorry to see that the example is not followed by the other colonies, for while Victoria stands alone, she will never succeed in keeping the evil away." "And I am very glad to think the other colonies are liberal-minded enough not do so," said Brown. "You will please to bear in mind that this is a free country, and it is a lasting disgrace to Victoria that she refuses admission to any foreigner. The government of Great Britain might as well attempt to exclude certain people or classes from the asylum of her shores." "No, sir," replied Moffatt, "there it does not signify. Her own population would more than counterbalance any influx; but here it is different. The news of our gold fields, spread by rumour, and the return of successful diggers to China, have generated a spirit of adventure in that country which shows itself in the emigration of swarms of her people to our shores. Already as many as sixty thousand Chinamen are in Victoria; and they being acknowledged an inferior and by no means desirable class of settlers, even if they remained, it was deemed expedient to stop or at least check their immigration. As the complaint was desperate, so, necessarily, was the remedy. As you say their entrance into the country could not be prohibited, so the tax was levied on them to discourage their coming." "And I think it was a most iniquitous tax," said Brown. "It has been urged against the Chinamen that they consume nothing but rice, and that on the diggings they are in the way of British colonization. Now it is a proverbial fact that they are ousted from all good 'claims;' which, if of any value, are instantly 'jumped' by the diggers, while the poor Chinamen are forced to take up the abandoned and worked out 'claims,' where Europeans have found a continuation of labour unprofitable. On the yield from these holes they manage to live, so it is evident that instead of their being a curse to the country, as has been affirmed, they are positively a benefit; for the gold, if they do take any out of the country, is only that which, but for them, would never have been extracted from the earth." "That is a perfect fallacy," replied the other; "Chinamen will no more work on bad ground than white men; and as to their working abandoned 'claims' that is a thing that is done every day now; for formerly, when the diggings were in their glory, claims yielding what would now be considered 'paying quantities,' were thrown up by their holders for some more promising ground. But in these times diggers are content to try over all the old ground; so the assertion that the practice is confined to the Chinese is fallacious." "However, be it as it may," said Brown, "the Chinese have a perfect right to come here if they please; and I should like to see them landing in Moreton Bay in as many thousands as they do in Melbourne. Then we should have an opportunity of getting shepherds, whereas now we experience considerable difficulty. Some of the settlers on the northern part of the coast have for sometime agitated the question of the introduction of coolie or Chinese labour into those parts; arguing that the climate is admirably adapted for the growth of cotton and sugar, though too tropical for the European to labour at agriculture in the sun. It would, however suit those accustomed to such a temperature; and without them the resources of the country will never be developed. I perfectly agree with them, and think the introduction of some cheap labour, such as that, would be of immense advantage to the country." "I must again differ from you, sir," said the stranger; "their introduction would be of incalculable mischief to the entire colony." "How so?" asked the other, "will you explain?" "Certainly," replied Mr Moffatt; "it would little matter to you, perhaps, who only want to realise your fortune, and return with it to your native land. But how different is it with the labouring man who settles here with the intention of making this his home for the remainder of his days? Let us consider the prospect it offers to the colony in this light. It is argued that the northern parts of this island are possessed of a climate that will not admit of the manual labour of Europeans; and that without the introduction of tropical labour the country must remain unproductive. Now, admitting this theory, it naturally follows that, with the exception of owners of property and capitalists, the population would be a mixed and foreign one; and would form a state peculiar in itself, and different in its language and manners from the other colonies. This, be it remembered, in the midst of a British colony, inhabited by the Anglo-Saxon race. Now, it must be manifest that this people, forming no inconsiderable part of our population, must be either admitted to the privileges of British subjects, or governed as a conquered race or an inferior people. Assuming, then, that they are to be recognised as a class of free immigrants, which is in accordance with your own opinion, they at once become colonists, over whose actions we have no undue control. They would be entitled to all the privileges of our constitution, and, consequently, could not be debarred the exercise of the franchise. To say nothing of the absurdity of having a Chinaman or coolie returned to a seat in our legislature, and other incongruities; what would be the effect of their introduction upon our own working population? we will see. This desirable class of labourers with whom you desire to inundate us, we will assume, are introduced into the country in swarms, ostensibly for the cultivation of tropical produce in the northern latitudes of this colony. They are engaged at wages commensurate to the exigencies of competition, so as, as you say, to enable the cultivator to develop the resources of the country by raising a marketable commodity to compete with the slave-grown produce of the western hemisphere. What is the result? Is it to our advantage? Certainly not! The value of our exports are increased, you say, but at what a fearful sacrifice? Granted that these coolies are engaged, and for a period of years say, and that they are bound stringently by penalties to the terms of their agreement. To enforce this, or even to carry on your work, you must have the services of some interpreter; at whose mercy you must ever be, even if you are so fortunate as to obtain one. I would ask you, then, what security have you for the due performance of your labourers' contract? None but their agreement. And how can you in a court of law prove its legality, or the liability of the contracting party, when that party is totally unacquainted with your language and you with his; and he does not admit its validity? But even granting that one or two refractory coolies could be subdued, where would be your remedy if scores or hundreds repudiated their contracts, and refused to work for you at the wages offered to them? That they would so refuse I am firmly convinced, for we are all aware that two differently remunerated classes of labour of the same description co-existent is incompatible with the laws that govern commerce; and men would be found, as you yourself have admitted, who would be ready to obtain their services in other capacities by the offer of higher wages; while the coolies, in their turn, would readily accept an improvement in their positions, without considering the violation of their contract, the nature of which they would doubtless have but an imperfect idea, if not be entirely ignorant. Thus they would be continually drawn off from their intended occupation to fill positions to the exclusion of the white man; and the cotton and sugar cultivator would require to give an equivalent to the European's wages, or supply the places of those who abscond by a fresh importation. In such an emergency it is more than probable that the latter would be the course adopted. Hence we would have a perpetual influx of these undesirable immigrants, who would merely serve a probationary term with their importers, and then mix with our white population on terms of equality. Is it not evident then that Asiatic labour would be brought into direct competition with European? and who can deny that the result would not be disastrous to the latter? Some strait-laced philosophers and fireside philanthropists, who see the miseries of their fellow-creatures through the beeswing of their after-dinner potations, dictate the means for the amelioration of the sufferings of their race with the same self-sufficient spirit that they rule the destinies of their own household. These argue that the introduction of the heathen immigrants to our shores would be an inestimable blessing to humanity, and add an additional lustre to the cause of Christianity, by the intercourse of the two races, and a consequent enlightenment and christianizing of the disciples of feticism. But this I deny, for debase the European labourer by reducing his means to that of the Asiatic (which I affirm would be the consequence of this influx), and instead of the latter being elevated to the level of the former, the former would be rather dragged down to that of the latter. Without going so far as to question the omnipotence of the Almighty I firmly believe that the moral condition of the Asiatic would not be ameliorated in the slightest degree by the contact; while humanity and Christianity would receive a blow in the demoralization of our countrymen. Depend upon it, sir, the expediency of the introduction of cheap labour is a fallacy; whereas the very existence of our religion, and the realization of our future greatness, depend upon the settlement of the wastes of our colony by a thorough British population." "But, my good sir," said Brown, "how do you reconcile to your objection the thesis that, as the European cannot labour in field service in the tropical heat of the northern part of our colony, without the assistance of Asiatic labour the productions of our land will lay dormant?" "That," replied the other, "I also deny. I believe European labour is practicable in our climate, even in the remote north; and in support of my belief I could name numerous precedents. Was it not a Spanish population that peopled South America? an European that later settled Texas? and is even now (I allude more particularly to the Germans) growing cotton in that province to compete with the slave-grown produce of the States? Have not the French settled Algiers, and cultivated its soil, even producing that desired staple, cotton? But to come nearer home; have not our own brave countrymen in India incontestably proved, in the trials of the last fearful campaign, without having been inured to the climate, the capability of the Englishman to withstand its heat?" "But still," said Brown, "the price at which we purchase our labour would never enable us to cultivate either sugar or cotton profitably. We must have cheap labour to perform the work; and, for my own part, I can't see but that, if coolies be introduced into the country as labourers for a specific purpose, they could be compelled by the law of the land to continue at that labour. If the introduction for that purpose is found desirable, the practice of their immigration could be legalized by an enactment that at the same time would bind them to the species of work for which they were engaged, and make their hire or employment for any other purpose, or in any other part of the country beyond the tropical boundary, a felony punishable by a heavy penalty." "That was just the point I was coming to," replied Mr. Moffatt; "but first I will answer your previous objection. It is practicable for Europeans to cultivate the soil to the northward, though they will do so in the manner most advantageous to themselves. If they find the cultivation of cotton and sugar unprofitable they will turn their attention to other products; but I am inclined to believe that cotton could be profitably cultivated even by our own expensive labour. I have a friend, resident in the vicinity of Brisbane, who has grown some cotton as an experiment, and the result, even in this temperate climate, has been most satisfactory. The cotton he sent home was submitted to some of the first judges in Manchester and Liverpool, who pronounced it of the finest sea-island description, and superior to any obtained from the United States. Now this cotton was cultivated from the ordinary American sea-island seed; so that its fineness arose, not from any excellence in its germ, but the peculiar adaptation and efficiency of the soil in which it was grown; and which does not differ from the land on our entire coast line. This shows that our cotton would be of superior quality, and consequently of greater value. Another fact to be remembered is this, that in 'the States,' owing to the frost and severity of the winter, the plant is only an annual; while with us, as my friend has discovered, from the absence of frost the cotton tree becomes a perennial, and increases its yield each season; while the staple does not deteriorate in quality. Thus, it will be seen, we should have considerable advantage in the cost of production over the American planter; notwithstanding his slave labour. But to return to the coolies; with regard to their forced compliance with the terms of their agreements,--to effect which, you say, certain enactments would have to be passed to meet the exigencies of the case,--I believe the first step would be the dismemberment of those districts from the parent colony, and their erection into a separate state; so as to preserve the stringencies necessary in its government from infringing the constitution of the other colonies. Now in this new state the preponderance of the population would be black, who would in fact comprise all the working part of it; and it would necessarily follow that the government of the state would be comprised of the employers of this very labour, their servants, or sycophants, or at least those whose interests would be intimately connected with theirs. So that they might be necessarily expected to legislate so as to entirely meet their own views, and subvert the rights and freedom of their foreign labourers. The system would then descend into a compulsory labour; and, but for its name, would in nowise differ from slavery; worse in fact than actual slavery, from the fact of the stimulus of protection to one's own property being wanting in this case, that would in the other act as a preventive against unusual tyranny and oppression. So that the right of disposal by death, might reasonably be expected, would be exercised almost with impunity. Depend upon it, sir, such a system would give rise to a state of things, not only deplorable, but derogatory to a Christian nation. But I am convinced it never would gain the countenance or consent of the home government, who, for its own honour, could not tolerate the introduction of coolie labour on such terms; and our own population would never suffer its introduction on terms of equality." "Well, sir," replied Brown, "though I don't admit myself a convert to your way of thinking, I still believe there is some truth in your arguments; but the thing we can't get over is the want of a labouring population here in the bush; and if we can't induce our own countrymen to emigrate we must try others." "Believe me, sir," said Mr. Moffatt, "it is not a want of inclination that deters thousands of Britain's redundant population from flocking to our shores; it is the supineness of our short-sighted government, who, instead of creating a fund for the introduction of an agricultural population by the sale of the waste lands of the colony, or by the grant to every immigrant of a piece of land equivalent in value to the amount he has paid for his passage, lock up the lands from agricultural settlers in the fear lest their interests should clash with the pastoral. This suicidal policy has long been manifest; in no way more so than by the fact that we are obliged to depend upon a foreign supply for our very articles of common consumption; whereas nowhere could they be produced with greater advantage than within our own territory. By all accounts you are likely, in this district, to be separated from New South Wales; and one of your first acts in your legislative independence should be to facilitate the settlement of your agricultural lands. The two interests, that and the pastoral, may be separately maintained without detriment to either, and with immense advantage to the state." "Oh, hang these politics!" cried Graham; "sink all dry arguments just now, you have made me quite thirsty with merely hearing your clatter. Never mind the agricultural lands, coolies, or Chinamen, though I would be very happy to see them and hope we will be able to get a supply of them soon. We will just polish off another bottle of grog, while we screw a spree out of Smithers here." With this little prologue he left the room for a few minutes, returning with a bottle which he placed on the table, and took his seat while he continued: "Bob tells me he is going to 'put his foot into it.' You know he has long been engaged to that niece of Rainsfield's (a deuced fine girl, by Jove!), and he states he is to be married in about a month. Now I say, if he does not give us a spree before he throws us overboard, we will cut him as dead as a herring after he is 'spliced.' What do you say, Brown?" "Most assuredly," replied that individual, "Smithers ought to entertain his bachelor friends before he withdraws himself from their clique; and I have no doubt he will." "He tells me too," said the Doctor, "that those young fellows at Fern Vale have behaved scurvily to him, that one of them has tried to cut him out, and striven hard to set the girl against him. Now I would propose that Smithers give a spree at Brompton, and get his brother to invite the guests for him; then he would be able to have his girl and her friends there, and these young Fergusons too. We could have some glorious fun, get up some races or something of that sort, to please the women and amuse ourselves; besides, it would answer the purpose of showing off his girl and introducing her to his friends, at the same time that it would annoy his rival. And for the matter of that we might oblige him by picking a quarrel with young Ferguson, and giving the fellow a good drubbing, just for the satisfaction of the thing. Eh, gad! Bob must promise to give us a spree, or we won't let him out of this house. It is not often one of our fellows gets spliced; and we can't lose one without a jollification. You had better promise at once, Bob." "Well, for my part," replied Bob, "I would give you a spree in a minute, but how am I to get it up? I would not know who to ask; and, besides, no one would come to my invitation except such fellows as you, who would drink all day, or until you had drained the house dry of liquor." "Get your brother to do it," replied the Doctor, "and work round to the blind side of his wife. I'll be bound she's woman enough to join in it heartily; the mere prospect of the thing will be sufficient inducement to make her fall into your views; and depend upon it she will not only undertake the whole affair, but get together a good company for you." "But there is another thing," urged Bob, "if we are to invite fifty or a hundred people to our place we will have to find quarters for most of them, and how shall we manage that?" "Nothing easier in the world," replied the contumacious Doctor; "give up all your spare room to the women folks, and we fellows can shake down anywhere, camp under a tree if you like; or those that don't like that, let them take the wool-shed." "Well, I'll see if the thing can be managed," replied Bob, "and let you know in good time." CHAPTER XII. "Yes! loath indeed: my soul is nerved to all, Or fall'n too low to fear a farther fall." BYRON. "Well, be it as thou wilt." SIR WALTER SCOTT. Some few days after the meeting of Doctor Graham's friends at Clintown the monotony of the little circle at Fern Vale was disturbed by the arrival of a horseman with a letter for Miss Ferguson; who received into her hand one of those intricately folded missives which at once proclaim the correspondent to be of the fair sex, and proceeded to read the following epistle: "DEAREST KATE.--I'm having a few friends at Brompton on Friday week to spend the day, and of course expect to see you and your brothers of the number. I will take no excuse, you must come; and, if you can possibly manage it, I would be delighted by your prolonging your visit for a week or as long as you like. However, that I will leave to yourself. Eleanor and Mrs. Rainsfield I expect with Tom, so that you will have company on the road. We will do what we can to amuse you all day, and you need not make yourself uneasy about the journey, for I will have plenty of room in the house for you, as well as all my friends, and Mr. Smithers will provide for the accommodation of the gentlemen. You had better ride over on the Thursday, and the party will break up comfortably on the Saturday morning. Tell your brothers that part of the programme of the day's pleasures is a race, and as I know that William at least is fond of racing, he might like to join in it. The man that carries this will be able to tell him more about it than I can, so I will leave him to gain all that information from him. With warmest love, believe me, dearest Kate, your affectionate friend, ELIZA SMITHERS. "_Tuesday morning._ "_P. S._--Write me a reply by the bearer, and mind as you value my friendship make no excuses." The delighted girl had no intention of declining the invitation; for when did a young and joyous creature in the zenith of youthful spirits ever desire seclusion from the innocent enjoyments of life? She ran with the open letter in her hand to her brother William (who was at the time a short distance from the house giving instructions to some of his men), and cried: "See, Will, here is an invitation from Mrs. Smithers to a party at Brompton; you'll go, won't you, Will? I know you will; I'll go and write an answer to say we will accept it." "Don't be in such a violent hurry my little Diana; give me time to read the letter," said her brother, "before you act as sponsor for me. There is no necessity, my dear, to be so impatient; I dare say the messenger will wait for a few minutes;" and then, after perusing it, he continued: "For my part I will be delighted to go, though I'll first see what John says. But, my Kitty! you should not run out in the sun with your head uncovered; you will be spoiling your beautiful complexion and getting a _coup de soliel_. Then your invitations to parties would be at an end; be off now and put on a hat, and we will go look for John, and get his decision on the question." The affectionate mandate of her brother, was soon obeyed by Kate; and the two went in search of John, to submit the note to his perusal. After reading it, he expressed a disinclination to accept the invitation, excusing himself that as they had determined to shortly start for New England he had no wish to join the festivities; but to enable his brother and sister to go to Brompton, he said he would delay his departure until after their return. Kate and William endeavoured in vain to dissuade him from this, but he was inexorable; so it was at last arranged that they should join the party without him, and Kate hastened to communicate the intelligence to her friend, while William took the opportunity of eliciting from the Brompton messenger all the information he could obtain respecting the arrangements. The reader may conjecture the motives that actuated John Ferguson in his desire to keep aloof from Brompton. He was aware the marriage of Bob Smithers and Eleanor Rainsfield was fixed for a period not very remote; and, perceiving the object of the meet was to exhibit the young lady to the admiring gaze, and introduce her to the notice of the friends of the family as the affianced bride of Bob Smithers, he wished to avoid a meeting which, he doubted not, would be irksome to the lady and painful to himself, especially as he would be compelled to witness the triumph of his rival, who, he believed, would take a malicious pleasure in making him feel his defeat. He therefore resolved to absent himself from a society where he was calculated to experience disappointment, rather than pleasure; where for him there would be no enjoyment, except the melancholy satisfaction of gazing on the features of the one he dearly loved, but who so shortly was to be the bride of another. As his brother and sister left him he resumed the occupation at which he had been disturbed on their approach, and continued wrapt in his own gloomy meditations, until he was aroused from his reverie by the cheerful voice of Tom Rainsfield calling him by his name; when turning round he perceived his friend standing at his side. "Why, what on earth is the matter with you, John?" said Tom, as he gazed upon the sorrowful features of the young man; "you look ill, wretchedly ill; what ails you, man?" "Nothing," replied John. "I never felt better in my life; I am not ailing." But his looks belied his speech, for his pallid cheek bore the stamp of a mental depression, and his haggard features the evidence of sufferings other than corporeal; for, let the truth be told, the consciousness that Eleanor was lost to him for ever, preyed upon his mind; and, notwithstanding his repeated efforts to rally his drooping spirits, a melancholy gloom had settled upon his brow, there giving indication of the tumult of thought and feeling that had and still was agitating his brain. His passion for Eleanor Rainsfield, since the fire of love had first entered his soul, had ever been the material of his dreams both by day and night; she was the star of his destiny, the cynosure to which the magnetic needle of his hopes always pointed, and to which his fondest affections continually looked for guidance. He loved her madly, and had half fancied, notwithstanding her avowment of a pre-engagement, that some fortuitous circumstance might have transpired to break off that connexion, and lead her to join her destinies with his. He believed he was not altogether an indifferent object in her eyes, and the fates, even though hitherto unpropitious, he had believed would have ultimately favoured his cause. Thus he continued, even with his heart under a prohibitory decree, to cherish the tender feeling for the lovely girl, although his calmer nature told him there was no hope. He offered up his mind a willing sacrifice to the pleasing though deadly poison, and permitted his soul to be ravished by the wild delirium of his infatuated love. He had, in fact, hoped against hope; but now, that he discovered the creature he adored was irrevocably passing from him to become the wife of another, life appeared to him a blank, and he felt no desire to prolong an existence expatriated from the society of the only one who made it dear to him. These were the feelings that had consumed the spirits of the young man between the interval of his separation from his sister and his meeting with Tom Rainsfield, and which had left such indubitable marks of distress on his countenance that his friend had not failed to detect them. We say that John Ferguson was aware that the marriage of Bob Smithers and Eleanor was settled. This he had heard some time previously, and the tenor of Mrs. Smithers' note had confirmed it; while in his susceptive imagination he pictured to himself the whole plan, needing no better prompter than his fears. While there had been a shadow of hope, John had borne with commendable fortitude the disappointment of unrequited affection, and sustained the devastation of the consuming fire that was burning within him without the possibility of egress. But now that the barrier of his expectancy had been rudely broken down; that the circumvallation of his breastine citadel had been razed to the ground, and the delicate fabric of his heart exposed to the rough greeting of the unfriendly blast, and the piercing shafts of despair, his spirit sank under the assault, and left him crushed and almost demented. "Why, man," said Tom, "you look the perfect picture of misery. I know, or can guess, the cause of your grief; but never mind, cheer up, old fellow! You know the old adage: 'The battle is never lost till it's won;' so do not despair. Eleanor is not married yet, and, by Jove! she won't be either; at least to Smithers; you mark my words." "My dear fellow," said John, "do not destroy her happiness or peace of mind by attempting to separate her from her betrothed. He is her choice, and it is her pleasure to accept him; then what have I to complain of? Pray, don't frustrate her marriage with Smithers out of any regard for me; for I feel convinced any intrigue you may enter into to further such an object would be distasteful to her." "Not at all," replied his friend; "you mistake her, John, and me too, and I may add yourself as well. Though Eleanor has given her consent to this arrangement I know her heart is not with it. Do you think I would be disappointing her, or making her miserable, by destroying a bond that would only bind her in a state of abject misery for the entire period of her life? Would I not rather be justified in rescuing her from such a condition? Of course I would. Then that is the reason I object to her marriage with Smithers; for I am certain she would never know a day's happiness from the hour of her union with him. Two natures never were more diametrically opposed to one another; the dove and the hawk might as well be allied as she to him. She all purity, virtue, and innocence; he all licentiousness, vice, and depravity, without the capacity to appreciate so priceless a gem, and I believe without one feeling of regard for her. No, by--I was going to swear; but, never mind, it cannot be, and I say it shall not be; I'll prevent it yet, for I am sworn to it." "I fear, Tom," said John Ferguson, "you are disposed to judge too harshly of Smithers; Eleanor evidently sees something in him that she admires, or I imagine she would not accept him; so I would beg of you again to leave her to the dictates of her own feelings. Much as I should desire to be blessed by the possession of her hand, I would not attempt it by an opposition to her own inclinations." "Well, John," replied the other, "I am really surprised to hear you talk so if you love Eleanor, as I am convinced you do. For her sake, as well as for your own, you will save her from the misery of so unnatural an alliance as this she meditates. It cannot but terminate unhappily, for I am sure Smithers' treatment of her will be on a par with his general conduct, selfish and brutal." "Pray, don't imagine, my dear Tom," continued John Ferguson, "that I am advocating his cause out of opposition to you, or of perverseness to my own interests. I would consider it the _acme_ of human felicity to be possessed of so inestimable a treasure as Eleanor Rainsfield; but, next to the happiness of that possession, my desire is to see her happy. Bearish as Smithers may be, and I believe is, it will be impossible for him to witness the devotion of such a gentle heart as hers without being warmed in the sunshine of her affection. He cannot but treat her with love and respect, for her nature would command them even from the breast of a savage." "No doubt it would," said Tom, "but I believe that Bob Smithers has not got the feelings of a savage except in his barbarity. But, come John, this won't do; I can't see you perseveringly standing in your own light, and, instead of arousing yourself to exertion, indulging in melancholy reflections. You must be stimulated to work the release of that girl. Why, man, you have lost her through your own supineness. Do you think if I had loved a girl as you have Eleanor, that I would have cared about all the Bob Smithers' in the colony. I would never have ceased my importunities, until I had induced her to look favourably upon me, and condemn her other suitor. You know the saying that the constant dropping of water will wear away the stone; and if I had not worn a hole into her heart, it is a wonder; especially if my rival was such a careless wooer as Smithers; and when once I had got her to prefer me to him, Bob Smithers, or Bob anybody else, might have gone to Jericho for me. I'll bet I'd have soon choked him off; but, my dear fellow, let me see you put a bright face upon the matter, and thrust your foot through 'Bob's affair'; for I am convinced it does not require much to turn the scale in your favour even now, notwithstanding all Eleanor's scruples. The girl must be yours, so take heart." A sickly smile was the only response Tom got from his friend for this attempt to rally him, but he continued: "Well, look here, John, if you don't exert yourself to avert what I consider a domestic calamity I shall cease to consider you my friend. I never saw one who so pertinaciously adhered to a despondency, without attempting to extricate himself, as you. William tells me you have declined the invitation to Brompton. Now, I must insist upon your going; I'll take you under my especial care, and will engage to bring about something to your advantage." "I am extremely indebted to you for your sympathy, Tom," said his friend; "but I regret I have a pre-engagement to start for New England before that time; and I fear to delay my journey much longer as the weather threatens to break." "Now, you know that is all nonsense," said Tom; "I am going down to town myself in a few days, and a day or two will make no more difference to you than to me. I know the object of your refusal, so that excuse won't serve. Why should you desire to avoid the Smitherses or ourselves? It is true Bob has behaved to you in a most ungentlemanly manner, but you need not notice him; the invitation comes from his brother and lady, and you may be sure he will be compelled to treat you with civility. With regard to our party, you need not be under any apprehension; Mrs. Rainsfield, Eleanor, and myself will form our cavalcade, so you may anticipate no unpleasantness by the chance of meeting my brother. While, if I judge rightly, our going ought to be an inducement to you, for of course we shall join to make one party on the road." "I really can't go," said John. "I'll hear of no objection," replied Tom; "you must go, unless you wish to displease all of us by your moroseness. Besides, bear in mind that your absence will give Bob Smithers an opportunity of glorying over your defeat. If it is only to oppose him I would urge you to come; and make yourself as agreeable to Eleanor as you can." "I have already declined the invitation," said John, "and I doubt not ere this the messenger has returned with Kate's reply; so it would be unbecoming of me to go after my refusal." "Moonshine!" exclaimed Tom. "Who would ever think of studying etiquette with our friends in the bush? Besides your apology is a difficulty easily remedied, for the man is going to stop at our place all night; so we can get your sister to write another note, and I will take it over to him, and exchange it for the one he has; we may therefore consider that arranged, and that you go." "I will go to please you," said John; "but I can assure you I have little pleasure in the prospect." "Well, you are a stubborn and ungrateful fellow," exclaimed Tom Rainsfield. "I have a good mind to repeat that remark to Eleanor, unless you promise me to make amends by being assiduously attentive to her, despite all frowns of another." "I fear," replied John, "that is a difficult task; however, I'll attempt that also to please you." "That's right, my dear fellow," cried Tom, "that's the first sensible thing I have heard you utter for some time, and inclines me to entertain some hopes of you yet. But come let us join your sister and William; we will talk over our plans, and set the young lady to work on her letter." The two young men then sauntered quietly up to the house, and Tom Rainsfield taking the lead entered first, and addressed Kate Ferguson in his lively manner as he did so. "I have been successful, my dear Miss Ferguson," he said, "in making a convert of John. I have overruled all his objections to join us, and he has promised to accompany our party to Brompton. So we have to beg of you to concoct another epistle for Mrs. Smithers, which I will be the bearer of to the Brompton messenger, who is to remain at our place all night." Kate instantly sprang from her seat, and clapped her hands with delight; then running to her brother threw her arms round his neck and kissed him, gazing in his eyes as she said: "I am so delighted, dear John, that you are coming with us. You have been looking so melancholy of late that I have felt quite wretched to see you; but you will be pleased with the visit, I know you will, and happy too; will you not, John?" "Yes, my dear," he replied, "but am I not always happy?" "I don't know," replied the affectionate girl; "but I hardly think you are always so. Are you really happy now, John? You do not look so." "But I am, my love," said he; "how could I be otherwise?" "Of course not," said Tom; "I should like to know what fellow would not be happy when he had a pair of delicate little arms affectionately flung round his neck, a brace of luscious little ruby lips pouting to his, and warbling the sweet music of affection, and with two lovely eyes peering into his dull orbs. By Jove! the very thought of it ought to make him happy; and it is my firm conviction that he has been showing all this opposition just to be tempted in that way. I only wish I could induce any little charmer to try the same experiment on me. I would be incessantly wanting an application of the persuasive influence. Do you desire me to join the party, Miss Ferguson?" "Of course, we do," replied the young lady; "we couldn't well do without you." "Then I've determined not to go," replied Tom. "Neither Mrs. Rainsfield nor Eleanor care much about my company, so I think I'll absent myself." This palpable hit of Tom's was rewarded by a hearty laugh from John, and a blush and an ejaculation of "you horrid man," from the damsel; who pouted her lips, and attempted to frown, while she went to her little writing-desk to pen a revised edition of her note of the morning. Her anger, however, as Tom well knew, was only assumed and of short duration, and after a few moments of attempted frigidity she said smilingly: "You are really incorrigibly rude, Mr. Rainsfield, and you may depend upon it I will tell Eleanor of your impertinence." "My dear young lady," replied the delinquent, "that would be nothing new to her; she is already fully acquainted with my peculiarities, and would probably recommend you to try the effect of your balm." "Why, you are getting worse than ever, you insolent fellow," cried Kate. "I'll really get angry with you, and forbid you accompanying us, which I am sure, notwithstanding your statement of indifference, would be a severe punishment. But leave me alone a few minutes pray, until I write my letter; and then I will expect you to apologize to me for your bad behaviour." "I will be as dumb as a dormouse," exclaimed Tom, "until you have completed your task, so proceed; or, perhaps, you would like to employ me as your amanuensis. I will be happy to be of service to you." "Then be good enough to hold your tongue," said Kate, "you are not fulfilling your promise of silence." "No; but I am merely making a suggestion for your benefit," said Tom. "You are positively dreadful," cried Kate; "you men, insolent fellows! are continually talking of women's tongues; but, I declare, no woman could have one that is kept so unceasingly occupied as yours, for you give it no rest; even when you are requested to do so, and when you actually make the attempt." "You shall have no further cause to complain," said Tom; "I will be silent until you finish your letter; that is, if you do not occupy as much time as is necessary to pen a government dispatch. Ladies' specimens of chirography are proverbially voluminous, are as vague as an electioneering address, and require as much attention and time in their composition and execution, as if each individual epistle was of the greatest moment of their lives." "Hush! for goodness sake," exclaimed Kate; "when will you stop? pray be silent for a few minutes, and then you may talk as much as you like." The desired truce was at length obtained, and the letter written and handed to Tom for delivery. "Now," said he, "where has William gone? we ought to have him here to discuss plans; however, I daresay, you, Miss Ferguson, John, and I, can manage. What I would propose is this; that you all come over to Strawberry Hill the night before, and start thence the first thing in the morning; for I fear that you, Miss Ferguson, will find that fifty miles will be quite far enough to ride in one day, and Brompton is very nearly that from our place." "That proposition I should decidedly object to," said John; "it would not be consistent to intrude ourselves upon your brother. The extra distance between this and your place will be of little consequence, especially as Kate is a good horsewoman, and I am sure will think nothing of the distance." "Very likely not," replied Tom; "but consider a young lady cannot be expected to be ready for a journey so early as you would, and to do it comfortably you should start from here at daybreak. Be reasonable now for once, John, and if you won't come yourself let William bring your sister over the day before, and leave her that night with Eleanor. You can pick her up as you pass on Thursday morning, while we will join company, and all proceed together. What do you say to that arrangement, Miss Ferguson?" "I should like it very much," replied Kate; "but I will do whatever John wishes. If he does not desire me to stop at your house I will endeavour to ride the whole distance in the day, though I must confess it is rather a long ride." "Of course it is," said Tom, "far too long for you, excellent equestrian though you be; and, besides, I can't see what objection John can have to your visiting us. You come as a guest to my sister-in-law; therefore, my brother's quarrel with John should in no way prevent you from sojourning with us. Waive all unpleasant feelings, John, and let your sister stop with us for that night." "I don't wish to detain her," replied John, "out of any ill-feeling towards any member of your family; I am sure you are perfectly aware of that; but from a feeling that it would be hardly proper under the circumstances." "There can be no impropriety in it," said Tom; "my sister-in-law would be delighted with the arrangement; in fact, she herself proposed the scheme to me this morning, when she received her invitation and heard that you were expected to go too. To settle the matter, I'll bring her over here on Thursday, and she will take Miss Ferguson back with her; for I know very well you'll not attempt to dispute the question with her. What do you say to _that_ arrangement, Miss Ferguson?" "Oh, I should be so happy to join Eleanor," she exclaimed, "and stop with her that night if John will let me." "Of course, he'll let you," replied Tom; "he has no serious objection I know, but is only opposing me because you are desirous of the adoption of my scheme. He wants a little more of your lip salve, when I'll guarantee he'll be softened." "Now, you are mocking me," said Kate; "it is cruel of you to make fun of my affection for my brother. I am almost determined not to have anything farther to say to you; you are a hard-hearted unfeeling fellow." "Pardon me, my dear young lady," cried Tom, "I was only attempting to do faint justice to your insuperable power of fascination. One soft embrace, similar to that I witnessed a short time ago, I am sure will melt your inexorable brother, who is even worse to deal with, and requires more coaxing than any 'stern parient' I ever saw." "I'll be softened without that this time," said John, "as it is Mrs. Rainsfield's desire that you should break your journey by starting from her house, Kate, I have no desire to oppose your own wish; you may go if you like, and William and I will join your party on Thursday morning." The delighted girl again ran over to her brother, and sitting on his knee, with her arms encircling his neck in an amatory embrace, leant her head on his breast, and looked roguishly pleased from her dark blue eyes at Tom, who sat in perfect raptures, gazing at the lovely seraph. "Upon my life, Miss Ferguson, you'll be the death of me," he exclaimed; "how do you imagine any mortal man can withstand such temptation? If I witness another scene like that to-day, I'll lose my senses. I must be off home, unless you wish to have the weight on your mind of being the cause of rendering me a raving maniac." "I think you are that already, sir," replied Kate; "for you are always strange in your manner, and invariably accompany, in your addresses to me, insults in your flattery." But the kind-hearted girl, thinking, even in her playfulness, she had said something too harsh, came over and stood by Tom's chair, and continued in a sweet and kindly voice and with a smile beaming on her charming features: "But I will give you full permission during our visit to Brompton, to say as many cruel things to me as you like and I won't be angry. You may flatter me as much as you please, and I'll pledge you my word I'll not believe you. So there will be no occasion for you to take leave of your senses just at present." "To live under the smile of your countenance," exclaimed Tom, "would be a sufficient talisman against any evil spirit; so I fear none of their machinations, and feel sufficiently armed against that demon lunacy; towards whom, since I have known you, I have always had an irresistible tendency." "Then I should advise you," said Kate, "to instantly fly my presence." "That, Miss Ferguson, would only have the effect of hastening an exacerbation of my malady; my only hope for relief is in a continuance of your smiles." "Your case is certainly a most extraordinary one," said Kate; "you say your only relief is from me, and yet I am the cause of your mental subversion." "It is not at all extraordinary, my dear young lady," said Tom; "but perfectly consistent with the doctrines of pharmacology, both allopathic and homeopathic, by the principle embodied in the doctrine of the latter, viz., '_similia similibus curantur_.' If your smiles wound my heart, they are the sweetest as well as the surest remedy to heal it; and, if an exhibition of your specious favours almost drives me to distraction, the balm whose curative powers is the most effective is a permission to continue in the thraldom of your mellifluent bondage." "Well, now, I declare you are a dreadful fellow," said Kate, "I did not give you permission to flatter me until Thursday week, but you commence now in spite of me." "What! is he flirting again, my Kitty?" said William, as he burst into the room. "Tom, we will have to send you, like your renowned namesake, to Coventry. You will be spoiling our sister, cramming her poor little head with your love speeches. She will be thinking of nothing else but those little chubby-faced winged archers, whose destined occupation is to traverse the globe with flambeau in hand, to ignite the inflammable material of mortals' hearts. And instead of our finding substantial meals, to satisfy the cravings of our hunger, we will some day be expected to feed on the ambrosia of that little mischief-making deity. Is John superintending your flirting, my turtle doves?" A hearty laugh was the response of Tom Rainsfield to this sally; while John replied that he had been too much amused at the farce to interrupt it. Kate, however, took a different mode of explanation. She advanced nimbly to her brother and saluted him; not in the way she had done to John, but with an inoffensive titillation on his cheek with her downy little hand; which she intended, as she said, for a slap for his impertinence. "But tell me, Will," said she, "what made you rush in in such a hurry; was it to frighten us?" "Frighten you, my pet?" he replied. "No! I have got some fun to tell you. A few minutes ago while I was down at the stock-yard I had a letter put into my hands by young Sawyer; but as the missive is an epistolary production somewhat unique I will read it to you for your benefit. The orthography is not at all in harmony with any of the lexicographers to whom it has been my fortune at any time to refer; but in open violation of Dr. Johnson and all his colleagues. However, that is a minor curiosity, and can be digested in detail." "Well, read us the letter," replied his auditory, "or let us look at it." "Here it is," said William, as he commenced to read it; while we, to give the reader a better conception of the production, crave pardon for inserting it verbatim. The superscription is "Mr. Wm. Fuggishon, Esqe. Farn Vail per barer," and the contents are: "Weddingsday, Dare Sir, Exkuse the libety i take for to rite yer but Capting Jones and me presints our comblemints and 'ave to say as how weir agoing to 'ave a partey on nixt munday and wood be glad if you'd cum as theril be golley sprey and lots of gents. be shuer and cum and also yer syster cos we shal 'ave ladeys to at hour ouse, and theril be no fears on her getting 'ome agin, cos I thinks you dosent drink so of corse you'd not git drunk I am Mr. Fuggishon sir yours truly Mrs. Capting Jones wat is to be or Mary ann Sawyer now. "_P.S._--If you now any other frends as wood like to cum, bring em." When the laughter that had followed the reading of this epistle had somewhat subsided William said to his sister: "Now, Kitty, what do you think of that invitation? my word! but we are going to have a gay time of it up here; parties will be going the round of the country after this. Of course, you will go to the Sawyers rejoicings, Kitty, and put on your pretty, and good behaviour?" "If I had not known you were joking, Will, I would be angry with you," exclaimed the indignant girl. "The impertinence of the horrid creatures indeed!" "But you know, Kate, 'I dosent drink,' as the prospective Mrs. Jones affirms; consequently there is no fear of you, unless you too often drink to the health of the happy couple." "Don't talk nonsense, Will, but tell us how this affair has come about; it is the first I have heard of a marriage in their family being contemplated?" said Kate. "Well, my little poppet," said William, "I will impart to you all the information I have been able to glean, and which has been obtained from Mr. Reuben Sawyer, the brother of the bride, and the bearer of the note of invitation. It appears that a certain gentleman rejoicing in the name of Jones, and honoured by the prefixed title of Captain (though from whence, or in what service I know not), has by some means introduced himself to the family of Sawyer, and made a conquest of the heart of the younger female member. They are to be married at Alma on Sunday, thence to return to the hall of the bride's father, and entertain their friends on Monday. What the pecuniary arrangements are, I don't know; but I strongly suspect they are to the advantage of the _soi-disant_ Captain, of whom, by the bye, I imagine the Sawyer family know very little. It strikes me it will turn out a sell for the girl, for I fully expect the bridegroom will be discovered to be an impostor. I am convinced he has assumed a title and garb to palm himself off on them as a gentleman, while they have snatched at the bait." "What a dreadful man he must be then," said Kate. "Even so, Miss Kate," said Tom; "but there are numbers of such 'dreadful men' prowling about in the colony; who appropriate and abandon as many aliases and personate as many characters as would people a small town. They have a convenient knack of falling in love with such girls as Miss Mary Ann Sawyer, to whom they give a glowing account of all their wealthy friends and genteel relations. Then before the effect dies out they propose, are accepted, recommend a speedy marriage to prevent, as they say, their relations from hearing and stopping the intended match, and induce, too frequently, not only the girl, but her friends to fall into their views; while they do not discover their error until the gay Lothario takes leg-bail upon the first symptoms of an enquiry being made after him by the victim of some previous matrimonial swindle." "Well," said William, "I am inclined to accept the invitation for myself. I would like to witness the fun, for fun I am sure there will be; and I am authorised to invite any friends, so will make use of my _carte blanche_ and ask you, Tom. What do you say, will you go? If you will, we will go together. I would like to see their spread, and attempts at doing the genteel thing; but, at the same time, I should like to have some one to accompany me." "Oh, I don't mind it at all," said Tom, "I'll join you with pleasure to witness the feast. I expect it will be a rich sight, if not a rich feed. Will you make one of us, John?" "No," replied John, "I could not endure their disgusting affectation; and I would find no pleasure in witnessing their gross fooleries. I will remain at home, and take care of Kate; she will want some one to keep her company, while you two roisterers are absent; and I am sure it will be more congenial to both of us." "Yes, it will indeed," said Kate; "I am glad you don't think of leaving me all alone, John, and going to visit those horrid people." "Well, we will make amends by giving you a graphic description of it when we return," said William; "and, unless I am very much mistaken, it will be of such a nature as will excite your risibility." "Very well then," replied Kate, "I hope it will be funny; but whatever you do, Will, pray don't give any of the creatures any encouragement to come here, for I am sure I could not bear the sight of them in our house." "Never fear, _ma cher_," replied William, "our little tutelary angel shall never be contaminated by the intercourse of our plebeian neighbours; who must learn to consider, notwithstanding an officer has married into their family, that they are only entitled to gaze at our bright star, and that it is too much felicity to expect permission to be graced by an admission within the circle of its rays." "Don't talk any more nonsense, Will," replied his sister, "but be sure, if any of those people make any proposition to come here, that you will use all your endeavours to prevent them." CHAPTER XIII. "Tam saw an unco sight! Nae cotillon brent new frae France, But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, Put life and mettle in their heels." BURNS. On the following Monday, towards the evening, Tom Rainsfield and William mounted their horses at Fern Vale, to ride over to the domicile of the Sawyers. They had delayed their visit until the close of the day, presuming, though their invitation specified no time of meeting, that they would be quite early enough at the hour they were going. They therefore rode leisurely along, and approached "Industry" (as the Sawyers had christened their place) just as the sun was sinking in the west. The scene that then presented itself to their vision was truly of a novel character, and one that rather amused them. A short distance from the cottage had been erected a bowery hall for the reception and feasting of the guests; and at the time when it first burst upon their view the shouts that arose from its umbrageous walls plainly indicated the nature of the proceedings within. But as the reader is not supposed to be possessed of the same ubiquitous faculties as the author, we may be permitted, for the purpose of enlightenment, to describe the nature of those proceedings. In the interior of this retreat, and stretching its entire length, was a bench or impromptu table, with seats on each side of it of a similar construction; in the whole of which the rough material was plentifully and principally called into use. On the board stood the remains of sundry viands, proclaiming the conclusion of a feast; and bottles, and drinking utensils of various shapes, sizes, and material, were kept in constant activity by numerous grim-visaged masculine beings who sat round the table. The variety of costumes was particularly striking, from the perfect black, donned for the nonce by the head of the Sawyer family, to that of one of his choicest friends, who sat in resplendent vest, and shirt sleeves; having divested himself of his outer garment on the principle of preference to ease over elegance. In the rear of what we may call the saloon, in the shade of the bush, another party was assembled; and from the shrieks of the women, and the boisterous mirth of the men, it was evident their amusement was something other than that of a passive nature. As our friends approached this group a fleet-footed female darted from the human labyrinth like a startled fawn closely pursued by one of the merry-making lords of the creation. The chase was continued amidst the repetition of a perfect Babel of shouts and laughter, until the panting and exhausted roe sank into the arms of the pursuing hart, and yielded to the requiting inosculation. Blush not, gentle reader; these matured specimens of the family of man, for the time forgot the dignity of their years, and were amusing themselves by a renewal of their youthful pristine enjoyments. They were in fact playing at "kiss in the ring." In the rear of the house the young men detected another foliate shed, in which were, secured to some rough stalls, numerous specimens of horse-flesh; while in the vicinity were scattered drays, light spring carts, and even shakey gigs, evidently the conveyances of the various guests. Here our friends left their horses; and judging the best place to present themselves to their host, and where they were most likely to see him, would be the leafy hall, they bent thither their steps. Upon reaching the entrance they perceived the company was being enlivened by the performance of some disciple of Apollo, who was venting forth in a stentorian voice a rendering of "The Maniac;" and when he uttered (as the young men arrested their steps so as not to "disturb the harmony"): "No, by heavens! I am not mad," they really thought he was under the same strange hallucination as the subject of the song, and labouring to deceive himself upon a reality. If he was not mad, they imagined, he was at least bordering on that state; while the whole of his hearers were not far removed from the same, when they tolerated such uproar unworthily dignified by the name of music. However, when the song ceased, in the midst of the deafening shouts, and clatter of tumblers etc. that followed, William and his companion entered; and at once distinguished the late singer as the individual who sat at the head of the board. This personage was a coarse-looking, red-faced, thick-set fellow; with lowering eyebrows, bushy moustache (though otherwise cleanly shaved face), and hair of an objectionable, though undefinable colour. He was dressed, as far as was perceptible, in a black coat, white waistcoat, and neckerchief, and with an immense frill front to his shirt. He seemed to be exceedingly heated with the exertion of his song; and was drying his face and forehead with a white handkerchief, in which action he was displaying more than one massive ring; adorning fingers, that, to the eyes of our friends, proved experience in more active and manual employment than military discipline would be likely to require. He sat smiling complacently at his friends, as one who was conscious of having displayed the possession of a valuable talent; and, though gratified by the adulation of his hearers, he took it as a just homage, and as a proof that they were not destitute of a phrygian taste; or at least could appreciate music, when they heard it in perfection, as when he himself sang. This individual, our friends rightly judged, was Captain Jones. On his right sat his lady, the quondam Miss Sawyer, and on his left her worthy papa. Whether the young lady was enchanted by the lyric strains of her lord, or not, we are at a loss to say; notwithstanding that we know she was possessed of what she called a "pihanner," and had a soul for music, having on various occasions accompanied herself on that instrument to the immense delight of her admiring friends. She might have been actuated in her lengthened sitting by motives of a protective character, to preserve her husband from a too free libation; or, it might have been, that she felt happy in no other society but his. Either of which reasons were sufficiently cogent, though we are unable to conjecture which might have influenced her. But, be it as it may, there she sat; and, with the exception of her mother, who occupied the foot of the table, she was the only representative of her sex in the assembly. William and Tom had made their way very nearly up to the head of the table before they were noticed by the host; who, when he perceived them, jumped from his seat, and seizing them each by the hand, expressed all sorts of pleasure at their presence, and formally introduced them to the bold Captain Jones and his lady. The latter having received their congratulations with the most perfect nonchalance, proposed, as the evening was drawing on, that the company should all adjourn to the house; and suiting her motion to her word she sallied from the bower, escorted by our friends, and followed by the bridegroom, and the other "beings of sterner stuff." In the cottage they were joined by those who had been amusing themselves on the green; and all then sat down to another substantial meal that went by the name of tea. This being despatched, while the rooms were being cleared, the men adjourned to the verandah and grass to smoke, and were joined by some of the women; while the rest assisted in the domestic arrangements inside. These being completed, and the smokers satisfied with "blowing their cloud," they reentered the dwelling, which had in the short space of time they had occupied in the enjoyment of the narcotic weed, become perfectly metamorphosed. The principal room had been converted from _la salle á manger_ to _la salle de danse_; and its transition had been so speedily effected that the company were quite delighted, and loud in their praises of the effective adornment We are inclined to think, however, more was to be attributed to the spirit that pervaded the company to be pleased with everything than that there was any display of wonderful taste. A few boughs of green foliage were stuck about the walls; and the benches of planks were arranged all round the room, and covered with scarlet blankets; while, by way of chandeliers, and in lieu of candlesticks, bottles, containing "Belmont sperms," were dispersed and stationed on every available stand, by which simple means the lighting and decorating of the hall was completed. The superior guests (we mean our young friends William and Tom) were led away by "the Captain," who acted as major domo M.C., etc., to a back room; which on ordinary occasions served as the dormitory of Mr. Reuben Sawyer, but on the present was set apart for the especial refreshment of "the gents;" while the bridal apartment in the front was made to endure a similar profanation for the benefit of "the ladies." The Captain, after enjoying another shake of the hand from his visitors, gave vent to his feelings in a rapturous expression of delight at the honour of their patronage; declaring the moment to be the happiest of his life; trusting he should long enjoy the pleasure of their friendship; regretting that their friends had not found it convenient to accompany them; and finally requested them to join him in a drink. Upon receiving an acquiescence to this request, he exclaimed: "What shall it be? Brandy? gin? wine? claret? champagne? Ah, champagne; yes! we will have a bottle of champagne for good fellowship sake." Upon which he took up a bottle and cut the string, when away flew the cork, while he poured the wine into three tumblers. Two of these he pushed over to his guests, while the third he raised to his own lips, with the trite though universal toast of "here's luck," and drained his glass at a draught; while he smacked his lips with the air of a connoisseur, and said: "You'll find that an excellent wine, for I selected it myself. The fellow I bought it from tried to palm some inferior stuff on to me, but it wouldn't do; he did not know I was a judge of wine until I convinced him I was not to be humbugged by any of his rubbish. But to tell you the truth wine is all stuff; it does not do a man any good; it may suit a Frenchman (who has got no blood in him) to drink it; but give me beer or brandy they are the drinks for an Englishman. What'll keep life in a fellow like brandy? the only right thing the French ever did was to make brandy; it's the real stuff to cheer you after all. Try a 'ball,' will you?" Both William and Tom thanked the enthusiastic Captain, but declined the proffered ball; while he assisted himself to a pretty stiff jorum of the _eau de vie_, and quaffed it as if it was a really necessary concomitant to his life; after which he said: "Well, suppose then we go into the room to the women; they will be wanting me to start them off in a dance. But have a smoke? here's some cigars if you like them. You know we don't object to smoking in our drawing-room, ah! ah! ah! This is Liberty Hall! for you can do as you like. But excuse me, I must be off; make yourselves perfectly at home." Saying which, and puffing vigorously at a cigar, he left them, while they leisurely sauntered into the verandah in front; from which they could witness the terpsichorean arrangements. Elevated in a remote corner of the room, was a professional gentleman of the Paganini school; but, unlike that great performer, he was not content to manipulate upon one chord, but continued with strenuous efforts to raise discord on four. His music, if not exactly metrical, was at least spirited, and that was sufficient for the lovers of the "light fantastic," who danced "their allotted hour" with no small degree of delight. As all human happiness must have an end so had the enjoyment of these merrymakers; and the jig was terminated in a long drawn sigh, and "Oh! dear me," from the women, and an explosion of the remaining pent-up steam of the men. These forthwith adjourned "to liquor," leaving the softer sex to do the same if they felt so disposed, which many of them appeared to be. After about half an hour had elapsed, when the guests returned by degrees to the saloon, Captain Jones volunteered a song; and, upon obtaining the greatest degree of silence practicable, gave the "Ship on Fire." It was in much the same style as the former specimen of his vocalic talent; except that he was a little more boisterous, and sang with a less distinct utterance. But still he was in keeping with the character of the epic; for, unless his face very much belied his internal state, he was in one intestine blaze. There is an oft repeated story of Sir Walter Raleigh that while he was one day smoking his wonted pipe his servant brought him in his beer; but when the domestic, uninitiated to the consolation of the weed, beheld a volume of smoke emitted from the mouth of his master he imagined him to be inflicted by a celiac conflagration, and cast the contents of the flagon into Sir Walter's face. If the ingenious servitor had only lived in our day, and been called upon to wait on our friend the Captain as he appeared on this occasion, he would assuredly have made the same waste of malt liquor on the illuminated visage of that individual. However, the "Ship on Fire" was got through, and elicited great applause; after which, the _artiste_, perceiving his genteel guests rather apart from the rest of the company, and not joining in the festivities, came over and addressed them in the following words: "Why don't you make yourself at home? you haven't had anything to drink to-night; some refreshments will be round in a minute or so, and then we will have a dance; but you've never heard my wife sing, have you?" Upon receiving a reply in the negative, he continued: "Then, my word, she's a stunner! I'll go and tell her you want her to sing. You know she sings, 'I should like to marry.' I composed a song for her to that tune, and you shall hear it;" saying which he left them to induce his fair bride to oblige her friends; at the same time that Mr. Sawyer, junior, made his appearance with a large jug and a number of tumblers, and asked our friends if they would take a drink. They thought it strange to bring water round to imbibe, considering that most of the guests ignored that beverage without its being plentifully diluted with spirits (as the Captain said). But thinking it was possibly on their account, seeing that they did not indulge alcoholically as the others did, our young friends gladly accepted a glass, and held it to be filled from the jug. To their astonishment, however, what they had imagined was water gave evidence, by its appearance, of more inebriating qualities. "Why, what on earth is that you're giving us, Reuben?" asked William. "Champagne," replied the youth. "Champagne!" they both uttered at once; "that is a novel way of serving champagne." "Oh, father said it was humbug to open a bottle and hand it round in mouthfuls to the people," replied the youth; "so, you see we opened a lot, and turned them into this jug, so that everybody can take a drink of it." This idea considerably amused our friends, and they laughed heartily at the champagne service, as they called it; but were checked suddenly in their mirth by the "charming and accomplished" Mrs. Jones warbling forth her desires for a suitable match in the matrimonial way. We need not repeat her song but merely state that her desiderata were centred in a young digger with plenty of gold, and a good hut, which was to be possessed of a brick chimney; and not a slab "humpie" with a hole in the bark roof, containing a tub or other cylindrical vessel to carry off the smoke. And the desired one, should he present himself, was to go down on his knees, and conscientiously swear that he "had left no wife at home." When the lady had finished her song the plaudits of her enraptured hearers rang through the house, and the woods outside. The company were enchanted, and no doubt imagined she had far surpassed even the efforts of a Grisi (did they but know such a being existed). The fair creature herself was equally satisfied with her performance, which she considered exquisite; though our friends were rude enough to think otherwise, notwithstanding that they were profuse in their praise to the lady and her husband. Dancing was then resumed, and the young men, having seen enough to afford a fund of amusement to themselves and their respective family circles, waited for an opportunity to slip away unmolested. The fortuitous event was not long in presenting itself; and at a moment when the majority of the men were engaged "fast and furious" at their wassail, the two young men saddled their horses, mounted, and returned to Fern Vale. END OF VOL. II. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY THE CALEDONIAN PRESS MR. 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4521	----	[Errors in the original have been preserved and noted at the end of this etext.] [Plate: F. & A. JARDINE. Black and white photograph.] NARRATIVE OF THE OVERLAND EXPEDITION OF THE MESSRS. JARDINE, FROM ROCKHAMPTON TO CAPE YORK, NORTHERN QUEENSLAND. COMPILED FROM THE JOURNALS OF THE BROTHERS, AND EDITED BY FREDERICK J. BYERLEY, (ENGINEER OF ROADS, NORTHERN DIVISION OF QUEENSLAND). BRISBANE PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. W. BUXTON, BOOKSELLER AND STATIONER. 1867. TO SIR CHARLES NICHOLSON, BART., CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY, etc., etc., etc., AS ONE OF OUR OLDEST AND MOST DISTINGUISHED COLONISTS. THE NARRATIVE IS INSCRIBED WITH GREAT RESPECT, BY THE EDITOR. PREFACE. THE Settlement of Northern Australia has of late years been of such rapid growth as to furnish matter for a collection of narratives, which in the aggregate would make a large and interesting volume. Prominent amongst these stands that of the Settlement of Cape York, under the superintendence of Mr. Jardine, with which the gallant trip of his two sons overland must ever be associated. It was a journey which, but for the character and qualities of the Leader, might have terminated as disastrously as that of his unfortunate, but no less gallant predecessor, Kennedy. A brilliant achievement in exploration, in a colony where exploring has become common and almost devoid of interest, from the number of those yearly engaged in it, its very success has prevented its attracting that share of public attention to which its results very fully entitled it. Had it been attended with any signal disaster, involving loss of life, it would have been otherwise. Geographically, it has solved the question hitherto undecided of the course of the northern rivers emptying into the Gulf of Carpentaria, of which nothing was previously known but their outlets, taken from the charts of the Dutch Navigators. It has also made known, with tolerable definiteness, how much, or rather, how little, of the "York Peninsula" is adapted for pastoral occupation, whilst its success in taking the first stock overland, and forming a cattle station at Newcastle Bay, has insured to the Settlement at Somerset a necessary and welcome supply of fresh meat, and done away with its dependence for supplies on importations by sea of less nourishing salt provision. Starting from the then farthest out-station of Northern Queensland with a small herd of cattle, these hardy young bushmen met with and successfully combated, almost every "accident by flood and field" that could well occur in an expedition. First, an arid waterless country forced them to follow down two streams at right angles with their course for upwards of 200 miles, causing a delay which betrayed them into the depths of the rainy season; then the loss of half their food and equipment by a fire, occasioned by the carelessness of some of the party; next the scarcity of grass and water, causing a further delay by losses of half their horses, which were only recovered to be again lost altogether--killed by eating a deadly poison plant; and finally, the setting in of the wet season, making the ground next to impassable, and so swelling the rivers, that when actually in sight, and within a week's journey of their destination, they were turned off their course, and were more than six weeks in reaching it. Added to this, and running through the whole journey, was the incessant and determined, although unprovoked, hostility of the natives, which, but for the unceasing vigilence and prompt and daring action of the Brothers, might have eventually compassed the annihilation of the whole party. Had Leichhardt used the same vigilance and decision the life of poor Gilbert would not have been sacrificed, and in all probability we should not now deplore his own loss. But the black tribes which dogged the steps of each expedition, and amongst whom, probably, were the slayers of Kennedy and Gilbert, met at the hands of the Brothers the treatment they deserved. If the lessons were severe, they were in every case of the native's own seeking, and were administered in fair and open combat, in which few of the white party were without having narrow escapes to record; but a providential good fortune seemed to attend them, for every member got through the journey without accident. An account has been furnished to the newspapers in the form of a journal by Mr. Richardson, the Surveyor appointed to accompany the expedition, but it is much too brief and epitomized to do justice to the subject, and omits altogether the detached and independant trips of the Brothers whilst exploring ahead to find the best country through which to take the herd; and, as the Brothers Jardine themselves would probably much rather repeat their journey than write a full account of it, it has devolved on the Editor to attempt to put before the public a compilation of their journals in such form as will give the narrative sufficient interest to carry with it the attention of the reader to the end. Although the matter is ample, this is no easy task for an unpracticed pen, for to the general reader, the usual monotonous details and entries of an explorer's notes, which alone give them value to the geographer, cannot be hoped to excite interest or command attention. But the journey was full of incident, and the Brothers, although not scientific naturalists, were keen sportsmen, excelling in all exercises requiring strength and activity, who had acquired from their training in the bush that sharpening of the senses and faculty of observing, the peculiar result of a life in the wilds, which not only so well fitted them for the conduct of such an expedition, but also enabled them to note and describe with accuracy the various interesting objects in botany and zoology met with in the course of their journey. It is therefore hoped that there will be sufficient to interest each class of reader. Aided by Mr. Jardine, senior, a gentleman of large experience in both Botany and Natural History, the Editor has been enabled to supply the generic names of the birds and plants met with; which, in many cases, if not altogether new, are interesting as determining the range and habitat of the birds, and the zones of vegetation and trees; but it is to be regretted that there was no one in the party having sufficient knowledge of drawing to figure such objects, or to delineate some of the more striking scenes and incidents of the journey. As these can now only be supplied from the graphic descriptions given by the actors in them, the Editor, without drawing too much on his imagination, has, in the compilation of the journals, attempted in some cases to supplement what was wanted in the text, so as to give the narrative such color as would make it more readable than a mere journal, but in every case rendering the descriptions of the prominent incidents of the journey almost in the original words of the writers, merely adding as much as would save the text from abruptness. He has adhered to the diurnal form of narrative, for the sake of recording, for the benefit of future travellers, the numbers, marks, latitude, etc., of each camp, and endeavoured to compass by this composite method the value of a work of record with the interest of a narrative. It is also to be regretted that so long a time should have been allowed to elapse between the end of the journey and the publication of these pages. The causes of the delay are--first, the indisposition on the part of the Brothers to "go into print," their modesty leading them to imagine they had done nothing worth "writing about," nor was it until the writer pressed them to allow him to compile and edit their journals that they consented to make them public; next, the want of leisure on the part of the compiler, whose official duties have prevented application to his task, save in detached and interrupted periods; and last, by the difficulty of making arrangements for publication at a distance. If his labor secures to the young explorers the credit and praise which is the just and due reward of a gallant achievement, and adds a page of interest to the records of Australian Exploration, his aim will have been attained, and he will be fully rewarded. The Hermitage, 'Rockhampton, December', 1866. INTRODUCTION. IN presenting the following pages to the Reader, it may not be out of place to take a retrospect of the progress of Australian Settlement generally, and particularly in the young northern colony of Queensland. During the last six years the great question of the character of Central Australia, in the solution of which the lives of the unfortunate Leichhardt and his party have been sacrificed, has been set at rest by the memorable trip of Burke and Wills, and no less memorable, but more fortunate one of McDouall Stewart. The Search Expeditions of McKinlay, Howitt, Landsborough, and Walker, have made it still more familiar, their routes connecting the out-settlements of South Australia with those of the Gulf Shores and East Coast, and adding their quota of detail to the skeleton lines of Leichhardt, Gregory, and Burke and Wills; whilst private enterprise has, during that time, been busy in further filling in the spaces, and utilizing the knowledge gained by occupying the waste lands thus opened up. It is questionable whether the amount of available country thus made known has not been dearly purchased, by the very large sums that have been expended, and the valuable lives that have been lost in its exploration; the arid and waterless wastes of the interior, which have now been proved equally subject to terrific droughts and devastating floods, make it improbable that the Settlements of the North Coast and the Southern Colonies can be connected by a continuous line of occupation for many years to come; the rich pastoral tracts of Arnheim's Land, the Victoria River, the Gulf Coast, and Albert and Flinders Rivers, are thus the only localities likely to be made use of for the present; these, however, have been known since the first explorations of Leichhardt and Gregory; we are forced, therefore, to the conclusion that the results of the subsequent expeditions are not commensurate with their cost and sacrifices, and to consider whether further exploration may not be safely left to private enterprise. Let us now glance at what has been done since 1860 in the way of occupation. South Australia has founded on theNorth Coast a Settlement at Adam Bay, on the Adelaide River, but its progress seems to have been marked from the onset by misfortune. The officer charged with its formation, in a short time managed to raise so strong a feeling of dissatisfaction and dislike amongst the settlers as to call for a Commission of Enquiry on his administration, which resulted in his removal. His successor seems, by latest accounts to have raised up no less dislike, the difference of his rule being likened by the papers to that of the fabled kings, Log and Stork. The site of the Settlement, Escape Cliffs, has been universally condemned; one charge against the first Resident being, that it was selected in opposition to the almost unanimous opinion of the colonists. The subject was referred for final report to John McKinley, the well-known Explorer, who, bearing out the general opinion, at once condemned it, and set out to explore the country in search for a better. In this he has not discovered any new locality, but has recommended Anson Bay, at the mouth of the Daly, a site previously visited, but rejected by the first Resident. Previous to his visit to Anson Bay, Mr. McKinlay started with a well-equiped party for an exploring trip, which was to last twelve months. At the end of five he returned, after one of the most miraculous escapes of himself and party from destruction on record, having only penetrated to the East Alligator River, about 80 miles from Adam Bay; here he became surrounded by floods, and only saved his own and the lives of his party (loosing all else) by the desperate expedient of making a boat of the hides of their horses, in which they floated down the swollen river, and eventually reached the Settlement. It is not improbable that in some such a flood poor Leichhardt and his little band lost their lives, and all trace of their fate has been destroyed. These experiences have caused some doubt and despondency as to the future of the new Settlement, and the question is now being agitated in the South Australian Parliament as to the desirability or not of abandoning it. Western Australia has formed the Settlements of Camden Harbor, and Nickol Bay. The latter (the country around which was explored by Mr. Francis Gregory, brother to the Surveyor-General of Queensland, in 1861), appears to have progressed favorably, the Grey, Gascoigne, Oakover and Lyons Rivers affording inducements to stockholders to occupy them, but the Settlement of Camden Harbor at the time of the visit of Mr. Stow in his boat-voyage from Adam Bay to Champion Bay, was being abandoned by the colonists, the country being unsuitable for stock, and it would appear from that gentleman's account that the whole of the north-west coast of the continent, from its general character, offers but little inducement for settlement. [footnote] *Since this was written the settlement has been abandoned. [NOTE--the footnote in the INTRODUCTION does not have a referent in the text--there is no asterisk in the text. It is not clear whether the 'settlement' it refers to as having been abandoned is at Adam Bay or in Western Australia.] The explorations of Francis Gregory to the eastward from Nickol Bay, and of the Surveyor-General to the south from the Victoria River, were both arrested by wastes of drift-sand, whilst those from the western seaboard have not been extended further inland than to more than an average of 3 degrees of longitude. It may reasonably be doubted, therefore, whether settlement will be much extended in that direction. Queensland, more fortunate in the character of the country, has, on her part, successfully established six new settlements, to wit, Mackay, at the Pioneer River; Bowen, Port Denison; Townsville, Cleveland Bay; Cardwell, Rockingham Bay; Somerset, Cape York; and Burke Town, at the Albert River; and there can be little doubt but that the country of the Gulf shores and the northern territory of South Australia must be 'stocked', if not settled, from the same source. Already have our hardy pioneers driven their stock out as far as the Flinders, Albert, Leichhardt, and Nicholson Rivers, the Flinders and Cloncurry having been stocked along their length for some time past. On the South and West, the heads of the Warrego, the Nive, Barcoo, and Thompson have also been occupied, some of the stations being between four and five hundred miles from the seaboard, whilst the surveyors of the Roads Department have extended their surveys as far as the two last-named rivers, for the purpose of determining the best and shortest lines of communication. The Government, with wise liberality, has facilitated the access from the seaboard to the interior, by the expenditure of large sums in constructing and improving passes through the Coast Range on four different points, and by the construction of works on the worst portions of the roads, have largely reduced the difficulties of transport for the out-settlers. Bowen, a town which had no existence six years ago, has been connected with Brisbane by the telegraph wire, and ere another twelve months have elapsed the electric flash will have placed Melbourne, in Victoria, and Burke Town, on the Gulf of Carpentaria, "on speaking terms," the country between the latter place and Cleveland Bay having been examined and determined on for a telegraph line by the experienced explorer Walker for that purpose. Of the six new settlements that have been called into existence, two, Bowen and Townsville, have been incorporated, and are now, together with Mackay, straining in the race to secure the trade of the western interior. Cardwell has experienced a check, in consequence of an undue haste in the adoption of a line of road over its Coast Range, which is too difficult to be generally adopted, and will probably be abandoned for a better since discovered; but its noble harbour is too good, and the extent of back country it commands too extensive in area, for it not ultimately to take its place as an important port. Burke Town is but starting into existence, but already supplies the settlers of the Flinders and other Gulf rivers with which it has opened communication. Mr. William Landsborough, the well-known explorer, has been charged with the administration of its affairs, and a survey staff has been despatched to lay out the lands. Vessels now trade direct from Brisbane with some regularity, which services will, no doubt, soon be re-placed by steamers. But it is with Somerset, Cape York, that we have more especial concern. In the August of 1862, Sir George Bowen, Governor of Queensland, being on a voyage of inspection to the Northern Ports, in Her Majesty's Steamer "Pioneer," visited Port Albany, Cape York, and on his return, in a despatch to the Imperial Government, recommended it for the site of a Settlement, on account of its geographical importance, as harbor of refuge, coaling station, and entrepot for the trade of Torres Straits and the Islands of the North Pacific. The following year the formation of a Settlement was decided upon, the Home Government sending out a detachment of Marines to be stationed there, and assist in its establishment. The task of establishing the new Settlement was confided to Mr. Jardine, then Police Magistrate of Rockhampton, than whom, perhaps, no man could be found more fitted for its peculiar duties. An experienced official, a military man, keen sportsman, and old bushman, he possessed, in addition to an active and energetic temperament, every quality and experience necessary for meeting the varied and exceptional duties incident to such a position. It was whilst making the arrangements for the expedition by sea, which was to transport the staff, materiel, and stores of the Settlement, that Mr. Jardine, foreseeing the want of fresh provision, proposed to the Government to send his own sons, Frank and Alexander, overland with a herd of cattle to form a station from which it might be supplied. This was readily acceded to, the Government agreeing to supply the party with the services of a qualified surveyor, fully equipped, to act as Geographer, by noting and recording their course and the appearance of the country traversed, and also horses, arms, and accoutrements for four native blacks, or as they are commonly called in the colonies, Black-boys. Although the account of poor Kennedy's journey from Rockingham Bay to Cape York, in which his own and half his party's lives were sacrificed, was not very encouraging for the intended expedition, Mr. Jardine never for a moment doubted of its success, and looked forward to meeting his sons at Somerset as a matter of course. In the prime of youth and health (their ages were but 22 and 20), strong, active, and hardy, inured to the life and habits of the bush, with an instinct of locality, which has been alluded to as having "la Boussole dans la tete," they were eminently fitted for the task, and eagerly undertook it when proposed. How well they carried it out, although, unfortunately, with so little benefit to themselves, is here recorded. Had poor Wills been associated with such companions there would have been a different tale to tell to that which lends so melancholy an interest to his name, and we should now have him amongst us to honor, instead of a monument to his memory, a monument, which in honoring the dead, rebukes the living. The loss of three-fourths of their horses, and a fifth of their cattle, together with a large equipment, has made the enterprise of the Messrs. Jardine, speaking financially, little short of a failure, but at their age the mind is resilient, and not easily damped by misfortune. On their return to Brisbane the Government, with kind consideration, proposed to place such a sum on the Estimates of Parliament as would indemnify them, and at the same time mark its sense of the high merit and importance of their journey, but this, through their father, they respectfully declined, Frank Jardine giving as his reason, that as the expedition was a private enterprise and not a public undertaking, he did not consider himself entitled to any indemnity from the public. Opinions may be divided on such a conclusion, but in it we cannot but recognise a delicacy and nobility of sentiment as rare, unfortunately, as it is admirable. Yet, if they have thus voluntarily cut themselves off from the substantial rewards which have hitherto recompensed other explorers, they are still entitled to the high praise and commendation of all who admire spirit and determination of purpose, and cannot be insensible to their applause. And it is in recognition that such is their due, that the writer has undertaken to bring this narrative before the public. CHAPTER I. Start from Rockhampton--Alexander Jardine explores the Einasleih-- Newcastle Range--Pluto Creek--Canal Creek--Basaltic Plateau-- Warroul Creek--Parallel Creek--Galas Creek--Porphyry Islands-- Alligators' tracks--Bauhinia Plains--Discovers error as to River Lynd--Return--The Nonda--Burdekin duck--Simon's Gap-- Arrival of the cattle--Preparation for final start. On the 14th of May, 1864, the overland party which was to take cattle to the new settlement at Cape York, was started by Mr. Frank Jardine, from Rockhampton, under the charge of his brother Alexander. It comprised ten persons, with thirty-one horses. The instructions were to travel by easy stages to Port Denison, and there wait the arrival of the Leader. In the following month, Mr. Jardine, senior, taking with him his third son John, sailed for Brisbane, and shortly after from thence to Somerset, Cape York, in the Eagle, barque, chartered by the Government, for transport of material, etc., arriving there at the end of June. Mr. Frank Jardine, taking with him the surveyor attached to the expedition, Mr. A. J. Richardson, arrived at Bowen by sea, about the middle of July, when the party was again moved forward, he himself starting off to make the purchase of the cattle. Five more horses were purchased on account of the Government in Bowen, for Mr. Richardson, making a total of forty-two. The prevalence of pleuro-pneumonia made it a matter of some difficulty for Mr. F. Jardine to get suitable stock for his purpose, and caused considerable delay. Arrangements having at length been made with Mr. William Stenhouse, of the River Clarke, the party was divided at the Reedy Lake Station, on the Burdekin, Mr. A. Jardine moving forward with the pack horses and equipment, leaving the Leader with Messrs. Scrutton and Cowderoy, and three black boys to muster and fetch on the cattle. The advance party started on the 17th August, and arrived at Carpentaria Downs, the station of J. G. Macdonald, Esq., on the 30th. This was at that time the furthest station to the North West, and was intended to be made the final starting point of the expedition, by the permission of Mr. Macdonald, from whom the party received much kindness. On their way they were joined by Mr. Henry Bode, a gentleman who was in search of country to occupy with stock. After remaining in camp at Carpentaria Downs for a few days, Mr. A. Jardine decided on utilizing the interval, which must elapse before his brother could re-join him with the cattle, by exploring the country ahead, so as to faciliate the march of the stock on the final start. Accordingly, leaving the camp in charge of Mr. Richardson, with Mr. Binney, and two black boys, he started on the 3rd of September, taking with him the most trusty of his black boys, "old Eulah," and one pack-horse, and accompanied by Mr. Bode, who took advantage of the opportunity to have a look at the country. As Mr. Bode had his own black boy with him, the party comprised four, with two pack-horses, carrying provision for three weeks. About the same time Mr. Macdonald started with a party of three to find a road for his stock to the Gulf, where he was about to form a station; the account of which trip has been published bythat gentleman. The stream on which Carpentaria Downs station is situated was supposed to be the "Lynd" of Leichhardt and was so called and known; but as this was found to be an error, and that it was a tributary of the Gilbert, it will be distinguished by the name it subsequently received, the Einasleih. Keeping the right bank of the river which was running strongly two hundred yards wide, the party travelled six miles to a small rocky bald hill, under which they passed on the north side; and thence to a gap in a low range, through which the river forces its way. Travelling down its bed for a quarter-of-a-mile, they crossed to its left bank, on to a large level basaltic plain; but here the extent of the rocky ground made the travelling so bad for the horses, although shod, that it was impossible to proceed, and the river was therefore re-crossed. Five miles more of rough travelling over broken stony ironbark ridges, brought them to a second gorge, formed by two spurs of a range, running down to the river banks on either side, where they camped, having made about 15 miles on a general course of N.W. by N. To the south of this gorge, and running parallel with the river, is a high range of hills, which received the name of the Newcastle Range. (Camp I.) 'September' 4.--Resuming their journey, the party passed through a gap in the northern spur, described yesterday, about a quarter-of-a-mile from the camp. From this gap a point of the range on the south side was sighted, running into the river, and for this they steered. At 4 miles a small lagoon was passed, 300 yards out from the river, and a quarter-of-a-mile further on, a broad, shallow, sandy creek(then dry), which was named "Pluto Creek." At 8 miles a small rugged hill was passed on the left hand, and the point of the range steered for reached at 9. At 12 a large well-watered creek was crossed, and the party camped at the end of 18 miles on a similar one. The general course N.N.W., and lay chiefly over very stony ridges, close to the river banks. The timber was chiefly box, iron-bark, and melaleuca, the latter growing in the shallow bed, in which also large granite boulders frequently occurred. Though shallow, it contained fine pools and reaches of water, in some of which very fine fish were observed. Eighteen miles (Camp II.) 'September' 5.--After crossing the creek, on which they had camped, at its junction, the party followed down a narrow river flat for four miles, to where a large sandy creek joins it from the north. The steepness of its banks and freedom from fallen timber, suggested the name of "Canal Creek"--it is about 80 yards wide. Two miles further down a small creek joins, and at 12 miles a high rocky hill was reached. From this hill a bar of granite rock extends across the river to a similar one on the south side. A fine view was obtained from its summit showing them the course of the river. Up to this point the course had been N.W. After passing through a gap, immediately under and on the north of the rocky hill they were forced by the river into a northerly course for two miles, at which they crossed a spur of the range running into it, so rugged that they were obliged to lead their horses. Beyond this they emerged on to a basaltic plain, timbered with box and bloodwood, and so stony as to render the walking very severe for the horses. The basalt continued for the rest of the day. At about 18 miles a large creek was crossed, running into an ana-branch. The banks of the river which border the basaltic plain are very high and steep on both sides. Running the ana-branch down for four miles, the camp was pitched, after a tedious and fatiguing day's march. (Camp III.) 'September' 6.--The ana-branch camped on last night being found to run parallel to the course of the river, received the name of Parallel Creek. Its average width is about 150 yards, well watered, and full of melaleucas and fallen timber. The country on its north bank down to its junction with the river 20 miles from the junction of Warroul Creek, is broken into ridges of quartz and sand-stone, stony, and poorly grassed. That contained between its south bank and the river, the greatest width of which is not more than three miles, is a basaltic plateau, terminating in precipitous banks on the river, averaging 50 feet in perpendicular height. To avoid the stones on either side, there being no choice between the two, the party travelled down the bed of Parallel Creek the whole day. At about 9 miles stringy bark appeared on the ridges of the north bank. Large flocks of cockatoo parrots ('Nymphicus Nov. Holl.') were seen during the day, and a "plant" of native spears was found. They were neatly made, jagged at the head with wallaby bones, and intended for throwing in the Wommerah or throwing stick. At the end of 20 miles the party reached the junction of Parallel Creek with the river and encamped. The general course was about N.W. (Camp IV.) 'September' 7.--The party was now happily clear of the basaltic country, but the travelling was still none of the best, the first nine miles of to-day's stage being over stony ridges of quartz and iron-stone, interspersed with small, sandy, river flats. At this distance a large creek of running water was crossed, and the camp pitched at about two miles from its junction with the Einasleih. The creek received the name of Galaa Creek, in allusion to the galaa or rose cockatoo ('Cacatua Rosea'), large flocks of which were frequently seen. The junction of Galaa Creek is remarkable for two porphyritic rock islands, situated in the bed of the river, which is here sandy, well watered, and about 300 yards wide. The grass was very scarce, having been recently burned. The timber chiefly iron-bark and box. Course N.W. 1/2 W., distance 10 miles (Camp V.) 'September' 8.--To-day the river was followed down over low broken stony ranges, having their crests covered with "garrawan" scrub for 5 miles, when the party was gratified by an agreable change in the features of the country. Instead of the alternative of broken country, stony ridges, or basaltic plains they had toiled over for nearly 80 miles, they now emerged on to fine open well-grassed river flats, lightly timbered, and separated by small spurs of ridges running into them. A chain of small lagoons was passed at 12 miles, teeming with black duck, teal, wood duck, and pigmy geese, whilst pigeons and other birds were frequent in the open timber, a sure indication of good country. At 13 miles a small creek was crossed, and another at 18, and after having made a good stage of 25 miles the party again camped on the Einasleih. At this point it had increased to a width of nearly a mile, the banks were low and sloping, and the bed shallow and dry. It was still nevertheless, well watered, the stream, as is not unusual in many of our northern rivers, continuing to run under the surface of the sand, and requiring very slight digging or even scratching, to be got at. The general course throughout the day was about N.W.1/2W. (Camp VI.) 'September' 9.--The course down the river was resumed over similar country to that of yesterday. Keeping at the back of some low table-topped hills, at 5 miles the party struck a fine clear deep lagoon, about two miles in from the river, of which it is the overflow. A chain of small waterholes occurs at 12 miles, which were covered with ducks and other water-fowl, whilst immense flocks of a slate-colored pigeon were seen at intervals. They are about the same size as the Bronzewing, and excessively wild.* The river, when again struck, had resumed running. It was still sandy and full of the graceful weeping melaleuca in the bed, where traces of alligators were observed. The country traversed throughout the day was good, but the small plains and flats were thought likely to be swampy in wet weather. Another good stage of 26 miles was made, and the party again camped on the river. The general course was due west. (Camp VII.) [footnote] * 'The Phaps Histrionica, or Harlequin Bronzewing.' 'September' 10.--Taking his course from the map he carried, shewing the river running north-west, and depending on its correctness, Mr. Jardine bore to the north-west for 15 miles, travelling over sandy honey-combed rises, and low swampy plains, when he reached a watershed to the north, which he then supposed must be the head of Mitchell waters, finding himself misled by his map and that he had left the river altogether, he turned south by west and did not reach it before the end of 8 miles on that bearing, when the party camped on a small ana-branch. The true course of the river would thus be about W. by N. Total distance 23 miles. (Camp VIII.) 'September' 11.--This day's journey was over fine country. The first course was N.W. for about 5 miles, to a large round shallow lagoon, covered with quantities of wild fowl, and thence, following the direction of the river into camp about 13 miles, over a succession of large black soil plains covered with good grasses, mixed herbs, and salt bush. The principal timber being bauhinia, suggested the name of "Bauhinia Plains." Their width back from the river extended to an average of six miles, when they were bounded by low well-grassed iron-bark ridges. The river was broad and sandy, running in two or three channels, and occasionally spreading into long reaches. Large ana-branches, plentifully watered, left the main channel running back from it from 1 to 3 miles. A great many fishing weirs were observed in the channels of the river, from which it would appear that the blacks live much, if not principally, on fish. They were well and neatly constructed. (Camp IX.) 'September' 12.--Alexander Jardine, having now travelled 180 miles from Carpentaria Downs, was convinced that the river he had traced this distance could not be the Lynd of Leichhardt. The reasons which forced this conclusion on him were three:--Firstly, the discription of the country in no wise tallied. Secondly, the course of the river differed. And thirdly, although he had travelled further to the west than Leichhardt's junction of the Lynd and Mitchell, he had not even been on Mitchell waters, the northern watershed he had been on, on the 10th, being that of a small creek, doubling on itself, and running into this river. Having thus set the matter at rest in his own mind, he determined to re-trace his steps, and accordingly started back this morning and camped at night at the shallow lagoon, passed the day previous. On the way they shot several ducks and a bustard. These are very numerous on the plains, but wild and unapproachable, as they most frequently are in the north. At each camp on his journey Mr. Jardine regularly marked a tree A.J. and the number of the Camp. 'September' 13.--The party travelled back over Bauhinia Plains, and camped on the river, near camp 8 of the outward journey. At night they went fishing, and got a number of fine perch, and a small spotted fish. Distance 24 miles. 'September' 14.--To-day the party saw blacks for the first time since leaving Carpentaria Downs. They "rounded them up," and had a parley, without hostility on either side, each being on the defensive, and observing the other. They bore no distinctive character, or apparent difference to the Rockhampton tribes, and were armed with reed speers and wommerahs. For the first time also they met with the ripe fruit of the Palinaria, the "Nonda" of Leichhardt. The distance travelled was 27 miles, which brought them to the 7th camp on the outward journey. 'September' 15.--Following up the course of the river, the 6th camp was reached in 26 miles, where the feed was so good that Mr. Jardine determined to halt for a day and recruit the horses. On the way they again passed some natives who were fishing in a large lagoon, but shewed no hostility. They had an opportunity of seeing their mode of spearing the fish, in which they used a long heavy four-pronged spear, barbed with kangaroo bones. 'September' 16.--Was spent in fishing and hunting, whilst the horses luxuriated in the abundant feed. They caught some perch, and a fine cod, not unlike the Murray cod in shape, but darker and without scales. At night, there being a fine moonlight, they went out to try and shoot opossums as an addition to the larder, but were unsuccessful. They appeared to be very scarce. 'September' 17.--Resuming their journey, the party travelled 21 miles, to a spot about 4 miles below No. 5 camp, on Gaala Creek, and turned out. Here they met with wild lucerne in great abundance, and a great deal of mica and talc was observed in the river. During the day Mr. Jardine shot a bustard, and some fish being again caught in the evening, there was high feeding in camp at night. The bagging of a bustard, or plain turkey as it is more commonly called, always makes a red day for the kitchen. Its meat is tender and juicy, and either roasted whole, dressed into steaks, or stewed into soup, makes a grateful meal for a hungry traveller. 'September' 18.--Keeping out some distance from its banks to avoid the stones and deep gullies, the party followed up the river to the junction of Parallel Creek: this was traced, keeping along its bed for the same reason, by which course only they were enabled to avoid them. These, as before described, were very thickly strewn making the journey tedious and severe on the horses, so that only 14 miles were accomplished, when they camped on a large waterhole five miles above the junction. The beautiful Burdekin duck ('Tadorna Radjah') was met with, of which Mr. Jardine shot a couple. 'September' 19.--Still keeping along the bed of Parallel Creek, the party travelled up its course. This they were constrained to do, in consequence of the broken and stony banks and country on the east side, whilst an abrupt wall of basalt prevented them leaving the bed on the west. At 13 miles they camped for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, on a large creek which received the name of Warroul Creek, suggested by their finding two large "sugar bags" or bees' nests on it, "Warroul" being the name for bee in the Wirotheree or Wellington dialect. Warroul Creek runs into Parallel Creek from the south-east, joining it about half-a-mile below where it leaves the river, it being as before mentioned an ana-branch of the Einasleih. Leaving Parallel and travelling up Warroul Creek, in 8 miles they reached the gap in the range 12 miles below camp No. 2. This afterwards received the name of Simon's Gap, and the range it occurs in, Jorgensen's Range, after Simon Jorgensen, Esq., of Gracemere. Two miles, from the gap they struck a large round swamp which had not been observed on the down journey, the party having kept close to the river, from which it is distant two miles. This was named "Cawana Swamp" There being good grass there, they camped. Native companions ('Crus Australalasinus') and the more rare jabiru ('Myeteria Australis') were very numerous on it. Total distance 23 miles. 'September' 20.--To-day the party made the lagoon mentioned on the 4th inst., a distance of 27 miles, traversing nearly the same ground already described and camped. They again saw a mob of blacks fishing in the river, who, on seeing them, immediately decamped into the ranges on the opposite side and disappeared. The next day, Mr. Macdonald's station, Carpentaria Downs was reached in 17 miles, the little party having travelled over nearly 360 miles of ground in 18 days. Mr. Jardine found all well at the main camp, but no sign of his brother with the cattle; fifteen days passed before his arrival, during which time Alexander Jardine plotted up the courses of his journey down the Einasleih, and submitted the plan to Mr. Richardson, without, however, shaking the gentleman's faith as to his position, or that they were on Leichhardt's Lynd, preferring to dispute the accuracy of the reckoning. It will be seen, however, that the explorer was right, and the surveyor wrong. It being expedient that the party should husband their rations for the journey until the final start, Mr. Macdonald kindly supplied them with what was necessary for their present wants, thus allowing them to keep their own stores intact. On the 6th of October, Frank Jardine made his appearance with the cattle, a mob of about 250 head of bullocks and cows in good condition. The ensuing three days were spent by the brothers in shoeing the horses, a job of no little tedium and difficulty, they being the only farriers of the party. There were 42 head to shoe, many of which had never been shod before, and as the thermometer stood at 100 degrees in the shade most of the day, their office was no sinecure; they had at first some difficulty in getting a sufficient heat, but after a little experimenting found a wood of great value in that particular. This was the apple-gum, by using which, they could if necessary get a white heat in the iron. At the end of the third day the last horse was shod, and it only remained to get the stores and gear together, and dispose them on the different packs. This was done on the 10th, on the evening of which they were ready for the final start. The party was thus composed: Frank Lacelles Jardine, Leader; Alexander Jardine, Archibald J. Richardson, Government Surveyor; C. Scrutton, R. N. Binney, A. Cowderoy, Eulah, Peter, Sambo and Barney, black boys from the districts of Rockhampton and Wide Bay; 41 picked horses and 1 mule, all in good order and condition. Their provision was calculated to last them 4 months, and was distributed together with the tools, amunition, and camp necessaries on 18 packs, averaging at the start about 150 lbs. each. It consisted of 1200 lbs. flour, 3 cwt. sugar, 35 lbs. of tea, 40 lbs. currants and raisins, 20 lbs. peas, 20 lbs. jams, salt, etc. The black troopers were armed with the ordinary double-barrelled police carbine, the whites carrying Terry's breech-loaders, and Tranter's revolvers. They had very ample occasion to test the value and efficiency of both these arms, which, in the hands of cool men, are invaluable in conflict. The personalities of the party were reduced to a minimum, and what was supposed to be absolutely necessary, one pack (the mule's) being devoted to odds and ends, or what are termed in bush parlance, 'manavlins'. Three light tents only were carried, more for protecting the stores than for shelter for the party. All were in excellent health, and good spirits, and eager to make a start. CHAPTER II. Start from Carpentaria Downs--Order of Travel--Canal Creek-- Cawana Swamp--Simons' Gap--Cowderoy's Bluff--Barney's Nob-- Casualties in Parallel Creek--Basaltic Wall--Singular Fish-- Black Carbonado--Improvement in Country--Search for the Lynd-- Doubts--First rain--Error of Starting point--Large ant-hills-- Ship's iron found--Native nets--Second start in search of Lynd-- Return--Byerley Creek--The whole party moves forward--Belle Creek--Maroon Creek--Cockburn Creek--Short Commons--Camp Burned--The Powder saved--Maramie Creek--The Staaten--First hostility of Natives--Poison--"Marion" abandoned--Conclusion as to River--Heavy rain--First attack of Natives--Horses lost-- Barren Country--Detention--Leader attacked by Natives-- Black-boy attacked--A "growl"--Mosquitoes and flies--Kites-- Cattle missing--Horses found--Leader again attacked--Main party attacked--Return to the River--Character of Staaten--Lagoon Creek--Tea-tree levels--Junction of Maramie Creek--Reach head of tide--Confirmation of opinion. 'October' 11.--At sunrise the cattle was started with Cowderoy and two black-boys, Eulah and Barney, the former acting as pilot. Their instructions were to camp at the swamp at the junction of Pluto Creek, seventeen miles from McDonald's station, mentioned on 3rd. September. The pack-horses were not got away until half-past 12, two, "Rasper," and the mule (as often provokingly happens when most wanted) being astray, and having to be hunted for. There was also the usual amount of "bucking" incident to a start, the unpractised pack-horses rebelling against the unwonted load and amount of gear, and with a few vigorous plunges sending pack-bags, pots, hobbles, and chains in scattered confusion all round them. Few starts of a large party occur without similar mischances, but a day or two, suffices for the horses to settle to their work, after which all goes smoothly. The country travelled has been described in the preceding chapter. A hill at five miles on Pluto Creek, received the name of Mount Eulah. On reaching the swamp, the brothers found the cattle party had not arrived. This was the first of many similar annoyances during the journey. It being between 8 and 9 p.m., it was useless to think of looking for them at that time of night. They therefore encamped on the river, intending to return and run the tracks of the cattle in the morning. The distance travelled was about 20 miles. 'October' 12.--Leaving Binney in charge of the horses, with orders to feed them about the Lagoon, where there was better grass than at the river, the brothers started at sunrise in quest of the cattle party. They met them at about five miles up Pluto Creek, which they were running down. It appeared that Master Eulah, the pilot, had got completely puzzled, and led the party into the ranges to the eastward, where, after travelling all day, they had been obliged to camp about half-way from the station, and without water. He was very chop-fallen about his mistake, which involved his character as a bushman. The Australian aborigines have not in all cases that unerring instinct of locality which has been attributed to them, and are, out of their own country, no better, and generally scarcely so good as an experienced white. The brothers soon found water for them in the creek under Mount Eulah; after which,returning to the camp, it was too late to continue the journey, particularly as it had been necessary to send one of "the boys" back for a bag of amunition that had been lost on the way. This is the work they are most useful in, as few, even of the best bushmen are equal to them in running a track. The day's stage of the cattle was about 11 miles. 'October' 13.--The cattle started at a quarter-to-six, in charge of Alexander Jardine and two black-boys, while Frank and the rest of the party remained behind to pack and start the horses. This at the commencement was the usual mode of travelling, the horses generally overtaking the cattle before mid-day, when all travelled together till they camped at night, or preceded them to find and form the camp. Two incidents occurred on the way: "Postman," a pack-horse on crossing a deep narrow creek, fell and turned heels uppermost, where he lay kicking helplessly, unable to rise, until the pack was cut clear of him; and "Cerberus," another horse, not liking the companionship of the mule, took occasion in crossing another creek to kick his long-eared mate from the top to the bottom of it, to the intense amusement of the black-boys, who screamed "dere go poor fellow donkit" with great delight. The whole course was about 11 miles. The camp on a small dry creek. They procured water in the main channel of the river, on the south side. During the journey at every camp where there was timber, Mr. Jardine cut (or caused to be cut) its number with a chisel into the wood of a tree, in Roman numerals, and his initials generally in a shield. 'October' 14.--The distance travelled to-day was only 11 miles, but described by Mr. Jardine, as equal to 20 of fair travelling ground. The course lay over very stony quartz and granite ridges, which could not be avoided, as they ran into the river, whilst the bed of the stream would have been as difficult, being constantly crossed by rocky bars, and filled by immense boulders. The grass was very scarce, the blacks having burnt it all along the river. There were patches where it never grows at all, presenting the appearance of an earthern floor. They encamped at the junction of Canal Creek, under the shade of some magnificent Leichhardt trees ('Nauclea Leichhardtii') that grow there, without other water than what they dug for in the sandy bed, and reached at a depth of two feet. On the opposite side and about a mile from the junction there is a swamp, splendidly grassed, which looked like a green barley field, but the water was too salt for the horses to drink, an unusual thing in granite country. The timber of the ridges was cheifly stunted hollow iron-bark, that of the river, bloodwood, and the apple-gum, described as so good for forging purposes; there was a total absence of those tall well-grown gums, by which the course of a stream may usually be traced from a distance. So little was the river defined by the timber that it could not be distinguished at a half-a-mile away. 'October' 15.--The party moved to-day as far as the swamp mentioned on the 19th September. It received the name of "Cawana Swamp," and is described as the best and prettiest camping place they had yet seen. It is surrounded by the high stoney range called Jorgensen's Range on two sides, north and east, whilst on the south and east it is hemmed in by a stretch of cellular basalt, which makes it almost unapproachable. The only easy approach is by the river from the westward. It is six miles round, and so shallow that the cattle fed nearly a mile towards the middle. The party travelled out of the direct course to avoid the stones, keeping the narrow flats occuring between the river and ridges, which averaged about 200 yards in width; when intercepted by the ridges running into the river, they followed down its bed which is more clearly defined by oak ('Casuarinae') and Leichhardt trees than up the stream. The improved travelling allowed them to make the stage of 9 miles in less than four hours, and turn out early. Several large flocks of galaas ('Cacatua Rosea,') were seen, and Alexander Jardine shot a wallaby. Before starting, Barney, one of the black-boys had to be corrected by the Leader for misconduct, which had the effect of restoring discipline. On reaching Cawana Swamp, the fires of the natives were found quite fresh, from which it would seem that they had decamped on the approach of the party, leaving plenty of birrum-burrongs, or bee-eaters ('Merops Ornatus, Gould') behind them. An observation taken at night gave the latitude 18 degrees 1 minute 59 seconds, which gave about 41 miles of Northing. 'October' 16.--The cattle were started away at a quarter-to-four o'clock, this morning, and found an excellent passage through Jorgensen's Range, by "Simon's Gap." The track from this point to the junction of Warroul and Parallel Creeks with the river (where the camp was pitched) was very winding, from having to avoid the basalt, which was laming some of the cattle, besides wrenching off the heads of the horse-shoe nails: it could not be altogether avoided, and made it past noon before the cattle reached the camp. A native companion, a rock wallaby, and a young red kangaroo were the result of the hunting in the afternoon, which saved the necessity of having to kill a beast: this would have been specially inconvenient, if not impossible here, for the natives had burnt all the grass, and there was not a bite of feed for either horses or cattle, had they halted. About 50 blacks, all men, followed the tracks of the party from Cawana Swamp: they were painted, and fully armed, which indicated a disposition for a "brush" with the white intruders; on being turned upon, however, they thought better of it, and ran away. The camp was formed under a red stony bluff, which received the name of "Cowderoy's Bluff," after one of the party; whilst a large round hill bearing E.N.E. from the camp was called "Barney's Nob." In the afternoon Mr. Binney and Eulah were sent to the river to fish, but as they ate all the caught, there was no gain to the party. For this their lines were taken from them by Mr. Jardine, and they got a "talking to," the necessity for which was little creditable to the white man. The thermometer at 5 a.m. stood at 80 degrees. The day's stage about 10 miles N.N.W. Some banksias, currijong, and stringy-bark were noticed to-day, the latter is not a common timber in the northern districts. 'October' 17.--All the horses were away this morning: as might have been expected, the poor hungry creatures had strayed back towards the good feed on Cawana Swamp, and were found 5 miles from the camp. The day's stage was the worst they had yet had. The country down Parallel Creek has already been described, and it took six of the party five hours to get the cattle over three-and-a-half miles of ground: the bed of the creek, by which alone they could travel was intersected every 300 or 400 yards by bars formed of granite boulders, some of which were from 25 to 30 feet high, and their interstices more like a quarry than anything else; over these the cattle had to be driven in two and sometimes three lots, and were only travelled 8 miles with great difficulty. There were several casualties; "Lucifer," one of the best of the horses cut his foot so badly, as to make it uncertain whether he could be fetched on; and two unfortunate cows fell off the rocks, and were smashed to pieces. The cows were beginning to calve very fast, and when the calves were unable to travel, they had to be destroyed, which made the mothers stray from the camp to where they had missed them; one went back in this manner the previous night, but it was out of the question to ride thirty miles after her over the stones they had traversed. The camp was made in the bed of Parallel Creek, at a spot where there was a little grass, the whole stage having been almost without any. Here the basaltic wall was over 80 feet in height, hemming them in from the west; on some parts during the day it closed in on both sides. An observation at night made the latitude 17 degrees 51 minutes. A curious fishwas caught to-day--it had the appearance of a cod, whose head and tail had been drawn out, leaving the body round. (Camp VIII.) 'October', 18.--Another severe stage, still down the bed of Parallel Creek, from which indeed there was no issue. Frank Jardine describes it as a "pass or gorge, through the range which abuts on each side through perpendicular cliffs, filling it up with great blocks of stone," and adding that "a few more days of similar country would bring their horses to a standstill." Their backs and the feet of the cattle were in a woeful plight from its effects: one horse was lost, and a bull and several head of cattle completely knocked up. Bad as yesterday's journey was, this day's beat it; they managed to travel ten miles over the most villanous country imaginable, with scarcely a vestage of grass, when the camp was again pitched in the bed of the creek. A large number of natives were seen to-day--one mob was disturbed at a waterhole, where they were cooking fish, which they left in their alarm, together with their arms. The spears were the first that had been observed made of reed, and a stone tomahawk was seen, as large as the largest-sized American axe. These blacks were puny wretched-looking creatures, and very thin. They had a great number of wild dogs with them--over thirty being counted by the party. 10 miles, N.W. by W. 1/2 W. (Camp IX.) 'October' 19.--The confluence of Parallel Creek with the Einasleih was reached in four miles, after which the country on the river slightly improved; the camp was pitched four miles further on, on a river flat, within sight of a large scrub, on the east side. Four of the cattle that had been knocked up yesterday were sent for before starting, and fetched--the cattle counted and found correct. The river at the camp was about 700 yards wide, with fine waterholes in it, containing plenty of fish. A strange discovery was made to-day. At a native fire the fresh remains of a negro were found 'roasted', the head and thigh bones were alone complete, all the rest of the body and limbs had been broken up, the skull was full of blood. Whether this was the body of an enemy cooked for food, or of a friend disposed of after the manner of their last rites, must remain a mystery, until the country and its denizens become better known. Some spears were found pointed with sharp pieces of flint, fastened on with kangaroo sinews, and the gum of the Xanthorea, or grass-tree. (Camp X.) 'October' 20.--The last of the stony ground was travelled over to-day, and the foot-sore cattle were able to luxuriate in the soft sandy ground of the river flats. At about 6 miles Galaa Creek was crossed at Alexander Jardine's marked tree (V in a square), and the Rocky Island at its junction, before mentioned, were seen. At this point the ranges come into the river on each side. The camp was pitched at about five miles further on, at a fine waterhole, where there was good grass--a welcome change for cattle and horses. It was not reached, however, till about 9 o'clock. The river afforded the party some fine fish--cod, perch, and peel, and a lobster weighing more than half-a-pound. Its channels were very numerous, making altogether nearly a mile in width. Scrub was in sight during the whole of the stage, the crests of the broken ridges being covered with garrawon. (Camp XI.) 'October' 21.--Mr. Jardine describes to-day's stage as the best the cattle had experienced since taking delivery of them 230 miles back; the river banks along which they travelled were flat and soft, lightly timbered with box, poplar-gum and bloodwood. From a low table-topped range, which they occasionally sighted on the right, spurs of sandstone ran into the river at intervals, but were no obstruction. A cow had to be abandoned knocked up. A couple of blacks were surprised in the river spearing fish; they set up a howl, and took to the river. In the evening the whole of the party went fishing for the pot, there being no meat left. (Camp XII.) Distance 11 miles. The weather to-day was cloudy for the first time, shewing appearance of rain. 'October' 22.--The river was travelled down for 10 miles, through similar and better country than that of yesterday's stage, and the camp established on a deep narrow well-watered creek, three-quarters-of-a-mile from its junction with the river. Here the Leader determined to halt for a few days to recruit the strength of the horses and cattle, the feed being good; many of the cattle were lame, two of the hacks were knocked up, and several of the pack-horses had very sore backs, so that a "spell" was a necessity. They were now 120 miles from Macdonald's station, having averaged ten miles a-day since the start 'October' 23.--The camp was established at this point (Camp XIII.) pending a reconnaissance by the Leader and his brother to find the Lynd of Leichhardt, and determine the best line of road for the stock. A couple of calves were killed, cut up, and jerked, whilst some of the party employed themselves in the repairs to the saddlery, bags, etc., and Alexander Jardine took a look at the country back from the river. Mr. Richardson plotted up his course, when it was found that it differed from that of the brothers by only one mile in latitude, and two in longitude; he also furnished the Leader with his position on the chart, telling him that the Lynd must be about ten miles N.E. of them, their latitude being 17 degrees 34 minutes 32 seconds S.* [footnote] *In Mr. Richardson's journal he mentions the distances as 18 to 20. He also explains that he had two maps, in which a difference of 30 miles in longitude existed in the position of their starting point. Not having a Chronometer to ascertain his longitude for himself, he adopted that assigned by the tracing furnished from the Surveyor-General's Office. 'October' 24.--The brothers started this morning, taking with them Eulah, as the most reliable of the black-boys; they were provisioned for five days. The cattle were left in charge of Mr. Scrutton: the feed being good and water plentiful, the halt served the double purpose of recruiting their strength, and allowing the Leader to choose the best road for them. Steering N.E. by E. at a mile, they passed through a gap in the low range of table-topped hills of red and white sandstone which had been skirted on the way down: through this gap a small creek runs into the river, which they ran up, N.N.E., 3 miles further, on to a small shallow creek, with a little water in it. Travelling over lightly-timbered sandy ridges, barren and scrubby, but without stone, at 9 or 10 miles they crossed the head of a sandy creek, rising in a spring, about 60 yards wide, having about 5 or 6 inches of water in it. The creek runs through mimosa and garrawon scrub for 5 miles, and the spring occurs on the side of a scrubby ridge, running into the creek from the west. At 18 miles they struck an ana-branch having some fine lagoons in it, and half-a-mile further on a river 100 yards wide, waterless, and the channels filled up with melaleuca and grevillea; this, though not answering to Leichhardt's description, they supposed to be an ana-branch of the Lynd; its course was north-west. They followed its left bank down for three miles, then crossing it, they bore N.N.E. for four miles, through level and sometimes flooded country, when their course was arrested by a line of high ridges, dispelling the idea that they were on the Lynd waters. Turning west they now travelled back to the river, and crossing it, camped on one of the same chain of lagoons which they first struck in the morning, and in which they were able to catch some fish for supper. The distance travelled was 28 miles. 'October' 25.--It was impossible to believe that the stream they were now camped on was the Lynd. Leichhardt's description at the point where they had supposed that they should strike it, made it stony and timbered with iron-bark and box. Now, since leaving the Einasleih they had not seen a single box or iron-bark tree, or a stone. Frank Jardine therefore determined to push out to thenorth-east, and again seek this seemingly apocryphal stream. After travelling for eight miles through sandy ridges, scrubby and timbered with blood-wood, messmate, and melaleuca (upright-leaved) they struck a sandy creek, bearing north; this they followed for five miles, when it turned due west, as if a tributary of the stream they had left in the morning. Having seen no water since then, it was out of the question to attempt bringing the cattle across at this point. It was determined therefore that they should return and mark a line from the Einasleih to the lagoons they had camped on last night, along which cattle could travel slowly, whilst the brothers again went forward to look for a better road from that point, and ascertain definitely whether they were on the Lynd or not. Turning west they travelled 28 miles to the creek they had left in the morning, striking it more than 40 miles below their camp, when, to their surprise it was found running nearly due south and still dry. Here they camped and caught some fish and maramies (cray-fish) by puddling a hole in the creek, which, with three pigeons they shot, made a good supper. At night a heavy thunder-storm broke over them, which lasted from 9 till 12. Frank Jardine here states himself to have been exceedingly puzzled between Leichhardt and Mr. Richardson; one or the other of these he felt must be wrong. Leichhardt describes the stream in that latitude (page 283 Journal) as stony, and with conical hills of porphyry near the river banks, "Bergues" running into it on each side. They had not seen a rise even, in any direction for miles, whilst the creek presented only occasional rocks of flat water-worn sandstone, and the screw-palm 'Pandanus Spiralis' occurred in all the water-courses, a tree that from its peculiarity would scarcely have been unnoticed or undescribed. As it was quite unlikely that he should have misrepresented the country, the natural presumption was, that Mr. Richardson must have been in error as to their true position; this was in reality the case, the error in his assumed longitude at starting causing his reckoning to overlap the Lynd altogether. This is easily seen and explained now, but was at that time a source of great uncertainty and anxiety to the explorers. 'October' 26.--Crossing over to the west bank of the river, the brothers followed it up the whole day along its windings, the general course being from South-east to East for above 36 miles. They saw none of the porphyry cliffs described by Leichhardt, or stone of any kind. The country traversed, consisted of scrubby flats, and low sandy ridges, timbered with bloodwood, messmate, mimosa, melaleuca, grevillea, and two or three species of the sterculia or curriijong, then in full blossom. Thick patches of a kind of tree, much resembling brigalow in its appearance and grain, were seen on the river banks; but the box, apple-gum, and iron-bark, mentioned by Leichhardt as growing in this latitude were altogether wanting. Large ant-hills, as much as 15 feet in height, which were frequent, gave a remarkable appearance to the country. During their stage the party came on to a black's camp, where they found some matters of interest. The natives, who were puddling a waterhole for fish, had, as was most frequent, decamped at their appearance, leaving them leisure to examine some very neatly made reed spears, tipped variously with jagged hardwood, flint, fish-bones, and iron; pieces of ship's iron were also found, and a piece of saddle girth, which caused some speculation as to how or where it had been obtained, and proving that they must at some time have been on the tracks of white men. Their nets excited some admiration, being differently worked to any yet seen, and very handsome; a sort of chain without knots. The camp was made on an ana-branch of the river, were the travellers caught a couple of cod-fish. Their expertness as fishermen was a great stand-by, for they had started without any ration of meat. They experienced some heavy wind and a thunderstorm at night. 'October' 27.--Still travelling up the river, the party in about 9 miles reached the lagoons where they were first struck, and turned out for a couple of hours. There was good feed round them, in which the horses solaced themselves, whilst their riders caught some fish and shot some pigeons for dinner, after which they commenced blazing the line for the cattle. They reached the main camp at 9 o'clock at night, having in eight hours marked a line through the best of the sandy tea-tree ridges, between 18 and 20 miles in length; no despicable work for three tomahawks. Mr. Jardine communicated the result of his trip to Mr. Richardson, but that gentleman could or would not acquiesce in the opinion arrived at by the brothers, despite the very conclusive arguments with which it was supported. This opposition occasioned a feeling of want of confidence, which caused them to cease consulting Mr. Richardson on their course, leaving him merely to carry out the duty of his appointment. 'October' 28.--The following day was spent in camp, preparatory to a fresh start ahead of the cattle, which, it was decided should leave this camp on the 31st. Some of them could scarcely move, but their number were found correct on counting. 'October' 29.--Again taking old Eulah with them, the brothers started on another quest for the Lynd, which, like the mirage of the desert, seemed to recede from them as they approached; setting out late in the day, they camped at night once more on the lagoon, at the end of their marked-tree line, a distance of about 18 miles. They took with them four days' rations of flour, tea, and sugar, trusting to their guns and fishing lines for their supply of meat. 'October' 30.--Starting at half-past 6 in the morning the little party steered N. by W. about 36 miles. At about three-quarters of-a-mile from the river they passed a fine lagoon, and at four miles further on a rocky creek running west with some water in it. Their way lay over soft, barren, sandy ridges, timbered with tea-tree. Eight miles more brought them to a creek where water could be obtained by digging, and at 24 miles further they camped on a large well-watered creek, running N.W.; the whole of the distance was over the same soft, barren, monotonous country. On their way they killed an iguana ('Monitor Gouldii'), which made them a good supper, and breakfast next morning. The cattle party at No. 13 Camp were left with instructions to follow slowly along the marked-tree line, to camp at the lagoon, and there await the return of the advance party. 'October' 31.--An early start was made this morning at a quarter after 6, and 20 or 22 miles were accomplished on the same bearing as that of yesterday, N. by W., over the same heavy barren stringy-bark country. Three small creeks were crossed, but not a hill or rise was to be seen, or any indication of a river to the northward. At this point the heavy travelling beginning to tell on their jaded horses, the Leader determined on abandoning the idea of bringing the cattle by the line they had traversed, and turning south and by west made for the river they had left in the morning, intending to ascertain if it would be the better route for the cattle, and if not, to let them travel down the supposed Lynd (which now received the name of Byerley Creek), on which they were to rendezvous. After travelling 16 miles further on the new bearing, they camped without water, being unable to reach the large creek they had camped on the previous night. The country along the last course was of the same description, low, sandy, string-bark, and tea-tree ridges, without a vestige of water; total distance 38 miles. 'November' 1.--Making another early start, and steering S.W. by S., the party reached the creek in four miles, and getting a copious drink for themselves and their thirsty horses, breakfasted off some "opossums and rubbish" they got out of a black's camp. The stream was 100 yards wide, and well-watered, a great relief after their arid journey of yesterday: large rocks of sandstone occurred inits bed in different places. Crossing it, they followed down its left bank for 8 miles, its trend being N.W., then turning their back on it, they steered due south to strike Byerley Creek. Sixteen miles of weary travelling over wretched barren country brought them to a small sandy creek, on which they camped, procuring water for their horses by digging in its bed. Here they made a supper of the lightest, their rations being exhausted, and "turned in" somewhat disgusted with the gloomy prospect for the progress of the cattle. They again met with the nonda of Leichhardt, and ate of its ripe fruit, which is best when found dry under the trees. Its taste is described as like that of a boiled mealy potatoe. 'November' 2.--Continuing on the same course, due south for 18 miles, over the same useless country, the party reached Byerley Creek, striking it at a point 32 miles below the Rendezvous Camp, then turning up its course they followed it for 16 miles, to their hunting camp of the 26th October. Here they camped and made what they deemed a splendid supper off an oppossum, an iguana, and four cod-fish, the result of their day's sport. Total distance travelled 28 miles. 'November' 3.--Following up the creek for 16 miles, the party reached the main camp on the lagoons early in the day. Here they found all right, with the exception that most of the party were suffering from different stages of sandy-blight, or ophthalmia. A calf was killed, and the hungry vanguard were solaced with a good feed of veal. Byerley Creek having been found utterly destitute of grass, badly watered, and moreover trending ultimately to the S. of W., the Leader determined to take the cattle on to the next, which was well watered, having some feed on it, and being on the right course. There were, however, two long stages without water; but it was, on the whole, the best and almost only course open to him. The cattle had made this camp in two stages from the Einasleih. It was, consequently, No. LI. The latitude was found to be 17 degrees 23 minutes 24 seconds: a tree was marked with these numbers, in addition to the usual initial and numbers. The Thermometer at daylight marked 90 degrees, and at noon 103 degrees, in the 'shade!' 'November' 4.--A late start was made to-day, a number of the horses having strayed, and not having been got in. The Brothers went ahead, and marked a line for five miles out to the creek mentioned on the 30th October: it contained sufficient water for the horses and cattle, and was the best watercourse they would get until they reached the next river, a distance of 30 miles. It received the name of "Belle Creek," in remembrance of "Belle," one of their best horses, who died at this camp, apparantly from a snake bite, the symptoms being the same as in the case of "Dora," but the time shorter. Belle Creek is rocky and tolerably well watered, and remarkable for the number of nonda trees on it. Whilst waiting for the cattle the Brothers caught some fish and a fine lot of maramies. 'November' 5.--This day appears to have been one of disasters. It opened with the intelligence that sixteen of the horses were missing. Leaving one party to seek and bring on the stray horses, the Brothers started the cattle forward: they left instructions at the camp for the horses to start, if recovered before 3 o'clock; if not, to be watched all night, and brought on the next day. They then started, and preceding the cattle, marked a line for 15 miles to "Maroon Creek." Here they camped without water, waiting with some anxiety for the arrival of the pack-horses. Hour after hour passed but none appeared, and as night closed in, the Brothers were forced to the conclusion that something must have gone wrong at the camp. They could not however turn back, as they had to mark the next day's stage for the cattle to water, there being none for them to-night, and only a little for the party, obtained by digging, however, they were relieved by the appearance of a blackboy with rations, who reported that some of the horses had not been found when he left the camp. The night was spent in watching the thirsty cattle. 'November' 6.--The cattle were started at dawn and driven on to the watered creek, where they got feed and water at some fine waterholes, it received the name of "Cockburn Creek;" the Brothers as usual preceded them and marked a line further ahead. Arrived there, they spent the rest of the day in fishing whilst uneasily waiting the arrival of the pack-horses. They luckily caught some fish for supper, for night fell without the appearance of the remainder of the party, and they had nothing to eat since the preceding night. The country has already been described. 'November' 7.--To-day was spent in camp by the party whilst anxiously awaiting the arrival of the pack-horses, but night fell without their making their appearance. They had nothing to eat, and as there was no game to be got, they decided on killing a calf, but in this they were disappointed, as the little animal eluded them, and bolted into the scrub. They therefore had to go "opossuming," and succeeding in catching three, which, with a few small fish, formed their supper. 'November' 8.--At daylight this morning, Alexander Jardine succeeded in "potting" the calf that had eluded them yesterday, which gave the party a satisfactory meal. Another anxious day was passed without the arrival of the pack-horses, and the Leader had the annoyance of finding on counting the cattle, that between twenty or thirty were missing. Being now seriously anxious about the pack-horses, he determined if they did not arrive that night, to despatch his brother to look after them. 'November' 9.--The horses not having arrived, Alexander Jardine started to see what had happened: he met the party with them half way, and learned some heavy news. In the afternoon of the 5th (the day on which the Brothers started with the cattle), the grass around the camp had, by some culpable carelessness, been allowed to catch fire, by which half their food and nearly all their equipment were burnt. The negligence was the more inexcusable, as before starting, Alexander Jardine had pulled up the long grass around the tents at the camp, which should have put them on their guard against such a contingency, one for which even less experienced bushmen are supposed to be watchful during the dry season. The consequences were most disastrous: resulting in the destruction of 6 bags of flour, or 70 lbs. each, or 420 lbs., all the tea save 10 lbs., the mule's pack, carrying about 100 lbs. of rice and jam, apples, and currants, 5 lbs. gun-powder, 12 lbs. of shot, the amunition box, containing cartridges and caps, two tents, one packsaddle, twenty-two pack-bags, 14 surcingles, 12 leather girths, 6 breechings, about 30 ring pack-straps, 2 bridles, 2 pairs blankets, 2 pairs of boots, nearly all the black boys' clothes, many of the brothers', and 2 bags containing nicknacks, awls, needles, twine, etc., for repairs. It was providential the whole was not burnt, and but for the exertions of Mr. Scrutton, all the powder would have gone. He is described as having snatched some of the canisters from the fire with the solder melting on the outside. They had succeeded in rescuing the little that was saved by carrying it to a large ant-hill to, windward. Their exertions were no doubt great and praise-worthy, but a little common prudence would have saved their necessity, and a heavy and irreparable loss to the whole party, one which might have jeopardized the safety of the expedition. Besides this, they had a less important but still serious loss; "Maroon," a valuable grey sire horse, that Mr. Jardine hoped to take to the new settlement, died from the effects of poison, or of a snake bite, but more probably the former. The pack-horses joined the cattle in the evening. Stock was taken of the articles destroyed, and the best disposition made of what remained. The latitude of this camp (XVIII.) was 16 degrees 55 minutes 6 seconds. 'November' 10.--Leaving instructions with the cattle party to follow down Cockburn Creek, and halt at the spots marked for them, the Brothers, accompanied by Eulah, started ahead, to mark the camps and examine the country. By this means no time was lost. The first three camps were marked at about seven-mile intervals; and at about 25 miles, opposite two small lagoons on the west bank, the Leader marked trees STOP (in heart), on either side the creek, leaving directions for the party to halt till he returned, and a mile further down camped for the night. The banks of the creek were scrubby and poorly grassed, the country sandy, and thickly timbered with tea-tree, stringy-bark, and bloodwood, and a few patches of silver-leaved iron-bark, the nondas being very plentiful along its course. Large flocks of cockatoo parrots ('Nymphicus Nov. Holl.') and galaas were seen during the day. 'November' 11.--Still continuing down the creek the party made a short stage of 13 miles, one of their horses having become too sick to travel. The early halt gave them an opportunity to go hunting, the more necessary as they were again out of meat. The result was an iguana, a bandicoot, three opossums, and some "sugar bags" or wild honey nests. 'November' 12.--Crossing Cockburn Creek the Brothers bore away N.N.W. for 9 or 10 miles, over sandy bloodwood ridges, intersected with broad tea-tree gullies, to two sandy water courses half-a-mile apart, the first 100 and the second 50 yards in width, running west. These they supposed to be heads of the Mitchell. Crossing them and continuing N. by W., they traversed over barren tea-tree levels (showing flood marks from three to four feet high), without a blade of grass, for about 16 miles, when they reached the extreme head of a small rocky creek, where they camped at a waterhole, and caught a great number of maramies, which suggested the name of "Maramie Creek." It was quite evident that the cattle could not follow by this route, as there was nothing for them to eat for nearly the whole distance. The stage travelled was 26 1/2 miles. 'November' 13.--Maramie Creek was followed down for 25 miles: its general course is west. At three miles from the start a small creek runs in from the north-east. The Brothers had hoped that the character of the country would improve as they went down, but were disappointed. Nothing but the same waste of tea-tree and spinifex could be seen on either side, the bank of the main creek alone producing bloodwood, stringy-bark, acacia, and nonda. Though shallow it was well watered, and increased rapidly in size as they proceeded. The natives had poisoned all the fish in the different waterholes with the bark of a small green acacia that grew along the banks, but the party succeeded in getting a few muscles and maramies. 'November' 14.--Being satisfied that the cattle could not be brought on by the course they had traversed, Frank Jardine determined to leave Maramie Creek, and make for the large stream crossed on the 12th, so as to strike it below the junction of Cockburn Creek. Turning due south the party passed a swamp at eight miles, and at seventeen miles a lagoon, on which were blue lilies ('Nymphoea gigantea.') A mile farther on they reached what they supposed to be the Mitchell, which was afterwards ascertained to be the Staaten, of the Dutch navigators, or one of its heads. At the point where they struck it (about 18 miles below the junction of Cockburn Creek, it is nearly a quarter-of-a-mile in width, sandy, with long waterholes. A dense black tea-tree scrub occupies its south bank. It was here that the party experienced the first decided show of hostility from the natives. They had seen and passed a number at the lily lagoon unmolested, but when arrived at the river whilst the leader was dismounted in its bed, fixing the girths of his saddle, he was surprised to find himself within 30 yards of a party carrying large bundles of reed spears, who had come upon him unperceived. They talked and gesticulated a great deal but made no overt hostility, contenting themselves with following the party for about three miles throughscrub, as they proceeded along the river. Getting tired of this noisy pursuit, which might at any moment end in a shower of spears, the Brothers turned on reaching a patch of open ground, determined that some of their pursuers should not pass it. This movement caused them to pause and seeming to think better of their original intention they ceased to annoy or follow the little party, which pursued its way for five miles further, when they camped in the bed of the stream. Its character for the 8 miles they had followed it up was scrubby and sandy: its course nearly west--long gullies joined it from each side walled with sandstone. They caught two turtles for supper. Total distance travelled 26 miles. 'November 15.--Making an early start, the party followed up the Staaten for eight miles, the general course being about N.E. Here it was jointed by Cockburn creek, which they ran up until they reached the cattle party encamped at the lagoons, where the Leader had marked trees STOP. They had reached this place on the 13th inst., without further accident or disaster, and seeing the trees, camped as instructed. It was nearly 30 miles from the junction of the Staaten, the country scrubby, thickly timbered, and very broken. Total distance 38 miles. 'November' 16.--The whole party was moved down Cockburn Creek, that being the only practicable route. It was the alternative of poor grass or no grass. The trend of the creek was about N.W. by W. At twelve miles they encamped on its bed. A red steer and a cow were left behind poisoned; and another horse, "Marion" was suffering severely from the same cause. They were unable to detect the plant which was doing so much mischief, which must be somewhat plentiful in this part of the country. Leichhardt mentions (page 293) the loss of Murphy's pony on the Lynd, which was found on the sands, "with its body blown up, and bleeding from the nostrils." Similar symptoms showed themselves in the case of the horses of this expedition, proving pretty clearly that the deaths were caused by some noxious plant. (Camp XXIII.) 'November' 17.--The course was continued down Cockburn Creek. At six miles a large stream runs in from the S.E. which was supposed to be Byerley Creek. This however is only an assumption, and not very probable, as it will be remembered that when the brothers struck it on the 1st November, 40 miles below camp 15, they were surprised to find it trending toward the south. It is not improbable that it may run into the sea between the Staaten and Gilbert. This problem can only be solved when the country gets more occupied, or some explorer traces the Staaten in its whole length. Below this junction Cockburn Creek is from 200 to 300 yards wide, running in many channels, but under the surface. The country is flat and poorly grassed, a low sandy ridge occasionally running into the creek. The timber is bloodwood, string-bark, tea-tree, nonda, and acacia. The party camped 5 miles further down; poor "Marion" being now past all hope of recovery had to be abandoned. Three cows that calved at camp 22 were sent for and brought up. They were kept safely all night, but during the morning watch, were allowed to escape by Barney. At this camp (XXIV.) Scrutton was bitten in two or three places by a scorpion, without however any very severe effects. 'November' 18.--Cockburn Creek, now an important stream was followed down for four miles, when it formed a junction with the Staaten. The width of the main stream is about 400 yards, in many channels sandy and dry. It now runs generally west and very winding. The country and timber were much as before described, with the exception that a mile back from the river, (a chain of lagoons) generally occurs, some of them being large and deep and covered with lilies. Beyond, a waste of sandy tea-tree levels, thickly covered with triodia or spinifex, and other desert grasses. The green tree ant was very numerous, particularly in the nonda trees, where they form their nests. The birds were also very numerous, large flocks of black cockatoos, cockatoo parrots, galaas, budgerygars or grass parrots ('Melopsittacus Undulatus, Gould'), and some grey quail were frequently seen, and on one of the lagoons a solitary snipe was found. Another cow was abandoned to-day. The total day's stage was 8 miles. The party camped in the sandy bed of the river. A little rain was experienced at night. (Camp XXV.) Latitude 16 degrees 32 minutes 14 seconds. 'November' 19.--The party followed down parallel with the Staaten, so as to avoid the scrub and broken sandstone gullies on the banks. They travelled for 11 miles, and camped on one of the lagoons above mentioned. Their course was somewhat to the south of west, so that they were no nearer to their destination--an annoying reflection. In the afternoon some of the party went over to the river to fish. At this spot it had narrowed to a width of 100 yards, was clear of fallen trees and snags, the water occupying the whole width, but only 5 feet deep. Up to this time, Frank Jardine had supposed the stream they were on to be the Mitchell, but finding its course so little agreeing with Leichhardt's description of it, below the junction of the Lynd, which is there said to run N.W., he was inclined to the conclusion that they had not yet reached that river. Mr. Richardson, on the contrary, remained firm in his opinion that Byerley Creek was the river Lynd, and consequently, that this stream was the Mitchell, nor was it till they reached the head of the tide that he was fully convinced of his error. (See his journal November 18, and December 2.) 'November' 20.--To-day the Leader went forward and chose a good camp, 12 miles on, at some fine lagoons. The cattle followed, keeping, as usual, back from the river, the interval to which was all scrubby flooded ground, thickly covered with brush and underwood. They were however unable to reach the camp that night, for when within three miles of it a heavy deluge of rain compelled them to halt, and pitch the tents to protect the rations, all the oilskin coverings that had been provided for the packs having been destroyed in the bonfire, on Guy-Faux Day, at camp No. 16. They could hardly have been caught in a worse place, being on the side of a scrubby ridge, close to one of the ana-branches of the river. It would seem that the natives calculated on taking them at a disadvantage, for they chose this spot for an attack, being the first instance in which they attempted open hostility. Whilst the Brothers were busily engaged in cutting out a "sugar bag," a little before sundown, they heard an alarm in the camp, and a cry of "here come the niggers." Leaving their 'sweet' occupation, they re-joined the party, in front of which about 20 blacks were corroboreeing, probably to screw up their courage. They had craft enough to keep the sun, which was now low, at their backs, and taking advantage of this position sent in a shower of spears, without any of the party--not even the black-boys --being aware of it, until they saw them sticking in the ground about them. No one was hit, but several had very narrow shaves. The compliment was returned, and as Alexander Jardine describes "'exeunt' warriors," who did not again molest them, although they were heard all around the camp throughout the night. (Camp XXVII.) Course W. Distance 9 miles. A heavy thunderstorm in the evening. 'November' 21.--The cattle were started as usual, but as ill-luck would have it, 13 of the horses were not to be found. After waiting for them till four o'clock, all the packs and riding-saddles were packed on the remaining horses, and the party drove them on foot before them to the camp, at the lagoons, three miles on. It was dark before they got there, and well into the second watch before the tents were pitched, and everything put straight. The country continued the same as before described, a barren waste of tea-tree levels to the north, obliging them to keep along the river, although at right angles to their proper course. (Camp XXVIII.) Distance 3 miles W. 'November 22.--The troubles and adventures of the party seemed to thicken at this point, where the cattle were detained, whilst the missing horses were being sought for. Old Eulah had come in late the preceding night empty-handed, he had seen their tracks, but night coming on he was unable to follow them. He was started away this morning in company with Peter to pick up and run the trail. At two o'clock he returned with two, and reported that Peter was on the trail of the others. They had evidently been disturbed by their friends the natives, for their tracks were split up, and those brought on had their hobbles broken. At dusk Peter brought home three more, without being able to say where the others had got to. During this time, Frank Jardine had a little adventure to himself; wishing to find a better run for the cattle, he started about noon, and rode down the river for about six miles. There was no choice, the country was all of the same description, so he turned back in disgust, when, in crossing the head of a sandstone gully, he heard a yell, and looked round just in time to see a half a dozen spears come at him, and about a dozen natives around and painted, jumping about in great excitement. Going forward a little, he got time to clear the lock of his rifle, from the oil rag which usually protected it. He turned on his assailants, and sent a bullet amongst them; it hit a tree instead of a blackfellow, but as they still menaced him, his next shot was more successful, when seeing one of their number fall, the rest decamped. It was now their turn to run, but before they could cross the bed of the river, which was dry, clear, and about 300 yards wide, he was able to get two good shots at short range. They did not trouble him again that afternoon. They dropped all their spears in the "stampede," some of which, reed and jagged, were taken home as trophies. They used no "wommerahs." Peter came in to camp at dark, with 3 horses, having no idea where the others had got to; there were 8 still away. 'November' 23.--Sambo, the best tracker among the black-boys, was despatched at sunrise, with Peter, to look for the missing horses. He returned at sundown with the mule, which he had found on the opposite side of the river, but he had seen no traces of the rest. Peter came in after dark, without any, he had seen the tracks of the natives on the horse tracks, and related in his own jargon, that "blackfella bin run'em horses all about" and "that bin brok'em hobble." He had also seen two or three of the blacks themselves, at the lagoon where the brothers met them on the 14th, and had some parley with them--he described them a "cawbawn saucy" "that tell'im come on, me trong fella, you little fella," and after chaffing him in their own way, sent as many spears at him as he would stand for. The detention caused by the loss of the horses, was a serious matter, whilst the hostility of the natives was very annoying, keeping the party constantly on the alert. The interval was occupied in patching up the ration tent, with portions of the other two, so that they had now one water-proof to protect their stores. Some good snipe and duck shooting might have been got round these lagoons, but as nearly all their caps had been destroyed by the fire, it was not to be thought of. The scarcity of these and of horse-flesh alone prevented the Brothers from turning out and giving their troublesome enemies a good drilling, which, indeed, they richly deserved, for they had in every case been the agressors, and hung about the party, treacherously waiting for an opportunity to take them by surprise. The detention also was due to them, which was a matter of some anxiety to the Leader, when it is considered that the party was in a level flooded country, without a rise that they knew of within fifty miles, and that the rains of the last ten days portended the breaking up the dry season. 'November' 24.--This morning Frank Jardine went out with Eulah, and succeded in finding 5 more of the horses, scattered all over the country, their hobbles broken, and as wild as hawks. He sent Eulah along the tracks of the last two, who were evidently not far ahead, and brought the others in himself. These two "Cerebus" and "Creamy," were the best and fattest of the pack-horses. Their loss would have made a serious addition to the loads of the remainder, who had already to share 400lbs. Extra in consequence of the poisoning of the three already lost. Whilst waiting for and expecting their arrival every hour, the different members of the party amused themselves as best they might by fishing, opossum, sugar-bag hunting, and nonda gathering. The monotony of the camp was also broken by a little grumbling, consequent on an order from the Leader against the opening of the next week's ration bag. The party had, during the halt consumed a week's rations a day and a-half too soon, hence the order, which was a wise precaution. The rations were calculated with care to last through the journey, but, unless a restriction had been placed on the consumption, this could not be hoped for. But it is difficult to reason with hungry men. 'November' 25.--Another day passed without finding the two missing horses. Sambo and Eulah were sent out in quest of them, but returned unsuccessful, giving it, as their opinion that "blackfella bin 'perim 'longa 'crub." Peter and Barney were then despatched with orders to camp out that night and look for them all next day. A steer having been killed last night, the day was passed in jerking him. The day was very unpropitious as there had been a shower of rain in the morning, and there was no sun, so it had to be smoked with manure in one of the tents. What with the mosquitoes and sand-flies, men, horses, and cattle were kept in a continual fever. The horses would not leave the smoke of the fires, the cattle would not remain on the camp, and the men could get no rest at night for the mosquitoes, whilst during the day the flies were in myriads, and a small species of gad-fly, particularly savage and troublesome. Another source of annoyance was from the flocks of crows and kites, the latter ('Milvus Affinis') are described by Leichhardt as being extraordinarily audacious, during his journey through this part of the country, and they certainly manifested their reputation now. Not content with the offal about the camp, they would actually, unless sharply watched, take the meat that was cooking on the fire. The black-boys killed a great many with "paddimelon" sticks, and reed spears, (the spoils of war) but with little effect. "When one was killed, twenty came to the funeral." Old Eulah was a great proficient in this exercise, and when in action with his countrymen, was always anxious to throw their own spears back at them. 'November' 26.--One of the party went to sleep during his watch last night, by which fifteen head of cattle were allowed to stray away from the camp. It was not the first time that this very grave fault had occurred, the mischief caused by which, can sometimes, hardly be estimated. In this case, however, it verified the proverb, it is an ill wind, etc., for whilst looking for the stragglers Frank Jardine luckily "happened" on the missing horses "Cerebus" and "Creamy" about 7 miles down the river. They had evidently been frightened by the blacks. Seven of the cattle only were found, leaving eight missing which was very provoking as it was necessary to shift the camp (on which they had now been detained six days) for all the stock where looking miserable. Neither horses nor cattle would eat the grass, which had ceased to have a trace of green in it, but rambled about looking for burnt stubble. The day was close and sultry with loud thunder and bright lightning, which very much frighened the horses. The natives were heard cooeying all round the camp during the night, but made no attack, remembering probably the result of the Sunday and Tuesday previous. 'November' 27--Everything was ready to pack on the horses before daylight this morning, but most provokingly "Cerebus" was again missing. Leaving orders for the partyto start if he was not recovered before noon, the Leader pushed on to mark a camp for them. At about three miles he came on to a chain of fine lagoons, running parallel to and about four miles from the river. The intervening country was one tea-tree level all flooded, but a narrow strip of soft sandy flat occurred on the banks of each, timbered with blood-wood, stringy-bark, and box. Following these down he marked a camp at about nine miles, then crossed over to the river to look for the cattle. He had not followed it far when he saw a mob of blacks. They did not molest him, so he passed them quietly, as he thought, but about two miles further on, in some scrubby sandstone gullies, as he was riding along looking for tracks, a spear whistled past, within six inches of his face. Pulling up, he saw seven natives, all standing quietly looking on at the effect of the missile: the fellow who threw it never threw another. Pursuing his way, pondering on the fatality that had brought about collisions on two Sundays running, he met the cattle, and found the party in some excitement; they too had had a shindy. The natives had attacked them in force, but no one was hurt, whilst some of their assailants were left on the ground, and others carried away wounded. It was found that they would not stand after the first charge--and a few were hit. (Camp XXIX.) Distance 9 miles. Course W. by N. 'November' 28.--All hopes of finding the eight missing head of cattle, lost from camp 28, had to be abandoned, for the reason that the horse-flesh could not hold out in looking for them. The cattle were moved down along the lagoons, which in about two miles narrowed into a defined creek, sandy, with occasional lagoons. This was explored ten miles by the Leader, and the question as to whether he should choose that route, or follow the river was decided for him. The banks were either utterly barren or clothed with spinifex, and the country on either side the same worthless tea-tree levels. He was therefore determined to take the cattle back on to the river, which was not much better, and led them away from their course. The prospects of the Brothers were rather dispiriting. To attempt striking north was out of the question, whilst every mile down the river took them further away from their destination, and their horses were falling away daily, so much so, that if the feed did not soon improve, there would not be one capable of carrying an empty saddle. The rainy season too was at hand, and the level and flooded nature of the country they were in, would, were they caught there by the floods, endanger the safety of the party. It was therefore with no little anxiety that they watched the weather, and searched for a practicable line which would allow of their steering north. (Camp XXX.) Latitude 16 degrees 26 minutes 53 seconds. Distance 10 miles, W. by N. 'November' 29.--Keeping a south-west course, so as to strike it lower down, the cattle were again taken on to the river, which they reached in about nine miles; then travelling about another mile down its banks, encamped. These were now decidedly more open, and the country generally improved. The same strip of soft sandy flat about half-a-mile wide continued, but better grassed, although the spear grass was far too common. Bloodwood, stringy-bark, applegum and acacia timbered the north bank; whilst on the south, tea-tree flats, covered with spinifex, ran close down to the bed, the bank itself being of red clay. Two channels, together making a width of about 300 yards, formed the bed, which was sandy, and held very little water on the surface. No large trees occurred, save now and then a vagrant nonda. Another cow was lost to-day, and "Lottie," a favorite terrier, was missing. The latitude of Camp 31 was supposed to be 16 degrees 31 minutes 53 seconds, but doubtful. 'November' 30.--The river was followed down to-day for 11 miles. It was very winding and irregular in its width. At the camp it was only 60 yards wide and running in one channel, whilst a mile above, it measured nearly 400. Its general course was nearly west. The creek which is formed by the lagoons, on which the party were so long detained was crossed at about nine-and-a-half miles. The country at its junction is flooded for a long distance back, and the river bed sandy and thickly timbered. Although the country generally had decidedly improved, inasmuch as that it was more open, devoid of scrub, and the box flats on the river extending further back on each side, it was by no means good. The flats were very scantily grassed, chiefly with sour water grasses and spinifex, and shewed by the flood marks that they must be quite impassable during floods or wet weather. The dreary tea-tree levels might be seen in glimpses through the white box of the flats extending far beyond. Several small swamps were passed during the day, on which ducks and other water-fowl were very numerous, the stately native companion stalking near the margins. The large funnel ant-hills occurred from 2 to 15 feet high. The Fitzroy wallaby was plentiful, and the Leader shot an emeu. Some large flights of white ibis, and slate-colored pigeons passed high overhead, flying north, which might be a good indication. Peter was sent back to seek for Lottie, but returned in the evening unsuccessful. 'December' 1.--Maramie Creek was crossed this morning at its junction with the river, into which it flows in two channels, about 60 or 70 miles from the point where the brothers first struck it on the 12th of November, while searching for a road to the northward. Its total width is about 120 yards. The general course of the river was slightly to the north of west, but very winding, some of its reaches extended for nearly four miles. Numerous ana-branches occurred, the flats separating them, being three miles in breadth, timbered with flooded box and tea-tree, their banks well grassed. It would be a dangerous country to be caught in by the floods. Two parties of blacks were passed fishing on the river, but they took no notice of the party, and were of course not interfered with. They used reed spears pointed with four jagged prongs, and also hooks and lines. Their hooks are made with wood barbed with bone, and the lines of twisted currejong bark. Distance travelled to-day 10 miles. The Camp XXXIII. in latitude 16 degrees 27 minutes 30 seconds. 'December' 2.--The river was travelled down through similar country for eleven miles, when the party reached the head of the tide, and camped on a rocky water hole in an ana-branch, the river water not being drinkable. The course was to the southward of west. It was now beyond a doubt, even to Mr. Richardson, that this river was not the Mitchell, for neither its latitude, direction, or description corresponded with Leichhardt's account. It was also perceived that the longitude of the starting point must have been incorrect, and very considerably to the westward, as their reckoning, carefully checked, brought them much too near the coast. The Brothers therefore became satisfied of what they had long believed, that they had never been on the Lynd at all, or even on its watershed, and that what they were on was an independent stream. They therefore named it the "Ferguson,' in honor of Sir George Ferguson Bowen, Governor of Queensland, but there is little doubt that it is the Staaten of the Dutch navigators, or at least its southern branch. Should a northern branch eventually be discovered, which the delta and numerous ana-branches make a probable hypothesis, the stream explored by the brothers might with propriety retain the name they gave it. At eight miles from the start the character of the country changed from the prevailing flats, to a kind of barren sandstone and spenifex ridges. On pitching the camp the fishing-lines were put into requisition, but without success. It is remarkable, that on reaching the salt water, not far from this spot, Leichhardt was similarly disappointed, after having counted on catching and curing a good quantity of fish, the whole day's work of Brown and Murphy being "a small siluus, one mullet, and some guard-fish," 'qu.' gar-fish. 'December' 3.--To-day's stage was a short one, and was hoped to have been the last on this miserable river, which was now looked upon as undoubtedly the Staaten. It had in some measure improved. The timber was much larger and finer, and the lagoons extensive and deep. But a heavy storm which came down, and compelled them to camp early, soon proved what the country would be in the wet season. With this one heavy fall of rain it became so boggy that the horses sank in up to their girths. Hitherto the grass had been so scanty that the party could not halt for a day to kill. They had consequently been four days without meat. It was determined, therefore, to stop and kill a beast, preparatory to a start north, the feed having slightly improved in common with the timber. In addition to the steer that was slaughtered, a shovel-nosed shark was caught and jerked in like manner with the beef. In the afternoon Alexander Jardine explored down the river for seven miles, seeking for a good spot for turning off. The country still improved: the river was completely salt, and in one continuous sheet of running water, in two channels 300 or 400 yards in width, and together about half-a-mile at the spot where he turned back. Here it was flat and shallow, and fordable at low water. Mangroves and salt-water creeks commenced as described by Leichhardt,* and alligator tracks were seen. (Camp XXXV.) Latitude 16 degrees 26 minutes 39 seconds. [footnote] *See Journal, page 320. It was at this point that he threw away his horse-shoes and other heavy articles. 'December' 4.--The beef, shark, and a few cat-fish were jerked, and all the stores and loading spread out and re-distributed on the packs, and as this put the camp into some confusion, the Leader thought it well to shift it for a few miles, to let the packs shake into place before the final start. They therefore moved down three miles to the commencement of the mangroves, into a patch of the best feed they had seen since they left the Einasleih. At this point the banks were very soft and sandy, growing spinifex; the stream in numerous channels, altogether half-a-mile across, and the tide rose and fell about twenty-two inches. Here they camped, intending to make an early start on the following morning. Time was now an object of the utmost importance to the progress, if not to the safety of the party: Frank Jardine was aware that the Mitchell, which he had hoped long ere this to have left behind him, was still ahead, at least 40 miles away, without certainty of water until it was reached, whilst if caught by the floods he would probably be stopped by this important stream. It was with some anxiety therefore that he hastened preparations for the start. How his hopes were deferred and how fortune seemed to laugh at his endeavours to push forward on his course will now be narrated, and it will be seen how good bushmen with high hearts can overcome obstacles, and meet difficulties that would appal and baffle ordinary travellers. CHAPTER III. Leave the Staaten--Half the horses away--Fresh troubles--Mule Lost--Sambo knocked up--Search for mule--Perplexity-- "Lucifer" goes mad--Final attempt to recover him--Marine Plains --Search for Deceiver--Found dead--Salt Lagoon--Arbor Creek-- Country improves--Good Camp--Eulah Creek--The Brothers attacked --Reach the Mitchell--Cow poisoned--Battle of the Mitchell--An ambush--Extent of flooded Country--Reach head of tide--Heavy rain--A "Blank run"--Leave the Mitchell--Good Coast Country-- Balourgah Creek--Blue grass--Banksia--The Eugenia--Green Ant --Hearsey Creek--Holroyd--Creek Dunsmuir Creek--Thalia Creek --Black boy chased by natives--Another encounter--Cattle scattered by thunder-storm--Rainy Season--Macleod Creek-- Kendall Creek. 'December' 5.--Turning their backs on the Ferguson or Staaten the party steered north, and at starting crossed the head of the sand-flats, described by Leichhardt. The rest of the day's stage was over sandy ridges covered with tea-tree and pandanus, tolerably grassed, no creek or water-course of any description occurred along the line, and the party had to camp without water at about 13 miles: but as the Leader had not expected to find any at all for at least 40, this was not thought much of. The camp though waterless was well grassed, and by dint of searching a small pool of slimy green water was found before dark, about two-and-a-half miles to the N.N.W. in a small watercourse, and by starting off the black boys, enough was procured in the "billies" for the use of the party for supper. This is marked a red day in Frank Jardine's diary, who closes his notes with this entry. "Distance 13 miles. Course North at last." (Camp XXXVII.) 'December' 6.--The satisfaction of the party in getting away from the Staaten and travelling on the right course was destined to receive a check, and the Brothers to find they had not yet quite done with that river. This morning about half the horses were away, and a worse place for finding them, saving scrub, could hardly be imagined. It was fortunate that the pool of water mentioned yesterday had been found, as the cattle would have had to turn back to the river, but this they were saved from. They were started away for the water at day-break, in charge of two of the black boys, with instructions to stay and feed them there until the horses came up or they were relieved by Binney. No horses coming in, Binney was sent after them. The Brothers searching for the horses, followed an hour-and-a-half after, but on arriving at the pool found the cattle and boys but no Binney. Returning to the camp they instructed the party to shift the packs to the pool on the twelve horses that had been found. Binney here came into the camp along the yesterday's tracks. He had missed the cattle and did not know where he had been to. He was started again on the cattle track by the Brothers, who then went in search of more water, sending two more black boys to look for the horses. At about four miles away they themselves came on to their tracks, which they ran for about eight miles towards the coast, when they found six. Continuing to follow the trail they were led to their 35th camp on the Staaten, when they found three more. Here, as the sun went down they were obliged to camp, and after short hobbling the horses laid down by their fire, supperless, and without blankets. They saw no water through the whole of the day, which was the cause of the restlessness of the horses the previous night, and of their straying, in spite of short hobbles. The myriads of mosquitoes too, which now annoyed them may possibly have contributed to that end. 'December' 7.--Leaving the nine horses hobbled to feed near the water the Brothers separated, one taking up and the other down the river to look for the others, in hopes that they might also have turned back, but met again in the afternoon, each without success. Starting back (with the nine recovered yesterday) at about two o'clock, they returned to the camp, where fresh troubles awaited them. Only two of the others had been found, and the party with the pack-horses had succeeded in losing the mule, together with his pack. Whilst preparing to start they had allowed him to poke away unperceived in the scrubby timber, and did not miss him till ready to start. Sambo had been at once despatched on his tracks but had not yet returned. Binney had lost himself a second time and only rejoined the camp at dark last night, after having ridden the whole day, probably in a circle, without finding either horses or water. The two black boys had been equally unsuccessful. Eulah and Barney were now despatched with orders to camp out until they found the missing horses, five of which, besides the mule, still were away. In the evening Sambo returned quite exhausted for want of water, not having seen or tasted any, or any food during the too days of his absence. For an hour after coming into camp he was quite dilirious. When sufficiently recovered and collected to speak he stated that he had followed the tracks of the mule (who had evidently been galloping) through the tea-tree levels, at the back of camp 35, when he was obliged to turn back for want of water. This accident, the result of gross carelessness, together with frequent cases of less importance, induced in the Leader a want of confidence which caused him great anxiety when away from the party, to which indeed he never returned without a feeling of disquietude, which was not allayed until he learned that all was well--a harassing feeling, which few but those who have experienced the responsibility of the conduct and success of a similar expedition can fully appreciate. The water at this camp was very bad, but still under the circumstances, a great God-send. There were two holes equi-distant half-a-mile from the one they were on, up and down the creek. The upper one was the deepest, having many ducks, terns, and cranes on it. All three were surrounded with a fringe of green rushes. By digging wells and allowing the water to drain in, it was drinkable, although very brackish. (Camp XXXVIII.) Latitude 16 degrees 13 minutes 45 seconds. 'December' 8.--At 4 o'clock this morning Alexander Jardine started with Sambo after the mule. The Leader remained with the party employing the day in exploring ahead for about 18 miles, in the hope of finding water for a stage. This was a paramount necessity, for the weather was so hot and the country so dry that twenty-four hours without drinking drove the cattle nearly mad, their drivers suffering almost equally. Finding no water during this search Mr. Jardine was again in perplexity. Supposing the Mitchell to be 40 or 45 miles ahead, the cattle could not reach it without water. On the other hand if the coast were followed, it was probable that on reaching the Mitchell they would have to trace it up 40 or 50 miles before it could be crossed. The latter however seemed to be the best course, if not the only one. The intention of Alexander Jardine was to have got on to the mule's tracks, and run them over again until he "pulled" him, but the ground being baked hard, stony, and grassless Sambo was unable again to pick them up. However, whilst looking for the mule's tracks they found three more of the horses, on a small creek, fourteen miles from the camp, which ran into the river below the last camp on it. He now determined to look for the other two, and abandon the search after the mule for the present. One of them "Lucifer" was found at camp 35. He was out of hobbles, and immediately on being seen, started off at a gallop up the river. His tracks were followed up to the next camp, six miles, where night closing in Mr. Jardine was constrained to halt. The wretched animal had apparently gone mad, probably with drinking salt water. 'December' 9.--On resuming the search this morning Mr. A. Jardine met Eulah and Barney. They also, had seen "Lucifer" on the coast, but could do nothing with him. Detaching Sambo and Barney to continue the search after the mule, and giving them all the provision, he took Eulah with him to try once again to recover "Lucifer." Picking up his trail at last night's camp, where they left the three recovered horses, they ran it four miles up the river and came upon him in a patch of scrub; they headed him after a hard gallop and endeavoured to drive him down to the other horses, but all to no purpose, they knocked up their horses and were obliged to abandon the pursuit. He had evidently gone mad. Returning to the camp they got fresh horses, and returned with the three to the party of the main camp. 'December' 10.--The two lost horses ("Lucifer" and "Deceiver") being Mr. Jardine's best hacks and favourites, he determined to make one more effort to recover them. Starting with Eulah this morning, he travelled down the creek on which the cattle were camped for six miles west, when he reached some large marine plains and downs, so large, that though they ascended a high tree they could see nothing between them and the horizon; they were grassed only with spinifex "and other rubbish." They came on to Lucifer's tracks about 25 miles from the camp, and found the place where he had been drinking the salt water and lying down. From thence they followed his tracks for 15 miles through the tea-tree levels, and camped without water, after having travelled, walking and riding, over between 40 or 50 miles of the most miserable and desolate country imaginable, without finding any fit to drink. Meanwhile Alexander Jardine took another cast to find water and have a look at the coast. He also saw the Marine Plains, and found them utterly waterless. This decided the question of the coast-line route. 'December' 11.--At daylight Mr. Jardine and Eulah again got on to Lucifer's tracks, but the ground was so hard that they had to run them on foot and lead their horses. At sun-down they hit camp 33 on the river, having made only about 20 miles in a straight line. Here they had a good drink. The water was rather brackish, but after two days travelling over a parched and arid country, almost anything would have been acceptable. They turned out and whilst trying to catch something for their suppers, they saw Lucifer standing within thirty yards of where their horses were feeding, but the moment he caught sight of them he again galloped away. Mr. Jardine immediately jumped on his horse and brought him back to Eulah's, but to no purpose, for he galloped past without taking the least notice of him, and as it was now dark they had to let him go. Alexander Jardine spent the day in searching for water, and was fortunate enough to hit on a permanent water hole, in a small creek, eight miles N.N.W. from the camp. This discovery was like a ray of sunshine promising to help them on their way. At night Sambo and Barney returned, but without the mule. 'December' 12.--Lucifer was again followed till mid-day. From the time that he had left their camp last night he had galloped for 13 miles without stopping, and when found he was quite white with sweat. It was quite evident that he was perfectly mad from the effects of the salt water, so that Mr. Jardine decided to abandon him without wasting more horse-flesh. He turned therefore to look for the other horse "Deceiver," expecting to find him in the same state. His tracks being found shortly afterwards, they followed them for some distance, when they came on to his dead carcase. The poor brute had evidently died from want of water; the Leader therefore turned homewards, hoping, but little expecting to find that the mule had been found. These losses were a heavy blow, and sadly crippled the party. Lucifer and Deceiver were the two best riding horses, and the mule the best pack animal. His own loss was aggravated by his carrying his pack with him. This carried most of the odd articles that were hitherto deemed indispensible, but which henceforth they had per force to dispense with. One pack contained all that remained of the tea, currants, and raisins, which were saved from the fire, and two pairs of boots, the only ones the Brothers had; and the other was filled with oddments, such as files, gimlets, ragstone, steel, weighing machine, awls, tomahawks, American axes, shoeing tools, and a number of things "that they could not do without," but perhaps the most important loss was that of the spade, to which they had many times been indebted for water. Up to this time, that is to the 37th camp, the number of the camp had always been cut in the wood of a tree at each, with a mallet and chissel, these having gone with the mule's pack the numbers were from this point cut with a tomahawk, but as Mr. Jardine was expert and careful in its use it is probable that his marks are but little less legible. The recovery of the mule being now past all hope the Brothers determined to push on, thankful that they were certain of water for one stage. It was the more necessary, as two of the party, Scrutton and Cowderoy, were getting ill from the effects of the bad water. At this camp Mr. Richardson fixed the variation at 40 east. He had hitherto used a variation of 6 degrees in his plotting. 'December' 13.--The Leader intended to have camped to-day on the creek, found by his brother on the 11th, but whilst ahead looking for a good camp for the morrow, he came at five miles further on, to what he took to be the "Rocky Creek" of Leichhardt. He turned back therefore and fetched the cattle on to it, making 13 instead of 8 miles. But on turning out it was found that the water was not drinkable, although the lagoon was covered with nympheas, generally supposed to grow only in fresh water. These were white instead of blue, which might be from the effect of the salt. However at a mile up the creek, a fine reach of good water was found, two miles long and sixty yards wide. The bed of the creek contained sandstone rock, was well grassed, and where crossed, ran about east and north. A fine barramundi was caught in it, and Alexander Jardine shot six whistling ducks in the first creek. The country traversed to-day alternated between extensive marine plains, covered with "pigs face," ('Misembrianthemum Iriangularis'), and crusted with salt, and low undulating tea-tree, and banksia ridges. Birds were very plentiful, large flocks of native companions ('Gurus Antigen,') stalked over the marine plains, and when seen at the distance had the appearance of a flock of sheep, gigantic cranes, pelicans, and ibis were numerous, whilst in the lagoons of the creek, nearly every kind of water-fowl common to Queensland, was found, except the coot and pigmy goose, plover and snipe were abundant, also the elegant Burdekin duck, and a small crane was noticed having a dark blue head and body, with white throat and neck. (Camp XXXIX.) Lat. 16 degrees 3 minutes 38 seconds. A tree was marked F. J. in heart on one side, and 39 in square on the other. 'December' 14.--To-day the party started north-east, the Leader wishing, if possible, to hit the Mitchell at the head of the tide. Water was carried in case these should not find any, but the precaution was fortunately unnecessary. At five miles they crossed a small creek from the eastward, having one small hole of water in it. The country to that point was similar to that of yesterday, thence outward for about 9 miles they traversed box flats, intersected with low sandy rises, well grassed, and timbered with stringy-bark and acacia. Another watered creek was crossed at about 9 miles from the start, and the camp pitched at a round waterhole, in a well-watered creek at 14 miles. Many gullies were crossed filled with the screw-palm ('Pandanus Spirilas.') The soil of the box flats was a stiff yellow clay. Hot winds had been prevalent for the last week from the south-east, which parched and baked everything and made the mosquitoes very numerous and annoying. (Camp XL.) Latitude 15 degrees 56 minutes 31 seconds. 'December' 15.--The grass was so coarse and dry at this camp, that the precaution was taken of watching the horses all last night, and the party started this morning by moonlight. For 5 miles they travelled over box and tea-tree flats, full of funnel ant-hills, melon and rat-holes, when they reached a narrow deep sandy creek, the course of which was defined by a line of dark green timber, presenting a strong and pleasing contrast with any previously crossed along the "Levels," where they could never be distinguished from a distance, being fringed with the same kind of timber. It came from the eastward, was tolerably watered, and presented some bad broken sandstone country on its north bank. Its shady appearance suggested the appropriate name of "Arbor Creek." For three miles the route lay over gullies, spurs, and walls of broken sandstone. The country beyond opened agreably into flats, which might almost be called plains, but for the lightly-dotted timber. The grasses though dry, were finer and better than any seen, since leaving the Einnasleih. The timber generally was white box, applegum, bloodwood, and grevillea, and at 11 miles (from camp) the bauhinia, and Bidwill's acacia commenced, and continued to the 42nd Camp. The flats towards the end of the stage sloped to the north-east. At 19 miles the party having accomplished a long stage, Mr. Jardine camped without water, sending old Eulah to try and find some. He soon returned with the welcome news that there was a well-watered creek on a-head, so saddling up again, they drove on and reached it in about three miles. It was well worth the extra fatigue to the stock. They were rewarded by an excellent camp, plenty of green grass, open country and water, which, after a drive of 23 long and dusty miles, was alike acceptable to men and beasts. The creek received the name of Eulah Creek, in honor of the discoverer. (Camp XLI.) 'December' 16.--Between two and three miles of travelling over flooded box country, having large melon holes in it, brought the party to a well-watered creek, with vine scrub banks running N. W. At three more, another and similar one was reached, where the scrubs on the banks were so thick that the Brothers who were a-head had to camp, to cut a road through them. This creek appeared to be an ana-branch. Whilst they were engaged in marking a line for a crossing place for the cattle, they saw some blacks, and tried to avoid them, these however ran in the direction of the cattle, and brandishing their spears laughingly, defied the horsemen, beckoning them to come on. With this they complied, and turned them back over the creek, and then sat down awaiting the arrival of the cattle. They were not allowed to remain long in peace, for the natives, having left their gins on the other side, swam over the creek and tried to surround them. Being thus forced into a "row," the Brothers determined to let them have it, only regretting that some of the party were not with them, so as to make the lesson a more severe one. The assailants spread out in a circle to try and surround them, but seeing eight or nine of their companions drop, made them think better of it, and they were finally hunted back again across the river, leaving their friends behind them. The firing was heard by the cattle party, but before they could come up, the fray was over. In this case, as in all others, the collision was forced on the explorers, who, as a rule, always avoided making use of their superior arms. Leaving the cattle in camp, the Brothers spend the afternoon in exploring the country a-head for 7 miles. After crossing the river, the course lay through flooded country (the marks on the trees being in some cases five feet high, covered with box, and vine scrub, and the water, grasses, and rushes being matted together with mud and rubbish,) to a large stream with broad sandy bed, divided into three channels, altogether about 600 yards wide, but with little water in them. The banks and islands were covered with vine scrub, and lined with plum ('Owenia,') chestnut ('Castanopermum,') nonda, bauhinia, acacia, white cedar, the corypha or (fan-leaved palm,) flooded gum, melaleuca (drooping tea-tree,) and many creepers and shrubs. On the box flats travelled through, some gunyahs, dams, and weirs were noticed, all constructed of matted vines and palm leaves, which last grow almost everywhere. One of the largest of the palms measured 13 1/2 feet at the butt, which is the smallest end, as they here assume the shape of the bottle tree. This stream was correctly surmised to be the long desired Mitchell, the two last creeks being only its ana-branches. Although 10 miles higher up in latitude 15 degrees 51 minutes 56 seconds it is described by Leichhardt as being 1 1/2 miles wide. It here measured as before described only about 600 yards. A number of fish were caught at the camp. (Camp XLII.) Distance 6 miles. 'December' 17.--After some little trouble the cattle were crossed over this branch, a road having to be cut for them through the scrub. At 5 miles they crossed another main branch about 450 yards wide, and camped two miles on the other side of it, on a waterhole in a Leichhardt-tree flat ('Nauclea Leichhardtii.') The country was the same as described yesterday. One of the fattest of the cows died from the effects of some poisonous herb, not detected. Some turkey's eggs were found, and a wallaby, with which the vine scrubs were swarming, was shot. The Torres Straits pigeon ('Carpophaga Luctuosa,') was here met with for the first time on the trip, and attracted the interest and admiration of the travellers. It is a handsome bird, about the size of a wonga, the head and body pure white, the primaries of the wings and edge of the tail feathers black, and the vent feathers and under tail coverts tinged with a delicate salmon color. Distance 7 or 8 miles. Course N.N.E. (Camp XLIII.) 'December' 18.--The river was followed down to-day for 9 miles through a complete net-work of ana-branches, gullies, and vine scrubs to another branch, which may be called the true stream. It was 30 yards wide, deep, and running strongly. Here the party had to camp for about 3 hours, whilst the Brothers searched for a good crossing. The cattle and pack-horses were crossed in safety, but some of the pack-bags got wetted in the passage. They were travelled another mile over to a sandstone bar, crossing another deep sheet of water, that had been previously found. This stream had been explored in search of a ford for four miles further up but without success. It continued of the same width and appeared to do so much further. This day, Sunday, was marked by the severest conflict the travellers had yet had with the natives, one which may well be degnified by the name of the "battle of the Mitchell." On arriving at the running stream before mentioned, whilst the cattle halted, the Brothers and Eulah, taking axes with them, to clear the scrub, went down to find a safe crossing. At about a-mile-and-a-half they came on to a number of blacks fishing, these immediately crossed to the other side, but on their return, swam across again in numbers, armed with large bundles of spears and some nullahs and met them. The horsemen seeing they were in for another row, now cantered forward towards the camp, determined this time to give their assailants a severe lesson. This was interpreted into a flight by the savages, who set up a yell, and re-doubled their pursuit, sending in their spears thick and fast. These now coming much too close to be pleasant (for some of them were thrown a hundred yards), the three turned suddenly on their pursuers, and galloping up to them, poured in a volley, the report of which brought down their companions from the camp, when the skirmish became general. The natives at first stood up courageously, but either by accident or through fear, despair or stupidity, they got huddled in a heap, in, and at the margin of the water, when ten carbines poured volley after volley into them from all directions, killing and wounding with every shot with very little return, nearly all of their spears having been expended in the pursuit of the horsemen. About thirty being killed, the Leader thought it prudent to hold his hand, and let the rest escape. Many more must have been wounded and probably drowned, for fifty nine rounds were counted as discharged. On the return of the party to the cattle an incident occurred which nearly cost one of them his life. One of the routed natives, probably burning with revengeful and impotent hate, got into the water under the river bank, and waited for the returning party, and as they passed threw a spear at Scrutton, before any one was aware of his proximity. The audacious savage had much better have left it alone, for he paid for his temerity with his life. Although the travellers came off providentially without hurt, there were many narrow escapes, for which some of them might thank their good fortune. At the commencement of the fight as Alexander Jardine was levelling his carbine, a spear struck the ground between his feet, causing him to drop his muzzle, and lodge the bullet in the ground a few yards in front of him. His next shot told more successfully. There were other equally close shaves, but providentially not a scratch. This is one of the few instances in which the savages of Queensland have been known to stand up in fight with white men, and on this occasion they shewed no sign of surprise or fear at the report and effect of fire-arms. But it is probable that they will long remember the "Battle of the Mitchell." (Camp LXIV.) Course N.N.W. Distance 7 miles. 'December' 19.--The horses had to be watched last night, for the grass was so dry and course that the stock would not look at it, but kept rambling about. The river was followed down about 13 miles. The whole country travelled to-day and yesterday shewed flood marks from 5 to 15 feet high. The rushes, nardoo, thatch, and water-grass, dried and parched by the hot winds, were matted together with mud and rubbish. At the camp the stream was 150 yards wide, the running water being 30 yards across. The banks were of clay and sandstone, from 20 to 30 feet high, the water was discolored to a kind of yellowish white. During the floods the stream must be eight or ten miles wide, for, two miles back from it, a fish weir was seen in a small gully. Altogether it would have been a frightful place for the party to have been detained at. (Camp XLV.) Latitude 15 degrees 26 minutes 5 seconds. 'December' 20.--The river was still followed down to-day, the party keeping about four miles from it, to avoid its scrubs and ana-branches. At between 7 or 8 miles, a stream about 100 yards wide, coming from the eastward, caused them to halt until a road was cut through the thick vine scrub that fringed its banks. Four miles further on they camped at a small lagoon close to the bank of the river, at which point it is about 100 yards wide, deep, and too salt for drinking, being affected by the tide. The country travelled over was box, and tea-tree, melon-hole flats, shewing very high flood marks. The ground had become very boggy from a heavy rain that fell during the day. The night was very stormy, rain and wind falling and blowing pretty equally. Two more head of cattle were dropped. The total distance was 11 miles. Course W.N.W. (Camp XLVI.) 'December' 21.--The rain of last night continuing through the morning, the party had to start in the down-pour. They crossed another large shallow sandy creek at four miles, coming from the eastward running south-east. The camp was formed on a lagoon about a mile from the river bank. The country traversed was sandy, growing only coarse wirey grasses and spinifex, sandstone rock cropping out occasionally above the surface. The river was here a quarter-of-a-mile wide, salt, and running strongly. Before the pack-horses came up, a mob of blacks approached the camp, and getting up in the trees, took a good survey of the white intruders, but on one of the party going towards them they scampered off over the open ground towards the river. The recollection of the affair at the crossing place probably quickening their movements. Just at sun-down, however, the sharp eyes of the black-boys detected some of them actually trying to stalk the whites, using green boughs for screens. So the Brothers taking with them Scrutton and the four black-boys, started in chase. They were in camp costume, that is to say, shirt and belt, and all in excellent condition and wind, and now a hunt commenced, which perhaps stands alone in the annals of nature warfare. On being detected the natives again decamped, but this time closely pursued. The party could at any time overtake or outstep the fugitives, but they contented themselves with pressing steadilly on them, in open order, without firing a shot, occasionally making a spurt, which had the effect of causing the blacks to drop nearly all their spears. They fairly hunted them for two miles into the scrub, when, as darkness was coming on, they left their dingy assailants to recover their wind, and returned to camp laughing heartily at their "blank run," and taking with them as many of the abondoned spears as they could carry. (Camp XLVII.) Distance 9 1/2 miles. Course W.N.W. 'December' 22.--The Mitchell was left finally to-day, Mr. Jardine determining on beginning the "straight running" for Cape York. The first 8 miles was to a broad rocky creek, over tea-tree and box flats, and small plains, fairly grassed, the best coast country that had been seen. The creek appeared to be permanent, although there was no water where it was crossed. From thence to camp, 7 miles, was over saline plains, intersected by belts of bloodwood, tea-tree, mangrove, nuptle, grevillea, dogwood, applegum, silky oak, and pandanus. A second creek was crossed at 11 miles, similar to the first. The camp was pitched at a puddle, without a blade of grass, although its appearance was beautifully green, caused by a small sort of tea-tree growing in great abundance, about 10 inches high, with seven or eight large leaves on it. A steer was killed in the evening, giving the party a very acceptable meal of meat, the first they had tasted for three days, the weather being too hot to kill, and there being no game to shoot. Course N. by W. Distance 15 miles. (Camp XLVIII.) Latitude 15 degrees 2 minutes 10 seconds. 'December' 23.--All hands were up almost the whole of last night, some engaged in watching the cattle and horses, and others in cutting up and jerking the beast. The rain came down heavily, and a cold bitter wind was blowing; all the tents, save the ration tent, being like seives, the outside was rather preferable to their shelter; so each passed the night as best they could. The cattle were started away in the morning, leaving Scrutton and Binney to finish jerking the meat, there being some sunshine, which was beginning to be a rarity, for the wet season had now fairly set in. Twelve miles of wretched country were traversed, white sandy undulating ground, clothed with shrubs and underwood, in the place of grass, and the camp pitched on a low stringy-bark ridge, without water, for in this flat sandy country the ground absorbs the rain as soon as it falls. The horses had to be watched again to-night, for there was not a blade of grass to be got. A small quantity of water was found in a creek about a mile-and-a-half ahead. Late in the evening the horses and water-bags were taken to it, and sufficient water brought back for the use of the camp. Two small unimportant creeks were crossed to-day, sandy and dry, trending west. Distance 12 miles N.W. by N. (Camp XLIX.) 'December' 24.--The cattle were watched at a small lagoon beyond the creek before mentioned, which was deep and rocky. The country continued of the same miserable character as yesterday, till at 7 miles, the party came to a belt of bloodwood and stringy-bark, where, by good luck, there was a little coarse grass, but as the stock had had none for two days, they were not particular. (Camp L.) Distance 7 miles. Course N.N.W. 'December' 25.--The rain came down all last night, and continuing throughout the day (for the first time continually), did not suggest a merry Christmas. However the Leader wished his companions the compliments of the season, and pushed on. The country decidedly improved if the weather did not. The tail end of some scrubs were passed in the first five miles, cheifly tea-tree and oak, and half-a-mile further on, a fine creek of sandstone rock, permenantly watered; at 7 miles another similar, but larger, was named Christmas Creek. Here whilst Mr. Jardine was halting in wait for the cattle, he marked a tree XMAS, 1864, in square. In it the swamp mahogany was seen for the first time since leaving Bowen. Its native name is Belourgah. The creek was therefore christened by that name. At 15 miles the party reached and camped on a fine, well-watered, rocky creek, where the blue grass was plentiful, the first that had been seen for many weeks. The country travelled over was very soft, and though driven loose, three of the horses could scarcely travel over it. The packs also were getting into a very dirty state, consequent on the amount of mud and water they had been dragged through. The timber noticed to-day was very varied, comprising all the kinds that have already been mentioned, with the addition of the banksia, which was observed for the first time, and a kind of pomegranate, which was quite new to the Brothers. The trees grow large with soft white bark, and large round leaves. The fruit as large as an hen's egg, in shape like the common pomegranate. Unripe it is of a transparent white, but when mature, has a dark pink color and slightly acid taste. It is probably the euginia mentioned by Leichhardt. They were much annoyed by the green-tree ant, all the trees and shrubs being covered with them, in riding along they got about their persons, and down their backs, where they stuck like ticks. They are of a transparent green, nearly half-an-inch long, soft, and sticky. On coming to the green feed and good water at the camp, it was felt that this Christmas Day, if not the most cheerful, might have been much worse. (Camp LI.) Distance 13 miles N.N.W. 'December' 26,--The party travelled to-day on a course N.N.W. for about 14 miles over very similar country to that of yesterday, save that they crossed no creek, and saw no water during the whole of the stage. Some of the ground was very scrubby and boggy, and better, though not well grassed, too much spear grass occuring. The camp was pitched on a splendid sheet of water, in a rocky creek, 80 yards wide, and very long, in which some of the party caught some fine fish. Waterfowl of all kinds were also numerous. It received the name of Hearsey Creek, after a particular friend, Mr. W. Hearsey Salmon. The blacks were hanging about, but did not make their appearance. (Camp LII.) 'December' 27.--The course to-day lay over similar country, a little to the west of north, for 16 miles to a small creek, which contained in a puddle, just sufficient water for the use of the party and the horses. The cattle had to go without. (Camp LIII.) 'December' 18.--At five miles from starting this morning, the thirsty cattle were able to get abundance of water in a long sandy creek, running in several channels, and having a rocky sandstone bed. It was named Holroyd Creek. Two miles further on another stream was crossed of similar size and character, which received the name of Dunsmuir Creek. Here the country suddenly changed into lightly timbered box flats, poorly grassed, and flooded. Four miles more brought them to a salt-water creek, which had to be run up a-mile-and-a-half before drinkable water was found. The camp was pitched on a lotus lagoon, the water of which was slightly brackish. It received the name of Thalia Creek. About two hours after camping, whilst the party were engaged in digging trenches round them, and otherwise preparing for an impending thunder-storm, the black-boy that was tailing the cattle, came running into the camp in great excitement, with the news that the natives that had been seen in the morning, had hunted him and were now running the horses, so half the party immediately turned out in pursuit. To protect the carbines from the coming storm, Alexander Jardine and Scrutton arrayed themselves the one in a black and the other a white mackintosh, which reached to their heels, whilst the Leader having a short coat on, a revolver in each pocket, jumped on to the bare-back of one of the horses. This time it was not a "blank run." The horses were scuttling about in all directions, and the natives waited for the whites, close to a mangrove scrub, till they got within sixty yards of them, when they began throwing spears. They were answered with Terry's breech-loaders, but whether fascinated by the strange attire of the three whites, or frightended by the report of the fire-arms, or charge of the horse, they stood for some time unable to fight or run. At last they slowly retired in the scrub, having paid for their gratuitious attack by the loss of some of their companions. Some of them were of very large stature. The storm broke with great violence accompanied with thunder and lightning and scattered the cattle off the camp in spite of the efforts of the party to keep them. The thunder caused them to rush about, whilst darkness caused the watchers to run against them, and add to their fright. So they were let go. (Camp LIV.) Distance 11 or 12 miles north. 'December' 29.--The cattle were all gathered this morning, save 10, for which Frank Jardine left two of the black-boys to seek and then follow the party. To his great annoyance they came on at night without them. The course to-day was N.N.E. over boggy tea-tree flats, and low stringy-bark ridges. At three miles a large running creek, one hundred yards wide, was struck, and had to be followed up for four miles before a crossing was found. Four miles further brought them to a small creek, well supplied with water from the recent rains, and what was even more acceptable, plenty of green feed, of which the cattle and horses stood in great need. The Leader determined to halt here one day, to try and recover the lost cattle, but felt anything but easy in doing so, for the flood-marks were six feet high on the camp, which was high ground compared to the level waste around them, and the rains seemed fairly to have set in. Another heavy storm poured down on them at night. (Camp LV.) 'December' 30.--The cattle remained here to-day, whilst Scrutton and Eulah were sent back for the lost cattle. The Brothers went forward a day's stage to try and find some high ground. In this they did not succeed. The country was all alike, and they were satisfied beyond doubt that it must be one sea during the rains; not a very comforting discovery. They found a creek four miles on, which received the name of Macleod Creek. It was large and deep, with a strong current running, and chose a place at which they would have to cross, between two high banks of red sandstone. They then returned to camp, and spent the rest of the day in "sugar bag" hunting, in which they were very successful, bringing in as much as made a feed for the whole camp, which was no small quantity. Scrutton and Eulah returned at dark, without having seen any traces of the missing cattle, so it was determined to go on without them, as it would have been madness to have remained longer in such dangerous country. At night they experienced a heavy storm, which is thus described in Frank Jardine's journal:--"We had one of most severe wind and thunder storms this evening that I ever saw. The largest trees bent like whip-sticks, and the din caused by the wind, rain, thunder, and trees falling, beyond description. People looking at it from under a snug roof would have called it 'grand,' but we rhymed it with a very different word." This may be called a "joke under difficulties." 'December' 31.--Macleod Creek was reached by half-past eight o'clock this morning, and cattle, horses, and packs were all safely crossed by 9.15. The journey was then continued over, or rather, through very boggy tea-tree flats, and undulating stringy-bark, nonda, and bloodwood country, to a large flooded creek, coming from the eastward, which received the name of "Kendall Creek," after a friend of Mr. Richardson's. There was a little rising ground on its banks, on which the party camped. Frank Jardine went up it for a few miles, and found a spot at which to cross the next day, in the same manner as at the last. At this camp some capital barramundi and perch were caught, one of the former weighing no less than 14 pounds. They were a great treat, as the party had been without meat for some days, the heavy rains allowing them no chance of killing. The distance travelled to-day was 12 miles, and course generally N.N.W., but the track was winding in consequence of having to lead the horses, and thread the way through the soundest looking places. (Camp LVI.) CHAPTER IV New Year's Day--Sinclair Creek--New Year's Creek--Kinloch Creek - Micketeeboomulgeiai--The River Archer--The Coen--Slough of Despond - River Batavia--Two Horses Drowned--Five Horses Poisoned - Symptoms--Abandon Baggage--Cache--Party commence Walking - Difficult Travelling--Two more Horses Die--Last Encounter with Natives--Pandanus Thorns--Another Horse Sickens--Urgency of Getting Forward--Dalhunty Creek--Another Horse Dies--"Creamy" and "Rocket" Die--Skardon's Creek--Pitcher Plant--Two Saddles Abandoned--Nell Gwynne's Foal Killed--Richardson's Range. 'January' 1.--Kendall Creek was crossed early on the morning of this, New Year's Day, and subsequently at distances of 10 and 14 miles, two small creeks of running water, coming from the eastward, named respectively Sinclair and New Year's Creeks, in which lilies were abundant ('Blue Nympheas'), and on the last of which the party camped. The progress was rendered very tedious and difficult, by the large trunks and branches of trees, which had been blown down by the storm of the 30th December, over and amongst which the weak horses kept constantly falling. The country changed into red sandy ridges, shewing an outcrop of sandstone, timbered with tall straight saplings of stringy-bark and bloodwood, the larger timber having in all cases been blown down. Some grass-tree country was also passed, covered with quartz pebbles, white, or colored with oxide of iron. The distance accomplished was 14 miles on a course of N.E. by N. (Camp LVII. Nonda.) A heavy thunder-storm broke at night, followed by steady rain. 'January' 2.--The heavy rain, boggy soil, and recent long stages made it necessary to turn out the cattle during the last night, as the poor animals had so little chance of feeding during the day. They were, however, gathered by the time the horses were ready in the morning, having, probably, but little temptation to stray on the boggy ground. The country traversed was similar to that of yesterday, and very much encumbered with fallen timber. The grasses, though thin, are of the best quality. Altogether the interval between Kendall Creek and to-night's camp, a distance of 30 miles, would make a fine cattle run, being watered at every six or seven miles by running creeks, besides a large swamp. It was found to be an extensive plateau, sloping away to the eastward, terminating abruptly in a perpendicular wall, overlooking the valley, on the head of which the party camped. The camp was one of the best of the whole journey, being pitched on a grassy rise, sloping gently to the eastward, and was a grateful relief after the barren and waterless camps of the journey. The latitude was 13 degrees 47 seconds. Distance 16 miles. (Camp LVIII.) 'January' 3.--This morning the creek was followed down to near its junction with a large sandy stream, coming from the north-east, which was named Kinloch Creek, in honor of John Kinloch, Esq., Mathematical Master of Sydney College. It was plentifully watered, and remarkable for presenting the only iron-bark trees that were seen since leaving the Einasleih. At 8 and 12 miles, two small very boggy creeks were crossed, the first of which had to be bridged. Their banks were very unsound and swampy, covered with tea-tree, pandanus, ferns, and all kinds of valueless underwood. They were full of lilies, and appeared to be constantly running, from which it was conjectured that they must take their rise from springs. On passing the last, the party emerged on to poorly grassed, desolate-looking sandstone ridges, covered with grass-tree and zamia. A pine-tree ridge was then passed, and a camp formed on a small water-course beyond, the total distance being 16y miles on a bearing of N.N.E. 1/2 N. The latitude was ascertained to be 13 degrees 35 minutes 54 seconds S. During the day red kangaroos were seen, also the Torres Straits pigeon, and two black cockatoos, with very large stiff crest, crimson cheeks, and large black bill, the rest of the body black. This was the ('Microglossus Aterrimus'), a species peculiar to Northern Australia. It is nearly one-third larger in size than the common black cockatoo, from which it is mainly distinguished by the color of the bill, which is black. (Camp LIX. Bloodwood.) 'January' 4.--A heavy storm of rain and thunder having been experienced last night, the party made a short day's stage, and camped early to enable them to dry their meat, saddlery, bags, etc., which had been thoroughly soaked. The horses backs too, were getting sore from the use of wet saddles, and themselves tired. The course was north, over stringy-bark and bloodwood ridges for 5 miles, to a large running creek named Micketeeboomulgeiai,* from the north-east, on which a crossing had to be cut; a mile-and-a-half further on, an ana-branch was crossed, and the party camped. (Camp LX. Bloodwood.) [footnote]*In the Wellington Dialect "place where the lightning struck." 'January' 5.--Still raining and wet to-day. A table-land of open sandy ridges was traversed to a high point, the edge of which was reached in five miles on a course N. by E. On reaching this point a range was seen in front, extending east and west about 10 miles off, between which and the party, a fine valley extended, traversed by a large sandy river, which was named the Archer, in honor of Messrs. Archer, of Gracemere. The river Archer flows from the north-east, through a valley of great richness and beauty, and considered by the explorers to be the best country for cattle seen north of Broadsound. The banks of the river are fringed by a thick belt of vine-scrub, containing very many Leichhardt and other handsome trees and shrubs of great luxuriance and growth. The valley is also described as being the first locality where any varities of flowers were seen, some were of great beauty, particularly a bulb which bears a large flower, shaped like a larkspur, of every tinge of red, from a delicate pink to a rich purple. After crossing the Archer two ana-branches were passed, the route laying over loamy black and chocolate flats, and fine long sloping ridges, very thickly grassed, quite free from stones, well-watered, and despite the heavy rains that had fallen, perfectly sound. The range seen from the table-land was low, and of much the same description. Distance travelled 15 miles N. by E. (Camp LXI. Applegum.) 'January' 6.--The march to-day was very trying to the poor horses, being chiefly over rotten melon-hole country, of a yellow clayey soil, timbered with stunted bloodwood and pandanus, the rain pouring down all day. At two miles from camp a large creek was crossed containing a little rain water, and subsequently nine or ten small deep waterless creeks, their beds too sandy to be retentive. On one of these the wearied party camped at the end of 16 or 17 miles. A range 8 or 9 miles to the East, was sighted during the day. Notwithstanding the rain, barely sufficient water was found at the camp. Distance 17 miles. Course North. (Camp LXII. Poplar gum.) 'January' 7.--At rather more than a mile from camp, two branches of a large deep creek, were crossed just above its junction. It runs from W. by N., had a little water in it, and the usual fringe of dark green vine scrub, interspersed with Leichhardt trees. A hill on the north bank covered with large sandstone boulders, marks the crossing-place of the party. Numerous small water-courses similar to those of yesterday, were crossed to-day. The country slightly improved but was of the same character, waterless but for the showers of rain. I was strange to see the horses bogging leg deep during a thunder-storm, and in five minutes after unable to get a drink of water. Large red funnel-shaped ant-hills were seen, in some instances as high as 18 to 20 feet. The timber in addition to the usual varities comprised zamias, iron bark, acacia, pandanus, mimosa, sterculia [(Currijong'), grevillia, coral, ('Erythrina'), and Nonda ('Walrothia') trees. Scrub turkeys ('Talegalla Lathami'), wonga wongas, and Torres Straits pigeon were seen. The party camped at the end of 15 miles in a shallow tea-tree gulley, with a little water from last night's rain in its sandy bed, supplying themselves with drinking water from the rain, caught by the tents. Course North. (Camp LXIII. Acacia.) 'January' 8.--The first 15 miles travelled over to-day were good undulating forest country, timbered chiefly with box and applegum, and a few iron-barks, and intersected with numerous canal-like creeks, running north-west, but without water; the last three miles was wretchedly bad, being similar to the tea-tree country of the Staaten. The whole country between the Archer and Staaten is without water, save immediately after rain, sufficiently heavy to set the creeks running. The party camped on a small tea-tree "Gilgai," or shallow water pan, and experienced another night of heavy rain with high wind. Two more horses, Rasper and N'gress were found knocked up. Distance 18 miles. Course N. The latitude of the camp was ascertained to be 12 degrees 38 minutes 2 seconds. (Camp LXIV. Bloodwood.) 'January' 9.--The fact of high land being observed to the west of the course, and that the creeks all flowed eastward, induced the party to think that they were near on the eastern slope of the peninsula. This idea, however, was dispelled on their reaching at the end of ten miles, a large river which was supposed to be the Coen. It was running strongly W.N.W., and seemed distinctly to divide the good and bad country, that on the south side being richly grassed, open and lightly timbered, lucerne and other fine herbs occurring frequently, whilst on the north side it relapsed into the old barren tea-tree country of which so much had been traversed. Considerable time was lost by the party in cutting a road for the cattle through the thick scrub that fringes its banks, a kind of work which was now becoming familiar. The Coen is about sixty yards wide, sandy, and contains crocodiles. The country on it is described as being of excellent quality for a cattle run. The party camped on a tea-tree swamp with a few inches of water in it, 6 miles beyond the crossing place. During the day wongas and Torres Strait pigeons were observed, and scrub turkeys frequented the river scrubs. Distance 16 miles. Course North. (Camp LXV. Bloodwood.) 'January' 10.--The journey to-day was one of unusual fatigue and hardship. The country for the first two miles was comparatively sound, but at this point the course was intercepted by a narrow boggy creek, running strongly through a tea-tree flat. Although care and time were taken in the selection of a proper spot, when the herd began to cross, the leading cattle, breaking through the crust, sank to their hips in the boggy spew below, and in a short time between 30 and 40 were stuck fast, the remainder ploughing through with great difficulty. Four beasts refused to face it altogether, and it was found necessary, after wasting considerable time and a deal of horse-flesh, to let them go. The greater part of the day was consumed in dragging out the bogged cattle with ropes. Even with this method and with all the exertions that could be used by the party, five had to be abandoned, nothing appearing above the ground but their backs and heads. The horses were more easily crossed, but their saddles, packs, and loads had to be carried over by the party. They then camped on the creek, and spent the remainder of the day in drying their arms, saddles, etc., and in jerking the beef of one of the beasts which they had been unable to pull out of the slough. Heavy rain again fell at night, which caused an apprehension that their progress would be altogether stopped if it continued. Distance 2 1/2 miles. Course North. (Camp LXVI. Pomegranite.) 'January' 11.--It is at this point that the heaviest troubles and hardships of the party appear to have commenced, ,troubles that might well appal hearts less stout than those of the Leader and his brother, and hardships bearing heavily on each member of the party, but doubly so on them who had to explore, mark, and clear the way for the cattle, in addition to the ordinary labor of the journey. After having travelled with the greatest difficulty for two miles over execrable country, so boggy as to be barely possible to traverse, their progress was stopped by a creek 25 yards wide, flooded "bank and bank," and running like a mill sluice. This was the river Batavia. The usual formidable fringe of vine scrub covered the margin and approaches and had to be cut through before the cattle could cross. This was done by the Brothers by the time they came up, and in addition a large melaleuca which leant over the stream, was felled across it, by means of which (by tying a rope above it, as a leading line), they were enabled to carry over the packs, saddles, stores, etc., on their heads. The cattle accustomed to swimming, took the water in splendid style, one however getting entangled and drowned. With the horses they were not so fortunate, for though a head stall was put on each with a rope attached to the bit, to haul them across, the rapidity of the current swept away two of them into a tangle of vines in the middle of the stream, under which they were carried and drowned, despite the exertions of four or five of the party to pull them across by the rope. Their efforts to save them nearly cost their own lives, and A. Jardine chronicles receiving a "nasty crack" in the head from a log in attempting to disentangle his own horse "Jack" from the vines, one which might have closed his career, had it been a degree harder, the other, "Blokus," was a Government horse, belonging to Mr Richardson; both were useful horses, and a great loss to the party, but only the forerunner of much greater ones. The creek at last crossed, the party attempted to push forward on the other side, but after travelling a mile leading the horses, slushing through bog and swamp under a heavy rain, they were obliged to turn back and encamp on some high ground on the banks of the creek, about half-a-mile above the crossing, where there was a little good grass. Several of their horses were left behind bogged, one mare in particular, "Nell Gwynne," being too weak to travel. Distance 3 miles. Course N. (Camp LXVII.) 'January' 12.--It was determined to camp here to-day, both to spell the weak horses and dry many things that had got wet. The horses left bogged the previous night were got out, when on returning to the camp, it was found that a number of the others were poisoned, and one missing. The black-boys were immediately sent out in search of him, but were unsuccessful. Meanwhile the party being unable to shift camp that day, a yard was immediately formed, all herbs carefully pulled up in and about it, and the horses penned there. The precaution came too late, for before evening five of them besides the missing one ("Rasper") were dead. It was supposed that "Rasper" must have got into the river and been drowned, as one of the effects of the poison is complete blindness. The symptoms are thus described. Profuse sweating, with a heaving of the flanks, the ears droop, the eyes glaze, set, and the animal finally turns stone blind. He then lies down, struggles fitfully for several hours, and never rises again. This was a heavy blow. Ten of their horses were now gone, eight of which were picked, and the best of the whole number, besides being the best conditioned, one peculiarity of the poison being that it appears to attack the fattest animals. A careful search was made to detect the plant that caused this fearful loss, but unsuccessfully. The number of horses being now reduced to twenty-one, and those the poorest and worst, it became necessary to take only what was actually wanted of their baggage, and to abandon the remainder. A cache was accordingly dug, and 25 sets of horse-shoes, a lot of nails and other miscellaneous articles were buried at the foot of an iron acacia on the top of the ridge and facing the creek, on which was marked in a sheild F J over LXVII. over DIG in heart. The horses were kept in the yard all night, and the rest of the day and evening spent in disposing of the reduced loading, and making preparations for leaving this fatal camp. The rain continued to fall heavily throughout the day, which could not under the circumstances, have increased the cheerfulness of the party. The Leader, however, closes the entry in his Diary with "Nil Desperandum" merely marking the day of the week in parenthesis as ("Black Thursday.") 'January' 13.--The poor condition of the horses, and the wretchedly soft nature of the ground, making it impossible for them to be ridden, or do more than carry the diminished loads of baggage and stores, the party had no choice but to walk and in some cases even to carry the packs of the horses. Mr. A. Jardine describes their appearance this morning as "rather neat" at the starting from the camp, the two Brothers, Mr. Binney, Scrutton, and the four black-boys having doffed everything but their shirts and belts. It was well for the whites that their previous habits on the journey had hardened their feet and enabled them to travel without shoes, with but little less hardship than their black companions. This they had acquired by the custom on coming into camp, of going out with the boys opossum and "sugar bag" hunting. With stout hearts and naked legs, therefore they faced forward driving the horses and cattle before them, and by the end of the day placed ten miles between them and "Poison Creek," as it was then named. This however was not accomplished without great toil, the country traversed being red soil ridges, with black soil tea-tree flats between them, which were so many bogs. In these the cattle floundered and bogged at every hundred yards, and even the spare unladen horses had to be pulled out. The latter were at length so completely knocked up that it was necessary to leave some of them at one side of a swamp, the party carrying their packs and loads about a quarter-of-a-mile on to a dry ridge on the other. Here they camped and tired as they were, were obliged to keep a vigilant watch, as, to add to their many annoyances the natives had been following them all day. Distance 10 miles N.E. by N. Box marked F.J. 68 cross. 'January' 14.--At daylight this morning the horses were got over the swamp, with less difficulty than was expected, being recruited by their night's rest. The journey was resumed at 6.30. There had been no rain on the previous day and night, and the ground with only this twenty-four hours of dry weather had hardened sufficiently on the crust to allow the horses to walk without bogging. This crust, however, once broken through, they bogged hopelessly, until dragged out with ropes. In this the water and sludge oozing out from the tracks were great auxiliaries, as they formed a kind of batter, in which, by pulling the horses on their sides, they slid along like sledges. This process had continually to be repeated throughout the day, causing so much delay, that seven or eight miles were with difficulty accomplished. At each running stream the packs had to be taken off and carried over. The country traversed was similar to that of yesterday, undulating blood-wood red soil ridges, sufficiently well-grassed, with the everlasting black soil, tea-tree flats, and gullies running between them, some being very wide. Two more horses died during the day from the effects of the poison, and the Leader owns that he was beginning to be at his wits end as to how they were to get along. Every superfluity and been abandoned, and, with the exception of a few light things, such as clothes and blankets, of too trifling weight to make it worth while to leave, and only what was absolutely necessary, retained; yet there were barely sufficient horses left to carry that. He had therefore good cause for anxiety. The day kept tolerably fair until the party came into camp, when the rain came down in torrents. Whilst in the hurry and confusion of putting up the tents to protect the stores from the deluge that was pouring, the alarm of "blacks" was again given. They were fortunately unarmed, and the party easily chased them away. This was fortunate, and was caused by the native custom of making the gins carry their spears and shields on the march, themselves only carrying a nulla or two. They were soon back again however, with large bundles of spears, but not before the party had had time to prepare for them. The rifles were dry and loaded. Frank Jardine here owns to a feeling of savage delight at the prospect of having a "shine" with these wretched savages, who, without provocation, hung on their footsteps dogging them like hawks all through the thickest of their troubles, watching with cowardly patience, for a favourable moment to attack them at a disadvantage. Even then, however, he would not be the agressor, but allowed them to come within sixty yards, and ship their spears in the woomerahs, before they were fired upon. The two foremost men fell to the only two shots that were discharged, and their companions at once broke and fled; nor was the advantage followed up, as the travellers were careful to husband their ammunition, and their caps were running short. This, however, was the last occasion on which the party was molested, their sable adversaries having, probably, at length learned that "they were worth letting alone," and never again shewing themselves. The distance travelled was 8 miles. N.E. by N. 'January' 15.--This being Sunday and horses, cattle, and men, being in want of rest after the work of the last two days, it was determined to make a rest day. The party employed part of the time in spreading out the contents of the pack bags to dry, everything having become mouldy with the constant wetting. The day was marked too, by a grant feast of "stodge," doughboys, and jam, stodge being a delicacy extemporised for the occasion, consisting of "flour boiled with water to the consistency of paste, with some small pieces of raw meat thrown into it"!! The Brothers spent part of the afternoon in the mutual good offices of picking the pandanus thorns out of each others feet and legs, the blackboys following their example. These thorns were a constant source of small torture to the party. The necessity of trying the ground in advance of the cattle prevented them wearing boots, and thus feet and legs were left without any protection, and exposed them day after day to the same annoyance. Another horse, "Creamy," sickened from the effects of the poison. It was thought that he had not taken enough to kill him, and that the day's rest would set him to rights. A cow was also left bogged in the swamp. The ground on which the party encamped was supposed at first to be dry, being on a bloodwood ridge, with six or eight inches of gravel on the surface, but the heavy rain of the previous night caused the water to run through the tents to a depth of three inches. It was only necessary to scratch a handful of gravel off the crust to get clear running water for drinking. A heavy rain again fell during the night, dispelling all hopes of sound travelling for the morrow. (Camp LXIX. Bloodwood.) 'January' 16.--The absolute necessity of getting at or near their destination before the setting in of the periodical rains, stimulated the Leader to urge the party to long stages, which was not at all relished by some of the number, two of whom at starting made repeated requests to camp for another day, alleging that they could not walk any further. To this Mr. Jardine could not listen, and being further importuned, disposed of the request summarily by packing their rifles on the horses, and telling them that they might remain or come on as they might elect. He heard no more grumbling, and a good stage was accomplished. The country for the first two miles was similar to that of the last two stages. It then suddenly changed into red sandy stringy-bark ridges, with a dense under-growth of vines, zamias, and pandanus, which made the walking difficult and painful. Several creeks were crossed, the largest of which was at ten miles from the camp, and running W. by N., and the party halted at another six miles further on, which received the name of Dalhunty Creek. Its course was west, and it was remarkable for the palms ('Seaforthia Elegans') growing in its bed. All these creeks were supposed to be tributaries of the Batavia River. The party had only to unpack the horses twice during the day, and made a capital stage, but not without paying for it, for even the Black-boys shewed signs of fatigue. Their legs and feet, as well as those of most of the party were in a frightful state, cut in peices by the thorny vines which covered the line of march. They were now completely out of meat, but it would have been unwise to halt to kill a beast for three reasons: first, the weather; next, the fact that they could not pack the meat without leaving behind something to make place for it, another of their horses, Combo, having died to-day from the effects of the poison; and lastly, the urgency of getting forward whilst the weather would admit of it. The morning had been rainy, but in the afternoon it cleared up and gave promised of a few fair days, of which it was expedient to take advantage. In addition to the horse that died (Combo), two more of their best horses (Rocket and Creamy) were fast sinking. It was a fearful thing to see them dwindling away day by day, without power to help or time to halt for them; but to press forward was a paramount necessity. Distance 16 miles North. (Camp LXX. Applegum.) 'January' 17.--The country traversed to-day was similar to that of yesterday, save that the ridges were higher and more stony. Creeks were crossed at two and ten miles, running strongly westward, which appeared to be permanent. Five miles further on, the party camped on a smaller one of the same character, having vine scrub and seaforthia palms on its banks, which was named Skardon's Creek. The horse Creamy died during the day, and Rocket through the night. These losses reduced their horses from forty-two, with which they started, to fifteen of the culls. They were in latitude 11 degrees 51 minutes 50 seconds, and by their dead reckoning, just about the track of Kennedy, supposing it to have been correctly charted, and therefore on the western slope of the dividing range. The Torres Strait pigeon ('Carpophaga Luctuosa') was again seen, and the bitcher plant('Nepenthes Kennedya') first noticed. Two of the police saddles had to be left at this camp in consequence of the loss of the horses. Distance 15 1/2 miles. North. (Camp LXXI.) 'January' 18.--The march to-day is described as being through the most abominable country that can well be imagined, being a continuation of loose white sandy ranges, thickly covered with low bush from three to eight feet in height, broom, fern, grass-tree ('Xanthoraea'), pandanus, and "five-corner" bushes, being thickly matted together with prickly vine. Not a tree relieved the monotony of this waste, and what was worse, not a blade of grass was seen for miles. Several deep creeks were crossed, all running strongly with clear pelluced water to W. and N.W. The timber when it occured was bloodwood, stringy and iron-bark on the ridges, banksia, grevillia, and several kinds of tea-trees in the gullies, which were honey-combed and boggy. Two new kinds of palm were seen. The bush which seems to be what Kennedy alluded to as "heath," could only be got through by leading a horse ahead, the others following slowly behind him, the cattle then following in their track. A straight course was impossible, as all the boggy creeks and gullies had to be run up to their heads before they could be crossed. A general course, however, was kept of N. by E. The packs were continually being knocked off the horses, occasioning great delay, so that only 12 miles were accomplished. Some black perch were caught in one of the creeks, and scrub turkeys were seen. Poor "Nell Gwynne's" foal knocked up to-day, after having kept up bravely since the mare's death. Nothing remained therefore but to kill him. The party being without meat, and it being impossible to stop in such a country to kill a beast, part of his flesh was dressed and carried on, which was a grateful addition to the food, and although two or three at first refused to eat of it, the craving of hunger soon made them forget their repugnance to horse-flesh. At night the horses had to be short hobbled and a watch kept over them. The weather kept fine, raising the hopes of the Leader of getting in before the rains. 'January' 19.--Despite the watch kept over the horses, they got away during the night, and a late start was the consequence. Several hours were also lost at the first mile on the journey, in consequence of some of the horses getting "upside down" in one of the deep narrow creeks, which were constantly recurring, and having to be extricated. These creeks run N.W., and take their rise from springs. They are so boggy that in some cases, though perhaps only eighteen inches wide, they had to be headed before the cattle could pass. The summit of the range was reached in seven miles of similar country to that of yesterday, resembling (identical in fact) in appearance and botanical character, to the worst country of Botany Bay, the Surry Hills, and coast about Sydney. A thick vine scrub was then passed, when the party emerged on to some open ridges of red sandy soil, timbered with bloodwood, stringy-bark, and nonda. They were now satisfied that they were on eastern waters, as, whilst out sugar-bag hunting in the evening, the Brothers saw the blue waters of the ocean about twelve or fifteen miles to the eastward, a small arm of which was supposed to be a bay to the northward of Cape Grenville. Their latitude was 11 degrees 46 minutes 36 seconds. The camp was pitched at the head of a small creek running eastward. 'January' 20.--After 4 miles of brushwood and scrubby range had been accomplished this morning, further progress was stopped by a dense pine and vine scrub stretching across the course. The cattle were halted outside, whilst the Brothers made search for an opening for them to get through, in doing which they came on to a narrow track cut by the blacks. This they followed for more than two miles, but were obliged to return at last, the vine ropes, tangle, and dense scrub, making it hopeless to attempt taking the cattle along it. A further search proved equally unsuccessful. The whole party had therefore to turn back along their tracks for a couple of miles, then turning east they travelled on that bearing. At about half-a-mile they reached the eastern slope, from which the sea was distinctly visible. A spur of the range was followed for about four miles into rather better country, where the party camped, being well-grassed and slightly timbered, though stoney. Although about 9 miles were travelled over, the distance in latitude from the last camp could not have been more than one-and-a-half miles. From a bluff on the range a fine view of the low country and sea was obtained, and a bearing taken to Cape Grenville of 117 deg. Blacks' tracks were very numerous to-day, and it was evident by the neat cutting of the marks on the trees that they were provided with good iron tomahawks. Many turkeys' nests were found, but the eggs only benefitted the stronger stomachs of the party, having young ones in them in most cases. In crossing one of the boggy creeks, one of the horses jumped on to a pack-saddle, and a hook entering his skin lacerated it dreadfully. 'January' 21.--The course to-day was N.E. by N., along the eastern slope of the Richardson Range, through a fearfully difficult country. Seven deep scrubby creeks had to be crossed running strongly to the westward, whose banks were invariably fringed with a thick scrub, which had in each case to be cut through before the cattle could pass: one in particular was so dense that it alone occupied three hours in cutting. The cattle occasionally got their horns entangled in the vines, and had to be cut loose. One cow got fearfully furious at being thus arrested, and when extricated, galloped straight away, and was no more seen. Over seven hours were occupied in making a distance of about 8 miles, only 3 of which were spent in actual travelling. A great variety of palms were seen in the scrubs, which were covered with fruit and berries, but only the "Seaforthia," the most graceful of the family, the 'Caryota Urens', remarkable for its star-shaped fronds and the more common 'Corypha', of which the colonial straw-hats are made, were known to the travellers. Latitude 11 degrees 37 minutes 46 seconds. 'January' 22.--The country traversed to-day was of the same description as that of yesterday, utterly without grass, and the same tedium and toil were experienced in cutting through the vine scrubs which bordered the running creeks. These were very numerous, and quite uniform in their difficulty, a lane for the cattle having to be cut through each. Some very large pines were noticed to-day (most probably 'Araucaria Cunninghamii'), which, forming large and dense scrubs, twice forced the party out of their course. The camp to-night was a very miserable one, surrounded by scrub and brushwood, without a blade of grass for the stock, or even a tree that could be marked, and to add to their wretchedness, a heavy rain came down which lasted till near midnight. Course N.W., 10 miles. (Camp LXXVI.) 'January' 23.--A steady rain poured down all to-day, and as yesterday, the route alternated over and through desert wastes of brush and tangled scrubs, the former telling with great severity on the lacerated feet of the travellers. Their legs had the appearance of having been curried by a machine. At the end of 9 miles they luckily came on to a creek comparatively well-grassed on the banks. This being the first that had been seen for three days, they joyfully encamped on an open ridge. The timber comprised nonda, grevillea, banksia, tea-tree, mahogany, and many other tropical trees not known. The total distance travelled was 10 miles. N. by W. (Camp LXXVII.) 'January' 24.--For the first three miles to-day, the country remained similar to the generality, that is, scrub and heath, after this it slightly improved, opening into coarse sandstone ridges, in some parts strewed with quartz pebbles, either white or tinted with oxide of iron. At two miles from the start a stream was struck, running north, having a clear sandy bed thirty yards wide, which was immediately concluded to be a head of the Escape River, and a continuation of that crossed on the 22nd. Into this, numerous short steep scrubby creeks discharge themselves from the range or ridge to the eastward. These had, as usual, all to have passages cut through them for the stock. At the end of about six miles, a heavy thunder-storm coming on whilst the party were engaged in clearing, the creek they were upon was sent up bank and bank by the storm water, and barred their further progress. They were therefore compelled to camp. At sundown it was again nearly dry, but the rain continued at intervals till midnight. During the day a large low table-topped mountain was passed about 4 miles to the eastward. It was either bare of timber or heath clad, and received the name of Mount Bourcicault. (LXXVIII.) Distance 6 miles. N. by W. 'January' 25.--A ten-mile journey was accomplished to-day, the country for the first seven having slightly improved into red soil ridges coarsely grassed, having patches of scrub along their summits. The remaining three were of the usual character, heath and brushwood, in the midst of which, in a miserable hole as it is described, they were obliged to camp. A delay of a couple of hours occured in consequence of a thunder-storm flooding a narrow gutter that might be hopped over. It was not until this subsided that the horses and cattle could be made to face it, the poor brutes having been so frightened with bogs and water, that the horses had to be led over the smallest of them. The rain still continued to pour heavily at intervals during the day. (Camp LXXIX.) No trees to mark. The course was N. by W. 'January' 26.--After two miles of travelling, the party again struck the supposed Escape River. The stream was flooded, and at this point fifty yards wide, and the bed clear of fallen timber. A bloodwood tree was marked on both sides, on the S. bank. The country on either side is of a red and white sandy soil, timbered with bloodwood, mahogany, melaleuca and black and white tea-tree, coarsely grassed, with heath and scrub running down to the banks in many places. The river was followed down for 7 or 8 miles, its general course being N.W., the party having to cut roads for the cattle through the thick scrubs which lined the tributary creeks and gullies, in four instances. At this distance a large branch nearly equal in size, joins it from the south-east, to which the name of the "McHenry"* was given. It being flooded and deep, the party traced it upwards for about a mile from its junction and encamped. The tents being pitched and everything made secure for the night, the Brothers explored up the stream in search of a good crossing place for the morrow. After several trials were made, a spot was finally decided upon, about three-quarters-of-a-mile from the camp, and they returned with the pleasing prospect of having to swim the cattle and horses over next day, and carry the packs on their heads. Black and white cockatoos, some parrots, scrub turkeys ('Talegalla Lathami'), and white pigeons (Torres Straits), were seen on the march, throughout which the rain still continued to fall, as it did also during the night. At this camp (80) the last of the sugar was finished, but this was not thought much of, as from the latitude being ascertained to be 11 degrees 10 minutes, it was supposed that Somerset could not be more than 20 or 30 miles distant. How they were undeceived in their conjecture, and had their hopes disappointed, will be seen. [footnote] *After Captain J. McHenry, of Arthur Downs, Isaac River. 'January' 27.--Early this morning the party addressed themselves to the task of crossing the McHenry. This was accomplished in safety, cattle and horses taking the water like dogs, the greater difficulty being in getting over the packs, saddles, and stores, which had to be carried on the heads of the swimmers of the party, and this necessary part of a bushman's education was not common to all, or at least sufficiently to be of use. The course was then continued on the other side to the junction of the two streams. The rain continued to fall steadily during most of the day, filling up every little creek and gutter. Some of the former had to be swum over, whilst the latter occured at every mile. Just below the junction there is a large dense vine-scrub, which had to be skirted, after which, the party continued their course down the supposed Escape, which had now increased its width to a hundred yards. Its width when first struck, was only twenty, increasing to forty or fifty at its junction with the McHenry, when the united streams form an imposing river. Its course is extremely winding, whilst the numberless creeks and gulleys which join it, all with scrubby banks, make travelling along its banks, a work of great labor and difficulty. The country on this day's march slightly improved, being more open and better grassed, the best being on the river banks, but coarse and sparse at best. The timber chiefly bloodwood and black tea-tree. Several trees were marked with a cross at the crossing place of the McHenry, and one similarly at the point of the scrub below the junction. In consequence of the many delays to-day the total distance travelled was only 5 miles. Course N. by W. (Camp LXXXI.) 'January' 28.--The course of the river was followed down to-day for about two-and-a-half miles, but the endlessly recurring water courses, each with its eternal fringe of thick vine scrub, at last compelled the party to turn to the west in order to avoid them, there being no time to cut roads for the cattle. They were constantly getting entangled by the horns in the hanging vines of the 'Calamus Australis' and 'Flagetlaria', so often referred to. The effect of this on some was to work them into such a perfect fury, that when released by the party cutting them clear, they would in some instances rush blindly away from the herd and be lost, as described before. The intention on starting was to run the river down to the head of the tide, and then establish a camp, where the cattle could stay, whilst the Brothers went on to find Somerset, now supposed to be not far distant. On leaving the river the course was shaped west, to head the scrubs on the tributaries, but this, far from improving the travelling, made it worse as they got into a maze of scrub, heath, and swamps, through which they had to thread their course. They, had therefore, to make their way back to the river, which was again struck in about 7 miles. It was here running north, the bed free from fallen timber, and about 150 yards wide, and so full and flooded as to make it impossible to discover whether it was within the tidal influence or not. Following the river for 4 miles, making a total journey of 12, the rain pouring the whole day, the party camped on the bank, where alone grass was to be found, and that even very poor and thin. Two of the horses "Tabinga," and "Pussey," had to be left about three miles back from the camp with their saddles, utterly knocked up. A lame heifer was killed and cut up for jerking, on the morrow. Course N.W. by N. Distance 12 miles. (Camp LXXXII.) 'January' 29.--This day was devoted to rest, with the exception of the necessary duties of jerking the beef of the heifer, and preparing for the start of the Brothers to find Somerset. The horses left behind were sent for and brought into camp, and dispositions made for a halt, until the return of the Leader. The packs, saddles, and stores were "overhauled," and found for the most part to be completely rotted, from the constant rain and severe duckings they had undergone, making the party congratulate themselves that they were near their destination. At the request of Frank Jardine, Mr. Richardson plotted up the route, as far as this camp, and gave him his position on the chart, with a note "that camp 82 was on the Escape River, eight miles in a direct line from where it joins the sea, and sixteen miles from Somerset." In this, as in the case of the position of the Lynd, he was mistaken, the reason for which, he states to be that his sextant was out of order. This was much to be regretted, as failing the correctness of the surveyor's observations, Mr. Jardine might just as well trust to his own dead reckoning. It might be supposed that Mr. Richardson having had an opportunity of checking his position by the bearing to Cape Grenville, when he sighted the sea on the 20th inst, at camp 74, should have been able more accurately to have determined his present position, but he excuses himself on the score of the difficulty of estimating the daily distance whilst walking.* This is a very admissable explanation, considering the tedium and slowness of their progress in winding through scrubs, and being delayed by crossings, the tortuousness of their route making it difficult to keep the course. It was the more unfortunate, therefore, that the sextant, which was naturally depended upon for keeping them informed of their progress, should have been allowed to become so deranged, as to be less reliable than the result of mere dead reckoning. [footnote] *See his Journal. CHAPTER V. First Start in Search of Settlement--Character of the Jardine-- The Eliot--Return to Main Camp--Flooded State of River-- Impromptu Raft--Crossing Horses--Uncertainty--Second Start in Search of Settlement--View of the Ocean--Reach South Shore of Newcastle Bay--Reach Mouth of True Escape--Unable to Cross--A Dainty Meal--Character of the Escape--Return to Main Camp-- Horses Knocked-up--Another Horse Dead--Flour Exhausted-- Wretched Condition of Horses--More Baggage Abandoned--Prospects --The Whole Party Again Move Forward--Another Horse Abandoned-- Reach Head of Tide View of the Gulf--Barne Island--Return up the Jardine--Third Start in Search of Settlement--Wild Grape-- Crossing Saddles--a Disappointment--Head the Escape River--Meet Friendly Natives--Natives Act as Pilots--Native Bread--Canoes --Corroboree--Native Drums--Arrival at Somerset--Mr. Jardine's Marked-tree Line--Meeting with their Father--A Heroine. 'January' 30.--This morning, Mr. F. Jardine with his Brother and the Blackboy, Eulah, started to find the Settlement, leaving the rest of the party encamped with the cattle, in charge of Mr. Scrutton. They took with them a week's ration of 25 lbs. of flour, and 12 lbs. meat (tea and sugar had long been things of the past), intending to follow the supposed river down to the head of the tide. It was accordingly followed for about 21 miles, but to their astonishment, instead of trending N.N.E., its general course was found to be North-west 1/2 West. This led them to the conclusion that it was a western water, and not as they had hitherto supposed, the Escape River. Of this they were now convinced, but to make certain, agreed to continue travelling down it for two days more, and with this intent camped on a creek coming in from the southward. The margin of the river is generally open and coarsely grassed, timbered with mahogany, bloodwood, and melaleuca, the points of scrubs and brushwood occasionally closing down to the stream. Its width varies from one to two-hundred yards, with a sandy bed, entirely free from fallen timber. Its banks are steep in many places, of white clay and coarse sandstone, and fringed with tall melaleuca, whose long drooping branches and leaves swept the rapid and deep stream. A straight course was impracticable, for as soon as attempted, and the river was out of sight, the party got entangled in thick brushes and tea-tree swamps, without a blade of grass. They were obliged, therefore, to follow the course of the river in all its windings. The only birds seen were scrub turkeys, and Torres Strait pigeons. The weather at starting was fine, but about 11 o'clock the rain commenced, and continued steadily the whole of the day. At night, on camping, a "bandicoot gunyah" was erected, and covered with the broad pliable paper bark of the melaleuca, which made a snug shelter for the night from the still pouring rain. Course generally N.W by W. Distance following the river, 21 miles. 'January' 31.--Crossing the creek immediately after leaving the camp, the party still continued to follow the windings of the river through similar country to that of yesterday, save that the ground was more boggy, the swamps, ana-branches, and small lagoons more numerous. On the latter some Coromandel geese were seen, of a species different from those found near Rockhampton. The heavy rain which had continued all last night had caused the river to rise several inches. At about ten miles the progress of the party was stopped by a large stream coming in from the South-east, about the same size as the McHenry. A tree was marked AJ at the junction which was very scrubby, and the new stream received the name of the Eliot. It was running strongly, and had to be traced up for two miles, before the party could cross in safety. This they fortunately accomplished without accident, although the water was up to their necks, as they waded across with their saddles and packs on their heads, giving them all they could do to stem the rapid current. They then proceeded on their way for 7 miles further, the last two of which were through thick brush, and camped on the bank of the main stream, now much augmented in size after receiving the waters of the Eliot. There was but little grass for the poor horses, but no choice, the country back from the river being all scrubs and swamps, covered with tea-tree, but barren of grass. The total distance travelled was 17 miles. The course generally West by South, clearly proving that they could not be on the Escape. 'February' 1.--The river was again followed for about seven miles further, but as the course still continued to trend West, and even south of West, the Brothers in disgust determined on re-tracing their steps, satisfied, if satisfaction can be predicated of such a disappointment, that they were on western waters, and that they had not yet reached the looked-for Escape River. At this point, therefore, they turned, intending to swim the river at the main camp, and make another exploration to find the Settlement from the North side, or right bank. By night-fall they reached their first night's camp, where they found the "gunyah" very acceptable. They had now followed the supposed Escape 45 miles; deducting a third for its sinuosities, a distance of at least 30 miles in a straight line Westward had been travelled, and they were filled with surprise that so large and important a stream should have remained undiscovered. Its width at their turning-point was over two-hundred yards, the banks commencing to be very swampy, and it is described by Mr. A. Jardine, as the most compact river, with the exception of the Fitzroy, he had seen in the North. The rain continued as yesterday during the whole of the day, accompanied with cold winds. This, together with their disappointment, was sufficient to depress the spirits of most men. There is not, however, in the journals of either of the Brothers the slightest indication of despondency or complaint. 'February' 2.--The main camp was reached this morning early, and everything found safe and right, save in one particular, that deserves recording. In looking over the ration account, Mr. Jardine found a deficiency of 30 lbs. of flour, accruing in the interval of the four days of his absence. All denied any knowledge of it, and all were equally certain that the allowance had not been exceeded; "so" writes Frank Jardine, "where it is gone to, I am never likely to know," and there the matter dropped. It is humiliating to think, that amongst white men banded together in exploring parties, where the success and safety of the enterprise are much dependent on the good conduct of each individual member, there should be found individuals so ignoble, as to appropriate an undue share of the common stock of food on which the health, and perhaps the life of each equally depends; and yet, sad to say, such instances are not singular. The well-proved charge against Gray of cooking flour for himself privately, for which he was chastised by poor Burke, is one instance. Gray's excuse was that he was so ill, and his apologists point to the fact that he subsequently died. Either Burke or Wills would have died on the spot, rather than have taken an ounce more than their meanest companion, and yet it has been asked why this man has had no monument. Again, in the unfortunate expedition of poor Kennedy (not far from their present camp), the storekeeper of the partyof the name of Niblett, was discovered to have largely pilfered from the stores for a considerable time previously. Who knows that, but for the deficiency his greed caused, more of that ill-fated party might have held out until the succour arrived, guided by the heroic black, Jacky, who risked his own life to save that of his master, and whose name is as worthy of being held up for honour as that of the white man's for contempt. 'February' 3.--This day was spent by the Brothers with their black-boys in hunting for a good crossing place, or as they described it, "doing a little water dogging." The river being two hundred yards wide, and running rapidly, made it a difficult matter, and after trying a number of places, it was found that as they were all alike, deep and wide, they might as well cross opposite the camp. This would not be without risk and danger, but the exigency of the party made it necessary. Their flour was nearly exhausted, and they had nothing else but the jerked meat of the beef they killed, and what they could catch in the bush, to depend on. In this last, however, as old hunters and bushmen, they were generally pretty successful, supplementing and eking out their ordinary rations very largely. The day previous their larder had been recruited by three iguanas' eggs, a brush turkey ('Megapodius Tumulus'), and nine turkeys' eggs. The rain came down as usual at intervals during the day, which, added to the almost incessant rain of the four previous days, brought the river down during the night, increasing its volume and current so much as to make it dangerous to attempt crossing. 'February' 4.--The river being too high to cross, the start for the Settlement was postponed, the fagged horses getting the benefit of the delay. A beast was killed in the evening. The weather clearing, Mr. Richardson was enabled to get correct observations for the latitude, having succeeded in putting his sextant into tolerable adjustment. The readings gave the latitude of camp 82 to be 11 degrees 11 minutes 39 seconds, or about 33 miles south from Cape York. Part of the day was employed in constructing a raft to float over the saddles, rations, etc. This was done by stretching a hide over a frame of wood, but not without some trouble, as it was found that the only wood light enough for the purpose, was dead nonda, and this being scarce, had to be searched for. Before evening, however, a raft was finished sufficiently light for the purpose. 'February' 5.--The river having sunk considerably during the night, the crossing was commenced this morning, despite the downpour of rain, which lasted all day without a break. The stream was one hundred and thirty yards wide, the banks fringed with scrub and vines, and the current still running rapidly. It required therefore strong and expert swimmers to get the horses across, the method being as follows:--One of the party went in first with a line made fast to the bit of the horse's bridle, and another followed, holding on to his tail by way of rudder. Now as a horse can swim faster than a man, and is of course heavier in the water, the leader has no easy task even if the horse swim honestly for the opposite bank, but should he turn back or boggle at all, man and line are alike powerless; the use of the rudder therefore will be seen. When the leader reaches the opposite bank, he has to scramble up nimbly, or he may have the horse on him, and arrived there, be in readiness with the line to assist him should he get entangled in the saplings and vines which fringe the banks. It will be remembered that in crossing the Batavia on the 11th January, two horses were drowned, in spite of every care and precaution. Here, however, they were fortunate enough to cross their four horses without accident, Mr. Scrutton, old Eulah, and the black-boys doing good service, being all excellent swimmers. The saddles and rations were then floated over in the raft, also without accident, and the advanced party (the Brothers and Eulah) camped on the north side, leaving the remainder of the party and cattle in charge of Mr. Scrutton. Even now, Frank Jardine was uncertain as to what stream they were on, and still leaned to the belief that it was the Escape, his faith in the result of the observations, having been shaken by the accident to the sextant. They failed to assist him in his opinion, which was sorely puzzled by the river running westward. He considered it, therefore, absolutely necessary to find the Settlement before moving the cattle forward, his horses being so weak, as to make it useless to travel on in uncertainty. The necessity for reaching their journey's end was becoming urgent, for their tea and sugar were exhausted, their flour nearly so, and some of the party were complaining of being unwell, and getting very weak. 'February' 6.--The second start was made this morning, the Brothers intending to find either the Settlement or the mouth of the Escape. Their course for the first 15 miles was N.N.East, over barren white sandy country, covered with brushwood and scrub. At 7 miles a large deep running creek was crossed, running westward. Its south bank was so densely covered with vine scrub, that they had to walk and cut their way through it with their tomahawks. After crossing it, the country suddenly changed to thickly timbered sandy ridges, some being rocky, of course sandstone, the more elevated ones having belts of impenetrable scrub running along their crest. At 12 miles a fine sheet of water was passed, surrounded by sandy coarsely-grassed ridges. At 15 miles, from a line of high ridges forming a saddle-range, they had a view of the ocean, and could distinguish a few small islands out to sea. It might have been seen sooner but for the drizzling rain which fell with little intermission. The range was of red soil, timbered with bloodwood, and stringy-bark. Two miles further on the country improved still more, continuing from thence into their camp, 6 miles. The course was altered from the range to N. by E., and at 20 miles a white hill was reached, from which they looked down on the sea about half-a-mile distant beneath them. This was Newcastle Bay. Turning westward and skirting the coast, they travelled 3 miles further on, and camped on a palm creek, with very steep banks. Large flocks of the Torres Strait pigeons flew over in the evening. Distance travelled 23 miles. 'February' 7.--The good country traversed yesterday ceased at a creek half-a-mile from the camp, on crossing which the party had to cut their way as usual, after which the course skirting the coast lay over a villainous country, boggy swamps, brushwood and scrub. After travelling 7 or 8 miles their progress was arrested by a large stream three-quarters-of-a-mile in width, running rapidly from the W.N.W. Its banks were low and muddy, covered with a wide belt of dense mangroves, its muddy and swollen waters carrying down quantities of rubbish. This they correctly surmised to be the mouth of the veritable "Escape" but Frank Jardine was again in error in supposing it to be the same stream that they had left the cattle on. Seeing so large a stream he naturally reverted to the idea that it had turned on itself, and that their first exploration had stopped before reaching the turning point. His case was dispiriting in the extreme. The main camp was not more than 15 miles in latitude south of his present position. The Settlement, the long-wished end of their journey, could not be more than 20 to the North, yet his progress was arrested by a broad and rapid river, to head the supposed bend of which he had ineffectually travelled nearly 50 miles. His plan was now to follow the Escape up in hopes of being able to cross at the head of the tide, and so reach Somerset, but this, as will be seen, was more easily planned than executed. Following up the course of the river the way lay over a country which Alexander Jardine mentions in his notes as "too bad to describe," pandanus swamps, vine scrubs, and small creeks swollen by the rains to a swimmable depth, succeeding one another along the whole stage. At the latter the horses had always to be unpacked and their saddles taken over on the heads of the party. Three hours were consumed in cutting their way through the last of the vine scrubs, when they camped on the outside, three of the horses being completely knocked up. The Brothers then walked to the river in hopes of finding a crossing place. This however, proved hopeless. A thick matted fringe of mangroves nearly three miles wide intervened between them and its bank, through which it was next to impossible to make any headway. Their supper to-night was augmented by a lucky "find" during the day of thirteen scrub turkeys' eggs, which, though they would scarcely have been appreciated at an ordinary breakfast table, were very acceptable to tired and hungry travellers existing principally on jerked beef. Eating what yolk or white they contained, they plucked and roasted the chicks as a "bonne-bouche." Fires had to be kept going day and night to drive away, and protect the poor miserable horses from the march and sand-flies by day, and mosquitoes by night. These were, in fact, the principal cause of the poverty and debility of the poor brutes, who could never get a moment's rest to feed or sleep. Twenty-two miles were accomplished to-day, despite their difficulties. 'February' 8.--The journey was continued to-day up the Escape, the course of which was very crooked, but generally N.W. by N. The horses knocked up a few miles after starting. The party were therefore obliged to walk and drive them before them. The country traversed was similar to that of yesterday, so that they could not get more than a-mile-and-a-half an hour out of the poor jaded beasts. Three times they tried to make into the river bank, but without success, from the great width and the density of the belt of mangroves, and the soft mud. An old black's camp was passed in which they found heaps of shells, turtle, and shark bones. In the evening they caught a quantity of whelks and cockles, which, with an iguana, and three turkeys' eggs, made a good supper. 'February' 9.--The course of the river to-day was even more crooked than yesterday, the nature of the country continuing the same, save that the swampy ground was occasionally broken by ridges of bloodwood, and stringy-bark. From a tree on one of these they had a fine view of Newcastle Bay, and what was supposed to be Mount Adolphus Island, the latter about 25 miles away, and could trace the course of the river to where it debouched, by the stretch of mangroves. Here, therefore, they were within 20 miles of their destination, which they were tantalised by seeing, without being able to reach. With difficulty they drove their horses before them for 7 miles, when they turned out and camped, as well to hunt, as again to try and reach the river. In the first they were pretty successful, getting some turkeys' eggs and shell-fish, but the last they were unable to do, mud and mangroves barring their way, whilst the salt water proved to them that they were still within the influence of the tide, and the stream was still between three and four hundred yards wide. Despairing of being able to find a crossing to which they could fetch the cattle, their horses being unable to cross the river, to continue the search for Somerset in advance, and their scanty provision of flour being nearly exhausted, Frank Jardine, reluctantly abandoning the idea of getting into the Settlement, determined to return to the cattle, and with them, head the supposed bend of the Escape. Disheartening as this was, there was nothing else to be done in the present state of the country. Distance travelled, 7 miles westerly. 'February' 10.--Turning their backs on the mangroves and swamps of the Escape River, the little party faced for the camp, steering S.S.E. The first four miles was through boggy, swampy country, through which they walked, driving their horses before them. The remainder was over the usual iron-bark and bloodwood ridges, fairly grassed with coarse grasses, intersected with swamps and belts of scrub, through one of which they were three hours in forcing their way two miles. After 11 miles of this kind of travelling they camped, the horses completely knocked up, the men in not much better condition, having had to drag the horses out of bogs several times, besides cutting through the hanging vines of the scrubs. Distance 12 miles. 'February' 11.--The main camp was reached to-day, after another fatiguing journey of 11 or 12 miles, the first 6 miles similar to that of yesterday, the remainder through heath and brushwood. It was sundown before they reached the river, which they found much swollen. A heavy thunder-shower of two hours' duration, put up all the creeks bank high, one of which, at about two miles from the river, they had to swim across. Having struck it immediately opposite the camp, they left their jaded horses with their saddles on the north side, and swam across themselves to the party. During their absence another of the horses, "Pussey," had died from exhaustion. 'February' 12.--The meat at the camp being all consumed, it became necessary to halt for a couple of days, in order to kill and jerk a beast. The flour too was now exhausted, save 10 lbs., which was judiciously put by and reserved for an emergency. The day was spent in crossing back the four horses, with saddles and swags. The cattle were counted and some found missing; the Black-boys were therefore sent in search of them. A beast was killed, cut up, and jerked, a tedious task, from the absence of the sun. Although there were only a few light showers towards evening, the air was damp; the meat, therefore, had to be smoked under a covering. 'February' 13.--The lost cattle were found to-day, the jerking of the meat finished, and preparations for a final start on the morrow completed. The unfortunate horses were in such wretched condition, that it was found necessary to lighten the loads to the Settlement. Four pack-saddles, two police saddles, and the two belonging to the Brothers were therefore abandoned, with the remainder of the odds and ends. The prospect before them was not very bright. With no provision save jerked meat, and with knocked-up horses, they were starting on a journey of at least 100 miles, when their destination was not more than 30 miles away from them. they hoped to head the bend of the river they were on (having reverted to the opinion that it was the Escape), without knowing how far beyond the lowest point of their first exploration this turning-point might be, or what obstructions might be a-head of them. On the other hand, the whole of the party were without sickness, and they had plenty of cattle to eat. 'February' 14.--A final start was made this morning from camp 82, of dreary memory, after a good deal of trouble in packing, choosing and rejecting what was too heavy or useless, and the other delays attendant on the breaking up of an established camp. The river was followed for 11 miles with the usual amount of bogging and difficulty, in crossing the small trench-like creeks already mentioned. In one of these they were compelled to abandon another horse (Tabinga). The poor brute fell in trying to cross, and when pulled out and set on his legs was too weak to stand. He had to be left, therefore, saddle and all. Another (Pussy) having died at the last camp, their number was now reduced to thirteen. Their loads were reduced to the slightest possible, and consisted merely of the jerked meat, the ammunition, and swags of the party. Distance 11 miles. (Camp LXXXIII.) 'February' 15.--A gloomy morning with light showers, 10 miles were accomplished to-day. Three hours were consumed in crossing one of the boggy gullies. Every horse had to be unpacked, and half of them had to be pulled across with ropes. The pack of another horse (Lady Scott) had to be abandoned. She was too weak to carry even the empty saddle. The camp was pitched in the angle formed by the large creek running into the river just below the gunyah camp of their first trip, mentioned January 30th. (Camp LXXXIV.) 'February' 16.--The Eliot was reached to-day 8 miles from the camp. It had fallen considerably, but was still too high to allow of crossing without taking off the packs. It was about thirty yards wide, and running clear, about five feet deep, where the party crossed. The camp was pitched on the main stream two miles further, making a total of 10 miles for the day's journey. (Camp LXXXV. Nonda.) 'February' 17.--The lowest camp of the Brothers on their first trip was passed to-day at about 6 miles. The total distance they estimated they had travelled down the river on that occasion was 40 to 45 miles, as it will be remembered that they went 6 or 7 miles beyond this camp on the 1st of February. The true distance to the turning point by Mr. Richardson's reckoning, was estimated at 35 miles, which is probably correct. Mr. Richardson in his journal of to-day's date says, "they told me they had travelled 20 miles North and 30 miles West." A glance at sheet No. 14 will shew this to have been an error; and in a foot-note at February 2nd, he states, "I afterwards found that these distances were incorrect. The true distances West and North respectively from the 82nd camp to the point in our track where the Leader turned back, are about 24 miles W. and 7 N." Now, considering the tortuous course of the river, the nature of the country, the weather, and obstacles of the creeks, 6 miles is not a great error in westing. Mr. Richardson's own reckoning, generally, despite his advantage over the Brothers, in having nothing to do but follow the cattle, was not more to be depended upon, whilst the results of his observations by the sextant were not so much so, as he naively informs us he did not think he error in Latitude was more than 15 miles! It appears evident therefore that the dead reckoning of the explorers was of equal, if not greater value, as far as the journey was concerned, than the surveyor's, the chief result and use of whose presence in the party is, that we have been furnished with a very excellent and interesting map of the route; but it by no means assisted the Leader in the piloting of the Expedition, or resolved his doubts when at fault, either at this point or on leaving the Einasleih in search of the Lynd. The party camped at the end of about two miles on the right bank of a broad deep creek running in from S.W., when after turning out, some of them went fishing, but only one small cat-fish was caught. 'February' 18.--A slight rain fell during last night, but cleared off before morning. The creek was crossed at about a mile from the camp, cattle, horses, and men having to swim. The former took it like water-dogs, and the latter had as usual to carry their saddles, packs, and "traps" over on their heads. After ten miles of travelling over poorly-grassed stringy-bark ridges, the country resumed its old character of swamp, brushwood, and low scrubby banks, flooded for four or five feet, the overflow filling swamps running parallel, and about two or three hundred yards distant from the river. This was followed during the day's march, and they were elated with the hope that they had at length reached the much wished for bend, the course being slightly to the eastward of north. It was Mr. Jardine's intention to have again halted the party when they reached this point, and once more pushed forward in search of Somerset, but they were out of meat, and the party had started without breakfast, there being nothing to eat. He therefore camped at the end of 10 miles to kill a beast. there were a good many delays during the march, chiefly to pull the exhausted horses out of the constantly recurring bogs. Poor "Lady Scott" especially was with great difficulty got into camp. Distance 10 miles, N. 1/2 E. (Camp LXXXVII. Bloodwood) 'February' 19.--To-day was chiefly devoted to rest, and the cutting up, jerking, and smoking of the beef by the whites, the black-boys, after the manner of their race, dividing it pretty equally between sleeping and stuffing. The meat curing was as usual a slow process, there being no salt, and a gunyah having to be made to smoke it in. The river was here first observed to have a rise and fall in it of about six inches. Its width was about a quarter of a mile. The latitude of this camp (87) is 11 degrees 11 minutes 13 seconds The latitude of camp (82) is 10 degrees 58 minutes 2 seconds The Northing therefore equals 13 minutes 11 seconds 'February' 20.--It commenced to rain at two o'clock this morning, and continued heavily as the party started. The river again turned to the Westward, to their great disappointment. The course was continued along it for 9 miles, when they were brought to a stand-still by a deep creek with boggy banks, twenty yards wide, flowing from the South. It was evidently affected by the tide, as the water was slightly brackish and the edge fringed by a species of mangrove. A crossing-place was looked for without success, and the camp was finally pitched, as the rain was pouring heavily. (Camp LXXXVIII.) 'February' 21.--This morning the Brothers, taking old Eulah with them, swam across the creek, alligators notwithstanding, and walked to the top of a high stringy-bark ridge on the south side. Selecting the highest tree he could find (a bloodwood) Alexander Jardine ascended it with Eulah, and from its top branches got a view that finally dispelled the doubts as to their position, and the identity of the stream they had traced down. Before him, at about 3 miles distant lay the mouth of the river, about 2 miles wide. Its course could without difficulty be traced from where they were till it debouched into the Gulf waters opposite a small island, which was easily recognized as Barn Island, whilst to the North, Endeavour Straits, and Prince of Wales Island could be distinctly seen. It was now perfectly plain that the river they had followed was not the Escape. They had therefore, been deceived a second time. It received the very appropriate name of Deception, but has since, by the direction of his Excellency Sir George Bowen, been charted, and is now known by the name of the Jardine. Descending from his perch, after half-an-hour spent in taking bearings by the compass to the different points of interest, Mr. Jardine joined his brother, who at once determined to return to camp 87, it being impossible to cross where they were. Re-crossing the creek, they rejoined the party, reaching the camp at sun-set, under a heavy downpour of rain. 'February' 22.--Although it was raining heavily with every appearance of a continuance, the party started to return up the river in excellent spirits. The Brothers were now certain that they should have no difficulty in finding the Settlement on their next trip. They were, however, very much puzzled as to where such a large stream as the Escape was found to be, should rise. They now re-traced their steps, and camped close to their last camp LXXXVII. Six miles. 'February' 23.--To-day was spent in killing and jerking a beast, and preparing for the Leader's third start in search of the Settlement. The rain poured down heavily, causing the river to rise very fast. Another raft similar to that made at camp 83, had to be constructed, a work of some time, for the only wood fit for making the frame was dry nonda, which was scarce. The rain too, very much impeded the drying of the beef, for which, as usual, a bark gunyah had to be erected. Everything, however, was got well forward for the important business of crossing the next morning. 'February' 24.--The horses, saddles, and rations were all crossed in safety to-day, though not without difficulty. In swimming the horses particular care had to be taken, for there was only one small spot on the other side at which they could be landed. As explained on the 5th, on the occasion of the second start, it requires a strong swift swimmer to lead a horse across a stream, and in this the white men, or at least, three of them, were much superior to the black-boys, who, although all good swimmers, were much more efficient in the service of the raft. This only illustrates the rule that most white men can beat the aboriginal in swimming fast, whilst the latter has superior endurance; but there is no doubt, that under the same conditions of education and practice, the civilized white man is superior to the savage in any physical function or exercise. The rain poured down consistently during the whole of the day, and a cold cutting wind drove the swimming party at intervals to the fires, where, whilst toasting the outward, they solaced the inner man with a decoction of Scrutton's, by courtesy called, soup, being an 'olla podrida', or more properly "bouillon," of the bones, gristle, head, and oddments of the lately-killed beast. This was always a stock repast after each kill-day, and there is but little doubt but that its "osmazome" contributed not a little, to the good health and heart of the party. Almost every exploring party on short commons, records some favourite cookery, some dish that their souls loved. In McKinlay's journey, the dish most in vogue was a kind of "amorphous" black-pudding, made of the carefully-saved blood of the bullock, horse, or sheep, as the case might be, boiled with some fat, and seasoned with a little condiment, which being of light carriage, can always be saved for such high occasions. In the present instance, the fat was always devoted to the greasing of the saddles, pack-straps, etc., during the latter part of the journey, when clothing was at a premium; of the explorers themselves, "more aboriginum," who found that the protection it afforded them against cold, wet, and mosquitoes, far outweighed any slight redolence, which, after all, could only be offensive to anyone not equally anointed. At night the Brothers camped on the north side of the Deception, or Jardine, leaving the party again to await their report and return, the cattle being in charge of Scrutton. 'February' 25.--There was an early start this morning, but the little party did not make much headway that day, for after two miles of boggy brushwood country their progress was suddenly arrested by a sea of water, the overflow of a large creek, the outline of which could be traced by a fringe of dark green foliaged trees. Some fruitless attempts were made to cross it at different points. At the narrowest part they could find, on running it down at a spot where the channel was hemmed in by ridges on either side, it was still half-a-mile wide, and running very strongly in the actual channel. They therefore had to resign themselves to wait patiently till the flood went down, apparently not a near prospect, for the rain still continued to drizzle unceasingly. After hunting about for some time they were fortunate enough to find a good dry camp when turning out, they disposed themselves to await the subsidence of the water, with what patience they might. The next two days were spent in hunting for the pot, and exploring for a good crossing place. In the former they met with no success, all they were able to find being a kind of wild grape, about the size of a small marble. They are black and sweet, and as Alexander Jardine describes, "very good to eat, but they take all the skin off the tongue and lips!" On the evening of the second day they had the pleasure of seeing that the creek was slowly going down, giving promise that they might be able to cross it on the morrow. 'February' 28.--This morning they had the satisfaction of seeing that the creek had fallen sufficiently to enable them to cross, but not without swimming. At the spot they chose for going over the stream was about fifteen yards wide, but the current very rapid. The horses were crossed in the usual manner, swimming with their saddles on their backs, but the rations, etc., were passed over by a different method, one which did credit to the projector. A kind of flying suspension bridge was improvised, by which they were slung to the other side, in a manner proving that necessity is the mother of invention. By attaching one end of their light tent-line to the branches of an over-hanging tree on the hither side, and the other end to a butt on the opposite bank, the "swag" slid down by its own gravity, and was safely crossed. Their 'impedimenta' were thus safely transported to the opposite bank, the whole process occupying about an hour. They were well re-paid for their long patience, for immediately on attaining the other side, the country changed into good sound well-grassed stringy-bark ridges, which continued throughout the whole stage, with the exception of a few broad tea-tree gullies. They encamped at about 10 miles. Poor old Eulah experienced to-day, what he felt was a cruel disappointment. Just before getting into camp he espied what he supposed to be a fresh turkey's nest (the 'Talegalla Lathami'); jumping off his horse, he eagerly commenced rooting it up, expecting to be rewarded by a fine haul of eggs. These, as is the habit of that bird, were deposited in a large mound formed of sticks, earth, and leaves. His disappointment and disgust were equal, and his language forcible and deep, on finding that he had been anticipated--the big mound was the abode of emptiness. The mystery was cleared up on going on a little way, when they found a black's camp about two days old, where the egg-chips shewed that the occupants had enjoyed Eulah's anticipated feed, the piccaninnies probably amusing themselves afterwards by filling up the nest to its original appearance. In the evening, whilst Alexander Jardine, was preparing the frugal supper (they generally ate their jerked meet raw, but on this occasion he was cooking it for a change), the Leader and Eulah walked to the top of a small sandy conical hill, about half-a-mile distant, when climbing the highest tree, they could find, they were rewarded by a fine view of Newcastle Bay, on the south-east of the bight, on which they were now camped. They had also the great satisfaction of finding that they had at last headed the Escape River. 'March' 1.--"A nasty wet morning." The trio started early, thinking it quite possible that they might "pull up" something or other belonging to the Settlement before night, but they kept their thoughts to themselves. They had had so many disappointments that they felt that to hazard a guess even, was a mistake. After travelling over a great deal of low scrub and brushwood, which, however, was better than boggy ground ("to be without one or the other," says Alexander Jardine "would have been too much to expect") during a heavy shower of rain, about three o'clock, whilst riding over some low sandy ridges they suddenly came on to a number of blacks, camped on the outside of a thick scrub, at a point where it abutted on a small creek. The travellers immediately unslung their carbines, very dubious however as to whether they would go off (for they were all damp,) and prepared for the customary "set-to." As hitherto, in all these encounters, they had always without any show of hostility on their part, been at once attacked, they were surprised to find the blacks, who were very numerous, bolt into the scrub, with the exception of three who stood their ground, and holding up their empty hands shewed that they were unarmed, dancing and shouting vociferously. Eulah was the first to detect what they said, and reining up called out "hold on, you hearim, that one bin yabber English." the brothers halted and listened. Sure enough they distinctly heard the savages shouting excitedly "Alico, Franco, Dzoco, Johnnie, Toby, tobacco, and other English words. It was now evident that they had met with friendly natives, who were acquainted with the Settlement, so they went forward and spoke to them. The blacks still continued to shout their shibboleth, pointing to Somerset, which they called "Kaieeby." After taking a rough inventory of the camp, without, however, finding anything that could have come from the Settlement, they started two of the most intelligent in front of them, making them understand by signs, that they wanted to be guided by the shortest route to Cape York. This they had no difficulty in doing, for they were by far the most intelligent blacks they had met with. The whole party now started forward, the sable guides piloting them over the best ground. In about 7 miles they arrived at a shallow salt-water creek, that empties itself into a northern inlet of Newcastle Bay. Here they met with a large body of unarmed blacks, who after making a great many signs, came up and presented them with some spears and wommerahs, which they had concealed in the mangroves, possibly as an earnest of peace. They also brought them a villainous compound, in some dilly-bags, a mixture of mangrove-roots and berries, pounded up into a pulp, of a yellowish color. Although it was very disagreeable to the taste, the travellers eat of it in token of confidence in their hosts, or rather to make them believe that they trusted them, for they were too well acquainted with the aboriginal nature to trust them in reality, and kept a wary though unobserved watch. The tide being in, and it being very late when the salt-water creek was reached, the Brothers determined to camp with their newly-made friends at their main camp, and accordingly followed them for about two miles, when they again hit the salt creek. Here three large canoes were moored to the mangroves, the largest was about 28 feet long, and 30 inches wide, cut out of the solid butt of some large tree, and very neatly finished. The tent was pitched, but not made much use of, for after dark the travellers left it and camped separately, each keeping vigilant watch all night. The natives spent it very differently, and, whether in honor of the whites, or in anticipation of picking their bones (it might have been either) they held high corroboree till about midnight, keeping up a fearful din, in which two large drums formed a prominent part. The name of this kind of drum is "Waropa" or "Burra Burra," and it is procured in barter or war from the Islanders of Torres Straits, who frequently visit the continent. It is neatly made of a solid piece of wood scooped out, in shape like an elongated dice box. One end is covered with the skin of a snake or iguana, the other being left open. When this instrument is played upon by a muscular and excited "nigger," a music results which seems to please him in proportion to its intensity; keeping time with these, and aiding with their voices, they kept up their wild dance varying the chant with the peculiar b-r-r-r-r-r-r-oo, of the Australian savage (a sound made by "blubbering" his thick lips over his closed teeth,) and giving to their outstretched knees the nervous tremor peculiar to the corroboree. But a corroboree, like the ball of civilized life must have an end, and at length the tired dancers sought their several lairs, leaving the whites to watch the watery moon and lurid stars, and listen to the dull plashing of the tide through the mangroves, whilst waiting for daylight. 'March' 2.--At daylight the party started forward, accompanied by a strong detachment of "black guards," who were much disgusted when the greater number of them were dismissed before they had proceeded far, no doubt wishing and expecting to share in the "bacca" or "bissiker," which would reward the pilots. Mr. Jardine selected the three they had first met as guides, who turned out capital fellows. They explained that to go straight they would have "mouro pia" much scrub, and therefore led the way along the beach, carefully shewing the horsmen the hardest places on the sands. In rounding one of the rocky headlands, Eulah's horse fell with him, causing the greatest amusement and merriment to the body-guard. To be laughed at by Myalls was nearly too much for Eulah's equanimity, and could he have had his own way he would probably have resented the insult. As it was, his ire could only find vent in deeply muttered objurgations and abuse. At about noon the party sighted the Settlement, and involuntarily pulled up to gaze at the scattered and insignificant buildings they had so long and ardently desired to see and struggled to reach, hardly realizing that the goal was at last attained; when they again moved forward theguides set up an admonitary yell, which had the effect of bringing Mr. Jardine and their brother John to the door. For a considerable time before the arrival of the overland party, Mr. Jardine had not been without some uneasiness for the success and safety of the expedition. The time for their probable arrival had long elapsed. A report had reached him by the "Salamander" from Rockingham Bay, that the party were on the Lynd, unable to move forward for want of water, and that their provision was exhausted, and finally the wet season had set in. To facilitate their endeavours in finding the Settlement (a work of more than ordinary difficulty, arising from the intricacy of the rivers and scrubby nature of the country, at the apex of the Cape York peninsula,) Mr. Jardine had cut a marked tree line for 30 miles in a south-westerly direction, meeting a similarly marked line running east and west from the head of the Kennedy to the west or Gulf Coast, a distance of about 10 miles. On the latter and on either side of the longitudinal line, trees were marked at intervals, with instructions for their course, so that the party hitting the east and west line would be guided to the junction of the first one leading into the Settlement. The east and west line, it has been seen they overran, the rapid tropical growth of the scrub having so far obliterated it as to make it difficult to notice, or find, even if sought for. Yet through any depression that might naturally be induced by the delay, whatever his fears might have been for the success of the expedition, he felt none for the safety of his sons, well knowing and relying on their dauntless pluck, energy, and fitness for the work. His parting injunction to them had been, that whatever might betide, 'they should keep together'. He knew that he would not be disobeyed, and felt firm in the faith that, should the party by misfortune be reduced to their own two selves, with only their tomahawks in their hands, they would make their way to him. Thus, firmly reliant on the qualities of his boys, he waited with patience, and his faith was well rewarded. On the morning of the 2nd of March, Mr. Jardine being employed in some matters about the house, during an "evendown" pour of rain, was disturbed by a loud shouting, and looking out saw a number of blacks running up to the place. Imagining that the Settlement was about to receive another attack, (for the little community had already had to repulse more than one,) he seized his gun, always in readiness for an "alerte" and rushed out. Instead, however, of the expected enemy, he had the pleasure of seeing his long-looked-for sons, surrounded and escorted by their sable guides. For a long time previous, the natives who visited the Settlement had been made to understand that Mr. Jardine expected his sons with horses and cattle, and had been familiarized with their names, "Franco" "Alico" as also with others such as "Somerset," "Cape York," "Salamander," and "Toby," (Mr. Jardine's well-known retreiver) the intention being that these should act as pass words when they met the party, a wise precaution, which, as it has been seen, probably prevented a collision. Thus, on nearing the Settlement the blacks set up the shouts that had alarmed him, screaming out his name Joko, Franco, Alicko, and such was the eagerness of each to prove that he (smiting himself on the breast) was "Kotaiga" or friend, pointing at the same time to the Brothers, as a witness of their truth, that it was with some difficulty that the Father could reach his sons to greet and welcome them. But for the horses they bestrode, even a father's eye might have failed to distinguish them from the blacks by whom they were surrounded. Six months of exposure to all weathers had tanned their skins, and so reduced their wardrobe, as to make their appearance primitive in the extreme, their heads being covered with a cap of emu feathers, and their feet cased in green hide mocassins. The rest of their costume was 'a l'ecossaise,' their pantaloons being reduced to the waist-bands and pockets, the legs having for a long time been matters of remembrance only. However, they were hearty and well, in high spirits, and in good case. During the hubbub caused by the tumultuous demonstrativeness of the natives, an amusing episode occurred, which is worthy of record. The attendant of Mrs. McClintock, a fine strapping girl from the Emerald Isle, whose good humour and light-heartedness in the discomforts of a new Settlement had earned her the name of cheerful Ellen, hearing the tumult outside, and seeing Mr. Jardine rush out gun in hand, imagined also that they were about to have another attack. Seizing her mistress in her arms, with more kindness than ceremony, she bore her away to her own room, where, having deposited her burden, she turned the key on her, saying, "that was no place for her whilst fighting was going on." Nor was it until she was well assured that there had been a false alarm that the kind-hearted wench released her mistress from durance. It must be left to the imagination of the reader to realize the swelling feelings of joy and pride with which the Father grasped the hands of his gallant sons. After a separation of more than ten months, his boys had found their way to him at the extremity of the Australian Continent, by a journey of over 1600 miles, whose difficulties, hardships, dangers, and escapes, have seldom been parallelled, and never been surpassed in the whole annals of exploration. Had they, like poor Lichhardt, Kennedy, or Burke and Wills, perished in the attempt, they would have been honored as heroes, and a tablet or monument would been handed down their names to posterity. As it was, thanks to a kind Providence, they were living heroes, who had sturdily accomplished their work, and brought their companions through without hurt or casualty. The modesty which is ever the attribute of true merit, will probably cause their cheeks to tinge in finding their exploits thus eulogized, but assuredly it is no exaggeration of praise to say, that they have won for themselves a lasting and honorable name in the records of Australian Exploration. CHAPTER VI. Chose Site for Station--Native Method of Using Tobacco--Return for the Cattle--The Lakes--Reach the Camp--Another Horse Dead --The Whole Party Cross the Jardine--Raft Upset--Cargo Saved-- Deserted by Guides--Final Start for Settlement--Another Horse Abandoned--Horses Knocked Up--Cattle Missing--Choppagynya-- Reach Vallack Point--Conclusion. On the afternoon of their arrival in Somerset, the Brothers, after a "slight" luncheon, in which Mr. Jardine's preserved vegetables received very particular attention, manned the whale-boat belonging to the Settlement, and pulled over the Straits to Albany Island to get fresh horses. Two were got over, but night coming on, the crossing of the rest was deferred until the next day. The Strait is three-quarters-of-a-mile wide, which, with a current running upwards of five knots an hour, makes it an exhausting swim even for a strong horse. The next morning three more horses were crossed. The five expedition horses which these re-placed were in a miserable condition. Three of them had given in on the preceding day, two miles from the township, and had to be left behind for the time. With the fresh horses the Brothers were enabled to take a look about them, and select a site for the formation of a cattle station. A convenient spot was chosen at Vallack Point, about three miles from Somerset, to which it now only remained for them to fetch up their companions and the cattle. Two days were spent in recruiting the horses, the explorers themselves, probably, enjoying the "dolce far niente" and change of diet. The black guides were not forgotten, and received their reward of biscuit and tobacco. The manner in which they use this latter is curious, and worthy of notice. Not satisfied with the ordinary "cutty" of the whites, they inhale it in volumes through a bamboo cane. The effect is a profound stupefaction, which appears to be their acme of enjoyment. On the morning of the 5th, taking with them their younger brother, John Jardine, and their two guides, Harricome and Monuwah, and the five fresh horses, in addition to their own, the Brothers started to return to the cattle party, who were anxiously awaiting their return on the banks of the flooded Jardine. The black pilots were made to understand where the camp was, and promised to take them by a good road. The first stage was to the Saltwater Creek, on which they had camped with the tribe, which they reached in about 17 miles, passing on the way, three fine lakes, Wetura, Baronto, and "Chappagynyah," at two, four, and eight miles from Somerset. The road was a fair one for the cattle, keeping along the line marked by Mr. Jardine the preceding year as before mentioned, and only presented a few light belts of scrub to go through. They were likewise enabled to choose a better crossing of the Saltwater Creek, where the swamps join and form a defined channel. The last two miles were very boggy, even the fresh and well-conditioned horses getting stuck occasionally. 'March' 6.--The camp was reached in the evening of to-day, at the end of about 22 miles, but the black pilots were of very little use, as shortly after starting they fairly got out of their latitude, and were obliged to resign the lead to the Brothers, who hit the river a little before dark, nearly opposite the camp. They found it about the same height as when first crossed, but it had been considerably higher during their absence. It being too late to cross, the party camped on their own side, and Messrs. Harricome and Monuwah swam over to see the new strangers and get a supply of beef. They returned with nearly a shoulder of a good sized steer, which entirely disappeared before morning, the whole night being devoted to feeding. The quantity of meat that a hungry native can consume is something astounding, but in this case beat anything that any of the whole party had ever seen. The natural result was a semi-torpor and a perfectly visible distention. 'March' 7.--This morning the Brothers crossed over to the camp, when they had the satisfaction of finding, on counting the cattle, that a number were away, and when the horses were tried, two of them were found missing, besides one that had died during their absence, "Lady Scott." They were immediately sent for, and the remainder of the party employed in preparing for the crossing, and killing a beast. A fresh raft was made with the hide capable of carrying 400 lbs. weight. The two Somerset blacks evinced a great deal of surprise at sight of the cattle, and expressed it by chirping and making various curious noises with their tongues and mouths. Accustomed chiefly to fish, herbs, and roots, the succulent beef had charms which outweighed surprise, and another night was spent in feasting on the "oddments" of the fresh killed beef. 'March' 8.--The missing cattle and horses were brought in with the exception of three, which prevented the party crossing to-day, although all was now in readiness. The river was still 200 yards wide, and running strongly, so that it was expedient to cross the whole together. 'March' 9.--The three missing cattle not having been found, the crossing operations were commenced at mid-day. The width and appearance of the river made it difficult to make the cattle face it, but they were all safely crossed after a little time, with the exception of one, which broke away, and could not be recovered. The pack-horses were then put over, which was easily accomplished, and it then only remained to cross the packs and baggage. The raft answered admirably, and everything was ferried over in safety, till the last cargo, when a little adventure occurred, which nearly cost the life of one of the party. Cowderoy, being unable to swim, had to be taken across holding on to the raft, and was, therefore, left to the last; all went well with him until within 30 yards of the bank, when, whether from trepidation, induced by visions of alligators (with which the river indeed abounds), or from an attempt to strike out independently, he "succeeded" in upsetting and sinking the raft, and was with some difficulty got to the shore "quitte pour la peur." In truth it requires some nerve for a man who can't swim to cross a wide and rapid river. Without a confiding trust in the means adopted for his transport, a catastrophe is not an unlikely result. The writer has known instances of persons crossing broad rivers supported by a spear held between two blacks, by holding on to a bullock's tail, and even sitting on a horse's back, but in every case the success of the attempt depends almost entirely on the coolness of the individual, and even with this essential, he has known some fatal cases, so that Cowderoy might congratulate himself on his safe transit. The packs, etc., which formed the last cargo, were recovered after some time, the distance from the shore being slight, and Cowderoy soon recovered his accustomed good humor. By four o'clock everything had been crossed in safety, save the four beasts before mentioned; but on camping for the night it was found that the guides had decamped, their unwonted high feeding, having, no doubt, induced an indisposition to work, a result not confined to blacks alone. 'March' 10.--This morning the "Cowal," or watercourse, which had detained the Brothers on their first trip, had to be swum over, and here poor Ginger, one of the horses, got hopelessly bogged, and though got out and put on his legs with saplings, was too exhausted to go on,and had to be abandoned. The distance accomplished was 11 miles. 'March' 11.--The line marked by Mr. Jardine was followed to-day. A scrub occurred on a creek called Wommerah Creek, through which it took two hours to drive the cattle. Only 10 miles were made, and the camp was pitched at about 4 miles from the mouth of the creek where the corroboree was held. Three horses were knocked up during the day, which prevented their gotting as far as intended. 'March' 12.--On counting the cattle it was found that 30 head had been dropped in coming through the scrub at Wommerah Creek. Two of the black-boys were sent after them, and the Brothers went out to find a crossing-place over Ranura Creek, (their last camp in Somerset.) Here they met the same tribe, (known as Wognie's,) and bartered "bacca" and "bissika," against "moro wappi," or fish, with which the camp was plentifully supplied in the evening. The cattle were recovered all but five. The country is described as being composed of ridges of white and red sand, intersected by swamps of tea-tree, pandanus, and banksia, the crest of the ridges being generally surmounted by a patch of scrub. The timber, bloodwood, mahogany, stringy-bark, and nonda. 'March' 13.--A late start was made to-day, for some of the horses were away. The camp was formed on the banks of the lake before-mentioned, 8 miles from Somerset, Chappagynyah, which is described as teeming with crocodiles. tThe next day the party reached their final resting place, probably not without some exhiliration in feeling that their journey was over. They were met at Baronto, by Mr. Jardine, who had ridden out from Somerset for the purpose. The camp was established at Vallack Point, where the wearied horses and cattle at length found rest, whilst their drivers were able to indulge in the unwonted luxuries of regular feeding and uninterrupted sleep: luxuries which few but those who have experienced hunger and broken rest can fully appreciate. They had been on the road for 5 months, travelled over 1600 miles, the last 250 of which were, as we have seen, performed on foot, and by most of the party barefooted, whilst for the last four weeks their food had consisted chiefly of jerked veal, fish without salt, and the wild fruits and herbs they might find in the bush. In addition to the distance travelled over by the whole party, and over which the cattle were driven, the Brothers traversed more than 1200 miles in their exploratory trips ahead, looking for the lost horses, etc. Alexander Jardine's journey down the Einasleih alone amounted to little less than 300. It may be imagined, therefore, that the return to the habits and fare of civilized life must have been an agreeable change. After an interval employed by the Brothers in forming a station at Vallack Point, they returned with their father to Brisbane, in H.M.S. Salamander, leaving their younger brother, John, in charge of the newly-formed station, where the cattle were doing well. Mr. Richardson left in the same vessel, and on arriving in Brisbane immediately set to work to chart the route. Having every facility at hand in the office of the Surveyor-General, the error of the river Lynd was rectified, and a map compiled, shewing the route, from which that now presented to the reader has been reduced. A glance at it will shew that a large tract of unexplored country exists between the track of the Jardines and that of Kennedy, which affords ample scope for, and may possibly repay future explorations. Already stock is on the road to occupy country on the lower Einasleih, and it is not improbable that before long the rich valley of the Archer will add its share to the pastoral wealth of Queensland. FINIS. *** [Plate: SOMERSET CAPE YORK. Lithograph.] APPENDIX THE MELALEUCA ('Tea-tree Gum M. Leucodendron.') This tree, of which there are several varieties, is very common to Northern Australia; the drooping kind ('Melaleuca Leucodendron'), occupying the beds and margins of the rivers, where its long pendant branches weeps the stream, as does the graceful willow of Europe. Its bark is in thin paper-like layers, whilst its leaves are like that of the gum, but thinner and straighter. It is remarkable for containing an extraordinary quantity of brackish water, which pours out in a torrent, when the bark is cut through, to the extent of from a quart to a gallon. Another variety is found chiefly in flat sandy country and shallow swamps. It is much smaller than that of the rivers, and the leaves broader, stiff, and upright, its blossoms nearly the same. It is indifferently called weeping gum, tea-tree gum, and tea-tree, although it is in no way allied to the latter. It is with the upright kind that the arid levels of the Staaten are chiefly timbered. GARRAWAN. This scrub, one of the numerous family of accacia, which together with the pandanus, gave the travellers so much annoyance on their journey, occupies a large extent of country about the Richardson range, from the Batavia to Cape York. It much resembles, and is probably identical with that which grows in the neighbourhood of Sydney, to the appearance of which, indeed, that part of the Peninsula closely resembles. FLOCK PIGEON OF THE GULF ('Phaps Histrionica.') These beautiful pigeons which are alluded to by Leichhardt, are at certain seasons found in immense flocks in the plain country about the Gulf of Carpentaria. Their range is wide, as in 1846 they appeared in flocks of countless multitudes on the Murrimbidgee River, N.S.W., probably driven from their usual regions by drought. They are described and figured in Mr. Gould's great work on the Australian birds. THE EINASLEIH. This river was erroneously supposed by its first settlers to be the Lynd of Leichhardt. That such was not the case, was proved by Alexander Jardine, who traced it down for 180 miles from Carpentaria Downs, when he turned back, within about a day's stage of its junction with the Gilbert, fully satisfied that it could not be the Lynd. Since then it has, I believe, been traced into the Gilbert, and thence to the Gulf. Its importance would lead to the supposition that it was the principal branch of the Gilbert. There is an excellent cattle country on the lower part, as described in the text which has probably ere this been occupied by our pioneers. THE NONDA ('Parinarium Nonda. F. Mueller.') This tree so named by Leichhardt's black-boys (described in Bentham's 'Flora Australiensis'), is very abundant north of the Einasleih, which is possibly the extreme latitude of its zone south. It formed an important accession to the food of the party, and it is highly probable that their good health may be attributable to the quantity of fruit, of which this was the principal, which they were able to procure, there being no case of scurvy during the journey, a distemper frequently engendering in settled districts, when there is no possibility of varying the diet with vegetables. The foliage of the tree is described as of a bright green, the fruit very abundant, and much eaten by the natives. It is of about the size and appearance of a yellow egg plum, and in taste like a mealy potatoe, with, however, a trace of that astringency so common to Australian wild fruits. The wood is well adapted for building purposes. BURDEKIN DUCK ('Tadorna Raja'). This beautiful species of shelldrake, though not numerous, has a wide range, extending from the richmond river to Cape York. It frequents the more open flats at the mouths of rivers and creeks. THE NATIVE BEE. This little insect (called Wirotheree in the Wellington dialect), the invasion of whose hoards so frequently added to the store of the travellers, and no doubt assisted largely in maintaining their health, is very different from the European bee, being in size and appearance like the common house-fly. It deposits its honey in trees and logs, without any regular comb, as in the case of the former. These deposits are familiarly known in the colony as "sugar bags," (sugar bag meaning, aboriginice, anything sweet), and require some experience and proficiency to detect and secure the aperture by which the bees enter the trees, being undistinguishable to an unpractised eye. The quantity of honey is sometimes very large, amounting to several quarts. Enough was found on one occasion to more than satisfy the whole party. Its flavor differs from that of European honey almost as much as the bee does in appearance, being more aromatic than the latter: it is also less crystalline. As the celebrated "Narbonne honey" derives its excellence from the bees feeding on the wild thyme of the south of France, so does the Australian honey derive its superior flavour from the aromatic flowers and shrubs on which the Wirotheree feeds, and which makes it preferred by many to the European. THE APPLE-GUM ('Angophora?') I have been at some pains to discover to what species this tree belongs, but further than that it is one of the almost universal family of the Eucalypti, have not been able to identify it. As mentioned in the text, it was found very valuable for forging purposes by the Brothers, who were able to bring their horse-shoes almost to a white heat by using it. It is like box in appearance, and very hard. TERRY'S BREECH-LOADERS. This formidable weapon can hardly receive too high a commendation, and to its telling efficiency is probably attributable the absence of any casualty to the party in their many encounters with the savages. Not only for its long range is it valuable, but for its superior certainty in damp or wet weather, its charge remaining uninjured after days and weeks of interval, and even after immersion in water, making it available when an ordinary piece would be useless. The effect of the conical bullet too is much more sure and complete, which, when arms 'must' be resorted to, is of great importance. THE MARAMIE. This shell-fish is to be found in almost all the Australian rivers and lagoons. It is in size and appearance very much like the little cray-fish or "Ecrevisses" which usually garnish the "Vol-au-vent" of Parisian cookery, and of very delicate flavor. SPINIGEX, Spear Grass, Needle Grass, or "Saucy Jack" ('Triodia Irritans.') This grass, so well known to all Australian travellers, is a certain indication of a sandy sterile country. The spinifex found in the Mally scrubs of the south attains a great size, generally assuming the appearance of a large tuft or bush from one to two feet in diameter, and twelve to eighteen inches high. When old, its sharp points, like those of so many immense darning needles set on end at different angles, are especially annoying to horses, who never touch it as food, except when forced by starvation. In Northern Queensland the present species is found abundantly from Peak Downs to Cape York. FIVE CORNERS ('Stypelia?') This fruit is well known and very common in the neighbourhood of Sydney, and was found in the scrubby region about the Richardson Range, which, as before mentioned, is of similar character to that description of country. It does not, so far as I am aware, exist in any other part of Queensland. THE NATIVE PLUM ('Owenia.') This tree, of which there are several species, ('Owenia Cerasifera' and 'Owenia Vanessa' being most common in Queensland), is found along the whole of the east coast, as far south as the Burnett, and is one of the handsomest of Australian forest trees. Its purple fruit has a pleasant acid flavor, and is probably a good anti-scorbutic. It is best eaten after having been buried in the ground for a few days, as is the custom of the natives. The stone is peculiar, having much the shape of a fluted pudding basin. The timber is handsomely grained and is of durable quality. On the subjects of the fruits, edible plants, and roots of Queensland, Mr. Anthelme Thozet, of Rockhampton, whose name is well and deservedly known to Botanists, has been at great pains to prepare for the approaching Exhibition at Paris, a classified table of all that are known as consumed by the natives raw and prepared, and to his enthusiastic attention to the subject, we are indebted for the possession of a large and important list, a knowledge of which would enable travellers in the wilds of the colony to support themselves from their natural productions alone, in cases where their provision was exhausted. THE CALAMUS ('Calamus Australis.) This plant belongs to a genuis of palms, the different species of which yield the rattan canes of commerce. Its form in the scrubs of the Cape York Peninsula is long and creeping, forming a net work of vines very formidable to progress. THE PITCHER PLANT ('Nepenthes Kennedyana.') This interesting plant was first noticed to the north of the Batavia River, and is common to the swamps of the peninsula. It has been described and named in honor of the unfortunate Kennedy, who first noticed it. THE FERGUSON OR STAATEN. This stream, whose arid banks Mr. Jardine was forced to trace to the sea, in consequence of the sterility and waterless character of the levels to the northward, is neverthless of some importance. Like most of the northern rivers, it is a torrent stream, whose bed is insufficient to carry off its waters during the flooded season, causing the formation of lagoons, back-waters, and ana-branches, and yet in the dry months, containing only a thread of water trickling along a waste of sand, sometimes three or four hundred yards wide, and at intervals loosing itself and running under the surface. Should the northern branch which was seen to join amongst the ana-branches near its debouchure prove to be the larger stream, that followed by the party might still retain the name of "the Ferguson," given to it by the Brothers, in honor of the governor of Queensland. It receives Cockburn Creek, one of importance, which, just before joining it, receives the waters of another large creek from the south, which was supposed to be Byerley Creek, but this as mentioned in the text, is unlikely, for when the Brothers were in quest of the Lynd (which they never reached at all) they left Byerley Creek trending to the south, at a point considerably to the west of the longitude of that influence. It is more probable, therefore, that Byerley Creek is a tributary of either the Einasleih or Gilbert, or that it is an independant stream altogether, running into the Gulf between the Gilbert and Staaten rivers. It appears unlikely also that any practicable route for stock will be discovered between the coast which Mr. Jardine skirted, and the heads of the rivers Staaten, Lynd, Mitchell, and Batavia. The interval between Kennedy's track and that of the Brothers has yet to be explored, when the best line will probably be found nearer to the former than the latter, for the country between the Staaten and Mitchell near their sources has been proven to be a barren and waterless waste, the good country only commencing beyond the Mitchell, and forming the valley of the Archer, but terminating about the Coen. FATE OF THE MULE. The fate of the unfortunate mule, whose loss was amongst the most severely felt of the journey, has come to light in rather an interesting manner. In a late letter from Cape York, Mr. Frank Jardine mentions that some natives had visited the Settlement at Somerset, amongst whom were seen some of the articles carried in the mule's pack bags. On questioning them he found that they were familiar with all the incidents of the journey, many of which they described minutely. The mule had been found dead, having shared the fate of Lucifer and Deceiver, and perished from thirst, and his packs of course ransacked. They had watched the formation of the Cache, when the party abandoned the heaviest articles of the equipment, and in like manner ransacked it. These blacks must have travelled nearly 500 miles, for the Staaten is nearly 450 miles in a straight line from Somerset, and were probably amongst those who dogged the steps of the party so perseveringly to within 100 miles of Cape York, frequently attacking it as described. From their accounts it appears that the expedition owed much of its safety to their horses, of which the blacks stood in great dread. They described minutely the disasters of the poison camp on the Batavia, particularising the fact of Frank Jardine having shot one of the poisoned horses, his favourite, with his revolver, their start on foot, and other things. From this is would appear that they closely watched and hung on to the steps of the party, though only occasionally daring to attack them; and proves that but for the unceasing and untiring vigilence of the Brothers, and their prompt action when attacked, the party would in all probability have been destroyed piece meal. The utter faithlessness, treachery, and savage nature of the northern natives is shown by their having twice attempted to surprise the settlement whilst Mr. Jardine, senior, was resident there, although they had been treated with every kindness from the first. In these encounters two of the marines were wounded, one of whom has since died from the effects, whilst others had narrow escapes, John Jardine, junr. having had a four-pronged spear whistle within two inches of his neck. Since then they have not ceased to molest the cattle, and in an encounter they wounded Mr. Scrutton. They have utilized their intercourse with the whites so far as to improve the quality of their spears by tipping them with iron, a piece of fencing wire, 18 inches long, having been found on one taken from them on a late occasion. In his last letter Frank Jardine mentions an encounter with a "friendly" native detected in the act of spearing cattle, in which he had a narrow escape of losing his life, and states that, despite their professions of friendship, they are always on the watch for mischief. It is evident therefore, that no terms can safely be held with a race who know no law but their own cowardly impulse of evil, and that an active and watchful force of bushmen well acquainted with savage warfare is necessary to secure the safety of the young settlement. For a description of the habits and the character of the Australian and Papuan races, which people the Peninsula and the adjacent islands of Torres Straits, the reader is referred to the interesting narrative of the voyage of the Rattlesnake, by Mr. John McGillivray, in which the subject is ably and exhaustively treated, and which leaves but little to add by succeeding writers. THE MIDAMO. The "villanous compound, a mixture of mangrove roots and berries," which was presented to the explorers by the friendly natives as a peace-offering on first meeting them near Somerset, was probably what is described as the "Midamo" in Mr. Anthelme Thozets' valuable pamphlet already alluded to above on "the roots, tubers, bulbs, and fruits used as vegetable food by the aboriginals of Northern Queensland." The midamo is made by baking the root of the common mangrove ('Avicennia Tomentosa'), which is called Egaie by the tribes of Cleveland Bay, and Tagon-Tagon by those of Rockhampton. Its preparation is described at page 13. _____________ SOMERSET. A description of the settlement at Port Albany, Cape York, at the time of the arrival of the Brothers has been carefully drawn up in the shape of a report to the Colonial Secretary of Queenslandby Mr. Jardine. It is so full and interesting that I cannot do better than publish it in extenso. It first appeared in the 'Queensland Daily Guardian' of 24th June, 1865. A letter from Mr. Jardine to Sir George Bowen, reporting the arrival of the sons, and epitomising the events of the journey, together with the report of Dr. Haran, R.N., Surgeon in charge of the detachment of Royal Marines, on the climate of Cape York, showing its great salubrity, are also added:-- PORT ALBANY. Somerset, March 1st, 1865. Sir,--My former reports to you having been, to a certain extent, necessarily taken up with matters of detail in reference to the formation of the new settlement of Somerset, and that object being now in such a state of completion as to enable me to say that it is fairly established, so far as the comfort and safety of the present residents are concerned, I now do myself the honor to lay before you the result of such general observations as I have been able to make on what may be termed general matters of interest. 2. The portion of the country to which my observations will particularly apply is that which, I think, may correctly be termed the "York Peninsula proper," and comprises the land lying to the northward of a line drawn from the estuary of the Kennedy River, at the head of Newcastle Bay, to the opposite or north-west coast. The general course of the Kennedy River runs in this line, and from the head of the tideway to the north-west coast the breadth of land does not exceed six miles. The mouth of the river falling into the sea a short distance to the southward of Barn Island will be nearly met by the western extremity of this line. 3. The land on the neck thus formed presents singular features. There is no defined or visible water shed; a succession of low irregular ridges, divided by swampy flats, extends from coast to coast, and the sources of the streams running into either overlap in a most puzzling manner. The large ant-hills which are spread over the whole of this country may be taken as sure indicators of the nature of the soils; on the ridges a reddish sandy loam, intermixed with iron-stone gravel, prevails; on the flats a thin layer of decomposed vegetable matter overlays a white sand, bearing 'Melaleuca' and 'Pandanus', with a heavy undergrowth of a plant much resembling tall heath. Nearly every flat has its stream of clear water; the elegant "pitcher" plant grows abundantly on the margins. The timber is poor and stunted, chiefly bloodwood and 'grevillea'; and the grass is coarse and wiry. 4. Leaving this neck of barren and uninteresting country, the land to the northward rises, and a distinct division or spine is formed, ending in Cape York. From it, on either side, spurs run down to the coast, frequently ending in abrupt precipices overhanging the sea; in other places gradually declining to the narrow belt of flat land which occasionally borders the shore. The formation is, I may say, entirely sandstone, overlaid in many places by a layer of lava-like ironstone. Porphyry occurs occasionally in large masses, split and standing erect in large columns, at a distance resembling basalt. The sandstone is of the coarsest quality, almost a conglomerate, and is soft and friable; exposure to the air might probably harden it if quarried, when it would be available for rough building. The ridges, with very few exceptions, are topped with large blocks of ferruginous sandstone, irregularly cast about, and are covered with a thick scrub, laced and woven together with a variety of vines and climbers, while the small valleys intervening bear a strong growth of tall grass, through which numerous creeping plants twine in all directions, some of them bearing beautiful flowers. Among them I may particularise two species of 'Ipomea', which I believe to be undescribed, and a vine-like plant, bearing clusters of fruit much resembling in appearance black Hambro Grapes, wholesome and pleasant to the taste. The scrubs are formed of an immense variety of trees and shrubs, far too numerous for me toname, were I able to do so. Some of them have fine foliage, and bear handsome flowers and agreeably tasted fruit, and would form most ornamental additions to our southern gardens and pleasure grounds. Several species of the numerous climbing plants produce a fine and strong fibre, from which the natives make their fishing lines. Some fine varieties of palm are found on the moister lands near the creeks, two especially elegant, a 'Seaforthia' and a 'Caryota'. A wild banana, with small but good fruit, is also found in such localities. On the open grounds the bloodwood, Moreton Bay ash, and a strong growing acacia are the principal trees. Timber for building is scarce, and of very indifferent quality. The iron-bark and pine are unknown here. 5. The soil on these grounds is a reddish loam, more or less sandy, and thinly covered with a coarse ironstone gravel. Much of the ironstone has a strong magnetic property--so much so as to suspend a needle; and it was found a great inconvenience by Mr. Surveyor Wilson, from its action on the instruments. As the land descends, the soil becomes more sandy. Near the creek patches with a considerable mixture of vegetable loam are found, which would be suitable for the growth of vegetables, bananas, etc. The grass is generally long and coarse, and soon after the rainy season ceases becomes, under the influence of the strong south-east winds, withered and dry. Horses and cattle keep their condition fairly, but sheep do not thrive; the country is quite unsuited to them. Goats may be kept with advantage; and pigs find an abundant supply of food in the scrubs and swamps. 6. In the Zoology of the district, the careful researches of Mr. M'Gillivray--the naturalist attached to H.M.'s surveying ship Rattlesnake--have left little room for the discovery of many positive novelties. I have, however, been able to note many interesting facts in the economy and habits of the birds, especially such as relate to their migration. Several of the species found here are season visitors of New South Wales, and it is interesting to compare the times of their arrival and departure in this place with those in the southern colony. 7. The animals afford small variety. The dingo, or native dog, four species of the smaller kangaroos, and two other marsupials are found. One, an elegant little squirrel-like opossum, striped lengthways with black and white, I believe to be new. 8. The birds are more plentiful. My collection comprises more than one hundred species of land birds, many of them remarkable for beauty of plumage, and peculiarity of form, structure, and habit. Among them the most remarkable are the great black macaw, ('Microglossus Atterrimus') the magnificent rifle bird, ('Ptiloris Magnifica') and the rare and beautiful wood kingfisher, ('Tan Ts-ptera Sylvia'). The latter first made its appearance here on the 30th of November last. On the afternoon and night of the 28th and the 29th of that month there was a heavy storm of rain, with wind from the north-east, and the next morning the bush along the shore was ringing with the cries of the new arrivals. To my constant enquiries of the blacks for this bird, I was always told by them that when the wind and rain came from the north-west the birds would come, and their prediction was verified to the letter. They also say the birds come from "Dowdui" (New Guinea). I think this probable, as several of the birds described by the French naturalist, M. Lesson, as found by him in New Guinea have also appeared here for the breeding season. The 'Megapodius Tumulus' is also worthy of mention, on account of the surprising structure of its nest. The mound resembles, and is composed of the same materials as that of the brush turkey ('Talegulla'), but is very much larger in size. Some that I have measured are upwards of thirty (30) feet in diameter at the base, and rise at the natural angle to a height of fifteen (15) feet or more. It is wonderful how birds so comparitively diminutive can accumulate so large a pile. These birds live in pairs, and several pairs use the same mound. The eggs are deposited at a depth of from one to three feet; the heat at that depth is very great, more than the hand can bear for any length of time. I cannot say whether the young, when released from the mounds, are tended by the parents; they, however, return and roost in the mounds at night. The flesh of the 'Megapodius' is dark and flavorless, being a mass of hard muscle and sinew. birds, which may be called game, are not numerous. The brush turkey ('Talegalla'), the 'Megapodius', several species of pigeon, with a few ducks and quail, comprise the whole. 9.--Fish are in abundance, and in great varieties; some of them of strange form and singular brilliancy of coloring. The grey mullet, the bream--a fish much resembling in general appearance the English pike--and several others, are excellent eating. 10.--Three species of turtle are plentiful during the season, that is, the period when they approach the shores to deposit their eggs, the green, the hawksbill, and another species, which grow to a much larger size than either of the above. The natives take large numbers of the former; indeed, from the month of November till February turtle forms their principal food. The green turtle are taken in the water by the blacks, who display great address in "turning" them; they are approached when asleep on the surface; the black slips gently from his canoe and disappears under water, and rising beneath the animal, by a sudden effort turns it on its back, and by a strong wrench to the fore flipper disables it from swimming. The fisherman is assisted by his companions in the canoe, and a line is secured to the turtle. This is hazardous sport, and deep wounds are frequently inflicted by the sharp edges of the shells, which in the female turtle are very sharp. A singular mode of taking the hawksbill turtle is followed by the natives here. This custom, though said to be known so long back as the time of the discovery of America by Columbus, is so strangely interesting that I will give a short account of it, as I have seen it practised. A species of sucking fish ('Remora') is used. On the occasion to which I allude two of these were caught by the blacks in the small pools in a coral reef, care being taken 'not to injure them'. They were laid in the bottom of the canoe, and covered over with wet sea weed--a strong fishing line having been previously fastened to the tail of each. Four men went in the canoe; one steering with a paddle in the stern, one paddling on either side, and one in the fore-part looking out for the turtle and attending to the fishing lines, while I sat on a sort of stage fixed midship supported by the outrigger poles. The day was very calm and warm, and the canoe was allowed to drift with the current, which runs very strong on these shores. a small turtle was seen, and the sucking fish was put into the water. At first it swam lazily about, apparently recovering the strength which it had lost by removal from its native element; but presently it swam slowly in the direction of the turtle till out of sight; in a very short time the line was rapidly carried out, there was a jerk, and the turtle was fast. The line was handled gently for two or three minutes, the steersman causing the canoe to follow the course of the turtle with great dexterity. It was soon exhausted and hauled up to the canoe. It was a small turtle, weighing a little under forty pounds (40 lbs.), but the sucking fish adhered so tenaciously to it as to raise it from the ground when held up by the tail, and this some time after being taken out of the water. A strong breeze coming on, the canoe had to seek the shore without any more sport. I have seen turtle weighing more than one hundred (100) pounds, which had been taken in the manner described. Though large numbers of the hawksbill turtles are taken by the Cape York natives, it is very difficult to procure the shell from them; they are either too lazy to save it, or if they do so, it is bartered to the Islanders of Torres' Straits, who use it for making masks and other ornaments. 11. Although there is a considerable variety of reptiles, snakes do not appear to be very numerous. The common brown snake and death-adder are found; carpet snakes (a kind of 'boa'), appear to be the most common, and grow to a large size. They have been very troublesome by killing our poultry at night. They seem to be bloodthirsty creatures, frequently killing much larger animals than they can possibly swallow, and are not satisfied with one victim at a time. One which was killed in my fowl-house had three half grown chickens compressed in its folds and held one in its jaws. A short time since I was roused in the middle of the night by the piteous cries of a young kangaroo dog, and on running out found it rolling on the ground in the coils of a large carpet snake. The dog was severely bitten in the loin, but in the morning was quite well, proving that the bite of this reptile is innocuous. This snake measured nearly twelve feet in length. 12. Crocodiles are found in numbers in the Kennedy River and a lagoon, which has communication with its estuary. They are also seen occasionally in the bays in Albany Passage. 13. Of the aborigines of Cape York I can say little more than has already been so often repeated in descriptions of the natives of other parts of the Australian continent. The only distinction that I can perceive, is that they appear to be in a lower state of degradation, mentally and physically, than any of the Australian aboriginal tribes which I have seen. Tall well-made men are occasionally seen; but these almost invariably show decided traces of a Papuan or new Guinea origin, being easly distinguished by the "thrum" like appearance of the hair, which is of a somewhat reddish tinge, occasioned no doubt by constant exposure to the sun and weather. The color of their skin is also much lighter, in some individuals approaching almost to a copper color. The true Australian aborigines are perfectly black, with generally woolly heads of hair; I have however, observed some with straight hair and features prominent, and of a strong Jewish cast. The body is marked on each shoulder with a shield-like device, and on each breast is generally a mark in shape of a heart, very neatly executed. The large cicatrices which appear on the bodies of the tribes of Southern Australia are not used here; nor is a front tooth taken out at the age of puberty. The 'septum' of the nose is pierced, and the crescent-shaped tooth, of the dugong is worn in it on state occasions; large holes are also made in the ears, and a piece of wood as large as a bottle cork, and whitened with pipe clay, is inserted in them. A practise of cutting the hair off very close is followed by both sexes, seemingly once a year, and wigs are made of the hair. These are decorated with feathers, and worn at the 'corrobories' or gatherings. The women hold, if possible, a more degraded position than that generally assigned to them among the Australian aborigines. They are indeed wretched creatures. The only covering worn by them is a narrow belt of twisted grass, with a fringe of strips of palm leaves in front. the men go entirley naked. The aborigines make no huts. In the wet weather a rude screen of leafy boughs, with palm leaves--if any happen to grow in the neighbourhood--is set up as a shelter. 14. The arms used by these natives are few and simple. Four sorts of spears, made from the suckers of a very light wood tree with large pith, headed with hard wood and generally topped with bone so as to form a point or barb, are the most common. The end of the tail of a species of ray fish is sometimes used as a point. It is serrated and brittle, and on entering any object breaks short off. It is said to be poisonous, but I do not believe such to be the case, as one of the marines stationed here was speared in the shoulder with one of these spears, and no poisonous effect was produced. The point which broke short off, however, remained in the wound, and could not be extracted for many months. The spear most commonly in use, and the most effective, has merely a head of very hard wood, from a species of acacia, scraped to a very fine sharp point. These are the only spears which can be thrown with any precision to a distance--they are sent with considerable force. I extracted two from the thigh of one of my horses; the animal had another in the shoulder, which had entered to a depth of five and a half inches. All spears are thrown with the 'wommera', or throwing stick. A rudely made stone tomahawk is in use among the Cape York natives, but it is now nearly surperseded by iron axes obtained from the Europeans. I have seen no other weapons among them; the boomerang and nulla-nulla (or club) are not known. 15. The greatest ingenuity which the natives display is in the construction and balancing of their canoes. These are formed from the trunk of the cotton tree ('Cochlospermum') hollowed out. The wood is soft and spongy, and becomes very light when dry. The canoes are sometimes more than fifty feet in length, and are each capable of containing twelve or fifteen natives. The hull is balanced and steadied in the water by two outrigger poles, laid athwart, having a float of light wood fastened across them at each end--so that it is impossible for them to upset. A stage is formed on the canoe where the outriggers cross, on which is carried the fishing gear, and, invariably, also fire. The canoes are propelled by short paddles, or a sail of palm-leaf matting when the wind is fair. Considerable nicety is also shown in the making of fishing lines and hooks. The former are made from the fibres of a species of climber very neatly twisted. The fish-hooks are made of tortoise-shell, or nails procured from wreck timber. They are without barbs, and our fish-hooks are eagerly sought for in place of them. 16. The food of the natives consists chiefly of fish, and, in the season, turtle, with roots and fruits. These latter and shell-fish it is the business of the females to collect and prepare. They may, however, be truly said to be omnivorous, for nothing comes amiss to them, and the quantity they can consume is almost incredible. I have seen them luxuriating on the half putrid liver of a large shark cast up on the beach, the little black children scooping up the filthy oil, and discussing it with apparently the greatest gusto. 17. These remarks apply to the four tribes which inhabit the territory within the limits mentioned at the commencement of this report--viz., the peninsula to the northward of the Kennedy River. These four tribes are not distinguishable from each other in any distinct peculiarity that I can perceive. They keep each to their own territory, except on the occasion of a grand "corroborie," when the whole assemble. They are at present on terms of peace nominally. Should a safe opportunity of cutting off a straggler offer, I have no doubt it would be taken advantage of. They are cowardly and treacherous in the extreme. The "Gudang" tribe, claiming the land from Cape York to Fly Point, at the entrance of Albany Pass, is small in numbers, having, I fancy, been seriously thinned by their neighbours, the "Kororegas," from the Prince of Wales' Island, in Torres' Straits, who frequently come down upon them. Paida, Mr. M'Gillivray's 'kotaiga' (friend), was not long since killed by them. The "Goomkoding" tribe, who live on the north-western shore, I have seen little of. They and the "Gudang" seem to hold most communication with the islanders of 'Torres' Straits, the intermixture of the races being evident. "Kororega" words are used by both these tribes, and the bow and arrow are sometimes seen among them, having been procured from the island. The "Yadaigan" tribe inhabit the south side of Newcastle Bay and the Kennedy River; the "Undooyamo," the north side. These two tribes are more numerous than the two first-mentioned, and appear to be of a more independant race than the others, and gave us much trouble on our first settlement, by continual thefts and otherwise. The tract of country which they inhabit is nearly covered with the densest scrub and with swamp, into which they took refuge with their booty as soon as any depredation was committed, so as to render it next to impossible for us to pursue them. These four tribes together do not number in all more than 250 to 300 men. 18. All these people are much addicted to smoking. Tobacco is used by them in preference when it can be got. Before its introduction, or when it was not procurable from Europeans, the leaves of a large spreading tree, a species of 'Eugenia', was, and is still used. These leaves must possess some strong deleterious or narcotic property. I was for some time puzzled to assign a cause for so many of the natives being scarred by burns. Nearly every one shows some marks of burning, and some of them are crippled and disfigured by fire in a frightful manner. They smoke to such excess as to become quite insensible, and in that state they fall into their camp-fires, and receive the injuries mentioned. The pipe used is a singular instrument for the purpose. It is a hollow bamboo about 2 1/2 feet long, and as thick as a quart bottle; one of the smoking party fills this in turn with smoke from a funnel-shaped bowl, in which the tobacco is placed by blowing it through a hole at one end of the tube. When filled it is handed to some one who inhales and swallows as much of the smoke as he can, passing the pipe on to his neighbour. I have seen a smoker so much affected by one dose as to lie helpless for some minutes afterwards. 19. Thus much for the general appearance and habits of the Cape York natives. A very accurate vocabulary of their language has been published by Mr. M'Gillivary in his account of the voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake. Of their superstitions I am unable to speak with certainty. That they have no belief in the existence of a Supreme Being is, I think, positive. They are, like all the Australian tribes, averse to travelling about at night if dark; this, I believe, chiefly arises from the inconvenience and difficulty of moving about at such times, and not from any superstitious fear. They travel when there is moonlight. They are true observers of the weather, and before the approach of a change move their camps so as to obtain a sheltered position. They do not seem to give the slightest thought to cause or effect, and would, I believe eat and pass away their time in a sort of trance-like apathy. Nothing appears to create surprise in them, and nothing but hunger, or the sense of immediate danger, arouses them from their listlessness. 20. I am aware of the great interest taken by his Excellency the Governor and all the members of the Government of Queensland in the promotion of missionary enterprise. I much fear, however, that the mainland here will be found but a barren field for missionary labors. One great obstacle to successful work is the unsettled nature of the people. No inducement can keep them long in one place. Certainly a missionary station might be formed on one of the neighbouring islands --Albany or Mount Adolphus Island, for instance, where some of the young natives might be kept in training, according to the system used by Bishops Selwyn and Patterson for the instruction of the Melanesians. 21. With the Kororegas or Prince of Wales Islanders, who, from constant communication with the islands to the northward, have acquired a higher degree of intelligence than the pure Australians, I believe a successful experiment could be made. Missionary enterprise beyond the protection and influence of this new settlement at Somerset would, of course, at present be attended with considerable risk. 22. To the Banks and Mulgrave Islanders in Torres' Straits, a similar remark will apply. Those people, however, seem to be of a more savage nature, although intelligent, and giving considerable attention to the cultivation of yams, bananas, etc. Both the good and bad features in their characters may, I believe, in a great measure be attributed to the strong influence exercised among them by a white man, called by the natives "Wini," who has been living there for many years. This man, who is supposed to be an escaped convict from one of the former penal settlements in Australia, no doubt considers it politic to keep Europeans from visiting the island where he resides, "Badu". The natives of Cape York hold him and the Banks Islanders generally in the greatest dread, giving me to understand that all strangers going to these islands are killed, and their heads cut off. The latter appears to be the custom of these and the neighbouring islands towards their slain enemies. 23. The natives of the islands more to the northward and eastward are said to be of milder dispositions, especially the Darnley Islanders--of whom Captain Edwards, of Sydney, who had a "Bech-de-mer" fishing establishment there during the last year, speaks in high terms as being of friendly dispositions and displaying very considerable intelligence, living in comfortable huts and cultivating yams, bananas, coconuts, etc., in considerable quantities. Among these islanders I should think missionaries might establish themselves without great difficulty, and with a satisfactory result. 24. I think that the simple fact of a settlement of Europeans being established at Cape York will very much tend to curb the savage natures of the natives, not only of the mainland, but also of the islands, and any unfortunates who may be cast among them from shipwrecked vessels will, at all events, have their lives spared; and I believe that, should such an event take place, I should soon hear of it from the natives here. The communication between the islanders and the natives of the mainland is frequent, and the rapid manner in which news is carried from tribe to tribe to great distances is astonishing. I was informed of the approach of H.M.S. Salamander on her last visit two days before her arrival here. Intelligence is conveyed by means of fires made to throw smoke up in different forms, and by messengers who perform long and rapid journeys. 25. I should like much to send one or two of the Cape York natives to Brisbane to remain there a short time. I believe that the reports which they would bring back to their tribe of the wonders seen among the white men would tend more than any other means to promote friendly feelings towards us, and to fit their minds to receive favourable impressions. 26. From what I have previously said of the soil here, it will be seen that no large portion of it is suited for agriculture. Even were the land good, the peculiar climate, which may be considered dry for eight months in the year, would not permit satisfactory cultivation to any large extent. During the rainy months, from December to April, vegetables suitable to the temperature may be grown in abundance. 27. Of the agreeableness and salubrity of the climate of Somerset, I can not speak too favorably. The wet season commenced here last year (1864) with the month of December, and continued till the latter part of March. During that time the rain was intermittent, a day or two of heavy wet being succeeded by fine weather. The winds from the north west were light, and falling away to calm in the evening and night. During this season the highest range of my thermometer was 98 degrees in the shade; but it very rarely exceeds 90 degrees, as may be seen from Dr. Haran's meteorological sheets. During the calms immediately succeeding wet the heat was disagreeable, and mosquitoes appeared, but not numerously. The nights were invariably cool. The weather for the remaining seasons of the year may be termed enjoyable. A fresh bracing breeze from the south east blows almost continually, the thermometer averaging during the day from 80 to 85 degrees. This temperature, with the cool nights, (sufficiently so to render a blanket welcome) and delightful sea bathing, prevent any of the lassitude or enervating influence so common to tropical climates elsewhere from being felt at Somerset. 28. During the time of my residence here no serious indisposition has occurred among the European residents. Occasional slight attacks of illness generally traceable to some cause, has taken place, but as far as can be judged there is no 'local malady'. There has been no symptom of fever or ague, which it was apprehended would be prevalent during the rainy season, as in other hot countries. Dr. Haran, R.N., (the naval surgeon in charge) reports very favorably of the salubrity of the climate. I have every reason to believe with Dr. Haran, that at no very distant period, when steam communication through Torres Straits shall have been establish, Somerset will be eagerly sought by invalids from the East as an excellent and accessible sanatorium. 29. At all events, there can be no doubt but that the new settlement will fulfil admirably the objects for which it was founded, 'i.e.', a port of call and harbor of refuge for trade in the dangerous navigation of Torres Straits, and a coal depot for steamers. 30. I almost fear that in the foregoing remarks it may be considered that on some subjects I have entered too much into details, while on others my notices have been too slight. I have endeavored, as much as possible, to confine myself to subjects of interest, and you may rely on my statements as the result of personal observation. Should there be any particular point on which the Government may require more specific information, I shall be most happy, if it be in my power, to afford it. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, JOHN JARDINE, P.M. ------ PORT ALBANY. OVERLAND JOURNEY OF THE MESSRS. JARDINE TO THE PORT ALBANY SETTLEMENT. Somerset, May 1, 1865. Sir,--Since the date of my last report the most important intelligence which I have to communicate is the arrival of my sons, Frank and Alexander Jardine, with their overland party, all safe and well, after an extremely arduous and toilsome journey of five months, almost entirely over country which for the greater part may be termed barren, the distance travelled over being somewhat more than 900 miles. 2. The party, consisting of my two sons and four other Europeans (including Mr. Surveyor Richardson, attached to the expedition by the Government of Queensland), with four aborigines of the Rockhampton district, made their final start from Mr. J. G. McDonald's station, Carpentaria Downs, in latitude 18 deg. 37 min 10 sec S., longitude 144 deg. 3 min 30 sec. E, (the farthest out-station on the supposed Lynd River), on the 11th of October, 1864, and reached this place on the 13th of March, ult. Rockhampton was the first point of departure, my second son leaving it, with the horses and men, on the 16th of May, 1864, making the journey for them about 1800 miles. 3. It would appear from the journals kept that a great portion of the country on the west coast of the York Peninsula, especially in the locality of the Mitchell River, is at times (I presume periodically) subject to inundation; the water, however, soon disappears from the flat and sandy land, and for the greater portion of the year, till the next rainy season, the country is destitute of water, and in other respects little better than an absolute desert. 4. It is a subject of great regret to myself, and in which I am sure you will share, that this long journey should be, so far as at present appears, productive of so poor a result to the public in developing new resources to the colony. However, a large and valuable addition to geographical information has certainly been gained; but at the same time few of the important discoveries in lands suitable for pastoral or agricultural occupation, or in minerals, etc., etc., and which might in so large a tract of country have reasonably been expected, have been made. 5. My sons have experienced a severe disappointment to their hopes and expectations in the nature of the country around, and within a reasonable distance of this place, as well as a heavy loss in prosecuting their undertaking. However at their ages, 23 and 21 respectively, the spirit is very buoyant, and they are again quite ready for another venture. Their journey, which, from the nature of the country traversed, has been one of unusual difficulty and hardship; and it is surprising to me that, hampered as they were with a herd of 250 cattle, for which providing food and water in a barren and unknown country is in itself no easy matter, they should have come through so successfully. 6. Next to the general barrenness of the country, the difficulties they had to encounter were--first, the destruction of a quantity of their supplies and gear, through the camp being carelessly permitted to catch fire during their absence in pioneering the route. Next, the determined hostility of the natives, who were almost continually on their track, annoying them on every favorable opportunity; on one occasion, the crossing of the "Mitchell," opposing them so obstinately that a considerable number were shot before they would give way. Then the loss of two-thirds of their horses (all the best) from eating some poisonous plant, and which necessitated the last 300 miles of the journey being travelled on foot; and last, the flooded state of the country during the season of the rains. And I think it is not too much for me to say, that nothing but a thorough knowledge of their business, supported by determined energy, could have carried them through what must be considered one of the most arduous tasks in exploration on record. 7. I will not attempt in the small space of a letter to give you more full particulars of the journey and its incidents. Mr. Surveyor Richardson has, of course, his journal and maps of the route as directed by the government, and from these, with the information gained by my sons in their numerous "offsets" in search of the best courses to follow, which will be placed at the disposal of the Government, I believe a pretty accurate idea of the nature of the country on the west coast of the York Peninsula may be gathered. 8. My sons have at present formed their station near Point Vallack, on the north shore of Newcastle Bay, between two or three miles from the settlement of Somerset. They are on good terms with the natives, and their black servants fraternise with them, but are kept under strict rule. The natives of Cape York from the first have shown a friendly feeling towards them, having, on their first arrival, met them about twenty miles from the settlement, and shown them the nearest way to it, and they have since been very useful in carrying timber to build huts, stockyards, etc., etc; and I believe that for the future, if well treated, they will offer no annoyance to the present settlers. The establishment of a cattle station in the neighborhood is of great advantage to the settlement, serving as an outpost to secure its safety, and in opening up the country, besides affording a ready supply of fresh meat. Already my sons and their blacks have cut good passages through the scrub to the settlement, and also through the various belts of scrub dividing their station from open grounds; so that now a large extent of country can be 'ridden' over without obstruction. 9. I have little else of importance to communicate. The affairs of this settlement have gone on slowly but steadily. The several works left unfinished are, under the charge of the acting foreman, Private Bosworth, Royal Marines, (and of whom I can speak most highly for his attention and work), completed, with the exception of the Custom House, which is well advanced. 10. The natives are on good terms with us, and work for us in various ways, being duly paid in food, tobacco, etc. 11. On the 23rd ultimo there was a slight shock of an earthquake felt distinctly by myself and other persons here. It occurred in the afternoon, about two o'clock, was accompanied by a rumbling sound, but lasted little more than a minute. The health of the royal Marines, and all other residents at the settlement, continues to be very good, as will be seen from the report of the surgeon Dr. Haran, R.N. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, JOHN JARDINE. P.M. To the Hon. the Colonial Secretary, Brisbane. *** DR. HARAN'S REPORT. Somerset, May 22, 1865. Sir, It affords me much pleasure to have again to forward to your Excellency a most favourable report of the climate of this settlement, and of the uninterrupted good health of our small community, military and civil. the dreaded summer season, with its calms, light winds and heavy rains, has passed off without causing a single case of sickness, attributable to noxious exhalations, which prevail at that season in most tropical climates, but which, in my opinion, cannot exist here, owing to the preventive causes enumerated in my letter of the 13th January last; neither have we experienced that oppressiveness of the atmosphere which its saturated condition at that season through the sun's direct influence in favoring evaporation in the surrounding seas would lead one to expect. Some slight oppressiveness was felt immediately before the rains, but speedily disappeared on their occurrence. I can only account for this valuable immunity by attributing it to some peculiarity of climate, in all probability to the same causes which counteract the evolution of noxious exhalations; for we did experience calms and very light winds, and the hygrometer during the greater part of the time indicated a very large amount of moisture in the atmosphere. 2. The meteorological sheets forwarded by this opportunity, contain full particulars regarding the winds, temperature, etc., for the last four months, and having been prepared from a series of observations, conducted with care and regularly registered, they cannot fail, amongst other important objects bearing on general climatology, to afford convincing proof that, as a climate, even during the summer season, that of Somerset, although in close proximity to the equator, possesses many advantages not attainable in higher latitudes, and is, in my opinion, from its mildness and equable character, especially suited for such as may have the misfortune to be predisposed to, or suffering from, pulmonary consumption. 3. The S.E. Trade ceased as a continuous wind in these seas on the 24th December last. Calms, light winds, from all points of the compass, but chiefly from the points between North and West to South, or against the sun's course, and heavy rains, with electric phenomena of a comparatively mild character, succeeded and persisted until the 11th of March; when the sun's more direct influence having been diverted from its course, and in a manner dissipated by the great heat and evaporation, again resumed its ascendancy, and has continued since without interruption. 4. On the 25th of January two of the Marines were seized with a severe headache and other suspicious symptoms while working in the sun during a calm; and I consider it my duty at once to recommend such alteration in the working hours as would protect the men from sun-exposure during its period of greatest heat. These alternations were adopted, and continued in force until the 22nd of March, when the former working hours were resumed, as no danger was apprehended from solar heat at any time of the day during the prevalence of the S.E. Trade wind. 5. One well-marked case of scurvy became developed at the end of January; and a few of several cases of cutaneous eruption under treatment at the time closely resembled the symptoms characteristic of that disease. the only anti-scorbutic dietary available, viz.,--preserved meats and potatoes, compressed vegetables and lemon juice, was issued at once, and continued on the salt-meat days for three weeks, when all the indications of scurvy having disappeared, the usual dietary was resumed. Since then the entire adult community have enjoyed very good health. I am, etc., T. J. HARAN, Surgeon, R.N. His Excellency, Governor Sir G.F. Bowen, G.C.M.G. JARDINE'S JOURNAL--NOTES BY THE ETEXT-MAKER. Spelling errors and typos listed below are as shown in the paper text and have been copied into the electronic text. FRONT MATTER The footnote in the INTRODUCTION does not have a referent in the text-- there is no asterisk in the text. It is not clear whether the 'settlement' it refers to as having been abandoned is at Adam Bay or in Western Australia. P ix--'loosing' instead of 'losing' P xi--re-placed CHAPTER 1 There are several words in this chapter which do not conform to today's spelling, but which appear in the paper text as copied: p 1--faciliate p 3--agreable p 5--speers p 5--Gaala Creek--(should be Galaa Creek) p 5--discription p 7--amunition CHAPTER 2 P 9--amunition P 9--earthern P 9--cheifly P 10--stoney P 10--occuring P 11--villanous P 11--vestage P 16--potatoe P 16--oppossum P 17--apparantly P 18--despatch P 18--amunition p 19--muscles--probably should be 'mussels' p 19--(about 18 miles....--no closing bracket p 23--a cawbawn saucy--should probably be 'as cawbawn.... p 23--agressors p 24--succeded p 24--'where' instead of 'were' p 24--'frighened' instead of 'frightened' p 26--emeu p 27--double and single quotes on "Ferguson,' don't match p 27--'spenifex' instead of 'spinifex' CHAPTER 3 P 30--too (too days) P 30--dilirious P 32--carcase p 32--indispensible P 32--chissel P 33--'these' should probably be 'they' p 33--pigmy P 34--agreably P 34--a-head P 35--degnified P 36--'course' instead of 'coarse' P 37--steadilly P 37--abondoned p 37--wirey P 38--cheifly p 38--seives P 38--permenantly p 39--occuring P 40 --frightended P 40--bythe (all one word) P 40--gratuitious CHAPTER 4 P 42--they (no capital on beginning of sentence) P 43--horses (no possessive apostrophe) P 43--varities P 44--varities p 44--gulley p 46--sheild p 48--agressor p 49--peices p 50--bitcher plant--(instead of pitcher plant?) p 50--pelluced -------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 5 p 59--'course sandstone'--should probably be 'coarse' p 63--a-head p 64--the latitude measurements seem to have reversed the signs for minutes and seconds in measuring latitude. I have spelled out the words. p 67--'meet' instead of 'meat' p 68--'eat' instead of 'ate' p 69--horsmen p 69--admonitary p 70--Lichhardt p 70--retreiver p 70--mocassins CHAPTER 6 p 72--distention p 73--'gotting' should be 'getting'? p 73--exhiliration APPENDIX p 75--weeps the stream--should be 'sweeps the stream'? or was the author being poetic? p 77--SPINIGEX--should be 'Spinifex' p 77--genuis--genus p 77--neverthless p 77--loosing--losing p 78--vigilence p 79--Thozets'--Thozet's p 82--easly--easily p 82--entirley p 83--surperseded 
37559	----	FERN VALE OR THE QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. A NOVEL. BY COLIN MUNRO. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL III. LONDON: T. C. NEWBY, 30 WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. MDCCCLXII. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY THE CALEDONIAN PRESS, "The National Institution for Promoting the Employment of Women in the Art of Printing." SOUTH SAINT DAVID STREET. FERN VALE. CHAPTER I. "What sport shall we devise, here in this garden, To drive away the heavy thought of care?" RICHARD II., _Act 3, Sc. 4_. Three days after that to which we brought down our narrative in the last chapter the morning broke calmly and serenely over the wooded wastes of the bush; and while the pleasant zephyr of the morning tempered the rays of the sun, as he sped his course to the zenith, a happy party of equestrians might have been seen cantering by the bridle path between Strawberry Hill and Brompton. That party consisted of our friends, Mrs., Miss, and Tom Rainsfield, and the Fergusons, accompanied by their black boy Joey. The van was led by the first named lady, accompanied by William Ferguson, while the others followed riding two abreast, having paired off in a manner most congenial to themselves. The rear was brought up by Joey and William's dogs, who coursed through the bush in seeming delight at the prospect of wearing off a little of the rust that had grown on them from their late inertness. They had ridden for nearly four hours when they slackened their speed a little as the noon-day sun became more powerful; while, at that moment, they came to a beautiful little spot where a grassy slope terminated in a lagoon, whose waters appeared to the travellers clear and refreshingly cool. Here Mrs. Rainsfield drew up her horse, and proposed a halt for tiffin; which being generally assented to, the party dismounted. The bridles of their horses being each fastened round a tree, some refreshments were produced by Tom from his valise; and the friends sat down in a shady spot on the green sward, and partook with that hearty zest that can only be appreciated by those who have been similarly situated. When perfectly refreshed they proceeded on their way, and arrived at Brompton before the close of the evening. There they were hospitably received by Mr. and Mrs. Smithers, and very graciously by Bob, who was all urbanity for the occasion. They found several of the guests had also arrived, those, who like themselves had arrived from a long distance; and the house then was as much a scene of gaiety as if it had been the grand reunion itself. The evening passed pleasantly enough; but, our object being more particularly to picture to the reader the _fêtes_ of the following day, we will draw a veil over the company for the night, and introduce them again on the morning. The morning in due time came; and was simply a repetition of those common to a Queensland summer. A cloudless sky spanned the horizon, in which the sun had a tropical brilliancy, without the scorching power incidental to most sunny climes. The air was genial and salubrious, and the balmy breeze bore on its placid wings the aroma of the surrounding acacia and mimosa. It was such a day as poets love to picture, but which, to the incredulous matter of fact denizens of "foggy England," a description only generates a confirmed and unqualified pyrrhonism. With all the exercise, however, of the scepticism of our friends in the "old country," it, nevertheless, does not diminish the lustre of such glorious sunshine as, we again repeat, is to be found nowhere in such tolerant perfection as in Queensland, and which marked the morning to which we allude. Perhaps the weather was a little warmer than usual, and the atmosphere drier; rather more so, in fact, than the settlers desired, for their rivers and creeks were getting low, and many were desiring rain to refresh their grass, and refill their water-holes and courses. However, such desideratum had no consideration with the party assembled at Brompton, whose sport at the time they seemed determined nothing should mar. The great _fête_ of the day was to be the races; and it was then that the agrarian beauties of Brompton showed to advantage. It may be remembered in an early chapter of our story we gave a cursory sketch of the station, but in the event of its topography having escaped the memory of the reader, we will again partially repeat the description. For some considerable distance down the bank of the Gibson river the land was almost perfectly level, and unusually free from timber. It was fenced off into paddocks of considerable size. Towards the centre of one of these was a swamp, from which the surrounding ground had just sufficient rise to constitute it the reservoir for the drainage of the land; while towards the river, and immediately on the bank, the land rose in a little knoll. Here then was a naturally formed race course; and, by the erection of a few posts, a course was marked out that for amenity, level, turf, and convenience of sight, it would be difficult to surpass. Towards eleven o'clock nearly all the expected guests having arrived, and the ground became a lively scene as the gay and well-mounted equestrians cantered in laughing and merry groups backwards and forwards; some few, more exhilarated or pedantic than the rest, trying the course and the mettle of their steeds. The guests of the Smitherses were not the only ones who had congregated to witness the sport. Other visitors of a more plebeian character, and self-invited, were there; all those within a circuit of some thirty miles, who by any possibility could obtain release from their work, had camped themselves in the neighbourhood to be spectators. The company had ridden over the ground, and had dispersed in all directions; when the horses "entered to run," decorated with their party-coloured rosettes, and led by their respective riders carrying their saddles, were descried coming on to the course; and speedily the scattered parties converged to the knoll we have mentioned, and which now served for a grand stand. The horses approached the post; and the necessary preliminaries having been gone through, they assumed their places; when the few of the spectative portion of the company, who still remained in the way, speedily retired, responsive to the call of "clear the course;" and, after the usual amount of "false starts," the signal was given that was unanimously acted upon, and away went the horses. Horse-racing is the same all the world over, at least in all parts of the globe where the Anglo-Saxon race holds sway. Therefore we need not tire our readers by giving a prolix account of this one in particular. We will merely say that the usual excitement prevailed at the start, when the horses and their riders received respectively their due amount of praise from their various admirers, whose bets were interchanged on the result of the struggle. That the exciting anxiousness in watching the progress round the course was there equally apparent That the various hopes and fears of the betters as they witnessed the pulling up or the falling away of their respective favourites; the intensity of excitement; the uttered remarks; and the increasing watchfulness, as some slight rise on the plain or piece of heavy ground tried the mettle of the high-blooded animals, were all to be seen and heard there; and that the other excitements of such a scene were equally noticeable. That breathless interest as the horses approach the straight run to the winning-post; the last exciting struggle of man and beast, when the impatience of the former is administered to the latter in whip and spur; the shouts of the jockeys mingled with the snorting of the steed, when both are blended in the thunder of the latter's hoofs, which shakes the very turf; while the straining animals pass the post with the seeming velocity of steam. As the panting and foam-covered horses, and exhausted-looking riders, returned to the scales, the tongues of the assemblage were loosened; the groups reunited; and, in the interval between that and the next race, cantered about; while some of the younger equestrians emulated among themselves the previous competitors. A small tent had been erected on the bank of the river for the dispensation of refreshments, and for a shady retreat for the ladies; and thither many resorted. At this period of the amusements our friends had formed themselves into a group with Mr. and Mrs. Smithers; but without Bob, who had been a rider, and was the winner of the late race. They had leisurely ridden round the course, and had returned to the stand, when Eleanor expressed to John Ferguson (in whose company she had been riding) a desire to dismount, and take a seat in the tent. He was instantly out of his saddle assisting her to the ground, and (after giving their horses in charge of a black boy) handed her to a seat in the shade. Bob Smithers, who had divested himself of his riding costume for his ordinary habiliments, then entered; and rudely brushing past John, advanced to the girl and took her hand, while he exclaimed: "Come along with me, Eleanor, I want you." The abrupt manner of his entrance, his forcible abduction of the lady, and his uncouth behaviour to himself, rather annoyed John. But the look of patient endurance, mingled with entreaty, which Eleanor cast upon her rough protector, struck our hero as containing more melancholy and suffering than was to be expected in a young affianced bride, whose nuptials were speedily approaching. It more than convinced him that his friend Tom was right when he said that Eleanor Rainsfield could never be happy with Bob Smithers. With a mind strangely agitated between fears and hopes John emerged from the tent to see the being he loved leaning on the arm of his rival, and going through the ceremony of several introductions. She freely entered into conversation with her new-made friends; but the party being augmented by some others, to whom we presume Bob Smithers did not condescend to introduce her, he led her away; and they walked arm in arm to another part of the ground, apparently in earnest discourse. She was laying her hand upon his arm, while she looked in his face, and seemed anxious to impress something upon him; while he appeared to listen attentively to her remarks, though he ever and anon burst out into a loud laugh and ejaculated a few monosyllables, which on each occasion created a faint smile on the features of his lovely companion. John Ferguson witnessed all this, and his heart sank within him. Never, thought he, would woman hang on and talk thus with man, if she did not love him. "Ah!" he mentally exclaimed, "she loves him devotedly; fool that I was not to believe this before. Strange infatuation that led me on to hope, when she herself told me as plainly as she could there was no hope. I am doomed to disappointment I see; she never can be mine, for she loves Bob Smithers." And with that melancholy solace John left the spot of his soliloquy. What was the nature of the conversation that so disturbed his peace of mind we do not deem it necessary to reveal, but we are disposed to think that our love-sick friend came to a too hasty conclusion upon the nature of the communicant's symptoms. John Ferguson was not sufficiently versed in women's little natures to be able to construe aright their motives in their actions, or the impulses that actuate them in their deportment. His dejection was, consequently, the more acute from the construction he had put upon Eleanor's conduct. It was true she was engaged to the man with whom he saw her converse, but he never dreamt to ask himself the question, if that circumstance was not, in a great measure, owing to his own dilatoriness; not to classify his supineness under a more sheepish head. He was sauntering away in his usual despondent mood when Tom Rainsfield approached him from behind, administering, as he did so, a smart slap on the shoulder, with the exclamation: "Why, John, what is the matter with you? have you been visited by a myth? for you are as white as a sheet. Come along with me, and I will give you some fun; William and I have been looking for you all over the ground;" and, without waiting for an answer or an objection, he led him off to where a party of gentlemen had assembled to witness the next race. Amongst them were Dr. Graham, Mr. Brown, and some others, which it is needless for us in our history to trouble the reader by bringing forward. When the race was finished they speedily made their arrangements for the proposed sport Tom had alluded to, which was none other than a Kangaroo hunt. Mounting their horses, accompanied by some powerful kangaroo dogs (of which William's figured not the least conspicuously), and, with as many guns as could be mustered on the station, they started into the bush in a direction where they anticipated finding game. These dogs, of which we have made mention, we may be forgiven for a short digression to describe. They are a breed of the gaze-hound species, though in many respects they are peculiar to themselves. The stock was originally obtained from a cross of the Scotch staghound and the English greyhound, and has made a race which combine in their character the strength and courage of the former with the fleetness of the latter, of whom, in colour and form, they have the greatest resemblance. At the same time they are possessed of a muscular developement which is essential to enable them to endure the severe conflicts to which they are frequently subjected. The party had not ridden far before they descried a herd of kangaroos, though not within range of shot; the guns, therefore, were instantly slung, and the dogs and riders gave chase. The kangaroo as, doubtless, our readers are perfectly aware, is anything but a graceful animal in its movements. Its fore legs are very short, and, one would think, of little use, either for ambulation or defence; but the paws are armed with strong and sharp claws, and in the diminutive limb to which they are are attached, are possessed of considerable strength, and can be used defensively with immense effect. In their propulsion, however, these crural appendages are perfectly unavailable; for the animals propel their unwieldy looking bodies by long bounding leaps on their hind legs (which are long and powerful), springing not from their feet, but by an impulsion from the whole leg, from the hock joint to the toe, the whole of which length meets the ground at every leap. In this motion, unsightly as it appears, they are very fleet, frequently distancing the hardest rider, and only being brought to bay by the dogs after a tedious chase. The kangaroos were no sooner sighted by our party than they were away, the dogs with the lead, down hills across gullies, and up slopes; through thick underwood, where the exercise of the greatest care was necessary for the rider to preserve his seat; over fallen logs, and under pendent branches; dangers frequently occuring simultaneously, overhead and under foot, and requiring the firmest seat, and the quickest eye, to avert. All these, which would make the heart of many a bold steeplechaser quail, but which are incidental to a kangaroo hunt, were successively gone through by each member of the present party; and after an hour's hard riding, the foremost horseman, who had with difficulty kept the dogs within sight, halted when they came to a stand; and the whole of the sportsmen collected to witness the fight. An "old man" kangaroo sat on his haunches in a swamp, with his back to a tree, dealing blows right and left with his epitomized limbs to those of his assailants who ventured within his reach. The kangaroo had got into water of sufficient depth to enable him to sit up in it, and guard himself in the manner we have mentioned, while the dogs were raised off their feet, and had to attack him at considerable disadvantage. They, however, were in point of number superior to the game, and the entire pack (six in number) boldly rushed to the charge. Though they were successfully beaten off on each attack, and nearly all receiving wounds that would, probably, produce scars of no mean magnitude, they as frequently rallied, and returned to the fight. After looking on for some time, and perceiving that the "old man" was too knowing for the dogs, one of the party despatched him with a shot, when he was dragged from his entrenchments, his body deprived of its tail (which was carried off as a trophy), and left for the dogs to do the work of further demolition. The hunting party then returned to the station, but, not being so hasty in their homeward progress as they were in their outward, it was late in the afternoon before they reached the scene of festivities. The company at the time was breaking up from the race-course to return to the house to dine, which important business of the day having been got over, the guests amused themselves in various ways until the hour of the _coup de main_, the grand finale--the ball. We have already explained that a short distance from the house stood the wool-shed of the station; and at the time of which we write was comparatively empty, so much so that the bales of wool waiting for transmission down the country occupied only a small space in the building, to which we will, with the kind permission of our readers, in imagination, transport them. The external appearance of "the shed" was not such as to give the beholder any very exalted idea of internal splendour; consequently, upon an entrance the eye was instantly struck with the taste and skill displayed in the ornate arrangements. The bareness of the slab walls was relieved, if not entirely concealed, by the tasteful manipulations of the foliate decorator. At the head of the room, in the midst of a collection of variously tinted green foliage of numerous forms and leaf, were displayed in letters, some with the yellow blossoms of the acacia, the magic word "love," under which was entwined, with the wild vine and the flower of the sarsaparilla, that emblem of mutual affection, a true lover's knot. Above it was a star of palm leaves and fern, radiating from a centre, which was concealed by an immense stag's horn fungus. The side walls were similarly, though not so elaborately, decorated, and on them shone forth "mirth," and "concord," accompanied by various other devices; while at the head of the room, at the feet of love, stood a piano, which had been removed from the house, to provide the "spirit of the ball." The room was illuminated by a bunch of lights, hanging from a rafter in the centre. Though simply an extemporized chandelier from the hand of a bush carpenter, it had its material so tastefully hid, by the same genius that had decorated the walls, that it answered the purpose admirably for which it was intended. If it did not surpass in effect the most brilliant crystals, it was at least pretty and unique, and, with the emerald tints in its reflection, imparted a pleasing and subdued light, which favourably contrasted its sombre illumination with the trying glare of the sumptuous city ball-room. The seats were arranged round the sides of the room, and had their rough nature concealed in the bush fashion, by being overspread with scarlet blankets, which gave them the appearance of comfortable ottomans, and afforded a pleasing relief, both visual and corporeal. The opposite end of the building was partitioned off by a suspended carpet, which, by being gathered up a little in one corner, afforded a means of entrance to what appeared to be the sanctum, but which, in fact, contained the supper and refreshment tables, duly caparisoned and loaded with the good things of this life. The guests congregated in the ball-room at an hour that would have shocked the sensibilities of English ladies of _haut-ton_. But ceremony was a thing not worth studying by the lady-guests at Brompton; they had no occasion to retire to their boudoir and spend hours in getting themselves up for the evening, or, when their personal adornments had been completed, to sit waiting until the arrival of a genteel hour, in an agony of mind lest they should mar the perfection of their soubrettes' art. Enjoyment was the order of the day at Brompton, and when it was proposed, shortly after coffee was handed round in the drawing-room, that the company should adjourn to the ball-room, the guests made the necessary transition; and in a few minutes the house was entirely vacated. The ladies of the company were for the most part married; hence we may not be accused of partiality in declaring that our two friends, Eleanor and Kate, far surpassed in beauty all their compeers, and shared between them the adulation of the sterner animals. It could not be satisfactorily determined which was the belle of the evening; for the admiration of the gentlemen was about equally apportioned, and it was difficult to decide between two such blooming beauties. We think we hear some of our readers enquire, "how were the ladies dressed?" On that point, fair mesdames, we would crave your especial indulgence. We know that is a theme on which you love to dilate; but we (though delighted to gaze upon your charming forms, graced by the alluring symmetry of your well-fitting and becoming attire) confess ourselves as ignorant as babes in the technicalities of habilimentary detail. However, thus much our observations befriended us. We can affirm that the chief characteristics of the costumes of the gentler sex were becoming neatness and chaste simplicity, without that unblushing display which we have so frequently noticed in gay circles; and which, we must confess, does not accord with our exalted idea of female modesty, innocence, and virtue. The manner of _our_ heroines was frank, candid, and gay; without frivolity, affectedness, or coquetry; and their costumes neat and ladylike. The hand of Eleanor Rainsfield was so much desired in the mazy dance that John sought in vain for an opportunity of soliciting a participation with her in the pleasures of the evening, or even of entering into conversation with her, until she had danced with nearly all the gentlemen in the room. Then, she having been led to a seat near where our despondent hero sat, he seized the occasion to ask her to dance, which she promised to do after obtaining a short rest. During the interval they fell into a sort of desultory conversation; but they were not destined long to enjoy even this intercourse; for Bob Smithers espying the occupation of his "lady-love," hastened to remove her from an influence he in no way relished. "Eleanor," said he, "I want you to dance with me." "I am engaged for the next dance, Robert," she replied. "To whom?" he asked. "To Mr. Ferguson," she answered. "Oh, never mind, you'll dance with me," said her lord. "Your engagement with me always ranks in precedence of others; and I am sure Mr. Ferguson will not mind looking for another partner." "Mr. Ferguson has been waiting until I was disengaged, Robert," said Eleanor, "on purpose to dance with me; so I must keep myself engaged to him for the next dance, but will devote the following one to you." "Well, as you like," exclaimed Bob Smithers, in none of the most amiable moods; "if you want to dance with Mr. Ferguson you can, but I wanted to dance with you myself;" and, casting a look of intense malignity on the object of his detestation, and one of equal rancour on his affianced, he strode to another part of the room. Neither look had been lost on the parties to whom they had been directed; in John they caused emotions of no pleasurable nature, whereas Eleanor treated the truculence of Smithers with a calm benignity. The moistened dewdrop, however, that gathered in the corner of her eye, discovered to the anxious and watchful perception of John Ferguson the hidden sorrow that rankled in her breast, and which she strove to smother, dreading its discovery to the world. As might be imagined, under such circumstances, the dance was gone through with mere mechanical action, and with an undisturbed silence; for the thoughts of both parties were too much occupied on matters having no immediate connexion with the operation of dancing to indulge in much conversational intercourse. Besides which they both, or at least John, was conscious of the jealous eye of Smithers following them in every movement; and therefore felt the more uncomfortable. It was a relief to both when the music ceased, and John led his partner (who expressed fatigue) to a seat; but she had hardly relinquished his arm before she was pounced upon by Bob, who, as he carried her off, scowled fiercely on his unfortunate rival. John Ferguson was of an easy temper, but no man likes being grossly insulted, and supplanted in the service of the one he loves, therefore he felt the contumely to which he was subjected; and to calm his ruffled temper, and to seek refreshment to his aching head, and an emollient to his fevered brain, he walked out into the cool of the evening atmosphere. He continued to wander, with his gaze fixed in a thoughtful abstraction on the star-lit firmament, contemplating apparently the argentuous brilliancy of the lunar orb travelling its ethereal course, when his meditations were unceremoniously interrupted by the approach of Smithers, who hastily confronted him with the following expression: "I would like to have a few words with you, sir, and if you'll step into the bush, out of hearing of our visitors, I will speak." John replied, if he desired to say anything to him, he might have no hesitation in saying it where he was; but that if he particularly wished him to step a little on one side, he had no objection to do so. Upon gaining a retreat from the possibility of being overheard Bob Smithers began: "I have to request one thing of you, sir, and that is that you discontinue your attentions to the lady to whom I am engaged. On a previous occasion I made a similar request, as also did Mr. Rainsfield; but both you seem to disregard; therefore, I have to make it to you again, and to accompany it with a peremptory order that it be complied with." "I can't see, Mr. Smithers," said John, "that because I am called upon by Mr. Rainsfield and yourself to break off my friendship with the lady, that I am of a necessity compelled to comply; so long as I am honoured by the friendship of Miss Rainsfield I shall make all your demands subservient to the dictates of my own heart. While she holds out the hand of cordiality to me I consider the privilege and pleasure accruing too great to refuse to grasp it; but if Miss Rainsfield desires our intercourse to cease, then, of course (however painful such an estrangement would be), my courtesies would be discontinued." "Well, sir," said Smithers, "I have only to repeat that they shall be discontinued at once, or I will take steps to prevent their recurrence. The lady is engaged to be married to me, and I have a right to dictate whom she shall recognize as her friends." "When you are married to the lady I shall not dispute your right," said John; "though even then, if your wife should so far honour me as to rank me among her list of friends, all your monitory language and manner would not induce me to behave cavalierly to her whenever we should chance to meet. But at present I heed not your request, unless it be reiterated by the lady herself." "That, sir," said Smithers, "you shall not have the satisfaction of hearing, and you will instantly renounce all pretensions to the lady's favours or leave the station." "The first portion of your request I have already informed you I cannot comply with; and the other, notwithstanding your gross insolence to me, I could not offer such an affront to your worthy brother and his inestimable lady, as to obey it." "Then, by heavens! you shall fight me," exclaimed the exasperated Smithers. "I'll be on this spot with pistols in ten minutes; so you may make the most of your time, and obtain a friend." CHAPTER II. "Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled; Is there no pity, no relenting Ruth?" BURNS. "But I remember now I'm in this earthly world; where to do harm Is often laudable." MACBETH, _Act_ 4, _Sc._ 2. The suddenness and hostile nature of Smithers' challenge so took John Ferguson by surprise that for some few minutes he could not utter a sound; and, when he had sufficiently recovered himself to speak, his adversary was out of hearing, on his mission to prepare the instruments of death. Left to a calm consideration of his position all its unpleasantnesses in a moment flashed across his mind. Here he was involved in a broil the result of which might prove fatal if persevered in, and with the brother of his kind entertainer. The successful suitor of the girl he adored, he was called upon to meet in deadly strife. John felt he could not leave the place to compromise his honour, and insult his host; at the same time he looked upon a hostile meeting with Bob Smithers with great repugnance. Much as he had been contemned by Bob, and many as were the indignities offered to him, John bore him no animosity; and he could not reconcile to his conscience the idea of steeping his hands in the blood of a fellow mortal; even in the act of self-defence, when that defence became culpable by his voluntary exposure. Yet he feared not death; no, he could stare the grim tyrant in the face, and unflinchingly meet his shafts. He even felt he could court his embrace now that he was to lose the only being he deemed life worth living for. "Oh! Eleanor! Eleanor!" he exclaimed. "Oh! that I had not known thee! cruel fate, that I should be drawn into the vortex of thy charms only to be suffered to estimate thy worth, and then have my hopes crushed on the rocks of despair. With thee life would be an Elysium; without thee 'tis a perpetual blank; a dismal future looms in the distance like the shades of stygian darkness. Oh, cruel fates! would that thou had'st bereft me of life while yet I breathed in the delicious dream. But yet a door of hope is left me to escape this bondage. I will meet the fire of your favourite, and let him, if he so desires it, release my wearied spirit." Thus John soliloquized as he walked back to the ball-room in a state of mind bordering on insanity, and reduced to the lowest depths of love-sick despair. But a "still, small voice" faintly prompted reason, as his agitated feelings somewhat subsided, and he ceased to apostrophize his idol, as he approached the building. He entered the room, and casually casting his eyes round the company rested them on his brother; whom, upon his obtaining an opportunity, he called out unobserved by the mass of the guests, and in a few words explained to him the incident we have just described. "But, surely, John, you do not intend to accept the challenge?" said William. "I have already done so," replied his brother. "Why, you must be demented! my dear John," exclaimed the other. "Because a coarse, blustering fellow like that chooses to insult you, and then call upon you to present your body as a mark for him to shoot at, surely you are not going to forget all respect for yourself, and commit an open violation of the laws both of God and man." "With regard to dyeing my hands in his blood you need have no fear, William," said John. "Then why sacrifice your own life?" asked his brother. "I could with very few regrets submit now to that dissolution which sooner or later must take place; but I am convinced Bob Smithers is too much a coward to attempt my life. The laws of his country will stare him in the face, and will prevent him pulling the trigger of a weapon with its muzzle directed to my body. His object is simply to frighten me away from the station, or induce me to act a coldness towards Eleanor; neither of which desires I intend to gratify, so will stand his fire." "But, dear John," exclaimed his brother, "only consider, if he should be malicious enough to attempt your life, or even to wound you, what a dreadful misfortune it would be; and what would be the anguish of our dear parents. Believe me, John, it is wiser to avoid the possibility of any such catastrophe; no dishonour can be attached to you for a refusal to comply with a barbarous custom. Pray allow yourself to be dissuaded from this meeting." "No, Will, I have no fear of the consequences. Bob Smithers will never have the courage to fire at me; and I will shame him by showing my contempt for his threats." "Well, I am grieved at your obduracy, John, for my heart has misgivings on the result." "Don't be agitated, William, but be convinced there is nothing to apprehend; and now come I have been absent some time, and he appointed ten minutes from the time of the challenge for the meeting." William, perceiving it was useless to attempt dissuading his brother from his purpose, accompanied him in silence to the spot where Bob Smithers and two friends already waited. Upon the approach of the Fergusons one of the opposite party stepped forward to John, and offered to enter into the arrangement of preliminaries with his brother, whom he presumed would act as his second. Upon John stating his brother was on the ground in that capacity William allowed himself to be led away by his co-adjutor, and followed him mechanically through his various manoeuvres; acquiescing in the arrangements, the nature of which he hardly contemplated. His mind was intent upon the iniquity of the proceedings, and he was cogitating on a scheme whereby he could obviate the necessity of having his brother's life placed in jeopardy. With this thought uppermost in his imagination he addressed himself to his companion: "It occurs to me, Mr. Brown (for it was he), that this meeting is perfectly unnecessary. My brother has consented to it without having offered any provocation to Mr. Smithers. I think the challenge was given in a moment when that gentleman was heated by his controversy, while I have no doubt he would far prefer letting the matter drop, if no stigma would be attached to him on account of retraction. If so I can answer for both my brother and myself that the affair will not travel beyond our two selves." "I fear, my dear sir," replied Brown, "it is useless making any such proposition to my principal, for he considers himself aggrieved by the pertinacity of your brother in his aspiring to the hand of Miss Rainsfield after he has repeatedly informed him that that young lady was affianced to himself. He is so considerably offended and chagrined at your brother's contumacious conduct, and his decided refusal to accede to any of the terms my principal has proposed, that he will not be disposed now to accept any other mode of satisfaction than this. If your brother thought of any amicable settlement he should have done so before; now there is only this course open." "Pray don't imagine that I am making any overture with the concurrence of my brother," said William. "He, I am sorry to say, is as determined upon this course as your principal can be; but it is that very obstinacy I lament, for I look upon the whole of this affair not only as extremely heathenish and barbarous, but incompatible with the character of gentlemen." "Your language," replied Brown, "is calculated to cast opprobrium on all those gentlemen engaged in this little matter, and requires some explanation and apology; for which, I will be glad to have a few words with you after the termination of this meeting." "Now then," shouted the unoccupied colleague of Mr. Brown, "it surely does not require all that time and talk for you two to pace out the ground. I could have settled a dozen pairs in the time you are taking there in arranging the preliminaries of one." "All right, Graham," said Brown, "we have settled it now;" and turning to William he continued: "We will draw for positions and you can place your man, while I do mine. Dr. Graham attends professionally in the event of either party falling; now then, sir, draw if you please. Oh! blank; your man takes the right:" saying which he hastened to put Smithers in position, while he left William standing seemingly rooted to the ground. John, seeing his brother's indecision, came up to him, and led him away, saying, "I suppose as Smithers has taken up that position, I am to take this. They are particularly obliging; his second has arranged me so that I shall have the moon directly in my face. Very kind of him, though he does it with a mistaken object. It will enable his principal to see to miss me; for that is what he will most desire." "Pray, John, do not let yourself be deceived," exclaimed his brother; "they mean death I am convinced, and it is not too late to come to an amicable settlement." "Nonsense, William, exhibit some degree of fortitude," said John. "I tell you again Smithers is too much a poltroon to meditate my death; though I believe if he could effect it without making himself amenable to the laws he is not wanting in the disposition." "Then, even if he does not," said William, "think how the matter will be talked about. The reports of the pistols are sure to be heard, and the occurrence will be known almost instantly; think also how it will wound Eleanor's feelings." "Tell her, William! that I was irrevocably drawn into it by Smithers contrary to my own wishes, and that I met his fire without returning it." "That is poor satisfaction for either you or her," said William "(her especially), if you come off scatheless as you anticipate, and as I hope and trust you may, having her name bandied about all over the country on the evil tongue of scandal." "There, Will! there's a good fellow! leave me now," said John, "you see they are impatient; his second is waiting for you to bring me my weapon. I had almost forgotten that, and they did not seem disposed to refresh my memory." William slowly walked across the ground, and took a pistol from the hands of Mr. Brown; and placing it within those of his brother retired to his position to await the issue of the firing. Upon the enquiry being asked if both were ready, and an affirmative being returned, the signal was given, and a report of a double discharge reverberated in the stillness of the bush. William instantly rushed to his brother, and found him standing with his right arm still extended in the air, in the position in which he had fired, while his left hand covered his eyes and features which were suffused in the purple dye. "Merciful heaven!" cried William, "my dear brother, where are you hit?" His question to John was answered in a burst of boisterous merriment from the opponents, and he hastily turned upon them to enquire the cause of their unseemly hilarity; while Smithers advanced towards his late antagonist, and replied: "See to him, he must be severely hit, for he bleeds apparently profusely." "There is a trick in this, William," said his brother. "'Tis true I am hit, but not with lead; I am blinded with what appears to me to be red currant jam." Another roar of laughter from Smithers and his friends succeeded this confession, and the perpetrators of the practical joke indulged their risibilities to the full; evidently congratulating themselves upon the success of their plans. Their self-complacency, however (at least of one of them), was brought to an abrupt termination; for as the truth of the plot flashed across the mind of William, as the instigator of the proceedings approached to witness the effects of his scurrile trick, the high-spirited youth sprang towards him, and avenged his brother's ignominy by felling the coward to the ground. Graham and Brown instantly rushed to the spot, and interposed; the former seizing William, while the latter confronted him, and stated that if there was any cause of quarrel, it could be settled in a manner befitting gentlemen; "and unless," said he, "I am mistaken in Mr. Smithers he will instantly require satisfaction for your outrageous assault." "Unhand me, sir," said William, as he shook himself from the iron grasp of the pugnacious doctor, and turning to Brown he exclaimed: "You speak, forsooth, of requiring the satisfaction of a gentleman; you and your compeers, who debase yourselves by not only countenancing an insult from your friend and patron to my brother, but by making yourselves parties to a trick which no gentleman would be guilty of. As for your prototype he has not only proved himself a blackguard by having recourse to the subterfuge of a plea of wounded honour to perform a despicable action; but a coward in taking a mean advantage of a gentleman under the hospitable roof of his brother. See, the viper actually slinks away! The derogation he intended for another reflects opprobrium on his own infamous character; and the consciousness of his venality deprives him even of the power of defence." Excited as William was, and inflammatory as was his language, they failed to stir the blood of Smithers, whose baseness was exemplified in his cowardice; for he actually left the spot (as William's remarks would infer) in the midst of the young man's vituperations. John Ferguson took his brother's arm, and led him also away from the scene, saying as he did so: "Calm yourself, William, and never mind me, I am not hurt, though still almost blind by that stuff in my eyes. The disgrace of this proceeding will reflect more to his dishonour than to mine. The report of our pistols has given alarm for I see people coming this way, so I will get my horse saddled and take my departure." "Do not depart yet, John," said his brother. Remain till morning at any rate, and take leave of Mr. and Mrs. Smithers; they will think very strangely of your sudden departure. "They are sure to hear of the affair," replied John, "and my departure will save the unpleasantness of a meeting. I will leave it to you to make what explanation you like to them; as also to account to Eleanor for it in what way you think best. She will no doubt have a version of the matter from Bob Smithers; but I have a better opinion of her than to imagine she will credit the exaggerated pseudology of malicious gossips." For John to wash himself, change his attire, segregate Joey from the dependent's festivities, get his horse in and saddle him, was the work only of about half an hour; and the whole of it was performed without notice from any one belonging to the establishment. John Ferguson and Joey then started, and as the retreating sound of their horses feet were lost in the stillness of the night, William retraced his steps to the scene of gaiety; not to join again in the mirth, but to take an opportunity of detailing the particulars of the late proceedings to Tom Rainsfield; judging that he would be the best channel through whom they could reach the ears of Eleanor. With that intention he sought out his friend, and was astonished to find that Bob Smithers had already communicated the fun, as he called it, to some of his choice companions; though he had studiously avoided any mention of his rencontre with himself. It was at an hour close on the heels of morn that the guests broke up the ball; and consequently it was far advanced in the forenoon before the assemblage in the breakfast-parlour was by any means numerous. It is true some of the bachelors had taken their departure; but those in the bondage of matrimony, and swains who were to act as convoys to the ladies, of course had to wait the time and pleasure of the fair ones; and, we must confess it, many were not loath to be detained by their tender charges. Our friends were about the first to leave, as having a longer journey to perform than most of the guests, and neither of them desiring to prolong a stay where the occurrences had been so painful to one of their party, they bade a kind adieu to their entertainers; and took the road at a sharp trot, which they kept up for some hours, notwithstanding their fatigues of the previous day and night. We think we informed the reader, in an early chapter of our history, that Eleanor was (unlike most native girls) not a good horse-woman; and that it was therefore an exercise she did not frequently indulge in. It will not be wondered at then that the long ride to Brompton, and the constant exercise there, had fatigued her. Her horse showing symptoms of restlessness at starting it was proposed by William that he should affix a leading rein to the bit ring of her horse's bridle, and ride by her side with it in his hand. The idea was commended by the party, and was adopted. They started, William and Eleanor leading the way, Mrs. Rainsfield following, and Tom and Kate bringing up the rear, and continued, as we have said, at a brisk pace for some hours. They had accomplished about half the distance to Strawberry Hill when they approached rather an abrupt turn in the bush; which, in its acuteness, prevented them from seeing, until they came immediately upon it, a large tree which stood right in the centre of the road; or rather a path had been beaten on either side of it. The main track led by the right side of the trunk, and William guided his own horse and that of his companion to take it; but Eleanor's animal became suddenly refractory, and made a sudden deviation to pass the tree on the other side. This movement was so unexpected that neither equestrian was prepared for it; and the two horses, each taking opposite sides of the tree, were brought to a check in their rapid course by the leading rein we have mentioned. At the time William had got it firmly fixed round his left wrist, and could not (when he saw the accident that would inevitably occur) disengage it; for so instantaneously did it happen that he had hardly time for meditation before the shock took place, and both riders were hurled from their saddles with considerable force. William, though prostrate, still kept his hold of his own bridle and the rein of Eleanor's horse; and rose with considerable pain, though (with the exception of numerous bruises) uninjured, to lead the horses free of the tree. With Eleanor, however, the accident had resulted far differently. When the check was felt by her horse the leading rein made him wheel his head suddenly against the trunk; and, his fore feet tripping him as he did so, he fell forward to the ground. Eleanor was thrown from her saddle; and, but for one of those inauspicious events which so frequently occur to mar our well-being, would have come off more lightly than her companion. As it was, in her precipitation, her habit in some way became entangled in her horse's caparisons; and, instead of being thrown clear of danger, she was hurled with some force to the ground at the animal's feet The horse also fell; and with the whole weight of his body across her legs. It was the work of a moment for the rest of the party to pull up their steeds, and for Kate to leap from her saddle to the side of her friend; and another for Tom and William to extricate her from her dangerous position. "Oh, dearest Eleanor," passionately exclaimed Kate, "tell me that you are not seriously hurt. Oh, that horrid, horrid horse!" "I fear I am, Kate dear," replied the poor girl, "I am very much bruised, and my leg now I try to move it gives me great pain: I am afraid it is broken." "Oh, gracious goodness! what shall we do?" cried Kate; "lean on me, Eleanor love, and see if you can rise." The poor girl did so; but the pain was more than even her wonted heroism could endure. With a faint cry of agony she sank fainting into the arms of Tom, who was standing at her side ready to support her in case of need, and there unfortunately proved to be need; for Eleanor, as she herself had anticipated, had broken her leg. The unconscious form of the suffering creature was carried into the adjoining shade, and gently placed on the turf in a reclining position; while the ladies speedily had recourse to those gentle restoratives, with which they are happily at all times so ready, in cases where the sympathies of their kindly natures are brought into play. We masculine mortals plume ourselves on our knowledge of the female character; which we profess to read as the astrologers of old did "the gems that deck eve's lustrous mantle;" and to divine their secret wishes, fancies, and inclinations, as the professors of clairvoyance do their susceptible pupils. But we are inclined to think woman's heart is the true arcana of life; at least of this fact we are certain, woman's troubles can only be appreciated by woman; and woman in sorrow can only be soothed, or woman in pain can only be alleviated by those whose anodynes are the effects of intuitive impulsions, arising from the reciprocal communings of kindred spirits. Oh, woman! bless'd woman! Favoured daughters of Eve! thou never shinest in such perfection as when thy ministering hand assuages the pain of a sick couch. Happy is the man, with all his flaunted superiority, who, in the time of indisposition, when his spirit wavers indecisively between this life and the other, is blessed with the possession of thy tender solicitude, to smooth the passage to the mysterious bourne, or nourish the reviving spirit with thy calm, patient, and may be, vigil-dimm'd orbs, ever watching for returning convalescence. But we are digressing; our feelings of gratitude to the sex are carrying us away from the subject of our narrative, and we must apologize to our fair readers for our abstractedness. Through the tender care of her friends Eleanor speedily recovered her consciousness, though only to be made aware, by contemplation, of the dreadfulness of her situation. She was suffering the most excruciating agony, and was more than twenty miles from any assistance. The thought would have subdued the stout heart of many a man, but with her evoked not a murmur. She bore her sufferings, both bodily and mental, with her characteristic heroism,--a heroism that admitted of no complaint,--a perfect subjugation of the feelings, passively enduring pain with an annihilation of all querulousness,--one that in a man would have distinguished the bold spirit; but in a woman denoted the sublimity of that nature, which, in its gentle texture, shines out in bold relief and claims the laurels for an endurance which extinguishes, in its sublimated lustre, the baser material of the stern "lords of the creation." A hasty council was now formed in debate as to the best means that could be adopted to procure assistance for their wounded friend. It was proposed first that she should attempt to get back to Brompton; then that one of the gentleman should ride back at once, and procure some conveyance; then that the ladies should return to Brompton, and obtain the requisite assistance, while the gentlemen constructed a litter and carried the invalid as far on the road as they could, or until they were met by assistance. To all of these propositions Eleanor, however, gave her emphatic veto, and declared that she would not consent to return; but affirmed her willingness and ability to proceed to Strawberry Hill. This desire again was energetically combatted by her friends, who argued that such a course would endanger, not only her limb, but possibly her life; and that it would be far better for her to waive her scruples, and consent to return to the Smithers'. But to all entreaties on that head she turned a deaf ear. "I will mount my horse," she said, "with your assistance, and by going quietly I will be perfectly able to reach home. So do not, my dear friends, make yourselves uneasy on my account." At this juncture when all was indecision, Kate started up and exclaimed: "Now I'll tell you what to do. Dear Eleanor says she will not return to Brompton, and that she would prefer going home; a thought has just come into my head and I will act upon it. There was a doctor at the party yesterday, and I heard Mr. Robert Smithers ask him to stop until this afternoon; so I will ride back, and catch him before he leaves, and bring him on here; but, in the meantime, you must assist Eleanor into her saddle, and while William leads the horse, Mr. Rainsfield ought to walk at her side and protect her from falling; and, if Mrs. Rainsfield would only ride on before and send out the spring cart to meet you, the arrangements would be complete." The boldness of the scheme so astonished her friends that Kate was on her legs and ready to mount before they could think of objecting to it. Eleanor was the first and most earnest in dissuading her from so rash a step; but all opposition was cut short by the spirited girl herself, who said she would not be dissuaded; and addressing her brother said: "Come, Will, assist me into the saddle and don't detain me; for I will go, and there is no use of either of you accompanying me; your assistance will be required by dear Eleanor. Do as I propose, and you will find I will be at Strawberry Hill with the doctor very shortly after you." CHAPTER III "Gallop apace, you fiery footed steeds, Towards Phoebus' mansion." ROMEO AND JULIET, _Act_ 3. Great was the astonishment at Brompton when Kate Ferguson made her appearance, galloping up to the station, and drew up before the house. At the same time she gathered up the folds of her habit; and, leaving her panting steed to the care of some of the assembled attendants, disdaining any assistance, she leaped to the ground and ran into the house. At the door of the parlour she was met by Mrs. Smithers who exclaimed, with apprehension depicted in her countenance: "For mercy's sake! tell me, dear Kate, what has happened to cause your return alone?" "Eleanor has met with an accident," she hurriedly replied, "and I want the doctor; is he here?" "Unfortunately he went only about a quarter of an hour since," said Mrs. Smithers. "I will send after him though; but tell me what was the nature of poor Eleanor's accident." "She was thrown from her horse, and has broken her leg," exclaimed Kate; "but do let me urge you to send after the doctor at once; or if you direct me to the road he took, I will follow him myself." "I could not hear of such a thing," replied the lady of the place, "as to permit you, my dear, to go. Sit down for a moment, or go to my room and put off your habit, while I despatch a messenger." Mrs. Smithers left the room on her mission, and shortly returned and informed her impatient visitor, that a man had been sent after the doctor, with injunctions to lose no time in bringing him back. "Doctor Graham has ceased to practise," she said, "but under such circumstances he can have no objection to lend us his professional skill; and as Robert is with him, and will consequently urge him to speed, we may confidently expect him here in a very short time. Come now, my dear, put off your things, and tell me how the unfortunate occurrence took place." The whole circumstances of the accident were then related, after which an animated discussion was carried on between the ladies; the married one contending that it was impossible for the younger one to return home before the following morning, while Kate stoutly declared her intention to proceed at once, when the doctor arrived. "Such a course, my dear Kate," urged her friend, "would be unnecessarily exposing yourself to a fatigue which I am convinced you could not endure. You had far better remain with me until the morning, and then Mr. Smithers will either drive you over in his gig, or accompany you on horseback. The doctor and Robert shall be sent off immediately they arrive, but as to you travelling the road by night is a thing quite out of the question." Still all arguments were unavailing; Kate persisted in returning at once to be in attendance on her friend; affirming that she did not fear the journey, nor anticipate any fatigue. So, Mrs. Smithers finding it useless to attempt persuading the determined girl, proposed that, so as to ease her journey as much as possible, Mr. Smithers should still drive her over, and lead her own horse behind the vehicle. Mr. Smithers was then sought for, and the melancholy intelligence was communicated to him by his spouse; who desired him to place himself and his vehicle at the disposal of Miss Ferguson. He regretted the sad event most feelingly; at the same time he expressed himself only too happy to be of service to Kate, and would hear of no objection from her; saying, "Why! if you could stand the journey yourself, Miss Ferguson, your horse could not carry you." So that the little messenger was perforce obliged to relinquish her opposition to the proffered assistance. It was late in the afternoon before the sound of approaching horsemen heralded the arrival of Bob Smithers and his friend, the brusque and generally not over-courteous son of Æsculapius. They were not long permitted to remain inactive, for the impatient anxiety of Kate for the safety of her friend stimulated them to use despatch; and very soon after their arrival they were tearing away again in the direction of Strawberry Hill, in concert with Mr. Alfred Smithers and his charge. The horsemen took the lead, and were followed closely by the vehicle; which, by the speed that they maintained, required a skillful hand to guide through the mazy difficulties of the bush track. The night, however, was beautiful, and the moon bright and clear distinctly illumined their path; so that the occasional diminution of the speed was not owing so much to impediments and difficulties of a vehicular nature, as to a desire on the part of the horsemen to take it easier. But these little delays, insignificant as they were, did not accord with Kate's ideas of the urgency of the case; and the flagging equestrians were constantly prompted by her to an acceleration of their pace. Towards the latter part of the journey the bush was more dense, and the travelling of the gig consequently became more difficult. The frequent, though only momentary detentions, so harassed Kate that she exchanged her seat in the gig for the back of her own jaded horse; and she led the way at a rate that gave her less fatigued followers something to do to keep even within sight of her. All their remonstrances against the velocity of her pace had no further effect than a raillery from Kate at their complaining of a speed that she was enabled to keep up; and she told them that if they were tired out she would go on and report their approach. However much they disliked the toil of such riding they were, for their own credit, obliged to keep pace with her, as neither of them relished the idea of being outstripped by a girl; and that girl one who had ridden a far greater distance in the previous twelve hours than they. In the meantime Mrs. Rainsfield had acted upon Kate's suggestion, and had ridden home with all speed. She prepared a couch, and had it placed in a light cart; which was then despatched to meet the invalid, with strict injunctions to the driver to go as fast as he could, until he met the party. Neither had Tom and William been idle, for they had placed poor Eleanor on her saddle, where Tom held her while William led the horse. But the pain, which the motion caused to her wounded limb, was such that she could not with all her fortitude endure it. The young men, therefore, constructed a sort of impromptu sedan, in which they carried her for some distance; in fact, until they were met by the conveyance despatched from Strawberry Hill. They then transferred their burden to the vehicle, and continued the journey more easily for the poor girl; though their rate of travelling was necessarily very slow. It was midnight ere they delivered their charge into the hands of Mrs. Rainsfield, and barely an hour afterwards Kate and her companions galloped up to the house. The doctor was instantly shown into the invalid's room, when the broken leg was soon set, and the patient placed in as easy a position as possible; when, after giving directions to her cousin for her further treatment, he left the room to partake of some refreshment with his friends before they parted for the night. Tom and William waited for the report of Kate, who was assiduously attending on Eleanor, and would not hear of rest for herself until she had first satisfied her mind of the safety of her friend. The following day the invalid was considered by her medical attendant to be sufficiently out of danger, and progressing so favourably as to warrant his departure. He therefore left, accompanied by his boon companion, Bob Smithers, who preferred his society to that of the residents of Strawberry Hill, and was followed by Mr. Alfred Smithers in the gig. We have so frequently, and we think so fully, dwelt upon the character of Eleanor Rainsfield that we are convinced she is by this time perfectly understood by our readers. We need therefore only say that it was quite possible for her to suffer the deepest mental agony without the slightest semblance of its being discernible in any display in her facial muscles. We say that it was quite possible that the existence of sorrow could have been working deleteriously at the heart's core of the invalid, and not be visible by any outward signs; and it was more than probable, after the events that had lately occurred, that some such sorrow did exist. We have already said that Eleanor was habitually of a taciturn and uncomplaining nature; and, whatever were her griefs, she rarely allowed their utterance to pass her lips; so it was not to be deemed strange that her friends were unacquainted with her state of mind. What that was we dare not violate our trust by divulging, beyond the fact that there _was_ something that preyed upon her mind which caused her to remain feverish and restless on her sick couch, and which retarded her return to convalescence. She progressed but slowly; and it was nearly two months before she was enabled to leave her room, and expose her emaciated frame to the summer breeze in a seat in a shady part of the verandah. During all this lengthened illness, her friends at Fern Vale had been constant in their attentions, and hardly a day passed without some enquiries being made or some intelligence being conveyed. Visits of William and Kate were interchanged with Tom, who had delayed his journey to town until Eleanor was what he considered sufficiently recovered to spare him. When that time had arrived, and he saw his cousin at last enabled to move about, he took his departure; not, however, without making a special purpose of visiting Fern Vale to bid adieu to his friends there. Why such particular consideration as this was required prior to his departure on a journey that would not occupy more than a month, or why it was necessary to take such a formal leave of friends he was in the habit of seeing so frequently, and whom he could and did inform of his intended departure upon the last occasion on which they met, we are at a loss to conjecture. We do not, however, consider ourselves justified in making any surmises, but intend simply to content ourselves by chronicling the event; deeming in so doing we perform our duty, and avoid the probability of misleading our readers, by indulging in speculations that might lead to erroneous assumptions respecting the motives of our friend. Therefore it is only known to Tom himself, or rather was best known to him, what took him to Fern Vale, and what kept him for hours in company with Kate Ferguson. But there he remained looking over her sketches, and turning over her music, as he listened rapturously; while her pliable fingers fluttered over the keys of her piano, and exorcised the very spirit of the muse in the exquisite diapason that she produced to enchant him. If it was simply to bid adieu to the young lady he might have done that, we should have thought, in a much shorter time, and taken his departure. It could not have been to visit her brother, for as yet he had not seen him, and neither made any effort nor expressed any desire to do so. He had, in fact, arrived at Fern Vale early in the forenoon, and finding Kate alone in the sitting-room, his gallantry (or rather his inclination) suggested that he should endeavour to relieve the _ennui_ of the young lady. Thus he had occupied, for nearly the whole of the morning, her and his own time, in which occupation he seemed perfectly contented; so much so that we strongly suspect that he--But we were about doing what we repudiated our intention of, viz., speculating on Tom's motives. So, dear reader! with your kind permission, so far as we are concerned, we will leave him to enjoy uninterruptedly the pleasure of Kate's society. We must now beg the courteous reader to follow us over a period of about a fortnight, during which time Eleanor had improved very little in her health; when Kate and William one morning left Fern Vale to ride over to see her. The weather had continued very dry for months past, and a large portion of the bush had been slightly fired, so as just to burn off the long dry withered grass, and leave on the ground a thick coating of soot. Through this our friends were riding at a pretty sharp canter (as, being like most of their birth and character, no less speed satisfying them), when Kate's horse tripped and came down, precipitating his rider over his head, and sending her sprawling amongst the ashes. Her brother alighted to assist her to rise; but she was in no way hurt, and regained her feet with little difficulty or hesitation. But she had no sooner faced William than he lost all control over his gravity, and burst into an immoderate fit of laughter; while to his sister's enquiry as to the cause of his merriment, he replied only by laughing the louder; and she became annoyed at what she called his silly behaviour. "Tell me," said she, "what are you laughing at; is my face dirty?" "Oh, dear no!" replied he, "it is not dirty." Now in this reply of William's we would endeavour to exonerate him from any duplicity or pseudology. If he meant to use the words ironically, or to imply that his sister's face was not dirty, on the principle we have sophistically heard enunciated that soot is clean dirt, not dirtying where it comes in contact, but merely soiling; then it must be admitted he spoke the truth. But we suspect rather that he meant to say her face was not only dirty, but a shade worse; for it was absolutely black. And much as we respect etiquette, and would be loath to commit such an impropriety as to laugh at a lady, we question very much our ability, had we looked on Kate's face on this occasion, to have preserved a stoical equanimity of countenance. "No but, Will, dear," persisted Kate, "do tell me; is my face really dirty? I am sure it must be or you wouldn't laugh so. It is unkind of you to tease me;" and the little orbs in the darkened firmament, and the little mouth that had escaped disfigurement in the sudden metamorphosis, exhibited symptoms of a lachrymose tendency. Nothing so soon softens the obdurate heart of a man as seeing a woman in tears; especially when she is a handsome young girl, and is beloved by her masculine tormentor. Therefore we may safely surmise, that William's laughing soon ceased; for he instantly changed his manner to his sister, and said: "Yes, Kitty, darling; your face is as black as a crow; and would enable you to make a splendid personation of an Ethiopian vocalist, if that sable people ever exhibit their ladies. But forgive me, poppet, for laughing at you; I would defy the goddess of grief herself to refrain from smiling if she had perchance cast her eyes upon you as you rose from the ground." "Oh, dear me! what shall I do?" said Kate, in a most piteous way. "What shall I do? You know, Will, I can't go on in this figure, we must go back." "Nonsense, my dear," said William, "you can go on very well. A slight application of water at Strawberry Hill will very soon remove all traces of your cloudiness." "But, Will," replied his sister, "all the people will be laughing at me if I go on as I am, presenting such an odd appearance." "Not in the least, my pet," said William; "besides if you turned back home our people would laugh at you quite as much, not for the soot on your face, but for your foolishness in returning. At Strawberry Hill, however, no one will laugh at you, for they will have too much good breeding; and if you put your veil down over your face it will be invisible; while at the same time you can present yourself to Eleanor, and test her affection by seeing if she will kiss you in that plight. I'll engage she'll laugh, for she'll think it is a little stratagem of yours to take her by surprise and excite her merriment. She will therefore think herself called upon to reward you with a smile." "I don't like to go in this figure, Will," said Kate; "do you think we shall be able to find any water-hole on the road where I could wash my face?" "Not one, Kitty," said William, "nor a drop of water nearer than Strawberry Hill, unless you like to go to the river; and it would be quite unnecessary, for if you went there you wouldn't be able to thoroughly remove the black. The washing would only make you appear worse, inasmuch as, instead of being black, you would be dirty. But come, my little queen of Artimesia! let me put you on your horse, and we'll go ahead. I have often heard of a sable beauty, and declare you are one in perfection; if you were not my sister I would do the romantic and fall in love with you. There now! up you get, and let us be off; for the sooner you get to 'the Hill' the sooner you'll have your visage restored to its natural colour. But before you touch your face, Kitty, just have a look at yourself in the glass; though I need not have told you to do that, for I know it is the first thing you are sure to do." "Don't be cruel, Will! and tease me so," said Kate, "or I'll go back home." "Very well, my dear," said William, "I'll grant a truce, and spare you." The brother and sister then turned their conversation into some other channel, and rode on until they came within sight of Strawberry Hill; when Kate pulled down her veil to conceal her darkened countenance from the gaze of the curious. As they approached the station, and got sufficiently near to distinguish the people about the place, Kate was startled to see some gentleman on the verandah, whom she knew (by his appearance) was not Mr. Rainsfield, and she remarked to her brother: "Oh, William! I can't go up to the house in this figure. See, who is that on the verandah? he is a stranger I know and I shall never be able to meet his gaze. Can't you take me somewhere, where I can get my face clean before I show myself?" "Don't be frightened Kitty," said William, "no one will be able to distinguish the colour of your face through your veil; and, if I mistake not, the individual you see, and whose appearance seems to cause you such uneasiness, is none other than Bob Smithers, who will make himself scarce when he sees me. Put on a bold face under your blackness, and try a _coup de main_, though it is not likely under your present eclipse to be a _coup de soleil_. If Eleanor is on the verandah when you alight run into the house and carry her off at once; and if any of the family should see you in your flight I will make some explanation for you." This seemed partially to satisfy Kate, and they rode together up to the house. As William had conjectured the party they saw was Bob Smithers; who, as soon as he had been able to distinguish who were the approaching visitors, had left the spot where he had been seen by them, while Eleanor, who had been sitting just inside one of the French lights, came out to greet her friends as they made their appearance. William assisted Kate off her saddle, when she ran up to the girl who stood with open arms to embrace her. But instead of falling into that loving lock, which was intended to unite the beatings of their young hearts, and which she was generally so ready, with her usual ardour, to reciprocate, she partially lifted her veil and discovered to her astonished friend her beaming countenance. Instead of being radiant with glowing smiles it was of course more gloomy than thunder; but her merry laugh rang as a silvery note from the shades of Hades, while her bright eyes and pearly teeth, in such deep contrast, shone with a more marked resplendence. Eleanor for some moments gazed at Kate with silent wonder, and then asked in the faint voice of a valetudinarian: "Why, dearest Kate, what have you been doing with yourself?" "I will answer for her," replied William. "You see our little Hebe has gone into mourning; and, considering that the mere outward habilimentary display was an empty conventionality, she chose to mark her grief in her countenance; so that she might indulge uninterruptedly to any extent of sorrow. As to her motive I am inclined to think she has done it to court notice, and notoriety; for I am convinced she never looked so handsome before." "That is a poor compliment William pays you, Kate," said Eleanor; "but I appeal to you for a correct version of the phenomenon, for I am afraid to question your brother, as I see he is in a facetious mood. Come to my room, my dear, and we can have a talk to ourselves." "That is the very thing I desire, Eleanor dear," said Kate, "for I am quite anxious to see what a fright I am, and wash off all the dreadful smut. I saw Mr. Smithers here as I came up, and I would not for the world that he should have seen me thus." "He was here a few minutes ago," said Eleanor, "but has disappeared somewhere." "Well, Will," said Kate, "why are you still standing staring at us? why don't you take the horses away?" "Oh, I am really very sorry for keeping him," said Eleanor, "it quite escaped my memory; you go to my room, Kate dear, and I'll send some one to see to the horses." "Not for worlds, Miss Eleanor, would I permit you to do such a thing," exclaimed William. "I can myself take the horses to the stable; but I was waiting to take a last fond look of Kate. I am, in fact, enchained to the spot; if ever she was a beauty she is one now, and a shining one that would be a fortune to a London advertising blacking manufacturer." "Be off, you impudent fellow!" replied his sister, "and don't show _your_ face here until you can cease to be offensive;" saying which, she turned into the house with Eleanor, while William took the horses to the stable to remain for such time as he stopped at Strawberry Hill. This business he accomplished; and, knowing that the girls would be sometime engaged together with their own little secrets, and having no desire to come into contact with Bob Smithers, he thought he would fill up half an hour by paying a visit to Mr. Billing, and enjoying the refreshment of that little individual's conversation. CHAPTER IV. "The wondering stranger round him gazed, All spoke neglect and disrepair." SIR WALTER SCOTT. William sought the capricious storekeeper in the proper sphere of his labour, viz. the store-room, and, as he had anticipated, found him deeply engaged in some imaginarily abstruse piece of figurative collocation, from the study of which he relieved his brain and raised his eyes at the sound of intrusive steps. William advanced with outstretched hand, which was humbly and respectfully taken by Mr. Billing; who, as he removed his spectacles from his nose, and shifted, we will not say rose from his desk, answered to his visitor's sanitary enquiry in his blandest manner: "I thank you, Mr. Ferguson; it affords me great satisfaction to say I am in the enjoyment of excellent health, and trust, my dear sir, a similar blessing is dispensed to yourself." "Well, thank you, Mr. Billing," replied William, "I am pretty well. But don't let me disturb you if you are busy, I have just called in to see and have a chat with you; but if you are engaged I will not interrupt you; for I thoroughly agree to the principle that business must be attended to." "I assure you, sir," said Mr. Billing, "I appreciate your kindness in thinking me worthy of your consideration. I feel favoured, sir, beyond measure; and if you will still further honour me by gracing our humble dwelling, I can say, sir, with confidence Mrs. Billing will be equally as delighted as myself." "But I hope, Mr. Billing, I am not taking you away from your business," said William. "By no means, my dear sir," exclaimed that urbane individual, "however engrossed I might be in my mental or corporeal occupations, the respite, sir, from those labours, when it is occasioned by the honour of a visit from a young gentleman of your talent and abilities, is of too valuable a nature, sir, not to be gratefully seized by your humble servant. Pray accept my best thanks, sir, for your attention, and permit me to invite you, sir, to our unpretending abode; for lowly it is, and not of those pretensions I could desire, sir, nor of such as it has been my lot at a former period of my life to possess, yet, sir, to it I can offer an Englishman's adjunct, a hearty welcome." "I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Billing," replied William, "and will be happy to accept of your hospitality." "This way then, Mr. Ferguson," said Mr. Billing. "Allow me to close the door of the store. I always lock it in my absence to prevent, sir, any unpleasant affairs, such as have occurred here, you know. If you will be good enough to step this way, sir? I must apologize beforehand, for the litter which I expect you will find, sir, in our domicile by explaining that Mrs. Billing does not anticipate the pleasure of visitors." Considering the sight that greeted the eyes of William as he entered the cottage, such an apology was certainly necessary, or rather unnecessary, to prepare him for what he was to witness. We said necessary, to excuse the lady of the house for the chaotic arrangements of her household, seeing that one couldn't enter the dwelling without being painfully aware that slovenliness and disorder reigned supreme. Therefore we corrected ourselves in the expression, and stated the absence of such necessity; as no one could be so blind as to imagine that the litter which Mr. Billing alluded to was merely the result of an occasion; for it was too palpably evident that the spirit of disorganization was the presiding genius of the Billing mansion, and, moreover, the visitor would be strengthened in the conviction the very moment he cast his eyes upon the wife of Mr. Billing's bosom. We will repeat then that Mr. Billing made numerous apologies for the disorder to which he was about to usher William Ferguson; and we may safely conjecture that William was not a little surprised when all the internal arrangements of the home burst upon his vision. "Let me show you to my domicile, Mr. Ferguson," said the little man in rather a pompous way; "as usual, sir, the house is turned topsey-turvey, Mrs. Billing is such a woman for cleanliness. You have no doubt, Mr. Ferguson (though you have not yet become entangled in the meshes of matrimony), heard of the nuisance of a musical wife; let me equally warn you, sir, against choosing the partner of your connubial bliss, from those of too cleanly a predilection. My spouse, sir, for instance, has periodical fits for cleansing (and I regret to say, sir, they are of too frequent occurrence for my especial comfort); then nothing but dust, soap and water, and disquietude pervades the house for a full twelve or twenty-four hours. You are aware, sir, 'at home' (I mean of course in Old England) we paterfamiliases are taught, sir, to look upon washing-days as the very superlative of domestic misery; but my wife always had a propensity for having something like a washing-day very nearly six times a week, sir; and she has brought her customs and prejudices with her to this barbarous country. But come in, my dear sir, and take a seat, while I inform Mrs. Billing of your presence; and if I may be so bold, sir, as to add, I will entreat you to make yourself quite at home." This introductory prologue of Mr. Billing's was delivered as he stood with the door slightly ajar, and holding it by the handle while he addressed William, no doubt to fully prepare him to a proper appreciation of the merits of the lady to whom he was about to be introduced. When we say introduced we do not mean that formal ceremony in which strangers are brought to a mutual acquaintance (for William had frequently before met Mrs. Billing), but the mere act of being ushered to her presence in a house into which he, as yet, had never entered. Mr. Billing had stood, door in hand, while he uttered about half of his last sentence, when William saw, or fancied he saw, a female hand suddenly draw back the cover of a muslin blind that screened the lower part of a window situated in close proximity to the door at which he stood. Instantly thereafter a female head was substituted in its place, but as instantly withdrawn; while the noise of some falling object was distinctly heard, and was as speedily followed by that of a hastily closed door; all of them unmistakeable signs of a surprisal and retreat. At this moment Mr. Billing pushed open the door and entered the evacuated room, in which he concluded his lugubrious notice of his lesser half's peculiarities, and desired his visitor to take a seat; which his visitor, picking up a chair that lay prostrate on the floor, accordingly did; and Mr. Billing went in search of his lady. Judging from the seeming confidence with which he walked into an apartment entering from the one which William sat in, forming the only other one in the front of the cottage, the operation was one of more certitude than the verb he made use off would imply; and also judging from the subdued whispers that William could overhear through the thin wooden partition that constituted the wall of the room, the search was also attended with wonderful success. But during Mr. Billing's absence to look for his spouse, let us join our young friend in his general inspection of the furnishing and upholstery department of the establishment. In the first place we must say, distinctly and candidly, that the room was furnished badly. Not that there was any paucity in the collection; but the articles, though numerous, taken in the abstract, with the greatest regard to symmetry, contrast, and beauty, and the best possible display of talent in their collocation, any one with the slightest pretensions to comfort, we are certain would eliminate the entire mass; and any appraiser, if such an individual existed, within the boundaries of New South Wales, if called in to take an inventory, would elevate both his nose and his shoulders. But we will, with the reader's kind permission, give a short description, for the benefit of young couples about to furnish; and out of respect for the feelings and the patience of those of our readers, who have no desire or necessity for such detail, we will epitomize the catalogue as much as possible. First then we must state that there was no semblance of order in the arrangements. Far from it; in fact, quite the reverse. All things seemed to have been placed with a predetermination on the part of some one to create as much confusion as possible, and to put each individual article into as awkward a position as imaginable. It is true William had rescued a chair from a lowly position, and had placed it on an unoccupied spot on the floor, and used it for the purpose for which in its construction it was intended. But it was well our young friend was not of an erratic disposition, for if he had been bent upon voyages of discovery, other than could be effected by his eyes, he would have found himself in as great a labyrinth as ever impeded the progress of the polar explorers. The fact was William was perfectly hemmed in; so that, with the exception of a small spot that was partially occupied by his chair, there was no room to stir, or at least very little; and he did not consider it wise, or politic, to risk his knees and shins in an attempt to penetrate into the thickly timbered recesses of the apartment. As he sat in the midst of this mass, which seemed to have been collected as the entire furniture of a dwelling, deposited in a room for the convenience of the van that officiates at flittings, he almost looked like an anxious emigrant keeping guard over his effects when landed in a strange country, or as "Caius Marius mourning over the ruins of Carthage." But we have wandered from our task, our self-imposed descriptive task, which we confess ourselves at a loss to perform with satisfaction; for having no cabinet-making knowledge, and never having before been called upon to take an inventory of such chattels, we feel ourselves, to make use of a vulgar idiom, "all abroad." We fear we have assumed the title and privileges of the author without considering whether or not we are possessed of the attributes pertaining to one; and, in our insensate conceit, we are afraid we have forgotten the absence of that recondite perspicuity and facile elucidation which are imperatively essential to the character we have arrogated. But we fancy we hear some of our impatient readers exclaim, "We wish you would tell us, without 'beating about the bush,' what the room contains; it is all nonsense your making excuses now, you should have thought of your incapacity before you commenced your history, and must go on with it; all we can do is to pity and smile at your ignorance;" and we exclaim, "A thousand thanks, kind readers! That is the very lenience we wished to evoke; we now can proceed with confidence, if not in our powers of depiction, at least in your charity and forbearance." Well then, in the centre of the room stood a table, which we venture to say had not been displaced in the general disorganization, notwithstanding that its satellites had. There was nothing extraordinary about this table, and yet there was a something which inspired awe, or at least curiosity, and that would lead to the enquiry, Whence came it? and this was precisely William's thought. Ah! that was a rare old table, and struck William with a desire to know its history; but unfortunately it had not the power to satisfy his enquiring mind; and he, having no one at the time with him from whom he could glean the information, was not likely to be the wiser. With the reader, however, we will not be so harsh or uncommunicative, but will make use of our knowledge, and impart the secret of its life; at least from the time whence it boasted of Mr. Billing as its owner. First, however, we will give a sketch of its general appearance. When we called it a table, we should have in greater justice said two tables, for, though one, it was also two. This seeming paradox may be explained by stating that, as it stood, it was one, but in its integral parts it could be spoken of in the plural number; in fact, to descend to the common vernacular mode of expression, we will say they were two side leaf-tables that had graced the parlour windows of the little box at Brixton. The leaves were, and had been for many years (in fact, rarely otherwise), quiescent, and were each made to hide its diminished head in a close contiguity to the object's crural appendages. The two tables, thus reduced to their natural bounds, were arranged with an affectionate concomitance so as to act the part of a table of family pretensions. It was of mahogany; and we will assume the postulation, that it was of solid mahogany, to which assumption we are led from its antique appearance, presuming that in the good old days of our ancestors, that refined species of humbug and deception, yclept veneering, was not in vogue, as our forefathers, so we are told, could not tolerate anything but what was substantial. But how sadly have we degenerated in these latter days! We now no longer perpetuate their creed, or retain any of their material predilections, except those for beef, beer, "bacca," and bills. But to return to the table. We said it was mahogany, but we must correct ourselves; we mean it was so originally, when it stood in the parlour at Brixton, but now no longer could it be said to be of that wood. If it but spoke, what "tales it could unfold" of voyages, journeys, mishaps, and accidents, that would put the whole fraternity of aristocratic loos far into the shade. Mr. Billing was wont to say he loved that old table as much as hundreds of individuals are in the habit of affirming a similar affection for a certain "old arm chair." He would also inform his friends, when in a communicative mood, that that table had belonged to his friend Lord Tom Noddy, whom he knew very well; but, unfortunately for our poor little friend's aristocratic reputation, on one occasion when he was a little "farther gone" than was usually his habit to go, the truth of _in vino veritas_ was exemplified. On that occasion he innocently informed his friends, that, of course, the Lord Tom Noddy did not know him; that he, Mr. B., had bought the table at a sale of that nobleman's effects, when the inconvenient demands of low tradespeople rendered a sojourn in London exceedingly annoying to his lordship, and induced him to fancy his health demanded attention and his person relaxation and continental air. But still Mr. Billing could boast of what very few, if any, men in Australia could, that is, that he was possessed of a table that had belonged to a real, live lord; and many were those who were made aware of the fact. We fear we are not confining ourselves to a succinct account of minutiæ, but are again running too much into detail of no moment; and we will, therefore, continue more briefly the history and description of this wonderful piece of furniture. It had been considered too great a treasure to be sacrificed in the break-up of the Brixton "box;" consequently it was carried off to gladden the eyes and astonish the nerves of the natives of Australia. As we have already said, many were the misfortunes it had gone through in its various peregrinations, and vast the trouble it had been to its present owner, who, notwithstanding, through all his vicissitudes, stuck to it as long as it stuck to him. Lord Tom Noddy's table was in much the same predicament as Jack's knife, which had had five new blades and three new handles; for his lordship's table had had innumerable splicings, nailings, screwings, patchings, and new leggings, composed of a variety of fibrous material, and of numerous colours and artistic designs. Yet there it stood, with its legs of an unequal longitude, some with castors and some without (the latter being supplied with a stone or a piece of wood, to preserve as nearly as possible the equilibrium); and, with more than one bandage to conceal a fractured limb, this relic of the past, this trophy of Mr. Billing's palmy days, and proof of his intercourse with aristocracy, preserved a dignified composure, like a veteran surveying the scene of a triumph. We said that the table stood in the centre of the room, and bore no evidences of having been moved in the general disorder; of this we were morally certain, for, judging by its paralytic appearance, it threatened a speedy dissolution if touched. The other members of this conglomerate fraternity were some dozen chairs, more or less, also in various stages of dilapidation, and of them we can say much in a few words. They were American, machine-made, cane-bottomed, painted, and patent varnished ladies' and gent's body supporters, and bore the same relation to civilized furniture as Dutch clocks used to do to the old-cased patriarchs, that in our halls marked the phases of fleeting time. They were "machine-made," we say, that is, the legs, bars, etc., were cut and turned by machinery; they were possessed of cane bottoms, whether also arranged by machinery or not, we can't say, though they were painted and varnished by its aid. But why such ordinary articles of domestic use should be patent we are at a loss to comprehend, unless it were for the design, or in the operation of painting the decorating portion, which consisted of an application of gilt varnish on the front of each leg and prominent part of the seat, and the representation on the back, in high colours and gilt, of some flowers and fruit, which it would be difficult to match with originals, from all the varieties that have been produced, from the Eden apple downwards. The next article was a sort of chiffonnier, a piece of furniture that made a great display; with crystal and china arranged with precision on the top, and a protecting covering of chintz, no doubt the uninitiated would imagine, to keep the polish from sustaining any injury. But must we discover the truth? Oh! deceitfulness of man, and, we may add, of woman too. This elegant and costly piece of furniture was nothing but a large deal box placed up on end, with rough shelves fixed into it to add to its utility, and with a gaudy cover put over it to hide its nakedness. There was another article of a similar construction, a luxuriant-looking ottoman, and a sofa which had originally, no doubt, been of polished cedar (of which wood, we may remark, all the best colonial furniture is made, and found to equal, if not excel, Honduras mahogany), and with horse-hair cushions, etc. But now it presented a doleful appearance of weather-beaten features and limbs, and where a horse-hair covering had existed, now only canvas was visible. A mirror of the dull and heavy school rested on the mantel-piece, along with sundry portraits, no doubt of a family importance, executed in an art of stern profile blackness, which art, we believe, is extinct, and happily so. The floor had no covering, neither had the walls, which showed the wood in its crude state, or rather in the serrated condition in which it had left the sawyer's pit. A few children's stockings and shoes scattered about; a woman's dress, mantle, and bonnet lying on the table, with some calico in the process of conversion to an article of apparel; a piano of ancient make which, we must say though, belonged to Mrs. Rainsfield, and was placed there for the use of the children while under the tuition of Mrs. Billing, completed the furniture; and, with other scraps, such as towels, dusters, and odds and ends, all heaped together, as we have said before, in interminable confusion, the reader has an idea of what William was surveying. We have already confessed our lack of the author's talent of succinct expression; and what we might have been able, had we been possessed of such a gift, to have detailed in a few pithy words, and what was noticed by William in a few minutes, it has taken us so long to describe. We must therefore beg to assure the reader that Mr. Billing was not so rude as to leave his guest waiting alone so long as we have kept him, but shortly re-entered the sitting-room and informed William that Mrs. Billing was that moment engaged with the children, but if he would excuse her for a few minutes she would be obliged to him. Now it happened that William had heard certain sounds that indicated arrangements of no possible connexion with children's attiring and ornature; such as the washing of an adult's hands, the operation of adjusting that corporeal appertinence, which is made to enclose the forms and symmetrize the figures of Eve's fair daughters of the present age, the rustling of silk, and other prognostics of a personal embellishment. But still conveniently deaf as a visitor should be to such sounds he begged that Mrs. Billing would not allow herself to be drawn from her attention to the children on his account, for he would be sorry to inconvenience her by his call. Mr. Billing thanked him for his politeness and consideration, and entreated him not to mention anything about inconvenience; and at that very moment Mrs. Billing sailed into the room, or at least as much of it as she could get into; and, while shaking hands with William, said: "I am delighted beyond measure, Mr. Ferguson, at your kindness in calling upon us. It is so affable of you, and I can only express my regrets that you should have happened to have chosen a day when you see we are all topsy-turvey. You must know, Mr. Ferguson, I always like to keep my house clean and in order, although Mr. Billing will persist in grumbling at what he calls unnecessary cleanliness; but still I am glad you have honoured us with a visit." "Go away, Johnny, and Bobby! Mary, don't be rude!" These latter expressions were addressed to various olive branches of the Billing tree, who showed their heads at the door whence had emerged the parent stem, and to which, we presume, the juveniles had come to satisfy their curiosity as to the nature of the intrusion on their domestic privacy. But they did not seem disposed to obey the injunctions of their maternal parent; who therefore rose and put them inside the room and shut the door, while they continued to amuse themselves by keeping up a perpetual kicking. Possibly the reader may desire to know something about Mrs. Billing, her genealogy, etc. If so, we will endeavour to prevent disappointment by giving a brief sketch of her. She was a lady, "a perfect lady," as her husband used to say, and we should imagine, nearly twenty years the junior of her lord. She was not absolutely plain; she might once have been good-looking. In fact, Mr. Billing used to assure his friends, when first he married her she was a beauty, one, he affirmed, of the Grecian mould. We will not flatter her, however, by saying she was handsome; though we will state that her looks were capable of great improvement by the study of a little judicious display and effective costuming. But these virtues or follies, as our readers may consider them, obtained very little regard from Mrs. Billing; notwithstanding that on sundry occasions, such as the present, she made an effort to appear as in former years. She had taken some little pains, we say little pains because of the insignificance of the result, to present a genteel appearance to our friend William, and had made a hasty toilet. If it had effected any improvement in her appearance it argued badly for her presentableness before the operations of ablution and ornature had taken place. Her hair, in keeping with her eyes, was black, and parted not scrupulously in the centre; a stray lock on the forehead segregated from its rightful position was brought immediately across the line of demarcation and incorporated in the opposition. However, its lamination was lost in the plastering the whole had undergone in the toilet operations; and, as Mrs. Billing was not a vain woman, such a mishap was not deemed worthy of notice, or at least the trouble of rectification. Her features, if not good, were certainly far from bad. There was a vivacity and expression in them, but there was also an unctuousness that was a necessary concomitant on her perpetual bustle, which incessantly displayed itself in her pale face. She wore a black silk dress, that made a rustling like dry leaves in winter, and was modelled in a fashion so as to confine both the wrists and the throat of the wearer; at which points it terminated without the muslin adjuncts we usually look for. As for the dress itself nothing need be said, except that it might have, and had been a good one, but was then rather seedy. It gave us, however, the idea that it was worn in much the same manner, and for much the same purpose, as the closely buttoned up frock-coat of the "shabby genteel gentleman," who is unable to make any display of spotless linen. But we will make no ambiguous allusion to a lady's under garments, though we cannot shut our eyes to noticeable facts. Neither could William, for he perceived that her boots, though they had once been of a fashionable make, were not what they had been, for their glory had long since departed. He also noticed that her hands and facial contour were of a different shade to her neck and throat. It might have been an optical illusion, the effect of a deceptive light, the contrast of complexion, or the exposure to sun; but he thought that where the tints blended the contrast was too perceptible to be natural, and therefore concluded that the phenomenon arose from the dirt not being thoroughly removed, or the omission of an ablutionary application to the dark tinted part. William also noticed,--but we must again crave the indulgence of our fair readers, whose pardon we implore for adverting to such a subject,--when Mrs. Billing turned herself to eject and inject the juvenile representatives of the Billing family; he saw her back! yes, reader! her back! Now no lady should turn her back on a gentleman any more than a gentleman should perform so derogatory an act upon a lady, either literally or figuratively. More especially if that lady be not a good figure, or if her dress does not fit immaculately. We do not insinuate that Mrs. Billing had not a good figure, she was _once_ graceful; but it was to be presumed, that considering the ample proofs she had given of a proclivity to gestation, the symmetry of that figure had to some extent been impaired. Be that as it may, the dress of Mrs. Billing did not meet behind by some three or four hooks; and the consequence was that a sight was revealed to the bashful gaze of our young friend which caused him to blush; while the remembrance of the cleanly characteristics, enunciated by her lord as pertaining to her, made him wonder. For there! immediately underneath the habilimentary cuticle, William saw garments of so suspicious a colour as to make it questionable whether they had attained their peculiar hues by the process of dyeing, or by their contact with this world's filth. But there is one thing that we must explain before we leave Mrs. Billing. We have already told the reader that cleanliness was Mrs. Billing's peculiar and predominant idiosyncrasy, and we must reconcile this statement to our portraiture of unbecoming slovenliness. It is easily said in a few words. Mrs. Billing was one of those women who are always in a fuss about their domestic affairs; who are for ever fidgeting about the dirt in the house; and always attempting to remove, or remedy it, though in the attempt they only succeed in adding to the filth. Making "confusion worse confounded;" leaving things worse than they were before; adding to the discomfort of their husbands, their children, and themselves; whom they keep in a perpetual state of slovenliness and untidiness. Such was Mrs. Billing's failing; and if her husband was blessed with perspicuity sufficient to notice it, for his own peace of mind, he abstained from any dictation that might have embroiled him in family dissensions; and he was right: for on the whole she was undeniably a good wife to him notwithstanding her little peculiarities. Mrs. Billing had managed to squeeze herself into a seat, as her husband had previously done, without necessitating any extraordinarily unpleasant contiguity to her visitor; though any extension of prerogative on the part of the upper or nether limbs of either of the party would have been detrimental to the visages, or shins, of the others. So they were all perforce compelled to adhere to a strict propriety of deportment. The lady was particularly charmed, or at least she continued to say so, at what she designated the condescension of Mr. Ferguson in visiting her humble abode. "I am truly delighted to see you," she said again, for at least the twentieth time; "and only regret I can offer you no inducement to prolong your visit. I suppose there would be no use in my asking you to stay and take pot-luck with us in the friendly way, Mr. Ferguson? Not that it would be any change of fare to you, for we are necessarily humble people now; and, if we even desired it, we could not have anything out of the common. It is not here like 'at home,' where you can, even with the most moderate means, procure anything nice. In this horrid country neither love nor money can buy tasty things. One has to be contented with what we can get, and we live so incessantly upon mutton that I wonder we're not all ashamed to look a sheep in the face. But, as I was saying, can we persuade you to stop and take pot-luck with us, Mr. Ferguson?" "I really thank you, Mrs. Billing," said William; "but my friends will expect me to make my appearance at the house shortly. I have brought my sister over to see Miss Eleanor, and have just dropped in to see you as I passed." "Yes! it is very kind of you," said Mrs. Billing; "and of course Mrs. Rainsfield will be expecting you. However, if at any time you shall be disposed to honour us with a visit, let us have the pleasure of your company sufficiently long to enable us fully to enjoy it. Devote some evening to us, and we will endeavour to amuse you. We would be most happy to see your sister too, if she would condescend to honour our roof by her presence; she is a gentle, amiable young lady. I need not ask if she is well as that I am sure of?" "Thank you," said William, "she is quite well, and I have no doubt will be happy to join me in paying you a visit; especially when I tell her of your kind enquiries." "Will you try a little spirits, Mr. Ferguson?" asked the master of the mansion. "I am sorry I have no wine to offer you, and neither any choice of spirits; but I shall be delighted if you will join me in a glass of rum." "I am obliged to you; not any," replied William. The conversation continued for some short time longer, chiefly though on the part of the Billing couple; who took upon themselves the initiatory to enlighten their visitor upon all their family affairs and departed greatness. William soon began to feel a distaste for this kind of conversation and society, and had made one or two attempts to break the spell. But as the pair kept up an alternate and incessant dialogue he could not find an opportunity of taking his leave; and neither did he effect his retreat until he had risen from his seat, stood hat in hand for nearly ten minutes, and repeated more than once that he feared his sister would be wondering what had become of him. He at last succeeded in escaping, and cordially shaking hands with the quondum commercial man and his lady, he took his departure and walked back to the house. Mr. Billing returned to, and was speedily lost in the abstruse calculation from which his attention had been diverted by William's visit; while Mrs. Billing retired to the precincts of her sanctum, to divest herself of her outer covering for one of more humble pretensions, in which she had been habited at the time of her surprisal. CHAPTER V. "Your words have took such pains, as if they labour'd To bring manslaughter into form, and set quarrelling Upon the head of valour." TIMON OF ATHENS, _Act 3, Sc. 5._ When William made his appearance at the house he found Eleanor, Mrs. Rainsfield, and his sister together in the sitting-room; and, after receiving a severe rating for his cruelty in teasing Kate about her accident, he was asked by Mrs. Rainsfield what had detained him so long at the stables. Upon his replying that he had visited the Billings nothing would satisfy the girls but that he had an object in making such a visit, and they insisted upon having a detailed account of all his proceedings, and what he saw and heard at the storekeeper's cottage. During his narration of the circumstance we will leave him for a few minutes while we glance at another part of the station. Over the rails of the stockyard fence leaned a man, we might have said a gentleman, smoking a short pipe, and carrying or rather holding in his hand a heavy riding-whip, which we wish the reader particularly to notice for the reason which shall shortly be seen. At his side leant another gentleman with his back to the fence, and his eyes bent on the ground. The first was Bob Smithers, and the other, Mr. Rainsfield; and, at the moment of our discovering them, they were, or had been, in close conclave. Before we proceed to listen to the conversation we will premise by stating one fact, which we have no doubt the reader has conjectured, viz., that the marriage between Bob Smithers and Eleanor had been postponed _sine die_, or until such time as her health should be thoroughly restored. "Yes, I say again, it is a confounded nuisance that the girl is so slow in getting well; she might have broken half a dozen legs, and got right again by this time. I want to get her away from that infernal fellow Ferguson, and all his set; and I shall never do that until I have married Eleanor. Then, by G--! if any of them cross my path, they may expect to meet a tiger." So spoke the puissant Bob Smithers, that had grossly insulted the senior brother of "the set," and submitted ignobly to a blow from the younger; from whom he slunk away like an intimidated cur who had rushed yelping at some wayfarer, and received a warm reception. "I don't think you need make yourself at all uneasy, Bob," said his companion. "Though John Ferguson has made overtures to Eleanor, which you know were rejected, it is not very probable that his brother or sister will at all interfere; in fact, I hardly think the young girl, his sister, knows anything about her brother's feelings on that point. Eleanor is exceedingly attached to them, and well she might be, for their behaviour to her has been kind and affectionate in the extreme." "Well, that may be," said Smithers; "but still I hate them, especially that young cub that is here now. He had the audacity to strike me on the night when we paid out his brother; and, but for the intervention of some of the people, I would have killed the young wretch on the spot." "As to striking you," said Mr. Rainsfield, "I am not at all surprised at that. I wouldn't have thought much of the young fellow if he had stood passively by, and seen a practical joke perpetrated on his brother. But why didn't you retaliate, or wait for him till after the ball, and then have given him a good sound horse-whipping?" "I couldn't get an opportunity of being at him then," said Smithers, "but I'm d----d if I don't carry out your suggestion now. I'll get an opportunity before he goes away." "If you do I only hope you'll manage it so as not to implicate me," said Mr. Rainsfield. "I don't wish to interfere with your private quarrels; but I would not like the young fellow attacked in my house or in my presence. Though I have quarrelled with his brother I haven't done so with him; and I must say he has been so attentive to Eleanor during her illness that I would consider any countenanced outrage on him would be the offering of an insult to her. Nevertheless, if you have any little settlement to make with him, let it be out of my sight and hearing, and I won't interfere with you." "All right, old fellow," Smithers replied, "you need not fear me, I'll manage it comfortably enough you'll see. I'll get him quietly away from the house, and let him feel the weight of this." Saying which he laid his whip about some imaginary object with a force that made the missile whiz in the air, and with a determination that plainly portrayed the satisfaction with which he would operate upon his victim. "Very well," said Rainsfield, "do as you like. Only, as I said before, don't implicate me, and though I rather like the young man I shall have no objection to hear of the whole matter after it's done." These two worthies then separated, Bob Smithers to seek the opportunity of which he spoke, and the other either to go about some business of the station, or to keep as much out of the way of the coming event as possible. The reader will no doubt wonder how a man of Mr. Rainsfield's generally reputed integrity could reconcile his conscience to such behaviour; and also that he should willingly, and, we may add, collusively aid the suit of a man, of whose mental and moral turpitude he could have had no doubt, in preference to the honourable addresses of a gentleman in every way a more eligible match for his cousin. "But thereby hangs a tale," and it is our painful task in the office in which we stand, to see that that tale be not suppressed. At an early date after Eleanor's settled sojourn with Mr. Rainsfield he became aware of the existence of an engagement between her and Bob Smithers, from whom we may safely conjecture the knowledge was obtained. When Rainsfield, feeling for the dependent and forlorn condition of his relative, took her to the bosom of his family he did so out of pure sympathy and kindliness towards her, and had no wish or desire to interfere in the disposal of her affections. Consequently he paid very little attention to the matter. But Smithers made a proposal to him which, if it did not excite his cupidity, induced him to think more of the affair as one in which he as a relative, and a protecting relative, had an interest. It had the effect of suborning his countenance to the match, and enlisting his strenuous exertions, to induce Eleanor to accede to the wishes of the Smithers family, and plight herself anew to the man who had already received her youthful acquiescence. The offer that Smithers had made to Rainsfield was this. That they should enter into partnership, and throw their respective properties into one concern, and work together on equal terms. Smithers was to embark all the country he was then possessed of, or the proceeds arising from the sale of any portion, and what capital he could command; and the other was to bring in the stock and station of Strawberry Hill. In making this offer Smithers conceived that he would be benefited by such an arrangement, in so far as he would be able to more effectually stock the immense tracts of country he had taken up. He considered this more advantageous than disposing of the runs; as, he argued by lightly stocking them in the first place, and allowing them to become by gradation fully stocked, through augmentation and the natural increase, he would eventually be possessed of larger property than if he with his own means only stocked an integral part of his holdings. On the other hand Rainsfield considered the offer as equally worthy of attention to himself, possibly looking at it in the same light. However, he had agreed to it; and this was the _douceur_ that had made him a warm partizan of the Smithers' cause; and that had influenced the collusion that worked for the consummation of Bob's, or we might say Mrs. Smithers', matrimonial scheme. With regard to Eleanor, her feelings, we fear, were little dreamt of in the matter. Rainsfield deemed Smithers a good match for her, and possibly believing that she entertained at least some respect for the man, he never imagined for a moment that she could have had any objection. While she, on the other hand, from the continual promptings of her cousin, in the absence in her mind of any other imaginative cause for her cousin's warmth, attributed it to the desire on his part to be relieved of an irksome burden; and she had given her consent. We must admit that women are as equally (it is even affirmed they are more) susceptible than men to the warm affections of the heart; and that as they are inspired by love so are they influenced by aversion. And as a man, we mean of course with honour and conscience, would go to any extremity rather than ally himself to a woman whom he contemned, so would a woman feel as great a repugnance in accepting a man for whom she could not entertain any respect. We do not say that Eleanor actually abhorred Bob Smithers; but we can affirm that she felt no enjoyment in his society, but rather the reverse; and though she had accepted him to avoid the unpleasantness of her situation, the match was positively distasteful to her. Smithers' nature was diametrically opposed to hers. They had no one feeling in common; his tastes were not as her tastes; nor hers as his. Besides, she had an exalted, and perhaps romantic, idea of matrimony. She didn't think it proper to marry for convenience, but imagined it was a compact that was only justly and favourably formed on true love. Not that at the time of her engagement with Smithers she had experienced the sentiment; but she was aware she had entertained the proposal of a man in the absence of it, and therefore had sacrificed a moral principle. But her trial was to come. She then met John Ferguson; and their mutual companionship, if it had had its effects on John, had surely had no less so on her. It is true she had thought no more of him, at first, than as a friend, a kind attentive friend. But then she admired him, his precepts, his manners, his conversation, and his general ingenuousness; she liked him, and found pleasure in his society. Did she think she loved him? It may be she never gave herself a thought on the subject. She was content to live in the pleasing delusion, that John Ferguson was nothing more to her than a friend; but there was her danger. She might have mistaken his manner; misconstrued his feelings; and been blind to the more than ordinary warmth of his greeting. But the pleasure in his company, the delight at his approach, the longing for his presence between the intervals of his visits; and the heart's palpitations, as she felt the welcome touch of his hand in the grasp of friendship, must and did have their own warning voices, to which Eleanor could not shut the ears of her understanding. She suspected he loved her; she read it in his eyes; but she feared to ask herself the question, Was the feeling reciprocated? Next came the explanation. He declared the existence of that lasting affection which never dies. But could she give him hope? could she encourage him in his love? No! she felt she could not. She had voluntarily given herself to another, yet felt she had by her manner incited this one; had probably by her demeanour given him cause to hope, while she was not justified in holding out any. She might have, nay, she even feared she had, destroyed his peace of mind, and all through her own selfishness. Why had she not warned him in time? why not forsworn the pleasure to which she had no claim? These were questions she asked herself, but could give no reply, except the sigh her heart chose to offer. Her relationship to Smithers reverted to her mind. That she did not love him, nor he her, she was convinced; then why not accept the love of John Ferguson? She meditated; but in that meditation her principle got the better of her inclinations, and she sacrificed her interest, her happiness, and her comfort, for the inviolable preservation of truth. These scruples were known to Mrs. Rainsfield and Tom, who, we have seen, considered them unnecessarily severe, and combated against them unceasingly, though without making any impression on the mind of Eleanor. They deprecated what they considered her folly, and attempted by all the arts of persuasion to move her from her purpose; but she had been inculcated with a perception of high morality, and an appreciation of strict integrity. Truth had been always represented to her mind as the fundamental basis of all virtue. Her desires and her passions had been regulated to a subserviency to the Christian character, and her nature had been moulded in a religious education. Consequently, upon the dictates of her conscience she acted, and felt she would be guilty of an unpardonable moral offence to refuse her hand where her word had been pledged. In this light, then, the parties stood to one another. Rainsfield was anxious to get his cousin married to Smithers, who was equally uneasy to have the event consummated, as he had serious misgivings on the eventual possession of his prize. Eleanor, though she was by no means anxious to hasten the marriage, had no desire to unnecessarily postpone an occurrence which she could not prevent, but of which latterly, more than ever, she had had cause to dread. However, she knew regrets were vain, and therefore attempted to attune her thoughts and feelings to a strict sense of duty, to forget her own personal likings, and to enter calmly upon the obligations expected of her. Notwithstanding all her fortitude poor Eleanor was but mortal, and she could not sustain the gigantic contest she had undertaken. She strove long and bravely, but her love would at times overcome her, and leave her the constant prey of her feelings, and to a melancholy contemplation of the sacrifice she was making; hence her protracted illness and tardy recovery. But we must return to our narrative. We left William and the ladies in the parlour at Strawberry Hill house, and Bob Smithers walking from the stockyard in that direction, breathing heavy threats of vengeance against the gentleman who had so grievously offended him, and who had escaped his just punishment upon the occasion when the offence was committed. It is needless for us to comment on Bob's version of his affray with William Ferguson, as the correct one is already known to the reader; but the tale he told Rainsfield was the one related by him wherever the circumstance of the blow became known. William, as we have said, was sitting in company with the ladies, and was submitting with the greatest docility to be made use of, by lending his hands for the extension of a skein of silk while it was being wound off by Eleanor, when a little boy bearing the Billing impress on his features appeared at the open window, and said he had something to say to Mr. Ferguson. "Say it out, my boy," said William, who imagined it might be some formal invitation from the Billing paterfamilias. "Please, sir, father told me to tell you a gentleman was waiting down at our house to see you," said the boy. "And who is the gentleman, my lad?" asked William. "Please, sir, I don't know," he replied; "father only told me a gentleman wanted to speak with you directly." "Is Mr. Rainsfield down at your father's house?" asked William. "No, sir," was the reply. "Very well; tell the gentleman, or your father, that I will be down there in a few minutes," said William; "and that if the gentleman is in any very particular hurry, it would have been a great saving of his time if he had come up here." Now, the circumstance struck all present (though no one said so) as being rather remarkable, that Smithers, for they knew it could be no other than he, should desire to meet William Ferguson alone, and away from the house. William knowing or suspecting the nature of the coming interview, fearing that his friends would have a similar suspicion, and having no desire to excite their fears, tried to show his coolness and indifference by whistling an air as he left the room. But this oft-repeated stratagem had not the desired effect of allaying the fears of one, at least, who was cognizant of the quarrel at Brompton and the whole attendant circumstances. This was Eleanor, and she was convinced, from the manner of Smithers, that he meditated some action which he was ashamed to perform within sight of the house. She therefore hastily put on her hat, and prepared to follow William, and being joined by Kate, she stepped out through the window to the green sward in front. Hardly a dozen steps were necessary, to bring them clear of the angle of some outhouses that intercepted the view of the stables and Billing's premises; and as she cleared that angle, it was to this point Eleanor directed her gaze. The sight that she then witnessed showed that she was only too correct in her surmise as to the intentions of Smithers; for there she saw him in high altercation with William, who stood perfectly at ease taking the matter as coolly as possible. His arms were folded across his breast, and a pleasant smile played on his features, while his antagonist had worked his wrath up to the culminating point, ready for a mighty explosion; and raved about the ground while he brandished his whip. We will not trouble our readers, or shock their ears or senses, by a recapitulation of the dialogue; suffice it to say, that if warm it was short. So that when Eleanor discovered the disputants she witnessed the exacerbation of Smithers' ire, and the descent of his whip across William's shoulders. The fate of Smithers on this occasion might have been similar to what it was on a former one had not the attention of William been drawn off from his purpose by hearing a loud shriek at his rear. He turned to see whence it came, while his castigator, taking no further heed of the circumstance than to look round to see from whom it emanated, continued to belabour at his victim with redoubled energy. It was Eleanor who had uttered the shriek when she saw the blow struck by Smithers; and instantly flying between the belligerents, throwing her arms around the neck of her intended husband, she exclaimed: "Robert! Robert! for mercy's sake, what are you--" But she was not permitted to finish the sentence for the ruffian whom she had clasped in an embrace that should have melted a heart of stone shouted in her ear, coupled with an expression not fit to be repeated: "What business have you here?" while he flung her from him with a force that hurled her insensibly to the ground, where she lay without a murmur. This was more than the honour and chivalry of William could bear. To be attacked himself he cared little as he was well able to defend himself, and also to retaliate when he thought fit; but to see a brute, without one spark of manly feeling, not only lift his hand to a lady, and that lady a gentle amiable girl who was about to bless him with more earthly happiness than was meet for him to enjoy, but to prostrate her with such force as to momentarily deprive her of vitality, was more than his spirit could placidly endure. The lion was roused in his nature; and, while Kate attended to her fallen friend, he sprung like an infuriated animal on the cowardly villain; wrenched his whip from his hand and let him feel not only the weight of _it_, but also of the avenger's athletic arm, in such a way as would cause him to remember it for many a day. When William had thrashed the wretch until he had driven him to seek shelter in the stables, he returned to where still lay the form of Eleanor, who showed no signs of returning consciousness. Feeling alarmed at the lengthened duration of the swoon Kate and her brother thought they had best remove her to the house at once; with which intention William took her in his arms, and carried her in to Mrs. Rainsfield. The good lady was quite alarmed at the appearance of poor Eleanor's features, when her still inanimate form was brought to her. An ashy paleness pervaded her face; her eyes were closed; and, with the exception of an occasional faint sigh, no signs of life were visible. We say, Mrs. Rainsfield was justly frightened at the appearance of the poor girl, and she asked in an agitated manner: "What is this? what is the matter? Eleanor swooned? Good gracious! what does it mean?" "My dear Mrs. Rainsfield," said William, "if you will allow me to tender my advice I would suggest that you instantly put Miss Eleanor to bed. I sadly fear her injuries are severe, and that it is more than a mere swoon under which she is now labouring. Pray, don't delay, but remove her at once; and Kate can tell you all the circumstances. If you will lead the way I will carry her into her room." "Poor Eleanor! and is this too the work of that viper, Smithers?" said Mrs. Rainsfield. "It is, indeed!" replied Kate. "Oh, the vile wretch!" exclaimed the lady. "It is as I thought, he cares not a straw for her life. A man that would treat a tender, loving girl in this way, would be guilty of any enormity; and yet she is so infatuated as to court her own misery by persisting in accepting this monster. Oh! what would I not give to see her safe out of his clutches? But he surely can't have the effrontery to look her in the face after this; nor she so silly as to receive him if he does. Certainly not, if I can dissuade her, and I think I have some good ground to work upon now." By this time William had deposited his burden on the little snow-white bed of the motionless girl, and left the room and the patient to the guardianship of Mrs. Rainsfield and his sister; while he strolled out for a few minutes to calm his agitation, and weigh the circumstances in his mind. He had walked backwards and forwards for about a quarter of an hour when he turned again into the house just as his sister was looking for him. "Oh, Will!" she said, "Eleanor is in a dreadful state. She is fearfully ill, and we think it is a fever. Mrs. Rainsfield says there is a doctor who has lately settled at Alma, and she was going to send one of the men over for him; but I thought it would be better, to prevent the possibility of any mistake, for you to go. Will you go, and at once, Will?" The answer William gave to his sister's question was to dart off to the stables for his horse; and in a few minutes afterwards he might have been seen galloping through the bush to procure the services of the son of Galen located at the nearest township. CHAPTER VI. "Oh! wretch without a tear--without a thought, Save joy above the ruin thou hast wrought-- The time shalt come, nor long remote, when thou Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now." BYRON. When Smithers had partially recovered from the wholesome chastisement administered by William Ferguson, and had witnessed, from his concealment, the hasty departure of his foe, the nature of his journey, and the cause of his precipitance, flashed instantly across his mind; and, we would fain believe, his conscience was visited by compunctions for his unpardonable brutality. He cogitated for some time on the course he was to pursue, and thought of how he could explain away the circumstances; for even to her whom he knew would forgive much he hardly dared venturing an explanation; knowing too well that his conduct was not to any extent defensible. He, however, determined to make the attempt to see Eleanor, and endeavour to remove from her mind any impression that might be injurious to his cause; and with that idea he approached the house. Oh, Smithers, you ignorant inflated fool! How little you know the nature of woman, and how less you can estimate their worth, and appreciate the value of such an one as her who has surrendered her heart to thy keeping! Thinkest thou that it is woman's only province to forgive? That thy perpetual contumely should be continually pardoned, and thou, without any innate goodness or recommendatory virtue, should ever claim the devotion of a spirit the personification of purity, while thy conduct is such as would make that spirit, were not its adjuncts truth and compassion, shrink with loathing from the vile contamination of your very breath, and a fear of the consequences of your truculence and inhumanity! It is true, some women blinded by the infatuation of love, would sacrifice their happiness, peace, and liberty, even life, on the unworthy object of their ardent affection; but if thou believest this, buoy not thyself up with the idea that all thy sins will be forgiven thee! Eleanor has had much to deprecate in thee! many have been the wounds thy churlishness has inflicted on her gentle nature, and though she was willing to sacrifice all her earthly happiness to maintain intact her truth and honour, yet remember she is not actuated by love, but by an exalted sense of duty. Let her once be convinced that she is exonerated from a performance of that, and thy bird has flown. Duty has a strong tractive influence on a mind attuned to a high appreciation of integrity; but love is a still more powerful incentive, and dost thou know thou art not the happy possessor of that love? Yes, thou not only knowest that no such sentiment is felt for you by that being whose purity thou contemnest, but thou fearest, nay, even art certain, that the object of that being's love is another; and that other he whom thou hast striven to make thine enemy! Yet, knowing all this, thinkest thou that woman, frail confiding woman, could trust thee as her mundane protector? Because Eleanor has forgiven much, thou thinkest thyself secure; but if this last is not the _coup de grâce_ in thy catalogue of contumacious infamies we shall be inclined to deprecate Eleanor's leniency. But to return. One of Bob Smithers' characteristics was a conceited self-complacency that distended his very soul with its blinding virus; and, speaking in the figurative of a popular apothegm, he estimated his commendable qualities as equivalent to no insignificant quantity of that mean maltine beverage which we thirsty members of the great Anglo-Saxon family call small-beer. He therefore thought he had but to go to his betrothed with a penitential cast of countenance, and claim as a right, and receive as a matter of course, that forgiveness which he was entitled to expect. "I was only", (he said apologetically to himself), "in a bit of 'a scot' at the time, and when she came in my way I pushed her off when she fell. It was her own fault, and she must know I did nothing to her but what any other man similarly situated would have done." At the conclusion of his meditations he stepped on to the verandah of the house, and seeing a servant passing out of the sitting-room, into which he had entered by the window, he called her and asked, "Where was her mistress, or Miss Eleanor?" "Miss Eleanor is ill, and missus is with her," replied the girl who looked awkward and rather sheepish at her questioner. "Is Miss Eleanor very bad, Mary?" asked Smithers. "I think she is, sir," replied she. "Mary! Mary!" called a voice that was almost instantly followed by the utterer, Kate, who ran into the room, saying: "Do run out, and try and find Mr. Rainsfield." But she had hardly got the words out of her mouth, as she stood in the doorway of the room, than, catching sight of Smithers, she uttered a faint scream, and fled hastily from his presence. She was instantly followed by the girl, who had partly heard the cause of her young mistress' illness, and was desirous to escape the questioning of one whose character she could also despise. Smithers stood musing for some minutes, not altogether pleased with these evidences of repulsion on the part of Eleanor's friends; but his fears of their influence over her mind were only momentary. He must see her, he said to himself; have an interview with her, and the little difficulty will soon be arranged. Then he would hurry his marriage, he thought, and take Eleanor away from the hated influence. "Those Fergusons," he continued in his soliloquy, "are a pragmatic, hateful lot, and I can't understand why Rainsfield does not keep them away from his place." Smithers firmly believed they had been created for the express purpose of causing him annoyance; and their present especial object in settling in that district was to frustrate his marriage, and rob him of his bride elect. "But he would defeat them," he said to himself, "or he'd be--;" but here his mental reservations were interrupted by Mrs. Rainsfield, who exclaimed as she entered the room: "So, sir! you dare to show yourself again in my house after the vile atrocity you have been guilty of. As to your infamy I do not wonder at it, for it is only the fructification of a nature equally depraved, brutal, and worthless. But after your insulting attack upon a guest of mine, and your cruelty to a gentle and amiable girl that you should have ventured within the precincts of this house I am truly astonished. I know you to be too great a coward to do so did you think there was any possibility of your meeting with the one who so lately gave you your deserts; and I can only attribute your presence now as a further proof of your arrogance, and to an endeavour to insult the female inmates of this dwelling." "I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Rainsfield," replied the object of that lady's invectives; "I never offered any insult to you or any other lady in this house; so your strictures on me are quite uncalled for." "What, sir! can you stand before me with such barefaced effrontery, and tell me such an unequivocal falsehood?" cried the lady. "Have you not insulted me by cajoling from my presence a gentleman, who is my friend and visitor, to basely assault him? and then what do you say of your dastardly behaviour to that girl who was contemplating her own misery and destruction by throwing herself away on such a wretch as you?" "I decline to answer you, madam," said Smithers, "for your language is most offensive." "Then even you are susceptible on the point of feeling," replied Mrs. Rainsfield, "and yet you think I can't feel an insult. I tell you, sir, that if you had subjected me to the treatment that you did Eleanor I should have considered it an offence of the most unpardonable nature. But I love Eleanor even better than I do myself, and you may therefore expect no mercy at my hands. For your offence to myself I shall expect an expiation by your totally absenting yourself from this house; and if I have any influence over the mind of that ill-used girl (which I hope and trust I have), you may rest assured it will be exercised to your disadvantage. So, sir, without any further parley, I have to request that you instantly leave the house." "I shall do nothing of the sort, madam," replied Smithers, "your husband I presume is the master of this house?" "Well, sir, I expect him here every moment," exclaimed the lady, "and if you do not obey my injunctions you shall be forcibly expelled from the premises." "And situated as I am," continued Smithers not heeding the last threat of his irate companion, "with regard to Eleanor, I think I am entitled to see her." "You shall not be admitted to her presence, sir," replied the lady. "I wish to see her," said Smithers, "to explain the circumstances under which the accident occurred." "Accident indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Rainsfield. "It requires no explanation, sir, it speaks for itself. I have already had your brutality recounted by an eyewitness." "By her friend I presume and one that is therefore not mine," sneered Smithers, "the sister of that villain who first poisoned Eleanor's mind towards me." "Cease, sir! your invectives against one with whom you are not worthy to be mentioned in the same breath," cried Mrs. Rainsfield. "It was Miss Ferguson who related to me the unmanly and ruffianly manner in which you hurled Eleanor to the ground. She now lies with her life in imminent peril, and yet you have the audacity to stand before me and call it an accident which you will be able to explain." "Yes, madam! I am confident I shall be able to satisfy Eleanor that it was not intentional on my part. I am exceedingly grieved that she should be so extremely ill, but believe me, Mrs. Rainsfield, this once, that if you will permit me to see her only for a few minutes I will be quite contented, and will certainly relieve her mind from any impression of my having wilfully harmed her." "No, sir! it is useless your attempting to alter my determination. I tell you emphatically, that you shall not see her. She is now in a raging fever, and the sight of you at this moment might extinguish the flickering flame of her existence. To save me from any painful necessity, I trust, sir, you will see the expediency of ceasing your importunities and at once taking your departure." "I much regret that you will not permit me to see Eleanor," exclaimed Smithers, "because I am sure you are acting under a misapprehension of my motives and actions. If you would but permit me to explain, I--" "It is useless, sir." "But I am confident you must have been misinformed of the circumstances. Your informant is no friend of mine, and would have consequently given the affair a colouring detrimental to my interests." Mrs. Rainsfield could stand no more of this colloquy, and with difficulty suppressed her rage. It had twice or thrice been just on the point of overflowing; but now it was beyond her power to restrain it. To have her young friend Kate branded as a liar by the infamous viper before her struck her dumb with indignation; and it was some moments before she regained the power of utterance, when she exclaimed: "You mean grovelling, despicable villain! You must of necessity add to your opprobriousness by including Miss Ferguson among those whom you choose to insult, and attack her with your scurrility. Because you generate lies yourself do you think she is capable of uttering falsehoods? I will endure you no longer. Instantly leave this house, sir, do you hear me? or I'll--" "Pray, what is the matter, my dear?" enquired Mr. Rainsfield, who entered at this moment. "Oh, John! cause that man to leave the house, and I'll tell you," replied his wife. "My dear Rainsfield," commenced Smithers, but was cut short by the infuriated lady, who exclaimed: "Not a word in my presence, sir. I have already ordered you to leave the house; do you intend to obey me?" Then, turning to her husband, Mrs. Rainsfield said in a voice almost choking with passion: "John, will you not assist and support me? I have been grossly insulted by that man, who persists in defying me. Is he to continue doing so?" and she sank into a chair, and gave vent to her excited feelings in a flood of tears. Rainsfield was not one of those unfortunates, belonging to that class of marital bipeds known as "hen-pecked husbands," though he was certainly of an uxorious disposition. It cannot therefore be supposed that he could have calmly witnessed the distress of mind his spouse evidently appeared to be in without feeling some sympathy; and she being in that state in which philosophers tell us woman soonest touches the heart of inexorable man, viz., in tears, that sympathy was heightened. Rainsfield's connubial heart was softened at the evidence of his wife's woes; he therefore turned to Smithers, and said: "Leave us together just now, Bob; I'll see you before you go." It must be distinctly understood that though Rainsfield, as he was in duty bound, sided with his wife on this occasion, he had no desire to quarrel with Smithers, even if his wife had; far from it. It is true he had heard something of the little fracas of flogging and fainting; but that was nothing to him. If the young men chose to quarrel, he considered, let them do so! and if his cousin chose to interfere, and get hard knocks for so doing, he could not help it. If the girl had fainted it was a pity, but what influence had he over her syncope? Women always made a great deal, he thought, about those things, but generally cool down after a while and forget such little grievances. So when he communicated to Smithers his wish that he should leave the house, he did so with an expression in his look that plainly said: "Never mind, old fellow, you will lose nothing by leaving your case in my hands." The delinquent, we have no doubt, fully understood it, for he instantly obeyed the behest. Let it be said, however, to the credit of Mr. Rainsfield, that as he took this view of the case he was only aware that Eleanor had fainted and was ill; but had no idea that William Ferguson had gone off to Alma for a doctor, and that Eleanor's case was so dangerous. He therefore imagined that his wife had magnified her danger, and the heinousness of Smithers' crime; and consequently thought more lightly of the whole affair than did his partner. But he was shortly to be undeceived. As Smithers left the room Rainsfield took a seat beside his wife and said: "Well, my dear, what is the cause of all this? you seem agitated. I have heard something of what has happened, but surely that is not sufficient cause for your angry altercation with Bob Smithers, and making yourself miserable." "Do you not think so, John?" she replied; "first to have Eleanor nearly brought to death's door (for she is in such a raging fever that I have been compelled to get William Ferguson to go to Alma for a doctor), and then to be insulted and openly defied in my own house by the villain who is the cause of it all; do you not think that is sufficient to make me agitated?" "Certainly, my dear," replied her husband, "the matter appears to me in a new light. I was not aware it was of so serious a nature; pray tell me all about it." Mrs. Rainsfield was not long in replying to this mandate, and speedily gave her husband a detailed account of the horrors of Smithers' proceedings, permitting them in nowise to lose in her narrative any of their force and piquancy. She then wound up her recapitulation of atrocities by demanding to know if her husband could think of permitting so vile a man to darken his door again. "Understand me, John," she said, "I shall expect you to protect me against him and his insults: and that can't be done while his presence here is tolerated. If ever he enters this house I shall most assuredly consider that you are conniving at his insolence, and shall certainly confine myself to my own room during his stay." We have seen that Mr. Rainsfield was mindful of his wife's wishes, but at the same time had no desire to make a breach with Smithers; consequently he found himself in a dilemma, from which he saw no extrication without giving offence to one or other of the parties. He therefore made no promise to his wife. "You don't answer me, John," said she, "what am I to consider you think of his conduct?" "Well, my dear," replied her husband, "I really can't tell. It is certainly reprehensible, but there is no use quarrelling with Smithers. If it is any satisfaction to you that he should not visit us I dare say he will not trouble you; but for my own part I can't see how you can expect him to forego his right to see Eleanor." "Eleanor herself, when she recovers, if she ever does, will relieve him from that obligation," replied Mrs. Rainsfield. "How can you say that?" said her husband. "She has expressed no intention of doing so." "No, certainly; the poor girl is not in a state to express any determination," replied the wife; "but do you think she will suffer herself to be led to the altar by a brute like him, a man who has shown himself on more than one occasion quite unworthy of her? If she has got the spirit I think she has she will treat him with that contempt which he deserves." "I see how it is," exclaimed Rainsfield, "you are prejudiced against Smithers." "Prejudiced against Smithers, John?" replied his wife; "yes, I may be, but not in the sense you mean. You fancy I dislike the man because I would prefer Eleanor to accept another but you are mistaken. Hitherto I never disliked Smithers as a man, but as a suitor of Eleanor I certainly abhor him; and for this reason that I saw her inevitable fate would be misery and wretchedness if she were ever mated to him. Now though I have more than ever cause not only to detest him for his insolence to me but to fear him for Eleanor's life." "You are infatuated against him," replied the husband. "And for this quarrel of yours you would wish to destroy his happiness irrespective of the feelings of Eleanor herself. You say she is really ill and cannot be spoken to on the subject; then at present let the matter rest until her recovery." "On one condition only," replied Mrs. Rainsfield, "and that is that Smithers in the interval be banished from the house. If you agree to that I am content to leave his further expatriation to her good judgment." "So let it be," replied her husband. "I'll see Bob, and try to persuade him to let the settlement of the affair remain in _statu quo_." With that the couple parted, the wife to return to the sick room, and the husband to seek Smithers. We will not trace their steps on their respective missions but merely state that Mrs. Rainsfield and Kate passed an anxious night with their invalid. At an early hour on the following morning, hearing a horseman's step passing the house, while they were anxiously expecting the doctor, Mrs. Rainsfield looked from the window of the room where she was keeping her vigils and detected the retreating outline of Bob Smithers' form as he departed for his home. Her husband she had not seen since their interview in the parlour, but as she had not since that time left Eleanor's bedside it gave her no concern; or at least she never thought of an absence of which she was not cognizant. However he had been absent all night, and while the doctor, who had arrived with William shortly after the departure of Smithers, was administering his febrifuges to poor Eleanor he was enacting the scene which we will detail to the reader. Rainsfield had had a long conversation with Smithers on the subject that had been communicated to him by his wife; and had, after a good deal of persuasion, induced him to agree to absent himself from Strawberry Hill until Eleanor's recovery. Smithers, when he found his companion disposed to favour him, was the louder in his asseverations of guiltlessness; demanding an instant opportunity of explanation, and vowing vengeance against everybody concerned, and John Rainsfield in particular, for not being master in his own house. However Rainsfield, though he was inclined to forget his dignity by stooping to entreaty with him, was nevertheless firm to his purpose, and not to be intimidated by his blustering; and at last succeeded in inducing him to promise to take his departure by daylight the following morning, so as to avoid the possibility of any further unpleasantness. With that he left him to his own meditations, and walked away. Mr. Rainsfield had not taken many steps beyond the out-buildings belonging to the house before he heard his own name called in a cautious manner from behind a tree; and, glancing his eye in the direction whence came the voice, he was startled to see the stalwart figure of a black, half concealed behind the trunk, beckoning him with his finger. The suddenness of the apparition for some moments unnerved him, and deprived him of the power of utterance. He, however, mastered his fears; and, as his self-control returned, he demanded to know what the black wanted with him. "You know me, Mr. Rainsfield?" replied the black, "I'm Jemmy Davies." "Oh, yes, I know you," replied Mr. Rainsfield, "but I thought you and the whole of your tribe had left the country." "So we did, sir, but we've all come back again, and a great many more of the tribe too, and they are determined to kill you. Barwang and all Dugingi's friends will kill you, and I can't prevent them though I've tried; for they are too strong for me. So I've come to give you warning." "They intend to kill me, do they? then, by G--! they shall repent their rash resolve. But how am I to believe this?" asked Mr. Rainsfield of the black. "You! you wretch, have you got some vile scheme in your head. Think yourself fortunate that I've no gun with me or I'd shoot you on the spot." "You wouldn't shoot me," replied Jemmy Davies; "didn't Mr. Tom tell you that I'm always a good friend to you, how I tried to stop Dugingi from stealing your rations when you killed so many of our tribe; and now I come to tell you that they want to kill you and you think me no good. But what for do you think, Mr. Rainsfield, I want to do you harm? If I want to see you die I wouldn't tell you of this; but let the black fellows kill you. If you will not believe me I can't help it; but if you like to come down to the crossing-place to-night at dark I'll meet you and show you our camp in the scrub; when you will see if I tell you a lie. I will stop Barwang and his friends as long as I can, but I can't prevent them altogether from coming to you; so you had better look out and be ready." This warning sounded as an avenging declaration in the ear of Rainsfield. He had for sometime flattered himself on his security and tranquillity; and hoped, nay even believed, that he had effectually ridden himself of a hitherto incessant annoyance. But now that the surviving friends of his foes had returned, with the avowed object of seeking vengeance, he was troubled in his mind. He, however, determined to further question his informant, and, rousing himself from a reverie into which he had fallen, perceived that the black had departed. Mr. Rainsfield dragged through the remainder of the day with a heavy heart, and never more than then regretted the absence of his brother. Should he accept the black's invitation? he asked himself. It would be a satisfaction to know in what force they were collected; but then (he thought) the messenger might mean treachery. However, he would go; he could detect it if it existed, and if it was attempted he could shoot the wretch before he had time or opportunity to betray him. Yes (he thought) he would arm himself well, and meet Jemmy Davies at the time and place he appointed. "I'm glad you've come, Mr. Rainsfield," exclaimed the black, emerging from the obscurity of the bush, as the squatter rode down to the bank of the river some few hours after the last interview. "Yes I've come," said Rainsfield, "and at your bidding; but see I am well armed," as he pointed to a brace of revolvers in his belt, "and, if you are attempting to play me false, the first shot I'll fire shall be through your body." "Never fear me, Mr. Rainsfield," replied Jemmy Davies, "I'm not going to betray you. My greatest fear is not from your pistols but from the tomahawks of my tribe; for if they find me with you they will be sure to kill me." "Very well," said Rainsfield, "I'll follow you, lead the way;" and the two crossed the stream in silence. "You had better leave your horse here, sir," said the guide, "in case he should be heard by the tribe." Rainsfield acted on this hint and dismounted; and fastening the animal to a tree, he said to the black: "Now you can go on, but remember if this is a trap for me you had better think twice before you proceed; for I shall keep my hand ready to lodge a ball in your heart the moment I perceive any treachery." "Never be afraid, sir," replied the black, who continued to thread the scrub in silence with his companion close to his heels. When they had proceeded thus for some little time Rainsfield perceived by the appearance of lights, and the noise of the blacks' voices, that they were nearing "the camp." Jemmy Davies desired him to keep close to him, and make no noise, as they were nearer the camp than appeared through the thick scrub, and then led him a few steps further forward, when the whole tribe became plainly discernible. They then dropt on their hands and knees and crept close up to what we may call the circumvallation of the gunyahs; and the crouching white man surveyed intently the scene before him. Then would have been the time to have profited by his position if treachery had been meditated; but not a leaf stirred around them, while Rainsfield was lost in a reverie none of the most pleasant. He was, however, aroused from this by Jemmy Davies, who pointed to a group apart from the body of the tribe consisting of about fifteen men, who were all armed with their spears, nullanullas, and boomerangs, and were painted for a corroboree. One black, taller than the rest, was haranguing them at the moment, and his hearers were apparently acquiescing in his directions, from the yells and other marks of approbation with which they from time to time greeted his diatribe. "That's Barwang and his friends," whispered Jemmy as he drew away his companion from the spot. "They will have a great corroboree to-morrow, and then you look out. To-morrow night they will come up to the station to watch, very likely they will be somewhere about where you saw me this morning; so if you keep some one on the look-out, and fire some shots into the bush, they will think you see them and keep away. They won't do anything to-morrow night, but watch. When they come up to kill you there will come a great many, so keep looking out." Rainsfield and his companion returned to the crossing-place, when the former mounted his horse and passed through the river, while the latter returned to his tribe. CHAPTER VII. "Till taught by pain, Men really know not what good water's worth." BYRON. The reader will remember Tom Rainsfield's journey to town had been delayed for some time beyond when he had originally intended to start owing to the precarious state of Eleanor's health; consequently, when he took his departure, it was necessary for him to use speed in his travelling. The summer had by that time considerably advanced, and the country had suffered much from the continued drought that had prevailed for months. Rain was anxiously and hopingly looked for, and a pluvial visitation would have been hailed by the entire population with satisfaction. Tom, as he journeyed, saw this desideratum more plainly than before leaving home; for, as he mounted on to the extensive plains contiguous to the source of the Gibson river, the parched bare soil became perfectly uncomfortable to travel on. These plains were of fine black alluvial soil, so thinly timbered as to have hardly a tree visible within range of the eye. They were covered with grass, which, when the earth contained any moisture, flourished luxuriantly, and would at times stand waving like an agrarian picture of cereal plenty, so abundant as to impede the progress of the equestrian traveller. But now a "change had come o'er the spirit of the dream," and the herbous mass lay scorched and dry on the arid ground, offering no nutriment to the browsing kine, and only requiring a single spark to generate a grand combustion. Much has been said and written of the burning prairies of America, and of the bush-fires of Australia; and we may remark, it is in such places as these plains where they originate. Though not so extensive and destructive in their course of devastation as those fearful conflagrations in the western hemisphere, the bush-fires are still frequently of sufficient magnitude to be perfectly irresistible; and occurring as they usually do in the heart of a settled country, they are rendered more dangerous to human life and property. How they originate often remains a mystery. Of course carelessness frequently gives rise to them; though at the same time they have been known to occur in parts where neither whites nor blacks ever tread; and too often, when the destroying element rages over and sweeps away a homestead or a farm, the work is attributed to the incendiarism of some inoffensive blacks, who are made to suffer at the hands of the whites. Tom Rainsfield journeyed on his course over these plains that looked like a vast neglected hay-field; except in parts where water had lodged and formed temporary ponds or "water-holes." There it presented an area of black mud, baked hard by the power of the sun, and had absorbed so much of its heat as to render it even painful for a horse to stand upon. Tom rode under vertical rays, keeping as much as possible on the withered grass (as being more comfortable than the sun-absorbing and reflecting road), without the companionship of a fellow traveller to relieve the monotony and solitude of the way; and not daring to indulge in the consolation of a pipe, lest a stray spark should ignite the inflammable material at his feet. Miles and miles of this weary and trying travelling were passed, and Tom was not sorry when the track entered a country less open, and he once more rode through bush land. Here, too, the ground, though partially sheltered from the sun's rays, was equally devoid of feed and moisture. Not a blade of grass was to be seen, nor a drop of water in the creeks and water-holes. For himself, notwithstanding that his thirst was insatiable, Tom cared little; he could manage to do without a drink until he reached the end of his day's stage; but it was for the faithful animal that carried him that he anxiously scrutinized every spot likely to contain the smallest reservoir of the much coveted liquid. But his researches were all unavailing; as yet no water could he find; until at one point on the road, when he had almost given up the search as hopeless, he spied a large swamp filled with reeds, in which a herd of cattle lay almost concealed, apparently cooling themselves in the water. Here then he had no doubt he should find what he and his horse had so much desired; and hastening on to the black adamantine margin of what had formerly been a large lagoon, he witnessed a sight that struck him with dismay. Not one drop of water was visible in the extensive basin, and the cattle which he had imagined were luxuriating in a natural refrigerator, were dead and immovable. Such scenes are common under similar circumstances; and at times, while the country is suffering from the effects of a drought, to see cattle "bogged" in a water-hole is only thought of as a necessary consequence fully expected, and therefore hardly to be deplored. Still when witnessed by one who may be seeking that which is essential to life, to allay a thirst which may be consuming, it is enough to make the heart of such sink within him; and, though Tom was hardly in so reduced a predicament, yet he could not gaze on the unfortunate animals without some unpleasant admixture of perturbation and concern. In the swamp as many as fifty cattle had sought shelter from the heat and moisture for their thirsty tongues. But having waded through the mud, into which they had sank to their middles, they had possibly satisfied themselves for the moment with a concoction of glutinous soil and vapid lukewarm water; but, from their exhausted strength, had not been able to extricate themselves from their miry bondage, and had consequently died in their captivity. The mud at the time of Tom's visit had perfectly hardened, and he traversed the whole bed of the swamp, in the vain hope of finding some friendly hole in which a few welcome drops might be found for his worn-out steed. But his search was fruitless, and he was at last reluctantly compelled to relinquish it, from the attacks of myriads of flies, who were disturbed at their bovine repast. He at length continued his journey with a worn-out horse and a fagged and jaded spirit, and was not a little grateful, as evening gathered its shades around, to espy the glimmer of a light from the station which was his night's destination. Tom's further progress was equally tedious and trying. The whole country seemed parched up, and it was with the greatest difficulty he could push on at all; and as the fatigue to himself and his horse necessitated him to make his day's stages much shorter than he desired, it was the sixth day from his leaving Strawberry Hill that he entered the village of Waverley on the Brisbane river. When we call this a village it is only out of courtesy that we are guilty of such a misnomer. For though, by the government plan of the township, it looks a well-arranged and thriving place, we must state, notwithstanding that building allotments had from time to time been put up at auction by the government, and we may add found purchasers, and that the existence of a public-house, rejoicing in the high-sounding title of the Royal Hotel, lent an imposing air to the place,--the gracefully tinted Queen Street, Albert Street, Prince of Wales Street, etc. etc., of the elaborate survey office map, only existed in the mind of the surveyor, and the imagination of the land-jobber. The said thriving thoroughfares remained in a state of primeval grandeur; having their boundaries marked, for the convenience of inquisitive seekers after information, by small pegs driven into the ground, and whose sole object seemed to be to lie concealed and bewilder those who might desire to find them. By the foresaid plan this town or village (or, as the Americans would say, this city) of Waverley was laid out with considerable taste. The streets were all broad and at right angles; with a market reserve; grants for church sites to various denominations of Christians; and a broad quay facing the river, either for commercial purposes or for a promenade for the inhabitants. But in reality the whole of the architecture of the place was comprised in the sole habitation, the Royal Hotel; which was built near the bank of the river, with a rough fence enclosing three sides of a piece of ground that ran down to the water's edge. This constituted the paddock for the horses of weary travellers; and, judging from the dilapidated and generally insecure state of the fence, argued the rare occurrence of a quadrupedal occupancy. However, the sight of these little imperfections gave Tom no concern, as he was confident his animal would not attempt, in the state of fatigue to which he was reduced, to go roaming; and what gladdened his heart more than anything was the sight of what he had long been unacquainted with, fresh water. It was therefore with a considerable amount of mental relief that he rode up to the unpretending hostlery. He alighted at a door before which stood a post suspending a nondescript lamp of antideluvian construction, and bearing from its appearance questionable evidence of its ever having been submitted to the ordeal of beaconing the path of the weary traveller. On the same post was affixed a board on which the sign of the house was very plainly executed in Roman character; informing, and we think very necessarily so, the occasional visitor there was to be had accommodation for man and beast. The road leading to the Royal Hotel was not the one usually taken by travellers from the interior to Brisbane. But Tom had chosen it to avoid the more frequented track; knowing that in the present state of the country travelling on the latter would be much more difficult and troublesome. Therefore he had come by this secluded spot; intending to cross the river, and travel down by the northern bank to Brisbane, while the usual route was through the thriving and populous town of Ipswich, and down the southern side of the Brisbane river. Tom Rainsfield entered the inn; and having his horse taken round by the landlord to a bark shed designated a stable, where he preferred tending the animal himself, rather than leaving him to the tender mercies of a stranger, he gave him a drink of water and a feed of corn; and then placing some bush hay at his disposal, left him to practise his mastication, and make the most of his time. Having thus arranged for the comforts of his steed Tom next thought of himself; so strolling into the house, while something was preparing to satisfy the cravings of his inward man, he walked into "the bar," to indulge in a pipe with something cheering, and amuse himself by a little conversation with the landlord. He entered the precincts of that _quarterre_ devoted to the worship of the rosy god, and where the ministering spirit presided, stationed behind a primitive sort of counter or bench, and at whose back stood two kegs with taps and sundry bottles arranged on a shelf. These (whatever their contents) appeared to be the stock-in-trade of the establishment; excepting a large cask which stood in a corner, and which by its appearance indicated spirituous contents, from whose bulk probably the smaller kegs were from time to time replenished. Into this sanctum then walked our friend Tom Rainsfield, and after calling for a drink, and desiring the landlord in bush fashion to join him, he lit his pipe; and taking his seat on the counter entered into the following dialogue. "I shouldn't think you did much business here?" "Oh, pretty fair, sir." "Why, there doesn't appear to be many who frequent this room. I should have thought it would have hardly been worth your while to have kept a house in this place." "Nor more it would if I lived by gents a-stopping at my house; for I don't get one of 'em a month. But you see them as pays me is the sawyers; there are lots of 'em about these parts, cutting timber on the hills and in the scrubs; and when they get their logs down into the river they mostly stop here a while drinking before they raft the timber over the flats on their way down to the mills. Then when they come back they generally stop a while on the spree before they go to work. So, you see, I makes a pretty good thing out of 'em; besides you see I keeps rations here as well as grog, and sell them to the fellers when they run short and ain't got no money." "But don't you often lose your money? I suppose they have none when they go to town with their rafts, and very little when they come back; that is even if they ever do come back; then I suppose you lose your score." "Oh, I manage to get it; precious few ever 'bilk' me, for I know my marks pretty well, and them as I fancy won't come back I get to pay me in timber; and I brand the logs with my own brand, and give some of the fellers I can trust so much a hundred feet to raft them down for me. But mostly the chaps come back before they have spree'd away all their money. So I gets my share, as they pay me then what they owe me, and have another go in until they 'knock down their pile.'" "And how much do their 'piles' consist of?" "Well, I couldn't say anything regular. I have had as much as a hundred pounds 'knocked down' by one man at a time." And as the man said this he smiled and heaved a sigh that seemed to say those were prosperous times for him. True enough it was that he had had as large a sum of money paid to him by one man; but as to the amount being actually spent, or an equivalent even in liquor supplied, is extremely doubtful; but to follow them in their conversation, Tom remarked: "And then they return to their work, I suppose, quite penniless?" "Oh, yes, it is very few of them ever have any money when they get back to the scrubs; they have no use for it there, so they spend it like men." "Like fools you mean." "No I don't. What is the use of the poor man saving his money? he can't do anything with it; he can't buy any land to settle on; and he doesn't care to save up his money to be robbed of it or lose it; he works hard enough to get it, and so likes to spend it himself." "That is certainly one idea why working men should spend their hard-got earnings. I should have imagined that men who had laboured hard, and were living in the bush and scrubs in all sorts of discomfort, would have had some desire to better their condition, and would have accumulated means accordingly." "Not a bit of it, sir! they couldn't do anything with their money when they got it." "Could they not buy a piece of land and commence farming? Here, for instance, the land seems excellently adapted for agricultural purposes." "They can't get none, sir. The government folks won't sell any to the poor man, leastwise the poor man can't buy none, and if he wants any he is forced to buy it off the 'jobbers,' who generally screw him so much that it doesn't pay. So the fellers prefer keeping to the scrubs cutting timber; 'cos then they are not bound to work for sharpers, and can just please themselves." It was evident the landlord of the Royal Hotel did not classify himself in the category of those astute blades whom he designated by so cutting an epithet; though Tom's opinion on that head somewhat differed from "mine host's." He considered him a swindler of no ordinary magnitude, though merely a type of his class. He was one of those locusts who fattened on the hard working and reckless classes of colonial labourers; who when they are plundering their victims, even under the guise of friendship, dissuade them from frugality; expatiating on the numerous sources of fraud (excepting of course their own) to which "the poor men" would be exposed; and by their vile persuasions and chicanery too often succeeding in eliminating from the minds of those with whom they come in contact all notions of providence; and confirming them in their reckless and dissipated lives. These bush publicans are the cause of immense misery and depravity, and cannot be too harshly stigmatized for the enormity of their infamies. Tom being informed that the edibles prepared for him were awaiting his operations discontinued his dialogue, and adjourned to his epicurean repast; at which satisfactory occupation we may leave him uninterrupted. As his next day's stage would only be some five and twenty miles he determined to delay his departure until the afternoon so as to give his weary horse some additional rest; and it was therefore past noon on the following day when he mounted his nag and left the village of Waverley. In leaving the inn he traversed the bank of the river for some few hundred yards on his way to the flats where he was to cross when he overtook a man that apparently had preceded him from the inn, and they both went on together. The flats at this time were almost dry; for the water in the river had long ceased to run, and at the particular spot to which we allude, which was in ordinary times used as a ford, it could have been crossed dry-shod, while above and below it the river remained simply currentless pools. As Tom rode down to the bed of the river he was struck with the immense number of logs that laid scattered about, some on the banks, some in the river above, and some below, where a small boat was moored, and a party of sawyers and raftmen camped. To this party Tom's companion evidently belonged, and had apparently been despatched to the public-house by his mates, as he was returning with two suspicious-looking protuberances on each side of his bosom. These, to outward appearance, very much resembled the outlines of bottles that had been thrust into the ample folds of his blue shirt for convenience and security of carriage. While trudging on the road alongside of Tom Rainsfield the fellow gave evidence of a loquacious turn of mind by commencing a conversation and inquiring if Tom was travelling to Brisbane. Upon being informed by our friend that that was his destination, and that he had come by way of Waverley to avoid the main road on account of its desolate, dry, and feedless state, he remarked with a whimsical smile: "I suppose you think that 'ere Waverley a fine town?" "It seems a very good site for a township," replied Tom. "There is good land in the vicinity, and abundance of water. I daresay in the course of a few years it will be a flourishing place." "Not a bit of it, sir," said the man; "it never will be nothing. That 'ere house of Tom Brown's, 'The Royal,' as he calls it, will be the only house in it for many a day, unless there be another public. Lor' bless you, sir, that place of his even wouldn't be nothing if it wasn't for us sawyers; we keeps old Brown alive, and he knows it." "Well, my good friend," asked Tom, "what is to prevent others settling in the town besides Tom Brown?" "Why, what would be the good of it?" asked the other; "there would be nothing for them to live upon. All the trade that's done is with us sawyers, and there isn't more than Old Brown can do himself. Besides, you see, most of the land that has been sold in the village has been bought by the swells, who keep it to make money of it when some one should want to buy." "I have no doubt," said Tom, "the land in the vicinity will eventually be sold for farming, and then the growth of the village arising from the trade that will ensue will be rapid." "Ah! there it is, sir. You see the squatters have got all the land now for their sheep to feed on, and a poor man as has got a pound or two, and wants a few acres, can't get 'em no how." "But the government is continually putting up land for sale," said Tom; "and if any man desired to avail himself of the opportunity surely he could attend the sales and effect a purchase." "No, sir, they couldn't," said the man; "for, you see, suppose I'm working here in the bush and want to buy a bit of ground, how am I to know when there is any for sale? They will perhaps mark out a few farms near Brisbane, or Ipswich, and put 'em for sale, and they are sold off, or leastwise the best of 'em, before I or any of my mates know anything about it; or if so be as how I should get to hear of it and go to the sale, there's so many people wanting 'em, perhaps gents who maybe live in town, and want paddocks for their horses, that they will give better prices than I can give; so, you see, I don't get half a chance. If I want a bit of land to farm I think I ought to be able to get it anywhere I like just as easy as the squatter can get his country. Axing your pardon, sir, I suppose you're a squatter?" "That's true, my good man," replied Tom; "but I think myself that the restrictions on the land are vastly injurious to the country, though I doubt, even if every facility was given to the working man to procure land if he would avail himself of the opportunity; and, instead of being of benefit to him in the way intended, I question if the land would not fall into the hands of 'jobbers.' Such a state of things is equally, if not more, to be deprecated than the present system of permitting it to remain in the possession of the squatters; for now it is made available for pasturage; whereas then it would be allowed to lie unproductive until such a time as the speculator could see an opportunity of a profitable realization." "There would be plenty of us would buy lands and settle on them," said the man, "if we only had the chance. Now if you like, sir, I'll just tell you a case." Tom, though he knew all the man said was perfectly true, offered no objection to the narrative, being desirous of eliciting from him his notions on the subject, which was a much vexed one in the whole colony, and purposely encouraged him to launch as deeply into it as he thought fit. "It is about my brother, sir," said the man, "so I know it is quite true, and you may believe it. We both came to this country together about seven years ago, and took to cutting timber and rafting because it paid well those times; and we made plenty of money, though we spent it as fast as we got it. But somehow my brother didn't join much with the other fellows, for he always was a steady chap, but took to saving his money, and 'you may believe me,' it wasn't long before he had got 'a pile,' of more than two hundred pounds. Now, sir, you see, when Bill (that was his name) had saved all that money nothing would do him but he must have a bit of ground and commence farming. There was a talk then of some land being marked out somewhere near this 'ere town of Waverley; so Bill thought he would like to have a few acres hereabouts better than anywhere else. He asked some one who knew all about that sort of thing how he should go about it to buy some, and the chap told him that he ought to go to Brisbane and ask of the surveyors. So off he went to what they call the survey office, and told the big-wig there that he wanted to buy some land. Now this card showed him a lot of plans of where, he said, they had land for sale; and Bill looks at 'em and took directions, and went into the bush to have a look at 'em. But he found 'em to be no good; they was only lots that had been left at the government sales, when all the best pieces had been sold, and the ironbark ranges and quartzy or barren gravelly country left; so he wouldn't buy any of 'em, and told the chap in the office that he wanted some at Waverley; but he told him he couldn't have none there as it wasn't surveyed. "Now the party Bill stopped with put him up to a wrinkle how he would get the land he wanted to be surveyed 'cos he knew how to manage it. He got up a requisition, or made an application, to have some lands on the Brisbane river at Waverley surveyed and put up for sale, and sent it to the government, as he said that was the sure way to get it. But it was no go; the survey chaps told him that all the land thereabouts was leased to squatters, and they couldn't touch it; but, says they, if you want a nice piece of country there is some out here on the river, about five miles away, that we are going to measure off into farms directly, and they will just suit you; so, says they to my brother, just you go out and have a look at them. Well, Bill went to look at 'em, and, sure enough, they was first-rate land, so he said to himself I'll have a farm there, and that's settled. But he was all wrong; for he didn't get a farm there an' nowhere else as I shall tell you. "When he came back, after having see'd the land, he went to the office and told the people that that place would just suit him, and he would take a farm and buy it right off. But they laughed at him, and told him that he couldn't buy it before it was surveyed, but that in a short time, a week or so at most, they would have it all right and ready for sale; so Bill thought he might make the best of it and wait. A couple of weeks passed and he went to them, but it was not done; so he waited another week or two, and went back again, when they told him that they had had no time to see to it, but were going to do so very shortly. So he waited another month, and then enquired, when they had the cheek to tell him that they were obliged to put it off for they could not attend to it at all, having so much work to do at other places; but that if he would come back to town in about three months it would be all ready for sale. "Now Bill was bent upon having one of them farms, so, instead of letting the surveyor chaps, and the farms too, go to--where-ever they liked for their humbugging, he came back to the bush to work for the three months, and then went to town again to look after the land. But when he went to the office even then the fellers hadn't surveyed it; and instead of telling him like men that they were only humbugging him, and never intended to do it at all, they commenced their little games again, and told him that the surveyors were then at work on a particular job, but that as soon as they were done there they would go to the land he was waiting for. Well, sir, it's no good my telling you all the ins and outs of it; but the long and the short of it is they kept Bill in a string for six months, and then they didn't do the work, and I don't know if it is done now; so, you see, that's how us poor men can't get any land." "I believe what you complain of is perfectly true," said Tom. "The system is much to be deplored, but I hope it will shortly be improved. Unless a man is on the spot, and can wait for an opportunity, such as when a sale occurs, there is certainly very little chance for him; and men that are employed in the bush very rarely if ever have that chance." "Just so, sir," said the man. "And what did your brother do with his money after having so much of it and his time wasted in looking after this land?" "Ah, sir! there is what makes me curse the land, and the surveyors, and all the lot, for it killed Bill, and there never was a better feller breathing. I'll tell you how it was, sir. I told you Bill was a steady chap; he never used to drink, anyhow not to spree, you know; but, you'll guess, no man could stop at a public-house for six months doing nothing without getting on the spree. Bill used to walk up and down on the verandah at the public where he stopped, and smoke his pipe, while he thought how them fellers at the survey office were a-treating of him, and he got miserable like in his spirits. So when fellows got to know him, and used to come into the house, they'd ask him to take a nobbler with them; and somehow, you see, though he didn't do nothing of the sort at first, he was soon glad to get some one to join him in a drink, and being at it all day, you know, he used to get very drunk at times; so he went on until at last he was always drunk. Now Bill all this time had been keeping his money by him, so that he would be ready, when he wanted it, to buy his farm. So, what with always having plenty of money 'to shout' for other fellers (for you know, sir, he was a stunning feller to shout when he got a little bit screwed), and the lots of fellers as always stuck to him when they knew he got 'tin,' he very soon got 'cleared out;' and one day, after a tremendous spree, when he had been drunk for more than a week, he got 'the horrors,' and started to come home to the scrub. I never saw him after that, sir; for he got drowned in one of the creeks on the road, and was found by some shingle splitters soon afterwards without a shilling in his pocket; so that's what he got, poor fellow, for trying to turn farmer. Now you see, sir, we don't see the good of doing like that; so we never trouble ourselves about saving any money, and we are a deal better off, and a happier, than them as do." Tom did not attempt to refute the sophistry of this argument as he was aware that it would be useless. He knew that the case of this man's brother was by no means a solitary one; for not only had the suicidal policy of the colonial government with regard to the disposal of the waste lands been instrumental in the destruction of numerous victims similar to this unsophisticated sawyer; but it was absolutely driving that entire class of men into reckless extravagance and dissipation. Whereas a liberal land policy would not only have engendered a spirit of providence, but have offered an inducement, and have proved a stimulus, to the country's settlement by a thriving rural population. But the ministerial Solons of the country could not be induced to view the subject in that light; hence this deplorable state of morality and improvidence, which unfortunately pervades the great bulk of the country population. In urban localities the evil is not so severely felt, as a steady and industrious mechanic, with his accumulated savings, is enabled to purchase a town allotment (which allotments are just frequently enough thrust into the market by the government as to keep the demand in excess of the supply), and to build on it a house, which he erects by degrees, as his means admit. Thereby, in course of a short time, he gathers round him in the land of his adoption a comfortable little freehold property. Thus it is, nearly all the town workmen who are possessed of any savings convert them into something substantial; but for the bushmen no such opportunity exists; and hence it follows, that the towns-people are generally industrious, steady, and frugal, while those of the bush are too frequently the reverse. "That certainly was a melancholy end for your brother," said Tom to his companion, resuming the conversation that had lapsed for a few minutes. "Yes, sir, it was; and if Bill, poor fellow, had just been content to stick to the scrub like us he would most likely have been 'still to the fore.' You see, sir, we live a jolly life; are quite contented, and spend our money while we've got it. Now those fellows over there," continued the man as he pointed to the sawyer's camp, in sight of which they had just arrived, "not one of 'em would give up his life to go and work in town if you paid him ever so high wages." "I've no doubt their mode of life is fascinating; but still I should think the heavy drinking in which they indulge sometimes impairs their health and constitution." "Not a bit, sir! We never feel anything the worse for a spree, nor in anyways sick; 'cos you see we work hard, and most always live in the bush; so we are always healthy." "I've no doubt that will preserve you in a great measure; but still you must be perfectly aware that, even if you never experience any deleterious effects, you continually leave yourself destitute; and if anything in the way of sickness should happen to you, so as to incapacitate you for work, you would not only starve, but die from neglect and want of proper treatment. "Don't you believe it, sir! There would be no fear of my wanting anything. Do you think if one of my mates was sick now that I wouldn't share with him what money I'd got, or that I wouldn't look after him as if he was my brother? In course I would, and if I got sick my mates would do the same for me." By this time Tom and his companion had half crossed the bed of the river; and noticing the plans the men had adopted to get their timber over the flats, Tom commenced a fresh interrogation to elicit from his travelling concomitant some information on the usual mode of procedure. As the subject may have some degree of interest to a few of our readers we will give in our own words the substance of the dialogue, craving permission to premise it by a remark or two on the general life and movements of sawyers. They are a class of men who exist during the greater portion of the year in the bush and scrubs bordering on the rivers and creeks, where they unceasingly and uninterruptedly practise their vocations. They generally work in gangs, either on equal shares or on wages to one of their number, who may be more thoughtful than the rest; and one who, notwithstanding a fair share of dissipation, may have accumulated, possibly through the influence of a thrifty wife, some considerable means. The classes of timber most in demand, and therefore most sought for by these men, are cedar and pine; which are procured separately, in certain localities, in great abundance. This local segregation of the woods is a characteristic of the Australian bush, and more than anything else tends to create that monotony which is everywhere perceptible. It causes the eye of the traveller to weary as he looks continually on the leafless bare-looking trunks of the blue gum (which without intermission meets his gaze for miles and miles on the lonely road) or the sombre-looking ironbark that with equal pertinacity monopolizes the ranges. Rarely, if ever, will an admixture of timbers be found to any extent; and, consequently, those sawyers who cut pine leave the cedar scrubs to be visited by the others; and _vice versa_. The timber is usually cut in the dry season; and the trees after being cleared of their limbs and foliate appendages, and denuded of their bark, are drawn by the means of a bullock team to the nearest creek or river, where they are deposited until such time as the rains sufficiently swell the streams to float them from their resting-places. With an iron brand in the shape of a punch, and a hammer, each cutter on the end of every log indelibly marks his own property; and as the logs are removed from their beds by the rising current, a staple is driven into each. Through this a chain is passed, when the whole are collected into one raft, and securely moored to wait, in their transit down the stream, the pleasure of the proprietor. The time usually chosen to raft the timber is when the rivers are moderately high after rains; or, in the parlance of the upper part of the country, when there is "a flood," and in the lower, when there is "a fresh" in the river. They are then started in their downward course either by the directing aid of a small boat (if the ascent of the stream is practicable for it) or under the guidance of some of the party; who make a firm footing for themselves on their floating platform, by sheets of bark and foliage. They then trust themselves to the current, while they guide the course of the raft with poles until they come to flats. When the rivers are to any extent swollen, or (as it is said in the country) "running," the rafts usually pass over without difficulty; but if the water is low, and the flats barely covered, the passage is necessarily not so easily effected, and frequently impossible. Such then was the case at the Waverley flats at the time of which we write. And it was with the water almost at the lowest ebb that the party Tom saw had been endeavouring to float over their raft; the process for which they had adopted we now propose to explain. It is necessary at some point to have a boat to assist the raftmen in their guidance of the unwieldy mass, and one is usually kept by them for that purpose at the highest point to which it can be conveniently brought. After escaping all impediments the boat takes the raft in tow; and, as it progresses on the stream and comes within the action of tides, on the occasion of each flowing, the party have to draw their raft into the bank, and camp until the return of the ebb. In their journey to the mills rarely more than three or four of the party, including the proprietor if not a joint stock affair, accompany the timber; while the remainder pursue their occupation of cutting. The party that was camped at the Waverley flats consisted of five individuals in all. They had been working in shares for some months collecting the raft they then had with them, and were all accompanying it to the mills to sell it and have the proceeds equally distributed. But the season having been an unusually dry one they had here met with an effectual check, and had no alternative but to wait for rain. When they first reached the flats the water was just running over them, but not sufficiently deep to admit of the passage of their property; so the fellows had recourse to the expedient of forming "a race" to effect their purpose, and this they had accomplished in the following way: A few of the logs were drawn up and arranged longitudinally from either bank of the river in an oblique direction to a focus in the centre of the flat; from this point the logs were arranged parallel to one another right across the bank to the deep water below. They were then all firmly staked into the soil, and the interstices between and below them were packed so as to perfect a dam or barrier to the water. The result of this plan as is evident was that the water flowing over the flat was confined to the narrow channel between the parallel logs, and thereby attained a higher elevation and a swifter current. To the mouth of this impromptu canal, then, the sawyers brought the logs one by one, and they were made, with very little guiding, to shoot through the passage with speed and precision. After getting nearly a hundred of the logs in this manner over the impediment, the water continuing to fall, eventually left them with not even sufficient to make their sluice available; so, with fully half their raft fixed above the flat, the men were compelled to be idle until they had sufficient water to float the remainder over. Tom had expressed surprise to his companion that he and his mates did not proceed with the timber that had passed the flat, and leave some of their companions behind to watch for the flood in the river, and secure the others as they should descend. He pointed out that by that means they would, in all probability, have got their first raft down to the mills, and had time to return before the rains came on. But this, his companion told him, the sawyers were afraid to risk, because, he said, if the river rose rapidly, which they fully expected, they would want all their number on the spot, otherwise they might lose half the timber. Besides, in the absence of their boat, it would be an impossibility to secure any of the logs if they should be washed over. "And then," he continued, "we have been expecting the rain to commence every day for weeks past." So it was deemed advisable by the whole party to await the rising of the river; and, even watchful as they were, they fully expected that if the flood came upon them at all suddenly, they would lose a considerable number of the logs. After crossing the river (or rather the bed of it), and leaving the sawyers' party, Tom Rainsfield leisurely pursued his journey; and, after riding for about twenty miles or so, he could perceive, by the nature of the country and the occasional appearance of "improvements," that he was approaching the town of Brisbane. Towards dark the road led him through lines of fences, and past a few cottages and cultivated fields, and thence by detached buildings, until he finally entered the town and put up at his hotel not at all dissatisfied at the completion of his journey. The country, even to town, had equally suffered by the drought. Hardly a vestige of herbage was to be seen on the whole surface of the ground, and the mortality amongst the beasts was fearful, and painfully perceptible from the fulsome malaria in the atmosphere. Tom's horse was reduced to a perfect shadow, and was so weak that when he reached the inn he could hardly drag one foot after another, and certainly could not have existed another day with a continuation of his privations. Hence Tom was additionally delighted when he drew rein at the Crown Hotel, and permitted his weary and faithful animal to be led away to the stables, while he proceeded to refresh himself in a manner most pleasant after his own fatigues. CHAPTER VIII. "Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crown'd, Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round, Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale, Ye bending swains, that dress the flow'ry vale." GOLDSMITH. When Tom Rainsfield arrived in Brisbane he found it entirely absorbed in politics, and the public attention so engaged in the all-important question of separation that even the deplorable state in which the country then was in was for the time forgotten. Business for the nonce was entirely relinquished, and the good citizens were in a perfect ferment of exultation, consequent on the receipt of joyous news. As a few remarks respecting the topography of the place, and the nature of the people's agitation, may not be here amiss we will endeavour to describe and trace their progress through their various phases to the date of our narrative. The town of Brisbane is pleasantly situated on a picturesque and meandering river of the same name, about twenty miles from the point where it disembogues into Moreton Bay. Passing its first establishment it was not until the year 1840 that it was resorted to for the purposes of trade. In that year drays first crossed "the range" by Cunningham's Gap; and the squatters, who were then pushing on in the settlement of the interior, discovered that this place could be made a convenient port for the shipment of their produce to Sydney. The place, however, being only a convict settlement free settlers were prohibited from approaching it; and it was only by a special application to the government that on the following year the land on the south bank of the river was surveyed and laid out for a township, and a residence for the purposes of trade permitted. The following year the convicts were wholly withdrawn from the district, and the land that had been blighted by their occupancy was thrown open to the public. From this period then, viz., 1842, is to be dated the settlement of Moreton Bay, when the whole free population of the district might have been numbered by dozens, and when the first regular communication with Sydney was established. The town of Brisbane at that time, and even for years afterwards, consisted only of a few wooden huts; and, with the exception of the government buildings which had been erected during the penal era for the housing and confinement of the convicts stationed there, not a decent or substantial edifice existed. A few acres of ground had been cleared by the prisoners for cultivation immediately round the settlement, and at two places situated on the river below the town, respectively two and seven miles distant; but otherwise the wilderness remained in its primeval condition. The town on the northern bank of the river, which was much better situated (both in a commercial and residentiary point of view) than that on the southern, rapidly attracted the attention of speculators and settlers. It was situated in a spacious pocket, caused by a bend in the river, and flanked by gently undulating ridges. It was judiciously laid out; with wide rectangular streets, commodious reserves for public purposes, and was possessed of almost unbounded water frontage, which could afford accommodation for a large commercial intercourse. One of the boons left to the public upon the withdrawal of the convicts and military, besides the court-house, hospital, and barracks, was a botanical garden. It had been constructed for the especial pleasure and accommodation of the officers and other officials of the settlement, and became after their departure a very acceptable legacy to the people. The young settlement prospered amazingly as it became more peopled by the streams of immigration from the southern parts of the colony. The squatters who had advanced with their flocks and herds from the occupied districts in the southern interior speedily formed stations in actual contiguity to the township; which was daily increasing its trade, as its intercourse with the interior became more settled and developed. The architectural appearance of the town for years showed no improvement; and the comfort of the inhabitants was little thought of in its commercial prosperity. Large sums were annually gathered into the government coffers from the sale of the lands in the township, but nothing was ever done by the ruling powers to improve its condition; and it was allowed to remain in that state in which it had left the hands of the surveyors. The lines of the streets were certainly marked, but no levels were fixed; and the idea of drainage never entered the minds of the people's rulers. In fact, though the government, as we have said, continued from year to year to derive large revenues from the sale of these town lands, they never deemed it necessary to expend a fraction in even the formation of the streets; and hence, after twelve years from its occupation by a free population, it was, like all other bush towns in the country, in a wretched and deplorable condition. After rains the so-called streets became perfectly impassable, even to foot passengers; and the principal thoroughfare was frequently the course of a swollen torrent, that had in successive years worn for itself a bed, interspersed with deep holes, which rendered it absolutely dangerous to venture amongst its snares after dark. The extorting policy of the government had always been to sacrifice the interests of the distant settlers for a centralized aggrandizement; or, in other words, the revenues derived from this or any other country district were applied, not solely to the defraying of the expense of legislative machinery, but to the improvement and embellishment of Sydney, and other works that had no local importance to the out-lying districts. This was one of the main grievances that induced the settlers in later years to petition for separation from the parent colony. But we are anticipating. The advance of the district after its settlement continued with rapid strides; and the labour requirements of the settlers kept continually in advance of the supply. So that much inconvenience was felt by the employers at the paucity of industrial bone and muscle procurable in the district. For years the squatters were compelled to draw their supply of labour from the Sydney market, an exceedingly expensive and by no means satisfactory expedient, until the year 1848, when the influx of direct immigration commenced. From this date ships at repeated intervals have discharged their living freight on the shores of Moreton Bay, where they have speedily met engagements at high rates of wages, and become absorbed in the increasing population. The first labourers introduced into the district were by private intervention, and though extraneous to our tale, we may be pardoned for mentioning it here. The prime mover of this scheme was the Rev. Dr. Lang, who was at the time a member of the Colonial legislature, and than whom no greater benefactor to the colonies, and no sterner advocate for the rights and privileges of the colonists existed or exists. He was foremost in all works of reform and public utility. He seemed to be gifted with a prescience of the colonist's requirements, and was indefatigable in his exertions for their advancement and amelioration. He is the antipodean agitator, and the acknowledged benefactor of his fellow colonists in their land of adoption. Many of the privileges of the Australian constitution owe their existence to Dr. Lang's indomitable perseverance and skill, and many of the most sapient enactments bear the impress of his mental perspicuity. He is the father of Australia, and his name will long remain to the people "as familiar as household words." Perceiving the great want of labour in the new settlement he was the first who took any active part in the procuration of the desideratum. In pursuit of this object in the year 1846 or 1847 he introduced a bill into the legislature of New South Wales, having for its object the introduction of an industrial class of immigrants into Moreton Bay. His proposed plan was to induce the government to offer a small grant of land to every immigrant arriving in the colony at his own expense, equivalent to the amount of money actually paid for the passage. But the project met with some opposition from the ministry of the day, and not until after considerable perseverance did he receive assurances of their assent. Being suddenly called to England on private affairs Dr. Lang left his pet scheme in the hands of a colleague to procure for it the formal sanction of the country; and he commenced to act upon the assurance given him in the colonies by organizing a system of emigration during his stay in England. This was in the years 1847 and 1848, when, after continually drawing the attention of the middle classes of Great Britain to the eligibility of Moreton Bay as a place for emigration, and holding out the inducement of remission of the passage-money emigrants would pay in an equivalent grant of land in the colonies, he succeeded in the latter year in despatching three ships freighted with intending settlers. Their arrival in the colony, though of considerable benefit to the community there established, was fraught with many inconveniences and privations to themselves. The Colonial government ignored their title to grants of land; and the newly arrived immigrants found themselves, upon landing in the country, disappointed in their expectations, many of them destitute, and all in a place hardly reclaimed from the wilderness of the bush, where no preparation had been made for their reception. They were, therefore, disgusted with what they considered the fraud that had been practised upon them, and were loud in their declamation of those who had enticed them from their comfortable homes to be subjected to the misery and discomforts they had then to endure. Under these circumstances piteous were the communications made to friends in the "fatherland," and dreadful the detail of their distress in the far distant land of promise. Their case, however, attracted some little notice from the local authorities, and a piece of land adjoining the town was allotted them, on which to erect dwellings. On this they settled, calling it Fortitude Valley, from the name of one of the vessels that had conveyed them thither; and when they got over their mortification, and gave their minds to industry, they speedily transformed the almost impenetrable bush into a scene of life and animation. The first privations of settlement very soon succumbed to comfort and independence, and "the valley" shortly became a populous suburb of the town of Brisbane, and, at the period of our story, closely approximated to, if not equalled it, in population. The settlers themselves, introduced under so unfavourable auspices, were not long in immensely improving their condition, and many of them, in the course of a few years, rose to positions of comfort, eminence, and opulence; and if they ever reverted to the period of their immigration, must have done so with feelings of thankfulness and satisfaction. From this period the influx of population continued, and the condition in which the district flourished may be gathered from the following tables:-- The entire district-- In 1846, contained 2,257 souls 1851, " 10,296 " 1856, " 22,232 " And was estimated, In 1861, to contain 30,000 souls. The town of Brisbane, of which we wish more particularly to allude, In 1846, contained about 500 souls 1851, the population was 2,500 " 1856, 4,400 " And in 1861 was calculated to contain 8,000 " Brisbane presents now a far different aspect to what it did some few years back. As we have said, it is pleasantly and, both in a sanitary and commercial point of view, admirably situated. From an obscure settlement in the bush it has become a thriving town, with some good streets, substantial stone and brick houses, stores, warehouses, and wharves, and with shops that would not disgrace many a fashionable thoroughfare in the British metropolis. It is possessed of spacious and commodious government buildings, a gaol, mechanics' school of arts, an hospital, several banking establishments, and fully a dozen churches and other places of worship. The surrounding country, that was only a few years before a wild waste, has mostly been cleared and put under cultivation; and the banks of the river far above, and considerably below the town, are studded with farms and gentlemen's seats, some elegantly and tastefully constructed with a view both to comfort and the exigencies of the climate. The town is further possessed of two steam saw-mills; one daily, and another bi-weekly newspaper; weekly steam and continual sailing communication with Sydney, and a dawning direct trade with England. Five steamers ply on the river, and a daily coach runs by land to Ipswich, and an export trade is done to the extent of considerably over half a million sterling annually. The climate is salubrious--the heat ranging, in the shade, between the means of 80° in summer, and 50° in winter; and the soil of the neighbourhood has been proved to be productive of a greater variety of plants than any other country in the world. Coupled with wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, peas, and a variety of other English edibles, its products comprise many of a tropical nature, the practicability of the growth of which has been fully demonstrated. Bananas, pine-apples, pumpkins, melons, figs, grapes, peaches, maize, and sweet potatoes, are common articles of culture; while indigo, arrow-root, sugar-cane, and cotton, flourish as in their native climes. Of the latter product we would fain say a few words _en passant_, as its production of late has been a question that has been much agitated in Great Britain, and received some attention in the colonies. We believe the experiment of its growth was first tried upon the joint suggestion of an influential settler of New South Wales, Mr. T. S. Mort of Sydney, and the Rev. Dr. Lang. The former gentleman procured a supply of the best sea-island American seed, and also an instrument called "a gin" for cleaning the seed from the cotton, and placed them at the disposal of the settlers of Moreton Bay. The seeds were planted, germinated, and yielded cotton of the first description; but difficulties arose which cultivators were unable to surmount. The first was the impracticable nature of the instrument they were possessed of for cleaning. It was found to be useless, and all similar apparatuses that were subsequently introduced, and constructed on ideas suggested to the minds of local mechanical geniuses, equally failed to perform the requisite work with cleanliness and precision. Though this was in itself almost insurmountable, the greatest drawback to the culture of the cotton was the rainy weather, which usually set in just as the cotton was ripening; destroying the crop, and inflicting serious loss on the cultivator. It was, however, discovered that in the Moreton Bay climate the plant became a perennial; and that, after the first year's growth, the pods ripened considerably earlier and avoided the wet weather; while the staple of the cotton improved with the age of the plant. Satisfactory as was this discovery, the first failure militated against its general cultivation; for most of the farmers in the district, being dependent for their subsistence on their yearly crops, could not afford to experimentalize, notwithstanding that they were certain of an ultimately remunerative crop. A subsequent attempt to cultivate the cotton was tried with no better success. Though the staple was produced none of the cleaning machines to be had were efficacious; and no means being procurable to extract the seed from the cotton, it was sent to England in its raw state to be separated there. The cotton was cleaned by hand-labour in some of the penitentiaries of the "old country;" and when submitted to judges of the article, was pronounced to be the finest specimen ever introduced into the country. But these repeated failures damped the cotton-growing ardour of the people; and, being able otherwise more profitably to employ their labour and capital, they permitted its culture to be abandoned. That cotton will eventually become a large export from this district we have no hesitation in affirming, and we believe that the time is not far distant when capitalists in England, interested in the cotton trade, will take up the matter and embark in it. It is an undertaking which we are confident, from the reasons we have expressed, would be found remunerative even with the application of free European labour, and be of considerable benefit to the manufacturers and consumers of the staple. It has been frequently argued in the colony where it was grown that the expense of labour would eat up the whole proceeds of the cotton. But this we are disposed to dispute for many cogent reasons. In the first place, notwithstanding the many assertions to the contrary, Europeans can work at all times in the open air, even under the scorching rays of a mid-summer sun; while the value of the cotton produced, by the peculiar adaptation of the soil, has been found to be of a superior character to even the finest American or Egyptian productions; and, from the fact of the necessity of annual planting being avoided, the expense of production after the first year is reduced by more than one half. These facts at once disarm of its force the statement that cotton cultivators in Queensland could not compete with slave-grown produce without the aid of cheap coolie or lascar labour. The postulation that without Asiatic skill and economy the cotton cultivation is a chimera, has been assumed by a few interested parties in the colonies, and reverberated by them from mouth to mouth among their own party, without a solitary echo from the mass of the people. It has been advanced in ignorance, and persevered in in dogmatical obstinacy, to the entire subversion of reason and the results of experience. The theory has arisen in a desire of personal aggrandizement by its advocates, who have never dreamt of the consequences that would accrue from an influx of heathenism and depravity, or the detraction from the honour of the colony, and the degradation of our labouring fellow-countrymen and colonists. It is happily only a party cry, and that only of so meagre a nature, that it is almost an inaudible squeak. But though insignificant as it is in the country where it originated, by its propagation and circulation in the press, its virus has been made to travel through the entire arterial system of the commonwealth; which is thus made to believe in the moral gangrene of this distant member of the empire. But to return. Before we allowed ourselves to be led into the foregoing digression we spoke of the land and water communication to the town of Ipswich; which reminds us of the existence of that important town; and of which we also crave permission, while on our topographical subject, to say a few words. Ipswich, or as it was originally called, Limestone, from the quantity of that mineral which pervaded the neighbourhood, is situated on the Bremer river, which falls into the Brisbane. It is distant from the town of Brisbane about twenty-five miles by land, and sixty by water, and is stationed at the highest navigable point on either stream. It was formerly used by the government as a station for the sheep and cattle of the settlement during the penal times; and, upon the withdrawal of the prisoners, it was, like its sister settlement, declared a township, surveyed, and thrown open to the public. The first land in it was sold in Brisbane in the year 1843; but for three years afterwards the town made little progress. With the exception of a brick cottage that had been erected for the overseer in charge of the military and prisoners stationed there while it was a government establishment, and which, after the break up, was converted into a public-house to afford accommodation and allay the thirst of wayfarers to and fro between Brisbane and the interior, few buildings, even of the most makeshift description, were erected. The place had as then attracted little or no attention; for the traffic passed it on its way without any further stoppage than what a bush public-house is expected to effect among the bullock-drivers and draymen, while the drays came right down to Brisbane without any interruption to their loads. During the time of its attachment to the penal settlement at Brisbane the communication between the two places had been maintained by the means of boats and punts, in which the supplies of the station were brought up, and live stock for consumption, and lime requisite for the works at the township, returned. No doubt, acting on this knowledge, the idea occurred to an enterprising settler of the district that the traffic could be diverted from the road to the river, and would be advantageous in the saving of time and trouble consequent on the primitive style of land carriage in vogue. He therefore started a small steamer in the year last mentioned, viz., 1846, to ply between the two places; and though not successful in his project, so far as his own pocket was concerned, the soundness of his conjectures was patent in the benefits that resulted. The advancement of Ipswich may be dated from that period, since which its progress has been extraordinarily rapid, and even bids fair to maintain the race with the sister town with some degree of success. Though Ipswich is admirably situated for the purposes of trade with the interior, it is by no means so eligible a site for a town, nor so well planned out as Brisbane. Its streets are narrow, and have been lined by the surveyors without any regard to levels or the "lay" of the country. It is situated in a hollow, so that the drainage falls into the centre of the town, while the surrounding hills preclude the possibility of approach of any of those breezes which are so deliciously refreshing during sultry summer weather. The buildings, on the whole, are creditable, and even fine for so young a place, though by no means equal to those of Brisbane; and its peculiar characteristics are, bullock-drays, dirty streets, and public-houses. It is, however, a busy, thriving town; and if in the selection of its site a little more judicious forethought had been exercised, and more consideration for comfort, health, and amenity displayed in its surveying, it might have been made, with its beautiful surrounding scenery, as pretty a spot as could have been desired. But in this, as in every other case in the colonies since their foundation, the only thing that has been exhibited is the cupidity of the government, whose only desire has ever been to realise as much as possible from the sales of land, with as little outlay as practicable. Hence the inhabitants are doomed to live in a place that, upon the minutest visitation of rain, becomes a perfect "slough of despond;" and from its concave situation, when under a vertical sun, is at least ten degrees warmer than any other place in the district. This, then, is the point to which all the traffic now converges in its passage to Brisbane, and diverges in its transit to the interior--the highway between the two points being the river, while the road is merely used for the lighter traffic of a few equestrians and light vehicles. Such is the alteration, and we may of course add improvement, in the appearance of the country by the influence of civilisation consequent on the settlement of the district; and so rapidly has it taken place that if any of the old official residents, who only knew it in its infancy of freedom, were again to visit it, we have no hesitation in saying they would not credit their senses. We are aware that in all new colonies, where capital, industry, and perseverance are brought to bear upon the barren wastes, the speedy transition to a smiling scene of plenty is the inevitable result. But in most there is an air of freshness about everything, which proclaims it a new place; while in those towns of Moreton Bay the case is very different. They seem almost to have sprung into maturity at once; and, especially in Brisbane, there is a something about it so thoroughly English, that were it not for the luxuriant growth of exotics, the heavy timber on the adjacent hills, and the tropical appearance in the architecture of some of the suburban dwellings which instantly strike the eye, a stranger could hardly bring himself to believe this was the last formed of Britain's colonies; while we can affirm it is already far from the meanest. Before taking leave of this local subject we beg permission here to introduce a little episode that is characteristic of the relationship that existed between the two towns, or rather the settlement and the station, before the advent that proclaimed the country open to free settlers. Towards the latter end of the penal, or military, administration, the district was visited by a fearful flood that swept over the face of the country and rendered all travelling, either by land or water, perfectly impracticable. The intercourse, therefore, between Brisbane and Limestone was entirely severed, and for weeks no communication could be attempted. At the station, during this stoppage, the supplies began to run short (it never having been deemed necessary to anticipate such an emergency), and the residents were soon suffering serious privations from the want of their necessary rations. No boats or horses were at the station at the time, so that they were unable to intimate to the authorities below the state in which they were situated. The officials at Limestone waited from day to day in the vain hope of seeing the waters recede, and the means of communication re-established, but they were disappointed. The flood continued at its height, and starvation was almost staring them in the face. In this emergency the officer in charge of the prisoners offered a free pardon to any who would accomplish the voyage to the settlement, and report there the distress the people at Limestone were suffering. The passage was undertaken by two of the men, who knew that success was freedom, and that failure's concomitant was death. One took the track through the bush and perished, possibly by being washed away while attempting the crossing of some swollen creek, but the other was more successful, and succeeded in reaching the township in safety, where he communicated the intelligence of the destitution at Limestone, and had the gratification of relieving his former companions, and securing his freedom. Supplies were immediately forwarded to the famished station on pack-horses, which, only after surmounting considerable difficulties and dangers, succeeded in reaching their destination. This passage was one of the boldest and most extraordinary feats on colonial record, and, considering the manner in which it was effected, freedom was certainly not too great a reward. It was accomplished by the man tracing the course of the river, travelling by land where such was practicable, and taking to the river and swimming where it was not. When it is remembered that all the low and flat parts of the country were under water, and that it was computed half the distance of the journey, or nearly thirty miles, was traversed in the swollen stream, with a flying current and eddying pools, and amidst trees and other _debris_, swarming with reptiles and insects brought down from the mountains and clustered on the floating masses, some conception may be formed of what the intrepid courier had gone through. But to return again to our narrative. The period of which we write is the summer of 1857, when the cry of "separation" resounded through the country. Some time previous to this the colonists had received intimation of the intention of her Majesty's government to erect Moreton Bay into a separate state amongst the group of Australian colonies. But at this period, as we have already stated, fresh despatches had been received, in which the boundaries and a sketch of its constitution were defined, and the inhabitants were deep in the contemplation of these topics. We fear that this disquisition on history and politics may be considered an interpolation foreign to the nature of our work, and uninteresting to the majority of our readers; but we must excuse ourselves for an encroachment upon the prerogative of the historian, on the ground that we wish the indulgent public to have a correct idea of the historical, as well as the physical and social, nature of Queensland. We would, therefore, throw ourselves again on the leniency of our readers, while we trace, as succinctly as possible, the origin and growth of the separation movement. For some years previous to the year 1851 the colonists of Port Philip had agitated the question of separation from the colony of New South Wales, and in that year their efforts were crowned with success, their district being, by imperial decree, erected into a separate colony under the name of Victoria. The instigator and prime mover in this matter had been the Rev. Dr. Lang; and at the commencement of the same year he organized an agitation for a similar dismemberment of the Moreton Bay or northern districts. The inhabitants of those districts, groaning under the habitual neglect of a distantly removed and selfish government, were not slow to respond to the call of the agitator. The first meeting to consider the subject, which was held in January 1851, resulted in the despatch of petitions to the throne, praying for an immediate separation from New South Wales, and an establishment as an independent state. They enumerated among the general grievances, the remoteness of the district from the seat of government, the inadequate representation in the legislature, the confirmed neglect and inattention of their rulers to their requirements, the total absorption of their revenues for the improvement of the capital, and the impossibility to procure the outlay of any money on absolutely necessary works; in fact the total subversion of the rights of the inhabitants, and the general inconvenience experienced by a connexion with New South Wales. Much as the consummation was desiderated by all parties in the district the people were divided into two bodies in the views which they took of the subject; and each party drew up its own petition, and forwarded it to England. One faction, and by far the most numerous and intelligent, demanded a "free" separation, with the untrammelled administration of their own affairs; while the other, principally composed of the squatters in the interior, were contented with petitioning for separation, with a reversion to the old penal system. Their object being to have convicts sent to the new colony, and to procure their labour by the old iniquitous "assigning" system. The struggle continued apace between the contending factions on the one hand, and with the governments of Great Britain and New South Wales on the other. The pro-convict party, who had established a weekly newspaper to advocate their cause, gradually diminished, until eventually their zeal expired, and they succumbed to popular feeling, leaving the body of free separationists united and energetic. Petition after petition continued to be poured at the feet of Her most gracious Majesty, who at last condescended to listen to the prayer of her loyal though distant subjects. In the year 1855, by an act passed in the Imperial Parliament, entitled, "The Constitution Act of New South Wales," right was reserved to her Majesty to separate from that colony any portion of its northern territory she, by her ministers, might deem expedient. It was then made manifest to the colonists that some hope existed of the desired event taking place, and their importunities consequently increased. In July 1856, the then Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Labouchere) intimated, in a despatch to the Governor of New South Wales, that her Majesty's ministers considered that the time had arrived when the dismemberment should be effected, and suggested that the 30th parallel of south latitude should be fixed upon as the boundary of the two colonies. About this parallel a natural line of demarcation exists in the form of a mountain range, and at no other part of the coast could so eligible a division be made. The magnates in Sydney perceiving that, notwithstanding all their strenuous opposition, separation was determined upon considered it useless to further attempt its prevention; but they were, nevertheless, sanguine of their ability to mar the fair prospects of the new colony. The thought of losing the revenue of so large a district rankled in their bosoms, and the idea of procuring an alteration in the boundary line, by a removal farther away from them, suggested itself to their minds. Confident in their success and the time for an execution of their machinations, that would be afforded them by the usual circumlocutions of government, they forthwith entered upon their work. One of the districts embraced in the proposed new colony was the Clarence river, which was only second in importance to that of Moreton Bay itself, and which comprised a coast-line of upwards of 120 miles, and a country that extended nearly double that distance inland. This, then, they set to work to retain; and, though the inhabitants themselves of the debateable ground were strongly averse to a continued connexion with the parent colony, and desired annexation to the new one, a petition was presented to the legislature, purporting to be from the residents of that district, and praying for the maintenance of their existing relationship with New South Wales. The opprobrium attached to the concoction of this petition is due to the then member of the legislature for the New England district; for through his chicanery the signatures were obtained and the people deceived. It was represented to them as for a local assize court, and their signatures obtained on blank sheets of paper, which were afterwards attached to the genuine anti-separation petition and laid before the government of the colony, by whom it was forwarded to the British secretary. This fraud was shortly afterwards detected by the parties cajoled, who exposed the deception practised upon them, and eventually petitioned the crown with a similar view. But, too late: the first had reached the home government as a genuine document, and the result may be imagined; for, combining such a strong demonstration of public feeling as the petition appeared to do with the biassed representations of the Sydney government, the crown had no other alternative but to alter the boundary originally intended Mr. Labouchere (dated just one year after his former despatch) then informed the Governor of New South Wales that her Majesty's ministers had determined to separate the northern colony at the 28th (instead of the 30th) parallel of south latitude. There the matter rested until the year 1860, when the proclamation calling into existence the colony of Queensland was read in the capital city of Brisbane by the first governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen. We would not have pursued this theme had it not been to explain the ferment in which Tom Rainsfield found the good people of Brisbane when he visited their town, as we have said, in the summer of 1857; and, amidst the agitation of the public mind which absorbed all thought and attention, we will leave him for the present to pursue his business. CHAPTER IX. "Hark! there be murmurs heard in Lara's hall, A sound--a voice--a shriek--a fearful call! A long loud shriek--and silence--did they hear That frantic echo burst the sleeping ear?" BYRON. At a certain spot on the Darling Downs approaching towards their northern extremity, and where the country divides the eastern from the western water-sheds, a party was encamped for the night round their fire; on which preparations were being made by a civilized black for the evening meal of white men, who lay stretched on the ground in the full enjoyment of their "doodeens." The culinary operator was Joey, and the recumbent beings were his master and the shepherds, who had progressed thus far with a flock of sheep, on their way from New England to Fern Vale. The weather that had spread devastation over the face of the country, was equally fatal in its effects to the flock of our hero. He had attempted to force their march so as to reach his destination before their entire destruction, but was at last constrained to halt in a state, both to man and beast, of perfect exhaustion. He had been the more anxious to reach his own station as he was aware that, after the long and severe drought the district had been visited with, a flood might be expected as the inevitable consequence; and that if he were caught in it the strong probability was that he would lose the remaining half of his flock. Further progression, however, for his exhausted sheep, he saw was, at least for a time, perfectly hopeless; and he felt his only alternative was to wait for the rain, which from the portensions of the sky, was not far distant. Therefore a rude hut, or arborous shelter of boughs and saplings, was erected to shield him and his companions from the rays of the sun, and they waited with what patience they could assume for the pluvial blessing so much prayed for all over the country. Here then the party was located, anxiously waiting for the advent of the propitious event that would admit of their progression; and, on the evening we have discovered them to the reader, they were dragging out in listless idleness the remainder of an intolerably hot day, too much enervated to indulge in any exertion or conversation. While John Ferguson, who was possibly even more taciturn than his companions, was absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts, occasioned by the inauspicious result of his journey, he with his colleagues was suddenly aroused from his lethargy by a most unearthly sound in the close proximity of their camp. He instantly started to his feet, and was greeted with a burst of demoniacal laughter that made his very blood curdle in his veins. Before him stood a being evidently human, but no more like his first prototype than Gabriel to Lucifer; a man wild and dishevelled in appearance; his eyes like balls of fire; and his face and other parts of his body, perceptible from his all but state of nudity, cut and bleeding. In the fitful light of the camp fire he had more the appearance of one of the eliminated shades of Hades than an habitant of this world. The startled and affrighted quartette, who had been interrupted by his unexpected appearance, gazed on the object with wonder, commiseration, and alarm; for his condition was speedily made palpable by his wild gesticulations and incoherent utterance. He was mad, and in that most to be deplored state of madness--delirium tremens. John Ferguson advanced a few steps towards the man with the object of leading him to their temporary abode; but the maniac warned him off by a wave of the hand, and darted off again into the settling obscurity with the fleetness of an arrow. No human creature in such a condition could be permitted thus to rush to inevitable death by observers with any spark of Christian charity. John Ferguson and his companions felt this, and notwithstanding the darkness of the night, and the interminable nature of the bush around them, they instantly pursued the fugitive, being guided in his track by his fearful cries and yells. The chase was tedious, and but for an accident might have been fruitless. The unnatural stimulus of madness lends powerful aid to the cartilaginous anatomy of its victims; so that, notwithstanding the evident fatigue that this wretched inebriate had sustained, his crural muscles performed their functions with even more force and facility than those of his athletic pursuers; and he continued to keep considerably in advance of them. But his course was providentially checked by a fall, that not only stopped him in his headlong career of destruction, but extinguished the treacherous spark that had stimulated his system, and then left him prostrate and perfectly paralysed. When his pursuers came up, and by the light of a "firestick" gazed upon him, they found him writhing in agony on the ground, foaming at the mouth, gnashing his teeth, and actually biting the very dust in the intensity of his suffering. Nature could not long stand so fearful a tax as this without speedily succumbing. Reason had already been hurled from her throne by the arrogated sway of the incensed devils of debauch, and strength and consciousness had been expatriated by the usurpation; while life was all but extinguished. In this state he was borne by his rescuers back to their camp, and tended with every care they could devise; but when he awoke to consciousness, it was only to add the horrors of a raging fever to those of dementation; the more fearful on account of the inability of his attendants to afford him any assistance. To truthfully describe his appearance, or his sufferings, as he lay rending the air with his fearful and impious imprecations, would not only be beyond our powers of portrayal, but would have none other effect than to sicken and disgust our readers. Nevertheless we feel constrained, fain as we would draw a veil over the scene, to continue our description for the furtherance of temperance and morality. The man remained for fully twenty-four hours in the state we have mentioned; when the exacerbation of his malady threatened to terminate his existence. No hope of relief could be entertained, for none was procurable in such a situation; even had the exhausted travellers been capable of seeking it. So that the wretched being's doom seemed inevitably sealed. At this moment the Fern Vale party were startled by the sudden appearance of two others, who came seeking their comrade, and bore in their countenances almost as indelible a stamp of dissipation as that on the visage of the dying madman. From these new comers John learnt that the three had been travelling in company of a bullock dray, and being unable to proceed on their journey, through the loss of the greater portion of the team, they had all been engaged in a social wassail on some grog they had had in charge; and for a considerable period had all been more or less drunk. Their companion had been in a fit of delirium tremens for days; and while in a state of madness had suddenly gone, they knew not, nor at the time cared not, whither. But finding he did not return as they had anticipated even their besotted natures began to take alarm for his safety, and had induced them to go in search of him. The two men now stood by the prostrate and paralysed form of their late robust companion, on whom, blunted and debased as were their own feelings, they could not gaze without emotions; and as they witnessed the glaring blood-shot eyes, rotating in their sunken and discoloured sockets, the pendent jaw which left the parched tongue protruding from the open mouth, the colourless emaciated cheeks which contrasted fearfully with the sore and livid lips, the generally wasted frame, the shaking though powerless hands imploring with the looks of distracted vision, and the ineffectual attempts to articulate the cravings for that very poison which was fast hastening a commingling of his putrid carcass with its native dust, their hearts sickened within them. They, however, knew the purport of his signs; and subdued as they were by the presence of the destroying angel, and chastened by the momentary visitations of compunction, their devotion to their idol, and their belief in its efficacies were such, that, even in the face of death, they exorcised their destroying spirit. Before their motion could be anticipated, or prevented by John Ferguson, one of the dying man's companions drew a bottle from his bosom, and applied it to the lips of the sufferer. The taste of the exhilarating poison effected a transitory release of the bonds of death's victim. His hands clasped with a convulsive grasp the endeared destroyer of his life; and as the spirit flowed into the celiac channel of his wasted system, its consuming fire mantled his cheek with an unnatural erubescence, shot from his lustrous eyes, and imparted vigour to his inert frame. If the men's action had been noticed in time John would have no doubt prevented the drink being given, though it would have signified little; for no power on earth could have saved the victim, while possibly the draught of spirits which he had taken ameliorated his departing agonies. Be that as it may he had hardly swallowed it than fresh strength seemed to have been imparted to his frame. He then started to his feet, waved the bottle above his head with a fiendish laugh, and fell to the ground a corpse. Can mortals ever be rescued from the fearful infatuation of drink? Can rational and sentient beings ever be brought to an abhorrence of that vile and bestial vice that equally destroys the intellect and degrades the body? or will reason ever inculcate in the mind of man the virtue of temperance, so as to use without abusing the gifts of a bountiful providence? Let an incorrigible drunkard stand before such a scene as we have attempted to describe, and for five minutes witness the agonies and death of a fellow inebriate; let his soul commune with the tortured spirit of the wretched victim of intemperance; let him witness the horrors of delirium tremens, that tear to pieces both body and life, and consigns them to the lowest depths of perdition; let him not only witness but feel the hell that burns up the very soul of the blind votaries of Bacchus; and let him witness the last struggle, the tortuous departure of the spirit, accompanied with the blasphemous ribaldry of the vile worm that, while insinuating its eliminated spirit before the judgment-seat of its Maker, dares to utter its arrogant defiance to the august and omnipotent Creator. Let him see this; tell him this is the consequence of intemperance possibly only indulged in moderately at an early stage, but growing by degrees as evil does grow, like the gathering avalanche accumulating in its downward progress until it reaches its final descent amidst universal destruction. Tell him also that a similar fate awaits every drunkard, and tell him, if he turns not away from his course of vileness, such will be his; then, if his conscience does not lead him to penitence through such a lesson, no human effort can save him. The state of the weather, the mortification of the body, and its consequent immediate decomposition, made it imperative that no time should be lost in the interment of the corpse. The funeral obsequies were speedily performed, with little more ceremony than what would attend the burying of an animal, while nothing marked the spot where lay the bones that would in all probability be soon forgotten. The two men then took their departure, and we doubt not would soon return to their carouse; such is the quickness with which man forgets the visitations of the warning hand of God. A few days after the event we have just narrated the rain that had been so long threatening at last appeared with one of those terrific thunder-storms which the colonies are in the summer visited with; and speedily the whole surface of the country became deluged. The arid and thirsty soil drank in the moisture, and almost spontaneously shot forth its herbage. The flock was then enabled to luxuriate on the tender grasses and, notwithstanding the deluging rains, to pursue its journey with more comfort than it had experienced for some considerable time previously. For a week the rain continued with unabating violence when John Ferguson and his flock struck the course of the Gibson river near Brompton. The river was "bank high" at the time, rolling its swollen volume on in sullen impetuosity; while the ground around was so saturated and swampy that the travelling of the sheep was exceedingly tedious; and their owner began to feel anxious lest their course should be altogether impeded. He, however, managed to push on past Brompton, when the weather happily moderated; and though still overcast, and rainy-looking, the actual fall of water ceased. The respite was made good use of by John Ferguson, who pushed on as rapidly as he could, and he arrived at the Wombi without any interruption; but there he met with a check he had little anticipated. He fully expected the bridge would be level with the water or even covered, and thought that he might have to wait for the river to fall; but the volume of water had considerably subsided and left no trace of the structure he and his neighbours had erected. It had in fact been washed away by the flood, and he was made painfully aware that the only course open to him was to wait until the swollen current became sufficiently reduced to make it practicable to swim over his sheep. With that object he camped his party and flock on the bank of the Wombi. For some days they waited in this position; but the river, notwithstanding that the rain had ceased, fell very slowly; while the surrounding gloominess plainly indicated an additional visitation of wet as not far distant. In conjunction with this the sheep began to show signs of foot-rot; and John, becoming anxious to get them home, considered it better under the circumstances to attempt a passage of the river at once. Acting on this decision he removed the flock to the old crossing-place and attempted the transit. Two of his men had, by the aid of a horse, swam the river, and a large number of the sheep had either crossed or were struggling in the current, when a noise was heard that struck our hero with dismay. The distant roll of thunder, combined with the roar of battle, would convey but an imperfect idea of its nature. Distinct and more distinctly came the sound and, while the darkened atmosphere lent its gloom to the mighty convulsion that seemed to rend the earth, the cause of the noise seemed to approach nearer and nearer. Though John had never seen the sudden rising of a river he had heard of such phenomena, and guessed that the sound that he then heard was the harbinger of such an event. He therefore used all his exertions, with those of Joey and the white man that had remained with him on the upper bank of the Wombi, to prevent the remainder of the sheep from following their fellows into the water. They were with difficulty diverted from the stream; and those that had already crossed, being driven by the men as far as possible from the influence of the tide, John waited with an intense anxiety to watch the fate of those that would of a certainty be overtaken by the current. The flood was in the Gibson river, and its cause can be easily explained in a few words. Towards its source the rain had been continuous, and the water-holes and surcharged swamps being filled to repletion, had burst their bounds and added their immense volumes to the already swollen stream. This imparted a force and impetuosity even greater than the current had previously possessed, and forced the water in one immense body down its course. On and on it swept like the monstrous rolling surge of the ocean, carrying to inevitable ruin everything that it overtook in its passage. John stood on an elevation sufficiently high to enable him to watch the progress of the destructive fluid; and, with his gaze alternately directed to it and his sheep still swimming in the stream at his feet, he calculated their chances of reaching the bank in safety. For this, however, he had little time, for the progress of the flood was quicker than that of his thoughts; and the sudden rise in the Gibson, as the deluge approached, caused a similar one in the Wombi. As the main body in the river swept past, it flooded the minor stream with its back current, sending the reversed tide, seething and swelling, up its narrow channel, and carrying with it some hundreds of the swimming sheep, most of which were drowned in their vain struggles with the element. Unfortunate as this was John gave vent to no vain regrets, but at once decided how he would act. He knew that the brunt of the flood was over, and that the water would speedily fall in the river. He therefore determined to camp where he was for the night, and in the morning to send on the portion of his flock on the opposite side of the river, while he waited with the remainder until the flood should have so far receded as to permit his crossing them with safety. He communicated his plans to both sections of his party, while Joey lit a fire and prepared a camp. Towards midnight, when everything was hushed in the nocturnal stillness, Joey came softly to his master, who was stretched in his blanket before the fire on the damp ground, and awoke him from his sleep. John, when he was aroused, instantly started up in the full expectation of some fresh misfortune, and hastily demanded of Joey what was the matter. "You no hear, massa?" replied Joey; "you listen. The black fellows come back again and make great noise." John listened attentively for some moments, and unmistakably distinguished the sounds of blacks' voices, though what was the purport of the noise he could not conjecture. It was evident to him they had returned to the neighbourhood and, from the sounds he heard, in considerable numbers. But where could they be camped? he asked himself; surely not at their old ground in the scrub, he thought; for the noise plainly indicated a closer proximity. In fact, it sounded to him as if it emanated from somewhere about Strawberry Hill, if not from that very place. Then John's thoughts led him to make the enquiry what could bring them across the Gibson; if they had any object in visiting Strawberry Hill; and if so, what that object could be? His thoughts, once led into such a channel, were not long in picturing a gloomy catalogue of probable causes. A remembrance of Rainsfield's cruelties was too indelibly impressed upon his mind to be forgotten, and the scene he had witnessed at the blacks' camp on the night previous to their departure was instantly conjured up in all its horrors. Though the disappearance of the blacks for months had momentarily dimmed his memory to the pangs he then witnessed and felt, they were instantly remembered when his mind reverted to the subject; and he vividly recollected the ebullition of evil passions that had been kindled in the breasts of some of the survivors and relatives of the victims. In his fancy he heard anew the threat of revenge that was uttered against Rainsfield; and he began to entertain the belief that the blacks were at the station of Strawberry Hill, and had come there for the purpose of wreaking vengeance on their destroyer and his family at a time when they would imagine their visitation least expected. At the same time, however, he could not bring his mind to imagine that the blacks would be bold enough to attack the whole station, being confident the knowledge of the superior prowess of the whites would deter them, besides their dread of fire-arms, which, they would know at least all the men on the station would possess. He had no doubt, either, but that Rainsfield, having incurred the enmity of the aborigines, would take every precaution against surprisal, and believed that he could, with the assistance of one or two of his men, preserve himself against the assaults of a hundred of the blacks. But still John Ferguson could not divest his mind of some degree of apprehension, which (notwithstanding his endeavours to calm the perturbation his train of thoughts had led him to experience) still lingered there, and dark forebodings disturbed his brain. "Where are they, do you think, Joey?" he enquired, as if he wanted corroboration of his own senses. "Strawberry Hill, I believe, massa," was the reply. "I am afraid so, too," said John; "and I fear they are up to no good. If they were only going to rob the store they would never make so much noise over it." "No, massa, they not go to rob the store," said Joey; "they be frighted to do that again, I believe; taltoe (food) kill too many black fellow that time when they steal 'em ration; they be going to kill now, I believe." "That's what I've been thinking too, Joey," replied his master; "but they wouldn't have any chance if the white fellows had guns." "I don't know, massa," replied the black boy; "p'rhaps no, p'rhaps yes--black fellows be very frightened of guns; but the Nungar black fellows, you pidner (know), very wild and budgery belonging to fight (good at fighting), and bael they lik'em (hate) Mr. Rainsfield; so I believe they will try very hard to kill him." "I've no doubt they will," replied his master, "if they can get a mark at him; but if he keeps himself and his men within the house they will be able to fire away at the blacks without giving them a chance at themselves." "White fellows all sit down liket huts," said Joey, by which he meant to imply that the men in all probability would be in their own huts, removed from the house of the station; "and," he continued, "bael Misser Rainsfield fight 'em all round big fellow humpie; and black fellow, when he find 'em bael come out, he gett'um firestick, and mak'em humpie one fellow-corbon fire;" which may be rendered into our vernacular by saying, that Rainsfield would be unable of himself to protect all parts of the dwelling; while the blacks would unhouse him by setting on fire the building, which it must be remembered was of wood. John mused a few minutes in a reverie, in which his feelings sustained a violent convulsion. That love preserved a prominent position we have no doubt; and, also, that apprehension for the safety of the object of that love maintained a lively agitation in his mind. We fear we must not attribute his sympathy and anxiety for the family to a general friendship alone, but to the additional stimulus of a more inspiring feeling. However, we will not arrogate to ourselves the censorship of his motives, but simply confine ourselves to a recordance of events. "Joey, get my horse and saddle him," said John, turning to the boy, who was standing with his body bent in an attitude to catch the floating sound of the blacks' voices. Joey turned his eyes, looking surprised at his master; and though he did not actually ask him the nature of the work he intended to require of his horse, his manner and hesitation made that inquiry; and his master devising its meaning voluntarily made the explanation. "I will go over at once to Strawberry Hill, Joey," he said, "and see what the blacks are doing; for I cannot bear this suspense, and I fear the morrow will disclose some fearful work." "Bael you cross the river, masser," cried the boy; "too much water sit down. Bael you swim, masser? More liket be drowned." "Don't make yourself uneasy, Joey," replied his master, "my horse has taken me over worse floods than that; it is only back water from the Gibson, and there is very little current." "But oh! massa, bael you go! supposing you cross river, and supposing black fellows fight with Misser Rainsfield, what you can do? bael you got 'um gun or pistol, and black fellow have plenty spear; so you do nothing, and black fellow only kill you." "No fear, Joey," said John. "The blacks would have no object in killing me; and if they are congregated at Strawberry Hill, to commit some outrage as I suspect, I may be enabled to effect some good by inducing them to abandon their scheme; or, at least, I can afford some assistance to the family they are attacking." "Oh no, massa! I tell you no," exclaimed the poor faithful attendant. "These black fellows kill any white fellow now; bael they care for you now; they come to kill Misser Rainsfield; and Misser Rainsfield's friends liket help him they kill them too. Bael you go! Budgery massa!" exclaimed the attached creature, as he threw himself down on the ground before his master, and clung to his feet. The expression and evidence of so much attachment in the poor boy sensibly affected the kind nature of John Ferguson; and he was moved to see so much genuine warmth and affection in one of a race which was looked upon as incapable of such emotions--a race which is deemed by professed judges of their nature to be destitute of all human virtue; to be the lowest in the social scale; incapable of the inculcation of civilisation, morality, and religion; to be only a stage above the brute creation, and to be segregated by an insuperable barrier from all sentient creatures. Could you, oh, self-sufficient philosopher (who enunciate these doctrines), only present yourself before these two, and penetrate with a visual percipiency the heart that beats in the breast of that poor, prostrate black, thou wouldst surely be brought to acknowledge the existence of that germ that was implanted in our first parents by the omnipotent Creator. Thou wouldst also be brought to acknowledge, unless prejudice blinded thine intellect, that, degraded as that race which thou contemnest undoubtedly is, much of the weight of that degradation has been the burdening of thine own countrymen. Say not that, by the immutable decrees of Providence, the black races are destined to disappear before the white, and to succumb their savage natures and existence to advancing civilisation. Such may, or may not, be so; but in either case how can you relieve yourself of the obligation imposed upon you by the Supreme Being to ameliorate the condition of that unfortunate people of whom you first rob their inheritance and then sweep from the face of the earth, by instilling into their unsophisticated natures all the vices incidental to yours; without attempting their regeneration, or even an ethic inculcation. John looked upon his faithful attendant as he implored him not to venture either near the blacks or across the swollen river before him; and he felt a pleasurable sensation, akin to gratitude, towards the poor creature. It is true he had himself almost reared the poor boy, who had been always near him; but the idea of so much attachment being in the nature of the black had never occurred to him; and its discovery therefore caused him astonishment. "I must go, Joey," he said, "I have no fear for danger to myself; and if anything should happen this night to the family at Strawberry Hill, and I remained here, I shall ever accuse myself as being, by my selfish neglect, accessary to their fate." "Will massa let me go with him?" enquired the boy. "No, Joey," replied his master; "I wish you to stop here with the shepherd and sheep, until the water falls sufficiently to enable you to cross with them; but get me my horse, I must lose no time;" saying which he turned away to seek the shepherd, who was watching the flock, to give him directions, while Joey performed the necessary services for the horse. The black boy went down with his master to the edge of the river, in vain entreating to be permitted to accompany him, and stood on the brink of the water as John plunged his horse into the dark rolling stream. The night was black and cloudy and the opposite bank was hardly discernible in the gloom; while the opaque waters rolled their disturbed body in their sullen course. As John had said the river was not swift, but it was deep and treacherous. Its tide, though swollen by the immense volume in the Gibson, ran only slowly; but it was filled with eddies caused by the stoppage of its own natural current. Its passage was therefore more dangerous than perhaps it would have been had it been running with the velocity of its parent stream. As John entered the water the noble animal that carried him, guessing the nature of the work that was expected of him, courageously breasted the current, and swam for the opposite bank. For some minutes he could have been seen speeding his course, with precision for his desired goal; when anon he would be drawn into the vortex of one of those whirlpools in which the stream then abounded, and from which his persevering beast would extricate himself, and again struggle on his course. The horse and rider had nearly reached the other side, and were almost lost to Joey's sight in the obscurity, when suddenly both man and beast were entirely submerged; and the next instant the animal's feet were plainly discernible above water, in a state of violent agitation. With one bound the black boy sprang into the water, and swam vigorously for the spot where his master had disappeared; but his anxieties were relieved by John's reappearance, and seeing him strike out for the bank in company with his horse. Joey did not return when he perceived that his master was safe, but pursued his course. Long and arduous was his struggle, and he had enough to do to preserve himself from the eddies and floating masses that were rotating in the pools, or that were descending the stream. But he succeeded in crossing it without any mishap, and he presented himself to his master as the latter was about to mount his horse after his own dangerous passage. "What, Joey!" exclaimed John as he witnessed the boy before him, "what on earth has possessed you to risk your life in crossing the river by yourself, and after my telling you I wanted you to stay with the sheep?" "Oh! massa," replied the boy, "me thinkum you be drowned, when me been seeum you capsized; bael me help coming after you to see you all right." "Well, I suppose I must not be angry with you Joey," said his master. "Oh no, massa!" replied the black, "but that very ugly capsize, how 'em happen?" "A log that was floating in one of the pools," said John, "turned the horse over and me with him; but I kept hold of the bridle and reached the shore safe enough, with only the addition of a little extra wetting. But I can't stop now, Joey, I must not lose any more time, and you will have to get back again as soon as you can; for that man you have left on the other side will not be able to watch and 'shepherd' the sheep all by himself. You can get your own horse that the two fellows crossed with yesterday to take you back." "But, massa, you let me come now with you? and I be over the river all right liket morning." "Well, come if you will," said his master, "you can follow me;" and he dashed spurs into his horse and rode off. Joey thus obtaining the permission he sought wasn't long in getting his horse saddled, and he galloping after his master whom he overtook on the road; as, notwithstanding his impatient haste, John was unable, owing to the fatigue his horse had already endured in the water, to keep in advance of the fresher steed of his black boy. The two horsemen for some minutes rode rapidly side by side; and, as they approached Strawberry Hill, they every moment became more conscious, not only of the proximity of the blacks, but of their either meditating, or actually perpetrating some diabolical work. These kept up a chorus of voices which formed a perfect Babel of discord, resounding through the still night, and reverberating among the vaulted and umbrageous canopy of the bush like the conclaves of assembled pandemonium. Anon this was succeeded by frantic yells that curdled the very blood in John Ferguson's veins; and then shriek after shriek pierced the air, telling too plainly the nature of the savages' work. What further stimulus could John have had for his fears? Here was a realization of his most direful dread. The very echo of the woods proclaimed the fate of his friends; and possibly that being whom he loved most on earth was by that wail numbered among the dead; her lovely features defaced by the brutality of fiendish savages; and her fair form mutilated and possibly dishonoured. The thought was too harrowing; it deprived him of all consideration for his own person; the idea of his own saftey never entered his mind, and unarmed and defenceless as he was, he dashed the spurs again and again into the side of his steed, and galloped madly until he reached the scene of horror. He sprang from his horse, as the panting animal halted before the house, which was now still and apparently desolate; while the retreating forms of the blacks might have been seen by other eyes than John Ferguson's. CHAPTER X. "Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes, His mansion, and his titles in a place From whence himself does fly?" MACBETH, _Act 4, Sc. 2_. When Rainsfield parted from Jemmy Davies he retraced his steps to his own house, which he reached as the first rays of the morning sun irradiated the eastern sky; and, flinging himself upon a sofa in the sitting-room, he sought a few hours' rest. Sleep we cannot call it for it was more of the nature of a waking dream than refreshing slumbers; and, after enduring two or three hours of increasing restlessness, he sprang from his couch, and, while it was yet early morn, strolled forth to refresh his fevered brain. His reflections were of no enviable kind. That the object the blacks had in returning to the neighbourhood was, as Jemmy Davies had warned him, he had no doubt; for, however much he was disinclined to credit the disinterestedness of Jemmy, and his good feeling towards himself, he could not imagine any motive that could influence the black in acquainting him of a plot if no plot existed. Rainsfield had no faith in one of their colour, believing sincerity a virtue incompatible with their nature; but at the same time he fully credited the information of Jemmy, especially after the evidently hostile preparations he had witnessed. He was also perfectly aware that he might expect the animosity of the blacks while they remained in the neighbourhood; and though he had flattered himself upon their former disappearance that he had been for ever relieved from the annoyance of their proximity, he now found he had exorcised the demon which threatened his destruction. What their mode of procedure would be he could hardly conjecture, though he had doubted not, from what he had witnessed at the camp, that they had not only concerted measures, but that their plans would be on somewhat an extensive scale. Their primary object, he believed, would be his life; but personally he had a supreme contempt for the whole race, and flattered himself that, with a little caution, he was a match, numerically speaking, against extreme odds. He believed, as in fact experience had demonstrated, their cowardice was one of their inherent characteristics, and that, with decision on his part, and a chastisement by a few examples, he would avert the threatened danger. He imagined that their tactics would be a perpetual ambuscade, never dreaming that they would so far venture on the offensive as to assume the aggressive overtly, but would rather attempt a surprisal; in which case he determined, as soon as his opponents showed themselves, to take upon himself the offensive. As the harass, however, of a perpetual watch would not only inconvenience him, but weaken his already too small force, he bethought him to acquaint his neighbours of his position, and beg their assistance. His first care, then, was to apprise all his men on the station of the intention of the blacks, and to provide them with fire-arms, so far as his stock admitted, charging them to use every vigilance to prevent the approach of any of the aborigines, and to shoot them if they came within range of their guns. On the evening of that day, acting under the advice of Jemmy Davies, Mr. Rainsfield posted himself, and two of his men, in the bush near the house, where he expected the blacks would be lurking if they visited the station at all; and not long after night-fall he became sensible of the stealthy approach of some of the natives. Rainsfield and his men had secreted themselves so as to elude even the keen vision of the aborigines, at the same time that they themselves could discern, as plainly as was practicable in the darkness, the crouching forms of the reconnoiterers. The party in espionage watched their victims until they approached sufficiently near to enable them to distinguish their dusky outlines, and then they simultaneously discharged the contents of their three pieces into their very midst. The report was instantly followed by more than one yell, and at least one body was heard to fall heavily to the ground, when the next moment a shower of spears rattled amongst the trees and bushes where the party lay concealed. Rainsfield and his men remained perfectly motionless, not daring to venture another shot; for they knew well that every native had already shielded himself behind some tree, and was watching for a repetition of the fire to guide them whence to aim their own missiles. By remaining in his quiescence Rainsfield was aware he was safe; for he knew the blacks would not trust themselves to a closer investigation of the quarter from whence emanated their destruction. Of the two watching parties the blacks were the first to withdraw, after discharging another random volley of spears, and taking with them their dead or wounded. When Rainsfield was convinced of their departure he came out from his hiding-place, and returned to the station much pleased with his adventure, and, arguing from the nature of the reception the blacks had met with, that they would considerably cool in their ardour for any further visitation of his premises. The other inmates of Strawberry Hill were too much occupied with their attention to Eleanor, and too much engrossed by their anxieties for her welfare to be conscious of the occurrence we have lately described; for when the doctor arrived with William from Alma she was in an exceedingly dangerous state, and it was not until the day following the encounter that the son of Galen considered himself warranted in taking his departure, and leaving his patient to the care of her own friends. Eleanor's state was still precarious, and though the fever was sufficiently subdued to relieve her friends of alarm, her nervous system had received a tremendous shock. Added to her corporeal sufferings she had to endure mental agonies of a far more acute description, which kept her prostrate, dispirited, and almost unconscious, while her friends ministered with affectionate hands to her every want. Days thus passed over with only shadows of improvement; and William, who at first returned home leaving his sister at Strawberry Hill, came back and brought her away from the bedside of her friend. As Mr. Rainsfield had anticipated, the blacks entered no further appearance after their first night of reconnoitering; and, though the watchfulness of himself and his men was unabated, he began to entertain less fears of their carrying out or even attempting their premeditated design. All the men on the station were now well armed, and were quite capable, acting in unison, of repelling the attack of a whole host of natives should they make the attempt. At least so thought Rainsfield and his _employés_; for their first success, and the subsequent respectful distance that the blacks had maintained, engendered a sense of security in their minds. How many has this very feeling ruined, and will continue to ruin for succeeding ages, who can tell? "A sea of troubles" is incidental to our existence, and the dark prognostic that rises on our mental horizon, heralding the approach of some destructive blast, is too often unheeded by us until it has swept over our devoted heads. While the necessary precautions to avert the coming danger have been either neglected or postponed under the impression of false security we have fallen victims to our own procrastination; and as the withering blast howls in its fury as it settles its incubus form upon our spirits, we mourn our own inertness, when timely exertion would have saved us from the calamity. We will not say this was exactly the case with Mr. Rainsfield, though after a few days of unceasing watchfulness without any other molestation taking place, he began to relax in his vigilance, and was imitated by his servants. He already looked upon the blacks as cowed and vanquished, and entertained very little apprehension of another visitation, though at the same time he was not altogether at ease considering that they still remained in his vicinity with the avowed purpose of attacking the station. The idea had struck him that he could report to the authorities the attack already made by construing what might have been an intention into an act itself, as also the determination of the blacks to renew it, and their location in his neighbourhood in a hostile and warlike spirit. He would then be enabled to claim the protection of the police; but, what would be more to his purpose, he would be enabled to obtain a warrant for the apprehension of the ringleaders of the perpetrated and intended breach of the peace. Armed with such a document he could make use of it to visit their camp; while he was aware, from his knowledge of the blacks, that the only result of the farce would be a rupture with them, but by its means he would gain the opportunity he desired, viz., of driving them from the country. That such a farce as the administration of justice, or rather the enforcement of the law, in one proscribed form on the savage should be permitted to exist is deeply to be deplored. To punish the ignorant aboriginal for the sins we have either taught or compelled him to commit, without his having any knowledge of their nature, is sufficiently iniquitous to require no comment; and to expect him to conform to laws of which he has no conception, and which are contrary to his natural instincts, is equally absurd and unjust. But such is the case: the aboriginal is supposed to be a British subject in all but the privileges pertaining to those favoured individuals; and if he commits any act contrary to the code of our justiciary he is made amenable to our laws and judged accordingly. Mr. Rainsfield was as well aware of this as any one, but it mattered not to him. All he desired was to possess some recognised authority for his molestation of the natives, while he was nominally in the performance of a duty, though in reality shielding himself under the protection of the law in the committal of an unjustifiable aggression. That he would receive an order to obtain the assistance of the native police he had no doubt, though he did have misgivings as to their services being forthcoming. He little cared, however, if they were so; in fact, it would suit his views better than if they accompanied him, as he would prefer not to be annoyed with the supervision of police, even though troopers, and they only blacks. He could obtain sympathy, he thought, from his friends, and collect a small body of volunteers that would aid him in his operations far more effectually than police. Thus he hatched a scheme that had for its object a trap in which to catch the unwary blacks; so that, by some show of resistance, he would be warranted in taking the law into his own hands in self-defence for himself and his friends and to enter upon their crusade of extermination. Such was the offspring of Rainsfield's mind: a laudable undertaking worthy of the cool-blooded monsters of antiquity. The rains, of which we spoke in the last chapter, had by this time set in, and Rainsfield watched the rising of the Gibson river with some degree of satisfaction. Knowing the blacks to be encamped on the other side, he looked upon a flood as an insuperable barrier to their advance, and an impregnable circumvallation to his own station; therefore he had no fears of an attack while the water maintained its height, and he determined to choose that opportunity for carrying out the preliminaries of his plot. He explained so much of his plans as he thought necessary to his wife, including, of course, his object in leaving her, and attempted to allay her fears, if she had had any, by assuring her that it was impossible for the blacks to cross the river in its then state, while long before the flood settled he would collect such assistance as would not only protect them from any attack but enable him to drive their annoyance to a safe distance. Mrs. Rainsfield, however, entertained no fears, notwithstanding the monitory aspect of affairs around her. She had long accustomed herself to look upon her husband's operations against the unfortunate natives as not only harsh but cruel and unjust; and she lamented his proneness to seize upon every opportunity of treating them with severity. Believing them to be ill-used, and at the same time inoffensive, she saw no cause for fear, and therefore did not participate in her husband's alarm and felt no uneasiness in his meditated absence. Mr. Rainsfield, though he thought very little, if any, danger was to be apprehended, deemed it expedient for his wife and family's safety to use some precaution, and therefore for their protection requested Mr. Billing to take up his abode in the house. He gave him strict injunctions to keep the place well secured against the possibility of any ingress, and himself always in possession of a relay of arms, which he was to use without any hesitation if a black presented himself within range of his fire. Giving similar instruction to the remainder of his men he took his departure. His first step was to proceed to Alma and make a declaration before a bench of magistrates to the effect that the blacks had already made an attack upon his premises, and were still in considerable force in his neighbourhood, to the imminent peril of his life and property; and that the said party was headed by a half-civilized black named Barwang. Upon making this affidavit he at once obtained what he desired, viz., a warrant for the apprehension of the ringleader, Barwang, and all others who might either commit or incite other of Her Majesty's subjects to commit a breach of the peace. He also procured the promise of assistance from what portion of the native police could be collected, who would be stationed at Strawberry Hill for his protection, until such time as the blacks should be quieted. Succeeding thus far he then proceeded to Brompton to enlist the services of Bob Smithers, knowing well that few arguments would suffice to induce him to engage in a work which was exactly to his tastes. He found him at home, and, after the ordinary greetings had been passed, and Bob's asking him what brought him from home, he entered upon the subject of his mission by replying: "I want your aid, Smithers, to chastise those infernal blacks, for they are at me again. I have beaten them off once, but I believe they are only now prevented from attacking me in full force by their inability to cross the Gibson from their camp. See here I have got a warrant for the apprehension of their chief, so that will be sufficient authority for us to carry out our own plans." "All right, old boy," exclaimed Bob, as he gave his friend a proof of his exuberance and readiness to join him by administering a playful poke in the ribs; "I'm your man. I am fully convinced we shall never live in peace until those d--d blacks are exterminated. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to shoot every mother's son of the dogs; so, by Jove! you may depend upon my lending you a hand." "I do not believe, either," said Rainsfield, "that we shall ever enjoy any degree of quietude until we have suppressed the wretches. It is no use our looking to government for protection; we must take the administration of the law into our own hands and punish them ourselves. But to effect this we ought to make it a common cause, and all work in unison for our mutual protection." "Just so!" said Smithers; "I perfectly agree with you." "I've long thought of the plan," continued Rainsfield, "to form ourselves into a confederation for that purpose; but owing to the absence of the blacks for some months past I have allowed it to escape my memory. Now, however, I think, is a time that some such measure should be adopted, for if these depredations are not speedily checked the blacks may be going to such extremes that our position in the country will become untenable." "I am quite of your way of thinking," said Smithers, "and so I know are many others. I am confident Graham would assist you in a minute, and so would Brown, and many others round us. I'll tell you what; if you like I'll just go round to a few of them and bring them over to your place, so that if you return home now, and keep the black scoundrels in check for a day or two, until I get my forces collected, we will give them a lesson which they will not forget in a hurry; that is, if any of them survive to have any recollection." Diabolical as was the intention implied in this threat it fully accorded with Rainsfield's own desire and determination, and he readily fell into the views of his colleague, who at once started on his recruiting expedition, while Rainsfield, in high fettle, the following morning took his ride home. On this journey we will leave him for the present while we glance at the events in progress at another scene of our narrative. CHAPTER XI. "Friend of the brave! in peril's darkest hour, Intrepid virtue looks to thee for power." CAMPBELL. "She only left of all the harmless train, The sad historian of the pensive plain." GOLDSMITH. Everything went smoothly at Strawberry Hill for two days after the departure of Mr. Rainsfield; but the night of the third was that which was destined to bring with it a scene of horror, which happily has never had its equal in the Australian colonies since the first settler penetrated into its unknown wilds. The blacks had now remained some time dormant; for since their first visit, owing to the warm reception they had then met with, they had not ventured to repeat it. Towards the evening in question, however, they might have been seen swimming, one by one, the swollen current of the Gibson, until a considerable body had congregated on the bank opposite to their camp. We will not presume to judge their motives, or profess conversance with the impulses that influenced their movements. Possibly their instincts might have taught them that the time for a most successful attack was when the difficulties of approach rendered their coming least expected; or it might have been that they were possessed of the knowledge of their enemy's absence from home, and were determined to wreak their vengeance on those belonging to him when they had not to fear his presence. That Rainsfield was feared by them there was no doubt; his very name struck terror into their souls, and none but the very boldest of them would confront him, even in the consciousness of vastly superior force. It was therefore quite possible they were acquainted with his absence, and intended to take advantage of the occurrence to pay their premeditated visit to the station; or their choice of this period might have been the result of a fortuitous circumstance. Nevertheless be either as it may the flooded river did not prove the barrier Rainsfield had calculated it would, for the blacks crossed it with apparent ease and, as we have said, collected themselves on the bank on the Strawberry Hill side. Their evident intention being to proceed direct to the station when they thought the inmates would have retired to rest. A little before midnight the murderous crew spread themselves over the station; and simultaneously commenced their work of destruction by entering the huts, and butchering all they could surprise in their sleep. The first of their victims was a woman, the wife of a shepherd. Hearing the unusual barking of the dogs she incautiously rose to ascertain the cause without disturbing her husband, whose period of sleep she considered valuable. The poor woman appeared at the door of her hut with a child in her arms, too good a mark for the spears of the savages; for in their thirst for blood they had no respect for either sex or age but buried more than one of their weapons in the poor creature's bosom. She fell across the threshold pierced to the heart and in the agonies of death, with merely a sufficiency of the vital spark remaining to utter a faint cry and clasp instinctively her babe to her breast. As the infant's eyes turned in wonder on the ruthless savages one of them seized the little innocent by the legs, tore it from its mother's embrace and dashed out its brains; while his compeers rushed into the interior of the hut, and, almost before the sleeping man could sufficiently collect his senses to comprehend the nature of his position, his spirit had joined those of his wife and child. The other huts were in likewise visited, and those of the inmates who were not successful in effecting an escape were similarly massacred. These proceedings had been gone about by no means noiselessly, so that the family at the house had become aware of the presence of the savages, though they could not conjecture the extent or the nature of the outrages they had committed. Those of the men who had escaped from the murderous hands of the aborigines deemed it safer to seek shelter in the bush than to venture to the house, or even remain near the station. So that, beyond the painful evidence of her ears, Mrs. Rainsfield could ascertain no knowledge of what was going on. When she first heard the noise that had heralded the visitation she hastily threw on some clothing and emerged from her room; and, speedily becoming alive to the imminence of the danger, she for the first time deplored the absence of her husband. Mrs. Billing had removed with her youngest child to be near her better half while he remained at the house, but the rest of her family she had left at her own cottage; and having also been disturbed by the uproar she wrought herself into a perfect fever of anxiety for their safety. She fancied she heard every moment their dying screams as they were being seized by the ruthless hand of some infernal savage; and in her agony she fancied she could distinguish above the noise of the now unrestrained articulation of the blacks their little voices calling upon her for help, and she entreated to be allowed to rush at once to their rescue. Her husband, however, was more rational, and pointed out to her that that would, in all probability, only incur instant death to herself and afford no relief to her children. He suggested that they should wait, and see what the blacks proposed doing next; and as in all probability it would be to attack the house, he remarked that their suspense would be of short duration. He then bethought him of his fire-arms, which he got in readiness for instant use, while he provided pistols to the females. His next care was to barricade all the apertures through which the blacks could effect an entrance, while Mrs. Rainsfield crept softly to the bedside of Eleanor to ascertain if she had been disturbed by the noise. By the time these arrangements were completed, and the family assembled in conclave in the sitting-room, the blacks had collected before the house and became clamorous for admittance. Mr. Billing, though not blessed with too great a share of physical courage, had, nevertheless, in the moment of danger, a sufficient perception of the line of conduct necessary for the defence of himself and those under his protection. Notwithstanding that the gun he then held in his hand was in all probability the first that he ever had in his possession with the intent of putting it to use, he handled it as if it were an old and friendly companion, and proposed that he and his two female colleagues should fire simultaneously on the savages, so as to give them the idea that the house was well defended. His suggestion, however, was overruled by Mrs. Rainsfield, who at once expressed her disapprobation of such a course; being convinced, as she said, that the blacks could not force the building, and even if they did that they would have no cause to commit any violence to any of the inmates. While if they found that they could not gain admittance they would depart at most, perhaps, with robbing the store. This belief was far from according with Mr. Billing's opinion, but he was constrained to assent to the will of the lady; and they all, with a breathless silence, continued to watch the movements of their assailants. The blacks finding they were unmolested, and seeing no opposition offered to them, and no signs of life about the house, became bolder and attempted to force some of the doors and windows; while the affrighted party sat in a state of fearful anxiety, and, though unseen themselves, they could plainly distinguish the forms of the aborigines trying the window of the room in which they were. Mr. Billing at this moment placed the muzzle of his gun close to the glass of the window, that was left visible through a crevice in the barricade, and had he fired would have assuredly sent one savage to his account in the other world. Would that he had; for in all probability it would have driven the blacks to a distance from the house, and possibly saved us from the task of narrating this fearful tragedy. But his eagerness to fire was restrained by Mrs. Rainsfield, and the moment was lost; for the blacks, finding their efforts to gain an ingress unavailing, gave up the fruitless attempt, and withdrew to some short distance to hold converse on their proceedings. Mrs. Rainsfield at once began to congratulate herself and her friends that they had retired as she had anticipated, leaving them nothing more to fear; and at that moment hearing the faint voice of Eleanor calling to her she hastened to account for the disturbance about the house and appease her alarm. Eleanor was in a state of considerable agitation, having been aroused from her fitful slumbers by the noise of the blacks, and being still very low in strength and spirits, and excessively nervous, her alarm and agitation threatened to bring on fever again. It was only with considerable difficulty that Mrs. Rainsfield could persuade her she had no cause to fear. She told her that the blacks had already taken their departure from the house, and would in all probability by that time have left the station; and she entreated her not to give herself any uneasiness, but to be still for a few minutes, and then she would return to her bedside and sit with her for the remainder of the night. With these assurances, Eleanor was constrained to be pacified, and so Mrs. Rainsfield returned to the sitting-room, where she found Mrs. Billing wringing her hands and crying in an agony of grief. Mr. Billing was more calm, but not less apprehensive of danger or death. He drew the lady of the house to the crevice of the window to gaze upon the scene without, while she uttered a cry of surprise and terror, as her startled vision took in the tableau there displayed. Before the house stood a group of the assailants in all the hideousness of barbarity, paint, and savage nudity. They had possessed themselves of "fire sticks," which acted as torches, at the same time that they served to exhibit their bodies in all their diabolical repulsiveness; and their intentions were too plainly indicated in their jestures. To say that they looked like a band of incarnate fiends would be to convey but a poor impression of the horrors of their appearance, as the fitful light reflected their hideous forms; exhibiting them in, if possible, a more fearful aspect than their stern realities; and giving them the appearance as the beholders thought (and as was, alas! but too true) of being besmeared with blood. It is not to be wondered at that at such a sight the hearts of two frail women, and even that of a man, should have quailed; and if not before despair certainly did then seize upon the spirits of those present. The object of the villains had by this time become perfectly apparent, and though neither of the trio dared to breathe their individual suspicions they were unanimous in the one belief that the lighted torches were intended to fire the premises; and thus either drive them from their shelter or bury them in the ruins. They therefore saw that only two courses were open to them; either to arm themselves and defend the house until the last, or to throw it open to the savages and try and pacify them with any _douceur_ the wretches might covet. That there was extreme danger in thus throwing themselves upon the mercy of fiends they were perfectly aware; and any one better acquainted with the black's character would have considered it absolute madness and voluntarily seeking for a death more horrible than that which would await them in a defensive perseverance. But the exercise of calm judgment and reason could hardly be expected from two agitated and terrified women, and one man whose nature was made of very little sterner stuff than theirs. Mrs. Rainsfield was the first that broke the painful silence that ensued, and addressing Mr. Billing, said: "I think we had better open the door at once, or they will set fire to the house, and we will be burnt alive. If they determine to kill us we can but meet our death with firmness; while there is a possibility of their sparing us if we satisfy their cupidity by allowing them to plunder the place. Will you open the door, Mr. Billing, and attempt the work of conciliation?" Mr. Billing silently obeyed this behest, and addressed himself to the blacks, who were at this time standing immediately before the house preparing to apply the fire. They instantly desisted from their incendiary work when they saw signs of capitulation, and directed their gaze to the doorway. By the light of their own "fire sticks" they could distinguish Mr. Billing, who stood there with the women at his back perfectly unarmed; having left his gun by Mrs. Rainsfield's desire in the room they had vacated so as to give the savages, as she imagined, no cause for offence by appearing to offer any resistance. When the blacks satisfied themselves that they had nothing to fear they burst out into a loud laugh of derision, and crowded towards the defenceless garrison in a menacing and mocking attitude. What were the feelings of the trio at this moment it would be difficult even to conjecture. With Mrs. Billing, however, those of the mother overcame all personal and selfish considerations, and she darted from the house to ascertain the fate of her children. That action may be said to have decided the doom of the whole party; for though possibly even under other circumstances the blacks might not have spared those whom they had got into their power, and the strong probability is that they would not, yet the sudden movement of Mrs. Billing cost her her life, and gave the savages the stimulus to commence the further shedding of blood. Mrs. Billing had not proceeded many steps before she uttered a loud shriek and fell prostrate to the earth with a spear piercing her back and protruding its point from her breast. Her husband witnessing the deed, eliminated from his bosom all feelings save those of devotion and sympathy for his wife, rushed to clasp her in his arms and met a similar fate. The climax of this fearful tragedy was nearly attained. Mrs. Rainsfield fled from the open doorway, where she had been the spectator of this connubial sacrifice, and sought momentary refuge with her children in her room. Just as the blacks entered the house the servants, who had by this time been aroused to a sense of their danger, opened a door which led from the kitchen into the hall. But perceiving the murderous assailants pouring in they left the door wide open as they had flung it and made a hasty exit by another passage into the obscurity of the night, and beat a precipitate retreat to the bush. In their flight they were followed by a few of the savages who had perceived them; but who shortly tired of a chase in which fear lent wings to the pursued. They returned to aid their colleagues in forcing an entrance into the room of Mrs. Rainsfield and commenced their work there of insatiable cruelty with hideous and diabolical evidences of satisfaction. The atrocities of these fiends were more like the evil machinations of devils than the actions of human beings. But to enumerate all the horrors, and to paint the scene with sufficiently forcible life-like delineation, would be beyond the capabilities of our pen, and would only sicken our readers by the perusal. Therefore we will merely say that they first murdered the children before the eyes of their mother, while they sported with the agonising despair of their victim, and then despatched the lady; brutally mangling her body in their inordinate lust for blood. Eleanor had remained spell-bound during the perpetration of those horrors, which she had animation sufficient to discern were being enacted in the house; but without either enough strength to move, or power of utterance to give vent to the fearful sensations that preyed upon her mind. Alarm we cannot call it: such a feeling sinks into insignificance compared with the mental anguish she then endured; being conscious, from the heart-rending cries that struck her ear, that her dearest earthly friends were meeting with a death too horrible to contemplate, and not knowing how speedily a similar fate awaited herself. She lay thus in a sort of trance, or tremulous expectancy, for some considerable time, while she could hear the work of destruction going on all around; to which work the savages had taken when they had completed their murders. But still they had not visited her, and she continued to lie, the prey to the most fearful mental agonies. Sounds of rapidly approaching horsemen were then heard, and the blacks began to leave the scene of their bloody desolation for fear of the retribution which they expected from the approaching rescue. To Eleanor, though she was nigher to death than a sublinary existence, the sound was joyous; and she began to entertain hope that the relief would prove opportune for the saving of her friends, as she felt it already was for the rescue of herself. But oh! how unaccountable are the decrees of Providence. At the very moment when she imagined the house was vacated by the murderers the door of her room opened, and a hideous black monster literally besmeared with blood burst in, and with uplifted arm and bloody weapon, rushed to extinguish in her soul the flickering spark of life. The black was followed by another, also with a hand elevated and grasping a tomahawk. But the sight was more than Eleanor's shattered nerves could bear; and starting into a sitting posture on her bed, her tongue was loosened; she gave one piercing shriek, and sank back senseless half leaning over the edge of her couch. The fate, however, she had expected she did not meet with; for, instead of the glancing steel of the second black being imbrued with her blood, it was buried in the brain of the first, who sank to the floor a corpse. The cause of Eleanor's escape we may here explain to the reader. The frame of the door to her room was placed in immediate contiguity to that of the one which opened into the kitchen; and by some strange design of the builder this latter was made to open out into the hall. Thus when the servants opened it, and left it so, the fortuitous circumstance of its irregularity proved Eleanor's preservation; for when thrown back it entirely concealed the entrance to her room, and eluded almost completely the vigilance of the murderers. It was, as we have seen, just as they were retreating from the place that one of the stragglers accidentally discovered it; and, thinking that the spot had not been visited by either himself or his compeers, he entered to satisfy his curiosity by a hasty visit; which would assuredly have terminated the existence of Eleanor but for the timely blow dealt him by his fellow. This extraordinary internecine action may also require some elucidation; and we will dispel the mystery by an explanation. Barwang and his party upon their first visit to Strawberry Hill, when they met with their repulse, became convinced that their movements had been betrayed by one of their tribe, and they doubted not but that the betrayal emanated from Jemmy Davies. They therefore kept a watch upon him lest he should again carry information to Mr. Rainsfield, and preserved their own councils from his knowledge; so that, until they had actually started on their expedition, he was quite ignorant of their plans. When an opportunity offered, however, he followed them on their track up to the house; and, though he did not venture into the building, he kept hovering about in the hope that he might be able to render some assistance to the family. But not until the approaching sounds of horses' feet drew off the masses of the tribe did he deem it safe for his own security to enter. He did so; and, as he passed into the hall, he saw one of his countrymen opening the door of a room and stand for a moment in the aperture gazing fixedly in one direction. The glance of this savage's eye, as his own keen vision caught the momentary flash, told Jemmy Davies that vengeance gleamed from the other's orb, and in an instant he sprang after him, and saved an innocent life by the sacrifice of one worse than worthless and infamous. When he was convinced the house was empty of his countrymen, and being aware that if he were caught in the place by any white man the colour of his skin would be the warrant for his instant death, he took a hasty survey of the fearful scene of blood that was visible even in the partial darkness, and left the house by the back as two horsemen, riding rapidly up to the front, leapt from their saddles and rushed in. These two, as may be conjectured, were John Ferguson and Joey. Fearful as John had been of the nature of events he believed were transpiring the sight that met his gaze as he entered the dwelling struck him dumb with horror, and perfectly sick at heart, and paralysed at the bloody disclosure. The whole floor of the house was slippery with the gore of the murdered victims as it had been carried about by the feet of the murderers. He hastily struck a light from the materials he had about him; and, with the pulsations of his heart almost audible, made a survey of the habitation. The first things that he noticed were the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Billing, which had been dragged by the savages into the hall, possibly with the intention of consuming the whole in flames after they had finished their work; and then in the sitting-room he saw the signs of the barricade that had been hastily thrown up before the window. From that he hastened to the one which had in life been occupied by the amiable lady that had been mistress of the place, and there he witnessed the mangled remains of herself and her family. As he gazed upon the hardly to be recognised features of that friend who had so often greeted him with the cordial grasp of friendship he could not restrain the tears that in a flood coursed their way down his cheeks. Continuing his melancholy search he next entered the room of Eleanor, and almost stumbled over the carcass of the black who lay in the middle of the floor weltering in his blood. This sight caused him no little surprise; especially, when with a sad foreboding he approached the couch of that being he adored above all mundane objects, to find her pendent form though insensible was scathless. But it was not a moment to indulge in conjectures; he had discovered his idol in the midst of death still living. So placing the unconscious creature on the bed, and enveloping her in the clothes, he snatched her in his arms; and pressing her to his breast bore off the precious load. With the assistance of his attendant he mounted his horse; and despatching Joey instantly with injunctions to fly, if possible, to Alma for the doctor and bring him to Fern Vale, he turned his own horse's head homewards, and proceeded as fast as the animal with his additional burden could travel. Bright and beautiful the morning dawned as he rode towards his home; but serene as were the sublimities of nature their contemplation had no place in his mind. All his thoughts were centred in the inaminate form encircled by his arms. Thus he rode unconscious to all around, and would have so ridden to the end of his journey had not a faint sigh struck his ear; and he instantly stopped his horse to enable him to enjoy the sight of returning vitality to his much loved Eleanor. He gently removed the covering that he had placed over her face, when her melancholy eyes for a moment rested upon his. It was only for a moment, however, for they were instantly secluded from the light by the closing lids; and, considering it better not to agitate her with conversation, and satisfied for the time with the assurance of his hearing and vision, he impressed one rapturous kiss on her fair forehead, again covered her face from the morning air, and proceeded on his way. CHAPTER XII. "All those rivers That fed her veins with warm and crimson streams Frozen and dried up; if these be signs of death, Then is she dead.... But I will be true E'en to her dust and ashes." DECKER. Mr. Rainsfield pursued his way homewards little anticipating the sight that awaited him on his arrival; but, owing to the heavy state of the roads from the saturation of the ground, he was only enabled to travel slowly. Consequently he perceived the flood coming down the Gibson long before he reached the crossing-place of the Wombi; and, knowing that there would be no use attempting a passage there, since the bridge had been swept away, he at once struck off for the Dingo Plains to get over by the upper crossing-place. By making this detour it was near morning before he approached the station. Upon his reaching home he at once went to the stable and attended to his horse, the first consideration of a bushman, and then bent his steps to the house, feeling an unaccountable sensation of awe, which the pervading solitude and death-like stillness inspired him with. This feeling he was ashamed to indulge in, and tried to banish it from his mind and deceive his conscience by attempting to whistle a lively air, while he submitted his right boot to a playful castigation with his riding-whip. All these stratagems, however, proved futile: a gloom had settled upon him which he could not shake off, and he hastened his steps to his dwelling with his heart in a perturbation that gave place to the most fearful apprehensions as he perceived the house open to free ingress. The truth at once burst upon him with overwhelming force, and he rushed like one demented into the room where he had expected to meet the embrace of his wife, but only to witness her mutilated remains surrounded by those of her children. He gazed upon their forms for some minutes in the uncertain light with a sad, though calm and almost stoical cast of countenance; and then, kneeling by the side of his wife's body, he parted her clotted hair from off her brow, which he stooped down and kissed, and, while dashing a scalding tear from his eye, thus apostrophised the fane of the departed spirit: "And was it for this I left you, my darling Mary, to seek for you protection, and obtain assistance to drive the disturbers of our happiness from the land? Oh! that I could but have foreseen this, to have either preserved you and our poor little innocents, or perished while I shielded your heart with my breast. Curses on my cruel fate, and the blinding fancies of security which led me away from your side. Oh, Mary, Mary! more dear to me than life, to have lost you thus, butchered! by a set of ruthless savages, consumes my very heart. But you shall be revenged. By heaven! you shall." And, springing to his feet with clenched fists, and gazing into space as the whole expression of his countenance changed, he continued: "What is life to me now, deprived of all the ties that bound me to this earth? It shall be devoted to the cause of vengeance; and here, Mary! in the presence of your spirit, and in the sight of my Maker, I swear to be revenged upon all the blacks in this country; never shall one cross my path alive. I'll spare neither their old nor their young. I'll hunt them from their dens, like the vermin that they are. They shall be made to bite the dust. Their bodies shall rot, and their bones bleach in the sun. Never shall they rest until they are wholly exterminated, or my strength and life fail me; and I swear that so long as one black remains of all their race my vengeance shall not be satisfied. Hear me, Mary! while I pray to God for the strength of Hercules, and the age of Methuselah, that I may be a terror to their species, and they may learn to curse the day when first they tasted the blood of mine. And oh, Mary! if thou seest me from the portals of that abode where the eternal dwell, look down upon me and commend my work, help my weak arm; encourage my drooping spirit; be a light to beacon my path in the remainder of my gloomy passage through this world; and let not the cup of vengeance be removed from the lips of thy foul murderers until they have tasted of the very dregs. So now, my angel wife! my once fond and loving but now lost wife! sacrificed through thy husband's folly and neglect, if vengeance is sweet to thee thy spirit shall be appeased; for henceforth my name shall be one to strike dismay into the souls of blacks throughout the land. So help me God!" Having uttered this fearful oath, and calling down the aid of his Maker to assist him in its performance, Rainsfield left the room and the house a broken-hearted man; re-saddled his horse, which he mounted, and went he knew not whither. His state was truly piteous; his better and softer nature was in perpetual warfare with his fiendish feelings, which prompted nothing but a thirst for vengeance. The memory of his wife, and the sudden shock occasioned by her loss and fearful death, had at first subdued the evil passions of the mortal; and he had gazed upon the placid features of the corpse with a calm and settled grief. But as he awoke to a plainer perception of the horrors of the event, and what must have been the sufferings of his defenceless family, with the brutality of their hellish assailants, all softer feelings evanished before the sterner one revenge; which in the one moment of decision he determined should be the sole object of his future life. In this frame of mind he left his home, that had so lately been smiling and happy but now gloomy, bloody, and to be shunned; for he felt to dwell under that roof again was impossible. His home for the future would be under the canopy of heaven, and his life that of the avenger. Thus he left the house, misfortune having so overcome his reason that he had no idea of further inspection of the building, possibly believing that all had met with the same fate, not even to glance into the room of Eleanor; and he wandered forth absorbed in grief, without any definite notion of where he was to go, or how he was to dispose of the bodies. Towards noon of the following day he entered the township of Alma, and his horse stopping instinctively before the door of the "Woolpack" inn, he alighted; and allowed the animal to be taken from him while he mechanically entered the house. The news of the massacre had already spread through the country, while the thousand tongues of mercurial gossip had imparted to the original tragedy as many phases of horror as imagination could possibly invent. The fearful occurrence had arrested the attention, and absorbed all the interest of the residents of Alma; and they were in several knots in deep and earnest conclave, discussing the bloody event, as they saw the chief sufferer approaching their town. The loudest declamation, and the deepest uttered anathemas against the natives, were in an instant checked. The earnestly asseverated opinion, that the lives of the settlers would be perpetually in danger, unless the blacks were speedily exterminated,--the noisy declaration of some bold patriot, as he expressed his determination to declare eternal warfare against the savages, and even to enter upon the crusade single-handed if no one would lend him aid; with the faint voice of some more philanthropic polemic, who attempted to check the stream of exuberant passion, by palliating without defending (on the plea of retribution) the horrible murder,--were all hushed, and gave place to a heartfelt though silent sympathy as Mr. Rainsfield rode into the town. And even after he was lost to their vision, by ensconsure in the "Woolpack," their conversations were resumed in a lower cadence, lest (even at a distance at which their most stentorian utterances could hardly have been distinguishable) the nature of their conversation should strike his ear and recall the subject of his grief. The news had reached them that morning by Joey when he arrived post-haste for the doctor. He had been fortunate in finding the resident son of Galen at home; and, obeying the injunctions of his master, had delivered his message, and returned with him immediately. Short as had been his stay it was quite long enough to enable the inhabitants to elicit from him the facts of which the reader is acquainted. They learnt with some degree of satisfaction that one of the family still retained life, and would possibly be able, at some time, to recount the circumstances of the massacre. Thus, in the presence of so much to engender the feeling of compassion, a morbid curiosity to learn all the details of horror seized upon the minds of the good people of Alma. But such is the nature of man; selfishness reigns supreme, and shines forth in all his motions and actions. When Joey returned with the doctor he deviated from the beaten track, to cross the Wombi by the upper fords; thinking that his companion might object to the more dangerous one of the lower. Rainsfield, on the contrary, in his journey, never dreaming of dangers or difficulties, had taken the lower; hence the parties had missed one another. This caused the gossips of Alma to wonder greatly what had brought him away from his house; especially as they had heard that he had been absent at the time of the outrage, and must have since visited the scene, and met the doctor and messenger on the road. But they were unacquainted with the circumstance that had prevented the meeting, and they were destined, at least at that time, to remain in ignorance; for the landlord of the inn to whom they had recourse, rough and unfeeling as he appeared, had too much respect for the grief of his visitor to attempt obtaining any information from him. The landlord, without enquiring from him if he would take any meal, prepared the table for a repast, and placed on it some edibles, with a bottle of brandy and some water. Then, without uttering a syllable, he left the room and the sorrow-stricken man to an uninterrupted solitude. Rainsfield sat for some time gazing fixedly on the viands before him without attempting or desiring to partake of them; retaining an unaltered position on each occasion that he was surveyed by the sympathising host through the key-hole of the door. In this state he might have remained, until exhausted nature had induced a return to consciousness, had not his attention been attracted by the arrival of an extensive cavalcade at the door of the inn. Glancing his eye languidly over the features of the riders as they were dismounting he instantly recognised amongst the group the person and voice of Bob Smithers; and the object of the party was at once made apparent. New life was at once infused into his veins; the blood once more mantled his cheek, and fire was imparted to his eye, as he, with compressed lip and determined visage, leapt from his seat and strode to the doorway. "Show those gentlemen in here, landlord," he said, addressing that individual, as he was ushering the newly-arrived travellers into a separate room. "I thought, sir, you would prefer to be alone," replied the landlord, "so I was going to let you have the parlour to yourself." "Never mind, let them come in here," replied Rainsfield. The party by this time had entered the room they were shown to, so the landlord turned to them, and said: "If you would like to step into the other room, gents, you will find it more comfortable; there is only one other gent there, perhaps you know him," he continued in an under tone, "it is Mr. Rainsfield." A low murmur ran through the party at the mention of the name, though it was unheard by Rainsfield himself, he having turned again into the parlour. The name of Rainsfield was repeated by them all in a tone of voice that unmistakeably indicated a sorrowful compassion. They were all squatters in the district and friends of Smithers, who had collected them to go to the assistance of their neighbour for his protection against the aborigines. They had heard as they came along the fearful news of the massacre, and had accelerated their speed to arrive on the scene of action as soon as possible, in the hope of finding some of the family living, or being in time to afford some assistance, either in the preservation of their lives, the protection of their property, or the chastisement of their murderers. Smithers instantly proposed to join Mr. Rainsfield, and at once adjourned to the other room, followed by his companions; and, as he entered and advanced with extended hand, but without venturing to speak, Rainsfield grasped the proffered token of friendship, while he said: "Too late, Smithers! too late! except for revenge, and that is all I hope to live for." "And in which we can now only serve you," replied his companion. "But we will organize some plan of operation; we count fifteen now, and are sufficient to be irresistible to the whole tribe of blacks. In the meantime let the landlord prepare dinner, and then we will discuss matters quietly. I think you know all our friends here?" The form of introduction being gone through where the parties were not acquainted, and the shaking of hands where they were, the necessary instructions were given to the landlord to prepare something for the company, and they fell into a desultory conversation previous to entering upon their plans. It is not our intention to weary the reader with a verbose report of the initiatory proceedings of the party, and will therefore merely state that they formed themselves into a mutual protection society, with the professed object of combining to repel the encroachments of the blacks, though in reality to hunt them down like dogs. For the furtherance of this scheme they bound themselves by stringent oaths to let none escape them, but to kill all they should come across. Each individual swore to take active part in the process of destruction so as to make all equally implicated. They vowed, by the most solemn obligations, never to make any disclosure that would criminate any of the society; while, before any neophyte could be admitted within the periphery of their mysterious bonds, it was determined he should be subjected to an ordeal that would protect the members from the possibility of any disclosure that would cause their amenability to the law. In the course of conversation with the landlord Smithers learnt that one of the family (which his informant could not tell him) was still living, and that a messenger, supposed from Fern Vale, had come over that morning for the doctor. Smithers communicated this to Rainsfield, who then remembered for the first time that he had not visited the room of Eleanor, and therefore inferred that it must be she, he having had too clear a demonstration of the total absence of life in the bodies of his wife and children. This he mentioned to Smithers, and they both agreed that Eleanor must have been discovered by some of the Fergusons, who had removed her to their own house, and sent for the doctor. They therefore determined to adhere to their original plan of starting early on the following morning, after taking a night's rest where they were, it being needed by most of the party as well as by their horses. On the following morning they were early on the road, so that few saw them leave the township. But though nothing had been said by any of the Society respecting the object of their journey it was pretty shrewdly guessed at, if not positively known, by most of the inhabitants; and it was evident to them no body of men, armed with rifles and revolvers, could be travelling to the scene of a murderous outrage with any peaceable intent. The sympathies, however, of most went with them; and even though some of their number had been disposed in simple argument to feel for the blacks, none dared to incur public opprobrium by making any representations of the supposed hostilities to official quarters. The Society itself proceeded on its way very quietly, its members being mostly absorbed in sketching out, mentally, plans of the campaign on which they were entering, so that the journey was almost entirely performed in silence. When they reached the station its appearance was quite desolate; no signs of life were perceptible, and the stillness of death spread around its influence, which was sensibly felt by all. The house was closed to all ingress, and on the door was nailed a card bearing the words: "Let Mr. Rainsfield proceed to Fern Vale the instant on his arrival." Rainsfield read the sentence, and at once guessed the import; he perceived that when the murder had been discovered by the Fergusons they had removed the bodies thither, if possible, to await his arrival before interment; and he determined to go on at once, though, before departing, he desired once more to gaze upon the rooms through which the steps of his wife and the merry voices of his children had so lately resounded, but which were now tenantless, desolate, and bloody. An entrance was effected by a back window, and the party admitted; when great was the surprise of Mr. Rainsfield to find no sign or vestige of the fearful crime that had there so lately been committed. He read in all this the kind hand of his neighbours, and his heart smote him in the midst of his grief for the manner in which he had behaved to young Ferguson. To his friends he pointed out with a melancholy precision the spots where he had found the various bodies, described their position and their mutilated condition, and then wandered through the rooms with an abstracted air conjuring in his imagination the scenes that were passed, never more to return, and peopling them in his fancy with those loved forms whose spirits had fled to the source from whence they sprang. His friends did not attempt to interrupt the gratification of this melancholy pleasure, but allowed him to be the first to propose a retreat, which, when he did, they were ready to agree to. The whole party then left the house to proceed to Fern Vale; and while they are on the road we will precede them and take a momentary glance at the doings there, both at the exact period of our narrative and also retrospectively for a few hours. John Ferguson, when he bore the all but lifeless body of Eleanor into his own house, arrested the volatile reception of his sister with an expression of countenance that betokened deep sorrow. To the poor girl the look was unaccountable; she had only risen the instant her brother had arrived, and had heard nothing of his approach; consequently she was a little surprised at his presence. But when she was about to rush into his embrace his manner appalled her, while she was equally surprised at the singular burden he carried in his arms, for in the manner in which he had enveloped the body of Eleanor the form was undefinable. John, however, saved his sister the necessity of any questioning, by saying: "Don't ask me any questions at present that will require any explanation of the cause of my unexpected appearance with this almost lifeless form. Lead the way to your room, Kate, for I must place it under your charge; and I can assure you it requires your tenderest care. I have already sent for a doctor, and expect him here in the course of the day." The astonished girl preceded her brother to her room, and, as John laid his burden gently on his sister's bed, he uncovered the face and disclosed to the vision of Kate the pallid features of the unconscious Eleanor. "Oh, John! dear John! tell me what is the meaning of this! what fearful thing has happened?" Kate passionately exclaimed. "A dreadful event, Kate, as you may imagine," replied her brother, "by my bearing that dear creature in such a state, and bringing her here to be ministered to by you. She is now destitute of friends; but I cannot tell you more at present, your nerves could not sustain the recital of the horrors of the tale. I know that I need not ask you to bestow upon Eleanor your utmost attention and most affectionate sympathy; but I must caution you, should she return to consciousness, to make no allusion to the circumstances of her misfortune; nor do you attempt to elicit anything from her; rather try to soothe and calm her troubled spirit." "Oh, poor dear Eleanor! what cruel fate has put you in this awful predicament?" cried Kate, when she burst into tears and buried her face in the clothes by the side of her friend. In the meantime John left the room, and, proceeding to the kitchen, he requested their female servant to go to the assistance of her mistress. Here he found the servants who had escaped from the massacre at Strawberry Hill relating to the astonished and horrified listeners as much of the fearful outrage as they had witnessed, and what they imagined to be the conclusion. But their narrative, though dreadful, was not a tithe of the reality. He next sought his brother, to whom he related the sad events, and commissioned him to break the tale to Kate in as mild a way as possible. Then he informed him that he had left the sheep at the Wombi and suggested that he and some of the men should go over and assist the fellows that were with them, as they would necessarily be short-handed, especially for the portion of the flock that had not crossed the river. He then hastily partook of some refreshment, and taking a few of his own men, and the servants and those who had escaped from Strawberry Hill, he returned to that station to remove, if possible, the signs of the outrage, and bring the bodies of the victims to his own place; so that if Rainsfield should have heard of the circumstance before his arrival he would not be maddened by a sight of the murderous destruction. The house was speedily cleansed of all vestiges of blood. Similar stains were removed from the corpses. The house was arranged in order, and closed up, and the party left it as John affixed to the door the card we have already noticed. The cavalcade moved slowly from the deserted mansion, and, as it proceeded on its way with its load of inert mortality, it was overtaken by the doctor and Joey from Alma. To the latter, in a few words, he gave directions, and left him to follow with the bodies, while he and the doctor pushed on. In the meantime Eleanor had at frequent intervals opened her eyes and gazed vacantly on all the objects around her, including even the face of her friend, whom she never for an instant appeared to recognise. To Kate's tender soothing attempts she took no heed; but on each occasion, with a faint sigh and shudder, relapsed into her former torpor. This state continued until the arrival of the doctor, who, though he did not express his fears, entertained serious apprehensions for her life; and afterwards communicated to John his alarm, that, though her corporeal system might recover, the shock to her nerves had been so great that he feared her mind might give way and either become impaired or totally demented. He recommended her room to be kept dark, and as cool and as quiet as possible; and during her waking intervals, her mind to be as much diverted as could be. He then prescribed certain medicines, amongst them powerful soporifics, and Joey was instantly despatched, upon his arrival, to Alma to get them compounded, while the doctor remained by the patient to watch her malady. On the following day Rainsfield presented himself at Fern Vale. Smithers could not be persuaded to approach the house; therefore he and his friends encamped themselves on the creek to wait until their companion's return. As Rainsfield approached the house he was met at the door by John Ferguson; and, as he felt the warm pressure of the young man's hand, it was only with an effort he prevented the tears from oozing from his eyes. John led him to the room where lay his family; and, leaving him for a few moments to his own silent meditations over their lifeless forms, walked out on the verandah, from whence he saw the party that had accompanied the bereaved man. He was for a minute wondering who they could be, and why they did not come up to the house, when he felt the touch of Mr. Rainsfield on his arm, who said to him: "How much I owe you for this kindness my heart is too full to explain even if my words could utter it. But believe me so long as I live it shall be gratefully remembered. I had seen them a few hours before in all the horrors of their death. It was a sight to dry up the fountains of a kindly nature in any heart, and made me swear to live a life of perpetual vengeance." "Ah, my dear sir," exclaimed John, "it is ever difficult to meet with resignation the chastisements of an all-wise Providence; but we should learn to look upon all His dispensations as tending to a beneficial end." "I'll not pretend to argue with you," replied the other; "but my nature and feelings will not admit the embrace of such an immaculate creed. I must be avenged!" John, in the then state of his companion's mind, did not attempt to impress the precept as he believed the thirst for vengeance would slacken as the poignancy of his grief wore off. "And Eleanor," said Rainsfield; "what is her fate?" A shade came over John's brow as he replied: "It is not yet decided. She is in a most dangerous state, and the doctor is now here attending her. He considers her case so precarious that he is remaining for some days to be constantly near in his watch for the turning-point which shall decide between life and death. I will ascertain if she can be seen;" and John left the spot. Upon his return he led the way to her room; and, as Rainsfield followed him, he asked, "Why didn't you bring your friends up with you to the house?" "They preferred stopping at a distance and awaiting my return," he replied. "But you are not going to leave us immediately," exclaimed John; "and they cannot think of camping out there while we can make some sort of a shake-down here." "I fear the presence of some of them at least would be objectionable to you," replied Rainsfield; "and I have no doubt they would prefer to remain where they are." "Nonsense," cried John; "I could not think of permitting such a thing. May I ask who are those who would not accept of what hospitality I can offer them?" "Smithers, Graham, and Brown," replied Rainsfield. John ushered Rainsfield into the room where Eleanor lay still and motionless in a bed, at the side of which sat her watchful friend and nurse, who rose and left her seat as Rainsfield approached. He stood silently looking on the placid features of his cousin, which, but for the gentle heaving of the snowy linen that covered her breast, would have appeared as if inexorable death had already left the impress of his hand. In the meantime John walked down to where the party of gentlemen lay stretched on the ground; and, addressing those whom he knew in a manner as if nothing had ever happened to mar the good feeling and fellowship that should have existed between them, invited the party up to the house. He prevented any refusal from Smithers (who could not dissemble his shame and mortification) by taking him cordially by the hand, and requesting that he would not give him the pain of a refusal, and of seeing him encamped with his friends within sight of his windows. He stated the accommodation he could afford them was not very commodious, but he would consider it unsocial if they did not accept it. The consequence of this appeal was that within a few minutes their horses were running in an adjoining paddock and they were all walking up together to the Fergusons' domicile. The next day was devoted to the interment of the earthly remains of the victims of the Strawberry Hill massacre; and, as that beautifully sublime and solemn ritual of the Anglican Church was read by one of the party over the bodies they were lowering respectively in their rough and hastily-constructed encasements into that lodgment where the grim tyrant retains his grasp until the last trumpet shall summon the dead from the caverns of the earth; and, as the heavy clod resounded with a hollow dullness on the lids of the coffins, more than one eye was moistened, and more than one tear rolled its course down the cheek of some of the strongest minded of the manly group. The grave was speedily filled in, and the party returned to the house to partake of a repast; after which they took their departure. CHAPTER XIII. "O! pardon me thou bleeding piece of Earth That I am meek and gentle with these butchers." JULIUS CÆSAR, _Act 3, Sc. 1_. When "the Society" left Fern Vale they jaunted leisurely on for a short distance, when they were overtaken by Sawyer and his son-in-law, the notable Captain Jones, who made up to Mr. Rainsfield and told him they had come out to join his party against the blacks. Though these volunteers were not exactly the sort of men "the Society" would have desired to enroll they were determined looking characters, and had the appearance of those, who, if they could be trusted, could be made serviceable in any desperate act. Therefore their aid was accepted, and they were forthwith admitted into the confidence of the brethren. Such is the influence of either perpetrated or contemplated crime that it breaks down all social demarcation and collects in the bonds of unity and friendship the most heterogeneous natures of man. The cavalcade had proceeded about half-way towards Strawberry Hill when some distance in advance of them a bullock crossed the road followed by a black on horseback at a hard gallop. Both animals Rainsfield at once recognised as his own; and, dashing spurs into his horse, he joined in the chase, followed by the remainder of the party, with the intention of sending one of his family's destroyers to a last account. The bullock ran with his head carried low and his tail erect at a speed which for some time kept him considerably in advance of his pursuer; but after a while his pace relaxed and the superior mettle of the horse soon brought him alongside the bovine fugitive. As the animals ran side by side the rider seized the uplifted tail of the bullock in a firm grasp, while he stimulated his horse to additional exertion, and with the application of very little force he tilted the beast over its own head, and it fell with its own velocity, breaking its neck. The black was quite conscious all this time that he was the object of pursuit; so giving a glance at his fallen prey to ascertain if his work had been effectual, and another behind him to see if his pursuers were in an unpleasant proximity, he continued his career through the bush until he arrived at the banks of the river Gibson. Into it he plunged without hesitation, and slipping from his saddle, as the horse entered the water, he held on by the bridle and stirrup, and swam by the animal's side. The black kept his eye upon the bank he had just left until he saw approaching through the bush a number of horsemen; who, as they reached the edge of river, presented their guns and fired. The next moment the horse rolled over in the stream, dyeing the water with his blood, and floated lifeless down the current. Nothing was visible, however, of the black. He had sunk ere their pieces were discharged; and the party knowing that he was untouched for some minutes watched vigilantly for his reappearance, but in vain. Barwang (for they had discovered it was he) did not show himself above the surface of the water; and they thinking that he was floating down concealed in some way with the carcass of the horse, followed it to watch. It at the same time occurred to them that he might have dived and was swimming for the other bank, assisting himself in eluding them by first floating some distance down the river. They had thus gone down the bank some two or three hundred yards, when they heard a loud hoarse laugh from behind them; and, turning to the direction whence the sound proceeded, they saw on the opposite side, some distance above where they stood, him for whose reappearance they were watching. Barwang had escaped them by swimming against the current and not with it as they had anticipated he would; and once safely on the margin of the stream he felt he was secure, and stood pointing at his pursuers in derision and defiance. A dozen pieces were instantly pointed at him by the disappointed party; but he with another loud laugh darted into the scrub and, before the report of their guns was heard, was evanescent. The chagrined company then proceeded to Strawberry Hill, where Rainsfield proposed to lodge them; and where they would fix upon their future plans of action. That night the Society sat in grave debate, and various were the schemes proposed to effect visitation on the blacks of an exterminating retribution. The members at length became weary of making propositions that met with no support from the body, and were beginning to be silent when Dr. Graham renewed the energies of the meeting by remarking: "I'll tell you what it is all you fellows! you'd better 'keep your eyes on the picture.'" All the eyes of the assemblage if not kept on the imaginary picture that haunted the brain of this disciple of Æsculapius were at least kept attentively fixed on the features of the speaker, who continued. "See here! what is the good of the whole of us sitting here and looking at one another? There won't be a black in that scrub to-morrow; so if we don't go at them at once, they'll escape us as that scoundrel did to-day. They will be sure to know what we are here for, and will make themselves scarce at once; and if we once let them slip us we need never expect to get at them again for they are sure to take up their abode among the hills, gullies, or scrubs, where we could not follow them." "But is the river crossable?" asked one. "Rainsfield will tell you," replied the Doctor. "I have not been at the ford for some time," said Rainsfield, "and do not remember the usual depth of water. But the river has now gone down considerably, and I have no doubt it can be crossed; at any rate it shall soon be ascertained for I will do it myself this night in your presence so that you can judge by my success or failure." "Right," said Graham. "Then we all try it together, and that too as you say this very night. At once! say I. I go; so let who likes follow me:" and he started from his seat. The movement then became general, and in a short time the whole cavalcade were again on the move in the direction of the crossing-place near which Barwang had escaped them. About an hour afterwards the party were mustering in a state of saturation upon the edge of the scrub, after having passed through the still swollen stream, which they had had to swim. They noiselessly dismounted from their horses, arranged themselves on the bank of the river, fastened their steeds to adjacent trees, and then threaded the scrub under the guidance of Rainsfield, to the camp of the blacks; which they speedily distinguished by the glare of the fires. The party then halted and arranged to divide themselves into two companies, one to advance from the spot where they then stood, while the other made a detour so as to encompass the camp. Then upon a given signal, they were to fire alternately into the midst of the blacks, and so long as any of the unfortunate wretches remained stationary to continue reloading and firing; but to close in upon them with revolvers if the victims showed any disposition to break through the compass of their rifles. They then advanced, and as quickly as possible encircled the unconscious aborigines, who lay, some in their gunyahs, and some stretched round the fires. All were in a deep sleep, into which they appeared to have fallen in a state of inert satiety, as was evident from the scattered remains of roasted meat that strewed the ground around them. Not a sound was to be heard in the whole camp except the sonorous breathing of the supine gorgers; for even those watchful monitors, the dogs, had benefited by this rare occasion, by indulging in a glut that inoculated them with the same somnolent ineptitude. In a few moments after the Society had spread itself in the array of attack a low whistle was heard; when, almost simultaneously, eight flashes describing a semicircle on one side of the camp momentarily lit the dark avenues of the bush. They were instantly followed by a report, whose echoes mingled with the shrieks and dying groans of the wounded, and in an instant the unscathed portion of the prostrate forms stood erect; while the gunyahs disgorged their living inmates, called forth in their consternation and half unconscious lethargy, to offer marks for their concealed executioners. Other eight shots then told their murdering effects upon the huddled mass of the blacks, who remained in a perfect state of bewilderment hardly knowing which way to turn. Many rushed in the direction opposite to that whence the last fire had emanated, but only to fall by the shots of the first division of the Society, who, having thrown themselves down to avoid the chance of their colleagues' fire, had reloaded, and were ready for action. Again and again was this manoeuvre repeated, and discharge followed discharge. The carnage had commenced, and many of the blacks sought a temporary shelter in their gunyahs, while the majority, not knowing what to do, remained in the open area, to be shot down by the rifles of the whites; who, when they tired of reloading their pieces, closed in upon the camp, and setting fire to their bark gunyahs drove the poor wretches from their retreat, and butchered them indiscriminately with their revolvers. One of the assailants, however, while dealing destruction around him, was active in searching for one above all others of the blacks he prayed to find. That searcher was Rainsfield, and the object of his concern we need hardly say, was Barwang. Rainsfield had scanned the features of every black, as he buried a ball in each victim's heart; but without recognising the monster for whose blood he thirsted, and without which he would never be appeased. He searched long, but in vain. The fiendish leader of the tribe he could not discover; and he began to entertain fears that the wretch's cunning had enabled him to elude his grasp. Almost worn out with his work of death he was about relinquishing the search in despair when he spied a dark form creeping from a heap of bodies, and crawling away in the direction of the adjacent scrub. The fitful glare of a fire fell upon the features of the crouching form and disclosed the furtive glance of Barwang to the eyes of him who longed in his very soul for the meeting. The recognition was instantaneous on both sides, and at the same moment that Rainsfield sprang forward and fired at the black the other leaped from the ground and in an instant, poising a spear in his hand, buried it in the body of his antagonist. Rainsfield tore the weapon from his breast, and seeing that the black was not killed by the shot he had fired at him, and it being the last he had, without time to reload, he drew his knife and sprang upon his enemy. The struggle was fierce, though short, for both the athletes were powerful men, and were determined upon each other's death, even if they perished themselves while effecting it. The black caught the right arm of his opponent as it descended with the weapon that was intended to terminate his existence, and with the other hand he seized the throat of Rainsfield, into which he buried his fingers like the talons of an eagle. Rainsfield taxed his strength to the utmost to disengage the hand from his throat, and save himself from strangulation while he effected the death of the black. Each strained and struggled as they, locked in each other's grasp, panted to eliminate the spirit from each other's bodies. After some time they stopped to gain breath, while they for a few moments silently eyed one another with looks of vengeance and rage. The conflict, however, was speedily renewed with fearful energy. Every nerve was strained to the utmost tension in both frames; when, in a moment, the black made several rapid lunges, battering with his hard cranium the breast of his foe; at the same time that Rainsfield managed to bury the knife up to its handle in the neck of Barwang. The loss of blood arising from the previous wounds, and these excessive strainings and shocks, soon produced their effects. Exhaustion speedily ensued; and the two belligerents, still firmly knitted in a death grasp, sank to the ground never again to rise in life. In the meantime the work of destruction progressed all around with unabated activity until no living black remained on whom to wreak a vengeance. Nearly the whole tribe had been sacrificed, for few escaped into the bush among the general slaughter. When the members of the Society contemplated the result of their labours they felt perfectly satisfied with the extent of their reparation, and surveyed the scene with a complacency ill befitting the work. How little did they remember that a work similar to this in result had been the cause of the reprisal that had brought desolation to the Rainsfield family! and less did they consider that they were incurring the displeasure of an indignant Maker. No! they thought not of the judgments of Divine wrath: the victims, in their imaginations, were only blacks, whose extermination was an ordination of Providence, and an advantage to civilisation. Besides which they looked upon the slaughter they had been engaged in as a just punishment to the savages for their perfidious treachery in the murder which they, the Society, were unable to prevent, but which they could, and did avenge. By this sort of reasoning they quieted their consciences, if any had been disturbed, and attempted to justify themselves in the eyes of their God. The forensic vision was that which most troubled them, for they knew, in the eye of the law of their country, they were guilty of an act which, if discovered, would cost them an atonement by the surrender of their lives. But they were aware that, with the exception of their own members, none could criminate them; while the probability of such an event occurring was very remote, for all were equally implicated. While, at the same time, the distance they were removed from the seat of government, and the ineffectual means supplied for the protection of the settlers in the border districts, would partly justify them in being armed in the present affray; and the magistrates of the territory being all of their own body, and consequently sympathising with their movements, they experienced very little apprehension of danger. We may here remark that this is not the only case in the land where similar influences have actuated the settlers to take summary vengeance on the blacks, for reprisals and peccadillos in themselves insignificant. Hundreds, ah! we may say thousands, have been shot with perfect impunity; and we hesitate not to say thousands more will continue to meet the same sad fate, until the last of the race shall have vanished from this terrestrial sphere. Yet we firmly believe their blood will sink into the soil, and at a future age, when the people have long since become extinct, will it cry aloud for vengeance; and woe to the land if the great Governor of the universe should listen to that cry. The party when about to leave the ground suddenly missed their companion Rainsfield, and, thinking that he might still be engaged on some operations of retribution in another part of the camp, called him aloud by name; but without meeting with any response. They waited impatiently for his return but after a time finding he did not return they commenced a search in the neighbourhood of the camp, at the same time that they made the bush resound with their cooeys to attract him if he had strayed. Still to no purpose were their calls, for no responsive cry echoed to them; and not until they returned to the camp weary and dispirited as the first coruscations from the solar rays darted their luminous salutations over the eastern horizon did they discover his body with that of his last antagonist. His position, and the spear wound in his body, sufficiently explained his fate; and silently and sorrowfully he was removed, and carried by them to where their horses were secured. They then recrossed the river on their way back to Strawberry Hill, which had now become destitute of an owner. Shortly after their passage of the stream the cavalcade was met by John Ferguson, who had heard the firing, and guessing its import had ridden over for the purpose of inspecting the scene and satisfying himself upon the nature and extent of the slaughter he knew must have taken place. But when he saw the returning party he rode up to them and addressing himself to Doctor Graham, who happened to be riding a little in advance, he said: "May I be permitted to enquire the nature of the firing which was carried on in the scrub last night?" "Oh, certainly, sir," replied the Doctor, "you are permitted to ask whatever you like, for this is a free country. If you want to know the cause of the reports you heard last night I may inform you for your satisfaction that our friend Rainsfield had a warrant for the apprehension of Barwang, and that he attempted to put it in force, while we volunteered to assist and protect him. As might have been imagined we were attacked by the villains, and had to fire upon them for our own defence. In the affray we lost our friend Rainsfield, for he was killed by the wretch he was attempting to secure, and who at the same time met with his deserts." "Rainsfield is dead, did you say?" enquired John in hurried tones; "is life perfectly extinct?" "Yes, dead!" replied the other, "as any herring. Go look at him yourself;" and he pointed behind him to where followed a horse with the body thrown across the saddle. "You can see there for yourself, where you may keep your eye on the picture." John silently surveyed the pale, discoloured, and distorted features which he had seen only a few hours before in life and perfect health, and with a deep drawn sigh, as he turned away, he muttered: "Poor fellow! such a terrible doom." The company then proceeded to the house of the Fergusons, when the melancholy obsequies of the previous day were repeated; after which the Society broke up, having ensured themselves against further interruptions from the blacks by the success of their first onslaught; and, although they arranged to be ready upon any emergency, they had no anticipation of any future necessity. We must now in the course of our narrative precipitate our readers over a period of some six months after the events we have just related, which interval was passed with the occurrence of few circumstances worth detailing. Tom Rainsfield had been hastily recalled from town, but had not arrived until after the final scene of the tragedy had been enacted. The horrors of the events came upon him with such a shock, and so subdued his spirit, that it was some time before he could school himself to comprehend their full extent; and not until some weeks had elapsed could he bring his mind to the level of mundane matters, and then only with a melancholy feeling did he set to work to put the station in order. CHAPTER XIV. "In smoothest terms his speech he wove, Of endless friendship, faith, and love; She listened with a blush and sigh, His suit was warm, his hopes were high." SIR WALTER SCOTT. On a beautifully mild afternoon in that loveliest of Australian seasons, the transition between winter and summer, there reclined in an easy chair, on the verandah of the Fern Vale cottage, a young girl whose pale though handsome features seemed to be invested with an angelic air as they were contrasted with the deep mourning in which she was attired. We need hardly explain to the reader that this was Eleanor Rainsfield. At one side of her sat our hero, attempting to relieve the weary hours of the invalid by some light and amusing reading, and on the other side sat his sister, who, while she was listening to her brother, was engaged in some of that description of work which constitutes at the same time young ladies' toil and amusement. During Eleanor's gradual return to convalescence John Ferguson had been assiduous in his endeavours to keep her mind diverted from the contemplation of her grief; and, forgetful of all his past resolutions to think of her only as a seraph exalted above his possession, their constant contiguity, if possible, more than ever made havoc in his heart, immersed him more than ever deeper in the sea of love, and made him yield a willing sacrifice to the ecstatic delirium of his dream. The attention of the trio, at the moment we have visited them, was suddenly attracted by the sounds of an approaching horseman, and looking up they perceived Bob Smithers riding wildly towards the house. Eleanor instantly rose from her chair; and, leaning upon Kate, entered the sitting-room, while she said to John: "I expect the object of Mr. Smithers' visit is an interview with me, and if he desires it I will see him." Then addressing her friend, she said: "Leave me, dearest Kate, for the few minutes he is here. I don't expect he will stay long." In another instant Smithers pulled up before the house; and, throwing his bridle over the fence, he strode up to John, who was waiting for him with a welcome and an extended hand. "How do you do, Mr. Smithers?" he said. "It is some time since you honoured us with a visit. I hope you're well." "I wish to see Miss Rainsfield," replied Smithers, without heeding the proffered hand or the inquiry after his health. John felt rather chagrined at the want of civility on the part of his guest; and, pointing to the half-opened window of the room in which Smithers could find the lady he desired to see, he turned upon his heel and walked out of hearing. What was the nature of John's thoughts that this visit of Smithers gave rise to we will not attempt to divine, though we may safely assume they were of no pleasing nature from the cloud that came over his countenance as he left the house. And yet a gleam of hope would at intervals attempt to break through the gloom. As he stood leaning over the fence in front of the house, thus ruminating over the circumstance and its contingencies, he was startled by the precipitate approach of Smithers, who, clenching his fist and shaking it at him in a menacing attitude, exclaimed: "This is your work; but, by G--, you shall repent of ever having interfered in my private affairs." After the delivery of this minatory declaration the infuriated individual mounted his horse and galloped from the station. John remained for a few minutes musing upon the strange address he had just heard until a faint appreciation of the cause flashed across his mind, and, his heart beating with salient palpitations, he entered the house to solve the mystery. With this intent he walked into the sitting-room, but found it empty. Eleanor had retired, and he was about to leave it again in search of his sister when his eye rested on an open note lying on the floor. The superscription, he perceived, was--"To Mr. Robert Smithers;" and in its caligraphy he at once detected the tracing of Eleanor's hand, and saw a solution of the mystery even before he glanced at the epistle's contents. If his heart beat quickly with pleasing apprehensions before his curiosity prompted him to pick up and read the note its proper functions were almost destroyed by the violent palpitations as his eyes devoured the following lines:-- DEAR SIR,--I hardly know how to break to you the subject on which I wish to address you. When I say it is with regard to our engagement you will understand what I mean, more especially when I tell you that I think, for both of our sakes, it were wise to annul it. To recount to you all the causes that have actuated me in the establishment of this desire would only be to reiterate all your various acts of contumely to myself and friends, and to relate all my daily sufferings. I will not say that I never loved you. When I was induced to consent to become your wife I would have endeavoured to have placed my whole heart at your disposal; but your conduct has not only been such as to estrange from you the most forgiving nature, but towards me it has been absolutely cruel. I say this not to stigmatize you for your ill-treatment of me, but to endeavour to show you that you can entertain no regard for me; and, in the absence of all mutual affection, such an union as ours would only entail misery on both of us. You will therefore perceive that it will be better for us to forget the relationship that has existed, and remain independent of one another. I bear you no ill-will, and desire to maintain a friendship for yourself and your kind relatives; but beyond the light of a friend I never can consent to regard you. So there will be no use of your attempting to alter my determination; it is already fixed.--Yours truly, ELEANOR RAINSFIELD. John's astonishment when he read this was only equalled by his raptures; and it was not until he had twice re-read the note that he could withdraw his eyes from feasting on the blissful lines. "She has then discarded Smithers," he said to himself, "and there is hope for me." If there needed but one rivet to clench the fetters that bound the captive heart of our hero it was now fastened. He gave himself up like a voluptuary to the indulgence of his greatest earthly pleasure, the dissipation of love's charm, and the realization of his fondest hopes and wildest dreams; and, in the delirium of delight, his spirit ascended in imagination into the seventh heaven. He was, however, speedily brought to a recollection of his existence in this terraqueous globe by his sister shaking his arm while she exclaimed: "Why, what is making you so absent, John? I have spoken to you four times, and you have taken no notice of me." "Have you, Kate?" replied John. "Well, I did not hear you, for I was thinking when you addressed me." "That was evident," replied the girl. "But tell me, John, what could have brought that man Smithers here? He has terribly upset poor Eleanor, and she has been obliged to go and lie down. I quite hate that horrid fellow, and wish he would never show his face here again." "I don't think it is very probable he ever will again, Kate," replied her brother. "Well, I hope not. But what letter is that you have got in your hand?" said the girl as she glanced over the epistle that hung listlessly in the hand of her musing brother, who had attempted to conceal it, but not before Kate had spied the address. "Oh, show me the letter, John, dear John!" she continued. "I see it is addressed to that man, and from Eleanor I am sure; so it will explain all about it. Do show it to me." Her brother put it into her hands, and she read it with unqualified delight. Then looking up into his face, she exclaimed: "I am so delighted, John;" and, throwing her arms around her brother's neck, she kissed him in the exuberance of her joy, after which she bounded from the room, retaining possession of the cherished note. For the remainder of that day Eleanor confined herself to her room, but on the following forenoon she came out, with her pale, marble features, looking in John's eyes more lovely than ever. They were presently seated together, as was their wont, in the shade of the verandah; but somehow, on this occasion, the reading was not prosecuted with such spirit as usual, nor listened to with the accustomed interest, while the conversation was equally vapid. Eleanor and John thus sat for some time alone, Kate being absent on her household duties, and William out on the station, without hardly uttering a word, until John, mustering sufficient courage to enter upon the subject that wholly engrossed his mind, without any preface, said: "I picked up a letter of yours in the room yesterday, Eleanor, after Mr. Smithers' departure." A deep crimson mantled the cheek of his pale companion as she replied: "I know it John; Kate has told me all." John gazed upon the features of the dear girl at his side, and met her eyes as they were raised from her lap to rest upon his face. He rapturously exclaimed: "Dear Eleanor if I could but tell you how dearly I love you I--" But he proceeded no further; a glance from the lustrous orbs of his companion had penetrated his heart, and he was silenced. Was it in fear? No! he had understood the glance, and comprehended its hidden secret. He was silenced, but it was to impress a virgin kiss upon the lips of his fair enslaver; and there for a little let us leave them in the full enjoyment of inamoratos' bliss. We have said that John interpreted by a look the secret of Eleanor's heart; and let not loves' sceptics think such is only a figure of our imagination. Such glances have been read from the earliest eras of the world, and will continue to be so to the latest. Lovers' eyes are to each other like telegraph-dials, and reflect in their own mysterious characters the messages from the heart as the electric needle indicates the wishes of some unforeseen communicant. Their flashes are instantaneous, and they impress upon the hearts' tablets of their correspondents, with unmistakeable accuracy, the sentiments of the inosculated spirits. Theirs is a language secret and unknown but to the souls communicating, and unmeaning and unnoticeable to mortals, until made neophytes to the creed of Cupid. John and Eleanor for some time enjoyed uninterruptedly the commune of their plighted hearts, each discovering in the other a reciprocity which heightened the ardour and enhanced the raptures of their own loves. Their tongues were no longer tied. John was all volubility and animation; while the colour that the excitement of her affection called forth irradiated the cheeks of Eleanor, and imparted to her features a loveliness that John gazed upon with ecstacy. Their privacy, however, was at length broken in upon by William, who bounded into their presence in a state of high glee, while he exclaimed: "I've got some news to astonish you. Our friend Captain Jones has bolted, and has swindled his much-respected father-in-law to the tune of about five hundred pounds." "Bolted, has he!" exclaimed John; "what is that for?" "Simply because it has pleased the gentleman on two previous occasions to enter the matrimonial state, and that both better halves, and sundry little pledges, are all living to attest to his identity. One of his former helpmates," continued William, "traced him to his late retreat, and claimed him as her lawful spouse; and he, thinking, I suppose, a _dénoûment_ would be rather unpleasant, has deemed it expedient to abscond." "And will the poor girl he last married have no redress?" asked Eleanor. "Very little, I fear," replied John. "I expect from what I have heard," continued William, "that old Sawyer intends to keep it as dark as possible. From Jones' bigamy the quondam Mrs. Jones becomes again Miss Mary Ann Sawyer, and he purposes looking out for another match for her." "But she surely," said Eleanor, "would not lend herself to so base a deception and gross impropriety." "I am not so sure of that," said William. "I suppose," remarked John, "if they can't punish the _soi disant_ Captain Jones they think the wisest thing they can do is to make the best of it by keeping it as quiet as possible; and I have no doubt they will find many a swain who will not scruple to offer the lady a name." "Well that is dreadful!" exclaimed Eleanor. "So it is," replied John, "but it is partly their own fault. They were so blinded by the notion of getting a gentleman to marry their daughter that they took no trouble to investigate the man's character, or even to ascertain anything about him; consequently they fell into the trap of a base scoundrel." CONCLUSION. "I have done: pray be not angry That shall I wish you well: may heaven divert, All harms that threaten you; full blessings crown Your marriage." SHIRLEY. We must again hurry our readers over another period of some three months, and request them to accompany us for a few minutes up the bank of the creek flowing through Fern Vale. At a pretty little secluded spot overhung by the bright acacia two grassy mounds, encompassed by a neat white fence and adorned with two white slabs of wood, pointed themselves out as the graves of the sufferers in the Strawberry Hill massacre. Leaning over the railing of one of these enclosures was a young man, who might have been recognised as Tom Rainsfield, and at his side, encircled by his arm, our friend Kate Ferguson. After some few moments of silence Tom pressed to his heart the willing form of the lovely girl that graced his side, and said: "Dearest Kate, why not let us be married at the same time as John and Eleanor? Strawberry Hill is all ready for a mistress, and I am sure the very trees about the place are impatient to have domesticated amongst them the sweet successor of that good and amiable creature who lies beneath that sod. We could not have a better opportunity than John's marriage, for we could all go to New England together, and the double ceremony could be performed at the same time." "But that is so soon, Tom," replied Kate. "It cannot be too soon, my dear," exclaimed the advocate for despatch; "why postpone our happiness?" "Poor Will will be so lonely with John and Eleanor going away," said Kate, "if I leave him too. We ought to delay it until they return." "What for twelve months, Kate!" cried Tom. "It would drive me wild. I could not wait more than one at the very outside, and if you say another word of opposition I will run away with you. So now, dearest, let it be settled; we must be married next month altogether." No further objection was urged by the fair polemic, and a mutual inosculation sealed the compact. About a month from this date a traveller approaching Acacia creek might, from the joyous appearance of every face he saw, have been sensible of the existence of some happy occasion; and, if he had but stepped into the house and seen those who sat around the breakfast table, he would have been aware that the festivities were occasioned by a matrimonial ceremony; and, upon the slightest scrutiny, he would have discovered that two young couples had been bound by the Gordian knot. The first move that was made after the despatch of the formal meal was the departure of John Ferguson and his now blooming bride. He led her to the arms of his mother; and, as the good lady embraced her sweet daughter-in-law, tears of joy coursed down her benign and matronly cheeks, and, imprinting another kiss on the lips of her son's choice, she bestowed her parting blessing. The rest of the leave-taking was soon effected and the young couple mounted their horses and rode away. We may remark for the information of our readers that it was John's intention to proceed to Brisbane and Sydney, there to spend the honeymoon, and afterwards to take a trip "home;" by which term he knew old England though he had never seen it, nor had any ties of consanguinity to bind him to it. They were to return to the colony in about twelve months; after which Tom Rainsfield had promised a similar journey to Kate. In the meantime, however, Tom and his wife intended to take up their abode at Strawberry Hill, and thither they started almost immediately after John and Eleanor. As they left the paternal roof of the Fergusons a similar commingling of tears was effected between Kate and her mother as was witnessed upon the previous departure. Mr. Ferguson warmly grasped the hand of his son-in-law, while Mr. Wigton informed Tom that he had made up his mind to spend a short time with his friend William, to relieve his solitude and endeavour to persuade him to follow the example of his brother, and afford him, Mr. Wigton, the pleasure of tying another knot in the family. He would also, he said, while he was in the neighbourhood, avail himself of the opportunity of visiting his friends at Strawberry Hill. William promised to confer the happiness on Mr. Wigton of being fettered by his medium whenever it was his determination to be so foolish as to enter the married state: but affirmed for the present he had no intention of following in the steps of his brother and friend, and had not the most remote idea of assuming a marital character. Tom laughed at William's little sally, and gave him one of those jocose applications of the extended thumb to his ribs which in concomitant natures are thought so amiably vivacious and funny; and then turning to Mr. Wigton, expressed the delight he would feel at his making Strawberry Hill his home. Amidst the congratulations of his friends, Tom now led his bride to the door, and safely depositing her in her saddle, waved the last adieu as they cantered off. THE END. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY THE CALEDONIAN PRESS. * * * * * MR. NEWBY'S NEW PUBLICATIONS In 2 vols., demy 8vo, price 30s. cloth, THE TURKISH EMPIRE: in its Relations with Christianity and Civilisation. By R. R. 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36340	----	http://www.archive.org/details/fromcharthouseto00bryd [Illustration: The Dreary Monotony of Grey Sea and Greyer Sky.] FROM CHART HOUSE TO BUSH HUT Being the Record of a Sailor's 7 years in the Queensland Bush by C. W. BRYDE H. H. Champion Australasian Authors' Agency Melbourne _DEDICATION._ _To those sturdy battlers, among whom I have lived for seven years, I doff my hat in respect; and dedicate My Book_ PREFACE. The idea in mind is to present, as far as possible, a true picture of life in the Scrub, as I had experienced it. With this end in view, I have neither glossed over the difficulties and disabilities, nor enlarged on the advantages, of selection life in the Scrublands. I have tried to make the book a fairly reliable and interesting guide to anyone thinking of tackling the life. With what success I leave the reader to determine. THE AUTHOR. "Up North." LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The Dreary Monotony of Grey Sea and Greyer Sky Frontispiece I went with them to where they were chopping 49 I had some 20 acres brushed, and two or three felled 66 We had a really decent comfortable little house up 143 CONTENTS. Chapter. Page. I.--Newcastle (N.S.W.)-Chile Coal Run 9 II.--One night in Port Jackson 15 III.--Good-bye to the Sea 20 IV.--I Become a Land-lubber 26 V.--Northward Ho! 33 VI.--The Promised Land 38 VII.--My Selection 44 VIII.--I start as a Land-holder 55 IX.--Camp Life 61 X.--Colonial Experience 68 XI.--Home Again! 75 XII.--Scrub Life 79 XIII.--The Cyclone 86 XIV.--Effecting Improvements 92 XV.--More Improvements--Bullockies 101 XVI.--An Accident 108 XVII.--Social Amenities 113 XVIII.--Burning Off 119 XIX.--Wardsman and Deckhand 125 XX.--Married 134 XXI.--Starting Housekeeping 138 XXII.--Struggling Along 142 XXIII.--Joyful Experiences of Cow-Cockying 149 L'Envoi 156 From Chart House to Bush Hut CHAPTER I. THE NEWCASTLE (N.S.W.)-CHILE COAL RUN. The trans-Pacific run is the most god-forsaken, monotonous trade in the world, I think. Our steamer was fairly fast for a tramp, and we were twenty-four days on the Eastbound trip and twenty-seven back to Newcastle--coal one way and ballast back. Not a solitary sail nor point of land to break the dreary monotony of grey sea and greyer sky, clear across to Valparaiso--5000 miles. Following the Great Circle track, you get down to 53 degrees or 54 degrees south latitude. In winter it's cold--blowing a gale pretty well all the time--and your ship's like a half-tide rock. In summer pretty much the same conditions prevail, with fog added. Occasionally there is a day when it's not blowing--then it rains. And there's ice to be looked out for at this time of the year, too, which is an added pleasantry. Sweeping up on the Great Circle for Valparaiso, you close in gradually with the Chilean coast, the first land sighted being usually the rocky highlands round Curramilla Point, the high sierras of the Andes being obscured by mist most times. Occasionally one gets a glimpse of noble Aconcagua, the mighty 26,000 ft. Andean giant. I shall never forget my first sight of it. It was about six p.m., and we were then about 260 miles from the mountain. The sun was setting. All at once there appeared on the starboard bow a huge irregular truncated cone in the heavens, enlarged by refraction to an incredible size. It was a deep rose red, and every crevasse, ledge and spur was pencilled with distinctness. Talk about awe-inspiring grandeur and beauty! Every man-jack in the ship turned out to gaze and gaze while it slowly faded; and then, suddenly, puff! like a candle blown out, it was gone. On arriving at Valparaiso you moor to buoys, in about thirty fathoms of water. Instantly a horde of coaley pirates, who look (and smell) as if they never washed, swarms aboard and starts to cast adrift all your carefully prepared cargo gear, and alter it to suit themselves. You try and explain that "thisee ropee no boyno' ere," and are thereupon informed "Usted no sabe nada, pilote," or something like that, so you give way. Big lighters bump all the paint off alongside. Work goes on night and day, and in less than a week the coal is all out, and away you wallow to sea again. No chance of going ashore. Officers and engineers have to be here, there, and everywhere, for the lumpers pinch worse than--well! worse than the mate of a ship moored near a Government dockyard, and _that's_ saying something. They make a trade, too, out of bringing aboard bottles of the awful muck the lower class Chileño delights in, such as casash, potato caña, etc., one glass of which makes a man see snakes for a week. I really think some sailors would guzzle kerosene out of a whisky bottle. Anyhow, you're glad to get to sea for a rest. Then the long dreary run of 7000 miles back "along the parallel" starts! nothing to see, nothing to break the awful monotony, till you strike the Australian coast again--Newcastle, for more coal. You arrive on Wednesday night. "Sure of a Sunday this time!" you think. Vain hope! A boat comes alongside about 11 p.m. (Ship at anchor in the stream.) "Ready for fumigation, mister?" "Oh! ----," you think, but don't say, for the officials can make things extremely unpleasant for you if they like. So its "Turn out, men, and get the stuff aboard." Five barrels of sulphur, and about four hundred little tin dishes to put it in. Ladle the sulphur in, each dish half-full, and pass it below. A lick of methylated spirits in each, a match, and the choking blue reek rises. On hatches! and batten well down; plug the ventilators--and then damn well go and camp on a stage slung over the bows, for nowhere else will you escape the caustic fumes. Sleep? I like to hear you! We've been getting cargo gear ready at sea this day, and we'll be all day to-morrow again, and no sleep this blessed night. Can you wonder at the men going on the drunk? My personal sympathy is with them, but I daren't show it, or I'd lose my job, get no reference from the skipper likely, and be ruined. We spend the night coughing, choking and cursing, and about 8 a.m. (Thursday) orders come to go alongside in the Basin. We go--and it's pandemonium let loose. The muffled roar of coal dropping in tons, clang of trimmers' shovels, hoarse shouts, stamping and crashings, with an occasional spasmodic clattering winch by way of variety. All hands are on the beer ashore, and won't show up till Saturday at earliest. That leaves three officers and two apprentice boys to handle the ship, shift back and forth every half-hour or so, take stores aboard, put on 'tweendeck beams and hatches as required, and attend to the multifarious jobs connected with being in port. There isn't an earthly chance of going ashore further than the fruit shop over the way, especially for the mate, who has to be there all the time. Finally the truth slowly comes home to you that you will be finished on Saturday night--8000 tons of cargo and bunkers in three days. At 7 p.m. on Saturday down comes the Navigation Department's inspector, with his hydrometer, to watch you finish. 8.30, and she's nearly down. You watch the marks closely, the inspector, grimly impassive, giving you no assistance. "Can I put another truck in, sir?" I ask. "You're loading her, mister, not me," is his discouraging reply. You test the water with your hydrometer. Ah! Brackish. She'll stand it. So. Another? H'm! Something in the inspector's eye warns you, so you say "No" reluctantly to the impatient head-stevedore, for you're due for a wigging if this cargo's a waggon short of last voyage's. "Um!" says Mr. Inspector musingly. "If you'd put that aboard, mister, I'd have made you dig it out again." Helpful! I had that sort of thing to put up with from the same man seven voyages running. I used to pass watches at sea comforting myself with dreams of punching his head, and trying to think of some way of upsetting him. No go! All the annoying power possible was his. At 9.30 the head stevedore reports the cargo all trimmed down. Tide's at 11.0. Right! You go to turn out all hands and find them dead-oh. After much shaking, you manage to get four more or less fit for duty, albeit soreheaded and groggy on their pins, so you make a start getting hatch-beams on. Fore and main hatch iron-work is in place, when the skipper and pilot hurry aboard. "Single up, Mr. Senex." "Ay, ay, sir!" (Sotto voce: "God's curse to this infernal life.") Then, with a roar, "Break off there, and stand-by fore and aft." Just singled up, when a sound like a mill wheel is heard, and Brown's old "Bungaree" comes alongside and makes fast. "Let go fore and aft!" and away we go with a dismal shriek from the steam whistle, which, with water in the pipe, makes a snarling sound aptly expressive of our own feelings. There's a lop of a sea outside the breakwaters, and the five derricks we still have up sway dangerously--to say nothing of the funnel, the guys of which are yet adrift. However, we drop anchor outside and all hands spend the night very pleasantly till nearly daybreak, securing gear, sorting out hatch covers and getting them on, setting up back stays, and so on. A short spell of broken sleep, then, at 8.30 a.m. on this restful Sunday we finish clearing up the decks and wash down. Skipper comes aboard at noon, with all his papers in order. A hurried lunch, last letters handed to the agents' clerk; farewell! Up anchor, and so away again to sea--for a rest! Thus it goes on, voyage after voyage the same. I had nine trips to Valparaiso and back, and it nearly broke both health and heart before I managed to cut the bonds and free myself from such slavery. The owners gave me £10 a month as mate and no overtime for any of us, till we kicked like hell and threatened to go on strike; then we got 1/- an hour! and were looked on as mutinous. A nightmare of a life. And though things are better now, I believe, than they were in my day, still it's past and done with for me, thank God! CHAPTER II. ONE NIGHT IN PORT JACKSON. Eight bells, noon. Our steamer, twenty-six days out from Talcahuano, lurched and rolled under the rapidly expiring influence of the snorting sou'-easter which had dogged us all the way across the Pacific. Ahead, clear-cut and blue in the rainwashed atmosphere, a stretch of the New South Wales coast. A point on the port bow, a little white finger pointing upward. Sydney! The very thought of the place warmed our hearts with visions of the rest, beer, girls, picture palaces, newspapers and so forth, according to the particular bent of the individual seaman. Magic name! The growling A.B.'s grew suddenly good-tempered, and evinced a certain alacrity in obeying orders from which nearly four weeks' bad weather had divorced them. Occasionally they even smiled. The skipper grew cheerful, and the mate (me) ceased his everlasting faultfinding, and cracked a mild joke with the men now and again--which called forth its due meed of obsequious merriment. Once he even said, "It's going to be a fine evening after all, Mac," to an engineer, who nearly fell over his doorstep with the shock of being addressed with courtesy for the first time in a month. Heavily our old hooker wallows along, and we raise the land fast. "Anchors all ready, Mr. Senex?" from the skipper. "All clear, sir." "Right! See everything ready for the pilot." "Ay, ay, sir!" A half-hour passes, and South Head is close aboard, the surf breaking high. Another few minutes and the "Captain Cook" slides in a piratical fashion from behind a rock and makes for us. After some difficulty, for we are light ship and rolling heavily, the pilot hops aboard. "You're to go up to Woolwich, Cap'n. The dry dock's all ready for you. Full ahead, please. Port a bit," and we make for Watson's Bay. A little manoeuvring, then--"Stand by your anchor.... Let go!" and away goes the mudhook with a roar and a cloud of rust-dust. In another few minutes a smart launch comes alongside, and the port medical officer mounts the side-ladder, slowly and majestically, as befits his official dignity. He's a broth of a boy all right--the biggest man I ever saw, I think. He looked about eight feet, and built in proportion. His boots would have made a London policeman green with envy, and he had a fist like a boxing-glove. Big as he was the suit he had on that day was too large, and hung on him like a purser's shirt on a handspike. A sport though, he took the rather audibly expressed surprise his appearance created in the mustered lines of the crew in good part, and proceeded to examine us for smallpox symptoms. A pause. Then the captain--"Where's the second engineer? Mr. Senex, I thought you had seen----" "ALL right, sir. I'll go and rouse him up," and away I went. Diving down the engineroom ladder, I find Mr. Crafter frantically tugging with a spanner at a refractory nut. "Doctor's waiting, Crafter." "Blast the doctor!" "Right-o, old chap," I answered; "but the skipper sent me----" "Tellim t' goter'ell!!" (Here the nut gave suddenly, and he sat down--hard.) From the safe altitude of the first grating, I said sweetly, "All right, old man; I'll give him your message. Er--did it hurt?" and raced up the ladder just in time to miss the flying spanner. Crafter came up, sweating and purple-faced, grumbling about disturbing men at important repair jobs, was pronounced free from small-pox, and instantly returned to his labours. Medical and Customs inspection were over by 4.30 p.m., when we got under weigh, and proceeded up the harbour. Its beauties were even more enticing than usual to our sea-pickled eyes, as we slowly passed point after point, finally bringing up alongside the wharf at Woolwich Dock at tea-time. By this it was nearly calm, just a faint breeze wrinkling the placid water, and the sky cloudless. The daylight gradually merged, through dusk, into the soft radiance of a glorious full moon. I leaned on the rail, drinking in the calm, peaceful beauty of the night. Across the water the innumerable lights and subdued hum of the city, the coloured lights of the moving shipping here and there, and the white reflection of South Head in the distance, the broad path of moonlit water, broken every now and then by a brilliant firefly of a ferry boat streaking across it. Nearer at hand, rocky, brush-covered points, romantic and inviting. Above all, and pervading everything, the subtle perfume of the faint breeze--a scent of flowers, hay, gum leaves, and warm rich earth, the very breath of the Goddess of Health. I don't know how long I stopped there, dreaming and thinking of the contrast between this haven of peace and the last month of turmoil, before I woke to the fact that I was dog-tired and had better turn in. Couldn't sleep, though. An hour or so of restless tossing about, and I was out again--the night more beautiful than ever. There was another form leaning on the gangway, pyjama'd, like myself. "Hello, Crafter--that you? Isn't this just A1 at Lloyd's?" "By jingo, Senex, you've said it. A chap ought to be shot for sleepin' on a night like this. What say we clear out and go up country, eh?" (with a laugh). "Dunno about that; but are you game for a stroll ashore?" I asked. "Right you are!" And away we went. We met nobody. There was no Caliban of a John Hop to point out the impropriety of our appearance on a public road in pyjamas and carpet slippers, and we walked on up Hunter's Hill way, Lane Cove glimmering through the trees on one side and the sweet-scented brush on the other. We fairly bathed in the beautiful night, plucked handfuls of gum leaves and buried our noses in them. We wandered on until the declining moon warned us it was time to get back. We reached the ship again about 3 a.m., and had no difficulty in getting to sleep this time. That glorious night! It will live in my memory, for then and there was born the idea--not so long afterwards acted on--to say good-bye to the sea life and crowded old England, and make a home for myself in this wide, free young land. I have never regretted doing so. I have had seven years of the hardest kind of pioneering, in a heavy scrub district, and am not so very well off, financially, now; yet, if I knew I was to have another similar period on top of this, and I could have a good competence living in any other country in the world by asking for it to-morrow, I'd choose Australia and the pioneering without a second's hesitation. And that's what _I_ think about it! CHAPTER III. GOOD-BYE TO THE SEA. Again we were approaching the Australian coast. On this trip from Valparaiso we had experienced fine weather, for a wonder, and made (for us) a record run of twenty-five days. The weather had been beautifully fine. A faint breeze right ahead brought us a heart-quickening perfume--that smell of the land which even the most desert place seems to possess, and which only the "deep-waterman" knows how to appreciate to the full. Your landlubber's nose couldn't detect it. As I climbed to the bridge after tea, and took a good long sniff of it, I determined that this would be my last trip. To the devil with ploughing the raging main! It would be ploughing the flowering earth after this, I thought. Out of the South-East a long, low swell came slowly sliding, telling of wind to come, which we would just escape, and making our old hooker roll regularly and not at all unpleasantly. Silence; broken only by the quick muffled beat of the propeller, or the musical tattoo of a fireman's shovel below, indicative to the trimmer that more coal is wanted in the stokehold; or by a sudden laugh or burst of rough song from the fo'c'sles. I strolled back and forth on the bridge, thinking how sick of the sea I was, and scheming how the devil to break my iniquitous three years' agreement without going to the length of deserting. Slowly dusk settled down, and the brilliant colours of the sunset faded out. No land yet. Heigh-ho! Well, 'twon't be long now, and please the pigs, I won't leave it again once I get my hoofs on to it. Suddenly the captain's voice broke in on my reverie. "If you don't sight Sugarloaf by eight bells, Mr. Senex, pass the word to the third mate to keep a bright lookout, and let me know when he sees it." "Ay, ay, sir!" More reverie, leaning on the rail gazing ahead. Now, if I'd a farm, I'd put in ten acres of spuds, and get so many tons, etc., etc., and there'd be a couple of cows to milk, of course, and the girl 'ud be in the house singin' away ... and I'd get a good night's sleep instead of this cursed turning out every time old Fuz-buz wants you ... and I'd have a few quid in the bank likely; different to this tenner-a-month job, and---- Seven bells! "All's wel-l-l-," in musical cadence from the crow's nest. Right! A few minutes later, and a momentary faint glow on the rapidly darkening horizon attracted my attention. "Ha! Revolving light. That's her." I sent down to the captain, who came up at once and took a squint through the night glasses. "All right. Sugarloaf. How's her head?" "S. 69 degrees W., sir." He takes a bearing and pops below. A moment later--"Steer 72 degrees, Mr. Senex." "Seventy-two degrees it is, sir," and course altered accordingly. Sometime in the wee small hours beyond twelve I am roused out by the sudden stoppage of the ship's steady heart-beat, and find we are off Newcastle, burning a blue light for the pilot, who comes out to us in a few minutes, and we are soon anchored off the Dyke, pending medical inspection later in the morning. On this occasion the fumigation launch, with its cargo of brimstone and crew of attendant imps, left us in peace for the time being. We got it before noon though, as usual good and hearty, and ate our lunch with streaming eyes and rasped throats in, literally, a hell of an atmosphere. When we went alongside to our usual berth in the afternoon we were informed cheerfully by the stevedore, as we were used to being informed, that we "would be away by Sunday." "Not I, if I can help it," thinks I to myself. "How to get out of this damn ship without leaving my money behind?" First I packed up all my gear; got the Customs to examine and pass it; engaged a launch to come alongside at a time when I reckoned the skipper would be up town; had the chests taken right up to the railway station, and consigned to Brisbane forthwith--to be left till called for. Thus I committed myself: I couldn't go to sea without the garbage, and the same was safe and handy if I cleared out. I had made up my mind to do this if there was no other way, for I had just received news that my brother had got his second mate's ticket, and had cheerfully shouldered the responsibility of supporting our mother in England; and I had no other ties. Anyway I thought I would have a good showing with the medical officer of the port, for I had been troubled with migraine and nerve troubles for months--"all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" with a vengeance. First, however, I put the acid on the skipper. "Want to be paid off, sir; sorry, but really I can't stand this life any more." "You? What? How the Sheol am I to get another man in your place?" he answered. "Why! Even if I could get a man mad or drunk enough to go on this run, I'd have to give him £12 a month, and what do you think the owners would say at my paying off a £10 man to engage another at £12? No fear, Senex, here you stay, old chap, and don't make any mistake about it." "Thanks, sir. But look, er--you'd better look out for another man, sir, all the same." "Humph!" and off he trotted ashore. He was a decent chap to me, and I was sorry to give him trouble, but---- Here I may mention one of the injustices of English maritime law. On being engaged at home, one signs articles for three years. This is a survival of old sailing-ship days, when ships were often away that period. Nowadays no man expects to be away anything like that time. If he did never a man would sign on. But if the ship happens to be pitchforked on to a run like this Pacific trade, well--there you are, stuck fast, and you can't get out except on one plea--a medical certificate of unfitness. I went to the best private practitioner in Newcastle. He made a thorough examination, and gave his opinion that I had been for months unfit to hold my responsible position, and gave me a certificate to that effect. Armed with this, I again bearded the captain. "No good, old chap," he said. "I'm sorry, but I have my own position with the owners to look at if I let you go." So off I went to the port medical officer, a grave and courteous gentleman, who listened sympathetically to my tale of woe. "Well," he said, "of course I can't possibly issue an order for your discharge if there isn't something radically wrong with you. You know that. However, strip, and let's have a look at you." A long examination, then, "Hum! There'll be no difficulty about _you_. Y'ought to have been out of it long since. But, understand now, I'm going to emphasize your attacks of migraine--blindness--and if you come here looking for a job again I won't pass you. You burn your boats behind you if I issue this order." I was willing, and with the order for my discharge like a waving battle flag, I metaphorically knocked out the captain, who capitulated to that mandate, and paid me off on Saturday. On Sunday morning, 28th February, 1912, I watched, from the balcony of my hotel, the old ship pass between the breakwaters and proceed to sea. I did have a pang or two, for she had been my home for four years, and I had enjoyed many a good time aboard her. Good-bye, old hooker, and good luck go with you! A last long look, and I slowly turned away and faced the unknown future. I was twenty-seven years of age, with £70 in my pocket, and all Australia to pick a home in. "The chance of my life," I thought. "It'll be my own fault if I don't make the most of it." And so downstairs to lunch, the slight cloud of regret at leaving the old ship dissipating as I hummed to myself the sailor's chantey, "Off to Philadelphia in the Morning"--only it was Brisbane, not Philadelphia, in my case. CHAPTER IV. I BECOME A LAND-LUBBER. When I was a brass-bound apprentice on a wind-jammer, aged sixteen, I visited Melbourne on my first voyage, and became acquainted with the young lady who now enjoys the honour of being Mrs. Senex. Naturally then, when the idea of settling in Australia occurred to me, Victoria was the State I first thought of. I applied to the Government, stating my case, and their reply was a very distinct damper. Regarded in the light of a hint not to come, it was a verbal brutality:-- "The amount you mention is utterly inadequate to make a start in Victoria, and we should not advise you to leave your present employment until something more certain and easy eventuates." A distinct "Tite-Barnacle" flavour about it altogether. New South Wales was my next try. Far more encouraging. I could certainly come to that State; I would be put in touch with farmers in whatever district I selected, and when I thought I had enough experience to start for myself they would do their best to find me land. Also they sent me some pamphlets. Then Queensland. Ah! that _was_ something like a hospitable invitation:-- "Certainly you ought to make a decent start with the amount you mention. Even with nothing you are welcome if willing to work. We hope you will decide to come.... If you are not afraid of work and a bit of roughing it, you should command success," and so forth. Accompanying this missive was a parcel of pamphlets on which six shillings postage had been paid. So I reckoned Queensland was good enough for me, and it was--and is. I watched my ship leave Newcastle on the Sunday. Next day I was in Sydney enquiring about a boat for Brisbane. It was the time of the Badger tram strike, and, as most people remember, shipping was being held up. However, the company I went to said they were running a special boat on Wednesday, and I might squeeze in. Went steerage, of course; had to study economy now. And it _was_ a squeeze-in all right. She was an awful old tub. I won't mention her name. The steerage bunks were two high and two abreast--four in a section. My berth was on the cold hard deck under a bottom bunk, whose inhabitant had, of course, an unpleasant habit of spitting. Two blokes camped on the table, and several, like myself, on the deck. Well, I hadn't forgotten my old sailor dodge of "pricking for the softest plank," so it was no particular hardship to me, and I passed a fair night. I went on deck about 6 a.m., in time to see my old pal, Sugarloaf, abeam. The weather was clear, blowing a bit, and a good lop of following sea. Breakfast was at 7.30. When the bell went I was on the fo'c'sle head, and waited a minute or two before leisurely descending. The mob was jammed round the table like peas in a pod, jaws working overtime, eyes hungrily roaming over the table, hands ever and anon reaching like talons for the eatables. I accosted the steward, poor man, who, with a care-lined face, was hovering round like an unquiet spirit. "Can't help it, sir," says he; "you'll just 'ave t' do the same as th' others--grab what ye can, and Go delp the last man. Cripes! They are a 'oly lot er cormorants this trip." So I grabbed a spud, a ragged lump of meat, and a hunk of dry bread, which were all I could effect salvage on, but it kept the worms quiet. After that I was always anchored in mid-table half an hour before meals, and held on like grim death against the rushing tide when the bell went. Very soon half of them were squatted round the table like vultures half an hour before time, so my dodge failed in the end. They were a merry, rough, happy-go-lucky crowd. Mostly shed hands, rouseabouts and suchlike, bound for Rockhampton and Townsville. They soon jerried that, if I was a pretty smart seaman, I was also an extremely raw new chum; and the old, old gohanna farm tale was sprung off on me with enthusiasm. I didn't know what a blooming gohanna was. I was also advised to keep my eye open for a few likely-looking emus when I got settled, as there was good money in their plumes. I got a bit suspicious of fifty-foot carpet snakes, but swallowed cannibal blacks and crocodiles in the Atherton scrub. North of Townsville, I was informed, it rained for nine months, and then the rainy season started. I caused a good deal of amusement all right, and the roars of laughter might have been heard all over the ship when I mentioned casually that I had some heavy blocks ashore in my baggage, with a view to hauling down scrub timber. (N.B.--The blocks were stolen from my ship, but as I originally stole them from the Standard Oil Co.'s wharf in New York, I reckoned I'd a proprietary right to them. You'll find the mate of the average tramp an accomplished pincher. He's got to be, the way owners cut requisition lists). They enquired if I had any idea what scrub was like. I said "No, but I supposed it was just ordinary trees." More merriment. It was late in the evening when we arrived in Brisbane. I got ashore at once, and chartered a cabby to take me to some decent place to camp. He did, and charged me five shillings for a five minutes' journey to that fine caravanserai, the People's Palace. Next morning I was early at Roma-street station, enquiring for my traps from Newcastle. They hadn't arrived, and wouldn't do so for a week or more--congestion at Wallangarra. Bestowing my blessing on the Railway Department, I strolled down to the Lands Office, and interviewed the gentleman with whom I had corresponded aboard ship. Let me pay a tribute to his courteous urbanity, and the patience with which he answered the innumerable questions I was inspired with. "Yes, Mr. Senex, Queensland has good soil ... er--it _is_ suitable for growing potatoes. Yes, it _is_ possible to go dairying in the State. Orchards? Oh, yes! Fruit grows here," and so on. How he must have laughed when the brand-new, fresh-minted, new chum left him! Well, I learned that among the earthly paradises abounding in Queensland the district of Atherton was, for climate, scenery and general farming purposes, the nearest approach to Heaven in the State. I could do anything there--grow my beloved spuds (my dad was Irish, by the way), or dairy, run an orchard, or raise chooks. In fact, the trouble was not so much what to grow as what not to raise, in case of swamping the market, off twenty acres. Of course it was Atherton for me after that--you bet! Couldn't get there quick enough. I found time, though, to worry the Department of Agriculture a bit, and I have no doubt they were very delighted to see the last of the infernal bore who "wanted to know, you know," and wouldn't be satisfied with the assurance that Atherton _was_ a good place. "Yes; but," said the bore, "have you ever been there?" And when they said "No," the bore opined that they couldn't know so very much about the place after all, and doubtless caused secret fist-shakings behind his unconscious back. One brilliant gentleman told me he'd give me a half-fare concession to visit Gatton College next day, and, in the joy of getting something for nearly nothing, I forgot to worry them any more. The other gentlemen probably stood him a drink that afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed that trip, and it was queer to think that at Gatton I was further away from the sea than I had ever been since I was born, and I don't think I bored the College people. I was such a palpable "newey," with such an eager interest in everything and so easily entertained. I caused one of the principals a heart-throb though when he turned round and caught me clambering over the fence en route to pat old "Spec," one of the savagest bulls in Queensland, I think, standing treacherously quiet on the other side. I was hauled back by the neck, while "Spec" boomed his disappointment and pawed up the earth in showers. I would have liked to have stayed there a week, admiring the beautiful, sleek cattle and dropsical pigs, snoring in bloated contentment, but the setting sun and the 8 p.m. train took me back to Brisbane. I went to the Lands Office next day and worried them some more. They gave me a railway concession as far as Gladstone, and I left, staggering under a pile of maps, plans and pamphlets, which I afterwards conscientiously waded through and finally used for papering the walls of my bush humpy to keep the draughts out. About 9 p.m. that evening I boarded the Gladstone mail train, and found myself one of a herd of males penned up in a bare wooden "three-in-one" dog-box of a carriage, with a mouldy odour of mildew, sulphur and antediluvian "Flor-de-Cabbagios" hanging about it. A short wait, a long whistle, a jarring jerk or two, and we slowly rumbled out of Brisbane into the moonlit country, and into the romantic mystery veiling the unknown life before me. CHAPTER V. NORTHWARD HO! The train appeared to go very much faster than it really did, being rather a narrow-gauge line; still fungus didn't grow on the wheels. We stopped at every station, and each stop was hailed by the same enquiry from a half-sozzled bloke in our pen, "Say, g-guard, thish-h North Pi-ine?" When we got there he refused to believe it, saying he didn't "re-rec-kernize" the place. Guard whistled, waited for the engine's answering toot, then hauled the beery one out by the scruff of the neck, jumped aboard, and left him squatting on the gravel. The press eased at every halt, until finally there were only half a dozen of us left. I amused myself for a while gazing at the countryside lying calm and peaceful in the moonlight, as we rattled along. Then, just as I was thinking about forty winks, up spoke an old chap in one corner, grey-bearded, sunburnt, and attired in dungarees, grey woollen shirt and patched coat. "Look, blokes! I' ben sufferin' torches with these 'ere dam boots all day, and I'm goinner take 'em orf." "All right," we grinned; "fire away, Dad." He shed his canoes, disposed of his "torchered" feet comfortably along the seat with a sigh of relief, and proceeded to fill a villainous old pipe, which presently filled the carriage with fumes. "Py yingo, Dat!" said a stout, good-humoured Swede next me. "You' tobaggo schmells stronk. Fot brandt is 'e?" "It's good ol' R----," said Dad, slowly removing the pipe from his gills and waving it about to point his remark. "Some people ses it stinks, but they won't give it a fair go. It'll do me. Smokes good, 'n only 'bout 'alf the price of the other stuff, and grown and mannyfactered right 'ere in the country. I likes it all right." I asked him for a pipeful to try, and he shoved a plug across. I found it all right, in spite of its strong reek, and have always smoked it since. Subsequent experience makes me think that if Australians only would try their own country's productions a bit oftener, there might be perhaps fewer strikes and more work to be got. However---- "Noo chum, ain't yer?" asked Dad, as I handed his plug back. "Yes," I answered, "bound up for Atherton." "Ah!" he returned, "that's the place fer cows n' corn;" then, puffing at his old gumbucket with drowsy contentment, "I mind when I wis up there in '90...," and a small flow of anecdote. He was an accomplished raconteur; had been all over Queensland, mostly mining; possessed the usual retentive memory of the illiterate, and really turned out to be what in more polished circles is usually referred to as a "charming old gentleman." He told us most interesting yarns of his experiences. Mines, sheep, prospecting, scrub-felling, fire and flood--pretty well everything. I must say though that he didn't string me on, but, knowing where I was bound, gave me some sound advice which I laid to heart. Thus we passed the night, yarning, smoking, dozing; while the train rattled and bumped along. Going up a steep grade somewhere near the Glasshouse Mountains, the carriage got quite a perceptible tilt fore and aft, and the long series of terrific jerks the engine gave, in her efforts to negotiate the pinch, brought my heart into my mouth thinking what would happen if a coupling broke and sent us adrift back down the grade. Daybreak showed us scrubby, measly-looking forest country, flat and uninteresting. Then, about 10 a.m., Bundaberg. A wash, some tea, and a bit of a leg-stretcher along that fine wide avenue, Bourbon-street. Back to the train, more hilly stretches of forest gradually merging into the dismal mangrove-bordered mud flats, and we slowed down and brought up at Gladstone. Into the main street I went under the guidance of my fellow-travellers, three of whom were Gladstonians, and popped into a pub for lunch (_only_ for lunch, of course), where my Scandinavian acquaintance, who possessed a quiet sort of dry humour, created a bit of a disturbance. The dining room was full. Soup was served, the hostess, distinctly an Irish woman, personally attending to us. Olaf smelt his soup, made a face, cascaded the liquid with his spoon, and generally made it apparent that something was wrong. The hostess, with the danger-signal flying in her cheeks and all the room's attention attracted, bore down on us. "And is the soup not t' yer liking, sirr?" "Vell, ma'am," said Olaf, "do you know fot dey gall dis stupf een _my_ contree?" "An'-phwat-wud-they-be-afther-callin'-the-good-soup-in-yeer-counthry?" with terrific emphasis. "Soup, ma'am!" said he quietly, and went on drinking it with gusto, for it was good. Not quite in the best of good taste, perhaps; but the roar of laughter was good to hear, and the hostess joined in with a good-humoured, "Gwan wid ye, y' heathen." Lunch over, we boarded the train again for the ten minutes' run to the long curve of wharf where the A.U.S.N. boat was lying. A few minutes' bustling confusion, whilst we burrowed in the heap of baggage for our personal belongings, and I superintended the embarkation of my chests, which had miraculously turned up from Wallangarra the previous afternoon. Then myself, Olaf and old Dad boarded the steamer; they were bound for Townsville. Half an hour sufficed to get the mail bags and some odds and ends of freight aboard, then again I heard the old familiar orders, "Single up!" "Let go aft!" etc., and felt quite out of it because it had nothing to do with me. Away we went down the harbour, and bore up towards Mackay as the sun slowly sank behind the landward hills. It was a fine night, and after tea I spent a good while promenading the poop, watching the dim shapes of the points of land coming abeam and passing in slow procession astern. I built many castles in the air, and I smile as I think how many fortunes I made between Brisbane and Cairns. But wouldn't life be a dreary business if a bloke didn't let his thoughts take wing occasionally and let him forget the monotonous grind of daily routine? Hallo! Six bells. A musical call from the look out, the staccato answer from the bridge, and I went below, tumbled into a sufficiently comfortable bunk and knew no more until the morning. CHAPTER VI. THE PROMISED LAND. I thought Townsville the hottest place I'd ever struck (I hadn't at that time experienced a summer north wind in Melbourne; that pleasure was reserved for the week I spent down south when I got married), and caught myself finding points of similarity between it and Aden; rather unfairly though, for later on I found Townsville to be not too bad at all; also there are a lot more trees and green stuff than one would suppose, looking at the place from seaward. On arrival we transhipped into another little steamer running up to Cairns. Had time for a run round town, and a raid on a fruit store; then all aboard! and away we went, rushing frantically North at the furious speed of nine knots. For a wonder our tub arrived in fairly decent time in Cairns, 6 a.m. to be precise, and I had to fly round to collect my gear, and get up to the station in time for the 7 a.m. Atherton train. I only got a fleeting glimpse of Cairns on this occasion, but subsequent visits gave me the impression of a rather warm but very pretty little town, with wide, well-cared-for streets, some fine buildings, plenty of splendid old shady trees, and innumerable gardens in a riot of tropical colour. The mosquitoes are a bit hot though. Our train, after passing through some swampy-looking, flat, scrubby country, got into a teeming tropical wilderness of green. Houses embosomed among cocoanut palms and mango trees--canefields, banana and pineapple plantations line the railway on both sides. Pity though, as I found afterwards, that such a large Chinese element is settled hereabout. The heathen shouldn't have so much of such a brilliant, beautiful Paradise. After leaving Freshwater, the line starts to ascend. You look ahead, and see the high range, with a huge cleft in it, up which the line goes--the Barron Gorge. Here and there landslides disclose the rich red soil, contrasting vividly with the lavish tropical green clothing every foot of ground. The grade becomes steeper, and the panting engine seems to have all her work cut out. Higher and higher, past a brilliant jungle of wild mangoes, bananas, ferns, figs and strange beautiful flowers. Now the great cliff towers hundreds of feet over our heads, and on the other side is a sheer drop of more hundreds into the brawling torrent below. Soon the tunnels start (eleven, I think it is) in quick succession. The first voyagers along this line (I, of course, being one) stop out on the platform. The sophisticated stay inside and close doors and windows. We soon learn why, for in each tunnel we outsiders are subjected to a machine-gun fire of hot cinders and flue from Puffing Billy ahead. However, the glimpses of the Gorge, Cairns and the sea--'tween tunnels--are well worth getting smutty for. Now the tunnels are left behind at an elbow of the Gorge, and the view from here is really magnificent. You must be six or seven hundred feet above the river bed, and can view its sinuous course to the sea, through the rich cultivated lands below, all bathed in the brilliant sunshine. That white cluster is part of Cairns, and the huge blue plain of sea makes a background to a picture hard to beat. There are several places between this point and the Falls, where (provided one is not a lady) one could lean out and spit 700 feet into the river, if you felt so inclined or your pipe turned dog on you. On the other side of the train a chaotic waste of huge grey boulders--up, up, up--until you rick your neck looking to see how high they do extend. Still the prolific vegetation, with different types appearing now. The other side of the gorge from the river level to summit, and right and left as far as you can see, is one unbroken, close-packed mass of timber of a rather sombre sage-green foliage. Miles upon miles of it--and still we import timber into this benighted country. When will we get sense enough to hang instantly anyone describing himself as an importer? We cross several spider-web-looking trestle bridges, then pass the lovely little Stoney Creek falls, streaming like a white lace curtain into a limpid pool below, and so close to the train that after a heavy rain storm the spray wets the carriages. A very sharp curve, past Red Bluff, where the big landslide occurred some years ago; another curve back, and we are in the Upper Gorge. Instantly a distinct drop in temperature is apparent, and a cool refreshing breeze fans the heated brow. A few minutes more brings us to the Barron Falls; so close that seemingly one could jump from the carriage into the--well, the place where the falling water ought to be, and is--in flood time only. Ordinarily the falls are disappointing. All you see is a long, broad slide of blue-grey, water-polished rock, going almost sheer down some 750 feet or so, with a few comparative trickles flowing down. See it in flood though, in the early months of the year, and nothing could be grander or more imposing. The train fairly rocks to the earth-shaking crash of the mighty mass of water. The noise is literally stunning. We are on the Tableland now--level country more or less right through to Atherton. From Kuranda on it is somewhat monotonous forest country, until after passing Rocky Creek I espied a cultivated plain, with a grey wall of high timber, close, compact, apparently impenetrable--the Scrublands at last! My heart bounded as I looked at it. I had been told of its enormous timber, with gruesome tales of accident and mischance falling it. When you chopped trees from a springboard, I had been informed, you had one foot in the grave, and the other on an orange peel. But it was so new and enchanting to me. I wanted to get at it now! at once! We were presently in the maize country. It looked beautiful. Miles of waving, dark green, tasselled corn just cobbing. Past Tolga, then a short ten minutes' run, and Atherton at last about one o'clock. I bolted some lunch, then, with a map of the district I wanted to see first under my arm, dived into the local Lands Office. "I want to see this place, please. How do I get to it?" "Oh, ah, yes! Not a bad district. Bit far out, but perhaps it _is_ the nearest to the railway at present. Well, the Malanda train leaves at 3 p.m. Enquire for John Raynor at your station. He'll show you round." "Oh, good. I can get to my station to-night easy?" "Yes; there's a pub there. Just come up?" "Only arrived this morning." "Oh, well, glad to see you, and we hope you'll stop up here. Anything we can do for you, you know----" "Thanks. I'll remember. Good-day," and away I went. Three o'clock couldn't come quick enough.... Into the train.... Cornfields again.... Tolga ... more corn ... thick belts of scrub close aboard both sides. Then grass paddocks, with cattle knee-deep in the rich herbage, gazing at us with round-eyed nonchalance as we rattled by. Ah! So this is the famous Atherton country, eh? Well, it looks good. Here's my station. Out I tumbled with my luggage. At last! I made my way to the pub and enquired for Raynor, who was away, but would be back to-morrow, so I put up there for the night. It was a rough shop in those days. Some timber cutters and teamsters were in town (one pub and the station), and most of them were half-seas over. Consequently it was about 1 a.m. when I got to sleep. Never mind; to-day I would see my selection. The country looked so good to me that I thought the devil himself wouldn't drag me out of it. If I could have seen the future! Well, I don't know. I think I'd have gone on with it. Anyway, I'm glad I did. Who'd sell a farm to go to sea? CHAPTER VII. MY SELECTION. Bright and early I was out, and had a plunge in the beautiful clear creek running nearby. Let me say here that the permanent clear sandy creeks are one of the chief attractions of the Tableland. Practically every selection has one. Most have two or three. I got back to the pub in time to greet Raynor. Someone in the train the previous day had told him about me, and he had ridden in early to see me. He was a tall, dark, stoutish man, good humour writ large over his rather weather-beaten face. He was clean shaved, save for a scrubbing brush under the nose, and was somewhat untidily dressed in the prevailing style of grey flannel and dungarees. He gave me a good firm hand grip (I loathe your bloke who tenders you a limp lump of dough). "Cheero, bloke," says he; "I b'lieve you're goin' to settle out 'ere?" His voice was very high-pitched, and he spoke with a drawl. "Yes," I said. "That's if I can get a block." "You'll have no difficulty," he answered. "There's whips o' blocks out back o' my place, and y' oughter find one to suit." "How about 48?" I asked. This was one I had picked on, when poring over the multitudinous plans and descriptions I got in Brisbane. "It's a goodey," he said. "I reckon about the best one left for soil and handiness, but there ain't no mill timber on it." "Oh, blow the timber! I want a block of land." "That's the sort," he replied. "Well, look. I can't go out with you to-day, but you go right out to Liston's place. Ye can't miss the way; just foller the wheel tracks. Y'oughter get there by one o'clock, and you'll find a bloke there called Terry O'Gorman. He'll put you right. His block's next 48." "Good-oh; thanks," I answered. "Comin' in to breakfast?" (as the bell went). We went in, and during the meal he gave me a lot of information about the district and my future neighbours. He gave me the impression of being a quiet, shrewd, straight sort of a fellow. Breakfast over, Raynor bade me a cheery good-bye, and I prepared for the tramp. New dungaree pants, new thunder and lightning striped cotton shirt, new tan leggings, sparkling new billy in one hand, and a shot-gun in the other--in case I saw anything to shoot en route--and a black hard felt hat! Verily a Verdant Green among new chums. The folks at the pub all came out on the verandah to see me off. I thought, English fashion, they were good simple people, and kind to give me a send off. Oh, Lord! _I_ was the simpleton, and they were enjoying the joke. By the way, a week's sojourn here thoroughly eliminated that "superiah" feeling--much to my benefit. In this new life the people were all _my_ superiors, and I mighty soon recognised it. Off I set. The track led through open forest, skirting the scrub, and if there was ever a better imitation of a switchback, I want to know! Up and down, up and down, mile after mile, until I, unused to such toil, was nearly worn out. However, I came at last to a clear "pocket," where the road branched. "Ha!" I thought, "Raynor said it was only a mile and a half from here," and, turning to the right, entered the scrub. The track was only about sixteen feet wide, cut nearly straight. On either hand the impenetrable jungle of prickly undergrowth and close-packed huge trees towering a hundred feet or more overhead, shutting out the sunlight. It was beautifully cool, but the road, dry hitherto, was now very muddy, and I trudged on ankle deep, three steps forward and one back. Half an hour of this, then suddenly, like a door opening, I was out of the scrub, with a big grassed clearing either side of the road, and several little houses in sight. The second was Liston's, and I reached it in a few minutes. A rosy-cheeked woman, with several fine sturdy youngsters standing shyly behind her, greeted me. "You'll be Mr. Senex? My name's Liston. Mr. O'Gorman'll be here in a minute. He's just up the paddock with Dad. Come in; I'm sure you're dyin' for a drink o' tea." I just was. I think that tea and home-made bread and butter were the sweetest things I ever tasted. The house was built of rough split timber, adzed slab-floor, iron roof, with an open fireplace and big "colonial" oven taking up all one end. Though so rough, it was spotlessly clean, and woman's hand, with a little drapery, a few framed prints and knick-knacks, had made it look comfortable and homely, as no mere man ever could. While I was enjoying my tea I heard a snort outside, and presently the house quivered perceptibly. I looked up in some surprise. "It's all right," laughed Mrs. Liston. "It's only ol' Biddy scratchin' herself. Come here, Bid!" I stared, thinking it queer that one lady should so openly speak of another's little idiosyncrasy, until I saw a horned head appear in the doorway, and I knew Biddy for the family's pet cow. The laughing children swarmed over her, to show me how quiet she was, climbed on her back, hung round her neck, gave her crusts, and so on, the cow taking it all quietly, licking her nose with about a yard of raspy tongue, and looking at the kids with a calm eye like a benevolent old grandmother. Truly a domesticated animal! Presently Dad and O'Gorman came home. Dad was a tall, thin, sinewy man, with sandy hair and moustache, his tanned face making the blue eyes look strangely piercing. Very Scotch and very quiet, and, like all pioneers with wife and family dependent on their exertions, with many worry-graven lines on his forehead. Behind him was a large merry, red face, like a harvest moon, ornamented by a drooping yellow moustache and a broad grin. Surely, I thought, this must be the home of good-tempered men, and this O'Gorman is the happiest-looking bloke I've seen in years. He was over six feet, strongly built, active, and, like Raynor, his chum, had that sunny nature that nothing ever seems to put out. They welcomed me warmly, and, after a little talk, told me it was too late to go out to my fancy for a block that day, but I could stop there over-night and go out next day. Meanwhile I could come up into the bush and watch the men chop scrub. They had a bite, then took their axes, and I went with them to where they were chopping. It had been brushed (i.e, undergrowth chopped down), and didn't look too bad. I eagerly watched them, fingers itching to get hold of an axe. It looked easy enough. One or two trees came down, and I could contain myself no longer. [Illustration: I went with them to where they were chopping.] "Let me have a go, Mr. Liston." "All right," he laughed. "Don't cut yourself though." He stood by me while I bogged in. Half a dozen chops, and they started laughing. The cut, instead of being smooth, like a wedge out of a cheese, looked as if it had been chewed--all steps and stairs, top and bottom. I got wild, chopped harder; the back of the axe hit the top of the cut, and down she slithered, the point going through my boot, making a painful cut. They were much concerned, till they saw it was nothing to worry over. "Never mind, old chap. We all had to learn. You'll have to start with a light four-pound axe. You'll soon pick up the knack." I said nothing, thinking of the seven and a quarter pound one the storekeeper in Atherton had rung in on me. I spent the rest of the day wandering round the paddock and cultivation patch. They had plenty of vegetables growing with but little care, save keeping weeds down. After tea we sat round the fire yarning, I giving some of my experiences and telling them of foreign countries I had visited. The kids listened wide-eyed to one who had actually been past Townsville, until the mother packed them off to bed. The night was spent comfortably enough in a bit of an outhouse, though I was disturbed several times by the infernal Biddy, who mistook my blanket for a new kind of fodder. In the morning the kids roused me out early, and I went with the ragged, happy, laughing crowd to see Biddy and her mates milked. This looked easy, too, so of course I, eagerly thirsting for experience, had to try it. I couldn't get a drop, and presently Bid expressed her disapproval by putting her hoof into the bucket. After that I left matters to the juvenile experts. What struck me most about the people up here is their fine independence. They don't make a calling stranger uncomfortable by apologies for their place, ostentatious dusting of seats, etc. You are welcome, as a matter of course, to pot-luck or the inevitable tea and cake, and if you don't like it you can go--courteously enough--to the devil; with no more fuss made over the Governor-General than over a passing swaggie. Eager to offer and loath to accept help of any kind; treating mishaps and heart-breaking set-backs with a sort of humorous growling, having a sturdy determination at the back of it to make a do of things. A quiet people, without any of the facilities townsfolk consider essential, doing some of Australia's best work in their quiet way, for a return, during the first few years, that a "wage-slave" would laugh at. O'Gorman took me out after breakfast, and we quickly entered a "pad" through the dense scrub. Oh, that journey! Steady heavy rain had set in; every blooming thing in the scrub seemed to have prickles on it, or else a sting, and I soon got scratched to pieces. Dodging a swinging lawyer-vine tendril, I ran my face on a stinging tree and was in agony all day. About an hour after this we debouched on to a twelve-foot wide muddy track. "This is your main road," said O'Gorman. I said, "Oh! Is it?" took a step forward, and instantly went over my knees in the mud. I struggled out, leaving a boot embalmed two feet deep in the process. I cut up a sugar-bag and tied this round my foot. We proceeded along the track, painfully crawling along the edges, since it was impossible to negotiate the river of mud that was "my" road. Deeper and deeper into the heart of the bush we went, the solemn green stillness unbroken save for a few musical bird calls. Muddier and muddier became the track, and lower and lower my heart until I was nearly in danger of treading on it. Finally, panting and exhausted, we reached a big clearing, almost completely overgrown with sarsaparilla bush, inkweed and wild raspberry. "Ah! Here we are," said my guide. "This is Braun's--next yours." Again I ejaculated, "Oh! Is it?" We followed a pad through the weeds until we came to a dilapidated, mildewy slab hut. We entered, and were met by a dank, musty smell, like a vault, hinting at long absence of human inhabitants. Lizards and spiders flitted here and there on the walls; a black snake shot across the floor and dived through a hole; in the fireplace a rusty billy or two and the grey ashes of a fire dead these three years. The rain beat steadily on the roof, leaking through here and there with a dismal "plop," and a chill breeze breathed through the numerous chinks between the slabs. It was the apotheosis of misery. "Mr. O'Gorman," I bleated, "did anyone ever really _live_ here?" "Of course," he answered. "I did; camped here wi' Braun six months. And, look, my name's Terry. Blow yer 'mister.'" I laughed in spite of myself. "Righto, Terry. Well, let's go and view my estate." We went down a chain or two further, and hit a fine, clear, rushing creek. On the other bank a dense jungle came down to the water, the edge a tangled mass of lawyer-vines climbing half-way up the trees. Terry halted and, with a wave of his hand, invited my attention to that serried bulwark of thorns, prickles and stinging abominations. "There's your place, Charlie." My heart was too full. "B-but what am I to do with it?" I wailed. Here was a fine end to my dreams of fortune-growing spuds! "Do with it!" he laughed. "Why! Get a brush-hook and axe, and a good load o' tucker, and bog in like a man. I'll give y' a week to give ye a fair start." I turned away. Never shall I forget the helpless feeling of sickening disillusionment. "For God's sake, Terry, let's get back," I said. And we went. We said little on the return journey, reaching Liston's at dusk. I felt a bit better after tea. Next day was fine and bright. Terry was going to his place (across "mine" and the furthest out), and I went along. My spirits were better to-day, improving, like the landscape, in the sunlight. We had a rare feast of big ripe passion fruit growing wild on the creek, then crossed and examined the soil--good red stuff mostly. Wandered round a bit, Terry calling my attention to the good water supply, and got a glimpse of some tall, ghostly Kauri pine; I felt some of my former enthusiasm revive. I turned suddenly to Terry. "Begob, old man, I'll take it, and chance the ducks," I said. "Good enough!" he answered, slapping my back. "You won't be sorry, and neither will I, for I'll get a neighbour at last." Back we went in the afternoon, after measuring off some of his scrub, and I went right into the pub to be on time for the Cairns train in the morning. CHAPTER VIII. I START AS A LANDHOLDER. I went straight to the Land Commissioner in Cairns, and entered his office waving a map. "Look here, sir," says I, "I want 48. How do I get it?" He laughed. Having got over the shock of my unceremonious entrance, he seemed inclined to enjoy me, setting to work to draw me out, not a hard task in those enthusiastic days. Toil, and long, close acquaintance with Cow, have soured me these times. He asked me what I intended doing with the land, and I at once plunged into a stream of talk which kept his eyes twinkling, and sent his hand to his mouth now and then. "All right, Mr. Senex," he said at last. "There's nobody in for that block, so you won't have to ballot. I'll wire to Brisbane to-day. Come in again first thing to-morrow." I paid my £5 deposit, thanked him, and withdrew. Next morning, bright and early, I was back, and shortly afterwards the return wire arrived from Brisbane that 48 was allotted to me. With a mind at ease, I spent the day wandering round town, got a skiff and pulled up the Inlet, and otherwise enjoyed myself in my own way. A night spent in slapping myself and swearing at the mosquitoes, then breakfast, the Atherton train again, and so back to what I was beginning to regard as home. I stopped overnight at the pub and made arrangements for my multitudinous baggage to go out by six-horse buckboard next day. What a load of useless gear I had, to be sure! It cost me about £8 first and last to bring the stuff up from Newcastle, and not half of it was any good. Next day it took us half an hour to load it all up, including a dozen ten-foot sheets of iron for a house sometime by and bye. I enjoyed the trip in the forest country, but when we hit the scrub--oh, Lord! The panting prads dragged us up innumerable hills, and slid on their haunches down the succeeding pinch, with the buckboard skidding from side to side of the road after them. On the infrequent levels we went at a slow walk, half-way to the axles in sticky mud, numberless roots and half-submerged stumps, jarring and bumping, occasionally tilting our vehicle at an uncomfortable angle. Heavy going, all right! We reached Braun's just before dark--it seemed to be at the end of the world after our journey--and found O'Gorman and a mate there, who were to commence falling scrub on the former's place next day. The stranger was introduced to me as Len Vincent, a fine young fellow about twenty years of age, tall, slimly built, active; all wire and whipcord; curly black hair, thoughtful, dark brown eyes, and a full direct glance. An attractive young fellow and an excellent specimen of young Australia. The two of them had cleaned out the old shack, and, with a roaring fire going, billies boiling, whips of tucker, and a fine bright young moon silvering the clearing outside, the place looked cheerful--even comfortable; and I felt the old romantic feeling return in full force as we sat yarning and smoking round the comfortable blaze after tea. The night was just chilly enough to make the fire acceptable. The dense walls of heavy timber close at hand, the light breeze rustling through the treetops; the sound of the brawling creek, with its legions of croaking frogs; the call of a pair of mopokes, which sounded anything but dismal to me, and the wailing note of some other unknown night-bird in the depths of the scrub--all combined to make up a picture very strange and enchanting to me, who had been used to nothing but sea and sky for thirteen years. I had actually had only about four months ashore, in spells of a few days at a time, in all that period. We were just thinking of turning in, when I nearly jumped out of my skin at a sudden grating, ear-splitting screech right overhead--to be repeated a moment later at the end of the clearing. "What the devil's that?" I asked. "Oh," said Len, "it's only an ol' fig-'awk. Bird, you know." Which reassured me. But it sounded like a mad woman being tortured. I lay some time looking at the flickering firelight, and finally drifted off to sleep. About five minutes later I was roused by a clattering of plates, and, looking drowsily round, saw the fire blazing up, my two friends dressed and busy cooking. The buckboard driver was still snoring over in his corner. "Hullo, chaps," said I, with some hazy idea that supper was on. "Aren't you turning-in to-night?" "Turn in!" laughed Terry. "Why, it's 5.30. Time to turn out." I jumped up. "Cripes! I thought I'd only been asleep five minutes." Breakfast of cold salt beef, pickles, bacon, "puftaloons" (a species of fried scone), and unlimited tea was despatched with gusto, and the chorus of birds then warning us of impending daylight, off we set. Those birds! I wonder now if there is any other country on earth with such a truly cheerful lot. First is the chowchilla--thousands of him in the scrub--with a rich musical note something like water dropping rapidly down a deep well--"Plop! ... plop! ... perloplop." He starts in the dark. Pewee is next; then the jackass heartily laughs the sleep out of his eyes, closely followed by the sweet-toned magpie. Presently another bird says "Gitterwoork!" in a tone of good-humoured reproach; don't know what his proper name is. We always call him the get-to-work bird. Finally the big pigeons, with their deep cooing notes, join in, and for an hour or more this choir keeps its chorus going, to greet the sun as he slowly rises. There isn't a note in it that isn't cheerful, but as the district opens up, and the idiot with the gun gets his fine work in, I suppose most of them will depart. I have actually seen fools shooting ibises, on suspicion of their eating fruit and corn and distributing weeds, no less! not having the sense to see that the bird's long thin curved beak is incapable of negotiating anything but caterpillars, slugs and such-like. The old Egyptians knew how many beans made five when they declared this bird sacred, with the death penalty for killing one. Pity we didn't have some such law now to check the ass with the yard of gas-pipe. We three, leaving the buckboard bloke putting his horses in, went across the clearing and through my scrub to Terry's place, getting soaked to the waist en route in the dew-laden grass. It was broad daylight by this time, and Terry was soon swinging "Douglas" (pet name for axe), and, on Len's introducing me to a brush-hook, we got to work on the undergrowth. I don't know what malign imp presides over the brushing department, but no matter where or how you hit anything it invariably falls on top of you, and every damn thing has spikes on it. Well, the hooks were sharp, work went with a swing, a fresh breeze fanned our heated faces, and when Terry had the billy boiling at noon, his cheery shout of "She's off, boys!" ringing out through the trees, I ate the salt beef and damper, and jam and damper, with an appetite I hadn't enjoyed for years. A short spell, then work again, and by the time the setting sun said "knock-off," Len and I had chewed through a couple of acres, and Terry's splintery array of stumps showed that he hadn't been idle. Back to the barn, we rebuilt the fire, shook out our blankets to see no snakes were camped in them, had tea, yarned and smoked a bit, and, my heavy eyelids being quite incapable of being kept up longer, we tumbled into our "naps," and by nine o'clock were enjoying the untroubled sleep of healthily tired manhood. CHAPTER IX. CAMP LIFE. Next day we all set to on my place. I solemnly allowed Terry the honour of cutting the first lawyer-bush on it. We found it fairly easy going, and, after getting a start, I kept on with the brushing, while the other two commenced falling. They bogged in to such good purpose that I had hard work to keep ahead of them, and by sun-down there was pretty well an acre brushed and felled, and my heart swelled as I looked at it with a feeling of achievement. I really had made a start! After this my two mates went on working on Terry's place and I on mine, being now fairly well qualified to use a brush-hook; we met at meals, and of course at night. I would be working away, not doing too bad, but thinking I was doing double it, when I'd hear Terry's jovial yell, "She's off, boys; she's off!" Then away I would go twenty chains or so to where they were working, to find them just making a start. There's an attractive sort of picnicky atmosphere about these al-fresco repasts in the bush. There is the fire in front of us, to be carefully stamped out afterwards; the sooty billy full of tea, with a palatable little tang of wood smoke in it, stands near-by. We, each seated on a bit of bag, or our hat, lean comfortably against the spurs of the handiest tree, the overhanging dense foliage making pleasant shade. In front the fresh-fallen scrub sends forth its characteristic pleasant, sweetish smell. If you are on the side of a hill, you catch a glimpse, over your falling, of miles of rolling scrub--a tangle of all shades of green--with perhaps the blue hills in the far background. We have been working hard, and have appetites that many "townies," having forgotten what it is like to be naturally, healthily hungry, refer to as savage or voracious. Our digestions might be worth a million dollars to the dyspeptic Rockefeller. Ergo, our beef and damper are food of the gods, and the black billy tea is pure nectar. Presently the vacuums (abhorred alike by man and nature) being comfortably filled, we lay back and lazily smoke for a few minutes, watching the white Trade clouds sail majestically overhead. The snoring breeze fans our faces refreshingly; there are no mosquitoes in this favoured place to worry us; it is good to be alive. Then turn to again with a will, slog away till dusk, and so home to the old barn. If you feel like it, run down to the little flat on the creek, where Braun made a garden long ago, and various vegetables are running wild, holding their own with the weeds in this generous climate. We can always get a pumpkin, cucumber, or some chokoes and beans. Then tea, yarn and smoke, perhaps a game of crib; turn in, read a bit, if not too tired; lights out, and a chorus of snores till morning. This is in fine weather, like that first week I spent at the barn. When wet, like the succeeding month, well--that's a cow of another colour entirely. You go out grumbling, get wet through almost at once, and have to tramp back home for lunch. You spend half your time picking dozens of bloated leeches off yourself. Every rotten log you touch leaves a legacy of microscopic scrub-itch parasites on you, which drive you nearly frantic at night, until you bathe yourself in kerosene. The sky is a uniform sheet of grey; the trees become a dismal sage-green, half-hidden by the grey rain squalls drifting across the clearing. A dank weeping fog settles down 'tween squalls, which drifts in and wets everything. You are wet through, your pants cling coldly and stiffly, like canvas, and all is misery. Home at night, and the wood is damp and burns badly, emitting volumes of stinging smoke, which an erratic breeze blows back in clouds into the main room--to hang about in clouds impossible to dissipate. Your "nap" is clammy and uninviting. Everything feels sticky, as if wet sugar had touched it, and your best boots get covered with a green moss. But it's an ill wind, etc., and the neighbouring cow cockies screech with joy to see the grass grow an inch a day, as it can do up here, while their collective Strawberry likens herself unto a barrel of generous proportions, and her udder swells beyond the (cocky's) dreams of avarice. Frogs are a bit of a nuisance sometimes. They have a habit of coming into the camp o' nights, and often you wake with a start as something clammy and cold comes plop on your face or chest. Going out at night with a hurricane lamp, you tread on dozens. You can always tell when you tread on a frog. He goes "pop," like a cork coming out of a bottle. There are countless millions of them, all sizes and colours, from the great black fellow as big as your boot down to the beautiful little light green tree-frog, about the size of the top joint of your little finger. He's a handsome little chap, with two narrow myrtle-green stripes down the back, red gold shining eyes, and queer little spatulated fingers and toes. We took it in turns to be cook of the mess, and a hell of a mess I did cook up, my first attempt at damper. However, I got into the way of it, and was soon a fair cook, even rising to the height of boiled puddings occasionally. Saturdays were washing days, and the three of us would knock off at dinner time, go down to the clear rushing creek, strip, have a "bogie," and wash the discarded change before donning the clean duds. Afterwards one of us would tramp two miles or so to where the storekeeper's cart came out, for the week's tucker. Sometimes he didn't come, and that meant a weary tramp of ten miles into the township, and a still wearier tramp back again, with perhaps a thirty-pound load slung on your shoulders, arriving back after dark, utterly deadbeat, covered in mud from various and frequent falls. Queer how soon one learns to pick up a track. I used to wonder at first how blokes found their way round in day-time in the scrub; yet in three weeks or so behold your humble servant cautiously picking his way along a pad in the scrub at night, and getting through all right. It's a fool's game though in the dark, for if an old man carpet snake happens to be in your road, and you step on him, well--you'll get hurt! I had a narrow squeak once. It was pitch dark, and I had just crawled through a slip-rail, making for a pad to Braun's, when I brought up all standing, with my outstretched hands on a horse's rump. Braun had come out on a visit to his place, and it was his frisky young colt that had poked his way through the scrub trying to get back. If that happened a hundred times, in ninety-nine the bloke would be kicked to death before he could say "knife." I was the lucky one. [Illustration: I had some 20 acres brushed, and two or three felled.] I went on working for about six weeks, by which time I had some twenty acres brushed and two or three felled--not so bad for a new hand. Then one day I had a good long think over my affairs. It was mid-May, and my licence to occupy would not be issued before September. Until I had that document I would not be able to borrow from the Agricultural Bank, and my slender resources were reduced to about £20. Right here I made one of the biggest mistakes in my life. I ought to have stayed on, working away and cutting expenses (one could live very comfortably on ten shillings a week those times); then in July gone down to the sugar mills below the range in the Mulgrave Valley, coming back at the end of the year to burn off, with a good cheque in my pocket, never being more than twenty miles away. Instead of that, I came to the decision to go South and get away to sea again for six months or so. Unfortunately, I didn't know anything about the Mills, and didn't like to palm myself off as an expert mill hand. I thought even the "rat-gangers" had to be skilled men. Afterwards I was one of a rat-gang myself for a while, and found one only had to be expert at "dodging Pompey." However, I had to learn by experience, so I let a contract to young Len to fall what I had brushed at thirty-five shillings an acre, paid him £16 in advance as _bona fides_, and the end of May found me in Townsville, dead broke, wondering if I'd have to tramp the way down to Newcastle, and how the devil I was to earn the cash to pay Len for the balance of my falling. CHAPTER X. COLONIAL EXPERIENCE. It was the first time in my life I had been "stoney," and I didn't like it a little bit--especially in Townsville, where there was so little doing at that time. I went down to the wharf, with some hazy idea of being able to stow away aboard one of the boats. Walking along pretty disconsolately, I came on a Liverpool tramp just completing discharging. "Ten to one," thought I, "she's bound for Newcastle. If only--well, here goes. They can only chuck me ashore." So I went aboard, saw the mate, and explained my position. He was kindness itself. "Wait till I see the old man," he said. A few minutes' wait, then, "Come along. Skipper wants to see you." I went up with him, and found the "old man" in the chart-house. A stoutish, good-natured man, with pince-nez and a black spade beard. "Ah! good day, Mr.--er--thank you!--Senex. Have you your papers? Let me see them please." A short investigation; then to the mate, "All right, Mr. Andrews, make your own arrangements." "Thanks, sir," said he. Then to me, as the skipper nodded and we left the chart-house: "Good enough, old chap. You'll take the settee in my room till we hit Newcastle. Run up town for your duds. We're sailing just after lunch." I wrung his hand. Talk about thankful! I didn't waste much time up town, and got back aboard inside the hour. She was a happy ship, as is always the case when the skipper is a decent sort, and it was quite a holiday trip. Always having been a good hand with palm and needle, I managed to make myself useful during the passage. Arrived in Newcastle, I ceased to be a gentleman of leisure, and started that soul-wearying business--looking for a job. Nothing doing! So I borrowed a few pounds from the ship's tailor (I found now the advantage of always having dealt square when I was mate before) and went down to Sydney. Same thing there. Oh! those weary, weary days, tramping round and trying to keep my appearance sufficiently smart. I always hated towns in general, and from that time loathed Sydney in particular, as being associated with my period of submersion. From sneaking furtively into sixpenny hash-joints I got to going in brazenly, and the day I spent my last sixpence I plumbed the depths by pocketing some slabs of bread off the table. I think I ought to say here that I was surprised at the quality and quantity of the grub these places dispense. Don't know how they do it at the price. I'll bet there's any amount of men bless them--as I did--when down on one's luck. That night I slept out in the open. I was really down now. Next morning I did what I ought to have done at once instead of wasting the time looking for an "officah's" job--went down to the wharves after an A.B.'s berth, and got it inside two hours. I kept the job until I got enough to pay Len for my falling. The ship was a collier running round to South Australian ports from Newcastle. Never once did she hit Melbourne, where the only girl in the world was, which was a sad disappointment; but still we lived well, had good times, and made good money--indeed, more than I was formerly getting as a deep-water mate. Only one exciting incident occurred in the time I spent aboard, and that was one awful night in a heavy South-Easter off Montague Island, when some spare spars on the fore deck broke adrift. With the decks full of water, these charged up and down like battering rams, and started the bridge-deck bulkhead and fore-hatch coaming before we got them secured--a job which took all hands most of the night. I left her early in October, sent Len his cash, then, as I wanted to try and get some cockeying experience and, if possible, learn to milk before I returned home, I took a trip to the Richmond, having heard a lot of this splendid district. Do you think I could get employment? Not on your life! I tramped on, trying place after place, offering to work for tucker just for experience, which only succeeded in arousing suspicion. Finally I drifted into Broadwater Sugar Mill, and became a member of the Rat-gang. Now indeed were the mighty fallen with a vengeance! It was £1 a week and tucker then, and the barracks were great barns, sub-divided into sties by walls of corrugated iron, whitewashed, depressing, hideous as the walls of Hell. There was a large element of Sydney tagrag and bobtail there, and one had an uncomfortable sort of feeling that one was in a species of chain-gang. Yet even that place had compensations, and I have happy recollections of glorious Sundays spent lying naked on the splendid curve of beach between Evans Head and the Richmond entrance basking in the life-giving Australian sunlight, and every few minutes taking a header into the blue-green foam-capped breakers bursting on the sand. I endured being in the Rat-gang until I had enough to pay my way North; then one glad day, when the sun seemed to shine once more, I turned my back on the place, and, with £5 in my pocket, cheerfully shouldered "Matilda," and turned my face towards Byron Bay. I had entered that mill a crusted Tory. I left it, well--I won't say an I.W.W. (not being quite a lunatic), but certainly a fervid Labourite. I enjoyed that walking tour. Between Ballina and Byron Bay one gets some beautiful land and sea-scapes. I guess the bloke who rushes round in a motor car never has time to appreciate half of what he goes to see. Tramping along on Shanks's pony one can stop and admire occasionally. I lay under the beam of Cape Byron light that night, slept like a top, and was up early next day to try and make Murwillumbah by dark. Didn't do it. I crossed the lovely little Brunswick River by punt, and made the pace along the fine road winding up the height of land between the river and Crabbe's Creek. About half-way up, with a rock-wall overhead and a precipitous drop of some 300 feet below--no fence either--a trap overtook me, containing a little girl and a middle-aged lady. She pulled up, offered me a welcome lift, and I climbed aboard. There was a vixenish, sore-mouthed mare pulling us, and all went well until we reached the top of the rise. Here the old lady tightened her grip on the reins for the descent, and instantly the brute in the shafts shook her head, pranced about a bit, and at last fairly bolted down the long winding road, the trap swaying and skidding along behind. I shut my eyes at every curve. The old girl kept her head though, and with pale lips spoke quietly to the four-legged demon that was racing us to destruction. Then came a four-chain straight, with oblivion beyond, the road curving in so sharply that, looking down on it, one seemed to be going straight over the bump. I never felt so scared before in all my experience of close calls at sea, for I had always had to be flying round; while here I could only sit tight and do nothing, as I didn't know "B from a bull's foot" about a horse, so couldn't offer assistance. I was aroused from the contemplation of a sinful past by a snapped command from the lady. "Lean well in towards me!" I obeyed. The horse's head came level with the turn. She threw her whole weight on the starboard line, and we whipped round the curve like a shot, skidding fully six feet broadside on towards the edge, and--we were safe, for a long, straight, gentle grade led down to the level, and the frisky beast, having shot her bolt, so to speak, became amenable to discipline before we reached it. I left the trap near Crabbe's Creek station, paying the old lady a compliment on her splendid nerve. Cripes! There wasn't six inches between our wheel and the edge as we swung round that corner! I got along at a good pace now, as rain was threatening and it was getting dusk, keeping my weather eye open for a likely place to camp. Presently a "tick-gate" barred the way, and just beyond was the tent of a road maintenance man, where I craved shelter for the night. With typical Australian hospitality he not only granted it at once, but insisted on my sharing his tucker as well. I was glad of the shelter that night, for the rain poured in torrents, and I slept all the sounder for the row it made outside. Next morning I left my hospitable host and made tracks for the Tweed. Passed through Murwillumbah, a pretty little rather sleepy town, about noon, and boarded a boat for the Heads, being instantly asked for my fare, and regarded with dark suspicion while I was forking it out. Got down to the Heads at 4 p.m., getting a glimpse of boiling white surf on the bar as we shot out of the swift current into a quiet little dock, where we disembarked, and once more my ready foot pressed the soil of Queensland. CHAPTER XI. HOME AGAIN! I went straight across to the ocean beach, and swung along at a good bat over the hard sand of that beautiful curve of foreshore. Made my camp that night on the sand just south of Corrumbin. The mosquitoes were as the sands for multitude and tigers for ferocity, and I went to sleep completely covered up, head and all. Damme! They bit through the blanket! Woke up somewhere about midnight to find it raining hard. Pitch dark, no shelter and no tent. What a night! I sat there in the pouring rain, huddled in a blanket, wet, shivering and miserable until dawn appeared, the sun, shortly springing from the ocean, bringing a fine warm day with him. I stripped, tied all my wet belongings to bushes, where they soon flapped themselves dry, and, as soon as I got sufficiently warm, raced across the sand and plunged into the foaming surf. Ten minutes in the water, then, panting and refreshed, I dived back and collected my duds. Was scrambling into them when I heard a chatter of voices, and a bevy of ladies with attendant squires, all in fantastic bathing rig, hove in sight on the beach. Thank the Lord for those sheltering bushes! If I'd only been a couple of minutes longer in the surf--oh, Lord! I didn't have any bathing trunks. I didn't know of the big hotel on the creek just back of me. That night sickened me of carrying "Matilda," so I took the evening train from Corrumbin, and arrived in Brisbane late at night. On the journey an unpleasant, shabbily smart individual fastened to me. A terrible talker, whiskered, dressed in white ducks, with somewhat "busted" white pumps on his hoofs, and with a swaggering, boastful air, he combined a habit of pointing his remarks with a contortion of his features and a clearance of his nasal organs. Of course he was an importation, informing us in a loud voice that he was from 'Ome, and I blushed for him. He alighted for a refresher at nearly every station, having to race violently after the train, and board it under way. It got quite interesting at last to the other occupants of the carriage. "He'll miss her this time." "Ay, she don't stop long here." "There's the whistle! He's done." "'Ere he is. Look at him running. Two to one he don't do it." "He will!" "He won't!" "He--begob, he's just managed it!" and presently the nuisance was among us again, stinking of whisky and more voluble than ever. He hung on to me until next morning, when he asked me as a special favour to lend him a pound. I told him his price was too high, but I'd give him five shillings to go away. He took it and went. He got to windward of me though, for I found when settling up at the pub that he had told them "his mate" would foot the bill. I did so, to avoid trouble--like a fool. He had held forth on the train about his politics, which were Liberal; but his dealings with me were a regular War Profits Act. At the pub I heard a chap asking for pick and shovel men for a job out Laidley way--rate eight shillings a day. I had heard a lot of this district, and thought it a good opportunity to see it and earn tucker as well, so I volunteered. I stuck it ten days, being by that time so blistered, sore and generally used up that I could hardly crawl. I therefore handed in my resignation and left, richer by about £3, and the knowledge that the Atherton country looked heaps better than this, at that time of the year, anyhow. I waited in Brisbane a while for a mate who wrote he would join me there and come North with me, but when my funds had reached £4 I gave him up, and cadged another railway concession to Gladstone from the Lands Department after making futile efforts to work my passage on shipboard. Got the boat at Gladstone and arrived in Cairns on 3rd December, 1912, with just enough to pay the fare to Atherton, where I arrived at noon next day without sufficient to buy a feed. I slipped into the lavatory, hastily doffed my glad rags, and climbed into flannel and dungarees once more. Ten minutes after leaving the train I was gaily tramping the long road out to my selection, my old friend "Matilda" caressing my shoulders, penniless, happy and blithely whistling, glad to think I would soon be home again. I stopped at a cocky's house a mile or two out, and offered him an hour's work for a feed. "Righto, bloke," he said. "Freeze on to Douglas there and cut us some firewood." I cut him a good pile, and the decent pot not only gave me a good square feed, but enough to carry along for another as well. Armed with this I marched along to the Barron River, where I found the river was up owing to recent rain, and I nearly got drowned crossing the atrocious ford of slippery stones which the "powers that be" consider safe, wading waist deep in the rushing stream. I finally reached the barn at 7 p.m., where I found Len and Terry just finishing tea. Their welcome made the welkin ring. I don't quite know what the welkin is, but anyhow it rang. And wasn't I just glad to get back to where I was known and there were friendly faces to greet me! We talked sixteen to the dozen, and at ten o'clock, with hearty good-nights, we turned in, and again I slept the heavy sleep of the tired under the hospitable roof of Braun's old barn. CHAPTER XII. SCRUB LIFE. Next day I was up with the sun to see what my burn was like, Terry O'Gorman having let my place go when he burnt a fortnight before. I was assured that I had a good burn, but when I saw the black waste, gridironed with logs and strewn with big stumps, I was a bit dismayed. What on earth could I do with it to make a living? It looked pretty hopeless. I tried to get a fire going round some of the big stumps, but, of course, they wouldn't burn, being too green. When I looked at the place, and thought how many years it would be before it was clear of refuse, it made me feel despairing. Of course, I know now that I had a really good burn, and was lucky, and that in five years I would be able to plough patches, with no other effort than dropping a match here and there, when the logs had rotted a bit; but experience has to be learned. I tried digging a patch, but that was hopeless, the ground being a network of roots, almost impossible to dig among; so I gave that up too. I could have planted corn easy enough; but then, even if the roads had been decent, the price of haulage to the station would have been more than the crop would fetch; so there was nothing to do but sow grass in the clearing. Plenty of rain lately had brought Braun's paddock into seed, and I set to work to reap it. A week's work gave me more than enough to sow my burn. Of course, I made a botch of the sowing at first, putting on about five times as much as was necessary, but soon got the hang of it, and a week's work finished it, a faint green sheen down on the creek showing that the seed was good and fertile. Then I got to work on a creek flat where the silt was piled high over the maddening roots, and got a number of vegetable seeds put in. All sorts of garden truck here grow prolifically, almost without cultivation. Terry and Len finished sowing the former's place same time as I did, and next day proposed a trip out to the Range by way of a holiday. As I hadn't been there I was eager to go. The track lay through dense scrub all the way, being an old road well made forty years ago, and disused for a decade. It was used hauling cedar out to the Range, with a view to shooting it down the mountain side to the Mulgrave River, down which it would be rafted to the sea. As they salved only about one log in twenty the scheme didn't pay, so was abandoned, and the road, with its bridges and box-cuttings, went to ruin. We tramped along and, in an hour or so, saw, as through an open door at the end of the avenue of scrub, the sunlit grass of the open forest at the range head, and a glimpse of a gum tree or two. Presently we were waist deep in the lush grass, clambering over the mouldering cedar logs lying there by the score, with the scent of the gums strong in our nostrils, and the shrilling of the cicadas nearly deafening us. A few minutes more and we were standing among gigantic granite boulders, looking down at such a glorious view as I had never seen before. The Trade wind was snoring strong on this exposed position, and there was a champagne-like exhilaration about the slightly rarified, gum-scented air which set us laughing and romping like school-kids. The Range went almost sheer down 2000 feet or more to the Mulgrave Valley at our feet. On the other side, facing us, stretched a heavily timbered range of mountains. At each end to right and left was a glimpse of blue sea, and in the background to the extreme right the blue mass of Bartle Frere, Queensland's highest mountain. Winding along the valley floor ran the narrow violet ribbon of river, flecked with white here and there, where were rapids. I found it hard to realise that those low bushes were really tall trees, and that that narrow blue streak of water was half a mile wide in places. I think one could notice a man moving on the white sandbanks, the atmosphere is so clear. Away to the left, where the valley opened out, could be seen the chess-board of cultivated canefields, with Gordon Vale and its mill embosomed among them. Further still, a bit of Cairns, the Inlet and the blue sea, with a tiny speck or two on it, which close investigation showed to be steamers entering or leaving the port. The Range, steep as it is, is clothed from foot to summit with grass and timber. The ground is gravelly; the formation free granitic. There is plenty of water there, as elsewhere on the tableland. We shot a couple of scrub turkeys (megapodii) on our way home. Good enough eating but gamey, and one soon tires of them. They are about as big as a good-sized rooster. I'd never go after them with a shot-gun unless I was really hungry. When started off the ground the poor wretches just make for the handiest branch, and squat there. A shot-gun is plain murder, while a pea rifle will give them a sporting chance, for if you miss they are off a hundred yards or so to another branch, and one must want a change of diet pretty badly before one will force a way through prickly lawyer-vines after him. Just before we turned into Braun's a huge cassowary, with three chicks, stalked on to the track ahead. We stopped dead, and the beautiful bird then hesitatingly came towards us with her slow, dainty step, and we had a real good "dekko," as she turned her handsome blue and red head this way and that, eyeing us with eager curiosity. Terry then said "Boo!" and she was off like a shot. Not being "sports," not one of us had even dreamed of raising the gun at her. Christmas Day was at hand--beautifully fine. Last one I had spent making up for Valparaiso before a howling Southerly; a tremendous sea was on, and it was freezing cold. Len took me in to his parents' place to spend the day, and I was introduced to Dad, Mum, and a host of strapping brothers and sisters. Dad was a fine-looking, middle-aged man, tall and spare, with short, square-cut, sandy beard, thoughtful grey eyes, good-humoured smile, and spoke concisely and deliberately, laying emphasis on every other word, thus:--"_Well_, Mr. Senex, I am _delighted_ to _make_ your _acquaintance_." He was a more or less self-educated, well read man, a most interesting companion and a keen debater, though rather prone to excitement in argument. Lastly, he was the most confirmed optimist I have ever met. Mum was a handsome Junoesque blonde, sharp of eye and tongue, distinctly the boss, and inclined to make the most of it. Rather cold and hard perhaps, but kind-hearted enough. They were very good to me in my early struggling days, and I was glad to accept their ungrudging hospitality. Christmas Day passed with the usual accompaniment of pudding and other fairly solid comestibles, and I stopped there overnight, as a picnic had been arranged for next day to go and see the famous Lake Barrine. The day was bright and clear, and about twenty of us set out through the dense scrub along a fairly good road. After an hour or two's march we turned into a narrow pad, and presently saw a blue gleam through the trees. It was a steep descent, and the first effect of the sight of the lake was, queerly enough, that of looking right _up_ at it. However, we were soon at the water's edge, and I got my first view of the deep cobalt blue mere, lying calm and peaceful, embosomed in the dense scrub. It is about a square mile in extent, very pretty, dangerous to bathe in if one is a poor swimmer, as the banks are steep and very deep (the water being six feet deep only eight feet from the bank). It is locally considered unfathomable, which probably means that a forty-fathom line would bottom it. Still one could get comfortably drowned there. I have heard enthusiasts compare these little lakes, Eacham, Barrine and Euramoo, to the Irish Killarney, which is a wild absurdity, though the lakes are pretty enough to be worth going to see. The three of them, about three miles apart, are perched on the very lip of the Range, 2500 feet above sea-level, and are the craters of extinct volcanoes. Barrine is blue, cheerful and bright; Eacham is green, cold and depressing, and one has a feeling as of some dreadful Thing just below the surface, waiting for one's foot to slip. Euramoo I haven't seen, though only a mile or two away, since the scrub is impenetrable. The blacks think these lakes "debil-debil," and won't go near them after sundown. Our party boiled the billy, explored round a bit, played the usual picnic games, and had a dip in the enticingly cool water. I, who can't swim, in spite of my thirteen years at sea, cautiously kept within reach of the overhanging shrubs growing close to the water. Then, as the cows must be milked though the heavens fall, and those who had some to put through were beginning to get restive, we packed up and wended our way home again, I going straight out to the barn to be in trim for work next day. The next three weeks I worked at clearing a site for a house, planting panicum grass on the creek banks, and attending to the vegetables, which, with a few good rainy days, were looking well. The rainy season burst on us early in January, and for nearly a fortnight it poured in a steady, ceaseless torrent, drumming on the iron roof of the barn until one had almost to shout to be heard. By mid-January my grass was a foot high, pumpkins running all over the place, and I had about three thousand cabbages coming on well, which I thought to make money out of by and bye. Terry and Len were timber-cutting on the former's place, in spite of the wet. When it got really too bad, we stayed in the barn, played crib, mended clothes, got axes and brush-hooks to a razor-like sharpness, and so on. One thing about the wet weather was that it was warm, and it didn't matter how soaked you got, so long as you wore the universal short-sleeved grey flannel, and changed at once on coming home. You could work then in the wet all day without ill-effect. CHAPTER XIII. THE CYCLONE. The cyclone was heralded by a week of stifling hot weather. As a general rule it isn't hot up here, the thermometer rarely climbing to 90 deg., and then only on an odd day in November; but that week was awful. From being unable to work, it got to be an effort to move. The nights too were hot, a most unusual circumstance. Every day the sky would bank up with heavy, hard-edged clouds, leaving just an inverted saucer of smoky blue at the zenith, through which the sun appeared at noon, strong enough to throw a shadow, but not bright enough to make your eyes water looking at him. The birds, after their morning carol, were silent, and by noon each day the stillness was weird. Nature seemed to be waiting for something; there was not even a breath of wind to stir the lifeless trees. We got to have a feeling that we ought to talk in whispers, a creepy sensation--almost of fear. Occasionally there was a faint far-off air-tremor, rather than sound, of thunder. On the fifth day Len, Terry and I were lying about the barn, too languid to move, when, about noon, there was a sudden change. It got quickly cold and the sky to the South-East banked up, tier upon tier, with blue-black clouds. The zenith was covered, and the clouds commenced rushing across it, rapidly whirling and dissolving as they went, in rather an awe-inspiring fashion. "It's coming, blokes, whatever it is," said Terry quietly. On the word, like a bucket suddenly tipped over us, a deafening roar of rain on the roof, ceasing in two minutes as suddenly as it came, and dying hissingly away up the paddock. Silence again. Then, in the distance, a sound like a slowly-expelled breath, only continuous, and rapidly getting louder as it drew nearer. A few minutes later, and with a rush and a roar, wind and rain were on us. There was not much force in the wind--just about half a gale--but it was its sudden shock that was rather startling. Wind about S.E., and a good deal of thunder and lightning, which gave us the idea at first that it was only a heavy thunderstorm. It kept the same force pretty well until 5 p.m., when it shifted to South, and commenced to show us what it really could do. Crash after crash from the scrub near-by showed how the wind was testing the trees. Just at this time two swaggies, who had come up the Range, banged at the door. We let them in, soaked and shivering, nearly in a state of collapse with long exposure to the driving rain. We gave them hot tea and dry togs, and while they were getting warm again we, nearly naked (so as not to wet any clothes!), went outside and gathered a big pile of firewood, to keep a roaring blaze going all night. By half-past six it was blowing a heavy gale, and the old barn was creaking and straining like a ship at sea. We put a big back log on the fire, piled her up to keep going all night, and were just going to turn in, when there was a hammering on the door, which we had well secured against its being blown in. We fell over each other scrambling to see who the devil it was, and discovered two neighbouring bachelor selectors, who had been camped in a tent pitched inside a rough shed half a mile away. A dead tree had come down fair across their camp with the two of them in it--a miracle of an escape. They just pulled themselves out of the wreckage, and, with their lives in their hands, crossed through the scrub in the dark to Braun's. They didn't seem to think anything of it--sort of "all in the day's work" idea. It was nine o'clock by the time they had finished tea, and the hurricane was going full bore. The hoarse roar of the wind drowned every other sound. A huge dead elm came down just astern of the barn, missing the end by about four feet, and we never heard it; indeed, we never knew anything about it till morning. The rain was driving in fine spray, wetting everything, so we rigged the swaggies' "fly," and the seven of us crowded under it like sardines in a tin, managing to keep just about damp. None of us slept though, being too much concerned about the possibility of the barn coming about our ears. However, it weathered the gale triumphantly. At midnight, in a furious squall, the wind veered to S.W., and the door got the full force of it. It gave, the top hinge went, and inside she came on top of us. Away went the tent, split in half, and in about two ups we and everything we possessed were soaked through. It took the lot of us about ten minutes to re-secure the door, and we spent the rest of the night huddled round the fire, the furious back draught blowing smoke and flame in all directions. About 3.30 a.m. the wind shifted again to about W.N.W. and blew harder than ever. The barn swayed perceptibly, but the corner posts were three feet in the ground, and went solid up to the roof, and that saved us. It was daylight now, and we could see the clearing. What a difference! It looked as if a titanic steam-roller had been all over it: weeds, dead trees, bushes, all levelled flat. We, who a few hours ago had to part the bushes to get in the door almost, now had a clear view of the whole clearing. It would have cost Braun pretty well £50 to do the work the wind did gratis for him that night in his clearing. At about 7 a.m. there was a lull, and shortly after it became clear that the storm's back was broken, the unbroken grey pall of sky commencing to break up into clouds and scud. The wind slowly veered to N.N.W., lessening in force all the time, but kept at hard gale till after midnight, when it died down rapidly, and by 3 a.m. it was calm, sky clear, and stars shining brightly. While the gale was on I slipped down to see the creek, and found the little brawling stream transformed into a raging torrent twenty feet deep. Even while I looked, the bank higher up gave way, and for a hundred feet or so slid roaring into the current. After the weather cleared up I went across to my own clearing, to find numberless little water-courses all over the place, and the grass! well--you could fairly hear it growing. In a week (say, five weeks after sowing), it was good enough to have turned stock on to, had I possessed any. I went in towards the line, thinking to get a job clearing wreckage somewhere, but there were too many willing volunteers already at it. Most of the roads were blocked by falling timber, and everybody had suffered more or less, either by loss of stock, or through having their buildings unroofed. I took the opportunity, while in town, to interview the local storekeeper with a view to credit, which he willingly granted on explaining my position. The country storekeeper! Go where you will, one of the principal topics of conversation is sure to be the iniquities of the local storekeeper. But we couldn't do without him. By extending a liberal credit he enables one to stay on the farm until one's footing is secure, and if his prices are a bit stiff, it ought to be remembered how many bad debts he contracts, and what a risky thing it is to give credit to a comparatively unknown man. If it be true that the farmer is the country's backbone, it is equally true that the storekeeper is the one who stiffens that backbone till it can stay erect of itself, and often prevents it from breaking. I know. I'm one of the vertebræ, and I'd often have been dislocated but for old "Stores." CHAPTER XIV. EFFECTING IMPROVEMENTS. After the satisfactory interview with the storekeeper I tramped out home with a light heart. I wouldn't starve for a month or two, anyhow, and now the first thing to be done was to erect a house. I had fourteen ten-foot sheets of iron, and though some of them were a bit battered owing to an irresponsible bloke thrashing out seed on them while I was away, still they were good enough for an eighteen-by-twelve humpy. The building was to be of rough-split bush timber. I chose red oak for the purpose, mainly because I didn't know of any of the other good splitters, like silky oak, young maple, or ash. With a crosscut I cut the tree up into three-foot lengths; then, with a maul, wedges and axe, split these up into a species of short weatherboards. My two mates being now away on holiday, there was nobody to show me how to start right, so of course I met endless difficulties, which made the work back-breaking. An experienced "bushey" would have had all the required timber split in about four days. It took me exactly three weeks. Then came the erection. Four corner posts, which I would have three feet in the ground, and going right up to the roof, for stability in case of cyclones, of the hardest timber I could find, which was also the heaviest, as I thought it would be the most likely to last in the ground. As a matter of fact, these rot quickest. The four posts weighed about five hundredweight each, and I had to "fleet jig" them with block and tackle over the log-strewn paddock up to the site, and then erect a derrick to get them into their places. It was interesting enough, but Lord! how slow. Then wall plates and ground plates--the former one end at a time with the tackle; then lash that end while I tackled the other end up and nailed it. "Dinkum yakker" all right, and about three-parts of it not necessary, if I'd only known. I think "Senex's house" was the topic of amused conversation all over the district for months after. The studs were saplings on which I left the bark, thus making a fine harbourage for all sorts of biting, stinging and stinking vermin. On to these went the slabs, weatherboard fashion. Then the roof, with a nail in every corrugation, in the concaves instead of the convexes, and the mansion wanted but a floor. I got a bloke to buy me some second-class boards from a mill on the line, and bring them out to me. The cartage came to ten shillings more than the price of the timber, but, as he had to wait nine months for me to pay him, he deserved it. Next, I put in a fireplace with the roof of it at the wrong angle, so that the smoke came pouring into the main room all the time the fire was going. Finally, I set the guinea stamp of aristocracy on the mansion by inserting a cracked glass window. It was raining nearly all the time I was building. I had spilt a gallon billy of boiling water over my feet through the handle coming adrift, and, to add to the difficulties, I had to hump the floor boards about a mile through the mud, fallen timber preventing the cart getting right out. Anyhow, it was finished at last. I felt so proud the first night I camped in it that I couldn't sleep, and got up several times to walk round and admire the shanty in the moonlight. On one of these peregrinations (I clad in an airy costume of a single shirt), I suddenly felt something cold and wriggley under my foot. I must have jumped about fifteen feet. Turning round, I saw a black snake squirming about. I must have stepped on his neck. Otherwise, I don't know how I escaped a bite. I got a stick and finished the little devil. Nobody seems to pay much attention to black snakes up here. They always whip out of the way, and don't attack unless actually interfered with, and they're easily killed with a light stick. About this time I got a small brushing job from a mean person who gave me ten shillings an acre to cut four acres thickly grown with the accursed stinging tree. I found afterwards that thirty shillings an acre is little enough for tackling this dreadful stuff. However, I got it done, and was laid up for a week in consequence. No sleep through the pain, and blood coming from nose and ears while working in it. There must be a frightfully deadly poison in the plant. The bare inhalation of the smell of the fresh-cut stalks makes you vomit, and brings blood from the nose in a few minutes, while the least touch on any part by the bush causes agonising pain, which lasts for weeks sometimes. There is no palliative. I then got a job from a neighbouring selector to brush twenty acres, so I shouldered "Matilda" and went to camp with him. It's the devil's own job "Matilda-ing" in the Rainy Season. The tracks are knee deep in mud, and the paddocks, what with logs and interlaced seed stems on the grass, are nearly impassable. I don't know of anything so tiring as trying to wade through a paspalum paddock in seed. I anticipated being a month or so with this chap, Barker. He was a bachelor, young, fair-haired, rather shifty blue-grey eyes, a quick and uncertain temper, and as sarcastic as the devil. Although twenty-four, he was practically illiterate, owing to having had to milk cows from about six years of age, there being therefore no time for schooling. As is always the case, this misfortune had bred in him a suspicion of anyone educated, and a disposition to try and take him down a peg, to show that he was as smart as the other, in spite of lack of education. This sort of thing is inevitable. I must give him his due though--he had "made good." He cleared out from the cow-slavery when he was fifteen years old and started for himself; told a fib about his age, got a selection, and felled most of the scrub himself. When twenty-one he sold out for £800, and took a partly improved place further out, going in for fattening "beefers." A dry spell nearly ruined the game youngster, so, sickening of the South, he sold out, came up with a wad, got a block here, and started in to fall all the scrub as before. He had about a fifteen-acre paddock with a house on it when I made his acquaintance. His place is worth £1000 easily now. His mate was an Irish-Tasmanian named Paddy (of course); middle-aged, tall, lank and dark, with a long melancholy face like a cow, and very weather-beaten. Quite uneducated, but an absolute glutton for work, and with a very decided weakness for beer--lots of it for choice. He was an artist with the axe, putting a scarf in a tree as neat as a saw cut. Good-tempered, he had a quiet humour that floored Snappy Barker every time, as thus:-- Barker: "Hey, Paddy! I was down at Blogg's yes'day, and they was runnin' yer down summat crool." Paddy: "Was they? Well, why dinyer stop 'em? Yer could, easy." Barker: "'Ow could I?" Paddy: "Oh! Don't you start runnin' me down to 'em. Then they won't git startit." The three of us were to tucker together, and as they had ordered a big stock, which had been left at a house three miles off, the first job we did was to hump the stuff out. It was raining hard--as it did almost every day of the six weeks I was with them. We had an old pack-horse. My road was bad enough, Lord knows; but Barker's was literally waist deep in mud in places, covered with a repulsive green slime and bubbling with foul-smelling gas when disturbed. There was a whole cask of salt beef among other things, and this was the first thing we tackled. We emptied the meat into corn sacks, and loaded the old horse and Paddy with that, while Barker and I slung the cask, with about five gallons of salt pickle in it, on a pole between us, and started out home. We struggled up the first slippery hill. "Blow this," said Barker. "We'll lighten up." We emptied out part of the pickle, and proceeded. After we had ploughed along a mile or so, I said "Blast the stuff!" so we emptied out some more. A little further, and we mutually damned it, and jettisoned the whole cargo, finding even the empty cask all too heavy on that dreadful road. It took us the next two days to get the balance of the stuff out. We got sick of unloading the old nag, hauling him out of the bog, and loading him up again. It would have been an enlightening sight for the city "go-on-the-land-young-man" person to have seen us slowly crawling along between the gloomy walls of scrub, squash! squelch! splash! covered with mud and sweating with the heat, Paddy ahead with two bags of tinned stuff, Barker next with two fifties of flour slung by straps over his shoulders, I last with two dozen of jam in my shirt, and a seventy of sugar across my neck, with sacking round it to keep it a bit dry. By cripes! It made us appreciate Barker's dry snug little crib, really beautifully built of split-out stuff, roof and all. It was quite waterproof. I would have quite enjoyed living there, if only it hadn't been for Barker's infernal tongue. He soon found I didn't take very much rousing up, so of course it was a great joke to "gittim wild." With this end in view, he assumed a particularly galling habit of patronisingly referring to me as "Me good mahn," or more often "Me good little mahn." I think he must have spent his hours devising ridiculous names, and springing them on us at night. Paddy suffered in silence under "Me little gohanna;" his dog, with a sort of Zulu touch, was dubbed "Little-snake-with-the-teeth-so-sharp-and-big;" while I was driven to a state bordering on homicidal mania by a week of "Me little axe-handle breaker," because I fractured the handle of the doddery firewood axe--already badly sprung and wobbling--which he had sworn should last the year out. The more we expostulated, the worse he got. He had a pair of cats ("Curse-guts" and "Stinker"), of whom he was so fond that he took them to bed with him at night, and then blamed me for bringing fleas to the camp, after a night spent in scratching himself. With as much sense of music as a cow, he used to drone out all day the one song he knew in a dismal monotone. It was a doleful ditty; something about "Why did they sell Killarney?" He was very superstitious, and I'm ashamed to say that I once or twice got my own back on him through this weakness--but only when very wild. I made him lose a night's sleep once through suddenly jumping out of bunk, opening the door, slamming it to again, and then turning wild-eyed to Barker, whispering: "It's there again, Jack!" He was keen on his garden, and he and Paddy had about a dozen different kinds of vegetables growing, with bananas and pineapples to beat the band. When the latter were ripening we had to light big fires to keep the flying foxes off, and it gave one a creepy feeling to lie round one of the fires before turning in, swapping yarns, and watching the countless myriads of bat things stream steadily across the sky in an unbroken cloud by the hour together. (Note for orchardists: These pests don't alight anywhere near a decent blaze.) I finished my contract with Barker by the end of May, and got enough out of it to renew my credit with the storekeeper, and pay the £3 inspection fee for survey of improvements, prior to borrowing from the Agricultural Bank, so that I could go on falling on my own place. I applied for £120, to fall sixty acres; the loan was granted. Payment by instalments as work proceeded, and terms twenty-one years at five per cent. interest. Getting my old friend Len Vincent to help me, I re-started on my own place early in June. CHAPTER XV. MORE IMPROVEMENTS--BULLOCKYS. The weather had fined up and remained so for months. Beautiful warm sun, tempered by the cool breeze by day, and cold, sometimes frosty, nights. It was ideal weather for work; and Len and I worked well, ate well, slept well, and for the first time I started to throw off the effects of all that worry and nerve-strain I had undergone at sea. Those glorious days! We would be off just after daybreak, red-nosed and shivering, clad in thick garments and heavy coats, with perhaps a frost on the grass. Ten minutes with the axe and off came the coat. Another ten, and the extra pair of pants followed suit, and by half-past eight the benignant sunshine reduced one to pants and shirt. How you could work! and when lunch-time came, eat!! It was good to be alive, life was rosy, and every lungful of the glorious crisp bush-scented air put fresh manhood into us. Then the still more enchanting moonlit nights. Small print could be read with ease by the moonlight, and with the air so still the howl of a lonely dog three miles off came clear and distinct. From the hut we could see mile on mile of rolling scrub, sombre and still, and in the distance a long line of scrub-clad hills, clear cut against the star-strewn, ink-blue sky. The spirit of the romance of pioneering took possession of us. We were the only inhabitants of a new-found beautiful world; we were shipwrecked on an unspoiled pre-Adamite island; we were, well--just a couple of enthusiastic bush-lovers, with some ability to appreciate the beauty of old mother Nature. Len was a good mate, and time passed on winged feet. On Sundays we tramped in for tucker and spent best part of the day at the open house his hospitable parents kept. We had whips of vegetables from my garden, until Braun in an unlucky hour gave Ellison permission to turn a few cows into his paddock. Now my cabbage garden was down on the creek at a place where several big trees had come down, the spaces between being filled up with smaller timber. This formed a barrier that I thought no mortal cow could ever get over. I didn't know cows. At 8 p.m. one night three thousand beautiful cabbages and about a quarter of an acre of other green stuff formed a patch of cultivation to gladden the eye. At 7 a.m. next day I, newly-arisen, came to the door of the hut just in time to see the last of a line of ten dropsical, bloated cows see-saw over the impregnable logs out of a trampled muddy waste that had been a garden. I rushed down. Too late by hours. Absolutely nothing remained, save a few mangled stalks. Oh! my cabbages! that were to have paid the storekeeper's bill, rent, rates, and left a few pounds in hand. Gone! all gone! With murder in my heart and profanity on my lips, I chased the horrible wretches, who, grunting with distension and, I fondly hope, suffering pangs of indigestion, could hardly get up a slow trot. The tangled grass tripped me up, and I could only stand swearing impotently, and throw a few futile sticks at the brutes waddling heavily across the creek, where they lined up on the opposite bank, turned round and grinned--_grinned_ at me. Ever see a cow grin? Wait till they manage to crawl into your cultivation patch, or land a hefty kick home when you're putting the leg-rope on, and then you'll find out. I know now why the conventional devil has horns and hoofs. The monks of old who first pictured him kept cows. That's why. I swore at them until my breath failed, while the light breeze gently waved the frosted grass against my bare legs and turned my nose blue, then scurried back to the house. Len laughed unfeelingly, told me to put a secure fence up, and grow some more. He gave me a hand with the fence on Sunday. We always put off play-time jobs like that till Sunday. Terry O'Gorman had come back to his place by this time, doing a bit more falling, and it was quite like old times again, for, of course, the three of us camped together. Terry was great on springboard work. A springboard is a six-inch by one-inch board four feet long, with a horse-shoe bolted on one end point up. You cut a notch two inches deep in a tree, insert the board, and stand on it to chop, the point of the shoe being driven by your weight into the upper edge of the notch and holding firm. Terry would go up three "lifts" (twelve to fifteen feet) without nervousness. The advantage is that the higher you go the easier it is to chop, the grain of the wood being straighter. When the tree goes, you scuttle away as best you can. I have heard it described as chopping with one foot in the grave and other on a bit of orange peel; but it's not quite that bad. About a month after we commenced falling I actually got a "divvy" out of my place. A local bullocky had an order for "some small Kauri pine," and some on my block were the handiest, so I got £5 for about 12,000 super feet (worth over £200 in Sydney, I suppose), and I thought myself lucky to get that. Pardy, the bullocky, was a big, rough, dark-complexioned bloke, with a shambling walk, a rough tongue and a heavy hand. He absolutely didn't care a damn for anybody or anything. The only way we could get the timber out was across a steep gully with a little muddy ditch at the bottom. It was hard work for the bullocks to come up dragging the empty jinker, but going down! Pardy would snig his log to the brow, then--whish! The whip sent skin and hair flying, and the poor brutes took the descent at a canter, the log behind skidding from side to side, while Pardy would stand on the brink cracking that awful whip, yelling, "Go it! you ---- sons of ----! Head over turkey; I thot she wud," as they brought up all standing in the little creek, bullocks in an untidy mob, log broadside on, and the polers down. How on earth he didn't kill half his team every time, I don't know. The place is known as "Pardy's jump-up" to this day. All sorts and conditions of bullockys! There was Pardy, sweating and swearing, and knocking his cattle to pieces, without enough breath left at night to cool his tea with, and yet not doing nearly as much as his rival Robin Hood, who, with a team of young steers and cunning old "stags" only, would haul a 20 per cent. bigger load to the railway an hour quicker than Pardy; never raising his voice; just talking quietly to his beasts, and never more than flicking the whip at them. He had their confidence! A striking example of what kindness and patience will do. Jack Bayton was another one. He had a team of magnificent animals that could pull the guts out of any other on the road. He could haul some astonishing loads, but used to let the brutes just dodge along, while he admonished them with loving profanity. "Baldy! Baldy!! You ----! I'll teach y' ter go pokin' inter the scrub!" (Baldy was after shade and a spell.) Flick! would come the whip without force enough to kill a fly, and Baldy lazily resumed the track. Or perhaps Spot would stop and reach for a bunch of Commonwealth weed. "Ha! you Spot! ---- you, ye blanky ol' ----! I'll ---- well teach yer about wastin' time eatin' weeds." Spot looks back with a sleepy eye, shoves out, gets his weed, and walks on calmly chewing. A fat lot he cares about Jack, who affectionately apostrophises him. "Luk a' that now! Jevver see sich an ol' ----! Cunnin' as a ---- ---- rat, so he is." Jack thought the world of his team, and cripes! they could pull when they let themselves out. It was a treat to see his plodding team swaying up a long hill, without a pause, with 2500 of bulloak, perhaps, aboard. Very few would do it. Tom Faringdon was another type again. Big, black, hairy as Esau, a bloodshot eye, bristly beard and a frightful temper. Doesn't take long for that sort of man to upset a team. Let his waggon get stuck, and then watch the circus. What ho! A frightful stream of language. Still stuck. Then the whip, till the fall was sticky with blood; then frantic rushes fore and aft alongside the team, digging into their ribs with the butt of the whip. His voice would be nearly gone by this time, and, with his Mephistophelian face and glaring eyes, he looked a perfect fiend. Next he uses the whip handle--smash! smash! smash! along the unfortunate shivering line, who, lowing with fright, don't know what to do. The handle breaks across a bullock's back. A frantic howl; down goes his hat, and he dances it madly into the mud, while his hands (like old "Dad Rudd's" when the horses went down the well) are raised, but not in prayer, to Heaven. Then, extremes meeting, he gets so mad that he becomes calm, and so finally gets the team clear--to repeat the whole process another half-dozen times before he reaches the station yard. Well, good or bad, your slow, plodding bullocky is the true pioneer. Always first in the field, following the fresh cut tracks after timber in country that perhaps years after will be thrown open for selection--and his old tracks made the future main roads of the district. He has a rough, lonely life. Works hard, lives hard, ay! and sometimes has to die hard too. Collectively, a brave, hardy and useful member of the mighty Brotherhood of Labour. Len and I went on chopping, the days passing pleasantly, the work interesting. Occasionally we attended a dance at the school house on Saturday nights (of which more hereafter), which was the only break. We had about thirty-five acres down, and then came---- CHAPTER XVI. AN ACCIDENT. The August day was bright and fine, but very gusty. "Don't like the looks of it at all," said Len, after breakfast. "Too windy to be safe." "Think we'd better stop home?" I hazarded. "M--m! Can't spare the time," he demurred. "Got our work cut out to finish in good time for the burn, you know, so guess we'll chance it." "Righto!" I answered. So 7.30 a.m. saw us at it as usual. I was on a "mad" patch--trees leaning every way--on the side of a hill. I had sent several drives up; then had to go among the fallen stuff to send the last four trees of that patch down hill. The last one of these four was a long willowy crowfoot elm, and as he had a bit of a lean uphill I "nicked" him well, to make sure he'd go; scarfed the others, and then started on the driving tree. It was blowing fresh and I was a bit nervous. I hurriedly got the belly cut in, and had the back in near enough to make him start talking (i.e., cracking a bit), when a strong gust came along, making the trees sway dangerously. I stood a second or two undecided whether to go or stay, and "he who hesitates is lost." A sharp crack! and the long crowfoot broke back over the scarf, automatically becoming the driver, and sending the whole lot down on top of me. "Oh, Christ!" I panted, and made a jump for safety. A stumble, a slip, and I was down. Up again, and, with the whistling rush of the falling trees loud in my ears, I turned to face and, if possible, dodge them, as the fallen stuff round prevented my jumping aside. The first trunk missed, but tore the shirt off my arm as it swept to earth, throwing me off my balance; then a whirling stick split my head open, sent me down on my face, and next second I was buried in falling limbs. Whack! whack! whack! I suppose the whole business was only a matter of seconds, but to me it seemed like an eternity. Half-stunned with fright and the bursting crash of breaking branches, with the breath beaten out of my body, I thought at each fresh thump: "This has done it! N-no, not quite yet." Then a sudden silence and a slowly dawning realisation. "Why! I'm not dead!" I lay a second or two gathering my scattered wits; then slowly raised my head, which sang like a kettle. I was in a sort of rustic grotto of green stuff piled six feet over me. Lord knows how I escaped being killed. Then I set to work to overhaul myself. Didn't feel the least pain. Good! But hallo! What's the matter with my left arm? There should be no joints between elbow and wrist, and here's at least two. I felt an insane desire to laugh as I waggled the injured member about, with the blood running down my face from my cut head. Both bones were broken twice, and the wrist as well, but that seemed to be all; so, under the circumstances, I had got off fairly easy. I crawled out with some difficulty, lay down, and coo-eed for Len. There's something about the call of a hurt man that can't be mistaken, and Len dropped his axe and raced for me at the first sound of my voice. Again I felt the hysterical desire to laugh at the sight of him tumbling, scrambling, tripping over the jumble of fallen stuff in his eagerness to get to me. He rushed up. I must have looked rather startling--pale and blood-stained, and the shirt half-torn off me. "My God! Charlie! What's happened?" "All right, Len," I answered. "Ain't going to snuff it yet; but my arm's broke, and I feel awful sick." "Well, tell us what to do, ol' chap," he said, fluttering round like a distressed hen. "I feel as useless as the fifth wheel of a coach; but tell us what to do, and I'll do it." He got a bit of a stick, and we bound the arm to it with the remnants of my shirt. Then, with his assistance, I crawled painfully over the fallen stuff, down and up the steep banks of a creek, and so to the hut. Didn't feel any pain, only a dreadful sick, vomity sensation. I lay down a bit while Len brewed a strong mug of tea; swallowed that; felt a heap better; dragged on my Sunday-go-to-meetings, and prepared for the tramp into hospital. My back was bruised to a jelly nearly, but I didn't feel it. A real injury seems to be its own anaesthetic somehow. We left the humpy about ten o'clock on the ten-mile journey to the station, I cheerfully ruminating en route on this being the end of everything. I wonder how many times since then I've had the same thought: "Oh, Lord! this set-back really _is_ the end." Oh, well! It's all in the day's work. We tramped in. Nobody had a buckboard in those days, and I couldn't ride a horse. We got to the station about half-past three, and had to wait for the lengthsmen to finish a job they were at before taking me in on the pump-car, meanwhile telephoning for the ambulance to meet me at the next station. I sat down, and, for the first and only time in my life, fainted. Finally I got into Atherton Hospital, sick and shaky, about 6 p.m., and didn't I suffer that night! My arm ached, my head ached, the left shoulder was hurt somehow and also ached, and my back was one huge ache. I got over it all right, though my arm was very weak for two years after. What with one thing and another I was in hospital six weeks, and if it hadn't been for worrying over the selection would rather have enjoyed the holiday. The cheerful nurses called me "Skipper" (every patient had a nickname), and were rather inclined to "pet" me. Take it all round, I had rather a fine time. I needn't have worried either, for several of the blokes out there left their own pressing work and bogged into my scrub, doing it under regulation price, so that I wouldn't have to find any cash over what the bank had advanced. I don't know about the towns, but in the Bush you'll always find them willing to help a lame dog over a stile like that. You've only got to be sick to find out how some, perhaps intolerably bad tempered, hitherto unfriendly neighbour will turn-to and do his bit for you with a will. You don't find that sort of spirit much at 'Ome in the Old Dart. CHAPTER XVII. SOCIAL AMENITIES. Atherton Hospital was a very good country hospital in those days. Now, what with added buildings, increased staff, X-ray plant, and so forth, it can hold its head up with a metropolitan institution. It wants to be good, too, in a rising place like the Tableland, where there are so many accidents in the bush. I was glad of the change, but my heart being in the scrub, I welcomed the day when the doctor said I could go back. I was just in time to see the last trees of my falling go down. The bank paid me, I settled all outstanding accounts, including storekeeper's bill for seven months, and had about £5 left. Couldn't do any heavy work, but got the promise of a wardsman's job at the hospital for the following January, which, being fairly light toil, I thought I could tackle. Meanwhile I put in the time reaping seed in O'Gorman's, to sow my falling when it was burnt. Len's twenty-first birthday happened, and his hospitable parents gave a big party to celebrate it. Everybody was invited, and came as soon as possible after evening milking, and what with dancing, singing and a splendid supper the evening was a great success. I made the first speech of my life on this occasion, congratulating Len, and presented an admirable picture of stuttering nervousness. "Steele Rudd's" selection stories are somewhat apt to give the impression that bush folk mostly attend such "do's" in rough boots and patched clothes. Practically all the settlers here started like myself, with nothing to speak of, and all were still in the struggling stage; but there wasn't a bloke among them who didn't have a good suit carefully packed away for such occasions, no matter how badly off he was. Same with the girls. All had tasteful frocks, neat blouses and good shoes; and the bright eyes, rosy cheeks and superabundant energy, which is imparted by this glorious climate (in which, according to certain interested persons, the white man can't live), with the laughter and chatter of happy young people, make a cheerful scene, good to look at. On such occasions, usually held at the school-house, Mrs. Bloggs and Mrs. Jimson, who haven't been playing speaks on account of "things I 'eard you'd bin sayin' about me," bury the hatchet, and unite in condemning the tale-bearing party. Roberts forgets that Robinson's bull broke the fence, got into his cultivation, and that he had to repair the fence himself. All is peace and friendly feeling. Everyone is bent on casting care to the winds and enjoying himself or herself--for that one evening, anyway. Music, more or less sweet, is discoursed by an accordion. The M.C., who usually takes his duties very seriously, bellows his orders at intervals. Perhaps it is "S'lect y'r pa-ardners f'r a walce." Then is Bill seen slouching shamefacedly up to Ethel or Maude, "'Ow erbout gittin' up with us f'r this one?" Maude giggles, squirms, and finally says, "Oh, all right." They go through the dance amid a fire of such witticisms as, "'Ello, Bill, when's it comin' orf?" or, "Nar then, Mord, I'll tell y'r mar!" Bill, not a very brilliant controversialist, contents himself with, "Ah! garn!" while Maude, with high disdain, answers, "D'y' think I'd 'ave him? Pooh!" So poor Bill feels sat on. Now and then you see big men like Pardy bending nearly double, painfully "treading the mazy" with bits of kids of twelve or thereabout, as there are often not ladies enough to go round. Now and again the chatter of voices is stilled and we hear, "Mr. Ransome will oblige the comp'ny with a song." Mr. Ransome forthwith proceeds to oblige, in a voice hoarse from long and fervent swearing at refractory bullocks, and is inclined to crack on the high notes. He gives us "Eileen Alannah." Later on, Mr. Furney also obliges. He is short and spare, and, to the great astonishment of his audience, renders "Let me like a soldier fall," in a roaring basso that makes the roof rattle. As eleven o'clock strikes certain of us slide off, collect sticks, build a fire, and suspend a kerosene tin of water over the blaze. When that is boiled there is a general yell of "Supper," and hampers, which the ladies have generously provided, are opened, and their hidden wealth of sandwiches and cake revealed. The community have by general levy long ago accumulated a large stock of crockery, specially for such ceremonies at the present. The catering is all arranged beforehand. Mrs. A. brings tea, sugar and milk. Mrs. B. some sandwiches, and so on. There is always more than the company can assimilate, and this surplus it is the custom to divide among any far-out bachelors who may be present--a gift most acceptable, as I know from experience. One notices that the gentlemen, no matter how rough in their work-a-day world, are naturally chivalrous, and take care to see every lady provided for before commencing to imbibe tea themselves. It is midnight now, and those who have plenty of cows, and little assistance, slide off home. The others resume dancing with more vigour than ever. Mr. Daney obliges with several songs. He is a bit of a dandy, got up to kill in a chocolate-coloured suit, dark blue waistcoat and cerise tie. He has rather a pimply face, a perpetual grin and damp-looking, wispy, straw-coloured hair. He is nervous and continuously wipes his hands on a handkerchief held for the purpose. He is a fair tenor, much inclined to tremolo. His first number, "To a manshun in the cit-e-e-e," etc., is received with much applause, which moves him to a second effort, "Please, Mr. Conductor, don-putmeyoff the ter-rain," which is also taken kindly. Rubbing his hands harder than ever, he comes up to us, a broad smile on his rather weak face, "Ah! I'm makin' myself popular, ain't I?" Poor "Algy's" songs always run to sugary sentiment, so of course, "Don't go down in the mine, daddy," is his closing piece. Give him his due though, he could work; but, being easily bamboozled, it was usually for someone else, with little profit to himself. He was also an excellent hand among the cows. About 3 a.m. the party breaks up, and you see the hurricane lamps, like dancing fireflies, disappearing in the scrub, many of the people to go right on milking as soon as their glad rags are off, and get a few hours' sleep after breakfast. Another time, perhaps at the annual break-up of the school just before Christmas, all hands assemble at the school-house for a picnic. The school reserve is like a miniature saddling paddock at race time. The ladies are all there, clad in their best; scores of happy, laughing kiddies romping round, also togged up, and the men folk in soberer hues, but all in their best. All forget their worries and try to pretend they are children again; and the onlooker smiles at the sight of bearded men and stout ladies playing "Jolly Miller," "Puss-in-the-corner," and so on, until he finds the infectious spirit of the day seize him, and he too joins in. The schoolmaster presently puts the children through their paces under the parents' eagle eyes, and prizes are distributed--not without some murmurs and vague insinuations of favouritism from the mothers of the unsuccessful. Plenty of cash having been collected by weeks of busy canvassing, the winners obtain substantial rewards at running, jumping, climbing, etc. The ladies, as usual, provide the more solid portion of the bountiful spread, but there are always plenty of lollies, fruit and aerated waters besides. Usually a bloke with a camera happens along some time in the afternoon, and then for a few minutes everyone loses his or her individuality, and combines in one hideous smirk with the conventional idea of looking pleasant. The long warm day draws to a close, and the kids, tired out, start off home, some to early bed, others to change hurriedly into muddy duds and milk cows. The milking is rushed through this evening, and the elders re-congregate at the school for a dance, which lasts until the "wee sma' hours ayont the twal!" It all sounds simple enough in the telling, but go and live in the Bush a short time, and then see how you will enjoy these unceremonious little reunions; and contrast that feeling with the blasé indifference with which, when living in town, you attended a theatre or some other entertainment. Towns? Not on your life! Give me the great, quiet, hospitable Bush. The life is more natural, less strained--more human. CHAPTER XVIII. BURNING OFF. It was time to burn-off. Since Braun's paddock would inevitably go when I fired, Braun himself, with philosophic acceptance of the fact, had dismantled the old barn and told me to go ahead. However, he had rented his paddock to old Pardy for a few months, and that nuisance had his bullocks there. Like a damned ass, I went to give him notice that I intended to burn. Cripes! Wasn't there a storm! "---- ---- it!! You burn, and see what I'll do. Only bit of (sanguinary) grass I can get in the (luridly fiery improper) district, and now ---- ----!!!" I reminded him of the possibility that rain might come any day, and the Rainy Season was due to burst on us in a fortnight. No use. The old cow wouldn't hear of any compromise. If I burnt he'd blanky well burn _me_. "Selfish old rotter!" I muttered, and retired in dudgeon. I, of course, wasn't selfish. I went to see old Paddy, and took him and Barker into my confidence. "Yer a fool," said Paddy. "If yer don't fire now, yer'll lose yer charnst, and then yer'll be ----'d (ruined). Fat lot Pardy'll care ef y'are! 'E's only got a few bullocks, and they won't starve. Whips o' grass on th' road, and ef y' don't git y'r burn, y'll be like Barney's bull. Don't say nothin'. Just burn." Sensible advice. Then Barker: "Well, me little frogs whisker" (I winced), "if I was you, I'd burn, and if thar-role snake's ears" (I writhed) "ses owt, just scruff 'im." Not so good, this, I thought, seeing that Pardy weighed fifteen stone, and I nine and a half. However, in spite of their opinion, I pusillanimously decided to hold off for a fortnight, and then fire without notice. They agreed to come and help me, but opined they wouldn't be wanted, as it would be raining before then. A week went by with only a light thunderstorm; then the sky commenced banking up every night, to the southward. On the tenth day the bank came up to the zenith, with mutterings of thunder in the distance. Off I went to Barker's camp, and got there sweating. "Come on, blokes; I'm burnin' to-morrow. Blast Pardy. We'll burn the grass round the hut to-night." "Too late, I'm feared," said Paddy, looking at the sky. "But we'll come, anyhow. Got 'ny tucker?" "Whips," I answered; "just fetch your blankets." We went back on the run, reaching my place at dusk, and, arming ourselves with green bushes, fired the grass round the humpy. The sun being off it, it went slowly, and was easily kept within bounds. In an hour we had the hut standing safely in a burnt patch of about a couple of acres. Then tea and bunk. But there was no sleep for me. The sky remained overcast, and the wind cold. I was in and out like a jack-in-the-box all night. About 2 a.m. there was a few minutes' slight drizzle, and my heart sank. At first streak of dawn ("sparrow-crack," in the vernacular) we were out, choked down some breakfast, then crossed into Braun's and drove Pardy's bullocks into a timber track in the scrub, cooping them up safely with a few bits of barb wire across the entrance. The morning was misty. "Um!" said old Paddy. "Might be fine after all. That mizzle las' night won' 'urt. Wasn' 'nough ter but damp the top stuff; 'n if the sun comes out bright and 'ot bye and bye, it'll make the bark split on the big logs, 'n yer'll git all the better burn f'r it." How anxiously I waited! At eight o'clock out sprang the sun in full strength. Nine--ten--then eleven o'clock came, and the day was one of the hottest I have ever felt up here. Half-past eleven! "Now, me little frogs' ears," said Barker. "A few buckets of water ready at the hut; then away she goes a million!" We got the water, then went up to the scrub, running along the edge of the falling and lighting up all round as we went, as quick as possible. Then back to the hut, fired all the grass round the burnt patch, and stopped there to watch the building. Before long we wished we hadn't stopped, but by that time we daren't try to cross the burning grass, roaring away in the daytime. It wasn't too bad the first half-hour. There was just the thin blue reek from the crackling grass, and in the background the thicker smoke, rapidly increasing, from the scrub. Every now and again a darting tongue of dark crimson flame, with a fresh volume of oily black smoke, told that the line of fire was quickly joining up round the clearing. A little while longer, then, as the air inside the sixty-acre patch got heated and rarified, a strong breeze rose, setting into the fire from all sides, and going upward in the heated area, as through a funnel. At once a steady muffled roar was audible, and some trees left standing in the falling had quite big branches torn off and whirled aloft. The falling was now fired all over by flying sparks, and the fire speedily assumed the appearance of a huge waterspout of thick oily black smoke sky-high, shot with innumerable flickering tongues of crimson flame. It roared like a titanic engine under tremendous steam pressure. As the smoke bellied out overhead and slowly overspread the sky, the sunlight faded, and gave place to a dim yellow twilight, which had an inexpressibly depressing effect on the spirits--a sort of "something going to happen" feeling. The strong draught whirled and eddied the smoke clouds round, nearly suffocating us in the hut, but, with streaming eyes and mouths covered by cloths, we kept a sharp look-out, extinguishing any sparks that alighted on or near the house. At one time it struck awe to our hearts to see a billowing cloud of flame, like a crimson cloth being shaken out, some sixty feet right overhead. In the midst of it all there came a wild yell from Braun's, "Hay! Hay!! Hay!!! You in that 'ut there. I see yer. Wer's me bullicks?" and there was Pardy dancing excitedly about on the creek bank. "Oh, lemme get atchyer. You wait, you Senex, yer ---- cow. I'll burst yer fer firin'!" "Yer bullocks" (cough, cough) "are all right. They're" (cough) "penned up in Ellison's" (cough) "track. Can't get out," I wheezed, eyes, nose and lungs full of smoke. "Fire caught by acci" (cough) "dent." "Accident!! Acci-oh, Gord! If I cud ---- Blanky good job fer you me bullicks is safe, but t'wont keep me 'ands off o' yer fer burnin' me grass. Accident!!! Yer COW! I'll ---- you ----," and just here the grass suddenly caught at his feet and went roaring past him. He took to his heels up the paddock, and we saw him no more. A minute or two later and the fire leaped on to the old barn, and the poor old place, my first home in the bush, disappeared in a whirling gust of flame. About 4 p.m. we managed to dodge away, our heads feeling like pumpkins, the worst of the fire being over, and by six o'clock it had died down, leaving a charred black waste, with innumerable twinkling lights all over it, which, in the gathering dusk, gave the impression of a city seen in the distance by night. For weeks after our eyes were blurred, and match or lamp flame was surrounded by a broad blue halo. Barker's eyes, always weak, were bleeding profusely long before we left the hut. The sole remains of Braun's old barn were one charred post and a few little heaps of nails, and his paddock was as clean and bare as a billiard table. A week later, covered with the new green shoot, it looked lovely, and has never had a weed in it since. I kept carefully out of Pardy's way for a week or so, but he soon cooled down, for on the evening of the day after I fired the rain came suddenly, like a tank emptied on the roof, as it does in the tropics, and kept up continuously for thirty-six hours. In a week there was "feed for dogs" all over the district, but it was a near go for my burn. I set to work sowing my paddock carefully and well, finished the job by mid-January, and by the end of the month the grass was shooting well, giving every promise of the last being every bit as good a paddock as my first burn. My luck was "in" then. CHAPTER XIX. WARDSMAN AND DECKHAND. At the beginning of February I took up my duties as wardsman at the hospital. The young lady, who had been patiently waiting some ten years or so for me in Melbourne, had written to say that she thought we would be better struggling along together, and she was willing to rough it with me, even if she had to live in a tent. So I told her to have all ready for New Year, 1915, and in the meantime I would devote the whole of 1914 to making a cheque. With this end in view I would do the light graft at the hospital until the end of May, then, conquering the feeling of dislike, go down to the Richmond again, and try for a job as deckhand aboard one of the tugboats hauling punts of cane up and down the river--technical work, not too hard and well paid. So I communicated with the manager at the mill, explaining that I was a fully qualified sailorman, and received a reply that if I would guarantee to stop the full season he would guarantee me a berth. So that was all right. I soon fell in with the hospital routine, though continued close companionship with sickness, and sometimes death, had a depressing effect on my sensitive, rather highly-strung nerves. We always had a Chinaman or two, and it made my gorge rise to see the pretty white nurses attending to some of the specimens, though the washing of 'em fell to me (ugh!). I remember one dreadful old morphia fiend, about seventy, who was brought in dying, and who passed out next day. I was detailed to watch him die, and perform the necessary offices immediately after death, but being called away for a few minutes, I missed his actual passing. When I returned he was lying there, his glassy eyes, shrivelled monkey face and dropped jaws, exposing the long yellow decayed fangs, making a perfectly dreadful sight; and even in that minute or two the horrible flies----. God! the mere sound of a blowfly has made me feel sick ever since then. There was another old fellow named Ah Chi who also passed out, and in connection with whose death the matron made a peculiar "mistake in identity." His son had told her to ring up No. 16 when old Ah Chi passed in his checks. She rang up No. 60--a business house presided over by a gentleman named Archibald Davidson. I imagine his surprise, and presumably pleasure, on hearing through the telephone a sweet feminine voice, "Is that Archie?" One could imagine the said Archie tumbling over himself to do the polite, and wondering if he should address the fair unknown as "Yes, pet; you're the one." The sweet voice continues: "Hospital. Matron speaking. Look here, Archie; your father died last night, and as the weather's so hot you'd better make arrangements for the funeral at once." Quoth Archie: "What the devil are you talking about, madame?" "W-why, isn't that Ah Chi, Chinatown?" "Good Lord, no! This is Davidson, Messrs. Blank and Co." Collapse of matron. I had to sit by the bedside of more than one alien watching them die; mostly at night, for the reason that, if they possibly can, they will get up and try to crawl away somewhere just before their passing. An unpleasant job, sitting waiting, like a ghoul or a vulture, and trying not to seem impatient. None of us objected to attending the little Japs, though. They were always scrupulously clean, and, though nobody save a fool wants to see many of them knocking round here, yet they are real men one can respect, aye! and like--in their own country. Every week saw fresh scrub-falling accident cases brought in. One in particular ought to be recorded, as showing that peace hath her heroes as well as war. An old chap, aged about sixty, scrub-falling by himself, had a tree jump back at him, jambing his foot and grinding it to pulp. He tied a bit of string round below the shin, cut off the bits of foot still dangling, and then crawled two miles through the scrub to a road. The cream cart passed shortly, outward bound. "What's up, Bill?" "Oh, had a bit of an accident" (he had his coat over the leg). "Pick me up when you come back. Y'll only be about twenty minutes or so, eh? Oh, well, I can last double that," and he lit his pipe. Old Buckboard whipped his nags to a canter, and got back in less than the quarter-hour. Then he saw the injury. "Christ!" he said; "if I'd seen that, their bloomin' cream cud a' gone t'ell." "Yes, I know," said old Bill. "That's why I didn't show it yer." After it was fixed up at the hospital, the doctor was sympathising with him. "'S all right, Doc," he broke in; "I'll be savin' footgear now." The weeks passed on, and I, being personally associated with the rest of the staff, saw things that the casual patient never heeds. For instance, the gentle, patient nurses, never out of temper, always calm, cool and prompt. No complaints, despite the comparatively meagre pay and long hours; the querulous complaints of sick men, made irritable by long hours of pain, passing over them like water off a duck's back, or to be met with a cheerful smile, and a "Well, now, cheer up; it's not that bad, I'm sure." Only when off duty and "done up" does the mask drop a little. And mighty little real gratitude they get from the average patient, or thanks either, beyond a few conventional phrases. Just before I left the hospital there came tragedy to my selection. Old Paddy and a mate were falling my road, the council having decided to fall all roads adjacent to cleared selections, and the son of a neighbouring selector, a lad some twelve years old, used to bring their tucker out to them. On this occasion the lad had stopped to watch them let a big drive go, although they had told him to trot along. Paddy's mate was at work on the driver, while he himself was brushing round their next drive. A call: "Look out, Paddy; she's crackin'." Paddy trotted along to the boy, who was astride a slow old mare that wouldn't get a move on. "Come on, kid. Git a bit further off. Told yer t' git outer this before." A wild yell: "She's comin' back! Run, man, run!! Oh, Gord! the boy!" The lad dug his heels into the mare's ribs, but she only shook her head, and started a slow walk. Paddy made a jump for him, caught him round the waist, and tried to drag him out of the saddle. Too late. Next second the tree caught the boy across the shoulders, drove him into the horse, and both into the earth, Paddy being thrown to one side with but a few bruises and scratches. Imagine the feelings of the poor mother! Outwardly though she took it like a Spartan; but it was no surprise that when her baby was born, five months later, she went West without an effort to hold on to life, heart-broken. May her soul find rest! Make no mistake; the slain trees can, and do, often get their revenge. I left the hospital towards the end of May, all square, and with enough over to get to the Richmond, where I had to show up by 25th June. I saw the Lands Commissioner to obtain permission to leave my selection for a short while. "That's all right," he said. "So long as it's bona fide wage-earning, and we know where you are, we don't penalise a selector with a good record. Drop me a post card once a month, and you can stop away till the end of the year." I thanked him and promised. Next day I was on the "briny" en route for Brisbane; had rather a stormy passage down. I paid a duty call to the Lands Office, and informed them I was highly satisfied, and into the willing ears of several reporters poured a glowing account of the district, which duly appeared in next day's papers. I went by train to Lismore, and on to Broadwater by boat, and I enjoyed the interesting boat trips up the Tweed and down the Richmond. I got to Broadwater about 6 p.m. on a dismal day pouring with rain, to find a strike on and the mill hung up. I won't say anything about the strike, but, well--a pound a week and tucker isn't much, now is it? I had cut things rather fine--in fact I had only about five shillings left; so I interviewed the manager, who gave me permission to camp in the barracks along with a couple of decent blokes who came regularly from Sydney each year, and who, being like myself under an award, didn't join the strike camp. They remembered me. "Hello, Senex, you here again?" "Yes; and damn near broke, too." "Cripes! You're not the only pebble on the beach. We are, too." "Well, what are you going to do about tucker?" said I. "Reckon the best thing we can do is to have what you sailor blokes call a tarpaulin muster," said Jim. "What you got, Bill?" Bill turned out his pockets. "Oh! seven and a sprat." Jim had eight bob, and I five and six. By combining our resources and buying cheap stuff "in bulk" we lived eight days on that lot, till the strike finished and work started. Jim had built a fish trap, which was mainly responsible for our success, the river teeming with fish of all sorts. I was duly appointed deckhand on one of the tugs, powerfully engined but slightly ancient. The bloke in charge was rather a martyr to liver complaint, but he was ordinarily so decent that one could easily be tactful, and pass over the livery bouts. The engineer was German, but when the war started he became "Hanoverian"--as indeed I believe he was, only he didn't say so before. Not at all a bad sort, but apt to lose his head when things went wrong. We'd be toddling along with a string of empty punts astern, when the regulation "doodlum-clink" would suddenly change to a series of terrific bangs. A wail of despair from below. "It's der whackum (vacuum) agin!" Then would we tie up to the handiest wharf and effect repairs, with much banging of hammers and clashing of tools thrown angrily about. Next day, perhaps, we would haul a punt off a shallow place, stirring up much mud. A few minutes later a powerful smell of burning rubber, and loud oaths in a strong German accent, would apprise us of another disaster. Up would come the "sheaf," tearing his hair and dancing on his cap. "What's wrong, Franz?" says our skipper, with that quietly sarcastic attitude which is more maddening than a blow. "Blitzen und picklehaubes! Der Cotdom gon-denzer iss choged vit zand!!" "Well, clear the damn thing then. What'r'ye makin' such a fuss for?" "But der rupper backing iss burnt!" with much gesticulation. "Well," says the skipper, with a disgusted look. "Want me to give you one o' m' boots to mend it with? Put a new bit of rubber in!" Franz, not apparently having thought of it before, dives below again, and we wait until the orgy of oaths, bangs, thumps and thumb-smashings has ceased, and he comes up again, wiping his brow, to inform us that "she's all right now till someting eless goes." But it was always the "whackum," and it "went" pretty often, in fact nearly every day for a month, and Franz talked wildly of "shucking his yob." This statement roused old Tom (the skipper) to ribald contumely. "What! You 'shuck' your 'yob.' Why! a bloomin' charge of dynamite wouldn't shift you, and you know it, and" (with bitter emphasis) "you can't stuff me with that, old 'shap.'" At last one day Franz's bête noir broke so badly that we were left alongside a downstream wharf for ten hours while he took the whole caboodle up to the mill in a launch, to be properly seen to. After that it went all right. Time passed quickly, the work was interesting, even the deckhand's job calling for the exercise of some brains and common-sense, and I averaged about £12 a month right through. It was a bitter satire on deep sea life. When I was mate of an 8000-ton steamer I got £10 and find my own uniform, instruments, etc., and had a position to live up to. Here, deckhand on a little tub we could have carried on our poop, I was actually banking more than my pay as mate, no position to keep up, and, having no responsibility, sleeping well at night! We sometimes came up late, and the river on a fine night is really beautiful. We brought up the last load of the season on 22nd January, 1915, and the same night I took passage in the "Brundah" for Sydney, with about £60 in my pocket. She was due at Broadwater at 10 p.m., and I went up to old Tom's place to bid him good-bye. At nine o'clock we heard a siren. "Hello, she's before her time. Hurry up, Charlie." She had just cast off when I reached the wharf, so I chartered a trap and drove hell for leather through a pelting rain storm to Wardell. I tumbled into the ferry skiff, tipped the boatman to put me alongside the "Brundah," scrambled frantically aboard, to find--she was going to tie-up till daylight. In due course we left the river, arrived in Sydney after a rather stormy passage, and thus ended the second stage of my journey. CHAPTER XX. MARRIED. I got the wedding ring in Sydney. I was always rather a bashful person, and I went from shop to shop without entering, because there were girls behind the counter. At last I came to one. Ah! a man here. This'll do me. And in I dived. "Yes, sir; and what can I get for you?" "Er--er--I want some wedding rings, please" (as if I were a Mormon). "Certainly. Miss Blithers, attend to this gentleman, please." Forward stepped a perky miss from the back of the store. It was early in the morning, and I was the only customer. Whether purposely or not I don't know, but she took me to the end counter, where a couple more girls were lying in wait for me, put down about a dozen trays of rings in front of me, and smiled. I blushingly pulled out my marked size-card, and they smiled some more. Finally I chose one and a keeper; then-- "May I congratulate you?" smilingly. "Oh, er--yes--er--thank you." "Sydney?" "Er--no; Melbourne." "Indeed." Then very archly: "Now I'm sure she's dark." (I am gingery myself.) Before I knew where I was I had hauled out her picture from my breast pocket and handed it over. Instantly: "M-m-m-m! Cream Sicilian.... M-m! Jap. silk.... M-m! Ducky shoes ... love of a hat ...," and so forth. Finally the photograph was handed back. "Yes; she does look a real good sort. We hope you'll be very happy." My opinion of them at once rose ten beans. I bade them good-bye and left the shop, followed by their cheerful grins. That night I boarded the boat for Melbourne, speculating most of the passage as to whether She would be down to meet me, how She would look, and so on. It was nearly five years since we had bade good-bye to each other--for a few months! The familiar landmarks slipped by--Montague Island, Cook's Pigeon House, Mt. Imlay, Queenscliff, then Melbourne wharf at 11 p.m. And She was there to meet me all right--with a chaperone (I suppose that's the correct term. Anyway, it was her aunt), who discreetly turned her back to our meeting, and, giddy old thing, ogled a big policeman, who was looking at us with a kind of amused tolerance as of one who had been all through that kind of thing long ago and got past it. We chartered a cab, and got the last train home by a hair's breadth. The day was fixed for a fortnight ahead, and the time passed in a whirlwind of visits and introductions to about half the population of that Melbourne suburb, I should think. Then there was the preliminary visit to the reverend gentleman who was to "pass the reef point." I'll never forget that day. We had missed the train, and had to walk, say, three miles over some flat open country. I've been in Calcutta in the height of the South-West monsoon; in a place called Infernillo (anglicé "little Hell"), a dreadful desert spot up the Gulf of California; in Santiago-da-Cuba in July--but never in my life have I felt such an unbearable scorching heat as on that awful walk in the hot North wind in Melbourne. The kindly old clergyman showed us his thermometer--109 degrees in a stone-walled room and the blinds drawn. And they call it a hell of a day up here in North Queensland when the mercury touches 85 degrees! Give a dog a bad name---- The momentous day came round in due course. The augury was excellent. A brilliant sun, cool breeze, and, as I stepped on to the verandah in the early morning, a flight of white seagulls wheeling round overhead. What better omen could the most superstitious desire? The ceremony was quickly over. I am burdened with four Christian names, and when the parson came to "I, Charles William Reginald," etc., he transposed the names, and there was a dreadful moment, while I hesitated, wondering whether I would be properly married if I alluded to myself as "William Charles." However, I courageously said I was Charles, the minister smiled, and we were soon spliced hard and fast. My best man had the ring ready at the right moment, and of course the blessed thing wouldn't go on, and I had to use brute force to get it on to its proper finger. Then the wedding breakfast, where doubtless, under the combined influence of love, lemonade and excitement, I made numerous speeches, and soared to heights of windy verbosity seldom heard outside Parliament House. Following that the usual photographer arranged us on the lawn and snapped us in the usual fashion; then, ho! for the station and Australian wharf, where lay the good ship "Canberra," which was to have the signal honour of bearing us North. CHAPTER XXI. STARTING HOUSEKEEPING. Rapidly the splendid "Canberra" ploughed her way North. Fine weather attended us, making our trip a perfect honeymoon. The wretched confetti having completely given us away, the ship's personnel seemed to regard us with a sort of proprietary air of paternal amusement. In due course we reached Mackay, where there was a lop of a sea alongside, sufficient to keep the tenders rolling and bumping, and prevented the side ladder from being lowered. The passengers desirous of going ashore had therefore to be gathered into the embrace of a cargo net six at a time and slung overboard on to the tender's deck per derrick, like so many bags of spuds. It was the funniest spectacle imaginable (to the onlooker) to see the sling load go down by the run on to the tender's deck, the contents to go sprawling like a spilt handful of peas. Of course it can't be helped, with the tender rising and falling four or five feet in the seaway. In Townsville we had rather a nasty experience. Went for a motor boat picnic with a large party across the bay. Coming back late at night--dark, rainy and blowing fresh, with high following sea--one of the party went overboard. It was some time before he was missed, then we 'bout ship and headed into it, continuing until we had "all hands and the cook" bailing. Another illustration of the needle and haystack business, so we gave up, and finally got inside the Breakwater about 2 a.m. About half-way to the town wharf the engine gave a protesting cough, slowed and stopped. No petrol left aboard. So it was a fairly "close go." We transhipped at Townsville into a dirty old tub belonging to another company and left about noon for Cairns. That night we slipped forrard on to the focsle head, and stood leaning on the stem head, watching her sharp cutwater shearing along and admiring the play of phosphorescence in the backwash. A perfect night. The dim coast slipping past, the dull beat of the engines, the plunging hiss of the stem ploughing the watery furrow, and that strange tropical smell, coming on the faint land breeze, gave an air of romance to this part of our trip, and we were loath to go below and lose any of it. We were roused out in the morning in time to see the twinkling lights of Cairns just paling to the first faint streaks of dawn. Then the landing, a hurried rush to the station, and by the time we had settled down we were half-way to the Range. The weather was beautifully fine, and the country round Atherton looked its best, giving a splendid first impression to a "newey." There happened to be a buckboard waiting at our station, which took us right out to Ellison's place, where Mrs. Ellison, who had been expecting us, gave us a hospitable welcome. I found many changes round the place. A road, sixty feet wide, had been cut through the scrub right out to my selection, though a lot of side-cutting and bridge construction would still be necessary to make it navigable for a buckboard. Len, Terry, old Paddy and some others had enlisted for the war, and I frankly admit I felt a bit ashamed and sort of lonely when I heard of it. The wife and I had waited nearly twelve years for our taste of happiness, and if the authorities wanted me they knew where I was. Poor old Paddy had celebrated his departure by a glorious burst, and his final farewell to the crowd on the station was, "'Sall ri-ight, you shaps, b-but (hic!) y'all have er go whe-nen subscrichun (hic!) gess goin-nin." There was a young fellow who had gone named Jimmy McKay. He had the place adjoining mine opposite end to Terry O'Gorman, and we decided to camp at his little iron shack till I got a bit better place erected on my own farm. So, a day or two after arrival, the wife and I carried our belongings over to Jim's little shack, along the muddy scrub tracks. It was the wife's first introduction to scrub life. Every few yards we had to stop while she picked the blood-thirsty little scrub leeches off herself, and she spent that night crying quietly, scratching scrub-itch and leech bites, and nursing the place on her arm where the cursed stinging tree had got her through the coat sleeve. Poor girl! She was dreadfully homesick, and the open fire and camp oven cookery had lowered her spirits some more. She stuck to it like a Briton though, and never said anything. Jim's humpy was a very depressing place, too, situate at the bottom of a hollow in the scrub. Only ten acres of a clearing, and the dense wall of standing timber glooming down on the house in a pessimistic fashion. She soon shook down to it, however, and in a few days I started with a mate named Jack Redburn, who kindly volunteered to give me a hand, splitting out the stuff for a new house. Thus we started housekeeping together. Quite penniless, no income assured, and the future extremely uncertain. Rather funny to look back on, but grim enough at the time. CHAPTER XXII. STRUGGLING ALONG. I used to set out at six every morning to go over to my place, where my mate, Jack Redburn, would be awaiting me, and we worked until dark putting up the house. He was a good bushman, and in ten days or so we had a really decent comfortable little house up. Eighteen by twelve it was, with a ten-by-ten kitchen attached, all rough lined and ceiled. It was a lonely time for the wife, and I often felt my way home in the dark to find her crouched alongside the smoky fire, starting at every sound from the scrub. [Illustration: We had a really decent comfortable little house.] She and I carried our stuff over to the new place, having to make a long detour through the scrub to avoid scrambling about in Jimmy's overgrown loggy clearing, but the end of March saw us comfortably installed. Mrs. Ellison made us a present of a wee dolly stove she had used at first, so there were no more scorched aprons and smarting eyes for the wife, and the only fly in the ointment was how to make a bob or two. Though so early in the year, people were anticipating a dry spell, as the Rainy Season had not, so far, been up to much, as the grass wasn't as plentiful as it should have been. On that account there wasn't much doing. My first move, after talking things over with older settlers, was to get some cows. Two "purple patches" of advice:-- DAD VINCENT: "Lord _love_ yer, man! Of _course_ you've done the _right thing_! Look at _me_. Came up here with _no experience_, a _wife_ and thirteen _kids_. I've been _submerged_ half a dozen _times_, and _look_ at me now. Get some _cows_ and good _luck_ to you." OLD PARDY: "So yeh've got married? Well, a man's a blanky lizard ef 'e can't knock out a blanky livin' in the bush. Git some blanky cows; and dairy!" So I put the fear of a drought away from me. Such a thing had never happened before in the thirty years' history of the Tableland. Cows were fairly cheap. Therefore--borrow some more cash from the Agricultural Bank and buy cows. Good. I applied for £200 and got it without any trouble. Then Bayton the bullocky offered to take some pine off my place at sixpence a hundred (two pounds odd in Sydney!) and give me the cutting. I jumped at it, and he took about twelve thousand feet. This gave me enough money to get six coils of barb wire (it hadn't risen much up to then), and about £3 over to renew my credit with the storekeeper. That was the last money he got for twelve months; yet he never worried me. I was only one of scores on his books that year, but he always got more kicks that thanks, and of course was a profiteer. I used the wire to fence my road line; then made a deal for sixteen cows, a bull and seven twelve-month heifers for my £200, and thought I was all sagalio. Four cows were milking, and the others were supposed to be in calf, but weren't. We made a bit of butter and sold it to some bachelor neighbours for about two months, and that paid the rent. Then the green grass disappeared, the cows went dry, and the two calves that had come with them died. I assisted the maintenance man putting up a bridge near my place, and that paid for rates. A week or two cutting timber nearby for Hood and Bayton, and the half-yearly interest bill worried us no more; then their bullocks got too weak to work, so that source of income stopped too. And "Old Store's" account rendered kept on mounting up, although we lived on rice and beef-shins, made a seventy-pound bag of sugar last six months, and a fifty-pound bag of flour eight weeks. A nightmare of a time! So July came along, with some hard frosts. Now frost up here is invariably followed by rain within two days in a normal year, which causes the grass to get a spring on at once, as the days are always warm and bright. But in this infernal year there was no rain, so the grass got completely settled--above ground, that is. It sprang again in a night once the rain came at the end of the year. My cows were wandering out through Braun's paddock all over the country searching for a bit of green stuff, and I nearly tramped my legs off looking for them to keep them dipped and clear of ticks. Half the time I couldn't find them, so that with ticks and starvation the herd got down to ten. August. Still no rain! Got a job brushing for old Pardy, and had to walk four miles each way to work and back every day, so averaged about 30/- a week, which had to be hoarded over against bank interest at the end of the year. And the storekeeper's bill still rose! October. Will it _ever_ rain again? Dismal tales from everyone of dying stock, bankruptcy and ruin. My remaining cows could hardly stagger, and their ribs stood out like the black notes on a piano. I managed to get them home, when they were too weak to play up, let them into my banana patch, and the twenty clumps kept them going for a week or two. They even pawed out and ate the roots. My bull got into a very rough paddock not far away, fell down a steep stony creek, broke a leg and died there. The outlook was as hopeless as financial stability under Freetrade. November came, and old Omar's "blue sullen vault of sky" glared remorselessly down on us for over a fortnight of the month. No rain--not even the distant muttering promise of coming thunder. Then, on the 20th November, about 2 p.m., there was a sudden long roll of thunder in the distance. Two cows had calved, and I had the poor, miserable, staggering wretches in the bails, trying to force down their necks a bit of watercress I had found in the creek over a mile away. I whipped out of the shed. Thank God! There, rapidly rising over the trees to the South-East, was a long bank of black cloud. The thunder grew louder, and a cold refreshing wind suddenly sprang into being. We could see and smell the grey drifting curtain of rain that spelt Resurrection! A faint pattering on the roof. Louder; louder yet! until it became a deafening roar that kept up for over an hour. Salvation! The drought had broken at last. I went out and bathed in the rain, absorbing it in every pore. I think it's the only time in my life I was delighted to be wet through. It was just in time to save my remaining cows. I had left but seven cows, and six twenty-month heifers--say, £118 worth; but the debt of £200 to the bank still remained, and the storekeeper's £40 had to be remembered, and the--oh, but why recall such misery? Apropos the drought. It wasn't really a drought at all. I remember once going from Sydney to Melbourne by train, and after Albury the whole country was literally bare as a board. Well, up here, at the worst time, there was knee-high dry grass somewhere in every paddock; but the fool cows, never having been used to anything but green feed, simply starved sooner than look at it. A few that did take to it here and there kept in fair nick throughout, but of course didn't give any milk. I'll bet there isn't a Victorian cocky who would have thought it anything worse than just a bit of a dry spell. And, too, out of the hundreds of creeks running through the scrublands, I only saw one that had gone dry. I shall never forget the delicious smell of the wet earth after the first rainstorm, and that night, all over the paddocks, there was a pæan of praise from countless millions of frogs. Now, where the dickens do these blokes get to during a dry spell? We hadn't heard a croak for at least six months (or when the cows croaked they didn't do it audibly). Next morning there was a faint green sheen all over the place, and in a week the grass was six inches high. The cows bogged in, their ribs disappeared, and four more calved. Thus about the middle of December I was a bloated capitalist, owning land and stock, with six cows milking and one more to come in, and reckoned it was high time to lend my support to the local butter factory and commence sending in cream. CHAPTER XXIII. JOYFUL EXPERIENCES OF COW-COCKYING. So I went in to interview the factory people. I had to go to the expense of a new pair of boots for the occasion. I hadn't been wearing boots for months, but could hardly go in in bare feet. I had to take shares in the factory, and buy a separator--on terms; and right here is where I found for the first time a use for the chest full of blocks I had brought up to haul the scrub down with. I sold the lot to old Pardy for a fiver and paid for my boots, deposit on shares and separator, and exes. in town out of it. In due course the separator was brought out, in pieces on a pack horse the last mile or so, and erected in the split slab dairy. What an event the first separating was! What though I forgot to clean the vaseline out of certain little holes and corners, and the cream wouldn't pass through; that, in my anxiety to avoid turning too slow, I went at eighty revolutions instead of sixty, and the final result hardly covered the bottom of a gallon billy. We owned property! stock!! machinery!!! and we washed up the glistening new parts afterwards with pride and joy, which soon faded, by the way. And it rained, and kept on raining--probably to make up for the drought. The moisture poured in chilly streams through the rusty old iron roof of the bails, and sometimes I got nearly as much rainwater as milk. The roads speedily became bogs, and the creeks rose, and kept high for weeks. I was wet through morning, noon and night, and everything in the house got damp and mildewed. Boots looked, and smelt, like old bronze. Of course, we wouldn't have been so miserable had we possessed a good big house, good bails, yards, fences, and so forth; but these luxuries needed cash--which I hadn't got, so I had to put up with makeshifts. Braun was away somewhere and wouldn't fence his creek boundary. I couldn't. So behold! when I stepped out in the dismal, grey, misty dawn two cows would be in Braun's, one at Domino's Hill, two miles off one way, one in O'Gorman's, and the others playing hide-and-seek over about five hundred acres of overgrown, loggy paddock. The result was that I was often only starting to milk at 10.30 a.m. In the afternoon it was much the same. You would follow them up to see where they planted. Go back to the place at 4 p.m. No sign of them. After an hour's search you might come across them at the end of O'Brien's or Braun's or O'Gorman's or somewhere--but never the lot of them together. Finally I got hold of some plain wire and ran four wires along Braun's. Then other people's stray steers came along, walked through it wherever they pleased, as steers will, and kept me all my spare time patching up that makeshift. But it kept the cows home, anyway. Then carrying the cream. I had to take it down to a place opposite Liston's, three miles away. Had neither horse nor money to buy one. Tried to carry a can down by myself once, but never again. Ever try to carry thirty pounds or so of liquid in a sixteen-pound can, all smooth and polished tinned steel? Try it and see how she goes. The weight keeps shifting, and one staggers round all over the shop, and staggering on a muddy road nearly knee deep, things happen. You soon find yourself plastered thick from head to foot. The wife volunteered to help, so we slung the cursed can on a stick and carried it on our shoulders that way. Tramp, tramp through the bog, puffing and panting in the steamy heat across two deep creeks and along slippery "sidlings," struggling down to Roden's, where we left the cans to be picked up by the carter sixteen hours later and taken into the train, which eventually took it to the factory, where the cream was almost invariably graded second-class. One day sticks in my memory. It had been intensely hot, and we got to Roden's late. There we heard a tale of woe. Mr. Roden was in hospital, and there was only Mrs. Roden and a kid to milk thirty cows. Of course I, like an ass, offered to help, forgetful that I had my own to see to, and by the time I thought of my own affairs it was getting dusk and the delayed thunderstorm threatened. We hurried off, I with two empty cream cans slung, Chinaman fashion, on a stick across the shoulders, the wife with a billy containing a jewfish still alive, which Mrs. Roden had given her--a special luxury we hadn't tasted for a year. We had just got into the thick scrub when the storm burst on us. It speedily became pitch dark, and there we were, two miles from home, the rain pouring in buckets full, drenched and shivering, slowly picking our way among the innumerable roots and stumps by the lightning flashes' flickering glare, I in front, the wife behind hanging on to my belt. Every now and then I would feel a jerk, and a flop and smothered groan apprised me that the wife had fallen down again. Then a wail, "W-where's me fish?" and we would both be down on our knees in the mud feeling round for that precious fish until a lightning flash showed us where it was. Finally I slung the cans to one side and half-led, half-carried the poor girl home. When we arrived at the brow of a short steep pinch leading down to our creek, we realised the impossibility of walking--just sat down in the mud and tobogganed down it. We reached home, covered with mud, drenched and exhausted, at 8 p.m. The cows weren't milked that night. This was about the end of March. In the following October our first child was born. Of course we didn't know. Still, what might have happened! Well, just about this time I heard Hood had a horse for sale, so I went and saw him. He was an old steeplechaser, twenty years old, and very thin and ribby. He stood about six feet high at the shoulder. I asked Hood what he had on him. "Thirty bob," said Hood. "Done," said I, and dragged the moke home. We called him Napoleon Bonaparte, and stood looking at him that evening, telling each other he wasn't too bad at all. The old, old saggy-kneed animal would look "noble" when he picked up a bit; he showed quality, didn't he now? in spite of his age--and so forth, until, our eyes meeting, we burst out laughing, with a simultaneous exclamation, "'On Our Selection' to the life." We found the old chap would eat anything, being used to kids petting him; so we filled him up with odds and ends of porridge, cabbage stalks, bread, spud peelings, and so on, and, strange to say, he did pick up. He was a whale on separated milk, and got plenty of it. Anyway, the poor old fellow carried the cream (attached to his back by a weird contrivance of cornbags and rope) for two years, so he paid for himself. Then he got sick and developed a booming cough--a very curfew, tolling the knell of Bona-parting. I called in a bloke to look at him. "Oh," says he: "it's on'y gripes. Give 'im a good 'earty kick in the guts. That'll settle 'im." I didn't try the recipe, and poor old Boney settled himself that night--in the cowyard; and I had to cut him up and drag him away in sections for cremation. What sickening shocks we did have that year, to be sure! Our first cheque was sixteen shilings for the month, after share-money and separator instalment were deducted. Then the long-suffering storekeeper stopped credit, and for a while we lived on what we could grow, with scrub turkey, and once or twice bandicoot. The latter weren't bad, in fact, very palatable; but they looked ratty. The Government remitted the year's rent, but bank interest and rates had to be met; and my biggest cheque for the year was £8. Oh, it was a daisy time! However, my cows had all had heifer calves; I brought them safely past weaning point, and got £4 a head for them on the top of a risen market that the week after was fallen to £2. This was one of the rare strokes of luck I have had, and paid two-thirds of Old Store's account, renewing credit. In October a daughter was born to us, who, thanks to the dreadful climate (whites can't live up here, you know) hasn't had a day's sickness yet! In December my young heifers calved, and the cheques each month from the factory increased, so that I got clear of debt, and actually felt what having a few pounds in the bank was like. I managed to keep the 1917 crop of calves. It was a good year. In 1918 things went swimmingly again, but a plague of caterpillars ate me out, and I lost half the youngsters, but still I crept ahead a bit financially. In June my son and heir made his appearance. Another miserably bright, bonny, rosy-cheeked victim of the climate. At the end of the year Hood had a look at my timber, and offered to cart logs to the mill, and haul the resulting sawn timber out again if I paid for cutting the logs up; he to charge cartage as a cash deposit to me on my standing timber. I jumped at the chance, for, lo! here was a new house for us. I could just manage to scrape enough cash together to pay for cutting at the mill. In February, 1919, I got the house up, paying for its erection with two young heifers. Now we had indeed turned the corner, and could begin to believe that our struggling days were really behind us. A month or two later Hood, who had shifted out close to us, made a proposal to join forces: I to look after the cows, of which he had a decent herd; he to work his bullocks; all proceeds to be pooled and shared. It has worked well, for he is a white man and a good mate. We have had a plague of caterpillars again, but got over it without serious loss, and it really looks as if we were at last firmly on our feet, with a prospect of a continued comfortable competence--thanks mainly to the unselfish self-denial and splendid management of that greatest of all blessings--a good wife. We aren't millionaires yet, but can't growl, and are infinitely better off than our town brethren, with all their picture palaces, handy shops and what not. Anyhow, the rosy cheeks of our two splendid kiddies would be enough to reconcile us to the, perhaps, somewhat lonely life. In spite of (perhaps because of) hard struggles and difficulties overcome anything but easily, neither of us feel inclined to quit even now that we could, and with the passing of time the little home we have carved out of the scrub for ourselves becomes more homely and dearer to our hearts. CHAPTER XXIV. L'ENVOI. In concluding an effort like the foregoing, it is, I believe, the usual thing for the author to tender a few words of good advice. A thankless job, perhaps, for a wise man doesn't want it and a fool won't take it. However, in case any reader might be contemplating scratching a living out of the scrub, I offer him the following, free, gratis and for nothing:-- 1. Decide on your district; think carefully before taking a block; get it; then hang on to it till all's blue, for blocks aren't so easy to get now-a-days, and the time is gone when a bloke could say, "'Ere! I'm chuckin' this, and goin' for a block closer in." 2. Get your scrub down as quickly as possible. Standing timber won't bring in a penny in a lifetime, and mill timber's a rotten reed to lean on for an income. Fifty acres of grass, well fenced, will, at agistment, bring in tucker and a bit over after the first year, even if you don't use it yourself. 3. Never go working alone in the scrub. Always try to have a mate with you, and never wear smooth-soled boots in the scrub, unless you want to go to hospital. 4. Don't be afraid of the State Agricultural Bank. It's cheap money, and they won't (since they can't) foreclose for twenty-one years, provided interest is paid when due. The bank's assistance enables you to stop on your block instead of going away to work. Go as far as they'll allow you for scrub-falling and buying cows, but not for house-building or other unproductive work. Let Strawberry pay for that. Leave private banks alone. 5. Get grass seed in at once after the burn, and don't sow all one kind, no matter how good a feed it is. Her Majesty Queen Cow likes a change, like ourselves. 6. Don't start dairying until you have a good fence round the place. Then buy a few good cows and a _good_ bull. Be wary buying milkers from a dairyman. Better get springing heifers. 7. Here get married. Weigh well the advantages of a widow with, say, a couple of children able to milk. If she has a little cash, all the better. Then it won't matter if she's not beautiful and is ten years your senior. 8. If your early milking arrangements are rough, it'll be all right if you keep everything scrupulously clean. Slap the whitewash round. It's cheap, and, like a parson's coat, occasionally covers a multitude of sins. 9. Don't sell your young heifers when weaned if you can struggle along without doing so. Breeding up your own herd, you know what you've got. Also your old originals won't live for ever. 10. Try and grow a bit of hand-feed for your cows as a stand-by, no matter how good a dairying district you're in. 11. Never lose your temper, no matter how rorty your cows may be. Cows are very sensitive, and respond to quiet treatment quicker than any other animal. If you go down to the bails in a temper, the cows know it, even if you're quiet with them. They get uneasy, and hang on to the milk. I learned this by experience. 12. Keep your heart up and battle along. Don't let set-backs break your spirit. The sticker gets there--like the postage stamp. But, make no mistake, you'll need a heart to tackle the scrub. * * * * * And that's the lot, blokes. Hello! milking time. I must get away after the cows. I wish you luck. Well--hooray! "SENEX." THE SPECIALTY PRESS PTY. LTD. 174 Little Collins Street Melbourne * * * * * Transcriber's note: Printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have been retained. 
27169	----	produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) Transcribers Note: Unexpected spelling, punctuation, and inconsistent hyphenation have been retained as they appeared in the original, except as listed at the end of the book. On Page 321 the gobbledegook "while the use nht psoe hwi cfirt h tth em" has also been retained as it appears in the original. FERN VALE OR THE QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. A NOVEL. BY COLIN MUNRO. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL I. LONDON: T. C. NEWBY, 30 WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. MDCCCLXIL EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY THE CALEDONIAN PRESS, "The National Institution for Promoting the Employment of Women in the Art of Printing." PREFACE. Some fifteen years ago, when the first mention was made in the Imperial Parliament of the intention of Her Majesty to dismember the Northern districts of New South Wales, for the purpose of establishing a refuge for the expatriated felons of Great Britain, a certain noble lord rose to enquire where New South Wales was, and whether it was anywhere in the vicinity of Botany Bay. Since the time of this sapient patrician much has been said, and more has been written, respecting our antipodean empire; though I believe the mass of the English people are still as unacquainted with the characteristics of the colony, and the manners of colonial life, as if the vast continent of Australia remained in its primitive inanition. Poor as is the knowledge of our friends "at home" respecting their periecian brethren, I grieve to say, with regard to, or rather of, the Australian colonists, that knowledge is too frequently tinged with prejudice and erroneous impressions, formed from the writings of discontented colonists, who, without a sufficiently lengthened residence in the country, or opportunities to form correct opinions, have not only disregarded facts, but have presumed to pass judgment upon what they have never appreciated or understood, and have written statements decidedly false and scandalous. It is notorious that in some circles of society, the bare mention of Australia in connexion with any one's name is sufficient to create a feeling of distrust and contempt, and the colonists are at once stamped as being, at least, something mean, with antecedents involved in a suspicious obscurity. Unfortunately there have been writers, too, who have come before the public professing an intimate acquaintance with, and an impartial judgment of, colonial life, who have not failed to heap aspersions on the very name of the country and everything connected with it, and to envenom their writings with the rankest untruths. I have read accounts of colonial society where it has been characterized as the vilest that can be imagined in a civilized state; where the men are spoken of as habitual debauchees, and the women as universally shameless, immoral, and dissipated; where life and property are insecure; and bushrangers are the terror of the inhabitants. I don't say such productions are numerous. I rejoice that they are not; but many people are inclined to receive such a description as a truthful one, and to consider a true narration of facts as merely an over-drawn and flattering panegyric of an interested author. People have been long accustomed to look upon Australia as only a place for convicts, and the population, if not prisoners themselves or those who have served their allotted term, at least as the descendants of those who have done so. I have frequently had the question gravely put to me whether or not such is the case; and have experienced great difficulty in inducing people to believe otherwise. They forget, if indeed they ever knew, that many leading men in this country owe their position in society to a prosperous career in the Australian colonies, and that more than half the colonial settlers are men of good family connexions who have emigrated to improve their position in occupations which are at the same time remunerative and honourable. When this is remembered, in conjunction with the fact that transportation has been discontinued for many years, and that, after the expiration of a convict's term of expatriation, if of an incorrigible nature, he invariably returned to the "old country," where he had a wider field for the exercise of his genius, it can't but be seen that, generally, there must be a healthier tone of society in the colony than is credited "at home;" while morality is quite on a par, if not above the ordinary level of British ethics. At the same time it is only but just to state that the greater proportion of what vice does exist is chargeable to that wild and uncontrollable mass, which, generally attracted to gold-producing countries, necessarily forms there the substratum of the working population; while the native born portion of the people is entitled to all praise for its strict propriety. To remove this stigma of _mauvais ton_, and establish our fair name in opposition to the mal-impressions which have gained currency respecting the Australian colonists, I have been induced to add another to the tales of Australian life, and to lay "Fern Vale" before the public. I don't enter the arena so much to defend the colonies collectively, as to present a fair face for the young one of Queensland, and to draw attention to it as a field for British labour, industry, and capital. And being disposed to think this description of work will find more favour in the eyes of that class I would especially desire to attract, than a topographical and statistical treatise, I have blended facts with fiction to present my volume to the public in such a form as to afford amusement with information. I have endeavoured to depict life and manners as they exist in Queensland, and to describe the country, its climate, and capabilities. The leading political topics of the day I have also lightly touched upon; but, while craving the indulgence of the public in these interpolations, I may remark I have only treated them to a very cursory glance; considering that, in the present mutable state of legislation in Queensland, to enter more fully into detail would be inadvisable. The colony is young, but the government is infantine; though, notwithstanding that it is little more than two years old, it has proved itself indefatigable, concise, and beneficial in its workings; and many a local incubus has been removed, and many a long felt desideratum been supplied, during its short period of existence. To illustrate what the district was, and what it had to labour under, I have drawn all my characters as existing under the _regime_ prior to the felicitous epoch of "separation." But to prevent my readers from forming an erroneous impression of our model colony, I will succinctly furnish a synopsis of our march of improvement. The old iniquitous land system has been abolished; and in its place one substituted similar to what I have mentioned in this work as being the scheme of Dr. Lang. One of the first acts of the new government was to sweep away the trite and cumbersome machinery of the old system, by making nugatory the existing law of the parent colony, and to pass an act which, for liberality, perhaps stands unequalled. Its main features are--for pastoral purposes--occupation and settlement, with right of tenure, subject to a rental of one farthing per acre per annum; and for agricultural lands--free selection for purchase at the fixed rate of one pound per acre, with a right to rent in contiguity thrice the quantity purchased for a period of five years at a yearly rental of sixpence per acre, with the option of purchase at the expiration of the lease, at the residue of the purchase money, viz., 17s. 6d. per acre. To all immigrants paying their own passage, a remission of their passage money is granted in an equivalent of land. This, with the activity of the government in throwing large tracts of land into the market, has done away with a good many of the abuses detailed in our narrative; more especially the "station jobbing," attributed to Bob Smithers, and the vexatious detentions to small capitalists desirous of becoming farmers. Another of its features is the inducement held out to the agriculturalist to cultivate cotton in the shape of bounties almost amounting to the value of the staple. The towns have also been benefited by the establishment of municipalities which have removed many long standing nuisances. The old forensic injustice, and judicial burlesques, have been annihilated by the appointment of district police magistrates; and, in fact, the whole country and people have "gone a head." With regard to the incidents of my story I may say that, almost without an exception, they are facts well known to Moreton Bay people; and, though I have used some discrimination in their collocation, so as to a certain extent to shield the actual actors from the public gaze, I have in no way exceeded the margin of truth. The scene at the "Bullock's Head," I must guard against any charge of plagiarism by stating, is the description of an actual occurrence which took place not many years ago in the town of Brisbane, and, if I mistake not, the principal actor in which is still living, and in this country. Captain Jones' marriage, its results, the poisoning, murder, and protection society, are all drawn from life; though, as I've said before, varied in their arrangement. Neither have I indulged in any flights of the imagination in depicting the horrible, but rather subdued the poignancy of the original; particularly in the case of the murder, which in my hands has received considerable detrition. Though the proceedings of "the society" may be said to be the "coinage of my brain," I have not hazarded such an accusation, as is contained in their narration, without being possessed of sufficiently authentic information to warrant me in doing so. After the melancholy event, from which I borrowed the idea of the Strawberry Hill massacre, it is known for a fact that the blacks mysteriously disappeared from the country; while the squatters were out in arms for weeks scouring the bush, and made no secret of their enrollment for a mutual protection. At the same time I have heard a settler of the district, and one of considerable means and standing, when alcohol had stimulated his nerves and courage, boast that he had shot _hundreds_ of blacks; and have also heard others speak of such an action as merely an unpleasant necessity. I must caution my readers, however, from imagining that, because the tragical event which immediately precedes the _denoument_ of my plot occupies so conspicuous a place in the narrative, such dangers are incidental to a residence in the bush. Far from it. Security reigns supreme; and I merely engrafted the too well known catastrophe to my compilation to add interest to the tale. Such visitations are, happily, not to be heard of once in a generation, and then only on the extreme borders of civilisation. Convicts are no longer noticeable, and bushrangers are only known as myths or scourges of historical notoriety. The peculiar idiom of the blacks, in their conversation with the settler, I have introduced to give some idea of the unintelligible and periphrastic jargon the whites have to adopt to make themselves understood. And so accustomed do the squatters, and their men, become in its use that they naturally fall into it whenever they experience any difficulty in making themselves understood by any one not acquainted with their language. Hence all foreigners, of whom, especially Germans and Chinese, there are a great many in the colony, who have not a thorough knowledge of the English tongue when they come to the country, acquire this peculiar phraseology. I fear I must crave the pardon of many of my friends for having introduced into my book some little episodes in their personal history which they may not have desired to have had laid before the world. But, though such may be recognisable to themselves, I feel safe in expressing my confidence that to the public they will remain hid by the veil of fiction. LONDON, _1st May 1862_. CHAPTER I. "Sister, farewell: I must to Coventry; As much good stay with thee, as go with me." RICHARD II., _Act_ 1, _Sc._ 2. "Good-bye, Kate, I can't help leaving you at least for a time; and if we can make any settlement with Smithers for any of his country, you know I'll soon be back for you: so don't make me disheartened by seeing you so melancholy. John has started some time since with the pack-horses, and seeing you had run away from the parlour while the governor was talking to me, I have followed you to see you look cheerful, and get another kiss before we part. My mother thinks me already on the road, and Joey is only strapping on my valise to the saddle." "I shall be so lonely, Will, when you are gone; I'll have no one to ride with, and as for kangaroos, I am sure I shall not see one until you return, for you know Papa never cares about going out with the dogs. You may as well take the poor things with you, for they will be of no use here; they will be company and afford amusement to you." "Oh, never mind them, Kitty, I'm for work not sport; but come now dry up your tears, and while I am away be sure and make yourself a proficient in housekeeping, because you know, if we succeed in forming a station, as soon as we can get up a decent sort of a 'humpie,' and comfortably settled, I will come and fetch you; and know thou, my Kitty darling, if you do not make your brothers as contented as they in their gracious will shall desire, they will publish throughout the length and breadth of the land the short-comings of their pert little sister; and the decree once gone forth that our Kitty is a useless little baggage, and not fit to be a squatter's wife, what will she do then?" "She will tell her brothers' friends that she is the persecuted victim of a pair of ungrateful fellows, who are never satisfied with anything that is done for them, and I know which of us they will believe. But, Willie, Mr. Wigton tells us the blacks are very troublesome down where you are going: will there be any danger in living there?" "Not the slightest, my dear: it is all nonsense the way in which croakers talk about the blacks. Some of our imperious settlers, by their own conduct, encourage them to commit depredations and to revenge wrongs; but, for my part, I never knew a black fellow make an unprovoked aggression, whereas Mr. Wigton merely speaks from what he has been told by the squatters." "Well, but, Willie, you say the country is quite unoccupied: will not the natives be dreadfully wild, and easily provoked to commit some horrible act? Would it not be better to avoid any risk, by getting a station in some more settled part of the country?" "Believe me, my pet, your fears are perfectly groundless; I have had more experience with the blacks than most people, and I have no unpleasant apprehensions from our squattage. However, our speculations are all in precedence of our plans, and your objections are only advanced on conjecture; it will be quite time for you to disparage our home when we have formed one, and I can assure you, my dear Kate, neither John nor I would wish you to leave the security of our parents' roof for our protection, if by so doing you would imperil your precious little self. But, even if there were any danger to us, to you, I believe, there would be none; unless indeed it were to be carried off by some bold, adventurous, and enthusiastic son of the soil to receive the homage of his illustrious countrymen as their tutelary angel. But to prevent any such predatory outrage, we will form ourselves into a body-guard and enlist the services of all the knights-errant of the neighbourhood." "You are an impudent fellow, and I have a good mind to give at once my refusal to go; but if you do settle there, I hope you will cultivate the acquaintance of some nice people, if there are any near you." "Nice gentlemen you mean, I know. Oh, yes! I will try and oblige you on that point; but good-bye, Kate, I must be off." With this remark concluded the colloquy of William Ferguson and his sister, Kate; and after a mutual embrace, the young man bounded from the room, and in a few minutes might have been seen riding through the bush at a sharp canter, in company with his black boy, Joey, to overtake his brother on the road, who, as the reader has already learnt, left the house some time previously with the pack-horses, laden with the provisions and necessary articles requisite for their journey. While we leave the young men to proceed on their way, and their sister sitting listlessly gazing with tearful eyes through the open window of the drawing-room, conjuring in her imagination the scenes through which her brothers were about to pass, we will cursorily glance at the family whose acquaintance we have just made. Mr. Ferguson, the elder, the proprietor of Acacia creek, where we find ourselves for the _nonce_ located, was a gentleman who had attained the meridian of life, though years sat lightly on his open brow. He was tall and handsome, robust in constitution, affable, benign, and hospitable in disposition; a fond father, and one of the most respected settlers in the district of which he was a magistrate. As his history is somewhat romantic, the reader may be disposed to pardon the digression, in our stopping here to give a brief outline of it. John Ferguson, who was a native of Scotland, and a member of an ancient family who prided itself on its blood and lineage more than on its virtues and frugality, was early left to battle with the world through the prodigality of a parent, whose greatest pleasure was to keep the most hospitable board in his county, and whose greatest dread was to be stigmatised with (what was to him the _acme_ of derogation) meanness and parsimony. Though the family, through the extravagance of its head, was reduced to extreme penury, it was with the utmost difficulty the pride and prejudices of the father could be overcome, to be induced to allow his son to accept an appointment in a government office in London, which had been obtained through the intervention of a well-wisher of the family, and offered to the young man. The course of life, which the acceptance of this situation would open to the fancy of young Ferguson, was congenial to his ardent imagination and enthusiastic spirit. He therefore joyfully accepted the post, which was kindly and delicately offered as a means of employment and support to himself and of pecuniary relief to his parents, as a stepping-stone to fortune; while the romance with which his disposition was tinged, served to picture to his prophetic vision, scenes of official gradation and pre-eminence. How often do young men of similar temperament indulge in the same enticing speculations, and allow themselves to be carried away by the blissful creations of a fertile fancy; alas! only to awake from the intoxication of their delightful dream, to realize the pangs of a bitter disappointment, and a total dispersion of all their brightest hopes. Not that we deprecate the indulgence of such romantic feelings. We believe it frequently produces that emulation, by which a persevering and indomitable spirit is frequently enabled to realize the dreams of the bright imaginative fertility of youthful ardency; but, as we shall presently see it was in the case of young Ferguson, so it is too often in general life, that such visions are doomed to speedy dissipation. In due time the young man entered upon the duties of his office with a zeal commensurate to the exalted nature of his expectancy; but the ideal varnish of his mental conception speedily vanished under the hard brushing of a monotonous official routine, and his romance succumbed to the realities of a mundane experience. Though the appointment, to which our young friend had been inducted, was all that could have been desired for the scion of a noble house, whose pampered whims and vices were to be ministered to by the lavish hand of a fond parent, and where the display of mental abilities was no more necessary than in the propulsion of the mechanism of one of Her Majesty's establishments erected for the ambulating exercises of petty delinquents, yet to a young and high-spirited nature, such as John Ferguson's, the very absence of any intellectual requirements in the performance of the duties devolving upon him, caused him soon to feel a distaste for the service; while the indolence and self-importance practised and assumed by his colleagues (and so much emulated by the class of candidates for such honours) were to him extremely irksome and disagreeable, and early caused his energetic disposition to be dissatisfied with his position. He had been some little time in his office, and began to experience the feelings which we have described, when, through the instrumentality of the kind friend to whom he was indebted for his appointment, he began to circulate in that society which by his family connexions he was entitled to mix in. To say he was not fascinated with the polish, gaieties, and pleasures of a fashionable town life, would be to conceal the truth: though, at the same time, we must say their hollowness soon became apparent to his mind; and he, instead of following the example of most men in similar circumstances, and making himself the slave to the pleasures and dissipations of the fashionable world, looked calmly on the allurements of society, and preserved a perfect control over his mind and morals. During the vortex of a London season, he added to the list of his friends a merchant of considerable standing, and of very large reputed wealth. In the house of this gentleman, who was pleased with the young man's sterling qualities, apparent to the quick perception of the man of business, he received a _carte blanche_; and thence commenced the intimacy which formed the romance of his life. Mr. Williamson, the gentleman of whom we have spoken, had an only daughter, the mistress of his house, and the idol of his heart and of all who knew her. She was beautiful in the extreme. Her disposition was of the sweetest description, and fully justified the lavishment of the fond parental affection with which she was blessed; while her amiability was only equalled by her dutiful attention and consideration of the smallest wish of her kind and doating parent. That such a being should arrest the notice of a young man of the temperament of John Ferguson is not to be wondered at, nor that his attention was rivetted on her the first moment his eyes were gladdened with the seraphic vision. The first feeling of admiration soon gave place to a sentiment of a warmer kind, and it was not long ere young Ferguson was hopelessly entangled in the meshes of Cupid's net, deeply immersed in the sea of love; which, for his ardent nature, was of that turbulent kind that knew no control, nor experienced any pleasure, except in the society of his fair enslaver. This feeling was long kept a secret within his own bosom, and his time glided happily by in the sweet countenance of this charming creature, content in the privilege of loving, and fearful lest a disclosure of his sentiment should break the spell. Love is a strange emotion; its inexplicable workings operate with an occult influence, irresistible and unaccountable; and while our hearts receive a glow and pleasure at the mere contemplation of the object of our love, our selfish gratification blinds us to all but our own extatic delight, and eliminates from our minds all considerations not directly tending to a consummation of our desires. At the same time our cowardice often operates on our fancies so as to create fears, lest to the object of whom we are enamoured we prove indifferent, and we fancy ourselves almost criminal for loving. Though possibly not a common phase in the _esprit d'amour_, it was, nevertheless, the one in which burnt the lamp of our friend; for though he loved Miss Kate Williamson to distraction, he never ventured to breathe one word to her that was likely to disclose the fire that consumed his heart. 'Tis true her manner to him, though cordial in the extreme, was not such as to inspire him with the idea that his love was reciprocated. With the high sense of her filial duty, she conceived herself bound to receive the authorized attentions of a gentleman possessing the warrant of her father's friendship, and, in return for that friend's civilities, to tender those little captivating mannerisms, and throw into her receptions and interviews those sweet and winning ways, so peculiar to beings of her stamp. Beyond that, however, she gave him no encouragement. It may be she soon perceived, what John Ferguson failed to conceal, the pleasure which he enjoyed while in her society; it may also be that those visits, which she at first considered a duty to her parent to receive, she afterwards welcomed with receptions as warm and cordial as possible, compatible with her own modesty; and it may be true that she began to admire their visitor for his own merits, and reciprocate pleasure in their numerous interviews, while she little dreamt, that what she considered the mere acts of hospitality, were making such havoc in the breast of John Ferguson. He, on the other hand, while admiring the bright object ever in his mind, feared venturing a disclosure, which, in his position and prospects, his conscience whispered to him would be considered presumptuous. Thus matters rested, until a fortuitous circumstance broke the spell that bound these two young hearts, and disclosed to each the transitory nature of their dream. A young physician of considerable practice, good connexions, gentlemanly manners, and prepossessing appearance, and who had long been known to and intimate with the family, in an interview with Mr. Williamson, declared his admiration for his daughter's virtues, and expressed an esteem for herself, that justified the father in sanctioning his request to be admitted as an acknowledged suitor for the young lady's hand; and his pretensions to her regards were supported by her father, who believed their congeniality of tempers would render such an alliance happy and prosperous. Miss Williamson listened to the appeals of her admirer, we must admit, with satisfaction; and though his addresses were not distasteful, she felt a pang in her heart that plainly told her it was already possessed by another. It required but this spark to kindle the flame that had long been smoldering in her breast; and at the moment when, had she not known John Ferguson, she would have been pleased and flattered with the protestations of her suitor, she felt disappointed and distressed that those proposals had not emanated from another source. The very contemplation of this disappointment increased the warmth and ardour of her affection for young Ferguson, while it annihilated all thoughts of the other; and even, respecting as she did the wishes of her father, she could offer no encouragement to his medical friend. The young son of Galen, unacquainted as he was with the real state of the lady's feelings, attributed her taciturn abstraction to the innate modesty of her nature, and therefore delicately refrained from pressing proposals which he perceived she was not prepared to entertain. Contemplating the resumption of the subject at a future time, when the lady's mind would have in all probability recovered the shock, which he imagined was occasioned by the novelty of her situation, he left her, while he expressed the deepest devotion and unalterable attachment. Shortly after this interview, the young men met at the table of their hospitable host; and there for the first time John Ferguson discovered the position in which the young physician stood to the family. He watched with a jealous eye the movements of his rival, who, though noticing a peculiarity in his young friend's manner, never dreamt of the true cause of his dejection. The contention in the breast of the lady was equally painful; for, while she divined the nature of Ferguson's melancholy, and was aware that the young doctor's attentions to her would lead her taciturn lover to imagine she was gratified with and encouraged them, she could give him no clue to her own feelings; while her devotion to parental authority deterred her from slighting her more voluble admirer, and her kind and amiable disposition shrank from assuming a state of feelings foreign to her nature. John Ferguson retired from the presence of his loved one, with a heavier heart than he had ever experienced before; and, after being the prey to a series of mental convulsions, at a late hour of the night he retired, not to sleep, but to a further meditation in a horizontal position. The morning dawned without any alleviation of his miseries, and, on the impulse of his natural impetuosity, he formed those plans which entirely altered the course of his subsequent prospects and career. The Australian colonies, at this time, were attracting public attention, and John Ferguson determined to escape from his thraldom and misery, by chalking out a home for himself at the antipodes; his fancy lending its aid to picture the realisation of a fortune, and the oblivion of his misplaced affection. This resolution once formed, he determined to carry it out in such a way as to preclude the possibility of being deterred by any undue influence; and without acquainting any of his friends of his designs, he took his departure, merely writing to his mother the cause of his sudden flight. In this letter to his parent, as may be imagined, he expatiated on the beauty, grace, accomplishments, and virtues of the unwitting instrument of his expatriation; confessed his undying love with his usual enthusiasm, and expressed his belief in her perfect indifference to his sufferings. He also stated that the lady had accepted the addresses of another; and while he deprecated his inability, through the disparity of their positions, to make any formal advances or obtain a footing of equality with his more favoured rival, he declared his decision, rather than submit to the torture he was enduring, to leave the country and constitute himself in a distant land the architect of his own fortune. He concluded by breathing the tenderest affection for his parents, and entreating their forgiveness for his seeming neglect, in parting from them in so cold and unceremonious a manner. The surprise and consternation of the young man's friends, occasioned by the receipt of this letter, may well be imagined; and if John Ferguson had not been bordering on insanity when he made his rash resolve, he would have hesitated ere he had been the cause of that anguish, which, in his calmer moments, he well knew would be felt. But the past was irrevocable; and the remorse he felt for his neglect and inconsideracy, as his native land receded from his view, still further embittered a spirit surcharged with grief. The painful throes of his mother's heart, felt at the loss of her son, was far surpassed by the indignation of his father, who, with his consanguineous prejudices, and supercilious contempt for riches unaccompanied by birth, deemed the claims of his son by blood far superior to the pretensions of the plebeian trader. He only saw in the confessions of his son, the result of a deep-laid plot for his entrapment and ruin, and could only believe his malady to be the result of a collusion on the part of Miss Williamson and her father, by whose joint wiles and chicanery the young man's peace of mind had been destroyed, and he driven from the land. In the firm belief of this, he wrote to Mr. Williamson, adverting in the strongest terms to the injury he conceived himself to have sustained at his hands, couching his epistolary invective in no very polite or considerate language, and enclosing the young man's letter to his mother as a documentary proof. This communication had the effect, at first, of raising the merchant's ire; but, upon more deliberate consideration, his wrath gave way to pity for the father, in whom, through the haughtiness of his clannish spirit, he could detect the anguish for a son's loss, and for the young man, whose sudden disappearance had been to him inexplicable, but in whose conduct he discovered the workings of an honourable nature. With this feeling in his breast, he forewent the indulgence of that animosity that was likely to be occasioned by the letter from the old laird; and he replied to it in a strain of cordiality and commiseration, disavowing, on the part of himself and his daughter, the application of any influence on the feelings of his son calculated to destroy his peace of mind; and denying, until the perusal of the young man's letter, any knowledge of his sentiments towards his daughter, and his entire ignorance of the cause of his disappearance. We may premise, that this explanation brought no further intercourse between the heads of the families, and that Mr. Williamson, though he believed that, if the intimacy between his daughter and young Ferguson had continued, the esteem which she entertained for his young friend would have developed itself into a reciprocation of those sentiments which it was evident had actuated the young man in his confession and flight; yet, at the same time, he did not conceive it possible, in the absence of any confession to his daughter, that such feelings could have existed in her breast. Therefore he deemed it quite unnecessary to explain to her the information he had obtained, more especially as she had made no enquiry as to the cause of Ferguson's absence, nor even mentioned his name. Though, as we have said, Miss Williamson preserved a perfect silence on the name of the absentee, yet she was fully sensitive to the nature of his feelings, and pretty shrewdly divined the cause of his flight. In the midst of this, while the lady's mind was racked by love, pity, and disappointment, the young physician pressed for a further contemplation of his suit, and met with a repulse; which, though kind, and expressive of gratitude, was such as to smother any hope that he might have entertained of the possession of her devotion. To her father, this decision was the annihilation of a long cherished expectancy; but respecting his child's feelings, and being convinced she must have been actuated by some strong motives in her refusal, he refrained from pressing the cause of his friend, or enquiring the nature of his daughter's objections. It was only then that the light flashed across his mind, that his daughter might have loved young Ferguson; and he then determined, through his correspondents in New South Wales, to which colony the young man had emigrated, to keep his eye upon him; and, if conducive to the happiness of his daughter, to further his prospects by an unforeseen agency. Some time had elapsed from the period of which we speak; and young Ferguson, by his persevering industry, and the influence and assistance of some friends, who had sought and cultivated his acquaintance through the solicitation of his kind and generous patron, Mr. Williamson, had obtained a position of comfort and moderate competency. In the meantime, matters had gone on with the Williamsons very much as usual, until the mental anxiety, occasioned by some severe reverses in busines, had prostrated the merchant on a bed of sickness, where the affectionate energies of the daughter, in her ministerial responsibilities, were displayed in their brightest effulgence. During one of her occasions of attendance, she was requested by her father to select from papers in his cabinet some documents to which he wished to refer; and while in the execution of this duty, her eye chanced to fall upon one, the peculiar chirography of which was strange to her, though in its body she more than once caught the repetition of her own name. She took up the paper to satisfy herself as to its authorship, and her surprise was immeasurable when she glanced at the extended sheet and noticed the autograph of John Ferguson, and throughout the whole epistle discovered the fervent breathings of a deep affection for herself. From the reverie into which she fell, she was aroused by the voice of her father, and retracing her steps slowly and noiselessly to his bedside, while giving vent to her emotions in a deep sigh, she placed the letter in his hands. The sick man glanced at it, and then at the face of his daughter, who answered his enquiring look by putting the question, "and this sacrifice, then, was for me?" "Say not sacrifice, my child," replied the parent; "the young man has prospered as he deserved. I periodically hear of his welfare; for, believing from circumstances that transpired that you sympathized with him, I felt an interest in his career. I now see that my surmises were correct, that you loved one another, though nothing on the subject was ever breathed between you; and I have no fear, if God spares me to rise from this bed, but that I shall shortly see you both happy." He was as good as his word; for, being soon sufficiently recovered to resume his occupation, he took an early opportunity of corresponding with young Ferguson, explaining how he came into possession of the secret of his heart; how he had made himself acquainted with the course of his life, relating the circumstance of his discovering his daughter's feelings; and expressing his entire concurrence in their marriage, if the young man retained his attachment. It is almost unnecessary to say, this brought a response in person, and resulted in the happy union of the young people. Mr. Williamson, whose business had not prospered very well of late years, broke up his establishment and accompanied his daughter and son-in-law to Sydney, where he settled; while the young couple proceeded to the station of the bridegroom. It is at this spot we now find them still located, happy and prosperous, and blessed with a family of whom they were justly proud. The eldest son, John, was a fine handsome young man, of about two-and-twenty, tall and robust, with regular and pleasing features, rather florid complexion, light brown hair, beard and moustache, with a disposition kind and generous, and a manner sedate and retiring. Our friend William, whose acquaintance we have already formed, was a fine lively fellow of about twenty, not quite so tall as his brother, with a cheerful and pleasant countenance, a profusion of rich curly flaxen hair, and a disposition the counterpart of his father's. Their sister, Kate, was the third. She was about eighteen years of age, in the first blush and florescence of youth; the idol of her parents, and the pet of her brother William (whom she resembled in her disposition and complexion), while she seemed to have inherited her mother's beauty and virtues. Besides these, there were three other children, two girls and a boy; but as we shall have no occasion to notice them in our narrative, we will merely mention that they were as pretty and interesting, and as well conducted and dutiful, as children usually are. Though this family had rarely been away from their home in the bush, and seldom called upon to exercise their hospitality on others than the neighbouring settlers, or receive their father's magisterial friends, they possessed all the acquirements of a polished education, and the ease, grace, and elegance of a fashionable training, more as an inherent quality of their nature than as the effect of example from their neighbours. CHAPTER II "Then blessings all. Go, children of my care, To practice now, from theory repair." POPE. When William Ferguson left the presence of his sister, he hastened with his sable attendant to overtake his brother; whom he joined a few miles on the road. As might have been gathered from his conversation with his sister, the object of the brothers in undertaking their present journey, was to visit some tracts of country, the right of tenure to which was offered them by the possessor for sale; and if the nature of the country pleased and suited their views, it was the intention of their father to purchase it, and start them in life, by giving them sufficient sheep to commence stocking it. To decide upon the eligibleness of the run, they had appointed to meet the vendor at his station, and to proceed together to the ground, inspect it, and form their own opinion of its capabilities. With this intention, they had left Acacia creek early in the day, to enable them to reach the town of Warwick before night, and their place of appointment by the close of the third day. New England, in the northern portion of which their father's station was situated, is separated from what was then known as the Moreton Bay district by a geographical boundary, formed by the peculiar face of the country; consisting of stony plains and bare ridges, and establishing a natural division in the courses of the rivers, the routes of traffic, and the intercourse of the people. Moreton Bay, which is situated on the eastern shore of the Australian continent, about five hundred miles north of Sydney, was first settled as a penal colony in the year 1824, and retained its position, as one of the vilest hells and sinks of iniquity, until the year 1842; when, to satisfy the enterprizing demand of the settlers for new country to occupy with their herds, convicts were withdrawn, and the district thrown open to free settlement. The country to the back of this, and skirting the coast, is mostly undulating; in some parts very broken and hilly, and traversed by rivers of considerable size. Parallel to the coast line, at an average distance of from fifty to seventy miles, the land rises abruptly and almost precipitously, in what is called the "Main Range," to an altitude of some three thousand feet, and extends in rich and fertile plains for thousands of square miles. This table-land, covered with the most luxurient pasturage, and displaying an unbroken extent of splendid country, like a succession of highly cultivated parks, is known as the "Darling Downs," and at the time of Mr. Ferguson's settlement of Acacia creek was conceived to be only a trackless waste, offering no inducement to squatters to risk their lives and property in its settlement or exploration. Such, however, was the rapidity, when its value became known, with which flocks after flocks poured into "the Downs," following the footsteps of the first pioneer, that in the course of a few years, what was before an unknown wilderness, became one of the most favoured and thriving of the pastoral districts of the colony. It was approaching this delectable land, then, that we left our young heroes, when making this digression. They had journeyed some time over these dividing plains, depending more in their course upon the position of the sun, than on any visible road or track, when they determined to push on for Warwick; as, owing to the dilatory manner in which they had been riding, they had still a long distance to proceed, and the sun was fast sinking on the horizon. They accordingly urged their horses into a sharp canter; and soon emerged from the barren part through which they had been journeying, into the more hospitable country approaching the town; where they purposed halting for the first night. As the sun sank below the western hills our travellers drew near, by one of the three converging roads, the antipodean town of Warwick; which, to describe to the reader, we need only to say, seen at a short distance, bears a striking resemblance to an English village, and will sustain very creditable comparison with some of the prettiest in our blessed and favoured isle. This view, however, the young men were not at the time permitted to enjoy; as in that country, where there is little or no twilight, darkness almost instantly succeeds sunset; and the panorama that lay stretched before them was rendered indistinct by the fast approaching shades of night. Pleasing as Warwick appears at a distant view, upon a close inspection the favourable impression of a stranger is likely in a great measure to be dispelled; for there is about it, in common with all other bush towns, an air of carelessness and discomfort, calculated to destroy the interest felt by its extreme freshness and novelty. One or two pretty wide streets may be noticed laid out at right angles, their lines and extent being presented to the eye, by the fences enclosing the inhabitants' properties, and residences; which are sparsely distributed over the extent of the settlement; frequently leaving entire unenclosed gaps in the lines of streets. The houses are built according to the will or caprice of the owner, without any degree of uniformity, in all imaginable positions, and of all possible architecture; some few of brick, but the majority of wood (either weather-board or slab). Here, you may see a fine brick edifice facing the main street, containing possibly a large shop and store-house, with a comfortable dwelling; and forming one line of buildings, which are faced by a deep verandah, on the part of which before the shop goods of all descriptions may be seen exposed. This is easily recognised as the establishment of the principal store-keeper of the town; while his less opulent trading brethren carry on their vocations in humbler tenements. On the opposite side of the street will be perceived a long one-storied building, also with a verandah (on to which all the rooms open by means of French lights); and, even without the aid of the pendent sign, would be readily distinguished as the principal hotel. In one end of the building will be situated the bar, where the common herd congregate in their libations, and in the other the coffee-room; where the more exalted lords of the creation assemble to discuss, at the same time, the liquors and edibles of mine host, their own local politics, and bucolic topics; ever the subjects of paramount importance to the squatter. In all probability, the next habitation will be a slab hut, roofed with sheets of bark; the whole structure standing on a spot of ground about eight feet square, not even dignified or protected by a fence, and contrasting strangely with the adjoining property. Here we will have an enclosure of about an acre of ground; displaying, in its tastefully laid out grass plots and flower beds, the neatly trimmed creepers, and the air of order and comfort about the pretty little cottage which stands in the centre of this Eden, the taste for refinement, tranquillity, permanent settlement, and happiness, so rarely to be met with in the bush. The cottage is a square four-roomed one, with detached kitchen and out-houses. It is built of what are called weather boards, that is planks sawn diagonally so as to be of the thickness of about one inch at one edge, and about a quarter of an inch on the other. In the construction of such a house, the form, or skeleton, is erected first, and these boards are then affixed so as to overlap one another; each plank as it is put on being made to cover, with its thick side, the thin edge of the one preceding it: thus being alike impervious to wind and weather. The roof is shingled, or, in other words, covered with pieces of wood split into much the same shape as narrow slates, and put on in a similar manner. The cottage has a verandah on its front, enclosed by a small railing, tastefully painted, and ornamented with a few running plants, which intwine its posts; and, while charming the eye, lend the delicacy of their fragrance to render to this spot the enchantment of an Arcadian bower, when the family adjourn thence from the interior of the house, to enjoy the refreshing zephyrs of the summer evenings. The windows facing this verandah are made to open in the French fashion, so that, upon opening any one of them, a person can step out at once; they are protected from the sun by venetians, which are generally folded back, and which, with the railings of the verandah, are painted green, while the house itself is scrupulously white. The door is of polished cedar, and adorned with a bright brass knocker and plate, which may possibly have done service in London, or some other city or town in the old country. Picture such a spot as this in the imagination, kind reader; and some idea may be formed of the residence of the medical man of the place. The feeling of admiration, occasioned by witnessing the charming domicile of the local disciple of �sculapius, is only equalled by the disgust experienced at gazing on the apparent wreck, filth, and squallor of the next tenement. Standing contiguous is another such hut; prevented only by the support of a stout pole, which props its frail and shaken frame, from ending that miserable existence of which it seems ashamed; while it proclaims its humility by an apparent emulation of the posture of that far-famed structure of Pisa. This dwelling is probably followed by an edifice of a similar kind, though of more spacious dimensions and solid construction; and, by the sparks emitted from a low chimney, the din of the workman's hammer, and the dull heavy sound of the bellows, is distinguished as the abode of the village Vulcan; while the surrounding yard, with drays in various stages of dilapidation, wheels, poles, axles, and other dismemberments strewing the ground, presents the appearance of a perfect vehicular golgotha. With one or two wool-laden drays drawn up before a public-house, in which the guardians of the tractive animals, and who are designated bullock-drivers, are solacing themselves with a plentiful libation of the liquor which cheers and also inebriates; a similar ponderous vehicle, stationed before the door of the first described premises, undergoing the operation of lading with stores for a distant station; a few horses tied up to the posts in front of the hotels; a few equestrians; as many pedestrians; a sprinkling of the sable sons of the soil in all imaginable variety of costumes, composed of the left-off garments of their fair-skinned brethren; here, a gigantic denizen of the forest standing in the centre of a street, raising his majestic head high above the settlement, and seeming to look down with lofty contempt on the scenes enacted beneath him; there, the charred stump of another tree, with its semi-calcined trunk lying by its side, where it had fallen at some remote period, perhaps years before the settlement had been thought of; but had never been removed, on the principle that each burgess thought it no business of his, and the one most interested and affected never dreaming that a small personal outlay of money and trouble would be of considerable benefit and advantage to himself; in the wet weather, with the streets, which are nothing but the surface soil without any improvement, save the hardening of continual traffic in the dry season, transformed into a mass of mud and mire, into which drays sometimes sink to their axles, equestrians to their horse's knees, and foot passengers, unless well acquainted with their location, often plunge only to extricate themselves with the loss of a boot; and with the occasional enclosures in the neighbourhood, of paddocks more or less covered with trees, interspersed by numerous fallen and rotting trunks, half burnt logs, and gigantic stumps, the reader has a general description of bush towns, and (with some slight and insignificant modifications) of the town of Warwick. They rarely have much industry, and as little enterprise; while, there being no extensive demand for artistic or mechanical labour, and no agricultural pursuits, the inhabitants are generally dependent upon the trade arising from their intercourse with the squatters. As we have already informed the reader, it was nearly dark when the young Fergusons rode into Warwick; and dismounting at the door of the "Bullock's Head," leaving their horses and packs to the charge of their black boy Joey, they ensconced themselves in the general apartment of the hostlery dignified by the name of coffee-room. If the room had few pretensions to elegance, it had less to cleanliness, and least of all to comfort; its furniture consisted of a long table, protected by an oil-cloth cover, on which stood a hand bell, and a jug containing water of very questionable purity. Around it were arranged a number of solid cedar chairs, in the manufacture of which the desideratum to be attained seemed to have been a capacity to withstand the rough usage they were destined to endure; and they bore unmistakable evidences of having, at various periods of their existence, taken part in some severe and desperate conflicts. On the mantelpiece stood some stoneware representations of maids and swains, who combined a pastoral occupation with the gratification of a musical talent; while they gazed with a languishing air on their protrusive neighbour, a portly individual with a highly-coloured, rubicund, and grinning physiognomy, and scalpless cranium, from which he invited the lovers of the narcotic weed to extract a supply of that universal solace. These were supported, on the background, by a mirror of ordinary size; which presented unmistakable signs of the household's reluctance to disturb the sacred dust of ages. Its sides and corners had a very dingy appearance, like an opaque coating, which left a circle in the centre of dim translucency; and from this circumstance, a visitor might have assumed that some individual, wishing to gratify his vanity by seeing a reflection of his own visage, had applied his sleeve, at the same time that he exercised his arm in a rotary motion, to remove the impediments to such vision. The lining of boards to the room had been covered, in the general ornature, with a gorgeous coloured paper; but no precaution had been taken to provide for the wood's shrinking, and the consequence was that the paper had split with the timber's contraction, and left a gap between each board it covered. Around the walls were distributed some antique prints, such as Queen Victoria in her gracious teens, considerably discoloured by the application of water, in a manner in no way advantageous to her complexion; a coloured print of the Derby in "the good old times," and the representation of a naval conflict executed in a bold and imposing style, with a studied disregard to perspective. The floor was covered with a dingy half worn oil-cloth; while half a dozen men were sitting at the table smoking, drinking, and maintaining an animated and boisterous dialogue upon the relative merits of their horses. Such then was the place and company in which our young friends found themselves, and were hardly noticed as they rang the bell to attract the attention of some one in the house. Their summons was, after a time, answered by a bare-armed, bearded, and greasy-looking biped of the genus homo, honoured by the confidence of the landlord, deigning to fill the post of waiter, and, from a deformity of his person, rejoicing in the soubriquet of "Hopping Dick." To a request, to be shown a room which they might appropriate for the night, the brothers were ushered into a crib leading out of the coffee-room, and measuring about eight feet square; while on each side of it was stationed a bed of similar dimensions to a coffin, with appurtenances of relative magnitude. After depositing their valises and ordering a meal, they strolled out to the stables to see that Joey had well looked after their horses; and, upon their recal by the limping Ganymede, turned into the house to partake of their repast. During their short absence, the company had increased by the entrance of a few of the towns-people, who had joined the circle, and added fresh impetus to the argument (if their disjointed disputation could be called such), and stimulated an increased devotion at the shrine of Bacchus. Amid this earthly pandemonium, John Ferguson and his brother sat down to discuss their meal. The "fast" style of life, so common among the early settlers in the bush, but now happily dying out, rarely found favour in the eyes of the native youths of the colony; and the Fergusons, having been brought up to entertain an abhorence of such scenes, naturally felt a repugnance to the society into which they now found themselves thrown. Curiosity to see the termination of their companion's orgies, however, detained them in the room; and for the consummation of their desire, they were not destined to wait long. The party consisted principally of individuals called "supers," or more properly speaking, the superintendents of stations, the owners of which were not resident on their properties; and in the management of which, excepting the disposal of stock, they had entire control: a few settlers of considerable means, whose stations, being situated in the remote bush, afforded them very rare opportunities of visiting town, but, when such an occasion presented itself, it was the means of supplying an indulgence, such as the present, of the wildest and most reckless course of dissipation that could be devised: one or two settlers of minor importance, and dignified with the title of "stringy bark" or "cockatoo" squatters: and, as we have already said, one or two of the towns-people, who would run into any excess, and expose themselves to any expense and ignominy, to court the patronage, conversation, and companionship of the squatter, who in his sobriety would not condescend even to recognise him, made up the group. At one end of the table, sat a squatter of collosal size, whose features were hardly discernible from the hair that almost covered his face. He was dressed in the usual bush costume: that is, a low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, made of the platted fibre of the cabbage tree, and called after the plant from which it is named, "a cabbage tree hat;" a loose woollen frock, barely covering his hips, made so as, in putting on and taking off, to require slipping over the head, and as a garment of constant use, is elegantly designated "a jumper;" and heavy knee riding boots with spurs. The name in which he seemed to be recognised, from its frequent mention by the company, was Smith. Adding to his uncouth appearance and wild gesticulation, he had a voice decidedly unmusical; while his conversation was copiously interlarded with expletives, anathematizing some portion of his anatomy. This was the presiding spirit of the conclave. The excitement by this time ran high; great had been the exploits detailed by the company of their various steeds, and the dangers through which they had carried their several owners; while the prodigies of speed, power, patience, and endurance, enumerated of the wonderful animals, would have made even Bucephalus hang his head at the idea of his own ordinary capacity. How long this state of braggadocio would have lasted, it is impossible to say; probably until a vinous philanthropy subdued the mental faculties of the company, and acted as an opiate on their senses, by composing them to sleep under the canopy (not of heaven), but of the table. But the mere relation of deeds was speedily brought to a stand, by the challenge of Smith to bet "a shout" to the party all round, or accept the same himself from any one there, that he would ride his own horse into the room, and leap him over the table without touching or displacing anything on it. No one of the boasted equestrians offered to perform the feat; though the bet was readily accepted involving Smith's performance of the exploit; but before we proceed to detail the attempt, we may be permitted to enlighten our readers upon the nature of the bet. "A shout," in the parlance of the Australian bush, is an authority or request to the party in waiting in a public-house to supply the bibulous wants of the companions of the shouter, who of course bears the expense; and when a shout is proffered as an earnest of sociality, or as an obligation in a bet, it indicates the disposition, in the one case, to increase as much as possible the cost of the shout, while it involves the necessity, in the other, to provide whatever is required by the recipients. Smith speedily appeared with his horse saddled and ready for the leap; and to give him a better opportunity of performing his task, his friends had removed the table to a transverse position, and stationed themselves along the sides of the room, to witness the performance: carrying on their conversation in as animated a spirit as ever; while varying their opinions of his chances of success with bets on the event, and arrangements for fresh trials of a similar kind. The landlord, who from the increased din and uproar, imagined something was astir, made enquiries of his oleaginous-looking colleague, by whom he was apprised of the proceedings; but being accustomed to scenes of equal recklessness, and being, moreover, a discreet man, and anticipating, in the event of any breakages, a means of reaping a plentiful harvest, he was conveniently deaf, and found occasion for his presence at a spot far removed from the scene of action. From his retreat, however, he was speedily summoned by Hopping Dick, to witness the result of the manoeuvre. It would be difficult to describe the scene that presented itself to the landlord's vision, upon his entering the coffee-room; where, from the boisterous laughing of some of the party, the interjective swearing of others, the Babel of voices advising and expostulating, and the crowding in of the towns-people, who had been attracted to the house by a rumour of what was going on,--he could hardly discern the nature of the accident, the extent of the injury sustained, or, what concerned him most, the damage done to his furniture and premises. Upon clearing the room of strangers, and removing, as far as possible, the signs of wreck, he retired, leaving his lodgers to their meditations; while he indulged in calculations bearing a direct application on the late amphitheatre practice. He was, as we have already said, a prudent man in matters of monetary interest, and he wished not to question the acts of gentlemen residing in his house, and therefore desired no explanation; but, for the reader's enlightenment, we will briefly detail the circumstances that occasioned this untoward event. Smith brought his horse, which was a noble high-bred animal, into the room; and when the door was closed, he mounted for the leap. Intoxicated as he was, it was evident from his deportment he was a good rider; and sitting well and firmly in his saddle, was certainly a picture for admiration; though, to a thoughtful mind, the feeling would give rise to a regret, that some more dignified object had not called forth the energies of the man, than that which made a ridiculous exhibition of himself, degraded his noble steed, and risked his own neck. However, no such remorse entered the breast of the redoubtable horseman; and with a glance of conscious success directed round the room at his anticipating companions, he dashed spurs into the sides of his steed. The animal thus urged, apparently terrified with the uproar that assailed his ears, and hardly knowing, in the singularity of the situation, what was required of him, exhibited symptoms of terror and uneasiness. His rider, however, was not to be deterred from his purpose, and bringing him up to the edge of the table, again administered the spurs at the same time that he raised him to the leap; while the horse, frightened by the excited throng around him, and having his metal thoroughly aroused, made one bound, more than adequate to take him clear of the table. The rider not anticipating so lofty a spring, and incautiously omitting to take due precaution in the suddenness of his exaltation, allowed his head to come in violent contact with the ceiling; which stunning him, and causing him, in his attempt to recover himself, to suddenly draw up his reins, had the effect of swerving his horse from his balance, and brought the pair down amidst the symbols of the late revel. While they lay stretched on the floor, surrounded by the ruins of the table and the fragments of glass, both bleeding and bruised, the landlord made his appearance; and after removing the astonished quadruped to more congenial quarters, the frolicsome and sportive inebriates separated for the night. The thoughts of the young men, as they retired to rest, after having been the silent spectators of the late scene, may well be imagined; such to them was entirely new, and the disgust which it gave rise to in the mind of John was fully equalled by the contempt engendered in that of William; though, it must be confessed, when the contemplation of the event passed through the latter's brain, he could not refrain from indulging in a laugh at the ridiculous appearance of the actors, and from feeling amused at the humiliating termination of the vain gasconade of the pompous and conceited principal, who became a self-immolated victim to his own vanity. The only object that excited one spark of William's pity or sympathy, was the poor deluded horse. With these reflections, and an occasional outbreak of reminiscent cachinnations on the part of the junior, the brothers dropt off to sleep, tired with the day's journey and the events of the night. CHAPTER III. "The fiend's alarm began; a hollow sound Sung in the leaves; the forest rock'd around, Air blackened,--rolled the thunder,--groan'd the ground." DRYDEN. Early on the following morning, John and William prepared to resume their journey; and, upon a settlement of their reckoning with their host, they were not a little surprised and annoyed to find a considerable item in their bill set down for the damage caused by the previous night's debauch. This exaction they resisted, but to no purpose. The landlord was no respecter of persons, and was inexorable in his demands; they were present during the scene, and consequently, in his eyes, implicated and liable to pay for their pleasure. Besides which, he intended to reap a rich harvest from the event, and charge the same to each party staying in his house; notwithstanding that the sum apportioned to each individual was ample to indemnify him for any loss he had sustained. Not being in the habit, however, of having his demands called into question, he was not in this case inclined to relinquish his intention of enforcing the payment; and the brothers were therefore constrained to submit to the extortion. The shortest though more intricate route to Brompton, the station of Mr. Smithers, was through the bush, following a line described to them by an old shepherd of their father's who well knew that part of the country; and, being experienced bushmen themselves, they determined upon taking that course in preference to the more circuitous, though better defined, dray road and townships. With this intention, provided with a descriptive sketch of the country, a pocket compass, and the sagacity and instinct of their black boy, they started for Barra Warra, a station distant about fifty miles; which was centrally situated, and from whence there was a postman's track to Brompton. To reach this point before dark, it was necessary to push on; as, should they not complete their distance in daylight, it would necessitate the alternative of spending a night in the bush; a circumstance, which, though not likely to cause any uneasiness to a bushman, was, in the possibility of obtaining comfortable quarters, as well to be avoided. Nothing of any note occurred in the ride, until well on in the afternoon; when they began to detect signs of their approach to an extensive station, and expected shortly to witness symptoms of animation and habitation. The weather during the greater part of the day had been exceedingly sultry; which, with the heavy appearance of the sky, was a portentous indication of storm. In order to escape this, and reach the shelter of the station before the rending of the heavens, the young men urged their weary horses to an accelerated speed. They rode on; still without coming upon any track that would guide them to the station they knew could not be far distant; when an occasional low rumbling noise of distant thunder announced the approach of the warring elements; and with the gradual extinction of the sun's rays, made them feel the unpleasantness of their situation, and a desire to be well housed. The instinct of the black here made its value apparent; for, where nothing was visible even to the practised eye of either John or William, he suddenly discerned the tracks of sheep; and naturally inferring that they must either be directed towards, or from, the head station; and also detecting the track of the shepherd, who must have accompanied the flock, easily deciding which must have been the homeward course, he took the lead of the party, and piloted them with his eyes fixed upon the ground; travelling as speedily as their horses could proceed. Very little distance, however, had been accomplished; and the increasing gloom lent its darkness to the shades of night already setting in; when a few heavy drops of moisture, accompanied by a flash of vivid light, that made the horses start and tremble; and followed by a peal of thunder that seemed to shake the very earth; announced to the travellers that they were in for an unpleasant experience, in all probability, of a miserable night. The trio, however, still held on their way; the black boy, during the momentary illuminations caused by the repeated flashes of lightning, continued to discern the, but to him, evanescent path; and with spasmodic starts; and intervals of salient progression, proceeded in his guiding course. The appearance of the forest was fearfully sublime; the tall bare trunks of the gigantic gum-trees, with their surfaces of immaculately smooth bark of a pale bluish hue, appearing as if they had by some unaccountable agency been stripped of their natural skin, contrasted strangely with the surrounding gloom. When the momentary flashes of light lit up the darkness of the woods, and revealed the naked stems, like argenteous columns supporting the black canopy of eternal shades, they displayed a scene calculated to create in an imaginative fancy the existence of a vast catacomb of departed dryads; while it inspired the mind with awe, at the presence of the dread power that moves the spirit of the storm. Still, down came the rain; flash followed upon flash; and the thunder rolled as if the whole heavens were rent by the mighty convulsions of the elements. The storm by this time had reached the culminating point; and the volume of water, pouring upon the earth, gave to the ground the appearance of one vast swamp; while it obliterated, even to the acute vision of the black, all signs of the track that had been leading them to their night's destination. Nothing now seemed to offer them any chance of an alleviation of their discomfort; no sound could be caught by the quick ear of Joey, that would tend to lead them to the desired refuge; no abatement of the storm appeared probable; and in the perfect obscurity of the night, any removal from their present position would only involve them, in all probability, more in the bush, and render their extrication more tedious and difficult. To add to their misery, they were cold and drenched, had no possibility of lighting a fire, or indulging in that balm for every misfortune, a pipe; and with their horses almost knocked up, they saw no alternative but to take what little protection a tree afforded, and wait for the morning. Their position had attained this climax of wretchedness, when it struck John Ferguson that Joey might be able to hear or see something from the top of one the trees, that would lead them to shelter; he therefore requested the black, as a forlorn hope, to try it. Joey, upon receiving his command, selected a piece of wild vine sufficiently long to give him a firm hold in each hand, while it compassed the trunk of a good-sized tree; then divesting himself of his boots, and choosing one of the largest stems he could distinguish, he prepared to mount an old blue gum, whose trunk rose for fully forty feet smooth and straight, and without an impediment or excrescence. Putting his supple vine-stalk round the tree, and firmly grasping each end of the cane by his hands, he placed his feet firmly against the stalwart denizen of the woods, and rose in bounding starts with a celerity astonishing to the uninitiated. Upon reaching the fork of the tree, and ascending the highest branch, he spent some moments gazing around, in the hope of detecting a friendly light in the surrounding gloom, but without success; not a gleam was visible, and not a sound, save the rumbling of the thunder and the heavy pattering of the rain, broke the solemn monotony of the storm. Disappointed and nearly disheartened, he communicated to his master below the ungrateful intelligence that nothing was perceptible; but preparatory to his descent, he gave a loud "cooey," in the faint hope that it might attract the attention of some human being. As we proceed, we may as well describe to the reader the nature of this signal. A "cooey" is, as its name implies, a call having the sound its orthography indicates; with a prolonged dwelling upon the first syllable, and a sharp determined utterance in its termination. This sound, which is peculiar to the Australian bush, uttered with the intonation and force of healthy lungs, can be heard at a surprising distance; and often, when used by one lost in the nemoral labyrinths of the country, is the means of attraction; and consequent deliverance from danger and probable death. It was, then, one of these efficient signals of distress that was uttered by Joey, with a lustiness that would have done credit to La Blache; and great was his joy when, after a few moments of listening, his ear caught the sound of a dog's barking. The canine infection spread rapidly over the settlement, and once started kept up an unceasing chorus from the throats of a whole pack; and guided by the friendly notice, our travellers were enabled to discern in which direction Barra Warra lay. They mounted their horses with stiff and weary limbs, though with lightened hearts, and proceeded for about a hundred yards in the direction whence echoed the barking; when, to their no little astonishment, they came upon the line of fence enclosing the paddocks attached to the house, and immediately struck the track leading to the station. By this they had the mortification to discover, that if they had been enabled to continue their course for a few minutes before the storm thickened, they would have, long ere then, been comfortably sheltered from the inclemency of the weather. However, they were not in a disposition to indulge in any vain regrets; and shortly arriving at the house, they presented themselves in their sad plight. The noise of the dogs had attracted the attention of the people of the place, who, imagining the cause, were expecting to see the approach of some traveller; so, when John and William made their appearance, they were met at the door by the owner of the station. This gentleman upon witnessing the condition of the young men, and instantly perceiving them to be of his own order, extended his hand to each; and expressing his regret at their misfortune, invited them into the house, and provided them with dry changes. A warm repast was quickly ready for them; and during its discussion they related their parentage, destination, and object of their journey, to their new friend, Mr. Dawson; who proved himself a most agreeable person. He informed them that he had heard of their father, and was delighted to make the acquaintance of his sons; he proffered the hospitality of his house for as long as they wished to stay; and pressed them to prolong their visit. This, however, would involve a breach of their engagement with Smithers; and, pleased as they were with the civility and kindness displayed in the invitation, they regretted they could not, on that occasion, accept it, and informed their entertainer that their object was to reach Brompton on the following day; which would necessitate a resumption of their journey early on the morrow. Mr. Dawson expressed sorrow that he could not induce them to remain; but trusted they would make his house their temporary home on some more convenient occasion; and informing them that he had then got a few friends stopping with him on a short visit, and who were then assembled in the drawing-room, he led the Fergusons off to introduce them. The young men naturally thought the company, to whom they were about to be ushered, consisted of some of the neighbouring squatters, who had volunteered their company for a few days to dispel their mutual monotony. But great was their surprise, when, upon entering a very comfortably (almost elegantly) furnished room, to see assembled several ladies, dispersed about the apartment; some in conversation with gentlemen; others at work, amusing or instructing the children; while one sat at a handsome cottage piano, running through some new music, brought to the station by one of her friends; and accompanying herself on the instrument, while singing in a sweet and melodious voice a new and popular song. To her, whom he addressed as his wife, the host introduced our travellers; detailing in a few words, the information respecting their movements, which they had themselves imparted to him; and then in turn went through the usual formality with the remainder of his guests. In society such as this, where restraint is unknown, and cordiality and hospitality reign supreme, it is not to be wondered at that our friends speedily found themselves at home; nor that their own prospects were canvassed by their new friends, with a zeal and freedom that would be considered unpardonable impertinence in the more settled and formal circles of the "old country." From the information obtained from the more experienced settlers, the Fergusons derived considerable benefit; and their friends' directions and opinions of the country, being, in the estimation of the young men, likely to be valuable, they determined to allow themselves, in a great measure, to be guided by them. The evening, enlivened by an occasional dance, music, and lively conversation, was passed exceedingly pleasantly by the brothers; who were perfectly delighted with their kind reception; and sadly regretted their inability to comply with their kind host's repeated entreaties to extend their visit. Mr. Dawson informed them that those pleasing reunions, had become quite numerous in that part of the country; where the degree of familiar and friendly intercourse established among the neighbouring families was such, that, after the bustle and occupation of shearing time was over, such a party, as he then had in his house, was formed alternately at each of the surrounding stations; and their leisure existence became a prolonged life of reciprocal good-feeling and friendship; which, by the means of this happy unity, were firmly cemented. On the following morning, the sun rose with a refreshed resplendence; and our young friends, after breakfasting, and taking a cordial leave of their kind entertainers and their friends, proceeded on their way to Brompton. The previous evening's storm had had the effect of deliciously cooling the atmosphere; and the sun's clear rays obliquely striking the fragrant gum-leaves, which fluttered high over-head in the gentle morning breeze, and still bathed, as it were, in tears for the late elemental strife, made them sparkle like glittering gems in the roof of their arboreous edifice. The aromatic exudation from the dwarfish wattle, with its May-like blossom, which seemed to flourish under the protection of its gigantic compeers; and the bright acacia, decking, with its brilliant hue, the sloping sward, both lent their aid in the general pageant. The shrill cry of the parrots, which, with their rich plumage flashing in the reflection of the sun, and almost dazzling the eye of the beholder, as they darted in their continued flight from tree to tree, in the exuberance of their conscious freedom and enjoyment of resuscitated nature, screeched their notes of thankfulness and admiration. The running streamlet, called into almost momentary existence, bounded and leapt its limpid volume through its tortuous and meandering course, insinuated its translucent body into masses of fibrous _debris_ and crevices of rock, to emerge in miniature cataracts, and murmur its allegiance to an all-smiling nature. The brightened face of morn greeted the young men upon their start; and with their spirits buoyant and animated by the refreshing influence of the delightful temperature, the surrounding fragrance, and the cheerful and exhilarating aspect of the bush, they rode with light and happy hearts. Their course, however, was tedious and troublesome, and at the same time dangerous; for the fury of the storm, which now showed what had been the extent of its force, in the destruction it had occasioned, had placed numerous traps on the road. Immense trees lay prostrate across their track, frequently necessitating a deviation from the path. Here a patriarch of the forest was riven to the root; with its splinters scattered in all directions; while one portion, still adhering in its connexion to the base, and supported by a branch resting on the ground, formed a triumphal arch across the road. There a similar denizen of the woods extended his humiliated form; torn up by the root, which had drawn with it masses of its congenial soil, seemingly unwilling to part with its natural element from which it had derived its sustenance. This would cause another deviation; and the treacherous nature of the ground (which was what bushmen call rotten, that is, superficially looking perfectly sound, though actually so soft that a horse would sink into it to his knees) rendered travelling insecure, and required the exercise of extreme caution. Hence the day was considerably advanced ere the travellers arrived at Brompton. As they approached this station, they were very much struck with its appearance. It was situated on a rising ground facing the Gibson river; which, with the heavy rains that had fallen, had risen considerably above its usual height, and had the appearance of a noble stream. The house itself was of the kind generally to be met with under similar circumstances; that is, a one-storied weather-boarded building of about six or eight rooms, mostly connected with one another, with a broad shady verandah, detached kitchen and stable, and other out-houses at a short distance removed from the dwelling. As a structure it had nothing about it that would attract special attention; it was simply neat, and had an appearance of comfort; but looked at in conjunction with the prettily arranged garden, with its tastefully laid out flower plots, and well stocked beds of vegetive edibles--and which was protected from the intrusion of quadrupeds by a substantial "pailing fence"--it was a snug and pleasant residence. Numerous and extensive enclosed paddocks stretched far down the banks of the river; and in them might have been seen quite a herd of horses luxuriating in the rich pasturage; while at a distance of a few hundred yards stood the enclosures forming the stock-yard, and, adjacent, the large wool-shed and the huts of the men. From these, smoke with graceful curls rose in the calm evening air, and gave to the _locale_ the appearance of a small though picturesque township; and, with the park-like appearance of the country, impressed our young travellers with the feeling, that Brompton was one of the most serene and delightful spots they had ever seen. This station was of considerable magnitude; and, being in the centre of a district becoming fast occupied by settlers and their stock, it was likely, at no very distant period, to become a place of considerable importance. The government had reserved a site for a township; and had already established a branch post-office for the convenience of the settlers in the neighbourhood; it might consequently be considered the _ultima thule_ of civilisation. The proprietor of the station, Mr. Alfred Smithers, was a gentleman in the meridian of life, who had, in the general exodus from the southern districts of the colony, come over into the Darling Downs in search of "new country;" and continuing to push on until he passed the boundary of the existing settlements, had alighted on a tract of land situated near the head of the Gibson river, to which it appeared no venturesome squatter had as then penetrated. He took up the "run" from government, gave it its present name, brought over his flocks, and established his station; then building a comfortable little cottage, which, since the erection of the present house, had been occupied by the overseer, he removed to it Mrs. Smithers and his family. His brother shortly afterwards followed him into this unknown wilderness, and not being possessed of any stock himself, assisted him in the general management of the station. The younger brother, Mr. Robert Smithers, more generally known among his friends as Bob Smithers, and of whom we shall have to make frequent mention in the course of our narrative, was a gentleman of rather prepossessing appearance; the junior of his brother by some ten years; but, unlike him, was of an unsettled and reckless disposition, rather fond of the society of wild and dissolute companions, and at times, when absent from home, exhibited symptoms of the old colonial leaven, and indulged in courses of dissipation and debauchery. On the station, however, he was energetic and industrious; and, at its early settlement, was of considerable service to his brother, not only in the general routine of the establishment, but from his implacable enmity to the blacks, whom he inspired with a wholesome dread of his prowess; so that, while their neighbours were continually suffering from the depredations of the sable marauders, their flocks and property were left intact. Shortly after Bob's juncture with his brother, and perceiving the number of settlers that continually migrated to this new district, he provisioned himself and a few domesticated blacks (that occasionally worked on the station, and on whom he could depend) with rations for two or three months; and being well armed for his own protection, in case of a collision with any of his colleagues' countrymen, or of their treachery, he took his departure on a prospecting tour. Following the course of the river, and exploring the creeks and tributaries augmenting it, he drew a rough sketch or plan of the surface of the country, noting the different hills, creeks, and landmarks, to which he gave names; and marking the trees at various spots, to indicate to any future searcher that the country had been selected. He then divided his plan into divisions, which he roughly estimated to contain each about twenty or thirty thousand acres; and dignifying them with names, he sent into government, tenders for their lease. At the time of which we speak, in the survey department of the legislature, very little was known of the country designated "the unsettled districts," but which were fast filling up; and as little enquiries were made by the authorities, as to the accuracy of the sketches and estimations in the tenders, in the absence of any others, they were necessarily accepted at the minimum rate of ten guineas per annum each. Thus Mr. Robert Smithers became, for a small annual rental, the lessee of a tract of country equal in extent to an European principality. Although, without the present means of stocking the land thus obtained, Bob Smithers knew perfectly well that as the country became taken up and occupied, and as fresh settlers poured in, he would find many who would purchase his right to the "runs" at pretty round sums, in preference to pushing out still further; besides, having no absolute necessity to sell them, he could continue to hold out, until their value sufficiently advanced to induce him to effect a sale. A prospect of a profitable realization having now presented itself, he had been offering them; and it was for one of these runs that the Fergusons were in treaty. Their approach to the station had been noticed from the house; and upon their arrival at the door, they were welcomed by Mr. Alfred Smithers, who at once concluded who they were; so consigning their horses to the care of a man in waiting and their own black boy Joey, they entered the domicile, and were introduced to Mrs. Smithers and the family. In the absence of his brother, who was shortly expected in, John fell into conversation with Mr. Smithers, respecting the country they were about to visit, and their proposed operations, should they decide upon purchasing; while William, with his usual frankness, subsided into a friendly conversation with the lady, while he playfully noticed the children, with whom he instantly became a great favourite. The internal arrangements of the house seemed in perfect keeping with its external appearance of comfort: order, decorum, and cleanliness, seemed its characteristics; and happiness and contentment that of the inmates' existence. Mr. Smithers was evidently a man of domestic attachments; one whose greatest pleasure was in his family; while his wife was blessed with an equally happy temperament, devoted to her husband, with whom and her children she divided her entire affection. Their family consisted of three, two boys and a girl; who, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which they laboured, were exeeedingly obedient and well mannered, without any of the wayward forwardness, and rude precosity, so generally to be met with in children brought up under similar auspices. Though hospitable and kind in the extreme, from their remote and secluded position, the Smitherses were rarely visited by strangers; and even their few neighbours were either located at such considerable distances that it made visiting inconvenient, or they were people of a stamp who had no relish for their society. Mr. Smithers never visited town, except when business made it absolutely necessary, and his amiable wife never entertained any desire to leave her family; consequently it was not to be wondered at, from the time of her arrival at the station, five years before the period of which we speak, she had never left it longer than for a day's ride, to return the courtesies of some of her nearest friends. Bob Smithers, as we have already said, was inclined occasionally to exceed the bounds of temperance and decorum; but even he sincerely respected his sister-in-law, and never ventured to violate propriety by the introduction of such companions as he knew would be distasteful to her. At the same time, the influence of her presence acted as a check upon his wild and uncouth habits, and prevented him from giving way so entirely to his reckless propensities as he would have done under no such restraint. The Fergusons were well pleased with the portion of the Smithers' _menage_ they had met; and during the interval that they were waiting for the return of Bob, who had, so his brother informed them, been detained somewhere on the run, probably through the swollen nature of the creeks, they enjoyed one of the most pleasant evenings they had spent for a long time. The absentee made his appearance late in the evening, and after a mutual introduction, informed his visitors that he had hardly expected them for a day or two. The rain in the neighbourhood of Brompton, they discovered, had been falling for some days, and had been considerably heavier than on the higher parts of the river; while, owing to the large body of water that had fallen, Bob stated that all the rivers were too much swollen to admit of their being crossed, and advised, for their mutual comfort, that their expedition should be delayed for a few days to give the water time to subside. This advice was backed up by the rest of the family, who were unanimous in expressing the delight they would feel in their friends extending the term of their visit; while they, having no objections themselves to such a course, gladly responded to the appeal, and considered themselves stationary until the river would admit of their proceeding on their expedition. With this arrangement settled, they finally separated for the night. CHAPTER IV. "Ye vig'rous swains! while youth ferment your blood, And purer spirits swell the sprightly flood, Now range the hills." POPE. On the third day after the Fergusons' arrival, Bob Smithers, believing the river had sufficiently subsided to admit of their travelling, organized their party preparatory to their departure; and selected from his own men one of the most useful and experienced bushmen to accompany them, and in conjunction with Joey, to take charge of the pack-horses, follow them over the runs, and guard their camp. They started; and, for the first day, followed the course of the Gibson river, which for nearly thirty miles bounded the Brompton run. At this point its waters were joined by a tributary creek, and here was situated one of the out-stations. It was the intention of Bob Smithers to reach this place before dark; and, owing to the heavy nature of the ground, from its excessive saturation, it was with no little difficulty this portion of the journey was performed. However, they reached the shepherd's hut; and unburdening their horses, they hobbled them and turned them out to graze, while they camped themselves for the night. The hut, where they made their halt, was on a par with others of the same pretensions, though in no way superior. It was built of slabs split from the log, and freely ventilated on all sides; though in the roof, which was covered with bark, it was perfectly impervious to the weather. The internal arrangements, as might be expected, were as rough as the building itself; against the wall, in each side of the hut, were roughly put up, with battens and saplings, two clumsy-looking receptacles, containing the blankets, and intended for the nocturnal tenancy of the two occupants of the habitation. A box belonging to one of the men, and a rough bench built against the other unoccupied wall, and serving for a table, an iron pot for boiling meat, two tin quart pots in which to make their tea, two pint ones and dishes of the same metal, a two-gallon keg containing water, and which in an inverted position at times had to do duty as a stool, and two suspended bags containing tea and sugar, completed the furniture of the place. In front of the door a large log had been rolled, and was burning with lively force, emitting a lurid glare on the surrounding group; while on its end untouched by the fire, sat the hut-keeper, with his companion standing near him, and their visitors stretched on the ground awaiting the completion of the culinary operations of Bob Smithers' man. The position of these guardians of the fleece is usually monotonous and dreary in the extreme; and those located here were a fair sample of the general herd. There was a shepherd and a hut-keeper. The duty of the former was to lead out the flocks daily at dawn, to follow and tend them while depasturing, and protect them from the depredations of the blacks, or the molestations of the native dogs; for which purpose in very remote districts, such as this, they are provided with guns. The hut-keeper, on the other hand, remains all day at the hut, resting from his vigils and preparing the meals of himself and coadjutor, in readiness for the latter's return at dusk with his charge; which are forthwith penned and handed over to the safe keeping of the other, who watches them during the night. These men remain in this happy state of seclusion and ignorance of the proceedings of the world, from which they are thus (by their voluntary act of expatriation) excluded, from year's end to year's end; except at shearing time, when they bring their flocks to the head station to be shorn; and the only being with whom they have any intercourse, is the man who brings them their weekly supply of rations. When "old hands," they in general pass their lives in a lethargic existence; having no apparent thought of past, present, or future; but breathe on in a dreamy obliviousness, until at the expiration of perhaps one or two years, their wages having accumulated to an amount somewhat considerable, they leave their employment to proceed to the nearest public-house and plunge into a course of drinking. After the endurance of a week's delirium, madness, and unconsciousness, they generally find themselves, when robbed of the greater portion of their hard-got earnings, thrust upon the world penniless, wretched, dispirited, and sick, to seek employment and re-enact the same scenes of solitary penance and wild debauchery. It is true the denizens of these out-stations are not always such characters; occasionally "fresh arrivals," or as they are called "new chums," may be hired by the squatter's agents in town and sent up to the station, whence they are frequently removed to these outposts; but when such is the case, they are generally of a more sociable disposition, and take an early opportunity of being removed to the comfort and social intercourse of the head station. Though in this removal they entail more constant and arduous occupation, they willingly embrace the labour, and leave the indolence of their vacated posts, to be enjoyed by some "old hand" whose mind has been broken by the depressing influence of constant punishment, and whose hopes have been blighted by a constant penal servitude. As this class of men is happily disappearing from the country, and giving place to steady and persevering immigrants, the charge of an out-station, when not in the hands of one with the old leaven of improvidence unexterminated, necessarily becomes the probationary lot of a "new chum." The two men, with whom our travellers found themselves located, were something of the first mentioned class; and, to give our readers some idea of their characters, we will venture to encroach upon their patience, by recounting an epitome of the conversation that was started after the evening repast. "Have you been long in this part of the country?" asked John of the shepherd. "Why no, sir, I ain't been so very long," replied the man; "I've got about three months to make up my year with Mr. Smithers. I came over from New England, and agreed for twelve months, and I like this country far better than the south, it ain't so cold nor so wet." "Then, I suppose, you will retain your place, and renew your engagement when your year is up?" "Well, you see, sir, I don't exactly know about that 'ere; after being up in the bush a while one likes to get down the country a bit, just to see what's going on, and to spend one's money." "But, my good man, what necessity is there for you to go away from the station? If you want to see any change, I've no doubt Mr. Smithers would find you employment at the head station; and you might allow your wages to accumulate, until you had sufficient to purchase some sheep of your own." "I don't know about that, sir; I expect it would be a precious long time before I would have enough to buy a flock of sheep: and besides, if I had any, I wouldn't know what to do with them; I shouldn't be allowed to graze 'em on other folk's runs; and, after slaving away for I don't know how long, I reckon I should just be swindled out of 'em in the end, and be as poor and 'miserable as a bandicoot' after all: besides, I'd rather not have the bother with them, but just have my spree, and 'knock down my pile,' as usual." "But, my good fellow, if you were possessed of a flock of sheep, you could, by paying a rent, be allowed to depasture it on some squatter's run; and as to being swindled out of your property, the law of the land would protect you from that." "I don't know nothing about the law of the land, sir; but I know as how a mate of mine, who served with a master on the Barwan for five years, and was paid his wages in sheep, took his flock to a piece of country he had bought from his master and set his self up. He hadn't been at that game though for more nor two years, when a flood on the river took off half his sheep, and his old master brought him in a bill for some hundreds of pounds for stores and things my mate had got, and he wanted to be paid right off. Now, my mate couldn't pay him; so he had to give him up his sheep and go shepherding again. So you see, sir, I may just as well spend my money when I get it, as let myself be cheated out of it at the end." "Your friend's case was certainly a hard one, but he seemed to be the victim of misfortune more than of an exacting master; but that does not show, because he did not succeed, that you or any other industrious man should fail. Take my advice and try it; refrain from taking your wages, let them accumulate in the hands of your employer, and when they have reached such a sum as to be of service to you, ask him to invest it, and I am sure you will have no cause to complain; besides, remember as you get old, if you have no friends to care for you and you are destitute as you are now, you will starve." "That's just it, you see, sir; if I go to save money now (but I know I can't, for I never could), if I dies I've got no one to give it to. I've got no friends, leastwise I don't know of none; and I am sure when I knew there was something coming to me, I would want to spend it; while as long as I live, I can always earn enough to keep me." "But you say you've never attempted to save your wages; you cannot tell how you may be influenced until you make the attempt." "There is no use of my trying, sir, I am sure I never could; and I may just take my money when it is due me, and have my spree." "I can't understand how it is you persist in being so prodigal. What extraordinary influence is it that induces you to spend your earnings as soon as you get them?" "Well, I don't know, sir, unless it is we get 'em too seldom. You see, when we work for a year and don't get no money perhaps all that time, when we do have our wages all in a lump, it seems such a lot we don't think how hard it cost us to get it; and we don't know what to do with it, so we just spend it. If we got paid, you see, as people down in the towns, at the end of the week, and had to keep ourselves, we might get into the way for saving a little now and then; but as it is, we never know how to do it, and I expect we never shall. You see we ain't like those fellows who let their old women look after their money, who tell 'em it is all gone, while all the time they've got it put away in their old stocking." "Well, why don't you get married, and have an old woman, as you call it; and by her means you may make yourself more happy, and be enabled, after a time, to become your own master?" "I've often thought I wouldn't mind that sort o' thing, sir; but where do you think I would get a young woman as'd look at the likes of me? When they comes out to this country, specially when they gets up here into the bush, they're so mighty saucy, they cocks up their noses at fellers likes us; and besides, you know masters don't care to have men with what they calls 'incumberances.'" "No doubt there is some truth in that; but if you by your thriftiness can possess yourself of a little money, and be in a position to establish yourself, you'd have no difficulty, I should say, in inducing some industrious girl to accept you; take my advice now, and try." "All right, sir, I will," replied the man; after which the conversation took another turn, and the party very shortly separated. As they were leaving the fire, Bob Smithers remarked to John that all his advice to the man would be lost in five minutes. He told him it was impossible to instil prudence into the minds of such; "their whole enjoyment," he said, "is in having their spree. They perceive no pleasure in hoarding money to provide comforts in their old age; the very thought of it is distasteful to them, and as to that fellow (pointing to the man John had been conversing with), if he succeeded in passing the year without drawing his wages, some of his mates would tell him he was a fool; and thinking so himself, he would not rest until he had been paid and gone through his course of drunkenness." "I am aware," said John, "such is his present feeling; and I have met with many like him, but have succeeded in persuading, not a few, to practise a life of frugality; and I am convinced, with a little admonition, that that man could be induced to adopt a similar course." "Well, perhaps, he could," replied Smithers; "but, for my part, if those fellows feel inclined to spend their money foolishly, I don't think it is our interest to prevent them. If we induced all the men in the country to save their wages, or take them in sheep, we would have the colony overrun with a set of "stringy bark squatters," who would be so infesting our lands that our runs would be cut up into innumerable small parts, just to serve vagabonds." "You must admit," replied John, "that if a provident spirit were to be infused into the people, it would be the means of stocking the country by an industrious and thrifty population; and be far more beneficial to the colony than allowing the lands to remain in the hands of a few wealthy squatters." "Oh, pooh! pooh!" cried Smithers; "but I'm not going to argue with you; we had better start in the morning soon after daylight; so, now, let's take a snooze." With this the young men entered the hut, and, rolling themselves in their blankets, settled for sleep; which they enjoyed uninterruptedly until an early hour in morning. They then arose; and, after taking a matin ablution in the creek, returned to the hut to partake of their breakfast, which was being prepared by Joey; while Bob Smithers' stock-man brought in the horses. It may, no doubt, appear strange to the reader that horses should be turned out loose in the bush, with only the simple precaution of "hobbling" their fore-feet, without the danger of the animals being lost to their owners; but such is rarely to be apprehended, except in the case of some incorrigible beasts who are not to be trusted. We certainly have known horses, so hobbled, make off in a sort of shambling gallop, by drawing up the two confined feet together, and progressing in short leaps; but, in general, a horse so turned out at night, after a day's hard ride, has a sort of tacit understanding with his master that he is to be at hand when required: or at least his natural instinct prompts him to make the most use of his leisure time, and occupy the period of his release in diligently administering to his own wants, and satisfying the calls of hunger and exhausted nature; and if searched for at daybreak, before having had time to wander, he is generally found in a convenient proximity to "the camp." Such was the case in the present instance. When the horses were saddled and ready for a start, the party mounted, and the cavalcade moved off. The country they intended to visit was situated on the main river, some considerable distance further down its course; but, owing to the numerous creeks that mingled their waters with the main stream, it was impossible for them to follow the bank of the river without meeting with many interruptions and impediments. They therefore traced up the creek; and, by means of their compass, they shaped their course so as to either head all the creeks, or so far reach their sources, as to be enabled to cross them without difficulty. This circuitous route necessarily occupied more time than what would have been required under more auspicious circumstances; and the still heavy nature of the ground, from its late pluvial visitation, rendered the journey extremely tedious; while it prevented them from reaching Strawberry Hill, the only station on the river below Brompton, that night. This run had been sold to the present occupants by Bob Smithers, and had been taken possession of by them some eighteen months previously. It had been Smithers' intention to have made this place their quarters for that night; but finding it could not be reached before dark, and there being situated in the line a deep and awkward river called the Wombi, running into the Gibson, and for which he preferred daylight to cross, he determined to keep higher up the Wombi, and camp on its bank where the country was open and flat. Arriving at the "Dingo plains," a place so named from the number of those animals which frequented it, they halted for the night, intending to camp and cross the river in the morning. They would thus, by making this detour, keep high above Strawberry Hill; and Smithers therefore purposed taking his companions round the back and lower boundaries of the run they wished to see; thence through its extent to its other extreme on the Gibson river; making occasional deviations to the principal water courses and eminences, from which a good view of the country could be obtained; and thence to return. Smoking their pipes over their fire, Bob detailed these plans to the young men, who perfectly agreed with their judiciousness, and determined to put them in practice on the following day. They then fell into a desultory conversation; through which we will not trouble the reader by following; but merely remark that it was principally upon the occupants of the station on the river, the character of the blacks in the neighbourhood, and the likelihood of annoyance from the dingos. That these latter were numerous it was pretty evident; for the travellers more than once had intimation, of a close proximity to their camp, of a tribe of those canine aborignals, who prefer the enjoyment of a pristine independence to the blessings of civilisation, except in so far as that civilisation can be made subservient to their comfort and sustenance. The dingo, or as it is generally called, the native dog, occupies in the social scale, much the same position in the southern hemisphere, as the fox does in the northern; and also approaches more nearly to that animal in semblance and character than any other known. Its colour is generally of a dark sandy or reddish brown, with hair rather long, a bushy low-hanging tail, long ears, which except while being pursued he usually keeps erect, pointed snout, and sharp piercing eyes. He is stupid and cowardly; generally creeping along with a slinking gait to surprise his prey, which he usually siezes by the throat. He is easily frightened, and deterred from his purpose by the simplest contrivances; and is quite devoid of that cunning which characterizes his antipodean prototype. His course of destruction has been known to be arrested by an ordinary four-wire fence, through which he could have easily passed; though he sat on the exterior of the enclosure, moaning piteously at the flock within; while his mental obtuseness failed to percieve a means of ingress. To sheep he is most destructive; and if a flock is so carelessly tended as to admit of his insinuating himself, the havoc he makes is frightful: for not content with fastening on one, he will snap, tear, worry, and mangle possibly half the flock; and passing from one to another, with the rapidity of thought, the mortality that results from his visit is truly disastrous. He never barks like a domesticated dog, but yelps and howls; and at night when he sounds his note, it is taken up by the entire pack, and made to resound with a mournful cadence over the face of the country. As they sit on their haunches, with their noses extended in an elevation to the sky, chorusing their lachrymose and supplicatory lamentations, the effect is one of the most dismal that can be conceived. To society such as this the young men had a decided objection; and concluding, that if they did not take steps to disperse their nocturnal visitors (who treated them to numerous appeals which were anything but euphonic), they would stand a very poor chance of enjoying any rest. Besides the probability that a keen appetite might induce the dogs to extend their favours to the horses, it was also a matter of prudence to insist upon their removing themselves to some more distant location; and to support this with a forcible argument, the travellers got their guns in readiness, and moved away in silence into the darkness. Our friends were not left long to ascertain in what direction to expect a recontre, for a fresh eructation of the metrical whine gave them sufficient notice. The black boy soon descried the disturbers of their peace by the glitter of a host of canine optics, and directed his masters and their friend where to fire. This they did; and the effect of their shots was instantly apparent, from the excessive yelping that greeted their ears, and satisfied them that some, at least, of their annoyers had got something to remember; while they were gratified to listen to the fast receding sounds of these "mercurial inhabitants of the plain." The dogs quickly "made themselves scarce," nor did they afterwards attempt to reduce the distance they had placed between themselves and the travellers; who, upon the establishment of quiet, and after supplying fresh material to their fire, nestled themselves in their blankets around the cheerful blaze, and stretched themselves to sleep under the "starlit canopy of heaven." Early on the next morning the journey was resumed; and for three days, with very little variety, they traversed the run, of which we need say nothing; except that the country answered the expectations of the Fergusons, who were pleased with its appearance, and returned with Bob Smithers to complete the purchase at Brompton. Here preliminaries were soon effected. Mr. Ferguson's agents in Sydney had been instructed by him to honour any drafts drawn by his son, and to transact any business he might require; therefore John at once drew upon them for the amount of this purchase, and placed himself in communication respecting the other arrangements; forwarding the note of sale from Smithers, and an obligation from him to sign the necessary deeds of transfer when they were ready for execution. He then took his leave of the family, intending to go down to Moreton Bay, whence a steamer plied to Sydney, and on thence to superintend his business there and select the necessaries for forming the station; at the same time that his brother and Joey returned to New England, to wait there until John had so far perfected his plans, as to be able to bring up his supplies and prepare the station for the reception of the sheep. It is unnecessary to trace the peregrinations of John Ferguson, or to tire the reader with a detail of William's every day life at Acacia creek; we will simply say that in the course of about six weeks John returned to Brisbane, and wrote to his brother to muster their sheep and start with them for the station as soon as possible. He stated that he had engaged drays to take up their loading, and that he intended to precede them himself; so that he would in all probability reach the station some weeks before either the supplies or the sheep, and would engage some bush carpenters as he went up, to prepare the place for their reception. To carry out this intention, he made all speed for his destination; and arriving at Alma, the nearest township to his place, on the fourth day, he there engaged two men, to whom he gave directions to meet him at Brompton, and pushed on himself for that station. Alma and Brompton lay about equidistant from his own place; but his inability to describe sufficiently clearly to the understanding of the men the _locale_ of the new station, and his rations having been left at the latter place, it was necessary for him to proceed there first. Upon his appearance at Mr. Smithers', he was welcomed with much cordiality; and every assistance was given him by the kind proprietor, though he had been quite disinterested in the arrangements between Bob and the Fergusons. Yet such was his kindly disposition, that considerations of interest weighed very little with him, and he freely and kindly tendered any aid that lay in his power. He recommended John to go over to the run, and, if he had not done so already, to select a site for his station; and for that purpose he offered him the services of one of his own men; while he promised to have the carpenters directed to the place whenever they made their appearance. The run had been originally called Fern Vale by Bob Smithers, when he tendered for it to the government; and John Ferguson, who thought he could not improve upon it, had allowed it to retain that name. The part of it which had attracted Bob's attention, and induced him to so christen it, was a gently undulating valley opening to the Gibson river, as the crow flies, a few miles below Strawberry Hill. The north side of the valley was partially covered with the fern plant (which suggested the name); and here, it struck John, would be a good site for his station, and he consequently determined to visit it first. On the following morning, in company with the man, whose assistance had been so kindly given him by Mr. Smithers, John rode over to the run, and reaching the valley we have mentioned camped for the night. In the morning, at the first sight of his position, he was convinced no better situation could be found; so gave up the idea of any further prospecting, and prepared for the carpenters, by marking out the sites for the house, huts, and yards. Down the valley, which we have said opened out to the river, meandered a beautiful little limpid stream; on the upper side of the vale, and receding from the banks of the river, rose a gentle acclivity, which pointed itself out as the spot on which to erect the house; while on the flat below was every convenience for the huts and yards. Above this point the river took a considerable bend, making on the other side a deep pocket, which was low and apparently subject to flooding. It was covered by a dense scrub, over which, from the elevated position John had chosen for his domicile, he could catch a glimpse of Strawberry Hill; which, though on the same side of the river as Fern Vale, and some distance round, appeared, when looking across the head of the stream, not very far off. The carpenters shortly making their appearance, all were soon in a state of animation; and, before long, the crash of falling timber, the echo of the axe in felling, and the mallet in splitting the logs for the fences, resounded through the wood, where hitherto solitude had held undisputed sway; and, long before the arrival of the flocks or the supplies, substantial stock-yards had been erected, as well as huts for the shepherds, and a commodious store-house. The construction of the dwelling-house, being a matter of a secondary consideration, it was necessarily left to the last; and the whole party set to work busily to put up a large shed for shearing, and storing the wool when ready for packing. CHAPTER V. "How gaily is at first begun Our life's uncertain race! Whilst yet that sprightly morning sun, With which we just set out to run, Enlightens all the place." COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA. When William Ferguson received his brother's letter, he immediately collected the draft of sheep with which they were to commence their station, and started with them for Fern Vale, in company with Joey and two shepherds. The route he intended to adopt, in his migration, was somewhat the same as that taken by his brother and himself on their first journey to Brompton. He was induced to make choice of this, partly to enable him to renew the acquaintance of Mr. Dawson; but principally on account of its leading him through a part of the country little frequented, by which he would be enabled to prosecute his journey with less chance of molestation. He therefore communicated his intention to Mr. Dawson by post, which (though taking a more circuitous route than he) would reach Barra Warra long before he made his appearance with his flock. With a large number of sheep in charge, the travelling was necessarily slow and tedious; and some time had been consumed ere the young man approached the station of his acquaintance. No circumstance worth recording had marked the passage thus far; all things seemed propitious; and as William left his sheep in the charge of his employees, encamped within sight of Barra Warra, he felt certain of a successful termination to his journey. Upon reaching the house of Mr. Dawson, he was disappointed to find that gentleman from home (having been suddenly called away to town on business); though he left word with his good lady, to express his regrets at the circumstance that prevented his having the pleasure of meeting his young friend, and his hope that William would make Barra Warra his resting-place as long as he could conveniently do so. Mrs. Dawson expressed her happiness to see him, and also pressed her husband's invitation; while the children, who speedily remembered him, uttered their welcomes in tones of joyous gratulation. William thanked the kind-hearted lady, and accepted the invitation with pleasure; though the visit, he said, would necessarily be short, as he required to urge on the sheep, and he did not like resigning the responsibility to either of the men. He was sorry, he said, that his visits hitherto had been such flying ones; but promised to make amends at an early opportunity, when he anticipated he would be under the necessity of craving the hospitality of Barra Warra for his sister; who purposed joining her brothers when their station was made a little comfortable. The bare proposition quite delighted Mrs. Dawson, who was warm in her expressions of approval; and said she would be charmed to make the acquaintance of Miss Ferguson, and hoped she would have more sociability than her brothers, and not require so much pressing to induce a visit from her. William assured his friend, that his sister would reciprocate the delight; for she had already, he said, expressed a desire to know Mrs. Dawson, from simply hearing him mention her name. We need not trace the conversation through all its minutiæ, nor delay our narrative by detailing the further progress of William Ferguson; but simply mention, that on the following morning he proceeded on his journey, while we turn to view the movements of his brother. In the meantime, John had got all his buildings so far completed, as to have them ready for the settlement of the station as soon as the flocks and the drays with the supplies should have arrived. It was not his intention to build the house until they settled themselves, and got some little leisure after shearing time; and, until then, he proposed living with his brother in one of the huts erected for the men. He now looked anxiously for the drays; and as the weather had been fine since they started, and they had been a good time on the road, he believed they could not be far distant; especially as he had received intimation from Mr. Smithers that a man had arrived at Brompton, who had passed them the day before he reached that station. He therefore thought it advisable to leave the carpenters at work on a few odds and ends that still required doing, and proceed along the road to meet the drays, and hurry them on to their destination. He did so; and some few miles past Strawberry Hill he descried the lumbering vehicles jogging on at their (or rather the bullocks') leisure; and he turned with them, in company, until they reached the crossing-place of the Wombi. The appearance of this spot did not, by any means, favourably prepossess the minds of the bullock-drivers: the banks were of black alluvial soil, and had a steep descent to the water; which, though reduced to its ordinary level, looked black from the colour of the banks and the soil through which it passed; and had an appearance of depth, not at all inviting to drivers of heavily-laden drays. However, cross it they were compelled to; for there was no other place where the river could be passed with any degree of safety, without going considerably farther; so, after directing John to go over with his horse, that he might see what he had to encounter, the first bullock-driver urged his team down the slope and into the water, where it splashed and floundered on until it succeeded in bringing the dray about half way across. There the bottom was so soft, and the dray wheels had become so embedded in the mud, that only with the assistance of the second team could the passage be effected. The second dray was not even so fortunate as the first; for all efforts of the double team were unavailing to pass the rubicon; and it settled in the mud mid-way between the banks. Adding to this, the fact that the water was already above the axle, and consequently damaging the loading; and that in all probability, if not speedily extricated, the dray would become even more immovable; it was evident, to the men, some strenuous efforts were required to overcome the difficulty. The Australian bullock dray with its bovine traction, we may remark, is without exception the most primitive means of conveyance that can either be devised or imagined. The ponderous vehicle, in perfect keeping with the heavy and drowsy quadrupeds who draw it at a snail-like pace, stands prominently forth as a reproach to the inventive genius of man; and, excepting perhaps the substitute of iron in coupling and linking the animals, and in some parts of the vehicular construction, the whole equipage possesses not the shadow of an improvement on the popular conveyances of the age of Sesostris. But in this sunny land, settlers are content with the questionable facilities of transit offered by these primeval means; while they console themselves with the belief that no other style of vehicle would stand the wear and tear of being drawn over logs and stumps of trees, rocks and precipices, and through rivers and swamps; and that no other animal but the patient bullock, could endure the fatigue and privation of alternate heat, wet, hunger and thirst, and a constant taxation of strength and resignation. 'Tis true, at times, the obstacles to travelling are almost insuperable, and that the roads have no title to the dignity of such a name; being, in most instances, merely tracks formed by the drays following the course of a predecessor; but still, no attempt even is made to improve the means of conveyance. The settlers content themselves with the existence of things that be, and are satisfied with the progressive rate of from fifteen to twenty miles a day; at which speed a team of ten bullocks, in fine weather, will draw a dray with thirty to forty hundred-weight; while during wet, they may not perform the same distance in a week. The individuals who manage the guidance of these machines, and who are generally accompanied by an assistant, are too often some of the most reprobate members of the family of man. Their sole accomplishments are the management of their drays; the forcible appeals to their bullocks, made by the application of their long whips (upon the expertness in the use of which they pride themselves); the facile utterance of their blaspheming interjections; and their ability to plunder without detection. The _acme_ of their human felicity is perpetual intoxication; and to gratify this propensity, they have no scruples in assisting themselves to any liquor which they may be entrusted to carry; frequently adopting ingenious plans to abstract it from the bulk, and replace it by water in such a way as to defy detection. They are ignorant in the extreme, and though assumed to be civilised and sentient beings, their vices render them, in the scale of humanity, on a par with the aboriginal blacks; individuals of whom, frequently follow in their train, and, until debased by their vile influence, by far their superiors in an ethical point of view. In stimulating the propulsion of his team, the bullock-driver addresses each of his beasts by name; such as, "eh, Smiler;" "come up, Strawberry;" "Cap-tain," etc.; accompanying every admonition with a profusion of oaths, and a wholesale application of the lash. If remonstrated with for his use of so ungenteel a vocabulary, he will endeavour, with considerable earnestness, to convince you that the bullocks perfectly understand what is said to them; and that they are so wayward in their disposition, that nothing short of such determined and forcible language is of any avail. He will support his arguments with many stories of the wonderful instinct and percipiency displayed by his animals; all of which stories, though exceedingly marvellous, obtain implicit credence in the mind of the narrator; and only come short, in point of hyperbolical marvel, of the wonderful utterance of Tom Connor's cat, in the plain Anglo-Saxon vernacular. Though we do not intend either to support or refute the sophistry of these men, it is only just to say, that considering every bullock has a name, upon the utterance of which it is made to feel an application of the whip, it is not to be wondered at that the animals are soon taught to recognise their appellations, and in the expectation of chastisement, to brighten up when they hear them. The reader may imagine we have drawn too depraved a picture of this neglected class of men; but we solemnly affirm we have not. There are, of course, exceptions to this, as to every rule; for we have known many industrious, and even respectable well-conducted men, as bullock-drivers; but unfortunately they were only the exceptions: the general mass are as corrupt and vicious as it is possible for human beings to be. Why this is so, we are at a loss rightly to understand; though we imagine the primary cause is this: Attendant on bullock-driving are many discomforts; more, possibly, than in any other occupation in the bush. Hence it is an employment which industrious or enterprising individuals generally shun; and in the successive scales of advancement, in which the steady immigrant effects his rise, it is left to members of the lowest scum; who prefer the freedom of this erratic life, to the more settled conformities of order and society. We left John Ferguson on the bank of the river, gazing on the dray safely (or rather unsafely) fixed in the bed of the river. The bullock-drivers had lashed, frantically shouted, and swore; while they performed sundry manoeuvres, and excited evolutions; to induce the bullocks to strain an extra nerve, to extricate the vehicle: but all to no purpose; the efforts of the beasts were unavailing, while the delay only rendered the case more hopeless. In this state of things, the men perceived the only course open to them, was to lighten the load as much as possible, by partially unloading the dray, and carrying the goods over the river themselves. With this determination they set earnestly to work, and succeeded in removing the greater portion of the goods; when they made another attempt, happily with better success than previously; and brought the dray from its miry adherence to a position on the bank. It was then reladen with the goods; while the men, barely recovered from the chagrin caused by the misadventure, performed their work with a sullen moroseness, enlivening their gloom by animadversions on the river, the country, and everybody connected with their peregrination. In this humour John left them to follow him, while he proceeded to the station, where we will also lead the reader. Upon his return to Fern Vale, he found, during his short absence, that the blacks, attracted by the appearance of a fresh settlement, had congregated in some considerable numbers; though more out of curiosity than with any idea of aggression. At sight of John, a number of them immediately assembled round him; looking at him, and everything about the place, in a sort of inquisitive manner; jabbering amongst themselves; and handling everything portable within their reach. The group consisted of some twenty persons of both sexes and various ages; and were a family of the Nungar tribe, which usually made its home on the other side of the Gibson river, in the scrub, and the mountains and broken country receding from it. The sight of this visitation did not altogether please the young squatter, for he thought he saw in the future considerable annoyance from similar visits. He therefore demanded of them what they required; and told them, that though he had no objection to their coming about the place so long as they behaved themselves, if he caught them committing any theft, or becoming in any way troublesome, he would not allow one of them afterwards to approach the station. They seemed to understand this communication; for one of them informed John, that a good many of their tribe had been employed by the squatters, to wash their sheep, and do work about the stations, and would be very glad to do the same for him. Thinking possibly that it might be the means of coming to some friendly understanding with the tribe, and would give him a means of acquiring some knowledge of their movements and disposition, he thought it advisable to take the services of some of them; more especially as in the then rough state of the settlement, their services could be turned to some account. Acting on this impulse, then, he selected two young athletic black boys; who seemed more intelligent than the majority, and who appeared to have a disposition to remain on the station, and to adapt themselves to the ways of the white man. He then distributed some tobacco and rations amongst them, and they took their departure apparently well pleased. By this time the drays were seen making their approach; and great was instantly the bustle in preparation for the reception of the "loading." The articles which constitute a station's "supplies" are of such a kaleidoscopic variety, that their enumeration would almost be endless; and we will merely observe that the heterogeneous mass was safely, and speedily, transferred from the dray to the ground, whence it was deposited in the store. Various edibles; and their condiments such as tea, sugar, flour, oilman's stores, etc., were successively unpacked and stowed away; and everything appeared to be sound, until it was discovered that the salt, which had been placed in the bottom of the dray, was unfortunately damaged; it had, in fact, during its submersion in the water "dissolved," and "Like the baseless fabric of a vision, Left not a rack behind." Such events as this are of frequent occurrence; and, where the opportunities of procuring supplies are very rare, severe are the straits, and numerous the inconveniences, to which residents in the interior are subjected. After long and continued wet or dry weather, when travelling is rendered difficult or impossible, from the country being impassable by floods, or impracticable from drought and absence of feed, settlers in the remote districts are often reduced to states bordering on absolute starvation, or at least to a subsistence on meat, without any concomitant "fixins." When such cases occur, which we are happy to say is seldom, the squatters lend to one another the articles most in demand, until they either all become destitute of provisions, or are relieved by the receipt of a fresh supply. But articles that are not in every day consumption, and not considered of paramount importance, they are frequently compelled to do without for months; and so accustomed do they become to this species of self-denial, that the absence of many things is thought very little of. Salt, however, is an article indispensable on a station; for the greater portion of the meat consumed is required to be salted, to preserve it in the hot weather; while it is also frequently necessary, on some stations, to supply it to the sheep and cattle. For this purpose, rock salt is usually provided; but, in its absence, the ordinary coarse salt is put into small canvas bags, and suspended from trees, that the cattle may satisfy their saline cravings by licking the moisture, which, from the nightly dews and the natural dampness of the salt, exudes through the pores of the canvas. When John saw the nature of his loss, knowing there was no use in complaining, he made the best of his mishap by determining to ride over in the morning to Strawberry Hill, and see if he could not borrow some from his neighbour there until the receipt of his further supplies for shearing. Before going, however, on the following morning, he desired to settle with the bullock-driver for the carriage of his supplies up, and to make arrangements with him for the occupation of one of his teams for the remainder of the season. For that purpose he took his bridle in his hand, and proceeded to catch his horse, which was running in one of the paddocks lately fenced in; and on the way, as he passed the camp of the draymen, he requested the fellow to go up to the hut in a few minutes, to be settled with, and receive his instructions for further employment. He then went in search of his steed, leaving the men stretched on the grass in front of a fire, near which stood their pots of tea, cooling; and in the ashes of which lay embedded their "damper," receiving its finishing heat, preparatory to being subjected to the operation of mastication; while the fellows themselves lay motionless, and careless of everything around them, in the full enjoyment of the everlasting pipe. Oh, smoke! thou deity of thousands, and the special idol of the bush-man! thou that soothest the dull moments of a weary solitude, and the anguish of a desponding spirit; that satisfiest the cravings of a consuming hunger; that alleviates the pains, brightens the intellects, and dispels illusion of the morbid fancies and diseased imaginations of thy votaries! thou anodyne for melancholy; thou disseminator of good feeling; conciliator and ratifyer of peace offerings! without thee what would mortal bush-man be?--they, to whom thou art a friend in need. All potent smoke! thine influence is supreme; thy virtues are legion; and thy capabilities are boundless as the vapour into which thou meltest as a holocaust for thy happy devotees. If the pipe could but speak, what mysteries could it reveal! the rapturous visions of the inspired lover, rising in the circular imageries of its vaporous fumes, to beguile his fancies in the absence of his loved one; or the workings of a deep despondency and bitter disappointment, carrying its victim with blind impetuosity to a melancholy contemplation of a drear destruction, until the spirit seizes with avidity the proffered consolation, and the phantasmia vanishes under thy narcotic influence. The miseries of an insatiable thirst, and the sufferings of a gnawing hunger, fatigue, and indisposition, are all forgotten during the enjoyment of a smoke; while in a dilemma, or danger, in a deluging discomfort, or the anxieties consequent on being lost in the bush, the pipe is the ever ready comforter; and one which rarely fails to bring consolation to the mind. Well, therefore, may it be imagined that the pipe is "the friend of the people;" and that, not only of the canaille, the "great unwashed," but the entire nation; who in this day of general enlightenment and mental percipiency, have not failed to distinguish its claims, and to "render homage where homage is due." Many are the shifts, and crude the inventions in the bush, when emergencies call forth the application of the old proverb respecting the relationship that exists between destitution and genius; and when to be minus the support of the Virginian weed, is considered a greater misfortune than to be wanting of the necessaries of life. Hence, when requested by John Ferguson to go up to the hut, the draymen had not the remotest intention of disturbing themselves, at least for a time; and they continued to puff in an inert silence, while they contemplated the flames before them, and ejected an occasional expectoration, at an imaginary pandemonium in the embers. They had remained in this state of _statu quo_ for some time, when John Ferguson, who had caught his horse, and returned to the hut, not finding the men there, came down to where they lay. He then addressed himself to the still recumbent driver, and requested that he would come up with him and be settled with, and arrange for further loading. The independent carrier did eventually condescend to rise, and he slowly bent his steps to the station, accompanied by John, who gave him by the way a sketch of his plans. He wished him to start at once with his dray for Alma, and to bring back a quantity of shingles, window frames, and doors (for which, he told him, he would give him an order to a store-keeper there, who kept a supply of them); and then to return immediately, as the things were necessary for the construction of his house. The carpenters, whom he had on the station, were to employ themselves in cutting the timber and planks required in the erection; which they were to proceed with, anticipating the return of the dray; by which time John expected to be ready for shearing, and would be able to give it a load of wool to take down to the port for shipment. They walked on in this way for some little distance, Ferguson absorbed in his conversation with the bullock-driver, and paying little attention to his path; while the latter listened to his directions, seemingly without noticing his remarks, beyond an occasional grunt of acquiescence, and with his eyes fixed upon the ground. A tributary (or rather the bed of what after heavy rains formed a tributary) of the creek, though now almost dry, here crossed their path. At some remote age a large tree had fallen across the stream, and, having buried itself in the soil on either side, formed a barrier to the current; which had in the course of years left a deposit of earth and sand, so as to bring its bed above the impediment on a level with the obstruction; while, on the lower side of the log, the bank of sand and pebbles had been hollowed out into a pool by the eddying of a miniature cataract. Though the creek was otherwise dry, in this pool there was water; and John Ferguson, walking along the course with his companion, and leading his horse after him by the bridle, made a short bound to clear the water-hole. He, however, was prevented from effecting his purpose, by the bullock-driver, who, at the moment of his leap, seized him by the arm, and caused him to alight, instead of on the bank, in the middle of the water; where he stood up to his knees, with a look at his companion of enquiring astonishment. The man, hardly able to refrain from indulging in a positive fit of stentorian cachinnation, without deigning any auricular explanation, pointed to the bank, on which Ferguson felt annoyed for not being permitted to reach. He instantly directed his eyes to the spot indicated by his companion, and at once perceived the nature of the escape he had made; for there had lain a large brown snake, on which he would have inevitably trodden, the consequences of which made him shudder to contemplate. Being aroused from its torpor by the approach and close proximity of those, whom its instinct told it were enemies, the reptile raised its head and about two feet of its body in a perpendicular attitude, with the head slightly extended and swaying from side to side; while it protruded its long forked tongue in fitful starts, and expressed a combination of fear and venomous hate in loud hisses. John felt his position, as the beast in a tortuous course slowly curled its body towards him, as being anything but pleasant; and being only armed with an ordinary riding-whip, considered that, if discretion was not the better part of valour, it was certainly more conducive to his safety. With this belief, and with his eyes fixed upon the reptile, he made a retrograde movement to extricate himself from the unpleasantness of at least his damp location; but he was not a little surprised to find the snake approaching still nearer to him. This puzzled him exceedingly; he could not understand the idea of a snake attacking a man, when there was a chance open for it to escape; such a thing he had never heard of, and had hitherto believed it never to have occurred. But such in this instance was evidently (he thought) the intention of his opponent, or why should it continue to diminish the distance between him and itself. If John did not witness this diminution with alarm, he at least desired to be better supplied with defence, and shouted to his companion to procure a stout stick. Obtaining no reply, he cast a hasty glance over his shoulder, to see what had become of the man; when the snake, taking advantage of the momentary withdrawal of his eyes, made a rapid movement towards him. This John instantly perceived, and believing the reptile was determined to attack him, "he joined issue" at once, and gave a furious cut at it with his whip. The brute, however, evaded the blow, and once more erected itself in front of Ferguson, hissing its malevolence almost in his very face. This movement decided its fate, for with a motion as quick as thought he gave another cut with his whip; which, with a whiz that discomposed the nerves of his horse, encircled with its supple thong the extended neck of the reptile, and terminated its existence by dislocation. He then effected another fulfilment of the prognosticated command of an inscrutable divinity, by crushing its head under his heel; when he was joined by his companion, who had been searching for a weapon to aid in the strife. The snake thus destroyed was of the brown species, and deadly venomous; it measured about six feet, and, if it had been trodden upon by John Ferguson, would have in all human probability saved us from the further pursuit of this narrative. Its pertinacity in approaching to its destruction, we may state, was owing to the fact of John preventing it from reaching its hole; which they now discovered under the log, and close to where he had stood. The couple now pursued their course, and after arriving at the huts and settling with the drayman for the work he had already performed, and giving him an order to the store-keeper in Alma, with the necessary instructions, John took his departure for Strawberry Hill. CHAPTER VI. "The mistress of the mansion came, Mature of age, a graceful dame; And every courteous rite was paid, That hospitality could claim." SIR W. SCOTT. "I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Rainsfield," said John Ferguson, as he rode up to a gentleman at Strawberry Hill, who by his appearance indicated himself as the proprietor of the station. "That is my name," replied he addressed; "and I presume I have the honour of meeting Mr. Ferguson?" John acknowledging to his appellation, dismounted from his horse, and shaking hands with his newly-made acquaintance, the latter remarked: "I have to apologize, Mr. Ferguson, for not making my respects to you before; but you will pardon me, when I tell you I have been away from the station for some little time, and it was only yesterday when I returned, that my people told me of your settlement. However, I am happy that you have anticipated me in this visit; and if you are not in any very particular hurry, let one of my fellows put your horse in the stable, and just step into the house, that I may introduce you to the folks inside. They will be delighted, I am sure, that you have favoured us by introducing yourself;" saying which, he called one of the boys about the place to look after John's steed, while he led its owner to the dwelling. Of the mansion itself we need say nothing: it was simply a weather-boarded verandah cottage; the like of which is to be met with so frequently in the bush, as to give the idea of their being built to an universal plan; it was neat, and apparently comfortable. When John Ferguson entered with Mr. Rainsfield he was ushered at once into the sitting-room; where, at the table, sat two ladies busily employed on some description of needlework, whose destined use was a mystery to the uninitiated. On the table before them, and at their feet, were strewn their necessary paraphernalia; and so busily engaged were they at their occupation, that they were not aware of the presence of any one besides themselves, until Mr. Rainsfield gave them notice of the fact by remarking, "Mr. Ferguson has waived all ceremony, my dear, and called upon us to make himself known, and commence a friendship, which I trust will remain uninterrupted." The ladies then rose, and were introduced to John, as "Mrs. Rainsfield, my wife," and "Miss Rainsfield, my cousin;" and both expressed to our hero their welcomes and delight, that they had been so fortunate as to secure friendly and companionable neighbours. Mrs. Rainsfield at once gave a _carte blanche_ to the young man and his brother; and stated that she hoped she would see as much of them at Strawberry Hill as their time would admit, and trusted that their society would be a mutual enjoyment. John expressed himself highly flattered with his kind reception and invitations; and in the name of his brother and himself, promised to avail himself frequently of their hospitality, from which he anticipated much pleasure. But leaving them to continue their conversation without interruption, we will, with the indulgence of the reader, describe the several members of the Rainsfield family. Mr. John Rainsfield, the proprietor of the station, was a gentleman of about two-and-thirty years of age; his appearance was what might be called gentlemanly; though, while being perhaps prepossesing, having nothing about it to attract any particular attention. In his disposition he was thought to be morose; though it was not indicative of a confirmed ill-temper, but arose from a reserve occasioned by a distaste for the popular practices of his neighbours. Those who knew him found him anything but distant, and by his friends he was pronounced a good-hearted fellow. It is true, on his station, he was a strict disciplinarian, and had a mortal enmity to the blacks; notwithstanding which he was usually liked by his men, and rarely had so much trouble with the aborigines as his neighbours. His history was that of most of his class; an emigration to the country to better his circumstances, and a pastoral servitude in various grades, until he had accumulated sufficient to either take up or purchase country, and procure a flock of sheep; which could have been purchased at a few shillings a-head. Thus, having once procured a start, his success was almost certain; and, in fact, at the time of which we write, he had firmly established himself in a position of comfort and respectability. Mrs. Rainsfield was a lady some few years the junior of her husband; was kind and amiable, with a pleasing expression of countenance, which, if not absolutely pretty, was certainly winning, and calculated to demand attention. The attachment between herself and her husband had been a very early one; and when he had left his native land to seek his fortune in a far away home, it had been determined that as soon as he was in a position to support her, she should join him in Australia. This plan had been carried out; and after a short sojourn in the country he had been enabled to send home for her. She joyfully responded to his call, and upon her arrival was united to her faithful lover. Since their union their life had been an uninterrupted course of domestic bliss; and they were blessed, at the period of our narrative, with four pledges of their happiness. Eleanor Rainsfield, who, as already introduced to the reader as Mr. Rainsfield's cousin, was the daughter of that gentleman's deceased uncle, who had early emigrated, with a newly-married wife, to the colony. He was by profession a medical man, and for many years during his early residence in the country, pursued his avocation profitably; but in the midst of an extending practice he lost his wife, to whom he was fondly and devotedly attached. The effect of this blow he never thoroughly got over, but gradually became in every respect an altered man. From one of unflinching energy and firm determination, he degenerated into a desponding, weak, and vacillating imbecile; and lingered on in a mental aberration for some two years, when he died. During the period of his distraction it is not surprising that his practice rapidly declined, and ultimately became completely destroyed; hence, upon his demise, his family were left perfectly destitute. From the time of her mother's death Eleanor became the director of all the family affairs, and the domestic responsibility gave her an appearance of thoughtfulness and care hardly consistent with one so young; while the effects still adhering to her, her manner seemed to retain an habitual reserve and melancholy. At the period of her introduction to John Ferguson she was about sixteen; her figure, though not absolutely slender, was light and active, and of that altitude which, in women, would be considered the medium; not so short as to appear little, nor so tall but that she could look up to a man of ordinary stature. Her form was well modelled, and rounded off to perfection. Her shoulders were of that description so generally fashioned by the chisel of the sculptor, though, possibly, they were rather a shade too broad; being such as would give the beholder the idea of the owner, when more matured, of being a "fine woman." Her movements were effected with a native grace, at once denoting the lady; and her elasticity of tread, and firmness of step, were only equalled by her loftiness of carriage. Her face was of the oval form, with a wide marble forehead (which, but for her winning modesty and gentle manner, would have been considered as bearing the stamp of coldness and hauteur); eyebrows so well defined, as almost to give an idea of pencilling; deep blue lustrous eyes, protected by long lashes; a nose slightly tending to the aquiline; a mouth of enticing sweetness, and an alabaster cheek, almost imperceptibly tinged with the faintest pink. Her hair of "bonny brown," and of which she had a luxuriant crop, was worn slightly off the cheek. Her dress was neatness and elegance combined; so made as to come up to the throat, and there terminate in a neat open collar; under which was a pink ribbon, contrasting pleasingly with the otherwise pale-looking features of the wearer. Her sleeves ended in a band, which encircled her wrists, and displayed a pair of hands, rivalling in symmetry the choicest sculpture, and in whiteness the calico on which she was industriously employing herself. Her features, though not perfect, were calm and beautifully expressive, and the lustre of her complexion at once struck the beholder with admiration; while, to her, affectation being unknown, the easy confidence with which she approached and welcomed a stranger, rendered her perfectly bewitching; and to this description we may add, that, though in the florescence of youth, she was in the full bloom of womanhood. Start not, gentle reader, at the paradox we have uttered; for in Australia, that land of precocity, where both vegetable and animal nature shoots up into maturity so quickly, the transition appears almost miraculous; and those we have known yesterday as children, we are surprised, probably, after a year or two's absence, to see grown to man or woman's estate. Such cases are not the exception, but the rule. So, therefore, be not surprised when we state that at an age, when, in this staid old-fashioned going country, match-making matrons may be thinking of introducing their daughters to the world, their cognates, the fair "corn-stalks" of Australia, will not only have long since made their _debût_ in society, but have settled into devoted wives and happy mothers. And, bless their little hearts! we doubt not, but that, as they are matured both in person and mind at an earlier age, and have consequently less time and opportunities to acquire the deceptions of society, they are as much, if not more, calculated to fulfil their worldly destiny, with credit to themselves and happiness to their concomitants, as their more favoured sisters of our own glorious isle. Eleanor Rainsfield, as we have hinted, retained a cast of melancholy in her features, which gave her an appearance of coldness and reserve to strangers, aided, perhaps, by a natural diffidence and desire for seclusion; which she preferred to thrusting herself forward, or mixing much with the world. When known, however, she was gentle and kind, with an amiability and candour exceedingly attractive; and when interested with the conversation of one for whom she entertained respect, a smile usually played over her placid features and made her perfectly irresistible. This smile would vanish with the cessation of the conversation, and the evanescent animation pass with it; leaving the stranger in doubt, when gazing on the returning gloom, if the former sunshine had been the effect of pleasurable emotions, or a shadowing forth of a latent melancholy. She was highly accomplished, and her mind was the emblem of purity itself. Her present refuge had been offered to her by her cousin upon the death of her father, and gratefully accepted; while the remainder of the family had been dispersed amongst various relatives. The other members of the Rainsfield family were the children, of whom we have already made mention, and Thomas Rainsfield, a junior brother of the proprietor of the station, with whom he was "acquiring experience." He was a fine, frank, open-hearted young fellow of about three-and-twenty; but as he was absent from home at the period of which we write, we will defer introducing him to the reader until we can do so in _propria personæ_. In a small cottage, a short distance from the house, resided Mr. Billing (who acted as clerk and storekeeper, and whose duties were to keep the accounts of the station, and distribute the rations to the men) and his wife (who officiated as governess); with sundry olive branches, who bore unmistakeable evidences, from their facial delineations, of their Billing paternity. John Ferguson, in a few words, explained the nature of the mishap which had occasioned his visit, and begged Mr. Rainsfield to supply his wants, until such time as he could receive a further supply. The required accommodation was willingly acceded to; and Mr. Rainsfield remarked that he would give instructions to Mr. Billing to send it over to Fern Vale, the first time that he sent out the rations; and as that would be on the following day, he had no doubt that the arrangement would suit his neighbour. John replied to Mr. Rainsfield, that he was exceedingly obliged to him for his kind offer; but stated that as he would be returning to the station at once, he would save him the trouble by taking a bag with him on his horse. "Nonsense," cried his entertainer, "I can never think of letting you leave us in such a hurry; you have nothing that requires your immediate return, and you may as well favour us with your company for a few days, at any rate until you hear of the approach of your sheep; by which time I expect Tom will have returned, and no doubt we may manage to give you a hand to get them over the river. Besides, the ladies are always complaining of _ennui_, and will be happy of your society in the disposal of a few leisure hours. I am sure I need not appeal to my wife, to confirm my welcome; for though she now preserves a strict silence, I know she is desirous for you to remain." "Indeed, my dear," replied the lady, "you are perfectly correct in your conjectures. I should indeed be pleased if Mr. Ferguson would remain with us for a few days; not to make a convenience of him in the manner which you describe, but to impress him with a favourable idea of the neighbours amongst whom he has settled. So, if he will allow himself to be persuaded, we will arrange his domestication in as short a time as possible." "I am exceedingly indebted to you, Mrs. Rainsfield, for your expression of kind feeling," exclaimed John; "and, if not putting you to too great inconvenience, I will accept the hospitality of your worthy husband and yourself, to await the approach of my brother." "Inconvenience?" replied Mrs. Rainsfield; "who ever heard of inconvenience in the bush? I have long forgotten the application of the word; and at any rate, if I could call to mind its meaning, I never could think of allowing it to influence me, when the wishes of my husband are in question;" saying which, and looking archly at her spouse, she quitted the room. "Ah! she's up to some little game now;" exclaimed that victim laughingly, as his wife left the apartment: "depend upon it she intends backing up that soft soap, with some little scheme of personal aggrandizement. You can't think, my dear sir," he continued, addressing John Ferguson, "how these women manage to get round us, when they take it into their little heads to flatter our vanity. If ever you submit to the thraldom of a marital character, you must be proof against that weakness." "I have no idea of the nature of the bondage to be borne by you self-constituted slaves," replied John; "but judging from what I have witnessed in this house, I should imagine the allegiance required from you was not exacting, nor the servitude of a crushing nature. What do you think, Miss Rainsfield," said he, turning to the young lady; "is your cousin's case a specimen of the general rule or a solitary exception?" "Well, sir, I can hardly say," she replied; "but would think the happiness of a married life depended in a great measure upon a congeniality of temper, mutual forbearance, and reciprocity of kindly feeling, existing between the parties concerned; and that if amiability is allied to impetuosity, or petulance to generosity, the result must necessarily prove disastrous." "Well done, my little oracle," ejaculated her cousin; "there now, sir, you have a dissertation on matrimony, and a moral, the truth of which I doubt if you'll ever dispute. But my cousin has surely turned philosopher, and is moralizing in expectancy on her own engagement; but forgive me, Nell" (he continued, as the young lady cast a reproachful look at him that made him regret the allusion), "I did not intend to pain you by any reference to your _affair d'amour_; I had no idea it was an unpleasant subject with you." So, after making what he thought the _amende honorable_ to his cousin; but in reality only doing, as all men do who attempt to explain away some pain-giving remark; that is, adding poignancy to the wounding shaft; he led off his visitor to accompany him round the station. In accepting the invitation to sojourn with this family for a few days, we suspect it was something more than the mere desire to wait for his brother, that influenced John Ferguson. It had been his intention, when he left his own place, to proceed on the road to meet William, and lend him his assistance in driving the sheep; and, therefore, there appears something inexplicable in his remaining inactive at Strawberry Hill. Could it be that any feeling of admiration for his entertainer's fair cousin had exercised any spell in his detention; or that he was merely pleased with the people with whom he found himself, and desired to cultivate their acquaintance? We suspect, rather, that the fascination of the young lady was the secret cause, though, perhaps, unknown even to John himself. 'Tis true, he could not divest his thoughts of her image; from passing events they continually wandered, and incessantly reverted to a contemplation of her calm and placid features. In his thoughts, Eleanor Rainsfield was ever present; and though each meditation of her intruded itself without causing a thought of the nature of the feeling he was fostering, he at last found himself deeply involved in a mental enunciation of her charms; which concluded in the decision, that she was indeed a creature to be prized; and if not perfection itself, the nearest approach to it, that it is the fortune of mortals to witness. "She really is a charming girl," he mentally exclaimed; "but why am I continually thinking of her? I have no desire to be married; besides which, her cousin taxed her with an engagement, and, by the bye, she did not relish the allusion. I wonder what it can mean; she seemed dejected too; and, now I remember, she appeared to lay particular stress upon the requisites that ensured happiness to the married state. She must already be engaged, and that engagement, if I divine rightly, cannot be congenial to her spirit; there is some slight mystery that requires solving. Dear me!" he continued, after a few moments of inert meditation, "I can't get that girl out of my head. I can't think what makes me take such an interest in her affairs; it is surely no concern of mine. I must shake off the thoughts of her:" and with that amiable determination he commenced whistling a popular air to delude himself, while he turned to his companion, who had in the meantime stopped in his walk to watch his abstractedness. After spending some time in looking over the domestic arrangements of the station, the two gentlemen bent their steps to the Wombi river. In the course of their walk John Ferguson remarked, that he thought the present crossing-place did not appear a very judicious choice, and asked his companion if a safer and more eligible spot could not be found. "I think not," replied Mr. Rainsfield. "At the place where you crossed the river it is at its widest point; and at the time I selected it, it was the shallowest part of the stream. Then there was a sand bank right in the bed of the river, which made a crossing quite practicable; but, since the last 'fresh' I find the sand bank is washed away, and nothing is now left in its place but a deposit of mud; so I fear nothing will improve it now. I have had an idea for some time of putting up a bridge, if I could get any of the settlers to join me; but you see at present there is no one besides you and I, who would be benefitted by it; and it would be rather too expensive an undertaking for us to perform by ourselves." "As you say," replied Ferguson, "at present we are the only ones that would be convenienced by its erection; but if we can't procure any assistance from government, we might induce Mr. Robert Smithers to join us: for if he has taken up all the country down the river bank for the distance which I understand he has, it would be to his interest to afford us assistance; for a bridge over the Wombi would materially affect the sale of his runs." "I am inclined to differ from you there," said Mr. Rainsfield. "I don't think Smithers would see the advantage in the same light which you and I do; he is perfectly aware that any one wanting the country, would be very little influenced by the existence of a river in his way. People are too well accustomed to such impediments, and, I doubt not, would make a deviation of fifty miles from the direct course, by travelling up the stream to find another crossing, rather than expend a small sum in putting up a bridge, for, what they would consider, our exclusive benefit. And as to government assistance, you might as soon expect the aid of Jupiter. Never, until the country is settled some hundreds of miles further out, and they have, after repeated importunities, established a post-office somewhere beyond this, and had half the postmen in the country drowned from swimming the river in times of flood, would they think a bridge at all necessary. If you like to accompany me to the river I will show you a spot I have often looked upon as a likely one for a bridge; where the banks are steep and the river narrow. I think a log bridge could be put over at a very moderate cost, and if we can induce Bob Smithers to fall into our views (though I doubt it), I would propose that we go about it at once. To ascertain his inclination, however, I will write him; and if I think any good can be done, I will myself ride over to Brompton and see him." The plan met with the ready concurrence of John Ferguson; and they continued their walk, to look at the spot to which Mr. Rainsfield referred; and arriving there, they stood contemplating its advantages. As Mr. Rainsfield had remarked, the banks were very steep and lofty; and the river confined within narrow limits, ran more rapidly than elsewhere. On the sloping banks grew some gigantic gum trees, which Mr. Rainsfield proposed felling in such a way, as to fall across the stream (which he calculated they would do); and then two or three so placed, with a flooring of smaller saplings, and a coating of earth, a substantial, and economical structure could be erected; while with a little labour expended in partially levelling the approaches, it would answer the purposes of the most solid edifice. They both agreed that the site was an eligible one, and offered facilities which should not be neglected; and with this belief, and determining to use some exertions to carry out their idea, they turned to retrace their steps to the house; when Mr. Rainsfield drew John's attention to the forms of some aborigines, who were skulking behind the trees in the distance on the opposite side of the river. "Those fellows," said he, "are all abroad; their camp is on the other side of the Gibson, in the scrub below us; and they evidently want to get over here, to cross by 'the flats' beyond our place, instead of swimming the river above. Bob Smithers must be out of the way, or they would not venture a chance of falling in with him; he always keeps them off his brother's run if he can help it; and he generally succeeds, for he has the active management of the station, and his word is law. I have been obliged to follow his example lately myself, for I have been so much troubled by their pilfering, that I have determined to keep them away from the place. Not long ago, I caught one of them walking off with one of the men's rations, which the stupid fellow left exposed; and I gave the delinquent a charge of shot, which made him speedily relinquish his booty, and impart to his tribe a healthy dread of the consequences of pilfering from Strawberry Hill. Now, unfortunately, I anticipate further trouble with them; for the blackguards have got a ruffian amongst them who is perfectly conversant with our usages and customs; and he has assumed the chiefship of the tribe." "I had a visit from them myself yesterday," replied John, "and detained two of their boys on my station. I expect to be able to make use of them in many ways; and, if need be, I can keep them as hostages for the well behaviour of their countrymen." "I am afraid that you are labouring under a delusion," said Rainsfield; "and you will find that you are adopting the very worst course you could. By retaining those fellows on your station you will encourage the others of the tribe to come on your run: indeed, while you detain these boys, you will not be able to keep their friends away. And if they take into their heads to rob you (which in all probability they will), the two that you have in your service will be made by their fellows to communicate regular intelligence of your movements; and you will find you have been harbouring a viper in your bosom." "I have already," replied John, "been inclined to think that kind treatment towards the blacks is better policy than harshness; conciliation is more natural than banishment; and I cannot think any race of savages can be so morally depraved as to commit depredations on their benefactors. They are far more likely to indulge in acts of reprisal, where their evil passions are excited by cupidity, or animated by a thirst to revenge some act of aggression or cruelty. For my own part (and my brother agrees with me in the policy), I intend to cultivate their good feeling, by acting towards them in a kindly manner; of course with a certain degree of firmness; for I would resent any of their peccadillos. I am fully cognizant of their predilection for appropriation, and will take every precaution to prevent an exercise of their propensities; but, at the same time, I can't reconcile myself to the idea, of visiting petty delinquencies with the severity which you recommend." "Well, we shall see how you succeed," returned his companion; "I found from experience it was perfectly impossible to preserve order, and retain my property, while the black villains were permitted to overrun my place; and I had no peace until I adopted stringent measures, and got rid of their annoyance by expatriation. I don't believe your principle of leniency is practicable, and am convinced you will soon have cause to regret its trial, and will be brought to my way of thinking; therefore, I should strongly advise you to relinquish the idea at once, and relieve yourself of an immensity of trouble and anxiety in the future." "No," replied John, "my mind is fixed; I am determined to try the working of my plan, and am sanguine of success. It is true the blacks in this part of the country, are wilder than those I have been accustomed to mix with; but I've very little doubt, but that I'll be able to live on terms of amity with them, and avoid all those hostile contiguities, which we are led to expect are incidental on a residence in this district." "Well," said Rainsfield, "I must confess myself sceptical of a favourable result, and only trust your experiment may not have a tragical termination; for I've no faith in the aborigines: they are treacherous in the extreme, and will commit any act of violence to possess themselves of a coveted article. I myself have known shepherds on out-stations murdered by them, for the sake of their rations, or even a blanket, which had excited their avarice." "It is true," said John, "we hear of such cases; but, in nine out of ten, I believe the black perpetrating the act of violence, has been one who has been domesticated with the whites; and having been brought into contact with the vilest of our race, and acquired all the vices which have been daily presented to his sight, it is not to be wondered at, that (having these constantly submitted to him for his example and emulation, and without the influence of moral obligations) he should perpetrate the very acts he has heard lightly treated of, or perhaps extolled. But, with the aboriginal in his native state, and without the degrading influence of civilised immorality, you rarely, or never, meet with such violation of the ethical and natural laws." "The very depravity which you have described," replied the other, "is the accomplishment possessed by the chief of that tribe which is our neighbour; so you know exactly what you have to expect from him and his." "I doubt not," said John, "if the fellow is of the nature you mention, he will have sufficient cunning, and natural instinct, to perceive that a friendly intercourse with me will be more advantageous to him than a constant warfare; for, after all, these fellows must be gifted with reasoning faculties. They must know, that where their visits are permitted so long as they maintain their integrity, and their wants to a certain extent supplied, it is far better for them to continue that state of peacefulness, than by an act of aggression to forfeit the privilege for ever." "I see," said Rainsfield, "you are enthusiastically intent upon pursuing this plan of ingratiating yourself with your sable neighbours; and I sincerely trust your good intentions may not be misdirected." By this time the peripatetic disquisition was terminated by the friends reaching the house; and, entering the sitting-room, they found the ladies had for some time been waiting their return. Upon an enquiry from Mrs. Rainsfield, what had detained them so long, her husband replied, "Nothing very particular, my dear; we strolled down to the Wombi to look at a spot where a bridge could be thrown across, and Mr. Ferguson and I got into a discussion about the blacks; and he defended them in such an able and spirited manner that the time slipped by unconsciously. You must know, my dear, our friend here is going to establish himself on a friendly footing with the black fellows; and I shouldn't be surprised to see a model black settlement as the result of his moral training." "I commend Mr. Ferguson for his justice," replied the lady; and turning to John, she continued, "I only wish, sir, you could induce my husband to be of the same way of thinking; for he persists in keeping the poor creatures aloof from the place, and I am confident they are perfectly harmless. Before the sentence of banishment was pronounced against them, we found them exceedingly useful. For some time I had a young 'gin' in the house as a servant, and she was quite as handy as any white one I ever had; besides which, she was very partial to the children, and they were very fond of her." "I am delighted, my dear madam," exclaimed our hero, "to think that my views meet with your approval; and I have no doubt that when I prove their practicability, I shall be enabled to induce your husband to adopt them." With this remark he turned to Miss Rainsfield, and met her gaze, which was fixed upon his features with a smile of approval. She hastily removed her eyes, when she perceived John had noticed her; but not before the momentary glance had penetrated his heart, and rendered him thoughtful and abstracted for the remainder of the evening. CHAPTER VII. "In joyous youth, what soul hath never known, Thought, feeling, taste, harmonious to its own? Who hath not paused while Beauty's pensive eye Asked from his heart the homage of a sigh?" CAMPBELL. Another day had passed, and a third had shed its light on Strawberry Hill, and still John Ferguson lingered there. It is true the inmates of the house pressed him to stay; but it required little pressing to induce him to continue a visit which was so grateful and congenial to his wishes. He had spent long hours in the society of the ladies, and had rambled with them through the shades of the bush. He was irresistibly spell-bound to the spot, though he professed to himself utter ignorance of any retentive influence. Despite his repeated personal assurances that he had no amative object or gratification in his partiality for the society of his new-made friends, it must be admitted that the presence and companionship of Miss Rainsfield had more attractions for him than he pretended to admit; though the fact that his heart was a little interested in the matter at last began to dawn upon his mind. It was in fact almost impossible for any man, whose affections were not pre-engaged, to live in the enjoyment of a contiguity with such a creature as Eleanor Rainsfield without feeling deeply the fascination of her cultivated mind, her charming person, and graceful unaffected manner. How much more susceptible of a loving impress, then, must have been the mind of John Ferguson, who retaining nature's freshness itself, at once perceived a kindred spirit in the fair cousin of Mr. Rainsfield. On the other hand, the charming girl herself--young and inexperienced, early deprived of the guiding influence of her fond parents, and seldom mixing in society--had very rare opportunities of forming any opinion of the world or its motives; and knew not the accomplished art of dissembling her feelings, when the ice of her outward reserve had been once broken. The conversation and ingenuous manner of her companion pleased her, and she took an interest and pleasure in his society, which she had no idea of concealing. What her feelings were, at this period of her acquaintance with Ferguson, it were difficult to surmise; but, in all probability they were embraced in a friendly regard for him, whose mind and character she intuitively esteemed: a species of admiration, engendering a confidence in their friendly intercourse; and which in the breast of a young girl, actuated solely by the spontaneous actions of her own feelings, tends more than anything to beget a feeling of affection for the man who thus engrosses her attention. There is perhaps no friendship which produces so fond a recollection as this; and no feeling so likely to favourably impress a youthful and ardent-minded creature as that which induces her to pour her thoughts, without restraint, into the ear of him with whom she converses; even though they be the merest platitudes. That confidence, with which she is led on to unveil her soul, carries with it a regard which is indelibly impressed on her mind; and such was the feeling with which Eleanor regarded John Ferguson, though she too was unacquainted with the presence of any sentiment other than mere friendship; but we are anticipating. As we have said, time was not stationary at Strawberry Hill, nor on the road; for on the day our narrative continues with, Tom Rainsfield made his appearance, with the intelligence that he had only a short time previously left William Ferguson on the road with his sheep; so that he might be expected to be at the crossing-place on the Wombi, within an hour or so. Tom was instantly introduced to John Ferguson; and volunteered, as soon as he had satisfied the calls of hunger, to return with him to the river, and assist in getting the sheep over. The offer was thankfully declined by John, who assured the other, that he and his brother, with the assistance of their men, were perfectly adequate to the task; but it was generously persisted in by young Rainsfield; and, in a short time afterwards, the two were to be seen bending their steps to the crossing-place, which they reached about the same time that William and his flocks slowly wended their way to the river. We have stated, at the first mention of his name to the reader, that Tom Rainsfield was a fine generous-minded young fellow. At the time of his arrival at Strawberry Hill, he had just finished a long equestrian journey, and was necessarily tired and fatigued; so that the readiness with which he proffered his assistance to the Fergusons was an instance of kindness, and an obliging disposition, which was his general character. He was dressed in the usual bush costume, viz, jumper, breeches and belt, riding boots, spurs, and cabbage-tree hat; and in his frank open countenance could at once be read the genuineness of his friendship. He was in truth a noble fellow; high-spirited and warm-hearted; bold and daring, though, perhaps, a little thoughtless and impetuous. His figure, though not decidedly tall, was of a good height, light and elegantly formed, and altogether was such as would command the admiration of the fair sex; while the facile freedom of his speech, the easy grace of his manners, and his gentlemanly bearing, were sufficient to insure the respect of his fellows, and to establish, on a lasting footing, the esteem of his friends. During their short walk from the house the two young men had naturally fallen into conversation, and had, even in that limited period, become mutually attached to each other. "I overtook your brother on the road," said Tom, in the continuation of a dialogue, "and, knowing it could be none other than he, I introduced myself, and we knew one another at once. He is a fine fellow, and just my style. If you don't favour us much with your company at our place I promise you you shall have enough of me at yours; for your brother and I will be sworn friends. He tells me, too, that he expects his sister is coming to place herself under your bachelor protection: is such the case? You have said nothing about it up at the Hill, or I think they would have told me." "I made no mention of the circumstance," replied John, "to either your brother or his lady, as, as yet, it is by no means decided upon; for my own part, I hardly like the idea of bringing the poor girl out to this remote part of the country. I should prefer seeing it a little more settled first, though my brother William is madly anxious to get her out with us; she herself, I think, could be easily influenced either the one way or the other." "Then by all means let her join you," cried Tom; "give William his way, and us the pleasure of knowing her. If there is any hesitation on your part, I will enlist the services of our women folk; and if they don't tease you into compliance before a month is over, it is a caution. Why, they'll be madly hilarious, when they hear the bare mention of such a scheme; they surely can't be aware of the fact of your possessing such a treasure as a sister, or I am sure they would be on to you at once to induce a visit from her." "Under any circumstances, it will require some delay," replied John; "as we could not think of getting her to join us, until we had established some comfortable home to bring her to; and I fear it will be a considerable time ere that can be accomplished." "That's easily managed," returned Tom. "Never mind your house; she can come on a visit to us until you get your place ready. I am sure our folks will be delighted to have her company. Eleanor will be a very suitable companion for her; and I am sure she will be an acquisition to Eleanor, who sadly wants a lively companion of her own age. I am confident your sister would dispel much of our cousin's settled melancholy, and make her see the sacrifice she is contemplating." "I have no doubt the girls would suit each other admirably," replied John; "and if I think myself justified in asking my sister, and she can be persuaded to come out here, I doubt not they will soon become friends; but may I ask to what you allude by your cousin's sacrifice?" "Simply marriage to one to whom she considers herself engaged," said Tom, "while, in my opinion, it is perfect folly; she is absolutely throwing herself away. I cannot bring myself to think she entertains any liking for the man, for I don't believe any intellectual woman could discover anything in him worthy of esteem. You are acquainted with him, though no doubt his character is better known to me than to you, for I have had more opportunities of observing it. It is Bob Smithers; and she has consented to marry him through the importunities of his sister-in-law. It appears Mrs. Smithers was an intimate friend of Eleanor's mother, and used to joke Eleanor about Bob; who, when a younger man, and when my cousin was a mere child, used to be particularly attentive to her; so, amongst them, a match was made up between the two. Since then Eleanor has seen very little of her betrothed; but his assiduous advocate, his sister-in-law, has continued to press his suit; and obtained from Eleanor a renewal of her pledge. In fact, the poor girl has been absolutely cajoled into an acceptance, as much from an ignorance of Bob's character, and a desire to gratify her mother's friend, as from any feelings of her own. I will do Mrs. Smithers the justice to say, I believe she does not know the extent of her brother-in-law's vileness; and that what she considers his little weaknesses, will be effectually rectified by a union with our Eleanor; but I don't like to see the poor girl sacrificed, and have a good mind to save her (if she would take me) by proposing to her myself; though I believe she thinks her word irrevocable, and will submit to Bob's claim as the fulfilment of a duty. I believe Smithers intends pushing his suit shortly himself; for when he disposes of another block or two of his country, he intends stocking the remainder of his runs with the proceeds of what he has sold, and settling down for himself. However, it will take him some little time before he can complete his plans, and if I can prevent his marrying Eleanor I will do so." Tom Rainsfield continued conversing, or audibly soliloquizing in this strain, without noticing the abstraction into which his companion had fallen; and might have prolonged, even for an hour, his declamation against Bob Smithers, had not the current of his thoughts been arrested, and John Ferguson aroused from his reverie, by their being hailed from the opposite bank by William, who had arrived with the sheep. This was the signal for animation; and for hours all the party were busily engaged effecting a passage of the stream with the ovine mass; while the sun had just began to dip on the horizon, as the last of the animals passed the fluvial barrier. "Now," said Tom, as he gazed upon the assembled flock on the Wombi's bank, "you had better let the men camp here with the sheep for the night, and you and William come up and spend the evening, and stop the night with us." To this advice, however, there was one dissenting voice, and that voice was John's. He had, within the previous hour, lost the interest he had before experienced in a visit to Strawberry Hill; or rather, he now wished to avoid the place altogether. And yet his heart yearned for one of the residents; he desired to bask in the inspiring smile of his spirit's charmer; he felt a longing to gaze once more into the face of Eleanor Rainsfield, and read in her eyes, either the confirmation of his fears, or the entire repudiation of any such engagement as that mentioned by her cousin. Alas, poor John! he was hopelessly enthralled in Cupid's bondage, and he felt it; though his calmer judgment whispered to him an indulgence of such a sentiment was selfish and useless. If such an attachment, or even engagement (he thought to himself), did exist, and of that, from his friend's affirmation, he had no doubt, it must have been entered into with her consent, and evident approval; for by her cousin's account she was immovable, even to his entreaty; why, therefore, should he, almost a stranger, attempt to interpose himself between her and her evident inclination? Such were the thoughts that contended in his mind, when he wished to avoid the Hill, and take his departure at once with the sheep for his own station. His brother, however, was differently disposed; he had travelled a long distance, and was pretty tired of his vocation; he knew that the animals could not travel much further that day, and if they proceeded another two or three miles they would have to halt just the same; while nothing would be gained, but the probability of having to camp with them. So, bushman though he was, he preferred comfortable quarters for the night, to a stretcher beside a camp fire. He therefore raised his voice against his brother's objection; and John was thus out-voted in the conclave, and compelled to submit to the over-ruling of his companions. They, therefore, made arrangements for the halt; informing their men that they would be with them on the morning by daylight; and then joined their friend, and sauntered towards the house. From Tom the ladies soon learnt the scheme of the brothers with regard to their sister, and were importunate in their entreaties to hurry her arrival. John Ferguson, who had not recovered the despondency the communication of Tom had thrown him into, was quite bewildered with the badinage that was directed to him from all quarters during the evening, for his reluctance in bringing his sister out to the station. Mrs. Rainsfield affirmed that it was because he was such a confirmed bachelor, he could not bear the thought of being under a lady's dominion, even though it were his sister; while Tom declared his belief that Mr. Ferguson was afraid of presenting her, for fear that he, Tom, would effect a reprisal, and walk off with her. Even as it was, he said, he would not answer for himself; if Miss Ferguson was as charming as he fully anticipated she would prove, he thought he would enter into a compact with her brothers and secure her at once. All this raillery and playfulness, was little heeded by John Ferguson, who remained particularly abstracted; so much so, that it became distinctly discernible, and the loquacity of his friends gradually subdued. As the conversation began to slacken, Miss Rainsfield raised her eyes from her work, and addressing their taciturn visitor in the sweetest possible voice, asked him if he would not allow his sister to remain on a visit with them for a short time, before she fixed her abode with her brothers; so as to give her an opportunity of settling herself in her new home, making her acquaintance with her neighbours, and affording them the pleasure of her society. John was roused to consciousness by this appeal, and replied that he would be most happy to be the means of his sister cultivating and enjoying their friendship; but that if she made up her mind to live with her brothers at Fern Vale, she would be her own mistress, and have entire control over her own actions; so that the acceptance and prolongation of any visit would in a great measure depend upon her own whim. He said, however, from what he knew of her disposition, he had no doubt she would far prefer the agreeable society of such friends as Mrs. and Miss Rainsfield, to the dull monotony of a guardianship of two bachelor brothers. The conversation, after this episode, brightened, and was continued in a pleasing strain for the remainder of the evening. On the following morning, true to their word, the young men took their departure, and reached their station without the occurrence of an event worth recording; and for the next two or three days, they were fully occupied in the settlement of matters at Fern Vale. In the midst of a routine of business, John Ferguson had little time to think of matters relating to his feelings; but when the first bustle succeeded to leisure, his thoughts of Eleanor returned with redoubled force. He would then picture to his imagination her expressive features; he would dream of her abstractedly by day, and her form was the subject of his visions by night; and yet, though he thought her personal charms the perfection of frail humanity, his admiration was not so much for the outward fane, as the spirit that held dominion within. It is true his attention had been first arrested by her beauty; but the cause of those after feelings, which now consumed his soul, was the constant contemplation of her gentleness, amiability, mental accomplishments, and pure unsullied spirit. These were they which won his love, and secured his heart in a hopeless thraldom. In its empire he had established one sovereign, who was supreme, and that sovereign was Eleanor; his soul had but one idol, and the deity of this feticism was Eleanor; his mind had raised one standard of human perfection, and the motto of that standard, the excelsior of his fate, was Eleanor. The spirit of Eleanor was in every bush; her face smiled down upon him from every tree; the very birds seemed for the time, in his presence, to forget their natural utterance, and screamed in various tones of dissonance the name of Eleanor. And yet (he would think in his musings) this prize was not to be his; she was the cherished of another, to whom she had pledged her love. What then was left for him? Why should he entertain one thought of her? It was clear the possession of this treasure was never for him; then why should he allow her to retain dominion in his mind? These mental interrogations he could not answer to his own satisfaction. He attempted to argue himself into a belief that he was mistaken in his feelings towards her; that she was not, in fact, the beacon towards which all his hopes were directed; but the sophistry failed to offer consolation to his wounded spirit, and he felt that he could not banish her from his thoughts: the task was hopeless. Weeks passed away thus, without the occurrence of any event specially worth chronicling. Tom Rainsfield and William Ferguson had become inseparable friends, and were constantly together, either at the one station or the other; while John's visits to his neighbouring friends were short, and at remote intervals. His manner had become thoughtful and grave, and had not failed to attract the notice of his friends, from its contrast to his usual character. Shearing had commenced; and his mind, from the constant diversion of his thoughts, had partially recovered its wonted elasticity. His sister had expressed her willingness to join her brothers; and the dray having arrived from Alma, with the necessary materials to complete their dwelling, John had hurried on the carpenters with their work. It was determined by the Fergusons that the dray then on the station, should go down to town with the first load of their wool; and that William should follow it, and procure furniture and other necessaries for it to return with. He was then to proceed to his father's house, take up his sister, bring her round to the station by way of Mr. Dawson's, and leave her at Strawberry Hill for a week or two, until the house at Fern Vale was ready for her reception. These various arrangements being completed; such as the despatch of the dray, the acquaintance of Mr. Ferguson at Acacia Creek of their plans, and the arrival of the other dray with supplies; William took his departure; and John, after he had despatched a second load of wool, rode over to Strawberry Hill to make a personal delivery of the salt he had borrowed from Mr. Rainsfield. It had been some time since John Ferguson had paid his respects at Strawberry Hill, and his visit on this occasion was hailed with no little surprise, and possibly with a good deal of pleasure by more than one member of the family. Mrs. Rainsfield was particular in her enquiries, as to the cause of his continuing to seclude himself, and anxiously inquisitive for a solution of his mysterious melancholy. Eleanor was unaltered, either in personal appearance or her manner towards him; she entertained the same admiration, and though her heart whispered to her suspicions, that she was in some way connected with his dejection, she had no idea of the extent of his feelings' ravishment. At the same time she did not deem any secresy of her admiration essential to a compatibility with modesty. She found pleasure in the society of John Ferguson; liked his manner and person; and therefore threw into her reception of him, when they met, a warmth and cordiality, which, though only expressive of her own pure friendship, filled with ecstatic glow the very blood of her enraptured lover. She was, in fact, though unconsciously to herself, with the spirit she was investing in the mere exercise of common-place formalities, creating, or rather strengthening, a feeling in the breast of John Ferguson, which never could be eradicated; but which would, of a certainty, consume his life and spirits, if he were not blessed with a reciprocal attachment. In the present interview, however, Eleanor did not join with the lady of the house in her playful badinage; indeed, it was not her usual manner; but she had eyes, and those eyes (differing from the followers of Mr. Irving) spoke in no unknown tongue, at least to John; to him they had the power of communicating in many languages, so that when she gave him a look, in which was embodied all she wished to convey, its meaning was instantly and rightly interpreted by our hero. If we were called upon to describe in words the tumultuous ragings of those elements that cleave the very mountains, lay prostrate the gigantic denizens of the forest, and make the earth tremble with the power of their agitation; if we were required to depict the falling avalanche, that sweeps in its course all vestiges of vitality from the face of the earth; or to form an adequate conception of the occult ramifications of the electric fluid, which is at man's pleasure made to compass the globe with the quickness of thought, we would confess ourselves incompetent. Equally so are we to describe the glance of a woman. Some looks there are, however, which, though inexplicable to uninitiated spectators, to those who cherish even a corruscation of mental light, speak volumes of information; and such it was that Eleanor cast upon John Ferguson. What was conveyed in that look we will not pretend to fathom; but simply affirm that its effect was an entire derangement of the love-sick swain's determination to forget the cause of his wretchedness, and a dispersion of every idea save the one ruling sentiment of love for her. Thus, in a moment, discretion was forgotten, and resolution cast to the wind; and he blindly satiated himself with deep draughts of love's ambrosia, without a moment's contemplation of the remote chances, or absolute impossibility of his ever possessing the fountain source. Eve's fair daughters have always an eye for the discernment and evolution of love's mysterious workings; and often detect the existence of the tender passion, where the percipiency of their lords' mental penetralia fails to enlighten them on its presence. Hence, while Mr. Rainsfield never dreamed of John Ferguson being a rival of Smithers for the hand of Eleanor, and before she herself even thoroughly knew it, his weaker half had made the discovery with considerable delight and communicated the knowledge to her spouse. By him the news was received in a far different spirit than was expected by his wife; and he at once remarked that he would take an immediate opportunity of warning his young friend against entertaining any feeling beyond friendship for Eleanor. He reminded his wife that the girl had voluntarily engaged herself to Smithers, and would therefore marry him; consequently, there was no use torturing Ferguson, by allowing him to cherish hopes which were not destined to be fulfilled. "But why should they not be?" replied his wife: "I am certain he loves Eleanor, and am pretty sure that Eleanor loves him. That she does not entertain any such feeling for Smithers I am confident; she has been forced, more than otherwise, into that engagement with him, and the very thought of attaching herself to him for life is making her wretched. If you took the trouble to notice her, you would perceive with what pleasure she receives the attention of Mr. Ferguson; and I am convinced he has only to declare himself to receive an unqualified consent." "Well, I beg you will not mention the subject to her," said Rainsfield; "so long as she remains engaged to Bob Smithers you surely do not intend to argue that it is proper for her to receive the attention of another admirer. If she refuses Smithers, then I can see no objection to her favouring the suit of our neighbour; but until then it were only madness to give Ferguson any encouragement. I shall warn him of his danger at once, and again request you to maintain silence to Eleanor on the subject." "For my part," persisted the lady, "I don't think Smithers is entitled to such consideration: he rarely or never visits Eleanor; he shows her no attention; and takes it for granted his claims are indisputable, and that she is ready to accept him whenever it is his convenience to take her. If Eleanor had the slightest spirit in her nature she would scorn such a man; and I think it is entirely a false notion of rectitude that makes her adhere to the engagement." "It may be in opposition to her happiness, my dear," replied her husband, "but it cannot be a false notion of rectitude, as you call it; it is rather rectitude in the strictest sense. She has been induced to accept Mr. Smithers, and to ratify it on more than one occasion; consequently, it is not for us to judge, whether she will be happy or not in such a connexion, but to leave her to her own free will and judgment; therefore, I say again, while this engagement exists, it is not right to allow young Ferguson to imagine he has any chance of acceptance." "But I know he would not be refused," replied Mrs. Rainsfield. "Dear me!" exclaimed the husband, "it is wonderful how you women will persevere in a cause that you interest yourselves in. There is no use in your reiterating that expression, however; for I tell you again, that John Ferguson must be cautioned against allowing himself to be carried away by his feelings; and I am confident, that when I point out to him the nature of his position, his good sense will enable him to see its untenableness, and cause him to desist from any pointed attentions." Mrs. Rainsfield was a dutiful wife, and, however much against her own inclinations, she submitted to her husband's wishes; though she left his presence grieved and disappointed. She well knew that a match between Eleanor and Smithers would prove unhappy; while she was as fully certain that a union with John Ferguson would be as felicitous as any human connexion could be. We will not say that the spirit of match-making, inherent in the nature of all matrons, was wounded at its defeat; although she certainly cherished the idea of bringing the two young people together, it was not so much with the mere wish to be the means of accomplishing a ceremony, as to see them happy. For she had a sincere desire for the welfare of Eleanor, for whom she felt a compassion on account of her dependent condition, and an attachment for her virtues and affectionate manner to herself; besides the esteem, we have already said, she felt for our hero. She, however, determined, without a violation of her husband's commands, to sound Eleanor upon the subject of her engagement with Smithers; and if she perceived any disposition to break off on her part, to give John a hint of the probability of his success, if he renewed his suit. In the meantime, Mr. Rainsfield took the opportunity of which he spoke to his wife, and communicated to John the utter hopelessness of his persevering in his attentions to the young lady; informing him that her affections were already engaged; and recommended him, for his own peace of mind, that he should banish all thoughts of an amative nature. Mr. Rainsfield further remarked, that he felt himself in justice bound to give his friend that caution, before he allowed any warm feeling to take a firm possession of his heart; at the same time, he assured him their conversation was unknown to the lady herself, as was also, so he had reason to believe, the state of his feelings towards her. Therefore, John need not consider the annihilation of his hopes of obtaining her hand, a decree of banishment from Strawberry Hill. Before the conclusion of this little exordium John had become perfectly unconscious; and, at its termination, mechanically shook the hand of his interlocutor, while he took his departure. All the communication that he could comprehend, was, that it was intended to dispel all the bright illusions love's fancy had conjured in his mind. All his momentary visions of prospective happiness were swept away, like the misty canopy of the mountain before the morning breeze. His ariel palaces of imaginative grandeur, lay shattered at his feet; and he stood like the last of a defeated host, viewing destruction and desolation around him. His fondest hopes were blighted; he felt as one robbed of his very soul; he was wretched and dejected, and turned from the spot with the feelings of an outcast, an alien; or as a once powerful courtier, removed from the presence of his sovereign, to a perpetual expatriation. Strawberry Hill had for ever lost its interest to him; the only treasure it contained held out no prospect of possession. In his heart there was a blank, which nothing short of his idol could fill; but it was empty, and seared; and vacant was his mind, and miserable his feelings, as he leisurely journeyed on his way to Fern Vale. They were, in fact, such as can be better imagined than described; and when he reached his station, and delivered his horse to one of his men in silence, he went about his usual vocations as one almost destitute of reason. What the feelings of the lady most concerned were, had they been consulted, we can well understand; but we must refrain from indulging in anticipations. The manner of John's leave-taking, had struck, with no little amazement, all those who saw him. Mrs. Rainsfield was the one, who, conjecturing its cause, could best appreciate his feelings; she pitied him, and secretly determined, that if he and Eleanor were to be for ever separated, it should not be for want of strategy on her part. She felt that not only his happiness, but the girl's too, depended upon their union; and she considered her husband had taken too strict a notion of the engagement with Smithers, who, she believed, thought very little of it: therefore, Mrs. Rainsfield concluded, very little manoeuvring would break it off; and so determined to devote her energies to such a consummation. CHAPTER VIII. "Pray if you know Where in the purlieus of this forest stands A sheep cote?" AS YOU LIKE IT, _Act_ 4, _Sc._ 3. That portion of the year to which we now bring our narrative is, without exception, the finest period of Australian seasons; when the temperature is the _acme_ of salubrity, and the climate, generally, as delightful as can be imagined. We speak of the spring when merging into the early summer, and when the cool freshness of the morning breeze tempers the genial warmth of the mid-day sun; which had acquired just sufficient strength in his rays to impart a pleasant heat without oppressiveness. On such a morning, then, when the vast concave of the heavens, expanded in a perfectly spotless azure sky (such as in our foggy isle is never seen); and with the freshness of the bush developing its verdure in the odorous exudations of floriferous plants, and the blithesome exuberance of the songless denizens of nature's nemoral aviary; William took his departure on the mission we have detailed in the last chapter. He journeyed on for days, singly but not lonely; for his heart was inspired by the lambent fragrance of nature's smile; and he felt not the solitude of the road, as he travelled over the vast expanse of the Darling Downs. He had traversed this vast table-land, and was approaching its eastern margin, where the descent was to be made to the coast country, when he began to experience an oppressiveness in the atmosphere, which he knew portended a storm. He, however, continued his course, though, indeed, he had no option, until, as the sun was approaching the meridian, he entered the deep gorge called Cunningham's Gap, through which the road passed to the low country, and looked anxiously at the lowering aspect of the sky. He felt he might make up his mind for a drenching in the approaching storm, which he perceived would soon burst over his head; and only exerted himself to get through "the Gap" into open land, before it commenced. Cunningham's Gap, or, as for the sake of brevity it is generally called, "the Gap," is situated between fifty and sixty miles from the coast; and is, as its name would imply, a defile in the mountains, affording a convenient passage through the "main range;" or more properly speaking, a descent from the table-land of the Darling Downs to the country below. The descent effected by this pass is between two and three thousand feet; and the view obtained in the passage of the low lying country is beautiful in the extreme. The gorge itself is one of those combinations of the picturesque and sublime with the useful; and viewed as a specimen of scenery, it is surpassingly grand. Looking at it in its ascent, where its two stupendous sides raise their gigantic masses in rocky precipices, upwards of two thousand feet high; which seem to frown upon the bold traveller who ventures within their cavernous precincts; one cannot contemplate the vast fissure other than as the work of a beneficent providence, as a gateway in the otherwise insurmountable "range." William Ferguson had entered the "Gap," and was riding down the declivity at a rapid rate, when the sky became still more overcast, and the clouds gathered in quick succession; while the low fulminating of the distant thunder, and the death-like stillness of the defile, indicated the speedy approach of the storm, and imparted a solemnity to the scene. The thunder became more distinct. The lightning flashed in vivid darts, which seemed to play along the sides of the pass, until the attractive adamant deviated the refrangible fluid; which then buried itself in some deep crevice of the pendent rocks. A few heavy drops of rain then fell to the earth, and were speedily succeeded by a deluge, which was driven on the face of a tempest almost irresistible. Still on sped the rider almost carried on the wings of the storm; until he was relieved from any pressing anxiety by emerging on the plain; while the elemental warfare raged with unabated fury. William, now relieved from apprehension, proceeded leisurely on the road, which he had to travel for some miles until he reached an inn; but, as he began to feel extremely uncomfortable, to sooner reach the shelter of a roof, he determined to accelerate his speed. With this intention, he clapped spurs to his horse and went off at a sharp pace, until he came to a track that emerged at an acute angle from the road. At this spot he hesitated for a moment; but, believing it to be the road leading to Rosehall, the station of a gentleman with whom he was distantly acquainted; and as night would be shortly closing in, while he had a long distance to go before he reached the inn; he decided upon intruding on the hospitality of his friend. He therefore turned his horse's head into the path, and rode off again at a brisk pace. As he proceeded, however, the road became somewhat indistinct; and at last all appearance of a track vanished; leaving our friend involved in the bush without the semblance of a path, or appearance of any habitation in the vicinity. By this time William discovered his mistake in taking this path (which appeared only to be a bullock track) for the road to Rosehall; and his only alternative was to find his way back again to the road he had left. To do this, however, he did not fancy retracing his steps; and, there being very little time for speculation, he determined to make a short cut through the bush in the direction he knew the main road must run. His resolution was soon formed, and as speedily acted upon; for the idea no sooner entered his mind than he plunged into the bush without any further consideration; and continued his course until his progress was stopped by the intervention of a seemingly impenetrable scrub. The sight of this impediment by no means tended to animate him with pleasant or amiable feelings; for he knew, if he was compelled to deviate from his course, his chance of reaching the road before night would be very remote; and, if he did not succeed in doing that, he saw no option but to make a nocturnal sojourn in the bush; the idea of which, all things considered, he did not much like. To extricate himself from this difficulty, he skirted the scrub, both up and down, for an opening through which to penetrate; until at last he perceived an aperture, into which he darted, though only to find after a short progress, a still further stoppage; and this time one of a more unpleasant nature. At his feet ran a creek, swollen by the rains into a deep and rapid stream. To skirt its banks, to ascertain the direction in which it flowed, was impossible; for, with the exception of the spot on which he stood (and where it seemed broader and shallower than elsewhere), it was lined by the scrub. Beyond the stream was the direction he wished to go to reach the road, but this fluvial barrier stopped his progress; and he saw no other course, if he wished to attain his goal, than to swim the flood. For a few moments he gazed upon the dark waters of the creek, as they hurried on their turbid volume sullenly and quietly; and knew that to cross them, he had to swim a current that might prove too strong for him to stem; besides the numerous eddies and hidden dangers that they might contain. His heart had some misgivings at the venture; nevertheless, he was aware, if he was to reach shelter that night, the passage of the creek had to be effected. The momentary sensation of fear gave place to the excitement of braving hazard; and its danger was speedily forgotten in the contemplation of a night's bivouac under a tree; and with the consciousness of being a good swimmer, and a familiarity with such predicaments, he rode his horse to the edge of the stream, and urged him into it. Often do the instincts of the lower animals prompt them to an avoidance of danger, where the rasher nature of man impels him towards his doom. For some time the animal which William rode--standing on the margin of the water, with his nose close to it, seemingly to ascertain the nature of the element into which his master wished him to plunge--snorted and paced the ground with a degree of impatience, that plainly showed he did not like the task required of him. He was not long, however, permitted to hesitate; there was no escape from the passage; the creek had to be crossed, while no other way presented itself but to swim; so, upon a fresh admonition from his rider, the animal entered the water, and gallantly breasted the stream. As the horse took the flood, William quietly slid off the saddle into the water, and keeping a hold of one of the stirrups, easily swam by his side. The noble animal, in a case like this, required no guiding hand to direct him; his instinct told him, his master's object was to reach the other bank; and he, therefore, swam direct for the point desired. For a few seconds the quadruped and his owner kept on "the even tenor of their way," and William congratulated himself on the favourable prospect of his crossing; until they got more into the force of the current, when he found it almost overwhelming. He, however, struggled hard; while, alternately, he was almost swept from his hold by the force of the stream, and nearly separated from his trusty steed by the vortex of an eddy. But these difficulties were trifling compared to the one that awaited him. He had reached about the middle of the creek, when he perceived, with consternation, the immense trunk of a tree floating down the stream, with all the fearful velocity of the current; and in an instant his mind comprehended the danger of his perilous position. The tree was one, evidently, which had been long lying on the bank of the creek; and had been dislodged, and carried off, as the water had risen in the present flood. From its long recubation, it had become divested of its bark, foliage, and smaller branches; leaving only its knarled trunk and concomitant adjuncts, its crural like limbs. As it approached the swimmers, it presented nothing to view, but the long surface of its trunk, which floated supinely in the water; at the same time rushing on with irresistible force, and having its branches concealed beneath the surface of the flood. The stout heart of young Ferguson almost sickened at the sight; however, he braced his nerves for a struggle, and urged his faithful horse to its utmost, to escape the proximity of their dangerous neighbour. On it came, closer and closer, still watched by the anxious eye of William; until he thought (as it almost reached him, angrily muttering, with the subdued murmur of the flood, its disappointed expectations of a victim) that he was safe. But his self-gratulation, at this moment, was very inopportune; for, just as he uttered an exclamation of thankfulness at his supposed escape, the tree approached the broad and shallower part of the creek; when, suddenly throwing its upper end into the air with a convulsive leap, it threatened utter destruction to the two devoted and struggling objects in the water. For a moment it seemed poised; but, losing its equilibrium, it fell obliquely into the stream, covering William and his horse with the blinding spray; and before they could regain their sight, the huge mass swang round with the current, and entirely submerging them, swept them off with the flood, as they were almost reaching the bank. The cause of this grotesque manoeuvre on the part of the tree, we will here explain. In approaching the broader and, consequently, shallower part of the stream, its course had been arrested, by one of its sunken branches coming in contact, and burying itself, in the soft bed of the creek. The log, therefore, with the impetus it had gained in its transit, thus suddenly brought to a stand, momentarily reared its head; but almost instantly losing its equipoise, fell again sideways into the stream; while the branch being still imbedded in the soft mud of the bottom, the trunk naturally described a circle; and to all appearances annihilated William and his horse. Some time after this, how long he had not a remote idea, William, upon returning to consciousness, found himself stretched upon the bank of the creek; while the shades of night were fast closing in around him. What he had experienced he shuddered to think of; though every circumstance attending his late danger, and providential escape, segregated itself from the chaotic mass in his brain, and laid before him a panorama of his ordeal. In his mind, he had distinct visions, of having been, as it were, grasped with a rough hand by the watery element, and drawn by the demon of the flood to the depths of his cavernous home; while the hissing of the water, which seemed to him at the time to rush into his very soul, still sounded in his ears. To the fearful sensation of oppression and smothering that first weighed in his heart, succeeded a calm and tranquil sleep; from which he was aroused, by a repetition of the noises of rushing waters in his ears; and the sensation of the horrors of a mundane dissolution filled his mind. At that moment, his head came in violent contact with some object; which, on the impulse of the moment, he clutched with a drowning grasp; while with the friendly aid of the pendent branch of a tree, he had an indistinct recollection of drawing himself from the water, and alighting on the ground; where he sank in a state of utter insensibility. How long he remained in that state, he was unable to conjecture; but he awoke with a feeling of sickness, which weighed heavily on his heart; and with his limbs perfectly benumbed and almost paralysed (thankful for the manifest interposition of providence), with a painful effort he arose. He then went to search for his horse, to see if the faithful animal had been as fortunate as himself; and had not proceeded far ere he espied him, still standing trembling from the fear, from which he had hardly recovered. To reach the inn that night was hopeless; in fact, to proceed at all, William felt was almost impossible, for both he and his horse were perfectly knocked up; while he was so unnerved and dispirited, that he hardly knew which way to turn. To remain where he was, however, was not to be thought of; for setting aside the discomfort of his position, the danger was imminent. The rain continued to fall in a deluge, and the land on which he stood being low, if the creek rose much more (which was very probable), the flat would be soon covered with water. He had no alternative, then, but to drag on his weary limbs, and lead his worn-out horse, to either some hospitable shelter, or a more auspicious locality to camp in. Before resuming his journey, he gave two or three vociferous "cooeys," but without hearing any answering sound, save the echo of his own voice. He then crawled along, in the direction which he imagined the road must be in, in the hope of falling in with some cheering prospect; but after toiling for about half an hour, the consternation with which he witnessed the effectual stoppage of his further progress, by another stream, fairly overcame him; and he sank exhausted to the ground. The sagacious animal, that had borne the young man through many a difficulty, and who stood over the prostrate body of his master, showed his concern for him by many little signs of emotion, and at last brought William to an application of his energies, by causing him to notice his movements. William then raised his languid frame; and with drooping spirits, gazed on the fresh obstacle before him. He perceived it had a current, running opposite to that which he had lately crossed; and then the truth flashed across his mind, that it must be another bend of the same creek, forming a pocket of the land on which he was standing. He now perceived that, by a slight deviation from his course, he might have avoided the crossing which had nearly cost him his life; though now it was evident, to reach his destination, he would have to cross it again. Not wishing, however, to risk his life a second time in so short an interval; and feeling himself perfectly inadequate to the task, even if he desired it; he determined to follow the creek up its course, in the hope of meeting with shelter of some sort. He therefore resumed his weary travelling, skirting the bank of the stream; and occasionally "cooeying," to ascertain if any human being was within hearing. Thus he had proceeded for some time, perfectly disheartened and almost desponding, when he espied on a little knoll, a short distance from the creek, a small slab hut. Humble and untenable as the refuge appeared, no shipwrecked mariner, with the prospect of being rescued from a watery grave, by the opportune assistance of some life-boat, did ever hail his deliverance with greater joy and gratitude, than did William the sight of this "humpie." It looked uninhabited and perfectly deserted; but still, wretched as it appeared, it promised shelter for himself and his beast; and would enable him in all probability to make a fire and refresh his weary limbs. At the same time he knew that, even if the place were deserted, there would be sure to be some signs of settlement near, and possibly a track to the head station of the run on which it was situated. CHAPTER IX. "Methinks it were a happy life, To be no better than a homely swain; * * * * See how the morning opes her golden gates, And takes her farewell of the glorious sun." HENRY VI., _Act_ 2 _of Part_ 3. It was then with a gladdened heart that William approached the hut, which was of dimensions little larger than a good-sized dog kennel; and when he reached the aperture that served for an entrance, and gazed at the interior, he was not a little surprised to find that it was habited, though the inhabitant was not visible. The interior was as miserable looking as could be imagined; the floor, or rather the ground on which it stood, was covered with as much water as the earth outside; and the slabs, which formed its walls, had shrunk with their exposure to the sun and weather since they had been first put together, and left long and narrow interstices between each, through which the rain driven by the wind, and the water on the ground in perfect streams, were permitted, _ad libitum_, to make their ingress. In the centre of the domicile, and seemingly firmly fixed into the ground, were four sticks, so placed as to form the four corners of a parallelogram; their ends were forked, and held two other sticks about six feet long, resting longitudinally in their supports. To each of these side poles were affixed, with small skewer-like twigs, the sides of a sack which had been cut open lengthways; and formed in all, an impromptu bedstead or stretcher, on which, by a bundle of blankets that there appeared, it was evident the occupier of the establisment was wont to court repose, free from the moisture of his mother earth. Under this rural bed, was a box of that description generally brought to the country by emigrants, and at once proclaimed its owner, to the practised eye of William, to be a "new chum;" for he well knew that after a very short residence in the country such cumbrous attendants were usually dispensed with--shepherds who had gained much experience usually carrying their extensive wardrobes on their backs, and their blankets and pots rolled up in their "swags." As we have said, William at once knew the rural swain, whose habitation this was, to be one new to the colony; and he readily conjectured his absence from his abode was occasioned by some detention incidental to the storm, and which his experience had not taught him to avoid. Before the door of the hut lay a few sticks and logs charred by fire, the relics of a conflagration; ignited, probably, for culinary purposes, as well as to impart caloric to the person of the shepherd. Knowing these to be less pervious to the wet than unburnt wood, William laid them in order for burning, in a position as free from water as he could find; and after stripping the flakey bark off some tea trees (the inner part of which is generally dry and exceedingly inflammable), he speedily managed, as only bushmen can, to ignite a fire; and had it in a cheerful blaze, as the rain subsided and the occupant of the hut made his appearance. Somewhat refreshed by the genial warmth of the fire, and the prospect of having some tea and something to eat, William soon forgot his fatigue and late dangers; and when the man reached his place, rather surprised at the appearance of a stranger, our friend had taken the bridle and saddle from his horse, hobbled him, and turned him out too feed; and was comfortably seated at the fire, watching the water boil in the shepherd's tin pot, preparatory to infusing his tea. The circumstances of the intrusion were soon explained by young Ferguson; and in a few minutes he and the shepherd were socially seated at the fire, discussing their evening meal of salt meat, tea, and "damper;" and were pleasantly conversing together, as if they had been boon companions from their youth. From this man William learnt that he had entirely gone out of his way; and that in the morning his best plan would be not to attempt to regain the road in the way he had lost it, but to take the track that led from the stock-yard in the vicinity to the head station; whence he would find a well-beaten line to the main road. His informant said he believed the road lay not far off; but he could not say how far, nor in what precise direction; and should, therefore, recommend him, for greater certainty and security, to go by the more circuitous way of the head station. William admired this cautionary advice, and determined on the following morning to act upon it in preference to submitting himself to the ordeal of another swimming; more especially as the station on which he then was, was Rosehall, the place he had desired to find. In the course of their conversation, William had elicited from the shepherd some little information respecting himself; which we may be pardoned, for the sake of information, for inserting here. He had only been in the colony about six months; and had been hired by his present employer direct from the ship in which he had emigrated, and brought at once up to the station; where for some time he felt acutely the hardships of his situation; though he had gradually become inured to them, and was then perfectly contented. When he arrived on the station the weather was fearfully wet; and he had been put into the hut he then occupied, and given the charge of a flock of sheep, which he was left to tend in perfect solitude. Added to this, the discomfort of his home (if he could have called it by such a term), perfectly sickened him of the country, and he heartily wished himself back again in England; regretting the day he had ever been induced to leave it. Rolled in his blankets, he used at night to lay down on the damp ground, to contract rheumatisms and numerous other ailments; while his rations and everything about him were continually saturated; and to make up the catalogue of his troubles, he, on more than one occasion, lost himself in the bush. Now, however, he said, he had got used to all these inconveniences; which, after all (from the rarity of their occurrence), he considered slight; and as to the wet, since he had been put up to the dodge of keeping his bed dry, it did not concern him in the least. He liked the independence of his life, though it was a little dull; and his wages being good, he was enabled to save plenty of money; while he intended to be removed to the head station, when, he said, he would be perfectly contented with his lot. The morning following the storm broke calm and beautiful; the air was clear and fresh, and a serenity was diffused abroad, perfectly enchanting; while the exhilarating buoyancy of the atmosphere, and its refreshing temperature, fully compensated for the previous visitation. William, as we would say here, rose with the lark; and having brought in his horse, saddled and mounted him, and after bidding adieu to his rustic entertainer, from whom he received directions about the road to the station, "he went him on his winding way." After following the directions of the shepherd, in about an hour or so he approached Rosehall, and presented himself to the inmates as they were about sitting down to breakfast. Upon the relation to them of his adventure, he had the satisfaction to learn, that if he had skirted the scrub for a short distance, until he came to the bend of the creek that formed the pocket, in which he found himself after swimming it, he would have been able to have struck the road in a few minutes. However, by the time he received this information, it was of little use to him; and having entirely lost all thought of his past danger, he could laugh with his friends at the absurdity of losing himself in the bush. He remained at Rosehall a few hours longer than he intended, at the solicitation of his friend Mr Lauray; who was deeply interested in a question that was then agitating the whole population of Moreton Bay; and which we will take the liberty of explaining. Some few years previous to the date of this incident, a small party, feeling the injustice and neglect under which the district had so long suffered, introduced the idea of applying to the Crown for the separation of the northern portion of New South Wales from the parent colony; and its erection into a separate state, with the free exercise of its own legislation. The movement at first gained little favour; as in the infant state of the district, it was thought premature, if not preposterous. But that immortal colonial agitator, the Rev. Dr. Lang, declaring himself an advocate for separation; and forcibly aiding the scheme with his pen, and indefatigable exertions, the party continued to gather strength until it had assumed a bold attitude, reiterating its demands to the throne. To give the reader some notion of the subject, we will endeavour to transcribe such of the conversation at Rosehall as will serve to enlighten him. "I shall want you, Mr. Ferguson, now you are here," said the proprietor of the place, "to affix your signature to a petition to the Queen, praying for the separation of these districts from New South Wales." "I am not yet convinced," replied William, "that the district will be benefited by being separated." "I don't think," replied the other, "it will take much argument to convince you, or any other rational being, that separation would not only be beneficial, but is absolutely necessary for the welfare of Moreton Bay. In the first place, we are not adequately represented in the Assembly; and, in the next, five to six hundred miles is too great a distance to be removed from the seat of government. Even if the ministry had the desire to do us justice, their unacquaintance with our wants would prevent their inclinations from being of any service to us; though I am not disposed to think, from our past experience, that any Sydney batch of legislators, would be at all inclined to give us any consideration. The revenue derivable from the districts, is annually swept into the Sydney treasury; and I would ask, with what return? Why absolutely nothing! They amount in this district alone, I have no hesitation in saying, to considerably over £150,000; while, with the exception of a few salaries, paid to some almost useless officials, and a few hundreds voted occasionally for our roads, just to remind us that we are not entirely forgotten, we get no return. Look at our towns in the country; whenever the exchequer is in need of a little ready money, they put up sufficient land in our district to replenish their coffers, and to make the inhabitants feel the desire and necessity for more. It has always been the policy of our rulers to keep the demand for land in excess of the supply, by which means they create a spirited competition, and establish a fictitious value. Hence, these towns are each drained of some thousands of pounds annually; while the streets are permitted, by the powers that be, to remain in their primeval state, either to become impassable, or dangerous to the limbs and lives of the inhabitants." "There certainly may be some little neglect on the part of the government," replied William; "but surely a district, with so limited a population as this, will with difficulty bear the expense of a separate executive?" "Not at all," said Mr. Lauray, "our income is perfectly adequate; in fact it exceeds that of many an older state: besides we should have the satisfaction of expending it ourselves, and should not require to be continually demanding (but rarely receiving) money from the government for such necessary works as bridges and roads. The present state of our main lines of traffic is perfectly scandalous; and if we should remain a portion of New South Wales until doomsday, I believe they wouldn't be put into an efficient state." "Well, but," replied William, "I imagine we can only expect the expenditure of our share of public money; and if all the districts get their proportions, what more can we desire?" "But I deny," replied the other, "that we are getting anything like our proportion, or any proportion at all. The public revenue is mainly swallowed up in works that do not at all affect the country districts; such as the public buildings in Sydney, and the harbour improvements there. Notice the colonial debt of between two and three millions, and say how was it contracted? Was it not in the construction of Sydney sewers, Sydney water-works, and the Sydney railway? And for these, from which we shall never receive the slightest benefit, we have not only had our revenue appropriated for years, but have to sustain the impost of higher duties, to provide for the interest of this fund." "Still," replied William, "I think it is only just, we should contribute our share of the public expenditure in the machinery of government." "Granted!" said Lauray, "but city improvements do not in any way come under that head. The improvement of the district is much, if not altogether retarded, by the continual neglect at head quarters. There are certain public works, the necessity for which is severely felt, and even acknowledged by the government itself to be highly desirable; but to every application of ours for the necessary money, we are met by the cool assertion, that they have none to give us. Can you imagine anything more unjust than this; after the application of our own funds to purposes foreign to our interests, when we demand the expenditure of a small sum upon our own districts, to be informed that the money has been expended? We do not desire separation for the mere pleasure of being our own masters; but for the purpose of having, more effectually, a voice in the distribution of our revenue. If we had received more attention and justice from the government in past years, we should never have agitated separation; but now we feel it essentially indispensable, and separation we must have. You are no doubt aware the Queen in council has reserved to herself the right of dismemberment of these districts, whenever the wishes of the inhabitants should render it necessary; and now we do not intend letting the question rest, until we have attained our object. We have already forwarded many prayers to the throne; and at this moment petitions are travelling the length and breadth of the country to obtain signatures. The opposition we shall receive from New South Wales, I believe, will be strenuous; but the present size of that colony, nearly half that of Europe, is perfectly preposterous, and renders the equitable administration of the laws, in so vast a territory and with the seat of government so isolated, perfectly impossible. I am aware, that the revenue of the parent colony will be very much crippled by the separate erection of her offshoot; and her burdens will be consequently heavier on her inhabitants. But because her legislators have, through a reckless system of extravagance, impoverished and run their country into debt, that is no reason why we should also be bound down to her in her depression. I know many condemn the desire of the Moreton Bay people to relieve themselves from the embarrassment of New South Wales; and state it is selfish and derogatory in us attempting to repudiate our share of the debt, and after being benefited by her prosperity in past years, to desire separation now, when her resources are more circumscribed. But I believe the obligation is the other way: Sydney has been drawing her prosperity in a great measure from these districts; for the trade that has existed between us has been of greater benefit and more advantageous to her people than to us; and as for their debt, we are in no way liable for any portion of it." It is needless for us to trace this conversation any further; as doubtless, by this time, our reader will have formed some conception of the "separation question." Suffice it to say, that though William, owing to his having been living on the New South Wales side of the proposed boundary, had heard very little of it, and that only to its prejudice, it was a subject which absorbed the general attention of the Moreton Bay community; and he, becoming impregnated with the same feeling, left Rosehall a convert to the popular cry. Soon after his arrival in town, he selected the furniture and other things required on the station; and making arrangement with his agent for their despatch by the return of the dray which was bringing down the wool, he turned his face to his father's house, and in due time reached New England, without the occurrence of any fresh adventure. "I am so pleased that you have come, dear Willie," cried the blooming and cheerful Kate, as she threw herself into William's arms when he alighted from his horse at the door; "we have been expecting you for some days, and began to think you had taken flight in some other direction. I am so anxious to hear all about your doings, and to know all those kind people, whose acquaintance you have made; particularly those near you, whom John says I am to stay with. Are they nice people, Willie? but I am sure they must be, or you wouldn't like them; but do tell me what sort of a girl Miss Rainsfield is? John says so many fine things about her; that she is a perfect angel, and all that sort of thing; and that he has no doubt that, if I only have sufficient good sense as to take her as my pattern, I will derive much benefit from my visit. The impudent fellow, what does he mean by that, Will?" "I don't know his precise motives, my little seraph," replied William; "probably he thinks her quiet and serious manner would well accord with his own little sister's nature; in preference to her volatile and spirited character; and that her calm and dignified manner, would suit you well in your new capacity of housekeeper. But I can support his opinion that she is an amiable and charming creature; and I strongly suspect that he is somewhat smitten with her." "Well, then, I'll tease him dreadfully for giving me such a horrid lesson," exclaimed Kate; "I can't be always serious like his Dulciana; besides I don't think it so nice, do you, Will?" "I don't indeed, my dear, in your case at least," replied he; "for I think it would spoil you to try and check your spirits; but there is one thing I must entreat of you to remember, you foolish little thing. Although John has said nothing to me about his feelings towards Miss Rainsfield; as I have already told you, I strongly suspect he is over head and ears in love with her; but for his sake you must not lightly mention her name, or the subject of his feelings; for, if he is enamoured of her, I fear he is doomed to disappointment. I understand she is already engaged; though her cousin tells me, he does not think she cares much for her betrothed; and that he intends attempting to prevent her from throwing herself away in the manner she contemplates. Still, I fancy any mention of the subject to John would pain him, so we must be silent. Now tell me, my pet, what I have done to be left standing outside my father's house? may I not be permitted to walk in." "Oh, dear me," exclaimed the girl, "I never thought I was keeping you on the verandah; but, come along, mamma will be so glad to see you; I don't think she knows you've come, for I was the only one who caught sight of you. But, Willie, do you know Mr. Wigton is stopping with us just now, and he has been kind enough to promise to accompany us?" saying which, without waiting for any further remark from her brother, she tripped lightly into the house; followed by William, after he had delivered his horse to one of the men. As we have already, in our opening chapter, introduced the reader to the Ferguson family at Acacia Creek, we may be pardoned for omitting a similar ceremony now; but of Mr. Wigton, who was at the time a visitor in the house, it may be necessary to say a few words. He was a clergyman of the Wesleyan persuasion; one of the old Methodist leaven; an earnest and devout man, and a conscientious Christian: one who was kind and benevolent in his disposition, and without that bigotry and uncharitableness so prevalent among some of the rigid bodies of religionists. His piety was such, as to induce him, in the work of his Master, to forget all private interests, endure privation and fatigue, and to carry the consolations of religion into the remotest corner of the bush. He fulfilled, to the extent of his power, the injunctions of his Saviour, when He said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature;" and while he received disappointments and misfortunes with exemplary patience and unflinching courage, he persevered in his course, with an energy worthy of the cause. In his corporeal capacity, to judge from his appearance, he was ill calculated to sustain the continual exertions incumbent on his vocation; and yet he performed them with an alacrity truly surprising. He was of the middle height; rather slim in figure, apparently delicate in his constitution, fair complexioned; and a bachelor of about thirty-five years of age. He had refused various solicitations from congregations, to accept of a residentiary charge, and had devoted himself to the missionary's work, where the presence of a spiritual teacher was much wanted. He had perceived that hundreds upon hundreds of square miles in the bush, in fact almost all the country districts, were destitute of a ministry of any creed or denomination; and he had, with an earnest zeal and devoted piety, undertaken the task of administering to the spiritual wants of the bushmen. Never since the days of the old apostles, had a work of such magnitude been attempted by a single-handed man; and any heart less stout, or enthusiasm less genuine, than that of the Rev. Mr. Wigton, would have speedily sank under a load of mortification, at the difficulties that beset his path. In a country where the Sabbath is almost entirely forgotten; where on that sacred day the country stores exhibit their wares for sale, and the public-houses resound with the shouts of drunken revelry; where the servant is frequently punished, for refusing to obey his master's commands to its desecration; where blasphemy and sacrilege, in which master vies with man, is constantly heard; and where ignorance and vice stalk triumphant through the land,--some conception may be formed of the stupendous nature of the reform to be effected. Thanks to such as this messenger of peace, much good has now been accomplished. Bad as it is, the Sabbath is better observed than formerly, not only in the townships but on the stations; and depravity is on the wane. But, at the time of which we write, the state of moral darkness was as great as any heathenism extant. To the work of enlightenment, had Mr. Wigton sanctified himself; and his name had already become revered, in many places in the solitude of the bush, where he had been the instrument of bringing grace to his benighted countrymen. At the same time, he had not neglected the case of the black. He had with considerable difficulty, acquired a pretty accurate knowledge of their language and customs; and he preached the glad tidings to them, whenever an opportunity presented itself. His present intention was to accompany William with his sister, on their journey to Fern Vale; and, while spending some little time with them there, endeavour to do some good with the aborigines in that neighbourhood. CHAPTER X. "Ah, what is love? It is a pretty thing, As sweet unto a shepherd as a king." GREENE. "Cease, cease these jars, and rest your mind in peace." HENRY VI., _Part_ 1, _Act_ 1, _Sc._ 1. When we left John Ferguson after his departure from Strawberry Hill, we attempted to depict his feelings; as well as the motives which influenced the minds of the Rainsfield ladies. In the resumption of our narrative, we will follow our hero in the continuance of his mental aberration. His misery and dejection were intense; and such were his sufferings, that he moved about his station a mere shadow of his former self, and kept himself exclusively to his own place; attempting to relieve his feelings by engrossing his mind on his avocation. Tom Rainsfield, in the meantime, had learnt from his sister-in-law the cause of John's estrangement; and deeply sympathising with his friend, he made his visits to Fern Vale as frequent as possible, to cheer and enliven him in his dullness. Tom imagined if he could but induce him to banish his despondency, he would be enabled to make him feel there was a chance of his succeeding in overcoming Eleanor's scruples in breaking faith with Smithers; by inducing her to look favourably upon his addresses. At the same time, he felt the delicacy of his task; for he had no warrant, on which to ground his assumption of his friend's attachment; though (notwithstanding that John Ferguson had not breathed to a creature his love for Eleanor) he was perfectly convinced, he was irretrievably lost in the passion. Whether or not Tom had been enlisted into the services of his sister-in-law, we will not stop to consider; or in fact can we pretend to say; though, from the earnestness with which he proceeded with his scheme, we are led to imagine that, possibly stimulated by his own inclinations, he was, nevertheless, acting under the guidance of that astute and pertinent directress. He had laid down certain plans for operation; and had so far succeeded in their execution, as to induce John Ferguson to lend the aid he had on a former occasion promised to Mr. Rainsfield, in the erection of a bridge over the Wombi; and to proceed himself to the river, and assist in its construction. The house at Fern Vale was by this time finished, and the carpenters who had been employed in its erection were consequently disengaged. This was considered a good opportunity by Tom Rainsfield; and the men were forthwith despatched to the Wombi, to assist in the construction of the bridge. On the appointed day, John met Mr. Rainsfield and Tom at the scene of action, and work was at once commenced. They first selected the two largest trees on the bank of the river; and after attaching strong ropes to their trunks, to guard against their falling into the stream, and thus elude their destiny, they felled them. Their next arrangement, after clearing the stems of their branches, was to make them span the creek; which being accomplished they left the carpenters to do the rest. This was to strengthen and support the beams, by erecting upright pieces as buttresses at the edge of the stream, so as, not only to keep the fallen trees firmly fixed, but to give them additional power to sustain weight. After this the men were to make a flooring, by firmly fixing across the main trunks some stout saplings, and cover it with earth, which would complete, what our friends considered would be, a very serviceable structure. The young men, after they had accomplished the task of getting the logs to span the creek, as we have said, left the carpenters to complete the work; while they took their departure from the spot, and turned home. Here John Ferguson essayed to leave his friends; but that they would not hear of. Tom, especially, was loud in declaiming against such a course; declaring that the ladies would be justly offended when they knew that he had been at Strawberry Hill without calling upon them. "You may just as well drop in," he said, "and dine with us, and I will ride over to Fern Vale with you in the evening." To this invitation John could offer no reasonable objection; and not wishing it to be imagined that he entertained any disrespect for Mrs. Rainsfield, he wavered in his rigid determination to absent himself; while his friends were the more pressing for him to accompany them; and at last all further parley was ended by Tom turning the heads of the horses towards the house, and constraining his companion to follow him. When the party rode up to the station, they left their horses at the stable, and walked into the house, at the entrance of which they were met by Mrs. Rainsfield. John she at once attacked for his past coolness and unneighbourly conduct in abstaining from ever calling upon her; and he, when he had entered the parlour, and was met by Eleanor with just sufficient confusion and reserve to make her more than ever interesting, and with a warmth that quite overcame him, felt the old fire in his heart burning with redoubled fury. But when she exclaimed, "Really, Mr. Ferguson we had quite relinquished the idea of ever seeing you again, you have so long estranged yourself from our society;" and continued, "I can't think you could have taken any offence at anything we may have done or said; but if so, upon your mentioning it, we will endeavour to make the _amende honorable_,"--he was perfectly reclaimed from his "slough of despond." At the same time he knew he could make no explanation, and therefore kept silent. What was he to do? he was again enslaved as hopelessly as ever; for the charm of Eleanor's presence he could not resist. How could he act a part of coldness or indifference, when she enchanted him with her kindest manner, and gladdened his heart with her sweetest smile? At that moment he made a determination which seemed to alter his whole manner, and infuse new life into his spirits; what that determination was, gentle reader, thou shalt shortly know by his actions. The thought passed through his mind, as the transient cloud flits across the face of the sun; it thawed the ice-bound ligaments of his heart, and gave him utterance in the following remark: "I am afraid I am indeed a truant, Miss Rainsfield, and ought therefore to make my apologies due on my neglect; but it would be useless in my attempting to exonerate, or even excuse myself; so I will throw myself on your clemency, and crave your interpretation of my abandonment, in the most charitable light." This speech of John's, if it were uttered designedly, was a masterpiece. To Mr. Rainsfield it had an air of flippancy that indicated to him a total suppression of any tender feeling; and he congratulated himself that his young friend had had sufficient good sense to see the justice of his remarks to him with respect to Eleanor. To Mrs. Rainsfield it appeared in a different light; she detected in it a warmth that sprung spontaneously from the heart; and from it she argued favourably of the success of her schemes, and the happiness of her friends. To Eleanor it was mysterious; whether it was that it was the first time John had attempted anything in the shape of flattery to her, and that she felt surprised; or that her vanity was pleased with the flattery, we cannot say. Bear with us, gentle reader, when we make the allusion, for how perfect soever a woman may be, she is not completely devoid of vanity; and chaste and innocent as was our Eleanor, it was possible for her to receive a thrill of pleasure, at hearing a well-directed compliment from one whom she respected; believing it to be uttered with an expression of something more than mere idle coquetry. Or, it may be, a certain truth flashed across her mind; but certain it is that, when she heard it, the blush mantled her fair cheek, and she turned away her head. To Tom it was the source of rejoicing; for he did not consider whether the speech was expressive of genuine or assumed sentiment, but simply noticed in it a return of his friend to his former self. Such, then, were the mutual feelings of the party assembled at the Rainsfield's table, as they sat down, with all restraint and formality dissipated from their circle. Mrs. Rainsfield, who was bent upon a _coup de main_, now proposed to John Ferguson, that he should stop the night at Strawberry Hill; and she would make up a little pic-nic, for the following day, to the falls of the Wombi; which she had heard the people talk a good deal about, and had often desired to see. She said she had contemplated the party for some time, and wished to have had it organized while William was at home; but John had kept himself so much aloof from them, that she had not had the opportunity. She appealed to her husband to head the party, but he excused himself on the grounds of employment, and proposed that Tom should act as their guide instead; while he stated, if they wanted any of the men to carry their things out in the morning, he would spare them two. This arrangement they all seemed delighted with; and it was finally settled that Mrs. Rainsfield, Eleanor, Tom, and John Ferguson, should start about eleven o'clock on the following morning, and that the ladies should prepare a cold collation, which was to precede them. The falls of the Wombi were insignificant, compared with what we are used to witness in the romantic scenery of Scotland, or the lake district of England; though in themselves, and for the Australian bush, they were at times anything but contemptible. After heavy rains, when the river was swollen into a large body of water, they were certainly grand. During the early part of the summer, when the stream was lower, they might be designated pretty; but towards the close of the dry season, when the rivers ceased to flow, and their courses become divided into endless chains of pools, preserving in their concatenation an independent existence, the "falls" were either extremely mean, or entirely evanescent. For the present, however, we will refrain from making any further description, until we visit them with our friends on the morrow; merely premising that the summer was about half spent, that it was in fact about Christmas time, and the water in the creek rather low. On the following day, as had been previously arranged, the party, having been preceded by the provender carriers, mounted their horses and moved off from the house under the guidance of Tom Rainsfield. The shortest route to the falls lay through the bush, in a direct line of about seven miles; but the equestrians preferred following up the course of the river; as, though longer by some three miles, it was pleasanter and more picturesque. At the same time they had no desire to hurry themselves; but determined to spend the greater portion of the day in the excursion, and therefore rode on at their leisure, in couples; how arranged, we need not say. After nearly two hours riding, upon their arrival at the desired goal, the scene that presented itself to their view, was pleasing and charmingly picturesque. Facing the party, and extending in either direction for a considerable distance, was a ridge or range forming a natural terrace, rising from eighty to a hundred feet almost perpendicularly. It was literally covered with bush of various descriptions, from the dwarfish wattle to the lofty gum, and iron bark; presenting to each other, in their various tints of foliage, a relieving contrast of colour. From the very midst of this, the fall emerged; and after tumbling over a few impediments in its way, through which it seemed vainly endeavouring to force a passage, it made a leap of about sixty feet; and formed as pretty a little cascade as could be imagined. The party stopped at the head of the creek, where they obtained a good view of the falls; and were perfectly enraptured with the scene, which, though in itself was but ordinary, had an influence, in the circumstances under which they were assembled, in directing their minds into a pleased and contented channel. Besides, there was a novelty in such scenery in Australia; and humble as the pretensions of the falls might have been to the picturesque, in the eyes of an English tourist, John Ferguson, who had rarely, and Eleanor Rainsfield, who had never seen anything like it, could not help admiring the beauty of the landscape. Our friends soon selected a spot for their camp; in fact, the spot had already been chosen by their harbingers, who had fixed upon a little rising knoll on the bank of the creek, a short distance below the falls; of which they commanded an excellent view. Here the party dismounted, and leaving the horses to the care of the men, they discussed the nature of their further proceedings; while the ladies arranged their equestrian habiliments, so as not to incommode them in their walking. Then putting all things in order for their luncheon, and requesting the men to boil some water (on a fire the fellows had kindled), for the purpose of making that universal beverage in the bush, without which no meal would be considered complete; Mrs. Rainsfield proposed to the gentlemen that they should take a walk up to the falls, and see if the ascent of the range was practicable, and if so, what sort of a prospect there was from the summit. The suggestion was instantly acted upon; and after thoroughly surveying the falls, from every point of view at its foot, Tom was despatched to attempt the ascent; while the rest in the meantime sat down on the grass, to await his return. This, however, was not until some time had elapsed; and when he did make his appearance, he stated that the range could be mounted; but he would not advise them to try it, as the hill abounded with snakes. He then hurriedly informed them, that he had come down for a gun, which he had noticed one of the men had brought with him; and was going to return to shoot a reptile that had impeded his progress. Mrs. Rainsfield desired him to stay, saying she was sure the snake would not have waited for his return; but he only laughed and assured her that he would certainly find it upon his return, and bring it to her as a trophy. He then dashed away, and was seen in a few minutes, posting up the acclivity with the gun in his hand ready for execution. "What a stupid fellow that is," remarked Mrs. Rainsfield, "to be running away from us to kill a snake, and perhaps incur the risk of getting bitten by another. While he was here, and it was not safe for us to go up, he might as well have remained." We will not follow the conversation that ensued; but merely state that after some minutes had elapsed, as the party began to expect the return of Tom disappointed of his game, a shot was heard, and after a few moments another; upon which Mrs. Rainsfield remarked, "I suppose we shall soon see our snake-hunter now, and see what sport he has had. If he does not produce some trophy, we must give him no peace; but here he comes." At which moment Tom Rainsfield presented himself, and threw down before his friends the bodies of two green snakes; which we may here remark are a kind extremely dangerous, from the difficulty of detecting them, owing to their colour so much resembling that of the foliage of the trees or grass. The ladies instantly jumped up from their sitting posture with a scream; but perceiving that the snakes were no longer dangerous, they were speedily reassured, and demanded to hear the adventure which had resulted in their destruction. This Tom promised to tell them, after he had submitted his hands to a slight ablution in the creek; and accordingly did so as they retraced their steps to the camp; and we, to enlighten the reader on the subject, will follow him succinctly in his own words. "I managed," said he, "to get up the face of the range with some difficulty, for it was awfully steep; but though I succeeded in reaching the top, I had little or nothing for my trouble; for beyond an expanse of bush, there was absolutely no view. It is true I could just obtain a glimpse of 'the hill,' and the windings of the river at various bends, but that was all; and the prospect was certainly not worth the trouble of reaching the elevation to obtain. I was soon satisfied with its contemplation; and turned to come down, which, if not convenient or safe, was certainly easy and expeditious; for I had continually to hold on by one of the overhanging branches of the smaller trees, and either slide, jump, or precipitate myself down steeps and over perpendicular rocks. In making one of these little exploits, I lost my footing by dislodging a large stone; which, but for the grasp I had of the stout bough of a tree, I should certainly have followed. However, I saved myself; and watching the stone in its downward progress, as it went bounding along, taking others with it in its descent, and crushing the small bushes in its passage; I saw, or fancied I saw, a large green snake suddenly dart out of its way, and up into a tree. I kept my eye on the tree until I got down to it; and then minutely inspected every branch, as well as I could with my simple vision, but could see nothing. I then thought I might have been mistaken, but at the same time, could hardly believe my eyes had been deceived. The tree was only a young sapling, and could be bent with ease; so to satisfy myself, I determined to try if my friend was a myth, or a genuine snake, which had really taken up his quarters in the sheltering boughs above my head. With this intent I took its stem in my double grasp, and gave it a shake, the like of which I am certain it never had since it became a tree; it was enough to shake the very ghost out of it, and had the effect of displacing my verdant friend, who dropt at my very feet. He did not exactly know what to make of it, though he did not wait long to consider, for he soon twisted off, and darted into another tree rather larger than the first." "I then looked out for a good-sized-stick, to touch him up with when he next visited _terra firma_; and for the purpose of discovering his position, and compelling his immediate capitulation, I besieged the tree with stones. He was not long in giving me indication of his _locale_, for I soon distinguished him, coiled round a branch almost at its extreme end; with his head and about a foot of his body protruding. I continued to pelt him; and he to dart his head at me, thrusting out his tongue and hissing fearfully, as much as to say, 'If I only could, wouldn't I, hat's all.' I twice or thrice shook him in his position, but could not dislodge him; for he had got himself too firmly coiled round the bough: then I thought of our fellow's gun. I knew the snake was too frightened to leave his place for some time; so I discontinued the discharge of my missiles, took my note of the tree, came down for the fowling-piece, returned to the scene of battle; and then commenced another pelting, to ascertain if the reptile had retained his post. Sure enough it was there, for the head soon made itself visible; but strange to say from quite a different part of the tree. I imagined from this, that the beast must have removed in my absence; but I was mistaken, for I soon detected my friend in his old place, and perceived that I had got a pair of beauties to deal with. I was aware that the snakes usually go in pairs; but having seen the first one mount the tree alone, I never dreamt of his having a mate, which I suppose must have joined him while I was away. However, I soon made short work of the two; for I shot them one after the other, and they dropt down as quietly as possible; while I gave them each a crack on the head, to knock out any sense that might have remained, and then laid them, like a dutiful gallant, at your feet." "You were certainly very gracious, but we could have well dispensed with that piece of gallantry," replied his sister-in-law; "however, we forgive you: and now for our repast." The repast was soon spread on a cloth on the grass; and the party sat down to its discussion in the highest glee, which was maintained during the meal's continuance. Theirs was the cup "which cheers, but not inebriates;" and they indulged in their merriments and pleasantries, without the aid of those stimulants which create an excitement at the expense of health, both corporeal and mental. After the conclusion of their tiffin, Mrs. Rainsfield proposed a walk down the bank of the creek, to collect a few of the wild flowers she had noticed when coming up; and leaving the man in attendance to pack up the things, and have their horses ready for them in about half an hour or so, they sauntered along the stream. CHAPTER XI. "My genius whispers me Go on and win her,--for there's nought That's more unsteadfast than a woman's thought." COOKE. "There lies the sore point, which will brook no handling." SIR WALTER SCOTT. John and Eleanor, followed by Mrs. Rainsfield and Tom, commenced their gathering of the forest's blossoms, and sauntered on without any seeming interest in their occupation; for their thoughts were otherwise centred. Eleanor would walk by the side of her companion, supporting her part for some minutes at a stretch, in a spirited and lively conversation; ever and anon directing her lovely eyes to the features of John; while he, in ecstasies with the warmth of her manner, returned the glance with redoubled tenderness; and with the force of his ardent and inspiring conversation communicated the blush of pleasure to her cheek. Thus they walked on for some time quite absorbed in themselves, until they found they had got considerably in advance of their companions; so much so, that they could not even see them. Upon this discovery, John suggested that their friends might have slightly deviated from the track; allured, perhaps, into the bush by something that might have attracted their attention, and were possibly not far off. He therefore proposed that Eleanor and himself should sit down and wait until they overtook them; but to this his companion was unwilling to agree. He however combatted her opinion that they had returned, and that it would be better for herself and him to retrace their steps also, by saying that Mrs. Rainsfield would never turn back without first giving them intimation; and that by retracing their steps then, they would possibly miss, and give one another a good deal of trouble and uneasiness, in a mutual search. Whether this advice was agreeable or not to Eleanor, we cannot say, but she silently complied; and sat down by his side, as he threw himself on the grass. John, at this moment, became absorbed with thoughts that entirely subverted his former cheerfulness. The circumstances of his situation presented themselves to his mind's eye in full force; and suggested, as their solitude had very opportunely afforded him the means of declaring to Eleanor the feelings uppermost in his thoughts, and which he had so long burned to disclose, that he should not allow it to slip. But his heart failed within him, as he was on the point of giving utterance to his love; and though it spoke volumes, his tongue failed to articulate a sound. Thus they sat for some minutes, when Eleanor broke the silence by remarking, "What can have become of those truants?" and recieving no reply from her companion, directed an enquiring gaze to his face. In that countenance, where she used to witness animation and spirit, she now only detected profound abstraction, and a vision directed fixedly into space. She contemplated the features for some few moments; and then, while she laid her hand upon John's shoulder, addressed him with the enquiry, "May I participate in the pleasure of your thoughts, Mr. Ferguson? they must be deeply interesting, for they seem to have engrossed your entire attention." John started at the sound of Eleanor's voice, and awaking from his reverie, while he siezed in his fevered grasp the hand of his companion, replied: "Indeed you may, my dear Eleanor (pardon my familiarity); your sweet voice has broken the spell; and if you experience pleasure from a recital of my thoughts, I shall indeed be the happiest mortal on earth. When I say I love you, Eleanor, I convey but a shadow of what I inwardly feel; it has long been my one consuming fire; you, and you alone, are the object of my warmest and tenderest affections. Your kind and sweet excellence first won my regard, and I early learnt to cherish your image as my soul's talisman and idol; but ere I had an opportunity of breathing in your ear the nature of the fire that consumed me, my hopes were blighted. I learnt from your cousin the existence of an engagement that has stamped my spirit with despair; and though I have striven to forget you, save as a dear friend, and have almost driven myself frantic in the struggle, yet it is without success. At a time, when I had almost banished from my memory the existence of my passion, some passing object would reflect your image in the mirror of my mind, and would render me almost demented with the thought that your charms were destined to bless some other one. Oh, say my angel! can that be? Is it possible your troth is plighted to another? Pray, speak; my destiny hangs upon your answer. Say but that you bid me hope; that you will not reject me; anything rather than discard or banish me from your presence, without the chance of catching one ray of the sunshine of your smile." John then paused, and gently removing the hand that attempted to conceal her face, in a more subdued tone he continued, "You weep; I have been wild, I have agitated you. Oh, hear me, Eleanor! be but mine, and I need not tell you I will cherish you above all earthly prizes. I already love you to distraction; I would thenceforth live but for thee. You are silent; you do not reciprocate my feeling. Oh, this torture! Utter my doom, for I can bear it. I see it is as I feared; you are engaged to another. Oh! speak, Eleanor, is it not so?" "It is, sir," uttered a voice that made both parties start, and that put an end to John's declaration. "She is engaged to me, and if she will not say it herself, I will for her; and at the same time I have to intimate to you, that since I have discovered your pretensions, I do not intend to permit them to go unpunished, unless you instantly quit the lady's side;" and the speaker, Bob Smithers, flourished his whip in a menacing attitude, as he stalked up to the couple, who had now risen. "As to you and your threats," replied John Ferguson, "I both equally scorn to notice. Since you have chosen to act the part of eavesdropper, you have certainly overheard our conversation; but my question was directed to Miss Rainsfield, not to you; therefore, I decline recognising your interference. If Miss Rainsfield desires me to leave her presence, I will do so instantly, and-- "Oh, no, no, Mr. Ferguson," sobbed Eleanor, "don't leave me with that--with Mr. Smithers." "I would not leave you, but in the care of your friends," replied John; and then continuing his remark to Smithers, he said, "and if I hear, from her own lips, that she acknowledges her engagement to you, from the respect which I entertain for her, I will at once withdraw my pretensions." "Ask her," exclaimed Smithers; "let her answer for herself." "Is it so, Miss Rainsfield?" asked our dejected hero; "make no scruple of answering, for fear of giving _me_ pain, I am perfectly inured to its trials." Poor Eleanor essayed to speak, but she could not; her heart was too full for utterance, and she covered her face with her hands, and burst into tears. "Speak, Eleanor," cried Smithers, "and tell him, whether or not you are engaged to me." Eleanor took her hands from her face, and with an effort, which cost her her consciousness, exclaimed, "I am;" and immediately sank to the ground insensible. John stooped to raise her prostrate form, but was rudely pushed on one side by his opponent; who exclaimed, with an oath, that "he would knock him down if he dared to lay a finger on the lady." "At any other time," cried John, "and under any other circumstances, I would have resented your insult in a manner that would have given you cause to remember me; at present, however, I shall consider you beneath even my contempt. This young lady was entrusted to my protection by her own family, who are not far distant; so touch me again at your peril;" saying which he advanced, and lifted the inanimate form of his beloved Eleanor. "What is the meaning of this?" cried Mrs. Rainsfield, as she burst upon the scene. "What, Eleanor fainted?" and she flew to the assistance of her cousin, who under her sympathetic administration speedily exhibited signs of returning consciousness. Then having time to address herself to the parties about her, Mrs. Rainsfield at once turned to Smithers, and in a voice, and with a look of scorn, said: "I perceive you, sir, are the cause of this, which is in perfect keeping with your usual barbarity. I request you will instantly remove from our presence; as I have no desire, that my cousin's nerves should be again shocked, by either the recollection of the past, or the recurrence of future attrocities; both of which are entailed by your presence." "For that speech, madam," exclaimed Smithers, "you may thank yourself you wear the female garb, or, by heaven! I would give you good cause to repent it." "I am well aware of it, sir," replied the lady, "if your courage permitted, you would attempt it; and even woman as I am, I doubt not, you would not hesitate the application of your whip, were it not for the restraining influence of these gentlemen present. But go, sir; we wish no parley." "The advisableness of that motion, madam," said Smithers, "I will reserve to myself the right to decide. I am the most interested in the young lady, who seems so much affected; resulting, I presume, from my having detected her in a position with that gentleman (scowling at John) which not only reflects impropriety on her, but discredit to you." "That, sir," almost shrieked the now exasperated lady, "you have no right to affirm. We, as her relations, are the best judges of her conduct, as well as our own; and if Miss Rainsfield is objectionable to you, I have no doubt she will at once exonerate you from your engagement. But I have to request that you leave us; for the instant Miss Rainsfield sufficiently recovers to walk, we will remove from the spot; and you need not flatter yourself you'll be permitted to follow us." "You considerably over-estimate your own attractions, madam," replied Smithers; "and the merits of your friends, if you imagine they are sufficiently seductive to induce me to deviate from my path by following your steps. But I am neither disposed to forgo my claim on Miss Rainsfield, nor to permit the pretensions of any other suitor." How long this controversy would have lasted, it is difficult to say, had not Tom attempted to persuade Smithers to leave them; and Eleanor, who at the same time opened her eyes, begged him, in a voice and look of entreaty to depart, promising to explain the circumstances to him at some other time. He then turned away into the bush, and joined a man who appeared to be his companion, but whom they had not before noticed; while the party retraced their steps to the camp, and were soon on their way home. The feelings that agitated their various breasts, we will leave the reader to conjecture; merely stating that they so operated, as to cause the journey to be performed almost in silence. When they reached Strawberry Hill, Eleanor at once proceeded to her chamber, and in her privacy gave vent to the feelings that overpowered her in a flood of tears; while John, very much subdued in spirit, almost immediately took his departure, accompanied by Tom Rainsfield. We may now explain the sudden appearance of Bob Smithers, when he so unceremoniously interrupted the _tete-a-tete_ of John and Eleanor. He had been accompanied by a man (to whom he was attempting to sell a run on the Gibson, below Fern Vale) to show him the country; and in returning, having taken the route by which he would cross the Wombi at the upper flat on the Dingo plains a little below the falls, he accidentally caught the sound of voices as he approached the river, and being curious to know from whence they emanated, he rode with his companion towards the spot. When he came sufficiently close to see what we have already described, he could hardly believe his eyes; for he instantly recognised John Ferguson, though the lady who was listening to his appeal, he could not so readily detect. That it must be Eleanor Rainsfield he did not doubt, though how she came in such company, and in such a place, he could not imagine, and could hardly reconcile to his belief. He, however, listened, and when he caught her name uttered by her prostrate suitor, his rage at the discovery was unbounded. Yet his inquisitiveness to hear more, and know how she received the addresses, overcame for the moment, the first impulse of his malevolence; and kept him silent until the moment, when he dismounted from his horse, we have seen him appear on the scene. After parting from the Rainsfields, he altered his determination of going home direct; and arranging with his companion to meet him at Brompton on the following day, he dashed his spurs into his horse's flanks; and being impelled by the excitement of a jealous frenzy and malice, he pulled up at Strawberry Hill a full hour before the pic-nic party made their appearance; and instantly sought an interview with Mr. Rainsfield. Not finding him in the house, Bob Smithers commenced a search; and soon distinguished his voice in high altercation with some one, as he approached the door of the store, where he overheard the following dialogue. "I tell you again, you are an old fool; you knew perfectly well that I never permit these villainous black scoundrels to come near my premises; and yet you encourage this fellow to the place, and allow him to purloin my property through your want of attention. I would not care a snuff, were it not that I have taken considerable pains to keep them aloof: and I know very well that if they are allowed to return, I shall never be safe from their depredations; and this from your infernal idiotcy and madness." "You will pardon me, Mr. Rainsfield," replied a voice, which distinguished its owner as Mr. Billing, "it grieves me to be under the necessity of contradicting you; but, sir, I really must be permitted to differ from you, in your expressed opinion of an aberration of my intellect. I am proud to state, sir, that I have been ordained by the Almighty with the full and unimpaired use of my faculties; I can readily, sir, however, make allowance for the ebullition of your feelings; but must most distinctly beg to inform you, sir, that you labour under a misapprehension with regard to my sanity; for I may say in the language of the immortal bard, "My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time." "Bosh!" ejaculated the other, "a truce to your trash; you sicken me with your fastidiousness; and if you are not mad yourself, you are likely to drive me so. No one unless afflicted with sheer insanity, would allow that black fellow into the store; and then above all things leave him in it. There isn't the slightest use in your attempting to excuse yourself, for you can't improve matters: you are a perfect nuisance in the place; and I declare if it were not for your family, I would not be bothered with your continual absurdities." "I really conceive myself flattered, sir, by your good opinion of my valuable services; but doubt not, if they were as insignificant as you profess my manner of performing them is distasteful to you, you would ere this have dispensed with them. But, Mr. Rainsfield, you will excuse my freedom, in defending myself against your imputations on my capacity; you must know, sir, that I have been connected with one of the first houses in London, the firm of Billing, Barlow, & Co., of Thames Street; and but for the unfortunate circumstance, of my having allowed myself to be allured to this country, by the glowing accounts of designing men, I should, sir, have still been in the enjoyment of comfortable means, if not of opulence. My experience therefore, sir, has been such as to warrant my assertion; and I utter it, I assure you, sir, without egotism, but merely as the result of a practical mercantile life; that I am sufficiently conversant with business, to undertake the management of any establishment; even, I may add, sir, without disparagement to you, one of greater magnitude than Strawberry Hill; and also-- "For goodness sake, stop that trash; what on earth has all that got to do with your permitting the black to enter the store, which is supposed to be under your charge, and for the contents of which you are responsible?" "I was about to explain that point, sir, when you interrupted me; but my first consideration was to establish my good fame, from the imputation cast upon it by you; which imputation, I am fain to believe, was uttered in a moment of hastiness; and which, after I have explained the circumstances of the case, you will be happy to retract. However, sir, permit me to continue. The black, I have every reason to believe, is in the service of Mr. Ferguson at Fern Vale; for he came over this morning, while you were absent at the bridge, with a message for that gentleman from his overseer; and knowing him to be on an excursion with the ladies, and thinking he would be back about mid-day, I advised him, sir, to delay his return to the station, until he had seen his master. Hence, you see, sir, his presence on the station was perfectly justifiable. With regard to his peccancy I will not attempt, sir, to offer any palliation beyond the expression of my belief, that the tobacco was taken without any notion of the offence he was committing; in proof of which, I may mention, sir, the absence of any concealment on his part, when you came to the store. It was natural, sir, he should follow me about the place, from my having advised him to stay until the arrival of his master; and I, having occasion to go to the store, he accompanied me there; and being suddenly called away, sir, I inadvertently perhaps, left the door open and him inside. Then, it appears, he appropriated the tobacco you found in his hand, and had I returned before you came up, I should have as readily perceived, and as soon induced him to deliver it. If I might venture, sir, to express an opinion, I would say, at most, the offence is a paltry one, and could well be left unnoticed; more especially as he is, as I have premised, a servant of Mr. Ferguson." "Do you think that is any reason why the scoundrel should escape?" exclaimed Rainsfield. "When Mr. Ferguson knows as much about them as I do, he will likewise exclude them from his place. I have been at considerable pains at keeping them at a distance, and do not intend to let them be emboldened by the success of this scoundrel; which would necessarily be the case were he to escape scathless. He shall be punished, and that speedily and effectually." At this point of the discussion Bob Smithers joined the disputants, and having been an unseen listener to these objurgations; and, having a natural antipathy to the blacks, and a vindictive desire to annoy his lately discovered rival, had a corresponding inclination to support Mr. Rainsfield's determination to punish the captive. "Your arrival, Smithers," said the other, as Bob entered the store, "is very opportune. I have just discovered a blackguardly black fellow stealing tobacco, and it appears from my storekeeper's account, he is a servant of Mr. Ferguson. What would you propose we should do with him?" "I would say flog him," replied Smithers; "take him into the bush, so that his voice cannot be heard at the house, and tie him up to a tree; give him a taste of the stock-whip, and send him home to his master, with a request that if he takes a fancy to the brutes, he either keeps them on his run, or teaches them to exhibit better propensities when they visit his neighbours." "A capital idea, by Jove! Smithers," exclaimed Rainsfield; "we will certainly give him a tickling. I have got a fellow on the station that would cut a piece clean out of the hide of a bullock with his stock-whip. I will get him to manipulate; and I calculate, our darkie here will not trouble us with his presence again." As he said this he joined his companion in a burst of merriment at the wonder depicted in the countenance of their almost unconscious victim, who evidently anticipated rough usage, though perfectly ignorant of the nature of the sentence passed upon him. Rainsfield then called one of the men, and directed him to get Smith, the stock-man, to take the black fellow into the bush for a few hundred yards, and tie him up to a tree with his back bared, and take a stock-whip with him, and await the coming of himself and Mr. Smithers. "You surely, gentlemen, do not intend putting your threat into execution," cried Billing, who was standing amazed at the coolness of their preparations. "I appeal, sir, to your sense of honour, to your love of justice, to your charitableness, to induce you to desist from the perpetration of so vile an outrage on humanity. How can you punish, sirs, with such severity a poor, ignorant black, whose offence has been so trifling, that no honourable man would notice it? Besides, gentlemen, I maintain it is unjust to punish a poor aboriginal for an action in which he perceives or knows no wrong. If you persist in the fulfilment of this barbarity, and violation of your charge as Justices of the Peace, let your own consciences be your accusers." The result of this harangue was only the production of an inordinate burst of laughter from both Rainsfield and Smithers; who, without any further notice of the philanthropic storekeeper, than a forcible request from the latter to visit certain regions, the utterance of which would be unpleasant to ears polite, they followed the men to the place of punishment. We will not accompany them to witness this scene, the disgusting and unfeeling nature of which we cannot sufficiently condemn, but merely state that for some minutes the air was rent by the shrieks of the victim; while the two gentlemen and J.P. watched the process, and then returned arm in arm to the house in high glee. Upon reaching the domicile, and discovering that the pic-nic party had come back, Smithers drew his companion away, and told him he wished to have a few minutes conversation with him privately; whereupon Rainsfield, first ascertaining that Eleanor had retired to bed, that his wife was with her, and that his brother and Ferguson had gone to Fern Vale, returned with his companion to the store: in which they locked themselves. What was the nature of their conversation we can pretty correctly conjecture; as also, no doubt, can our readers. It will, therefore, be unnecessary for us to trespass on their privacy; to the full enjoyment of which we will leave them. CHAPTER XII. "Then come, my sister! come, I pray, With speed put on your woodland dress." WORDSWORTH. Before William had been long at Acacia Creek he began to experience the impatience of his sister in her incessant promptings to commence his journey; and, notwithstanding that he knew their house could not be ready for her reception for some time, he was constrained to submit to Kate's desire to enter at once upon her probationary visit. Their arrangements were soon made, and the young lady was not the last who was ready for the start; her mind was not troubled with a superfluity of apparel, or an infinity of boxes. We cannot say if she was peculiar to her sex in this respect, but certain it is she did not hesitate to make the journey without the legion of packages which are usually the concomitants of travelling ladies. All her paraphernalia was comfortably settled on the back of a pack-horse, while her general effects were left to be forwarded to her brother's station as opportunity offered. That Kate Ferguson left her father's house without regret we do not believe; but her mind was so taken up with the thoughts of her domestic importance, and she was so absorbed with the arrangements in perspective, that she entirely forgot the fact that she was leaving, perhaps for ever, her parent's roof; and was about to commence a life subjected to dangers and inconveniences, which she, even native born though she was, was totally unacquainted with. With her parents, however, it was far different; for they had been fully informed by John what sort of a place it was their daughter was going to. Her father, to say nothing of the regret which he felt in parting with his child, experienced some remorse in consigning her to the discomfort of a wild and unsettled country. At the same time he was convinced she would be under good protection, and reconciled himself to the separation by the thought that probably the responsibility of managing the domestic establishment of her brothers would, in a great measure, prepare her for a more permanent station in life; and, in fact, rub off the lingering signs of childhood, and perfect her in a womanly capacity. The feelings which agitated the breast of her mother, when she parted with her darling daughter, we cannot pretend to describe. We know that maternals usually give indications of unbounded grief at parting from their tender offspring, even upon the consummation of their earthly happiness. It may possibly arise from grief at the segregation of one not only made dear by the ties of parental and filial affection, but from the mutual companionship, reliance, and confidence that exist between mother and daughter; possibly it may be for the trials and dangers that beset the young creatures' paths in the commencement of their independent career; or, there may be an alloy of selfishness in the feeling. But certain it is, it is one of the mysteries of the female character; which, though to us inexplicable, we revere; and, consequently, we sympathize with, and respect the ebullition of Mrs. Ferguson's grief, as she wept over her charming daughter, when the young and inexperienced girl was about leaving her protection. Many were her parental admonitions to Kate for her guidance and good, and numerous her injunctions to William for her care and preservation. Never was there a kinder-hearted affectionate parent than this, and never were brother and sister more fondly attached. The mother knowing this, and confident that her son William would, if necessary, offer himself a self-immolated victim, sooner than any evil should happen to his charge, felt little apprehension for her daughter's safety. The travelling party, consisting of Kate, her brother, and Mr. Wigton, were shortly on the road, and journeyed till night without the occurrence of any event worth recording; until, as darkness closed o'er the landscape, they entered the town of Warwick, and put up at the "Bullock's Head." Here William renewed the acquaintance of his old friend the Warwick Ganymede, "Hopping Dick;" and after recommending to the especial attention of Mr. Wigton and his sister the artistic display on the coffee-room walls, the rural combination of beauty and innocence on the mantelpiece, with their rotund neighbour, the guardian of the "spills," he gave instructions to the landlord's representative about their accommodation, and proceeded to the stable to satisfy himself that his horses were being well looked after; knowing that, unless he did so, the attention and provender they would receive would be scanty in the extreme. On the present occasion, fortunately for our friends, the bovine cranium was empty, and William was in high spirits. He had had serious misgivings at the outset of his journey in taking his sister to such a place, from the scene he had on his previous visit seen enacted in it. But the domiciliary selection having a contingency attached to it similar to that which stultified the choice of that immortal, though, we fear, mythical individual, yclept Hobson, he had no alternative but to run the risk of annoyance in this favourite hostel. William, therefore, was happy at the thought that there would be no fear of molestation; and, Warwick being the only stage where they would have to quarter at an inn, he felt no apprehension for his sister's comfort during their further progress. Hopping Dick speedily made his appearance to arrange the table for their repast, while William amused himself by eliciting information from him of a various nature, by questions put to the fellow as he continued to hover between the coffee-room and the pantry. "Have you had any exploits lately, Dick," said he, "similar to that which I witnessed on the first night I stopped here? You remember when I mean," continued William, as he remarked the man's abstraction, as if in thought to what or which exploit he had referred; "I mean when you had the table smashed." "By the gent as tried to take his horse over it?" enquired the salient-gaited waiter. "Exactly," replied his interlocutor. "No, sir; we ain't had no more just like that 'un lately, not sich roarers. I s'pose ye know, sir, that 'ere gent, Mr. Smith, what the 'orse belonged to, is dead?" "No," replied William, "I do not. Pray, how might that have happened?" "Why, you see, sir, he stopped here for about a week, for he was uncommon fond of a spree, and he never reached home after that. His 'orse comed on to the station one day without him, and with the saddle twisted right round, and hanging under his belly. So ye see, sir, his people fancied he had got a 'buster' somehow, and went a-search of him, but couldn't find him nohow. They comed in here then, and found out what way he took; and, with some black fellows, they, after a while, found his track, and run it down till they found him as quiet as you please on the broad of his back, with his head cracked. He was a bit fresh when he left here, so they thought he might a' been going home, some'ut mad like, and got a 'spill,' which cook'd him. Howsomdever, he spent his money like a real gent, and I'm precious sorry he's dead; for he was uncom'n good to me, and a good 'un for custom to the master; the likes of him ain't seen every day." Even grieved as William was to hear of the melancholy and untimely end of such a man; cut off in the prime of life while in the mad pursuit of a delirious career, he could not help indulging in a smile at the strange sophistry of his companion, who imagined that a lavish waste of substance was the constituted act of a gentleman; and at the selfishness of the fellow who regretted the death of the man only in so far as it affected the pocket of himself and his employer. But he reflected it was the way of the world; clothe the feeling how he would; and he felt no doubt that perhaps with the solitary exception of a doating parent who might mourn his death in a far distant land, the man would pass from this earth without the regret of a mortal; and without leaving the remembrance of a virtue, or good action, to perpetuate his memory. "Then, I suppose, Dick," continued William, "you have been quieter lately, since Mr. Smith was killed." "Yes, sir, we've been somewhat quieter of late," replied the man; "but we expect to get a turn again soon. The shearers round the stations will be done their work shortly, and they'll be in with their cheques. Some on 'em a' done already; for we had a party in last week of about eight, and they only went away yesterday." "And I suppose spent their money too, like real gentleman, eh, Dick?" said William laughing. "Why, sir," replied the man, "some on 'em did knock down their pile, and when they left here they was regularly cleared out." "And how much had they spent individually do you think?" enquired the young squatter. "That I couldn't exactly say," replied the other; "some on 'em knocked down twenty pounds or so, but some on 'em stuck to their tin, as they was a going down the country." "Probably it was the intention of the whole party to go down the country until they came here; don't you think so, Dick?" asked William. "Praps it was, sir, but some on 'em had to go back agin to work," naively replied the Ganymede. "But how on earth could one man spend twenty pounds in a week, by merely drinking?" enquired William. "Easy enough, sir," replied the fellow; "some of those chaps, when they get the drink in 'em, will 'shout' for the whole town; and you know it ain't our buisness to stop 'em; we only sells the grog, and they buy it." William had often heard of such practices as these where poor deluded wretches, after toiling hard to obtain their wages, had no sooner received a cheque or draft from their employers in settlement of what was due them, than they would rush to the first public-house; and, placing their cheque in the hands of the publican, would commence a course of mad dissipation; merely requesting to be informed when the money was expended. This had been told him, and also that the victims, after being kept in a state of delirium for a week or so, had it intimated to them that their funds were exhausted; that they had been "shouting" to all the town, or in other words, that they had been providing drink to all who chose to partake; in which belief they were compelled to be satisfied and take their departure. Not only twenty, but often fifty, and even a hundred pounds, he had heard had been embezzled from men under such circumstances; and though he had never before seen instances to warrant his belief in such statements, he was now convinced of the existence of the iniquitous system; for this satellite of the demon had admitted the fact, and spoken of it as the mere course of business. William felt disgusted with the cool infamy of the fellow, and at the magnitude and effrontery of the publican's dishonesty. It was melancholy for him, as for any sentient creature, to contemplate the blind infatuation with which bushmen generally squander their money; or, more properly speaking, allow themselves to be robbed of it. Yet they are willing victims, while there is neither protection for them, nor punishment for the men whose criminality is so glaring. Such were William's thoughts as Mr. Wigton entered the room. To the clergyman our young friend communicated the conversation he had had with the waiter; and for sometime, until they were joined by Kate, the two gentlemen discussed the nature of that evil, which they both lamented; without being able to clearly define a means for the extrication of the unfortunate class. "I can very well see," remarked Mr. Wigton, "the impulse under which these persons act. They are placed suddenly in possession of money; in the control of which they have previously had no experience; and, carried away by the advice, and influenced by the example of associates, they first learn that extravagance which ends in an improvidence that leaves them continually without a shilling. If they have any idea of being saving they are at a loss how to invest their savings; for no means present themselves; their opportunities of purchasing lands, on which to settle, are so rare that they hardly believe its possession within the range of possibility; and they consequently submit to the decrees of evil. Being without the benefit of good advice, and the application of sound precepts, they see no other course open to them, but a reckless expenditure of their hard-earned gains." "But do you not think, my dear sir," said William, "that some means could be devised to cultivate a feeling of prudence in these men? can they not be induced to abandon their suicidal extravagance?" "Yes, certainly," replied his companion, "means could be adopted; but unless the matter is taken up by the employers, or our legislators, I fear nothing will ever be done to ransom the men. Besides, I believe the squatters consider it to their interest to nourish the practice, as it keeps the men more dependent upon them. If the employers could be persuaded to interest themselves on the subject I would hope for better things. Many plans would be useful, such as the establishment of savings banks for instance; but the principal, the desideratum in fact, is the facile procuration of cheap land. A man should be able at any moment to go to the survey office, or some local agent, and select a piece of land that would be suitable for agriculture; and be at liberty at once to take possession, and commence cultivation. Such would be the best means of ensuring thriftiness; and, until we obtain some such system, I fear we may labour in vain to induce economy. Not that the difficulty is insuperable. I have fortunately been the humble instrument of arresting many poor men from such headlong folly; by first inducing them to feel a disgust for the filthy and degrading dissipation which they indulge in. But I have never been able to give any advice in the disposal of their means, from the fact that I know of no channels into which to divert them." At this point, the discussion ceased by the entrance of Kate, and the trio sat down to their meal, undisturbed by the presence of strangers; and as the topics of the conversation which ensued, though exceedingly animated and interesting to the parties engaged in it, are not at all pertinent to our story, nor would be interesting to our readers, we may be permitted to draw a veil over the scene, until the conclusion of the repast. William had a strong desire to question the strange character who waited at table; firmly believing him to be an infamous scoundrel, though gifted in a vicious lore, out of which our young friend had a wish to extract information. For this purpose, soon after the clearance of the cloth, he rose from the table, and leaving his sister in the society of Mr. Wigton, followed Dick into his own regions. Having lit his pipe at the kitchen fire, he took his seat to wait until Hopping Dick was sufficiently disengaged to admit of his answering his interrogations. The fellow himself seemed to like being drawn into conversation, and William had therefore little difficulty in inducing him to be communicative; for by the aid of a stiff glass of grog, or as we would say, in the parlance of the country, "a ball," Dick's heart was softened; and he smiled his satisfaction in a sardonic grin, which had anything but amiability in its expression. Having finished the satisfying of his own inward man; and commenced the indulgence of adding his contribution to the general nicotian pregnated atmosphere, while proceeding about his vocation, he replied to William's various questions with a wonderful alacrity and volubility, strangely contrasting with the taciturn moroseness which had appeared to be his usual manner. Warmed with the genial influence of the spirituous unction, his bosom, if he was possessed of such a divison of anatomy, was opened to his young companion; and he not only gave him a perfect outline of his own history, but a synopsis of that of his master, together with other particulars, various and heterogeneous. As the reader may desire some little acquaintance of Dick's career, we will detail it; and, to save the infliction of that individual's verbosity and jargon, render his narrative into a more comprehensive vernacular; prefacing it with the remark, that the adventures of the narrator must not be considered as a rule, or a characteristic of the inhabitants of the colony. Hopping Dick was an exception; he was in fact one of the last specimens of a class, now happily nearly extinct. Hopping Dick was a "lag" and a "lifer;" or to be more explicit, he was one of those gentlemen who "leave their country for their country's good," and whose period of expatriation is for the term of their natural lives. What was the nature of the offence that caused his transportation we are unable to say positively, though we can form a pretty shrewd opinion. By his own account, all the justiciary of England conspired in unholy league to effect his ruin, and did not rest until they had accomplished their dread designs. Though we have no doubt he was very hardly dealt with in the deprivation of his liberty, we strongly suspect our friend had a predilection for visiting the domiciles of his fellow citizens, slightly in opposition to their wishes; and dropping in at most unseasonable hours, by means of some instrumental application of his own, detrimental to the locks and fastenings of such dwellings. In addition to this, he sometimes had a playful manner of titulating the craniums of his friends, so visited, with a toyish sort of article he was induced to carry on his person for his own vital preservation. It was on one occasion when he was going to see "his gal" (he said), who lived in a fashionable locality of London, he had been kept pretty late with some of his friends (or "pals," as he vulgarly designated them), and when he got to her house he discovered she had forgotten to leave the door open for him; but being pretty well acquainted with that accomplishment of the "force," area scaling, and being supplied with his own latch-key, he did not think much of her neglect. But, strange to say, and considerably to the astonishment of Dick, the head of the family had a strong objection to that individual's visiting his ladye love; and absolutely mistaking him for a common burglar, seized him, with _malice prepensé_, to hand him over to "the perlice." Dick, under these circumstances, had no alternative but to knock his assailant down; but the screaming that was made in the house caused the appearance of those metropolitan enemies of freedom, the "peelers," who marched him off in custody. He was tried by a jury of his countrymen, who were so far biassed by his arch-enemy the judge, as to convict him of burglary, which resulted in the provision of a free passage for him to the rising settlement of Botany Bay. Upon his arrival at his destination our unfortunate friend was drafted to the penal settlement on the Hunter river; where he remained some time, until he was made over as an "assigned servant" to a settler in that district. The master to whom Dick was assigned, like many more in the country, was one who had received a large grant of land from the government, and was clearing and putting under cultivation a considerable portion by the labour of the convicts; who were at that time assigned by the government to any settler who would undertake to clothe and feed them. Under such a system, as might be imagined, the convict's apparel was of the meanest texture, and their food of the coarsest description; and while they were made to work under the terror of the lash, and the eye of an overseer (often excelling in barbarous cruelty the vaunted atrocities of the American slave-drivers), flagellation was the ordeal they were almost constantly permeating. Dick had not been long with his new master before he discovered the nature of the tyranny to which he would be subjected. His first taste of his penal life was on an occasion when he complained to the overseer of the nature of the tools with which he was working. Such flagrant presumption could not, of course, be tolerated; the overseer reported him to the master; the master laid a charge of insubordination against him before the magistrate, and he was forthwith visited with the due punishment of the law, in the shape of fifty lashes; after which, with his body bleeding and lacerated, he was sent back to his work. It is impossible to picture, with sufficient force, the horrors and atrocities of the penal times. We do not consider ourselves adequate to the task of exposure and condemnation; but, though we do not approve a life of ease and comfort accorded to condemned felons, we unhesitatingly affirm, that in most, if not all cases, the cruel treatment which the convicts underwent, instead of having a penitential influence, only served to harden them in their iniquities; and while they frequently became perfectly callous to the infliction of punishment, they were debased to the incarnation of fiends, merely wanting in the opportunity to perpetrate the most atrocious villanies in retribution. If Dick had ever entertained any disposition of a reformatory nature, it was entirely dissipated by his early experience. He only waited the auspicious moment when he could follow the steps of hundreds of others who had been similarly situated, but had escaped to become "bush-rangers," and the terror of the country. An opportunity was not long in presenting itself; and he, with a party of six as desperate ruffians as himself, contrived to elude the vigilance of their masters, and get into the bush. Their sufferings and privations were extreme; little short of the hateful servitude from which they fled; but they preferred anything, even death itself, rather than return to a repetition of their bondage. Their escape, however, was soon detected, and they were pursued by a small company of military; who succeeded in surprising them in the mountains, and upon their attempting to escape, fired upon them. In this recontre two of the convicts were killed, and three others were wounded. Of these, Dick was one, for he received a shot in the knee from which he never thoroughly recovered; while the muscular contraction that ensued, from the want of surgical treatment, caused the deformity which gave rise to his appellation. When he was retaken and brought back to the settlement, he was thrown back again upon the government, and put into the "chain-gang," where he worked in irons with the other incorrigibles. From this, after a while, he was transferred to a quarry party, and again made over to a settler as an assigned servant. His treatment from this master was even more tyrannical than he had experienced before; for the most imaginary offence, and frequently for no offence at all, but just at the caprice of the master, he was treated to various applications of the lash, and restricted allowances of his miserable rations. His slavery was the most abject, his misery the most consummate, and his degradation the most venal and depraved: he was the image of the man without the mental spark; the human being in semblance, but the brute in reality. The character of Dick's employer was well known; and hardened as all were by the repetition of scenes that would have made the heart of a novice sicken, most, even of the officials, looked upon him as too harsh and cruel, though none attempted to check his insatiable inhumanity. A circumstance, however, transpired, which speedily brought this state of things to a crisis. Dick had only returned one day from the "triangle," with his body lacerated by the punishment he had been undergoing, when he was ordered by his master to instantly resume his labour, while he taunted him and laughed at his emaciated appearance. The heat of the sun was oppressive, and Dick, though he had borne unflinchingly the infliction of the lash, was sick at heart, and debilitated by the loss of blood. All his evil passions were aroused within him; and it was only with an unwilling hand and suppressed oath of threatened vengeance that he resumed his work; while his tormentor continued to goad him with a recollection of his past and present misery, and a prospect of fresh torture. The unfeeling wretch continued his banter until human nature could bear it no longer, and with the spade which he held in his hand, Dick clove the skull of his inordinate persecutor. He never attempted to escape from the fate which he knew awaited him; but permitted himself to be led quietly to that confinement which he was aware would only terminate with the close of his life. He remained in durance for some months or so, during which his master hovered between life and death; who, when he was sufficiently recovered to be enabled to move about, was gratified by having the unfortunate criminal brought to justice. In those days the laws against the convicts were very summary; short work was made of those with whom the rulers experienced much trouble; and in a case like this, where a prisoner attempted the life of a free settler, his doom was fixed before he was placed at the bar; nothing but his life could expiate for such a crime. Dick well knew this, and also that if there were any mitigating circumstances, his master would spare no trouble in securing his execution; he was not therefore at all surprised that he was sentenced to the extreme rigour of the law. However, death appeared to the miserable culprit only a release from his bodily suffering; and he hailed its consummation with more delight than he had experienced in any of his earthly pursuits; but his sufferings were not yet at an end. His execution was fixed; notwithstanding that some slight effort was made to save him by some persons more humane than their compeers, and who knew the character of the victim's persecutor; and he was led away to the final scene of his drama. Before the adjustment of the hempen order he was enlivened by the brutal taunts and lampoons of his master; who, forgetful of his own narrow escape from the grave, jested, with an unparalleled coarseness, on the fate awaiting the condemned wretch before him. The signal was given; the bolt was withdrawn; and Dick, with the hoarse laugh of his master ringing in his ears, was launched into the air, if not into eternity. But by some gross mismanagement the culprit's feet came in contact with the ground; while his ears continued to be assailed with the blaspheming raillery of the man, who was equally deserving of such a fate. In this position the unfortunate wretch remained, until a hole was dug to make his suspension complete; and he was again launched forth; though with no better success. The authorities were by this time felt to be in a fix; but the victim was not to escape, at least, so said the master; who with an oath, volunteered to finish the work himself. Carrying his offer into execution, he mounted the rope that suspended the criminal, and added his weight by standing on the man's shoulders, to effect a dislocation, or strangulation. But he was again frustrated; for the rope, which had done service on many similar occasions, gave way under the additional weight; and both were precipitated into the pit, amidst the oaths and imprecations of the one, and the groans and lamentations of the other. The body of the half strangled man was then removed; while fresh exertions were made to obtain his reprieve; this time with a better result; and, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the master, Dick's life was spared; though it was only to undergo the horrors of a stricter servitude. This he bore for some three years; and if by that time, he was not reformed, he was certainly subdued; while his apparent docility, being construed into reformation, had the effect of causing a relaxation of the rigid discipline under which he had been placed. He was relieved from the irons in which he worked, and was permitted the use of his limbs with more freedom; while the use nht psoe hwi cfirt h tth em (after he was transferred to the new settlement of Moreton Bay), was to escape into the bush. For years nothing further was heard of him; and, by those who troubled themselves to bestow a thought upon him, he was supposed to have perished. But, after the abandonment of the settlement as a penal depot, when it was thrown open to the public, a report was brought in that, in a distant part of the country, a white man was living with the blacks in perfect nudity; and, from his long exposure to the sun, almost of a colour with his companions. He was said to be robust looking, but with a malformation by which one of his legs was longer than the other. The description answered to the escaped convict, Dick; and, the circumstances having been communicated to the government, a party was sent in quest of him. After some trouble he was discovered, and brought into the settlement; but the results of his past life with the blacks were, that he had entirely forgotten his mother tongue, and had acquired new ways and sympathies that long deterred him from assimilating to those of the whites. Considering his many and peculiar vicissitudes, a remission of the penalty to which he was liable was obtained from the Crown; and a perpetual ticket-of-leave was granted him, provided that he remained in the district of Moreton Bay. Such then was the career of this character related by himself to William, as the latter sat listening to him; and though his sufferings had been fearful, and his escapes miraculous, the catalogue of his trials was only a counterpart of hundreds or thousands of his fellows who had either died under their servitude, or become scourges to the country. Numerous are the instances of the atrocious barbarities of a system, which for iniquity had no parallel; but it is not our object to enlarge on the dismal subject; and, as we may have occasion to revert to it again, for the present we will dismiss it from our thoughts. CHAPTER XIII. "Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And 'let us worship God' he says with solemn air." BURNS. The party at the "Bullock's Head" retired early to rest in order to proceed on their journey at a corresponding hour on the following morning. They slept and rose, breakfasted and resumed their travel; and the same afternoon arrived at Barra Warra, where they were welcomed by their kind-hearted friends, the Dawsons. It is needless for us here to detail the circumstances of the visit; suffice it to say, that the lady of the house and Kate Ferguson at once established their friendship on a firm basis; and the gentlemen passed their time pleasantly, and in a manner congenial to their respective tastes. The only event during the period of their sojourn, which we deem necessary to narrate, is that of preaching in the bush. A day or two after their arrival--on a Sunday morning--Mr. Dawson placed his large wool-shed, which at the time was nearly empty, at the disposal of Mr. Wigton, for the purpose of there holding Divine service; and he gave intimation on the station that such would take place. Though Mr. Dawson was a conscientious adherent of the Anglican church, he was not one of those who, in the absence of a place of worship where the adoration is conducted not strictly in accordance with the prescribed formulæ of his church, would abstain from attendance on any other denominational service. He was devoid of such bigotry; and considered it a duty, when an opportunity of public worship presented itself (even though the minister officiating was not deemed perfectly orthodox by the tenets of the Episcopalian creed), to avail himself of it. Where means of ministration were rare, he considered sectarian distinctions prejudicial to the cause of the gospel, and deemed the only essential to be an earnest truthfulness and piety on the part of the clergyman. He always encouraged the ordinances of religion on his station, and the inculcation of moral principles among his men. The Sabbath was one of those lovely days so peculiar to the sunny regions of favoured Australia. The sky was without a cloud to vary its unbroken and immaculate azure, and the sun shone with a voluptuous lustre, which rendered the atmosphere warm, though not oppressive, and the face of the country smiling and cheerful. The people around the place--men, women, and children, clean and neatly clad--assembled in an orderly manner; while the sombre stillness of the bush tended to impress the beholders with an earnestness, a feeling of devotion, and a confirmed belief, that, verily, "the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the earth." There are, we venture to say, few more inspiring scenes than the performance of Divine service, or "a preaching," in the wilds of the woods; and we believe the spiritual influence was felt that day by not a few of the number who listened to the exposition of the Word, which was delivered from the lips of the preacher with a truth and pathos characteristic of a sincere and devout mind. The same orderly and sober manner marked the dispersion of the people, as did their gathering; and if no spiritual good arose from it (though we sincerely trust and believe there did), in a moral point of view the people reaped a reward; and by the same means, indirectly, the squatter was benefited. These preachings contrast pleasingly with the general thoughtless and frivolous manner of some of the congregations in our large towns, and it is only to be regretted that they are not of more frequent occurrence. Nothing would more greatly tend to advance the morals of those people of Australia who too frequently live in a state of vitiated depravity and mental degradation, and who are perfectly destitute of religion, and ignorant and neglectful of its observances. When William and his party had remained at Barra Warra for about a week he thought it time to push forward to his home; and, after some little persuasion with Mrs. Dawson, induced her to part with his sister, and the young lady to consent to go. They took their leave amidst a general expression of cordiality, and an entreaty from their kind friends to find their way back again as soon as possible. They then proceeded on their way, Kate more than ever delighted with her prospect. In the spontaneous ebullition of her youthful and innocent feelings, and charmed beyond measure at the kind reception she had met with from the amiable people she had just left, she was in the highest spirits, and gave frequent vent to her joy. Her merry peals of laughter rang through the woods with an echo that sounded as if all the trees had taken up the chorus, and supported her in bursts of silvery-toned cachinnations. She talked and chatted away the time, asking questions of her brother respecting the Smitherses and the Rainsfields, and requesting him to draw comparisons between the two families and that which they had lately left. This task William professed himself unable to accomplish, and unwilling to attempt; remarking that "comparisons were odious," and that his sister would be able to judge for herself if she would exercise a little patience. The road was quickly travelled over; and our friends comfortably completed that day's stage, and found themselves at Brompton before dark. They were welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Smithers in as friendly a manner as William had anticipated; but upon Kate and Mr. Wigton being introduced as strangers to Bob, he muttered some unintelligible sentence, turned on his heel, and left the room. Such extraordinary conduct rather surprised the Fergusons, especially William; who, when last he had seen him, parted from him in perfect good feeling. The proprietor of the station and his wife were not only astonished, but exceedingly chagrined to think that their visitors should have received so gross an insult from a member of their family. Without entering into any vituperations on Bob's conduct, they apologised to their friends for his inexplicable behaviour, stating their inability to assign any reason for it beyond his extraordinary temper, and expressing many regrets for its occurrence. The Fergusons professed to think nothing of it, and begged their friends to take no heed of the circumstance, as it gave them, personally, no concern; being convinced that it could not have been the intention of Mr. Smithers' brother to have meditated any insult. Notwithstanding all their assurances that they in no way felt annoyed, they could not remove from the minds of their hosts the impression that they had received an unwarrantable insult; and the culprit not "entering an appearance" again, and no explanation being forthcoming, the evening passed very heavily, and a general relief was experienced by the party when they separated for the night. On the following morning the Fergusons and Mr. Wigton resumed their journey, and the spirit of their travelling contrasted greatly with that of the previous day. They had parted from the Smitherses on very good terms; but Bob had continued to absent himself, and there was a gloom thrown over the parting in consequence. "What a horrid bear that man is," exclaimed Kate, as she rode between the other two equestrians. "What could have induced him to be so rude? Have you any idea, Will?" William certainly had an idea, and it grieved him much to contemplate it, for he thought he read in the occurrence a rupture between his brother and Bob Smithers. But he was deep in thought when his sister addressed him, and not until she had repeated her question did he make any reply; and that reply, if not strictly the truth, was, he thought, the best he could make, rather than by uttering his convictions, to excite the fears of his sister for her brother John. "No, my Kate, I do not," replied William, "but what does it signify? We have no occasion to trouble ourselves about the circumstance. Bob Smithers was exceedingly ungentlemanly in his behaviour; but I believe he is proverbial for that sort of conduct, so I think we need not give the matter any further thought. Do you, Mr. Wigton?" "You are quite right, William," replied the minister, "the folly or frivolity of the man, for at most it is only such, should not be allowed to give us any uneasiness. If it was intended to convey any insult, we can best show our appreciation of it by allowing it at once to sink into oblivion; but I have no doubt it may be attributable to his extraordinary manner, which, you say, is customary." "Well," said Kate, "I'll tell Miss Rainsfield of the manner in which he treated us; it is only right that she should know what a ruffian he is." "Now, my thoughtless little sister, you must do no such thing," said her brother; "rather studiously avoid mentioning anything at Strawberry Hill disparaging of Bob Smithers. Miss Rainsfield must be better acquainted with the gentleman's character and manner than either you or I; and the relation of any such affront as we have received might cause her considerable and unnecessary pain." "Nonsense, William," cried the girl. "Miss Rainsfield ought to know how he acts to strangers, because, I am sure, he'll always behave himself before her; and I am convinced if she only knew what a bear he is, she would not have anything to say to him." "Kate," remarked Mr. Wigton, "William is quite right; it would be better to say nothing about the affair, if, as I imagine from your conversation, this young lady entertains any regard for Mr. Smithers. She must be better acquainted with his feelings than we; consequently, we should avoid the possibility of creating any contentions between the families; while, after all, there might have been nothing in his manner deserving animadversion." "I think I can see the drift of my fair sister's plan," said William to Mr. Wigton; "she has taken a fancy to Bob Smithers herself, and she thinks by telling this dreadful tragedy to Miss Rainsfield, that young lady will be induced to discard him, and leave the coast open to our Kate." "You are a most impertinent fellow," exclaimed Kate, as she attempted to lay her whip across the shoulders of her brother. "I detest the man; and if he were to make himself as pleasant and agreeable as it is possible for any man to be, I could not endure him." "Never mind, my pretty Flora," said her brother, "we will not submit you to the infliction; but promise to say nothing to the Rainsfields of the affair at Brompton." "If you particularly wish it," replied Kate, "I will hold my tongue; but I cannot imagine for why. But tell me," said she, as her usual smile returned to its wonted place, "how long shall we be before we arrive at Strawberry Hill?" "Not until late," said William, "unless we mend our pace, so we had better push on;" with which remark he put spurs to his horse, and rode at a brisk rate followed hard by his companions. Well on in the afternoon they arrived at Strawberry Hill; and the first inmate of the house who presented himself was Tom Rainsfield, who grasped the hand of William, and was introduced by him to Kate and Mr. Wigton. The former he expressed much delight in seeing, and stated he had been looking out anxiously for her arrival, and would at once constitute himself her protector and most obedient servant. With such little blandishments he led the arrivals into the house; and presented with due solemnity the treasure, that he said had been consigned to his keeping, to his sister-in-law and his cousin. The ladies at once received Kate with that affectionate welcome inherent in women; and, relieving Tom of his self-imposed responsibility, disappeared with her to one of those secret conferences, the mysteries of which we masculine mortals are destined always to remain in profound ignorance. The gentlemen then issued through the French light, and passed from the room to the verandah that encompassed the house. Tom brought out chairs, and desired his visitors to be seated for a few minutes, until the ladies returned, while he went in search of his brother to acquaint him of their arrival. In a short time Mrs. Rainsfield and her companions made their appearance all radiant with smiles, and their faces beaming with expressions of good feeling; shortly after which Tom joined them with Mr. Rainsfield, who received the travellers with a politeness that struck William as having some degree of formality in it. However, a repast was speedily prepared and set upon the table, to which all sat down; when everything was cordiality; and after spending a very pleasant and agreeable evening, the party broke up at an hour rather late for weary wayfarers. But the gentlemen expressed themselves free from fatigue; and Kate, who was really a good equestrian, so enjoyed the society of Mrs. Rainsfield, and had become so attached to Eleanor, that the moments seemed to fly by with an almost incredible velocity. Not till Mr. Rainsfield had more than once reminded his wife that it was approaching midnight, did the ladies take the hint to separate. Then the matron followed by the two girls, with their arms encircling each others waists, made their exit; while Tom's eyes followed them with looks of admiration. In the morning they all assembled at the table; and without tiring the reader with the conversation that was carried on, or the entire detail of their plans, which were discussed over the morning meal, we will give a synopsis of the whole in a few words. It was arranged that William, his sister, and Mr. Wigton, accompanied by Tom and Mrs. Rainsfield, should ride over to Fern Vale. William and Mr. Wigton were to remain there with John, while the rest of the party returned to Strawberry Hill. Mr. Wigton had declined the invitation of the Rainsfields to remain with them for a short time on the ground that he would not have long to remain in their quarter, and he wished to devote as much as possible of his time to his young friends. Kate was to fulfil her promised visit until her brother's house was ready for her reception. The arrangements for the passage over to Fern Vale pleased all parties but Kate, who had been industriously persevering to induce Eleanor to accompany them. But her friend had excused herself on the plea that she very rarely rode, was not at all a good horsewoman, and almost invariably felt ill after a ride. So Kate, finding entreaty useless, was constrained to do without the companionship of her friend. The party took their departure early in the forenoon, without seeing Mr. Rainsfield; who, they understood, was engaged with some person, Mr. Billing had sent word to say, had been waiting to see him. CHAPTER XIV. "Nature, indeed, denies them sense, But gives them legs and impudence, That beats all understanding." WILLIAMS. When the black boy, whom John Ferguson had named Billy, was released by his captors, after the castigation we have seen him subjected to by Rainsfield and Smithers, he made the best of his way to Fern Vale; and there, with his bleeding back substantiating his statement, told his tale of woe. John and his friend Tom Rainsfield could hardly credit their sight; the latter especially, who could not think but that if his brother had any hand in the barbarity it must have been as a passive instrument at the disposal of Smithers. The young men felt for the poor aboriginal, and in their sympathy tended his wounds and gave him what assistance they could. With the black the injury sank deep into his heart; savage as he was he felt the ignominy of his treatment; and he cherished that feeling of deep revenge which is innate in the natures of all God's creatures, but especially in those, who like the savage, have never had an ethic inculcation to restrain their passions. He gave vent to his agony, as he lay prostrate on his pallet, in wails of anguish and vituperative mutterings; uttered in the unintelligibleness of his own language. After the subsiding of the first surprise and indignation the agitation of his own thoughts too much occupied John's mind to admit of his being much diverted by the sorrows of his black boy; and Tom was too much affected by the dejectedness of his friend to entertain any lasting concern for the sable sufferer. As he sat ruminating on the incidents of the day, until he fell into a reverie almost as deep as one of those indulged in by his companion, he roused himself by uttering the following exordium: "Cheer up, John, my dear fellow; don't permit yourself to feel disappointed, for I am sure from the glimpse Eleanor has had to-day of Smithers' real nature she cannot entertain any respect for him; and, as for her ridiculous persistence in binding herself to a foolish engagement, I have no doubt she will now see the necessity of abandoning it." "My dear Tom," replied the other, "I cannot consent to oppose the claims of Bob Smithers so long as Eleanor herself holds them sacred. She admitted her engagement to him in his and my presence, and at the same time abstained from giving me any direct answer to my proposal; I imagine, as she thought, to avoid paining my feelings; so I must not dare to hope." "That's all moonshine," cried Tom, "banish the idea of Bob Smithers from your head altogether. You say Eleanor gave you no direct answer to your entreaties; I don't profess to be a judge in such matters, but it appears to me her hesitation was not disadvantageous to you. If that ruffian had not appeared I am sure you would have overcome all her scruples. Persevere John! you know the adage, 'faint heart never won fair lady;' rouse yourself, and act upon it, and I will stake my existence on the result." "I cannot, Tom," replied his friend. "I assure you, I cannot; I have a higher opinion of Eleanor's integrity than to think she would be influenced by my entreaties to reject Smithers merely from our little fracas yesterday. She distinctly informed me she was engaged to him, and I am bound in honour to respect her judgment. If I ever had reason to believe her determination would alter I might hope; but no, I see no prospect." "You are too nice," exclaimed Tom, "upon the point of honour, as you call it. Her engagement I look upon as a mere phantasy, which she will be convinced of ere long. All you have to consider is, whether or not she will accept you. You have had no answer from her you say; then take an early opportunity of seeing her, and pressing for a reply. If you will not plead for yourself I will for you; and shall point out to her the absurdity and absolute sinfulness of discarding you for that object of conceited inanition, Bob Smithers." "Much as I would desire the reversion of the decree that forbids me hope that Eleanor will be mine," replied John, "I would much rather that you did not agitate her by adverting to the subject in her hearing, as it cannot fail to renew unpleasant reminiscences." "Well, perhaps it would be better," said Tom, "to let it remain as it is for a short time; and if you promise me to keep up your spirits, and hope for a better state of things, I will engage not to disturb her unnecessarily. Why, I'll stake anything you like on it, she is thinking of you at this very moment; and will no more marry Bob Smithers than I will the ghostly Meg Merillies." With a sickly smile from the forlorn lover the conversation ceased for the time; and the friends shortly afterwards retired to seek the rest they respectively stood in need of. On the following morning Tom returned to Strawberry Hill; while John, upon busying himself on the station, learnt that the black boy Billy had disappeared in the night; and that Jemmy, his companion, professed to know nothing about him. Calling in the aid of Joey he was enabled to trace the track of the fugitive to the river; from which circumstance he conjectured that Billy had waited for the dawn of morning; when he had taken his departure with the intention of joining his tribe. Upon making this discovery he felt considerable annoyance, as the black had began to be useful, and would in all probability be followed by his companion. He could not help feeling disgusted at the treatment the poor fellow had received; and so far as he was personally concerned, he felt himself justified in resenting the conduct of his neighbour; which he determined to take the earliest opportunity of stigmatizing, and condemning in the strongest possible terms. As he had anticipated, the other black soon followed his fellow, and he was consequently put to considerable inconvenience by the deprivation of their labour. Nearly a week had elapsed after this, and Tom Rainsfield had ridden over to Fern Vale to spend a little spare time with his friend, and cheer him in his solitude. "My brother," said he, "has been again annoyed by the blacks. They have paid him another visit, and seem determined to cultivate his acquaintance more closely than hitherto. I expect that fellow of yours has given his relatives a feeling account of his reception at our place, and also as to the exact position of the store. In their late visit, they were in considerable numbers (I presume to protect themselves against a general flogging), and they have vented their displeasure in a manner most conducive to their happiness, by appropriating what of our stores they could conveniently remove. I believe my brother meditates some desperate onslaught; for he is swearing to exterminate the whole tribe if they continue their depredations much longer." "I think," replied John Ferguson, "that he is suicidal to his own interests by perpetuating his quarrel with the blacks. An unceasing warfare with them will only be conducive of misfortune, loss, and uneasiness to both himself and his neighbours; for the blacks will not have the sense to discriminate between those that are friendly disposed towards them, and those that are the reverse. All whites to them will be the same, and will become objects of their hatred." "I agree with you to a certain extent," replied Tom; "and I believe the aborigines can not only be conciliated, but be made certainly useful, if not industrious. I don't like the idea of driving the poor wretches away from the country: at the same time you must admit our property must not be despoiled without an effort on our part to protect it." "Certainly," replied John; "but I believe the very violation of which you speak is merely the result of the harsh treatment persevered in by your brother. Their visits to you are only their retribution for injuries received at his hands. You see they respect my property, simply because I treat them with some degree of lenity; at the same time I give them to understand that I would not permit any appropriation on their part; and I have no doubt if your brother would adopt the same course he would experience a similar result." "Very likely," said Tom; "but he does not seem to think so, and I imagine it would be hard to convince him. The hostility which he now experiences from the blacks, I believe, as you say, is the result of his austerity; but he imagines it arises from their own natural predilection for stealing, while his severity is his only safeguard. I am quite of opinion that the blackguards are naturally disposed to pilfer; but at the same time I have no doubt our property could be preserved by the exercise of a moral firmness, without any of that unnecessary harshness and cruelty which my brother displays. But see, here they are, paying you a visit apparently, and in open day too; see now, if they don't upset your theory." The appearance that caused this expression of Tom's was of a party of blacks who were approaching the station in a slow though by no means silent manner; for, in fact, the incessant din of their jabber heralded them before they were actually visible. The party consisted of about thirty men, who were armed with their usual weapons of spears, boomerangs and waddies; and clad in nature's own habiliments. They were headed by two fellows of commanding stature and appearance; though little differing from the others, except that one wore a necklace of small bones; and the other, suspended from his neck by a cord and resting on his breast, a small brass-plate of a crescent shape, on which his name was engraved. This individual, who was the chief of the tribe, was named Dugingi; while his companion enjoyed the more euphonious sobriquet of Jemmy Davis. The latter had undertaken to introduce himself and his friend to the whites with much form; and during the ceremony we will take the opportunity of giving the reader a slight outline of his and his comrade's history. Dugingi was a semi-civilized black of about the middle age, powerfully made, and decidedly unprepossessing in his appearance. He had been at one time a trooper in the native police force of the colony; in which corps he had been discreet enough to acquire all the vices and depravities of the whites, while their virtues remained to him that arcana of life which held out no allurements for emulation. When this effective force was greatly reduced, and in some parts entirely disbanded, by the sapient government of the time, Dugingi, with numerous others of his countrymen similarly instructed, were let loose to join their tribes, to contaminate the hitherto inoffensive blacks with their vile inoculations. We will not stop to review the evils that have arisen from the system of imbuing the natures of the blacks with a taste for sin, acquired in scenes of crime and iniquity, and then sending them back to their former haunts to spread amongst their fraternity the virus of civilized corruption. Such itself might be made the subject of especial exposition, and would require more space than we in this tome can afford it. Upon his juncture with his tribe the effects of Dugingi's education soon displayed themselves; and having been caught and convicted of theft, and after a series of successful depredatory exploits, he was sentenced to two years' penal servitude at the convict establishment in Cockatoo Island. Here, again, is another instance of the judicial short-sighted policy against which we might declaim: for, setting aside the absence of punishment to a black, where confinement is accompanied with ease and regular dietary; to which he has not hitherto been accustomed (to say nothing of his incapacity to understand the nature of his crime, or the cause of his incarceration); the contamination he receives during his sojourn in those fearful sinks of infamy, complete his immoral training; and when he again breathes the fresh air of freedom, he is as accomplished a villain as ever graced the bar of the Old Bailey. So it was with Dugingi. Cockatoo Island finished what the native police commenced; and but for his arrant cowardice, and the dread of the settler's fire-arms, he would have been as great a ruffian as ever traversed the bush. But though he was at heart a thorough scoundrel, and pretty generally known to be so, he was kept in check by a wholesome dread, not of the visitation of the law (which, in the remote parts, never could be sufficiently powerful to protect the settlers from the depredations or assaults of the blacks), but of a retribution from the whites; which they took it upon themselves to inflict, when they conceived it necessary. Thus, though Dugingi was peaceable, it was only the quiet of the subdued tiger, which merely required time and opportunity to develope its real nature. The plate, which he wore round his neck, was given to him upon the disbandment of the force; and on the strength of it and his civilized acquirements, he arrogated to himself the chiefship of his tribe; thus proving, that in his case at least, "knowledge was power." Jemmy Davis, on the other hand, was a very different character. He had been taken from his tribe, when young, by a settler, who called him after himself, and kept him almost constantly about his person and premises. He taught him reading and writing, both of which Jemmy acquired admirably; and he spoke English as fluently, and even more so, than many Englishmen. Some years after his domestication, and some little time before the date of our narrative, Mr. Davis visited England, and took with him his Australian namesake; keeping him constantly by his side during the whole of a tour through the greater part of Europe. The effects of this would be imagined to have been the entire eradication of his aboriginal nature, and a perfect conversion to civilisation. So thought his master, but he was deceived; and so have been all those who have attempted to naturalize the blacks to an industrial mode of life. Jemmy Davis, as soon as he returned with his master to Australia and the station, took his departure from the comforts of the whites; denuding himself of his clothes, which he had so long accustomed himself to wear; and joined his tribe in the state we have seen him. The case of Jemmy Davis is by no means a singular one in the aborigines of Australia. The attempt has frequently been made to induce them to assimilate their ways to those of the whites, but, with very rare exceptions, with the same result; nor, when we analyze the feelings that actuate their return to savage life, need we feel surprised. The endearments of home, wretched as that home may be; the ties of kindred; the love of country; the force of early training, and old associations; all imbue the breast of the savage in an equal degree that similar sentiments do the bosoms of his civilized neighbours. Let a man of humble birth, and parentage so mean that they have been considered, by their fellow mortals, as cumberances on the earth; we say, let him, through his own industry and fortuitous circumstances, raise himself to a post of eminence and power; and amidst all the engrossing excitement of his life of pomp and pedantry, the promptings of his natural affection will cause his heart to yearn after the authors of his being, and the humble tenement that sheltered his infant head. If, then, such feelings exist in the mind of a man subject to all the caprices of the world, and made callous to the feelings of humanity by the usages of that society that would hold up to scorn and ridicule the exhibition of affection for anything so mean; how much more would the child of nature, unencumbered with such conventionalities, and unfettered by the prejudices of civilized life, yearn after the ties of kindred and the associations of his early training. Hence all attempts to draw the savage races into a settled civilisation, and wean them from their inherent customs, have signally failed. Blacks may have been partially induced to adopt the customs of the whites, in individual cases, such as Jemmy Davis; but their continuance is not to be depended upon, for they soon tire of their new life when they find that labour is its natural adjunct, and they relapse into their former state, preferring the indolence it ensures. The mode of living of the blacks in their wild state is primitive in the extreme; and the sources of their sustenance equally precarious. Their diet consists of roots, berries, fish, small animals, and reptiles (such as snakes and lizards); and as the country never abounds with either, they are necessarily often perfectly destitute; and the water as frequently failing, coupled with the entire absence of any degree of pre-thought or providence on their part, and their imperfect means of procuration, they are almost constantly in an abject state of wretchedness. Their weapons are primitive, singular, and even, as savage specimens, ineffective. Their natural characteristics are cowardice, indolence, deceit, cunning, and treachery (particularly to and amongst themselves); prevented only, as we have already said, in their intercourse with the whites, from exercising the latter by the predominance of the first. Their physical formation is decidedly of the inferior order; with very few exceptions, they are by no means muscular or well formed. Their bodies are covered with long, raised wales, which are caused by incisions made with a sharp instrument (such as a shell or a flint), when the patient is young; the wounds are for some time kept open with earth, and made to assume their embossment in the operation of healing. In their movements they are sluggish, though agile when stimulated to action. Their limbs are of surprising tenuity. In their communications with one another they are volatile; verbose in conversation, and puerile in manner: continually embroiled in some quarrel, which either ends in words, or terminates in the act of the secret assassin; rarely coming to an open rupture while the adversaries are on their guard. Their women, or "gins," are even inferior to the men, both physically and mentally. In appearance they are perfectly hideous, almost to deformity, and are the drudges of their lords; whom they repay for their contumely, by keeping in continual broils, during which their feminine voices are ever heard over the din of their verbal contentions. We have said Jemmy Davis was the ambassador of his tribe, and that he had introduced himself and Dugingi to John Ferguson. We will therefore, now, after our epic digression, resume our narrative, by repeating the conversation that followed. "Well, Jemmy," said John Ferguson, "and what may be your pleasure? to what may we attribute the honour of your visit?" "We came to tell you, sir," replied the plenipo, "that we have a great 'corroboree' to-night, and we want some rations." "And what is your corroboree for, Jemmy?" enquired John. "It's a 'kipper corroboree,' sir," replied Jemmy. "Well," replied John, "I'll not give you a mouthful of anything until you send back my black boys. What made them leave me? I treated them well; gave them plenty of rations, and blankets on cold nights; so why did they run away? Will you tell me?" Dugingi replied, "Billy been tell'um me how Misser Rainsfield and Misser Smithers been beat 'em; and bael budgery (not good) that fellow; budgery (good) fellow you; bael (not) you beat 'em black fellow; and black fellow been wooller (say) you corbon budgery (very good); but bael black fellow sit down (stay) where white fellow beat 'em." "That's all right, Dugingi," said John. "I never beat the black boys, and if I knew it, would never allow any one else to do so; but because Mr. Rainsfield flogged Billy is that any reason why he should run away from me? Let him and the other boy come back, and I'll give you some rations for your corroboree; but if they don't come back, I'll not give you anything." An altercation then ensued between Dugingi and the fugitives, who appeared to be of the visiting party; and it was ultimately arranged that they should return after their feast. "I suppose we can come and see your corroboree, if we like, Dugingi?" asked John. "Yuoi (yes), Masser," said Dugingi, "you come along in three-fellow hours after sun go down, and me be see 'um you. Misser Tom he come along too, he budgery fellow to black fellow; but bael budgery fellow brother belong to him, he corbon (big) ---- rogue." This defamatory expression of opinion of Dugingi's on the merits of Mr. Rainsfield was uttered in no tone, and with no expression of amiability; and Tom attempted to smother his ire as he replied, "You are highly flattering, Dugingi, not only to me but to my brother; but, never mind, I'll go and see you. Me be brother belonging to you; you go ask my brother for rations like it corroboree." "He been give it," replied Dugingi, "plenty plour (flour), tea, sugar, bacca; corbon plenty." "Gammon!" exclaimed Tom, "I know better than that." "Bael gammon," replied the black; "he been give it I tell you, plenty;" whereupon Dugingi whispered a few words to his companions in his own dialect, and the whole sable conclave burst out into a loud laugh, and commenced an almost deafening jabbering amongst themselves. After which Dugingi and Jemmy Davis, promising faithfully to send the black boys over to the station after the corroboree, got their promised provender, and decamped. END OF VOL. I. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY THE CALEDONIAN PRESS. MR. NEWBY'S LIST OF NEW WORKS. * * * * * In 2 vols., demy 8vo, price 30s. cloth, THE TURKISH EMPIRE: in its Relations with Christianity and Civilisation. By R. R. 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Page 163 expended n partially levelling changed to expended in partially levelling Page 166 I in- end to cultivate changed to I intend to cultivate Page 171 turned to to Miss Rainsfield changed to turned to Miss Rainsfield Page 190 failed toat tract changed to failed to attract Page 266 the meal's continnauce changed to the meal's continuance Page 270 that the should not changed to that he should not Page 351 he again reathes the changed to he again breathes the Page 367 incisions made with a a sharp changed to incisions made with a sharp In the book promotions, a closing single quotation mark was added after 'Constance Dale' 
39495	----	[Illustration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE] JUBILEE MEMORIAL VOLUME OUR FIRST HALF-CENTURY A REVIEW OF QUEENSLAND PROGRESS BASED UPON OFFICIAL INFORMATION [Illustration: QUEENSLAND JUBILEE 1859-1909] BY AUTHORITY OF THE GOVERNMENT OF QUEENSLAND BRISBANE PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY ANTHONY J. CUMMING, GOVERNMENT PRINTER 1909. PREFACE. The object of this work, as the title implies, is to furnish the reader with a succinct review of the salient facts of Queensland progress, first as an autonomous British colony of the Australian group, and second as a State of the Commonwealth of Australia, retaining all constitutional rights unimpaired save in so far as they may be qualified by the provisions of "The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act of 1900." In treating of federation as thus accomplished the object has been to set forth dispassionately, yet clearly, the general results of the change upon the well-being of the State, and the reasonable anticipations of its future when the objects of federal union have been more completely attained. This is not a volume of statistics, yet in a fifty-year review it would be impossible entirely to avoid the use of figures. These, however, have been availed of sparingly; and, to avoid encumbering the text, tables compiled by the Government Statistician contrasting the progress made, by presenting the figures for the first, middle, and last (available) years of the fifty-year period, have been included as appendices. Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, and to embody in the volume all the information possible without overloading it with detail. For the series of diagrams illustrative of the subdivision of Australia into separate colonies between 1787 and 1863 acknowledgment is due to the Under Secretary for Lands of New South Wales, under whose authority they were compiled from data in the Public Library, Sydney. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGES. PREFACE iii TABLE OF CONTENTS v-x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi-xiv INTRODUCTION xv-xx THE SUBDIVISION OF AUSTRALIA xxi-xxiv JUBILEE ODE--"QUEEN OF THE NORTH" xxv-xxviii _PART I.--OUR NATAL YEAR._ CHAPTER I. THE BIRTH OF QUEENSLAND. Issue of Letters Patent and Order in Council.--Appointment of Sir George Ferguson Bowen as First Governor.--Continuity of Colonial Office Policy.--Instructions to Governor. --Munificent Gift of all Waste Lands of the Crown. --Temporary Limitation of Electoral Suffrage.--Responsible Government Unqualified by Restrictions or Reservations. --Governor-General of New South Wales Initiates Elections 1-4 CHAPTER II. INITIATION OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT. Arrival of Sir George Bowen in Brisbane.--The First Responsible Ministry.--Injunctions to Governor by Secretary of State in regard to Choice of Ministers. --Ex-members of New South Wales Legislature take Umbrage. --The Governor on the Characteristics of Various Classes of Colonists.--The Governor a Dictator.--The Microscopic Treasury Balance.--Gladstone as Site of Capital. --Mr. Herbert as a Parliamentary Leader 5-7 CHAPTER III. DIFFICULTIES OF EARLY ADMINISTRATIONS. Meeting of First Parliament.--Amendment on Address in Reply defeated by Speaker's Casting Vote.--Adoption of Address in Reply.--Compromise between Parties Indispensable.--Successful Inauguration of Responsible Government.--The Governor's Egotism.--Mr. Herbert's Retirement.--Mr. Macalister Succeeds.--Financial and Political Crisis.--Proposed Inconvertible Paper Money.--Governor Undeservedly Blamed 8-10 CHAPTER IV. THE FIRST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT. Work of the First Session.--Four Land Acts Passed. --Summary of Land "Code."--Pastoral Leases.--Upset Price of Land £1 per acre.--Agricultural Reserves. --Land Orders to Immigrants.--Cotton Bonus.--Lands for Mining Purposes.--Renewal of Existing Leases. --Governor's Laudation of "Code."--Praises Parliament. --Abolition of State Aid to Religion.--Primary and Secondary Education.--Wool Liens.--First Estimates and Appropriation Act 11-14 CHAPTER V. QUEENSLAND IN 1860. Rush of Population.--High Prices for Stock for occupying New Country.--Sparse Population.--Rockhampton most Northerly Port of Entry.--Navigation inside Barrier Reef Unknown.--Tropical Queensland Unexplored.--Ignorance of Climate, Resources, and Conditions.--Primary Industries in 1860.--Primitive Means of Communication.--Public Revenue, Bank Deposits, and Institutions 15-18 _PART II.--FROM NATAL YEAR TO JUBILEE._ CHAPTER I. THE LEGISLATURE. The Governor.--His Functions: Political and Social. --His Emoluments.--Administrations that have held Office.--Number of Members of Council and Assembly. --Emoluments of Assembly Members.--Good Results of Responsible Government in Queensland 19-32 CHAPTER II. PUBLIC FINANCE (1859-1884). Importance of Sound Finance.--A Great Colony Starts upon a Bank Overdraft.--First Year's Revenue.--Land Sales as Revenue.--Deficits in First Decade.--Transfer of Loan Moneys to Revenue to Balance Accounts.--Heavy Public Works Expenditure.--Crisis of 1866.--Inconvertible Paper Currency Proposals.--Flotation of Treasury Bills. --Higher Customs Duties.--Wiping Out a Deficit by Issue of Debentures.--Transfer of Surplus to Surplus Revenue Account to Recoup Loan Fund.--Incidental Protection. --Railway Land Reserves.--Proceeds Used as Ordinary Revenue.--Three-million Loan.--Condition of Affairs at Close of First Quarter-Century.--Phenomenal Progress; Prospects Bright 33-38 CHAPTER III. PUBLIC FINANCE (1884-1893). The Ten-million Loan.--Ministers Practically Granted Control of Five Years' Loan Money.--Vigorous Railway Policy.--Effect of Over-spending.--Inflation of Values.--Increased Taxation.--Succession of Deficits. --Second McIlwraith Ministry.--A Protectionist Tariff. --Temporary Increase of Revenue.--Heavy Contraction in 1890.--Another Big Loan; Failure of Flotation. --The First Underwritten Australian Loan.--Amended Audit Act Limiting Spending Power of Government 39-42 CHAPTER IV. PUBLIC FINANCE (1893-1898). Sir Hugh Nelson at the Treasury.--Credit of Colony Restored.--Assistance to Financial Institutions and Primary Industries.--Savings Bank Stock Act.--Public Debt Reduction Fund.--Treasurer's Cautious and Prudent Administration.--Money Obtained in London at a Record Price 43-45 CHAPTER V. PUBLIC FINANCE (1898-1903). The Philp Ministry.--Large Surplus.--Loan Acts for Seven and a-half Millions Sterling.--Drought Disasters and Sacrifices for Federation.--Accumulated Revenue Deficits of over £1,000,000.--Rebuff on London Stock Exchange. --Resignation of Philp Ministry 46-48 CHAPTER VI. PUBLIC FINANCE (1903-1909). The Morgan-Kidston Ministry.--Economy in Revenue Expenditure.--Great Reduction in Loan Outlay. --Equilibrium Established at the Treasury. --Retrenchment and Taxation.--Improvement of Finances.--A Record Surplus for Queensland.--Land Sales Proceeds Act.--Abstention from Borrowing. --First Loan Floated since 1903.--Sound Position of Queensland.--Value of State Securities. --Reproductiveness of Railways Built out of Loan Money.--Public Estate Improvement Fund.--How Recourse to Money Market has been Avoided 49-53 CHAPTER VII. THE BOOM DECADE (1880-1890). A Great Boom Decade.--Causes of Inflation of Values. --Excessive Rating Valuations.--False Basis of Assessing Capital Value.--Prodigality Succeeded by Financial Stringency and Collapse of Boom. --Difficulty in Determining Real Values.--Sir Hugh Nelson's Legislation.--Sound Finance.--Stability of State.--Prospects Good To-day 54-56 CHAPTER VIII. CROWN LANDS LEGISLATION. The Code of 1860.--Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1868.--Pastoral Leases Act of 1869.--Homestead Areas Act of 1872.--Crown Lands Alienation Act and Settled Districts Pastoral Leases Act of 1876.--The Griffith-Dutton Land Act of 1884.--Co-operative Communities Land Settlement Act.--Land Act of 1897 --Forms of Selection.--Act to Assist Persons to Settle on Land by Advances from the Treasury. --Extension of Pastoral Leases.--Closer Settlement Act.--Land Orders 57-65 CHAPTER IX. APPROPRIATION OF LAND REVENUE. Land Sales Receipts; not Consolidated Revenue. --Arguments used in favour of Treating Proceeds as Ordinary Revenue.--Auction Sales have now Practically Ceased.--Certain Proceeds Payable into Loan Fund. --Special Sales of Land Act; Appropriation of Receipts 66-68 CHAPTER X. LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN QUEENSLAND. First Municipality Established.--Brisbane Bridge Lands. --Grant for Town Hall.--Consolidating Municipalities Act.--Provincial Councils Act.--Government Buildings not Rateable.--Brisbane Bridge Debentures and Waterway Acts.--Municipal Endowment.--Local Government Act of 1878.--Divisional Boards Act of 1879; Success of the Act.--Local Works Loans Act.--Two Pounds for One Pound Endowment Repealed.--Rating Powers Extended by Local Authorities Act of 1902.--Cessation of Endowment. --Valuation and Rating Act.--Decline in Land Values. --Unequal Incidence of Rates Levied.--Efficiency of Local Authorities 69-77 CHAPTER XI. PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. Primary Education: Board of National Education; Education Act of 1860; Board of General Education; Education Act of 1875; Department of Public Instruction; Higher Education in Primary Schools; Itinerant Teachers; Status of Teachers; Statistics.--Private Schools.--Secondary Education: Grammar Schools Act; Endowments, Scholarships, and Bursaries; Success of Grammar Schools; Exhibitions to Universities; Expenditure.--Technical Education: Beginning of System; Board of Technical Instruction; Transfer of Control to Department of Public Instruction; Statistics; Technical Instruction Act; Continuation Classes; Schools of Arts and Reading Rooms.--University: Royal Commissions; University Bill; Standardised System of Education 78-85 _PART III.--OUR JUBILEE YEAR._ CHAPTER I. GENERAL REVIEW. Good Seasons and General Prosperity.--Land Settlement and Immigration.--The Sugar Crop.--Gold and Other Minerals. --Reduction in Cost of Mining and Treatment of Ores. --Vigorous Railway Extension.--Mileage Open for Traffic. --Efficiency of 3 ft. 6 in. Gauge.--Our Railway Investment. --The National Association Jubilee Show.--The General Election.--The Mandate of the Constituencies.--Government Majority.--Practical Extinction of Third Party.--Labour a Constitutional Opposition.--Federal Agreement with States. --Federal Union Vindicated 86-91 CHAPTER II. THE FEDERAL OUTLOOK. Proclamation of the Commonwealth.--The Referendum Vote.--Queensland's Small Majority in the Affirmative. --Representation in Federal Parliament.--The White Australia Policy.--Temporary Effect on Queensland. --An Embarrassed State Treasury.--Assistance to Sugar Industry.--Continued Protection Necessary.--Unequal Distribution of Federal Surplus Revenue.--The Transferred Properties.--Effect of Uniform Tariff. --Good Times Lessen Federal Burden on State.--The Agreement between Prime Minister and Premiers.--Better Feeling Towards Federation.--National Measures of Deakin Government 92-96 _PART IV.--THE PRIMARY INDUSTRIES._ CHAPTER I. THE PASTORAL INDUSTRY. Importance of Industry.--Small Beginnings in New South Wales.--Extension of Industry.--Stocking of Darling Downs and Western Queensland.--Rush for Pastoral Lands. --Difficulties of Early Squatters.--Influx of Victorian Capital.--Changes in Method of Working Stations.--Boom in Pastoral Properties.--Checks from Drought.--Discovery of Artesian Water.--Conservation of Surface Water. --Introduction of Grazing Farm System.--Closer Settlement of Darling Downs.--Cattle-Rearing.--Meat-Freezing Works. --Over-stocking.--Dairying.--Station Routine.--Charm of Pastoral Life.--Shearing.--Hospitality of Squatters. --Attraction of Industry as Investment and Occupation 97-112 CHAPTER II. AGRICULTURE IN QUEENSLAND. Tripartite Division of Queensland.--Climate.--Development of Agriculture in Queensland.--Wide Range of Products. --Early History.--Exclusion of Farmers from Richest Lands. --Origin of Mixed Farming.--Extension of Industry Westward. --Inexperience of Early Settlers.--Cotton-growing.--Chief Crops.--Dairying.--Cereal-growing.--Farming in the Tropics. --Farming on the Downs.--Farming in the West.--Irrigation. --Conservation of Water.--Timber Industry.--Land Selection. --Assistance Given by the Government.--Immigration. --Attractions of Queensland.--Defenders of Hearth and Home 113-131 CHAPTER III. THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. Sugar-cane in the Northern Hemisphere.--The Rise of the Beet Industry.--Abolition of Slave Labour in West Indies.--Reorganisation of Industry on Scientific Basis.--Establishment of Industry in Queensland. --Difficulties of Early Planters.--Stoppage of Pacific Island Labour.--Evolution of Small Holdings and Erection of Central Mills.--Reintroduction of Pacific Islanders. --Stoppage of Pacific Island Labour by Commonwealth Legislation.--Bonus on White-grown Sugar.--Benefits Arising from Separating Cultivation and Manufacture. --Contrast between Past and Present Methods.--Scientific Cultivation.--Recent Statistics.--The Future of the Industry.--Queensland Leading the Van in Establishing White Agriculturists in Tropics 132-143 CHAPTER IV. A HALF-CENTURY OF MINING. The Quest for Gold a Colonising Agency.--Earliest Discoveries of the Precious Metal in Queensland.--Port Curtis.--Rockhampton District.--Peak Downs.--Gympie. --Ravenswood.--Charters Towers.--Palmer.--Mount Morgan. --Croydon.--Later Discoveries.--Yield at Charters Towers and Mount Morgan.--Copper Mining.--Tin.--Silver. --Queensland the Home of All Kinds of Minerals and Precious Stones.--Mineral Wealth in Cairns Hinterland. --Copper Deposits in Cloncurry District.--The Etheridge. --Anakie Gem Field.--Opal Fields.--Extensive Coal Measures.--Railway Communication with Mining Fields. --Value of Queensland Mineral Output.--Prospects of Industry 144-152 CHAPTER V. OUR ASSET IN ARTESIAN WATER. Erroneous Judgment of Western Queensland.--Scarcity of Surface Water.--Water Supply Department.--Discovery of Artesian Water in New South Wales.--Prospecting in Queensland.--Difficulties Experienced by Early Borers. --First Artesian Flowing Bore.--Dr. Jack's First Estimate of Artesian Area.--Revised Figures.--Number of Bores and Estimated Flow.--Area Capable of being Irrigated with Artesian Water.--Cost of Boring.--Value of Artesian Water.--Extent of Intake Beds.--Waste of Water.--Necessity for Government Control of Wells. --Value of Water for Irrigation, Consumption, and Motive Power.--Artesian Water a Great National Asset 153-161 _APPENDICES._ APPENDIX A--READJUSTMENT OF WESTERN BOUNDARY 162-163 APPENDIX B--THE FIRST PARLIAMENT 164 APPENDIX C--THE EIGHTEENTH PARLIAMENT 165-166 APPENDIX D--FIFTY YEARS OF LEGISLATION 167-183 APPENDIX E--LAND SELECTION IN QUEENSLAND 184-195 APPENDIX F--IMMIGRATION TO QUEENSLAND 196-197 APPENDIX G--SOME STATISTICS AND THEIR STORY 198-209 APPENDIX H--DIGEST OF HYDRAULIC ENGINEER'S REPORTS 210-230 APPENDIX J--CLIMATIC CONTRASTS 231-237 APPENDIX K--EDUCATION STATISTICS 238 APPENDIX L--INAUGURATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND 239-257 INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. Government House (_C. E. S. Fryer_) _Frontispiece_ Facing Page First Gazette, 10th December, 1859 xiv Writ of Summons for First Election xx Governors of Queensland (_C. E. S. Fryer_) xxiv Premiers of Queensland " " xxviii Houses of Parliament, Brisbane " " 4 View from River Terrace, Brisbane " " 8 Barron Falls, Cairns Railway, North Queensland " " 12 Treasury Buildings, Brisbane " " 16 Coal Wharves, South Brisbane " " 20 Executive Buildings, Brisbane " " 24 Views of Rockhampton, Central Queensland " " 28 Townsville: Flinders Street, looking West " " 32 Hinchinbrook Channel, North Queensland " " 36 The Narrows and Mount Larcombe, near Gladstone " " 36 Barron Gorge below the Falls, Cairns Railway " " 40 On the Road to Market, Central Queensland (_W. E. Perroux_) 44 Fat Cattle, Central Queensland " " 44 Maroochy River and Ninderry Mountain, N.C. Railway (_C. E. S. Fryer_) 48 Scene on Barcaldine Downs, Central Queensland (_W. E. Perroux_) 52 Barcaldine Downs Homestead, Central Queensland " " 52 Swan Creek Valley, near Yangan, Warwick District (_C. E. S. Fryer_) 56 Surprise Creek Falls, Cairns Railway " " 60 Forest Scene near Woombye, North Coast Railway " " 64 Hauling Timber, North Coast Railway " " 68 Stony Creek Bridge and Falls, Cairns Railway (_C. E. S. Fryer_) 68 Timber Getting, North Coast Railway " " 72 Cairns Range and Robb's Monument, N. Queensland " " 76 View of Gympie from Nashville Railway Station " " 80 Coke Ovens, Ipswich District " " 80 Gulf Cattle Ready for Market (_H. J. Walton_) 84 Brigalow Country, Warra, Darling Downs 84 Hereford Cows, Darling Downs 84 Above Stony Creek Falls, Cairns Railway (_C. E. S. Fryer_) 88 Mount Morgan: Open Cut and Dumps (_Mount Morgan G.M. Co._) 92 Mount Morgan: Mundic and Copper Works " " 92 Cattle Country, West Moreton 100 Fat Cattle, Central Queensland (_C. E. S. Fryer_) 100 Horses at Gowrie, Darling Downs 104 Sheep at Gowrie, Darling Downs 104 Horses, Western Queensland (_H. J. Walton_) 104 Fat Cattle, Burrandilla, Charleville " " 104 Wool Teams, Wyandra, Warrego District (_C. E. S. Fryer_) 108 Hauling Cedar, Atherton, North Queensland " " 108 Dairy Cattle on Darling Downs 112 Sheep, Jimbour, Darling Downs 112 Horses, Ivanhoe Station, Warrego 112 Harvesting Wheat, Emu Vale, near Warwick (_C. E. S. Fryer_) 116 Surprise Creek Cascade, Cairns Railway " " 120 Pineapple Farm, Woombye, North Coast Railway " " 124 Sugar-Mill, Huxley, Isis Railway " " 124 Field of Maize, Eel Creek, Gympie " " 124 Threshing Wheat, Emu Vale, Killarney Railway " " 128 Coffee Plantation, Kuranda, Cairns Railway " " 128 Sugar-Mill, Childers, North Coast Railway " " 132 Sisal Hemp and Cane Fields, South Isis " " 136 Canefields, Isis Railway (_C. E. S. Fryer_) 136 Sugar Cane and Mill, Huxley, Isis Railway " " 136 Cambanora Gap, Head of Condamine, Killarney " " 140 Minto Crag, Dugandan, Fassifern District " " 140 Mount Morgan: Copper Works, looking North (_Mt. Morgan G.M. Co._) 144 Mount Morgan: General View of Works " " 144 Charters Towers: Plant's Day Dawn (_C. E. S. Fryer_) 148 Gympie: Scottish Gympie Gold Mine " " 152 Gympie: No. 1 North Oriental and Glanmire " " 152 Flowing Artesian Wells, Western Queensland: 1. Beel's Bore, Cunnamulla (_Kerry_) 156 2. Bore on Thurulgoona Station " " 156 3. Charleville Bore (_C. E. S. Fryer_) 156 Aberdare Colliery, Ipswich District " " 160 Cocoa-Nut Palms, Johnstone River, North Queensland " " 164 Custom House and Petrie Bight, Brisbane " " 164 In the Scrub Country, Kin Kin, North Coast Railway " " 168 On the Blackall Range, North Coast Railway " " 168 Barron Gorge, Cairns Railway, North Queensland " " 176 Farm Scene, Blackall Range " " 184 Sisal Hemp, Childers, North Coast Railway " " 184 Wool Teams, Longreach, Central Queensland " " 184 View on Barron River, Cairns Railway " " 192 Hauling Timber, Barron River, North Queensland " " 200 Falls near Killarney " " 208 Aboriginal Tree Climbers " " 208 Scene on Logan River, South Queensland " " 216 Cooktown and Endeavour River, North Queensland " " 224 Pearling Fleets off Badu Island, Torres Strait 224 Government House, now Dedicated to University purposes (_C. E. S. Fryer_) 238 View of Dedication Ceremony (_H.W. Mobsby_) 242 The Premier (Hon. W. Kidston) Opening the Proceedings " " 244 His Excellency Sir W. MacGregor Addressing the Audience " " 248 His Excellency Unveiling the Dedication Tablet " " 250 Lady MacGregor Planting the University Tree " " 256 MAPS. (_Prepared by Survey Office, Department of Public Lands._) Subdivision of Australia xxii, xxiii Australia before Captain Cook 96 Australia, Showing First Settlement 96 Queensland in 1859 96 Queensland in 1909 96 Australia in 1859, Showing Self-Governing Colonies 96 The World, Showing Relative Position of Australia 96 Queensland, with British Islands Superimposed 232 [Illustration: Royal Coat of Arms] QUEENSLAND =Government Gazette.= PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY. No. 1.] SATURDAY, 10 DECEMBER, 1859. PROCLAMATION By His Excellency SIR GEORGE FERGUSON BOWEN, Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Colony of Queensland and its Dependencies, and Vice-Admiral of the same, &c., &c., &c. WHEREAS by an Act passed in the Session of Parliament holden in the eighteenth and nineteenth years of the Reign of Her Majesty, entitled, "_An Act to enable Her Majesty to assent to a Bill as amended of the Legislature of New South Wales 'to confer a Constitution on New South Wales, and to grant 'a Civil List to Her Majesty,'_" it was amongst other things enacted that it should be lawful for Her Majesty, by Letters Patent, to be from time to time issued under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to erect into a separate Colony or Colonies, any territories which might be separated from New South Wales by such alteration as therein was mentioned, of the northern boundary thereof; and in and by such Letters Patent, or by Order in Council, to make provision for the Government of any such Colony, and for the Establishment of a Legislature therein, in manner as nearly resembling the form of Government and Legislature which should be at such time established in New South Wales as the circumstances of such Colony will allow; and that full power should be given in and by such Letters Patent, or Order in Council, to the Legislature of the said Colony, to make further provision in that behalf. And whereas Her Majesty, in exercise of the powers so vested in Her Majesty, has by Her Commission under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom, bearing date the sixth day of June, in the year of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine, appointed that from and after the publication of the said Letters Patent in the Colonies of New South Wales and Queensland, the Territory described in the said Letters Patent should be separated from the said Colony of New South Wales and be erected into the separate Colony of Queensland: Now, therefore, I, SIR GEORGE FERGUSON BOWEN, the Governor of Queensland, in pursuance of the authority invested in me by Her Majesty, do hereby proclaim and publish the said Letters Patent in the words and figures following, respectively. QUEENSLAND. _LETTERS PATENT erecting Moreton Bay into a Colony, under the name of_ QUEENSLAND, _and appointing_ SIR GEORGE FERGUSON BOWEN, K.C.M.G., _to be Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the same_. VICTORIA, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, to Our trusty and well-beloved SIR GEORGE FERGUSON BOWEN, Knight Commander of Our most distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George,-- GREETING: WHEREAS by a reserved Bill of the Legislature of New South Wales, passed in the seventeenth year of our reign, as amended by an Act passed in the Session of Parliament holden in the eighteenth and nineteenth years of our reign, entitled, "An Act to enable Her Majesty to assent to a Bill, as amended, of the Legislature of New South Wales, to confer a Constitution on New South Wales, and to grant a Civil List to Her Majesty," it was enacted that nothing therein contained should be deemed to prevent us from altering the boundary of the Colony of New South Wales on the north, in such a manner as to us might seem fit; and it was further enacted by the said last recited Act, that if We should at any time exercise the power given to Us by the said reserved Bill of altering the northern boundary of our said colony, it should be lawful for Us by any Letters Patent, to be from time to time issued under the Great Seal of our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to erect into a separate Colony or Colonies any territories which might be separated from our said colony of New South Wales by such alterations as aforesaid of the northern boundary thereof, and in and by such Letters Patent, or by Order in Council, to make provision for the Government of any such separate colony, and for the establishment of a Legislature therein, in manner as nearly resembling the form of Government and Legislature which should be at such time established in New South Wales as the circumstances of such separate Colony would allow, and that full power should be given by such Letters Patent or Order in Council to the Legislature of such separate Colony to make further provision in that behalf. Now know you, that We have, in pursuance of the powers vested in us by the said Bill and Act, and of all other powers and authorities in Us in that behalf vested separated from our colony of New South Wales, and erected into a separate Colony, so much of the said colony of New South Wales as lies northward of a line commencing on the sea coast at Point Danger, in latitude about 28 degrees 8 minutes south, and following the range thence which divides the waters of the Tweed, Richmond, and Clarence Rivers from those of the Logan and Brisbane Rivers, westerly, to the great dividing range between the waters falling to the east coast and those of the River Murray; following the great dividing range southerly to the range dividing the waters of Tenterfield Creek from those of the main head of the Dumaresq River; following that range westerly to the Dumaresq River; and following that river (which is locally known as the Severn) downward to its confluence with the Macintyre River; thence following the Macintyre River, which lower down becomes the Barwan, downward to the 29th parallel of south latitude, and following that parallel westerly to the 141st meridian of east longitude, which is the eastern boundary of South Australia, together with all and every the adjacent Islands, their members and appurtenances, in the Pacific Ocean: And do by these presents separate from our said Colony of New South Wales and erect the said territory so described into a separate Colony to be called the Colony of Queensland. And whereas We have by an Order made by Us in our Privy Council, bearing even date herewith, made provision for the government of our said Colony of Queensland, and we deem it expedient to make more particular provision for the government of our said Colony: Now know you, that We, reposing especial trust and confidence in the prudence, courage, and loyalty of you, the said Sir George Ferguson Bowen, of our especial grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, have thought fit to constitute and appoint, and do by these presents constitute and appoint you, the said Sir George Ferguson Bowen, to be, during our will and pleasure, our Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over our said Colony of Queensland, and of all forts and garrisons erected and established, or which shall be erected and established within our said Colony, or in its members and appurtenances; And we do hereby authorise, empower, require, and command you, the said Sir George Ferguson Bowen, in due manner, to do and execute all things that shall belong to your said command and the trust We have reposed in you, according to the several powers, provisions, and directions granted or appointed you by virtue of our present Commission, and of the said recited Bill, as amended by the said recited Act; and according to our Order in our Privy Council, bearing even date herewith, and to such instructions as are herewith given to you, or which may from time to time hereafter be given to you, under our Sign Manual and Signet, or by our Order in our Privy Council, or by Us, through one of our Principal Secretaries of State; and according to such laws and ordinances as are now in force in our said Colony of New South Wales and its dependencies, and as shall hereafter be in force in our said Colony of Queensland. 2. And whereas it is ordered by our said Order, made by Us in our Privy Council, bearing even date herewith, that there shall be within our said Colony of Queensland a Legislative Council and a Legislative Assembly, to be severally constituted and composed in the manner in the said Order prescribed; and that We shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the said Council and Assembly, to make laws for the peace, welfare, and good government of our said Colony in all cases whatever: And it is provided by the above recited Act, that the provisions of the Act of the fourteenth year of Her Majesty, chapter fifty-nine, and of the Act of the sixth year of Her Majesty, chapter seventy-six, intituled, "An Act for the Government of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land," which relate to the giving and withholding of Her Majesty's assent to bills, and the reservation of bills for the signification of Her Majesty's pleasure thereon, and the instructions to be conveyed to Governors for their guidance in relation to the matters aforesaid and the disallowance of Bills by Her Majesty, shall apply to Bills to be passed by the Legislative Council and Assembly constituted under the said Reserved Bill and Act, and by any other Legislative body or bodies which may at any time hereafter be substituted for the present Council and Assembly: Now We do, by virtue of the powers in Us vested, hereby require and command, that you do take especial care that in making and passing such laws, with the advice and consent of the said Legislative Council, and Legislative Assembly, the provisions, regulations, restrictions, and directions contained in the said Acts of Parliament, and in Our said Order made in Our Privy Council, bearing even date herewith, and in Our instructions under Our Sign Manual, accompanying this Our Commission, or in such future Orders as may be made by Us in Our Privy Council, or in such further instructions under Our Sign Manual and Signet as shall at any time hereafter be issued to you in that behalf, be strictly complied with. 3. And whereas it is expedient that an Executive Council should be appointed to advise and assist you, the said Sir George Ferguson Bowen, in the administration of the Government of our said Colony: Now We do declare Our pleasure to be, that there shall be an Executive Council for Our said Colony, and that the said Council shall consist of such persons as you shall, by instruments to be passed under the Great Seal of our said Colony in Our name and on our behalf, from time to time, nominate and appoint, to be members of the said Executive Council, all which persons shall hold their places in the said Council during Our pleasure: But We do expressly enjoin and require that you do transmit to Us, through one of Our principal Secretaries of State, exemplifications of all such instruments as shall be by you so issued for appointing the members of the said Council. 4. And we do hereby authorise and empower you, the said Sir George Ferguson Bowen, to keep and use the Great Seal of our said colony for sealing all things whatsoever that shall pass the Great Seal of our said colony. 5. And we do hereby give and grant to you, the said Sir George Ferguson Bowen, full power and authority, by and with the advice of the said Executive Council, to grant in Our name and on Our behalf, any waste or unsettled lands in Us vested within Our said Colony, which said grants are to be passed and sealed with the Great Seal of Our said colony, and being entered upon record by such public officer or officers as shall be appointed thereunto, shall be effectual in law against Us, Our heirs or successors: provided nevertheless, that in granting and disposing of such lands you do conform to and observe the provisions in that behalf contained in any law which is or shall be in force within our said colony, or within any part of our said colony, for regulating the sale and disposal of such lands. 6. And we do hereby give and grant unto you, the said Sir George Ferguson Bowen, full power and authority, as you shall see occasion, in our name and on our behalf, to grant to any offender convicted of any crime in any court, or before any judge, justice, or magistrate within our said colony, a pardon, either free or subject to lawful conditions or any respite of the execution of the sentence of any such offender, for such period as to you may seem fit, and to remit any fines, penalties, or forfeitures which may become due and payable to us, but subject to the regulations and directions contained in the instructions under Our Royal Sign Manual and Signet accompanying this our Commission, or in any future instructions as aforesaid. 7. And We do hereby give and grant unto you, the said Sir George Ferguson Bowen, full power and authority, upon sufficient cause to you appearing, to suspend from the exercise of his office, within our said colony, any person exercising any office or place under, or by virtue of, any Commission or Warrant granted, or which may be granted by Us, or in Our name, or under Our authority, which suspension shall continue and have effect only until Our pleasure therein shall be made known and signified to you: And We do hereby strictly require and enjoin you in proceeding to any such suspension, to observe the directions in that behalf given to you by Our present or any future Instructions as aforesaid. 8. And in the event of the death or absence of you, the said Sir George Ferguson Bowen, out of Our said colony of Queensland and its dependencies, We do hereby provide and declare Our pleasure to be, that all and every the powers and authorities herein granted to you shall be, and the same are hereby vested in such person as may be appointed by Us, by Warrant under Our Sign Manuel and Signet, to be Our Lieutenant-Governor of our said colony, or in such person or persons as may be appointed by Us, in like manner, to administer the government in such contingency; or, in the event of there being no person or persons within our said colony so commissioned and appointed by Us as aforesaid, then Our pleasure is, and We do hereby provide and declare, that in any such contingency the powers and authorities herein granted to you shall be, and the same are hereby granted to the Colonial Secretary of our said colony for the time being, and such Lieutenant-Governor, or such person or persons as aforesaid, or such Colonial Secretary, as the case may be, shall exercise all and every the powers and authorities herein granted, until Our further pleasure shall be signified therein. 9. And We do hereby require and command all our officers and ministers, civil, and military, and all other the inhabitants of our said colony of Queensland, to be obedient, aiding and assisting unto you, the said Sir George Ferguson Bowen, or, in the event of your death or absence, to such person or persons, as may, under the provisions of this our Commission assume and exercise the functions of Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of our said colony. 10. And We do declare that these presents shall take effect so soon as the same shall be received and published in the said colonies. In Witness whereof we have caused these our Letters to be made Patent. Witness Ourself at Westminster, the sixth day of June, in the twenty-second year of Our Reign. By warrant under the Queen's Sign Manual. C. ROMILLY. Given under my hand and Seal at Government House, Brisbane, this tenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine, in the twenty-third year of Her Majesty's Reign. (L.s.) G. F. BOWEN. _By His Excellency's Command_, R. G. W. HERBERT. GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! PROCLAMATION By His Excellency SIR GEORGE FERGUSON BOWEN, Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Colony of Queensland and its Dependencies, and Vice-Admiral of the same, &c., &c., &c. WHEREAS Her Majesty has been graciously pleased, by Letters Patent, under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the sixth day of June, in the twenty-second year of Her Majesty's Reign, to separate from the Colony of New South Wales the territory described in the said Letters Patent, and to erect the same into a separate Colony, to be called the Colony of Queensland, and has further been pleased to constitute and appoint me, SIR GEORGE FERGUSON BOWEN, _Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George_, to be Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief, in and over the said Colony of Queensland and in Dependencies: Now, therefore, I, the Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief, aforesaid, do hereby proclaim and declare that I have this day taken the prescribed oaths before His Honor, Alfred James Peter Lutwyche, Esquire, Judge of the Supreme Court, and that I have accordingly assumed the said office of Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief. Given under my hand and seal at the Government House, Brisbane, this 10th day of December, in the Year of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine, and in the twenty-third year of Her Majesty's Reign. (L.s.) G. F. BOWEN. _By His Excellency's Command_, R. G. W. HERBERT. GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! _Government House, Brisbane, 10th December, 1859._ HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR will hold a Levee at Government House, on WEDNESDAY, December 14th, at 11 o'clock, a.m. _By Command_, C. E. HARCOURT VERNON, Commander, R.N., A.D.C., REGULATIONS FOR THE LEVEE. All gentlemen attending the Levee, to be dressed in uniform or evening costume. Each gentleman to be provided with two cards with his name legibly written thereon; one card to be left in the Entrance Hall, and the other to be given to the Aide-de-Camp. _Colonial Secretary's Office, Brisbane, 10th December, 1859._ HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR has been pleased to appoint ROBERT GEORGE WYNDHAM HERBERT, ESQ., to be Colonial Secretary of Queensland. _By His Excellency's Command_, R. G. W. HERBERT. _Colonial Secretary's Office, Brisbane, 10th December, 1859._ HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR has been pleased to appoint ABRAM ORPEN MORIARTY, ESQUIRE, to be His Excellency's Acting Private Secretary. _By His Excellency's Command_, R. G. W. HERBERT. _Colonial Secretary's Office, Brisbane, 10th December, 1859._ HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR has been pleased to appoint COMMANDER CHARLES EGERTON HARCOURT VERNON, R. N., to be His Excellency's Acting Aide-de-Camp. _By His Excellency's Command_, ROBERT G. W. HERBERT. _Colonial Secretary's Office, Brisbane, December 10, 1859._ HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR has been pleased to appoint RATCLIFFE PRING, ESQUIRE, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law, to be Attorney-General of Queensland. _By His Excellency's Command_, ROBERT G. W. HERBERT. BRISBANE: By Command: T. P. PUGH, Printer, George Street. INTRODUCTION. Terra Australis: The Fifth Continent.--Dampier lands on North-west Coast.--Cook lands at Botany Bay.--Annexes entire Eastern Coast North of 38 deg. S.--Phillip annexes whole of Eastern Coast and part of Southern Coast, including Tasmania.--Fremantle annexes all the rest of the Continent. --Erroneous Impressions of Early Explorers regarding Australia.--Discovery of Bass Strait.--Completion of Coast Map of Australia.--Six Colonies constituted.--Queensland's Natal Day.--Proclamation of Commonwealth.--Inland Exploration. Without disparagement to the adventurous foreign navigators who for centuries earlier than the British occupation had suspected the existence of "Terra Australis," the "fifth continent" of the globe, and had done their best to discover it, it may be safely contended that the honour of the delineation of the coast-line belongs to Englishmen, the chief of whom were William Dampier and James Cook. In 1688 Dampier, as super-cargo of the "Cygnet," a trading vessel whose crew had turned buccaneers, landed on the north-west coast of Australia in lat. 16 deg. 50 min. S. In the year 1699 he again visited the coast in charge of H.M.S. "Roebuck," landing at Shark Bay, and sailing thence northward to Roebuck Bay.[a] Afterwards Captain James Cook, in voyages which extended until 1777, delineated the eastern coast-line, and opened up the continent to European enterprise and settlement. On 29th April, 1770, Cook, in the little barque "Endeavour," 370 tons burthen, entered Sting-ray Harbour (Botany Bay), remaining there until 6th May, when he sailed northwards, and, not entering Port Jackson, named Port Stephens, "Morton Bay," Bustard Bay, and Keppel Islands, landing at several places for the purpose of obtaining fresh water and making observations. Thus, coasting along for nearly 1,300 miles, on 11th June he narrowly escaped the total loss of his vessel when north of Trinity Bay by striking a coral reef. After enduring great hardships, and jettisoning all surplus gear, the vessel was sailed into the mouth of the Endeavour River, and there careened. During the succeeding two months she was thoroughly repaired. In August the captain set his course again for the north; and on the 23rd of that month, after navigating among the dangerous rocks of the Barrier Reef Passage, he safely reached open water and landed on Possession Island, near Cape York. There he took formal possession, "in right of His Majesty King George III.," of the land he had discovered from lat. 38 deg. S. to lat. 10 deg. 30 min. S. Sailing through Torres Strait, Cook reached the English Channel in the "Endeavour" on 18th June, 1771[b]. It was not until 7th February, 1788, however, that Captain Phillip, as Governor-General of the vast territory then called New South Wales, read to the people whom he had brought to Port Jackson in the first fleet his commission proclaiming British sovereignty over the whole of the eastern coast of Australia and Tasmania, and also over the then unknown southern coast as far west as the 135th degree of E. longitude.[c] On 2nd May, 1829, Captain Fremantle, hoisting the British flag on the south head of the Swan River, took possession of all those parts of Australia not included in the territory of New South Wales. Thus a new continent was added to the British Empire. It was occupied by only a few score thousand native blacks, and was believed to be uninhabitable by civilised people unless possibly along a strip of land south of the Tropic of Capricorn on the eastern, western, and southern shores of the continent. Of the north-west Dampier had written: "The land is of a dry, sandy soil, destitute of water, unless you make wells, yet producing divers sorts of trees." Cook occasionally found difficulty in getting water unless by sinking in the shore sand; he made no attempt to penetrate the fringe of coast or even to explore its inlets. It was not until 1798 that Flinders and Bass discovered the channel through Bass Strait, and the former's discoveries may be said to have completed the coast map of Australia. By successive proclamations six colonies were subsequently constituted, the last being that of Queensland on 10th December, 1859. On 1st January, 1901, Queen Victoria's proclamation of the Commonwealth of Australia was formally made at Melbourne, the prescribed place for the sitting of the Parliament until the federal seat of government had been determined. This important step was taken 131 years after Captain Cook had annexed the eastern coast at Possession Island, and 72 years after Captain Fremantle made the possession of the continent as British territory complete by hoisting the flag at Swan River. The story of Australian land exploration is a long one, and it would, if complete, reveal many a startling tale of privation and death. The earliest exploring expeditions were those of Governor Phillip, in 1789, when he set out from Sydney to discover Broken Bay first, and then explore the Hawkesbury River.[d] At that time the undertaking no doubt seemed great, but to-day Broken Bay may almost be regarded as a suburb of Sydney. In the same year Captain Tench discovered the Nepean River. By the end of the eighteenth century, despite many expeditions, the total of the discoveries were the rivers Hawkesbury, Nepean, Grose, and Hunter, and the fertile Illawarra district to the south of Sydney. In 1813 Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth discovered a pass over the Blue Mountains, and opened the way to the interior. Later in the same year, following in their footsteps, George William Evans discovered a river flowing inland, which he named the Macquarie, and that led to the discovery of the Bathurst Plains, and other country beyond the Blue Mountains. John Oxley, who in 1817 penetrated the country until he struck rivers flowing to the south-west, found himself in shallow stagnant swamps, with no indication that the rivers reached the sea. Oxley and Evans made further discoveries to the north-west of Sydney during the next seven years, the principal result being the finding of Liverpool Plains. Cunningham, the botanist, also was in the field of exploration in 1823. In the year 1824 Hume, accompanied by W. H. Hovell, crossed the Murrumbidgee River, and some time afterwards saw the snow-capped mountains of the Australian Alps. In their progress to Port Phillip they discovered the Murray River, and ultimately reached their destination, which proved to be the seashore near the site of Geelong. In 1828 Captain Charles Sturt discovered the Darling River. In the next year he reached the Murray near its confluence with the Darling; in 1830 he went down the stream by boat, and finally reached the sea at Encounter Bay, east of St. Vincent Gulf. In 1826 Major Lockyer founded King George Sound Settlement; in 1828 Captain Stirling examined the mouth of the Swan River, and was afterwards, in 1831, appointed Lieutenant-Governor at Perth, the settlement established in 1829 by Captain Fremantle. Other explorers traced the country for some distance to the northward, and a settlement, called Port Essington, which had an ephemeral existence, was formed on the northern coast. In 1831 Major Mitchell explored the country north-west from Sydney, and in 1845-6 he traversed the Darling Downs, afterwards penetrating as far north as the Drummond Range. Allan Cunningham had previously, in 1827, discovered the Darling Downs, and in the next year, by locating Cunningham's Gap, he connected the Downs with the Moreton Bay Settlement. A year later he explored the source of the Brisbane River, that being his last expedition. In 1831 Major Bannister crossed from Perth to King George Sound. In 1836 John Batman landed at Port Phillip, and permanently settled there. The same year Adelaide was founded by Captain Sir John Hindmarsh, the first Governor of South Australia. In 1838 E. J. Eyre discovered Lake Hindmarsh on his journey from Port Phillip to Adelaide. Next year George Hamilton travelled overland from Sydney to Melbourne, and Eyre penetrated from the head of Spencer's Gulf to Lake Torrens. In 1840 Patrick Leslie settled on the Condamine; in the year following Stuart and Sydenham Russell formed Cecil Plains station. In 1842 Stuart Russell discovered the Boyne River, travelling from Moreton Bay to Wide Bay in a boat. In 1844-5 Captain Sturt conducted his Great Central Desert expedition. In the same year Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt started on his first expedition from Jimbour station to Port Essington; and in the next year Sir Thomas Mitchell went on his Barcoo expedition. In 1846 A. C. Gregory entered upon his first expedition in Western Australia. In 1848 Leichhardt set out upon his last journey, from which he never returned. In the same year Kennedy made his fatal venture up the Cape York Peninsula, and A. C. Gregory explored the Gascoigne. Next year J. S. Roe, Surveyor-General of Western Australia, travelled from York to Esperance Bay. In 1852 Hovenden Hely, in charge of a Leichhardt search party, started from Darling Downs. In 1855 Gregory and Baron von Mueller started on an expedition to North Australia in the same search, and discovered Sturt's Creek and the Elsey River. In 1858 Frank Gregory reached the Gascoigne River, Western Australia, and discovered Mount Augustus and Mount Gould. A. C. Gregory in the same year, when searching for Leichhardt, confirmed the identity of the Barcoo River with Cooper's Creek. In 1858 also McDouall Stuart started on his first expedition across the continent; in the following year he started again, and one of his party, Hergott, discovered and named Hergott Springs. In 1859 G. E. Dalrymple discovered the main tributaries of the Lower Burdekin, also the Bowen and the Bogie Rivers, and in the year following Edward Cunningham and party explored the Upper Burdekin. In 1860 the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition left Melbourne, and reached the Gulf of Carpentaria, but their return journey resulted in the death of Burke, Wills, and Gray. In 1861 McDouall Stuart crossed the continent; Frank Gregory discovered the Hammersley Range, and the Fortescue, Ashburton, de Grey, and Oakover Rivers in Western Australia. In the same year William Landsborough left the Gulf of Carpentaria in search of Burke and Wills; and Alfred Howitt started from Victoria on the same errand. Edwin J. Welch, Howitt's second in command, found King, the only survivor of the expedition; and McKinlay, with W. O. Hodgkinson as lieutenant, started from Adelaide in the search, and crossed the continent, reaching the coast at Townsville. In 1863 John Jardine formed a settlement at Somerset, Cape York; and in the next year his adventurous brothers, Alexander and Frank, travelled overland to Somerset along the Peninsula, which Kennedy had failed to do. In 1864 Duncan McIntyre travelled from the Paroo to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and died there. Next year J. G. Macdonald visited the Plains of Promise, and Frederick Walker marked the telegraph line from Rockingham Bay to the Norman River. In 1869 Mr. (now Sir John) Forrest made his first expedition to Lake Barlee; in 1870 he travelled the Great Bight from Perth to Adelaide, and in 1871 took charge of a private expedition in search of pastoral country. In 1872 William Hann, a Northern squatter, led an expedition equipped by the Queensland Government, and discovered the Walsh, Palmer, and Upper Mitchell Rivers, and found prospects of gold which led to great mineral discoveries in North Queensland. Hann reached the coast at Princess Charlotte Bay. In the same year J. W. Lewis travelled round Lake Eyre to the Queensland border. Ernest Giles also made his first expedition in 1872, discovering Lake Amadeus, and on a second trip in 1873 discovered and named Gibson's Desert, after one of his party who died there. In 1873 Major Warburton crossed from Alice Springs, on the overland telegraph line, to the Oakover River, Western Australia. In 1875-6 Ernest Giles made a third and successful attempt from Adelaide to reach Western Australia. In the same year W. O. Hodgkinson started on a north-west expedition to the Diamantina and Mulligan Rivers, on which he officially reported. In 1878 Prout brothers, looking for country across the Queensland border, never returned. In 1878 N. Buchanan, on an excursion to the overland telegraph line from the Queensland border, discovered Buchanan's Creek. In 1878-9 Ernest Favenc, starting from Blackall in charge of the "Queenslander" transcontinental expedition, reached Powell's Creek station, on the overland telegraph line; four years later he explored the rivers flowing into the Gulf, particularly the Macarthur, and then crossed to the overland telegraph line. In 1878 Winnecke and Barclay, surveyors, started to determine the border lines of Queensland and South Australia, returning in 1880 with their work done. In 1879 Alexander Forrest led an expedition from the de Grey River, Western Australia, to the overland telegraph line, discovering the Ord and Margaret Rivers. By this time there was little left of the continent, save Western Australia, to explore, though men in search of pastoral country still found occupation in expeditions to discover the unknown in Queensland and the Northern Territory. In 1896 Frank Hann, younger brother of the explorer, who had left Queensland, traversed the country to the north of King Leopold Range, discovering a river which he named the Phillips, but which was afterwards renamed the Hann by the Surveyor-General of Western Australia. Afterwards Hann travelled from Laverton, Western Australia, to Oodnadatta, in South Australia. F. S. Brockman is another explorer who was leader of a Kimberley expedition a few years ago, and discovered in North-west Australia 6 million acres of basaltic country clad with blue grass, Mitchell and kangaroo grasses, and other fodder vegetation. The Elder expedition, projected on an ambitious scale in 1891 to complete the exploration of the continent, started under David Lindsay, but the results were less valuable than its generous and enterprising originator anticipated. From a second Elder expedition under L. A. Wells no great results were recorded. The same may be said of the Carnegie expedition in Western Australia. Yet the sum total of the information obtained was valuable. Australia owes much to her adventurous explorers, as well as to the men who, following up their tracks, placed stock on much of the country that produced great wealth to the people, though as a rule neither explorers nor pastoral pioneers personally benefited much by their labours and privations. [Footnote a: See Dampier's "Collection of Voyages, 1729."] [Footnote b: See Cook's "Journal during his First Voyage Round the World, 1768-71." W. J. L. Wharton, 1893.] [Footnote c: Historical Records of New South Wales, vol. i.] [Footnote d: See "History of Australian Exploration," 1888; and "Explorers of Australia," 1908, both by Ernest Favenc.] [Illustration (hand-written letter): Victoria by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, &c. In pursuance of Our Order made by and with the advice of our Privy Council on the 6th day of June in the year of Our Lord 1859, We do by these presents summon and call together a Legislative Assembly in and for Our Colony of Queensland to advise and give consent to the making of Laws for the peace, welfare and good Government of our said Colony.---- And we do enjoin and require Our subjects, inhabitants of Our said Colony, and being duly qualified in that behalf, to proceed to the Election of Members to serve in the said Legislative Assembly in pursuance of Our Writs to be issued in Our name, in the first instance by Our Governor of Our Colony of New South Wales, and thereafter by Our Governor of Our said Colony of Queensland.---- ----And We do further enjoin and require the Members who shall be so elected, to assemble and meet together and to be and appear before Us for the purposes aforesaid at the Court House Buildings Brisbane on the 22nd day of May in the present year. ----In testimony whereof we have caused the Great Seal of Our Colony of Queensland to be affixed to this Our Writ.---- ----Witness our trusty and well-beloved Sir William Thomas Denison, Knight Commander of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, Governor General in and over all Her Majesty's Colonies of New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland, and Captain General and Governor-in-chief of the Territory of New South Wales and Vice Admiral of the same &c. &c. &c. at Government House Sydney, in New South Wales aforesaid this twentieth day of March in the Twenty third year of Our reign, and the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-- W. Denison By His Excellency's Command Robert G. W. Herbert God save the Queen!] THE SUBDIVISION OF AUSTRALIA. (MAPS 1 AND 2.) Since the issue of Captain Arthur Phillip's Commission as Governor in 1786 there have been no less than ten successive modifications in Australian boundaries, all internal save the first, which severed Van Diemen's Land from New South Wales. Map 1 represents Australia as depicted before the time of Captain Cook. Map 2 shows the territory as divided into two parts by Governor Phillip's Commission. The continent was severed by a north-and-south line along the 135th meridian of east longitude, and all the eastern part declared to be the territory of New South Wales. VAN DIEMEN'S LAND (MAP 3). Under an Imperial Act of 1823 a Royal Commission was issued to Governor Arthur on 14th June, 1825, erecting Van Diemen's Land into a separate colony, as shown in Map 3. NEW SOUTH WALES--ALTERED BOUNDARY (MAP 4). On 6th July, 1825, a Commission appointing Sir Ralph Darling Governor of New South Wales, after describing the boundary of the colony as then existing, declared that the western boundary should be extended 6 degrees further west to the 129th meridian of east longitude, including all the adjacent islands in the Pacific Ocean. WESTERN AUSTRALIA (MAP 5). Although Western Australia had been occupied in 1826 by Major Lockyer, and a settlement had been established at Swan River in 1829, the boundaries of the colony were not definitely described until 1831, when Sir James Stirling's Commission of appointment as Governor gave him authority over all that part of the continent to the west of 129 degrees east longitude. A supplementary Commission issued in 1873 included all the adjacent islands in the Indian Ocean. SOUTH AUSTRALIA (MAP 6). South Australia was proclaimed a British Province by Letters Patent on the 28th December, 1836; bounded on the north by the 26th parallel of south latitude; on the south by the Southern Ocean; on the west by the 132nd meridian of east longitude; on the east by the 141st meridian. VICTORIA (MAP 7). In 1851 the territory previously known as Port Phillip was separated from New South Wales. In July, 1851, the legal symbol of the fact was found in the issue of writs of election for members of the Legislative Council. This was done under an Act of the New South Wales Legislature, passed to give effect to the Act passed in 1850 "for the Better Government of Her Majesty's Australian Colonies." Boundaries: On the north and north-east by a straight line from Cape Howe to the nearest source of the River Murray; thence by the course of that river to the eastern boundary of South Australia; and on the south by the sea: the River Murray to remain within New South Wales. NEW SOUTH WALES--ALTERED BOUNDARY (MAP 8). By a later statute passed in 1855, the boundaries of New South Wales were defined as follows:--"All the territory lying between the 129th and 154th meridians of east longitude, and north of the 40th parallel of south latitude, including all islands and Lord Howe Island, except the territories comprised within the boundaries of the province of South Australia and the colony of Victoria as at present established." [Illustration: Map 1 (1770).] [Illustration: Map 2 (1786).] [Illustration: Map 3 (1825).] [Illustration: Map 4 (1825).] [Illustration: Map 5 (1831).] [Illustration: Map 6 (1836).] [Illustration: Map 7 (1851).] [Illustration: Map 8 (1855).] [Illustration: Map 9 (1859).] [Illustration: Map 10 (1862).] [Illustration: Map 11 (1861-3).] [Illustration: Map 12 (1863).] QUEENSLAND (MAP 9). In 1859 Queensland was severed from New South Wales by Letters Patent issued to Sir George Bowen, the boundaries being given as follows:--"So much of the said colony of New South Wales as lies northward of a line commencing on the sea coast at Point Danger, in latitude about 28 degrees 8 minutes south, and following the range thence which divides the waters of the Tweed, Richmond, and Clarence Rivers from those of the Logan and Brisbane Rivers, westerly, to the Great Dividing Range between the waters falling to the east coast and those of the River Murray; following the Great Dividing Range southerly to the range dividing the waters of Tenterfield Creek from those of the main head of the Dumaresq River; following that range westerly to the Dumaresq River; and following that river (which is locally known as the Severn) downward to its confluence with the Macintyre River; thence following the Macintyre River (which lower down becomes the Barwan) downward to the 29th parallel of south latitude; and following that parallel westerly to the 141st meridian of east longitude, which is the eastern boundary of South Australia; together with all and every the adjacent islands, their members and appurtenances, in the Pacific Ocean; and do by these presents separate from our said colony of New South Wales and erect the said territory so described into a separate colony to be called the 'Colony of Queensland.'" ANNEXATION TO QUEENSLAND, 1862 (MAP 10). On 12th April, 1862, the Duke of Newcastle advised Governor Bowen that Letters Patent, of which a copy was enclosed, had been issued annexing to Queensland the following territory--namely, "so much of our colony of New South Wales as lies to the northward of the 21st parallel of south latitude, and between the 141st and 138th meridians of east longitude, together with all and every the adjacent islands, their members and appurtenances in the Gulf of Carpentaria." The area thus annexed added to Queensland about 120,000 square miles of territory, which now comprises such centres as Birdsville, Boulia, Cloncurry, Camooweal, and Burketown. ANNEXATION TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA (MAP 11). An Imperial Act of 1861 enacted that "so much of the colony of New South Wales, being to the south of the 26th degree of south latitude, as lies between the western boundary of South Australia and 129 degrees east longitude, shall be and the same is hereby detached from the colony of New South Wales and annexed to the colony of South Australia, and shall for all purposes whatever be deemed to be part of the last-mentioned colony from the day in which the Act of Parliament is proclaimed." THE NORTHERN TERRITORY ANNEXED TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA (MAP 12). There still remained, nominally belonging to New South Wales though detached from that colony, the country now known as the Northern Territory and forming part of South Australia, lying northward of the 26th parallel of south latitude, and between 129 degrees and 138 degrees east longitude. That area was by Letters Patent, dated 6th July, 1863, issued under the Imperial Act of 1861, annexed to South Australia until it was "the Royal pleasure to make other disposition thereof." [Illustration] GOVERNORS OF QUEENSLAND. (1) SIR GEORGE FERGUSON BOWEN, G.C.M.G.: Dec. 1859--Jan. 1868. (2) COLONEL SAMUEL WENSLEY BLACKALL: Aug. 1868--Jan. 1871. (3) MARQUIS OF NORMANBY: Aug. 1871--Nov. 1874. (4) WILLIAM WELLINGTON CAIRNS, C.M.G.: Jan. 1875--Mar. 1877. (5) SIR ARTHUR EDWARD KENNEDY, G.C.M.G., C.B.: April 1877--May 1883. (6) SIR ANTHONY MUSGRAVE, G.C.M.G.: Nov. 1883--Oct. 1888. (7) SIR HENRY WYLIE NORMAN, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., C.I.E.: May 1889--Dec. 1895. (8) LORD LAMINGTON, G.C.M.G.: April 1896--Dec. 1901. (9) SIR HERBERT CHARLES CHERMSIDE, G.C.M.G., C.B.: Mar. 1902--Oct. 1904. (10) LORD CHELMSFORD, K.C.M.G.: Nov. 1905--May 1909. (11) SIR WILLIAM MACGREGOR, G.C.M.G., C.B.: Dec. 1909-- QUEEN OF THE NORTH. ESSEX EVANS. Stand forth, O Daughter of the Sun, Of all thy kin the fairest one, It is thine hour of Jubilee. Behold, the work our hands have done Our hearts now offer unto thee. Thy children call thee; O come forth, Queen of the North! Brow-bound with pearls and burnished gold The East hath Queens of royal mould, Sultanas, peerless in their pride, Who rule wide realms of wealth untold, But they wax wan and weary-eyed: Thine eyes, O Northern Queen, are bright With morning light. Fear not thy Youth: It is thy crown-- The careless years before Renown Shall load its tines with jewelled deeds And press thy golden circlet down With vaster toils and greater needs. Fear not thy Youth: its splendid power Awaits the hour. Stand forth, O Daughter of the Sun, Whose fires through all thine arteries run, Whose kiss hath touched thy gleaming hair-- Come like a goddess, Radiant One, Reign in our hearts who crown thee there, With laughter like thy seas, and eyes Blue as thy skies. Ah, not in vain, O Pioneers, The toil that breaks, the grief that sears, The hands that forced back Nature's bars To prove the blood of ancient years And make a home 'neath alien stars! O Victors over stress and pain 'Twas not in vain! Jungle and plain and pathless wood-- Depths of primeval solitude-- Gaunt wilderness and mountain stern-- Their secrets lay all unsubdued. Life was the price: who dared might learn. Ye read them all, Bold Pioneers, In fifty years. O True Romance, whose splendour gleams Across the shadowy realm of dreams, Whose starry wings can touch with light The dull grey paths, the common themes: Hast thou not thrilled with sovereign might Our story, until Duty's name Is one with Fame! Queen of the North, thy heroes sleep On sun-burnt plain and rocky steep. Their work is done: their high emprise Hath crowned thee, and the great stars keep The secrets of their histories. We reap the harvest they have sown Who died unknown. The seed they sowed with weary hands Now bursts in bloom through all thy lands; Dark hills their glittering secrets yield; And for the camps of wand'ring bands-- The snowy flock, the fertile field. Back, ever back new conquests press The wilderness. Below thy coast line's rugged height Wide canefields glisten in the light, And towns arise on hill and lea, And one fair city where the bright Broad winding river sweeps to sea. Ah! could the hearts that cleared the way Be here to-day! A handful: yet they took their stand Lost in the silence of the land. They went their lonely ways unknown And left their bones upon the sand. E'en though we call this land our own 'Tis but a handful holds it still For good or ill. What though thy sons be strong and tall, Fearless of mood at danger's call; And these, thy daughters, fair of face, With hearts to dare whate'er befall-- Tall goddesses and queens of grace-- Fill up thy frontiers: man the gate Before too late. Sit thou no more inert of fame, But let the wide world hear thy name. See where thy realms spread line on line-- Thy empty realms that cry in shame For hands to make them doubly thine! Fill up thy frontiers: man the gate Before too late! Prepare, ere falls the hour of Fate When death-shells rain their iron hate, And all in vain thy blood is poured-- For dark aslant the Northern Gate I see the Shadow of the Sword: I hear the storm-clouds break in wrath-- Queen of the North! [Illustration] PREMIERS OF QUEENSLAND. (1) SIR R. G. W. HERBERT: Dec. 1859--Feb. 1866; July 1866--Aug. 1866. (2) HON. ARTHUR MACALISTER: Feb. 1866--July 1866; Aug. 1866--Aug. 1867; Jan. 1874--June 1876. (3) SIR R. R. MACKENZIE: Aug. 1867--Nov. 1868. (4) SIR CHARLES LILLEY: Nov. 1868--May 1870. (5) SIR A. H. PALMER: May 1870--Jan. 1874. (6) HON. GEORGE THORN: June 1876--Mar. 1877. (7) HON. JOHN DOUGLAS: Mar. 1877--Jan. 1879. (8) SIR THOMAS MCILWRAITH: Jan. 1879--Nov. 1883; June 1888--Nov. 1888; Mar. 1893--Oct. 1893. (9) SIR S. W. GRIFFITH: Nov. 1883--June 1888; Aug. 1890--Mar. 1893. (10) HON. D. B. MOREHEAD: Nov. 1888--Aug. 1890. (11) SIR H. M. NELSON: Oct. 1893--April 1898. (12) HON. T. J. BYRNES: April 1898--Sept. 1898. (13) SIR J. R. DICKSON: Oct. 1898--Dec. 1899. (14) HON. A. DAWSON: 1st Dec. 1899--7th Dec. 1899. (15) HON. R. PHILP: Dec. 1899--Sept. 1903: Nov. 1907--Feb. 1908. (16) SIR A. MORGAN: Sept. 1903--Jan. 1906. (17) HON. W. KIDSTON: Jan. 1906--Nov. 1907: Feb. 1908 (still in office). [Illustration] PART I.--OUR NATAL YEAR. CHAPTER I. THE BIRTH OF QUEENSLAND. Issue of Letters Patent and Order in Council.--Appointment of Sir George Ferguson Bowen as First Governor.--Continuity of Colonial Office Policy.--Instructions to Governor.--Munificent Gift of all Waste Lands of the Crown.--Temporary Limitation of Electoral Suffrage.--Responsible Government Unqualified by Restrictions or Reservations.--Governor General of New South Wales Initiates Elections. Fifty years ago an emphatic expression of confidence in the self-governing competence of the people of North-eastern Australia was given by the British Government of Lord Derby. On 6th June, 1859, Queen Victoria in Council adopted Letters Patent--which had been already approved in draft on 13th May--"erecting Moreton Bay into a colony under the name of Queensland," and appointing Sir George Ferguson Bowen to be "Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the same." On the same day an Order in Council was made "empowering the Governor of Queensland to make laws and provide for the administration of justice in the said colony"; also to constitute therein a Government and Legislature as nearly resembling the form of Government and Legislature established in New South Wales as the circumstances of the colony would allow. This meant that representative and responsible government had been granted to the people of the new colony to the full extent that it was enjoyed by the people of New South Wales under the epoch-making Constitution Act of 1855. It meant also that the whole of the unalienated Crown Lands of the colony were vested in the Legislature. Next day, the 7th June, the annual session of the Imperial Parliament was opened, and four days later an amendment upon the Address in Reply was carried in the House of Commons, whereupon Lord Derby and his Conservative colleagues forthwith resigned, and were succeeded by a Liberal (or Whig) Ministry under Lord Palmerston. The new Government included men of such distinction as Mr. W. E. Gladstone, Lord John Russell, and the Duke of Newcastle, the last-mentioned assuming the office of Colonial Secretary. The change of Ministry, however, caused no interruption in the continuity of Colonial Office policy; and no time was lost in despatching Sir George Bowen to discharge the highly responsible duties imposed upon him by the Queen's Commission. In notifying Sir George Bowen of his appointment, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton tendered him some friendly advice. He said that Sir George would experience the greatest amount of difficulty in connection with the squatters, and he went on in these words:--"But in this, which is an irritating contest between rival interests, you will wisely abstain as much as possible from interference. Avoid taking part with one or the other.... The first care of a Governor in a free colony," he continued, "is to shun the reproach of being a party man. Give all parties and all Ministries formed the fairest play." In public addresses Sir George was advised to "appeal to the noblest idiosyncracies of the community--the noblest are generally the most universal and the most durable. They are peculiar to no party. Let your thoughts never be distracted from the paramount object of finance. All states thrive in proportion to the administration of revenue." A number of excellent maxims followed, among them--"The more you treat people as gentlemen the more 'they will behave as such.'" Again, "courtesy is a duty which public servants owe to the humblest member of the community." And, in a postscript, "Get all the details of the land question from the Colonial Office, and master them thoroughly. Convert the jealousies now existing between Moreton Bay and Sydney into emulation." All these generous didactics from the great novelist and Tory statesman, followed by congratulations and good wishes, must have been stimulative to the aspirations of the embryo Governor charged with the foundation of a new colony at the Antipodes. The value of autonomous government is generally appreciated; but the free gift of land made by the Imperial authority to the various self-governing colonies has no parallel in human history. In the case of Queensland the recipients were a mere handful of people, mostly settled at one end of a vast territory, at least half of which was unexplored. Plenary authority was in fact given to manage and control the waste lands belonging to the Crown, as well as to appropriate the gross proceeds of the sales of any such lands, and all other proceeds and revenues of the same from whatever source arising, including all royalties, mines, and minerals, all of which by the Letters Patent and the Order in Council were vested in the Legislature. This vesting, however, was subject to a proviso validating all contracts, promises, and engagements lawfully made on behalf of Her Majesty before the proclamation took effect. The proviso also stipulated that there should be no disturbance of any vested or other rights which had accrued or belonged to the licensed occupants or lessees of Crown Lands under any repealed Act, or under any Order in Council issued in pursuance thereof.[a] This reservation was really for the protection of a number of people in the colony, and not for the benefit of the Imperial Government. The licensed occupants would be subject to the mandates of the Legislature; while the reservation in favour of the owners of freehold lands was of a comparatively trivial nature, the total area alienated from the Crown a year after the establishment of the new colony amounting to only 108,870 acres, which had yielded £305,250 as purchase-money chiefly to the New South Wales Treasury. Taking the 670,500 square miles within the colony thus handed over to be worth five shillings per acre, or £160 the square mile, the total value of the Imperial gift to Queensland would be £107,280,000. Of course that price was not immediately realisable, and before much of the vast area could be utilised millions of capital must be expended in reclamation and development; but as some indication of ultimate value it may be pointed out that the land sold up to 31st December, 1860, realised at the rate of nearly £3 per acre. That the "waste" land was not a dead asset was shown by the fact that the public revenue of the colony for the first year of its existence was £178,589, to which rents and sales of land contributed a substantial proportion. It was not surprising, therefore, that Sir George Bowen's early despatches to the Secretary of State testified to the grateful and enthusiastic loyalty of the people of the colony to the Queen and the mother country. When the previously established Australian colonies were severally constituted the people were kept for years in a state of tutelage, so to speak, power being exercised in each case by a Governor advised by Ministers appointed by and responsible only to the Crown. The single Chamber of the Legislature, if not wholly nominated, included a prescribed number of members appointed by the Governor, and was practically under his control. It had therefore been supposed by many colonists that separation having been hotly opposed by some influential residents of the territory concerned--and having been emphatically condemned by an official despatch received in England from Sir William Denison, then Governor-General of New South Wales, almost at the last moment--conditions in restraint of popular government would have been imposed on the establishment of Queensland. For the separation struggle had been long continued, and marked by much personal and party bitterness. The agitation had been originated and chiefly maintained by people on the seaboard led by ardent patriots introduced a few years previously under the auspices of Dr. John Dunmore Lang, who while undoubtedly a great Australian patriot was unhappily not a _persona grata_ with the controlling authority at the Colonial Office. The movement was from its initiation protested against by the enterprising Crown tenants who had driven their flocks and herds overland from New South Wales, and had, taking their lives in their hands, adventurously formed stations in the remote wilderness. They not unnaturally dreaded the effect of popular sovereignty upon what they deemed their vested interests. But British statesmen, whether Conservative or Liberal, appear to have felt that, responsible government having been granted to and enjoyed by the people of New South Wales--and consequently to the people of that part of its territory about to be separated--any Imperial limitation of popular rights already conferred would be regarded as an unjustifiable encroachment upon public liberty achieved after many years of ardent struggle in the parent colony. True, the language of the Letters Patent and Order in Council was afterwards construed to involve some temporary limitation of the manhood suffrage which had been affirmed by the Parliament of New South Wales; but whether this limitation was actual or inadvertent does not clearly appear. It was not of much practical consequence, perhaps, in a new country that was rapidly multiplying its scant population, whether or not the electors for the first Legislative Assembly were required to have some other qualification than adult age and six months' residence; but the incident operated prejudicially against the Government, and gave a rallying cry to Opposition politicians. A somewhat singular course adopted by the Home Government was the authorisation of the Governor-General of New South Wales to appoint the first members of the Queensland Legislative Council, with a term of five years, although subsequent appointments were to be made by the Governor of Queensland for the term of the members' natural lives. Sir William Denison was also empowered to summon and call together the first Legislative Assembly of Queensland; to fix by proclamation the number of members; to divide the colony into convenient electoral districts; to prepare the electoral rolls; to issue the writs of election; and to make all necessary provision for the conduct of the first elections. It was required, moreover, that the Parliament should be called together for a date not more than six months after the proclamation of the colony, and should remain in existence, unless previously dissolved by the Governor, for a period of five years. Yet there was practically no limitation of popular authority except in respect of the preliminary arrangements, for the Queensland consolidating and amending Constitution Act of 1867 reaffirmed all rights and privileges conferred by the New South Wales Constitution Act. [Footnote a: These powers were given in the New South Wales Constitution Act, 1855, Sect. 2.] [Illustration: HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, BRISBANE] CHAPTER II. INITIATION OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT. Arrival of Sir George Bowen in Brisbane.--The First Responsible Ministry.--Injunctions to Governor by Secretary of State in regard to choice of Ministers.--Ex-members of New South Wales Legislature take Umbrage.--The Governor on the Characteristics of Various Classes of Colonists.--The Governor a Dictator.--The Microscopic Treasury Balance.--Gladstone as Site of Capital.--Mr. Herbert as a Parliamentary Leader. When on 10th December, 1859, Governor Bowen, accompanied by Mr. Robert George Wyndham Herbert, his private secretary, had landed amidst great popular rejoicings at Brisbane, read the Queen's proclamation of the new colony, and been sworn in as Governor by Mr. Justice Lutwyche (the Resident Supreme Court Judge for Moreton Bay), he was compelled to choose Ministers and then govern the colony for nearly six months before they could be constitutionally approved by the representatives of the people in Parliament assembled. Sir George Bowen was faced by the dearth of seasoned public men, and by the dread of enlisting the services of strong partizans whose opinions and personal qualities were alike unknown to him. But as a constitutional Governor he could do no executive act until he had secured responsible advisers, and therefore the immediate appointment of Ministers was imperative. Hence on the day of the official landing a "Gazette" notice contained the proclamation of the Queen's Letters Patent, and notification of the appointment of Mr. Herbert as Colonial Secretary with Mr. Ratcliffe Pring as Attorney-General. Thus with the Governor and his two Ministers an Executive Council was at once formed; and five days later Mr. (afterwards Sir) Robert Ramsay Mackenzie was gazetted Colonial Treasurer.[a] These appointments gave umbrage to certain colonists, particularly to those who, having represented Moreton Bay constituencies in the New South Wales Assembly, were deemed in many respects most eligible as advisers of the Queen's representative. Mr. Herbert had come out from England with Sir George Bowen as private secretary at the moderate salary of £250 a year. He was a scholarly young man of 28 years, and among other advantages had enjoyed the privilege of holding for a time the post of private secretary to Mr. Gladstone. Indeed, both the Governor and his secretary, although the former had been selected by Sir E. B. Lytton, Colonial Secretary in the superseded Derby Administration, may be classed among the Gladstone school of politicians. Sir George Bowen probably recollected the injunction of Sir E. B. Lytton against partizanship, and the danger of identifying himself with the "squatters." For not only were they, speaking generally, partizans of a pronounced type, but the reservation of tenant rights made by the Order in Council of 6th June was calculated to taint them with a strong personal, or at least class, bias in land legislation and administration. In his official despatches to the Colonial Secretary Sir George Bowen did not mention at length these initial difficulties; but to Sir E. B. Lytton he wrote more fully. "I have often thought," he said, under date 6th March, 1860, "that the Queensland gentlemen-squatters bear a similar relation to the other Australians that the Virginian planters of 100 years back bore to the other Americans. But there is a perfectly different class of people in the towns. Brisbane, my present capital, must resemble what Boston and the other Puritan towns of New England were at the close of the last century. In a population of 7,000[b] we have 14 churches, 13 public-houses, 12 policemen. The leading inhabitants of Brisbane are a hard-headed set of English and Scotch merchants and mechanics; very orderly, industrious, and prosperous; proud of the mother country; loyal to the person of the Queen; and convinced that the true federation for these colonies is the maintenance of the integrity of the Empire, and that the true rallying-point for Australians is the Throne." To the Under Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Chichester Fortescue) Sir George Bowen wrote on 6th June, 1860:--"At the first start of all other colonies the Governor has been assisted by a nominated Council of experienced officials; he has been supported by an armed force; and he has been authorised to draw, at least at the beginning, on the Imperial Treasury for the expenses of the public service. But I was an autocrat; the sole source of authority here, without a single soldier, and without a single shilling. There was no organised force of any kind on my arrival, though I have now, by dint of exertion and influence, got up a respectable police on the Irish model, and a very creditable corps of volunteers. And as to money wherewith to carry on the Government, I started with just 7½d. in the Treasury. A thief--supposing, I fancy, that I should have been furnished with some funds for the outfit, so to speak, of the new State--broke into the Treasury a few nights after my arrival, and carried off the 7½d. mentioned. However, I borrowed money from the banks until our revenue came in, and our estimates already show (after paying back the sums borrowed) a considerable balance in excess of the proposed expenditure for the year." Sir George Bowen's initial difficulties were not chiefly financial, however; neither was the lack of material force to give effect to the law a serious embarrassment. He was empowered practically to select the seat of government by determining where the Parliament should first assemble. Among the opponents of separation had been certain squatters who sought to place the capital of the new colony in some more geographically central place than Brisbane. Of these Mr. William Henry Walsh, of Degilbo, Wide Bay, one of the most able and virile of the Moreton Bay ex-members of the New South Wales Parliament, was very prominent. Offended by the Governor's selection of Mr. Herbert for the Premiership, Mr. Walsh refused a seat in either House of the new Parliament, and sought to create an agitation in the more northerly ports of Maryborough and Rockhampton, each containing about 500 inhabitants, in favour of Gladstone as the capital--a place which Sydney political influence had always indicated as the future seat of government when a new northern colony came to be established. But each of the towns mentioned had ambitions of its own, and regarded Gladstone as a rival. The movement therefore failed; but the colony for years lost the benefit of Mr. Walsh's services at a time when every capable man was needed to assist in organising the government and directing the Parliament of political novices who took their seats a few months later. Mr. Arthur Macalister, solicitor, another ex-member of the New South Wales Parliament and an excellent debater, was perhaps equally disappointed, but he was at least more diplomatic. As member for Ipswich he took his seat on the Opposition benches, and after two years' service in the Assembly was invited by Mr. Herbert to join the Government. This invitation he accepted, and four years later he became the party leader. The sequel proved that the Governor had made no mistake in selecting Mr. Herbert for his Premier. He proved a first-rate parliamentary leader, and succeeded in giving the new colony the inestimable advantage of over six years of stable government at the outset of its career, in marked contrast to the kaleidoscopic Administrations which so greatly hindered political progress in more than one of the southern colonies. [Footnote a: For personnel of first Ministry and Parliament, see Appendix B, post.] [Footnote b: The census of 1861 showed that then the population was only a little over 6,000.] CHAPTER III. DIFFICULTIES OF EARLY ADMINISTRATIONS. Meeting of First Parliament.--Amendment on Address in Reply defeated by Speaker's Casting Vote.--Adoption of Address in Reply.--Compromise between Parties Indispensable.--Successful Inauguration of Responsible Government.--The Governor's Egotism.--Mr. Herbert's Retirement.--Mr. Macalister Succeeds.--Financial and Political Crisis.--Proposed Inconvertible Paper Money.--Governor Undeservedly Blamed. On the 7th of May, 1860, the 26 members of the first Legislative Assembly--among them the three Ministers of the Crown--having been returned, Parliament was summoned to meet at Brisbane on the 22nd of that month, just a few days before the maximum limit of delay specified by the Queen's Order in Council. On 1st May Sir William Denison had appointed 11 members for a five years' term to the Legislative Council, and three weeks later Sir George Bowen, conceiving the number insufficient, appointed four members additional for a life term, raising the total number to 15. Thus the first Parliament of Queensland was at length fully constituted, and all preliminaries had been completed for entering upon the work of the first session.[a] On the 22nd of May the session opened, and after members had been sworn in Sir Charles Nicholson, for some years Speaker in the Sydney Parliament, was elected President of the Council, and Mr. Gilbert Eliott--formerly an officer of the Royal Artillery--the member for Wide Bay, Speaker of the Assembly. Both Houses then adjourned for a week. The Governor's Speech, which was of great length, having been delivered, the Address in Reply was moved in both Houses. In the Council the leadership had been entrusted to Captain Maurice Charles O'Connell, Minister without portfolio, who had long been in the Port Curtis district as a trusted official of the New South Wales Government, and in early life had served with great distinction as a British soldier in Spain. In the Council no difficulty arose in adopting the Address. But in the Assembly an amendment moved for the adjournment of the debate at an early stage was only defeated by the Speaker's casting-vote, one member being absent. It thus appeared that the Assembly was almost equally divided. This was a dangerous position to be faced by a new Premier without a day's previous experience in Parliament, and with the two most formidable debaters in the House, Mr. Macalister and Mr. (afterwards Sir) Charles Lilley, in active opposition. Mr. Herbert made a diplomatic speech, however, and the Address passed without much further contention. The division list showed that, despite the efforts of the Governor and his Premier to avoid identification with the squatters, the votes of the latter were essential to the existence of the Ministry, since the members of the Opposition consisted almost exclusively of town representatives. The following day (30th May) the Government nominee for the Chairmanship of Committees, Mr. C. W. Blakeney, was defeated by 15 votes to 7, and Mr. Macalister, who was nominated by the Opposition, was thereupon elected on the voices. The division of parties evidently made compromise indispensable to the passing of much-needed legislation. But much had been gained by the Government. All its members had been elected by the constituencies, and the Assembly had practically acknowledged that it was entitled to a fair trial. Seeing that for nearly six months Ministers had held their portfolios without parliamentary sanction, and had naturally made many executive mistakes during that time, it may be held that the first session of the first Parliament had been inaugurated successfully from the Ministerial standpoint. In his official despatches, as well as in private letters to friends in England, Sir George Bowen revealed himself as a genial though apparently unconscious egotist. His assumption of what must strike the discriminating reader as a dominating influence in the political and executive affairs of the colony was scarcely consistent with his position as a ruler representing the Queen, and competent to act only on constitutional advice. An impartial survey of Mr. Herbert's six years of office as Premier leads to the conclusion that chiefly to his judicious counsel and incomparable tact in the management of men the Governor owed the exemplary success attained in the organisation and government of the colony. [Illustration: VIEW FROM RIVER TERRACE, BRISBANE] The Governor's complete if rather florid reports to the Colonial Office, however, justly evoked cordial responses from the Secretary of State. Sir George Bowen was a most capable man, but sometimes betrayed want of both reticence and dignity. He was enthusiastic as well as optimistic, and his retention in Queensland for the unusually long period of eight years is an unanswerable certificate of his official merit. Yet it is undoubted that when bad times overtook the colony in 1866 both the Governor and his Premier appeared to have outlived their popularity, though their combined action at that time for restoring the public credit was perhaps the most eminent service that either of them had ever rendered. Mr. Herbert had formed no ties in Australia; he had exercised supreme influence in the local Legislature; but now that there were several members with both natural capacity and parliamentary experience aspiring to the Premiership, believing that he had better prospects of preferment in the Imperial service, he determined to return to England. His subsequent long career at the Colonial Office justified his anticipations, and it may be safely said of his departure from Queensland that the colony's loss was the Empire's gain. The ex-Premier did not leave the colony abruptly, however, on handing over, on the 1st of February, 1866, all ministerial responsibilities to Mr. Arthur Macalister, his senior colleague in the Cabinet. He occupied his seat for nearly six months, in fact, and conducted himself with native dignity and becoming self-effacement as an unofficial member of the Assembly. Unhappily he was not to leave Australia without having a wholly unexpected shadow suddenly cast over his long administration of affairs. In mid-July the news reached the colony of the catastrophic failure of the Agra and Masterman's Bank, which had undertaken to finance the Queensland railway loan then being rapidly spent. The financial crisis of 1866 played havoc in London; it was of crushing effect in Queensland, for the Treasurer could not meet his obligations, and the railway workmen threatened a riot in consequence of non-payment of their hard-earned wages. In this emergency, Parliament being in session, the Treasurer, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Joshua Peter Bell desired to adopt the recent American expedient of issuing an inconvertible paper currency. The Cabinet approved, but on the Governor being consulted before the introduction of the bill he emphatically declined to promise the Royal assent to the measure, if passed. This he did for the all-sufficient reason that his Imperial instructions compelled him to reserve the assent to all measures affecting the currency. Ministers immediately resigned, and the Governor became the victim of irrational public obloquy for a time.[b] Mr. Herbert consented to lead a stop-gap Administration, and under his guidance a bill was at once passed empowering the Government to raise £300,000 by the issue of Treasury bills bearing not more than 10 per cent. interest per annum. They were forthwith disposed of at a premium, and the credit of the Government was restored. The temporary Government then resigned, and Mr. Macalister resumed office. Thus Queensland was saved from the double peril of paralysed credit and a debased paper currency. [Footnote a: The names of the first Ministers, and of members of both Houses of the first Parliament, will be found in Appendix B. It may be of interest to mention that of all these representative men one, Mr. A. W. Compigne, who resigned his seat in the Council in 1864, alone survived till the Jubilee Year; and that he died at his residence, Brisbane, on Sunday, 4th July, 1909, in the 92nd year of his age.] [Footnote b: Sir George Bowen, writing to the Right Honourable Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke, said:--"Several leading members of Parliament were ill-treated in the streets; and threats were even uttered of burning down Government House, and of treating me 'as Lord Elgin was treated at Montreal in 1849.'"] CHAPTER IV. THE FIRST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT. Work of the First Session.--Four Land Acts Passed.--Summary of Land "Code."--Pastoral Leases.--Upset Price of Land £1 per acre.--Agricultural Reserves.--Land Orders to Immigrants. --Cotton Bonus.--Lands for Mining Purposes.--Renewal of Existing Leases.--Governor's Laudation of "Code."--Praises Parliament.--Abolition of State Aid to Religion.--Primary and Secondary Education.--Wool Liens.--First Estimates and Appropriation Act. The first session closed on the 18th of September, having extended over nearly four months. On the 28th of August, Sir Charles Nicholson having determined to retire and go to England, Captain O'Connell was appointed President of the Legislative Council by the Governor's Commission. Mr. John James Galloway at the same time accepted the appointment of Minister without portfolio, and held the leadership of the Council for the remainder of the session. Without other change in the personnel of the Cabinet the session was brought to a close with the position of the Government considerably improved. They had not carried all the measures promised in the Opening Speech, but the new Acts passed numbered sixteen, some of them important, and all necessary. Seeing that both Houses were new to their work, the result went to prove that the confidence of the Imperial Government in the self-governing competence of the colonists had not been misplaced. Even the "Moreton Bay Courier," then hostile to the Government, admitted that much good work had been done, the chief exception taken being to the Act authorising the granting of a five years' additional term for existing pastoral leases. The Act reserved power of resumption during the currency of the lease, but the Opposition contended that the power would never be exercised. No less than four Land Bills were passed during the session, and the Governor, writing to the Secretary of State, said, referring to them, that these Acts might be called "The Land Code of Queensland." The first of the "Code," which was entitled the Unoccupied Crown Lands Occupation Act, repealed the New South Wales pastoral leasing law of 1858, and the Orders in Council then in force in Queensland in so far as they were repugnant to the new Act. Any person was to be permitted to apply for an occupation license for one year for a run of 100 square miles, and if there were more than one applicant for the same run preference was to be given to any person who had occupied it for two months previously. Within nine months after the granting of the license application might be made by the occupier for a 14 years' lease conditionally on the run having been stocked to one-fourth its assumed carrying capacity of 100 sheep or 20 head of cattle per square mile. An absolute power of resumption at any time during the lease on 12 months' notice was given. The second was the Tenders for Crown Lands Act, authorising the issue of 14 years' leases to lessees of runs already liable for rent; also authorising the acceptance of tenders (which had been held over awaiting legislation) for runs occupied since 1st January, 1860, and the granting to the tenderers of 14 years' leases. The third measure of the "Code" was the Alienation of Crown Lands Act, which fixed the minimum upset price at auction or otherwise at £1 per acre; and which provided for the setting apart, within six months from the bill becoming law, of not less than 100,000 acres on the shores or navigable waters of Moreton Bay, Wide Bay, Port Curtis, and Keppel Bay, and also within five miles of all towns with upwards of 500 inhabitants, as agricultural reserves of not less than 10,000 acres each, which should not be for sale by auction, but surveyed and opened to selection as farms of not less than 40 nor more than 320 acres at the fixed price of £1 per acre; the purchase money to be paid in advance, and the Crown grant issued at the end of six months if the selector had occupied the land and commenced to improve it during that term. If a selector failed so to occupy and improve, the purchase-money was to be returned to him, less 10 per cent., and the land again opened for selection. A selector was also entitled to lease three times the area of his farm--but so that the whole should not exceed 320 acres--in one lot or conterminous lots within the same reserve, for a term of five years, at sixpence per acre rent, with right of purchase, if fenced in, at £1 per acre at any time during the currency of the lease. A further provision of importance in the same Act was the granting of a land order for £18 on arrival to each immigrant from Europe who paid his own passage, and a further land order for £12 at the end of two years' residence in the colony. It was also provided that two children between the ages of four and fourteen should be reckoned as one statute adult. Further provision was made by which a bonus in land was to be paid during the next three years of £10 per bale of good cleaned Sea Island cotton, and for the two years next following £5 per bale. And finally any person or company was empowered to purchase land not exceeding 640 acres in one block for mining purposes, other than for coal or gold, at the upset price of 20s. per acre. The fourth measure of the "Code" was the Occupied Crown Lands Leasing Act, which enabled the lessee of any Crown land held under previously existing regulations, or under the Tenders for Crown Lands Act of the current session, to get a five years' renewal at the end of his term. The principle of compensation was recognised in these leasing Acts, but no provision was made for the continuance of the pre-emptive right of purchase, conferred by the old Orders in Council. [Illustration: BARRON FALLS, CAIRNS RAILWAY, NORTH QUEENSLAND] Sir George Bowen wrote to the Secretary of State in terms of exalted laudation of these four Acts. "I regard them," he said, "as a practical and satisfactory settlement of this much-vexed question, which is still embittering the social life and retarding the material advance of the neighbouring and elder colonies." To a friend in England he wrote,--"The legislation of our first Parliament has settled the long quarrel between the pastoral and agricultural interests which has raged in all new countries ever since the days of Abel, the 'keeper of sheep,' and Cain, the 'tiller of the ground!'" To the Secretary of State he added,--"This Parliament may fairly boast of having passed, with due caution and foresight, a greater number of really useful measures, and of having achieved a greater amount of really practical legislation, than any other Parliament in any of the Australian colonies since the introduction of parliamentary government." Sir George quotes a Sydney journal,[a] which before separation was antagonistic to that movement, as saying,--"The Government of Queensland has been either very fortunate or very judicious. The last to enter the race, Queensland has shot ahead, and taken the first place. While in Melbourne the popular rage has been worked up by its guardians into riot, and while in Sydney the tactics of the popular party have succeeded in placing the land question in a position of chronic blockade, in Queensland it has been settled on a moderate and reasonable basis, and without so much as a single ministerial crisis." In the prorogation speech Sir George Bowen reviewed at length the work of the session. From that and other sources it may be stated that the limitation of the number of salaried officials capable of being elected to the Legislative Assembly had been fixed so as not to exceed five; the collection of parliamentary electors' names had been discontinued, and facilities provided for self-registration; State aid to religion had been abolished, the rights of existing incumbents being preserved; the existing system of primary education had been abolished, and provision made for the appointment by the Governor in Council of a "Board of General Education," a body corporate authorised to expend such sums as Parliament might vote for primary education. The Board was empowered to assist any primary school that submitted to its supervision and inspection, and conformed to its rules and by-laws; but it was forbidden to contribute to the repair or building of any school unless the fee-simple thereof had been previously vested in the Board. And nothing in the Act could be held to authorise any inspection of or interference with the special religious instruction which might be given in such school during the hours set apart for such instruction. Not more than 5 per cent. of the Board's funds might be applied to granting exhibitions at any grammar school to primary scholars who had passed the competitive examination prescribed by the Board. The Board was also authorised to devote a portion of its funds to assist in the establishment of normal or training schools, or to industrial schools. The Grammar Schools Act of 1860, which with a few amendments is still in force, was passed. An Act for taking the census of the colony on 1st April, 1861, became law. An Act for the appointment of Commissioners to adjust accounts with New South Wales was another measure of the session. It may be remarked, however, that an adjustment was never reached, but the amount in dispute became so comparatively small when mutual credits had been allowed that the question was permitted to lapse. Another measure of some practical importance was the Liens on Wool Act, which extended also to mortgages on sheep, cattle, and horses; and the Scab in Sheep Act, the main provisions of which are still in force. The gold export duty was abolished by an Act which merely validated the then official practice of omitting to collect the duty imposed by a New South Wales Act passed seven years previously. It must be admitted that this record of work done by a new Parliament, in a colony that had no existence as a self-governing entity twelve months before, deserved much of the approbation expressed of its proceedings by the Governor. Indeed, the "Courier" of the day, in commenting upon the work of the session, gave honourable members of both Houses hearty credit for the assiduity with which they had attended to public duty, even to the neglect in many cases of their own personal and business affairs. There was then no payment of members in any form. And there were other matters than legislation which deserve notice. The Estimates had been passed, totalling £220,808 for the service of the year; and the Governor had congratulated the Assembly upon having appropriated one-fourth of the total estimated revenue to roads, bridges, and other public works, besides ample sums to hospitals, libraries, botanic gardens, and schools of arts. No less than £31,261 was voted for police, of which £13,516 was absorbed for the native troopers then necessary for the protection of the adventurous pioneers who were conducting what may be termed exploratory settlement in the remote interior. [Footnote a: "Sydney Morning Herald," September, 1860.] CHAPTER V. QUEENSLAND IN 1860. Rush of Population.--High Prices for Stock for occupying New Country.--Sparse Population.--Rockhampton most Northerly Port of Entry.--Navigation inside Barrier Reef unknown.--Tropical Queensland Unexplored.--Ignorance of Climate, Resources, and Conditions.--Primary Industries in 1860.--Primitive Means of Communication.--Public Revenue, Bank Deposits, and Institutions. Thus was Queensland fairly launched on her career as a self-governing state of the Empire. The very announcement of impending separation had caused a rush of population from the southern colonies; while even the Crown tenants, who had for years regarded the movement with aversion, found much compensation in their escape from the operation of the imminent Robertson land law which threatened free selection before survey throughout the entire area of New South Wales. The rush for new pastoral country not only attracted the most adventurous bushmen in Australia to the new colony, but also sent up the prices of sheep and cattle to fabulous rates, as country tendered for could not be held unless stocked to the prescribed minimum number. At the time a large area of coast country was occupied by sheep, and symptoms of disease were so menacing that the sales for stocking up new country proved the salvation of some of the "inside" squatters; although looked at in the light of experience it may be doubted whether the too rapid occupation of the wilderness country, then inhabited solely by the aborigines, was not partly accountable for disastrous results when the demand for stocking up ceased, and the natural water on most runs proved wholly insufficient to carry stock through the mildest drought. Still, at the time Queensland attracted a population of seasoned Australians whose colonising value was inestimable; and these in addition to many immigrants from the mother country. Consequently the colony made phenomenal progress. A glance at the official statistics for the year 1860--the earliest available--will illustrate the insignificance, compared with the vast area of the territory held, of the population, trade, and liquid capital of the community. The total population on 31st December, 1860, was estimated at 28,056, most of these people being more or less concentrated in the towns. The rest were scattered sparsely over the country between the southern boundary and the tropic of Capricorn for a distance of about 250 miles back from the coast-line. Rockhampton was then the most northerly port of entry; the site of the present town of Bundaberg was virgin forest, the entrance to the Burnett River from Hervey Bay being as yet unknown; Mackay, Bowen, Townsville, Ingham, Geraldton, Cairns, Port Douglas, Cooktown, and the Thursday Island settlement were non-existent; and of the coast waters beyond Keppel Bay little more was known than the narratives of Captain Cook and Lieutenant Flinders at the close of the eighteenth century disclosed. The existence of the magnificent natural harbour of 1,000 miles in length formed by the Great Barrier Reef was undreamt of; the passage was regarded rather as one of Nature's traps for the unwary navigator than the future safe and easily traversed route of great steamship lines along a coast dotted with prosperous ports kept busy as the outlets of a richly productive hinterland. The tropical climate of the northern coast lands was then supposed to be deadly to members of the white races; the interior was declared to be almost entirely devoid of surface water--for the greater part of the year a fiery furnace, and at intervals of capricious periodicity ravaged by destructive floods. It was assumed to be a country where the white man would wither and the coloured man thrive--a land wholly unfit for the home of civilised peoples, and only adapted to the wants of the degraded aboriginal native. It was ignorantly affirmed that the sheep stations intended to be formed in the far western country must be failures, and English experts held that under the tropical sun the sheep, if it could live in Queensland at all, would soon carry hair instead of wool. Even in Southern Queensland the agricultural possibilities of the land were sadly unappreciated. True, in the population centres there were loud preachers of the gospel of reclamation of the wilderness so that it might bud and blossom as the rose; but their homilies for the most part fell upon deaf ears--the seasoned bushman, like the great squatter, tenaciously held that even the Darling Downs would not grow a cabbage. So backward was the farming industry that in 1860 the total area under cultivation was 3,353 acres in a country of greater extent than France and Germany combined. Of this trifling cultivated area only 196 acres were under wheat, and not an acre under sugar-cane. True, there were nearly three and a-half million sheep, half-a-million cattle, and 24,000 horses finding subsistence on the limitless but ill-watered natural pastures. But at that time the annual clip from the sheep, though wool was the chief export of the colony, totalled only 5,000,000 lb., or equal to about 1½ lb. to each fleece. Mining, except for coal, of which 12,327 tons was raised in 1860, was almost non-existent, although 2,738 fine ounces of gold are shown by the statistics to have been won during the year. [Illustration: TREASURY BUILDINGS, BRISBANE] In 1860 there was not a mile of railway either open for traffic or under construction; not a mile of electric telegraph wire; nor, save between Brisbane and Ipswich, was there a formed or metalled road, the only avenues of transport being along the bridle path or the teamsters' track. The country was destitute of culverts and bridges over watercourses, and the so-called roads were impassable for days, weeks, or even months in succession after the seasonal rains. The northern shipping trade was limited to a small steamer running once a fortnight between Brisbane, Maryborough, and Rockhampton, but even that had been arranged after the proclamation of the colony, partly to meet administration exigencies, with the assistance of the new Government. A fortnightly steamer from Sydney ran direct to Maryborough, and another to Rockhampton, with the apparent object of discouraging mutual intercourse among the ports. A weekly steamer ran between Brisbane and Sydney, in addition to a few small sailing craft for cargo purposes. Although Sir George Bowen declared that on arrival he found nothing in the Treasury save a few coppers, the revenue for the first year reached £178,589. The expenditure for the year 1860 was £17,086 less than the revenue, yet, through the Government having to lean upon the banks in December, 1859, there was an overdraft of over £19,000 at the end of the first year. But the banks themselves had little money among them, the net assets slightly exceeding half a million sterling, and the aggregate deposits totalling less than a quarter of a million. At the end of 1860, out of the 28,000 people in the colony 163 were "small capitalists" with an aggregate of £7,545, or about £46 per depositor, in the Savings Bank. Yet there were six charitable institutions in which 397 persons found relief. Of subscribers to "public libraries" there were 538, and they had at their disposal 5,000 volumes from which to select reading for the leisure hour. There were 41 schools, with a total of 1,890 pupils. The number of letters posted showed a low degree of cultivation, for the average number posted as well as received by each person was just seven a year, or slightly more than one every two months. Of newspapers a rather fewer number passed through the post office. Surely all these things were on a microscopic scale, recollecting that the people of Queensland had been endowed with autonomous government, and had unfettered control of more than one-fifth of the total area of Australia. Old Queenslanders who still survive, and can meditate retrospectively upon the past, will be impressed with the marvellous optimism of all classes of the population 50 years ago. The townspeople, enfranchised with most political power by reason of their numbers, knew little of the dormant resources of the inland country or its climatic vagaries. They could not realise the privations, the hard labour, and the deadly monotony of early settlement upon the land. The farmer had usually no market, and in raising his produce he had to contend against droughts, floods, pests, and isolation, and he was fortunate if his produce brought from the store-keeper the cost of rations on which his family could frugally subsist. The squatter, too, incurred enormous risks, though he had a market for his wool at all times; and, if there was no domestic consumption of sheep and cattle upon which he could rely, his surplus stock brought a fair return from the boiling-down pots. But he had to get his produce to port before a money return could be secured; and as pastoral settlement pushed further out transport obstacles were often crushing. It was no unusual occurrence for one wool clip to be detained on a remote station until the next year's shearing had commenced. A lien had therefore usually to be given on the clip, and the rate of interest, including agent's commission, was commonly 12 per cent. per annum, while the high carriage rate made rations extremely costly; so that even with good seasons the margin of profit was small. In bad years ruin became well-nigh inevitable. The pioneer squatter spent most of his strenuous life in the saddle, alternately worried by bad seasons, low prices, and his bank overdraft. It is easy, therefore, to understand the temptation which assailed him to regard as his own the country which he had reclaimed at the expense of his vitality as well as his capital. When he visited town after a term of voluntary exile human nature often asserted itself, and the holiday-making squatter disbursed his hard-earned money with a prodigal hand, a fact not forgotten by his political opponents. The shepherd, too, yielded to temptation, and at the end of a year's solitary life in his bush hut longed for nothing so much as an alcoholic stimulant or a bottle of pickles and gay human society. Thus he prodigally knocked down his cheque in town, and in a week or two again abandoned civilisation at the call of the bush. Fifty years ago the urban people perhaps lived almost as comfortably as they do to-day, but the bushman, whether farmer, squatter, shepherd, or stockman, had usually a life of exhausting labour, bad food, dull surroundings, and often in consequence indifferent health. Still the landless colonist of 1860 had unbounded faith in his country; and if he fought earnestly, sometimes passionately, against what he termed squatting encroachment, it is now apparent that had not the pastoral tenure been jealously limited by Parliament insurmountable obstacles would have been placed in the path of progress. In future pages of this work it will be seen that the often too sanguine anticipations of individual colonists of Queensland's natal year were rudely shattered by stern experience; while, on the other hand, the opening up of unsuspected resources as often enriched the general community. PART II.--FROM NATAL YEAR TO JUBILEE. CHAPTER I. THE LEGISLATURE. The Governor.--His Functions: Political and Social.--His Emoluments.--Administrations that have held Office.--Number of Members of Council and Assembly.--Emoluments of Assembly Members.--Good Results of Responsible Government in Queensland. In a self-governing dependency of the Empire the King's representative, while competent to take official action only on constitutional advice, is not a mere figurehead in the Government. He is, so to speak, one of the three branches of the Legislature. No expenditure can be voted by Parliament except after receipt of a message of appropriation from the Governor; and no bill can become law without the Royal assent, which he, subject to certain reservations, is empowered to give. As President of the Executive Council, too, the Governor has a voice in administration, although the actual power vests in the Ministry so long as it commands the confidence of Parliament. But the Governor is in constant touch with his Premier, and therefore, apart from the official intercourse at meetings of the Executive Council, His Excellency exchanges ideas informally with the executive head of the Government. The Governor has social duties, too, and these are not unimportant as bringing the King's representative into personal contact with his Majesty's colonial subjects of both sexes and various classes. The Governor's attendance at public and social functions also furnishes a touch of sprightly colour to the drab shade which would otherwise often characterise public gatherings. He carries with him a distinctive atmosphere of Imperial comprehensiveness which usefully neutralises a narrow parochialism that might tend to induce men and women to forget that they, while a politically independent community, yet form an integral part of the great Empire of the Mistress of the Seas. Thus it is that our most experienced public men have emphasised the importance of maintaining direct communication with the Imperial authority through a Governor appointed by and responsible to the King. Pending the decision of Parliament, the Imperial Government provisionally fixed the salary of the first Governor at £2,500 a year. In the session of 1861, Parliament, representing a population of 34,000 persons, not only voted an increase to £4,000, but also by statute made the payment retrospective as from 1st January, 1860. At this sum the salary remained until 1874, when Mr. Oscar de Satge, a member of the Opposition, carried a motion affirming the principle of an increase. This motion the Government accepted, and the salary was increased to £5,000 a year, at which figure it remained from that time until 1904, when it was reduced to £3,000. Three Governors successively filled the office for the fifteen years ending with November, 1874; and six for the thirty years between 1874 and October, 1904. In the latter year an amendment of the Constitution Act was made by a bill introduced by the Government, reducing the salary of future Governors to £3,000, for reasons exhaustively set forth by the Premier in moving the second reading. The chief grounds of reduction, it may be mentioned, were the altered situation created by the establishment of the Commonwealth, and the steps of a similar character already taken in the Southern States. Twenty-five Ministries have held office during the fifty-year period. On that led by the late Sir Robert Herbert comment has already been made. It ended a useful Queensland career in 1866, after more than six years of office. The succeeding Macalister Ministry, with an interruption of eighteen days by a second Herbert Ministry of an ephemeral nature, and with reconstructions, lasted until August, 1867, when it was displaced by the Mackenzie-Palmer Administration. Mr. Macalister was a clever politician; a concise and trenchant speaker; and a capital parliamentary leader in so far as the House work was concerned. But he was lacking in force, and his Ministry was, moreover, much in the nature of coalition representing both squatting and anti-squatting interests at a time when bitter controversy prevailed. Mr. (afterwards Sir) R. R. Mackenzie, who was held in general respect for his personal qualities, likewise lacked strength as a politician, and the real force behind him was Mr. (afterwards Sir) Arthur Hunter Palmer. His Ministry was at the time termed "pure merino," every member of it, save Mr. Pring, the Attorney-General, being identified with the pastoral industry. In November, 1868, the Lilley Ministry was formed. It lasted only till April, 1870, and was more than once reconstructed during its tenure of office. It included Mr. Macalister, between whom and the Premier there was inconvenient rivalry, but its members were all Liberals by reputation. The Premier, however, was Radical rather than Liberal in his opinions, and his abolition of primary school fees without parliamentary authority, and the ordering of the steamer "Governor Blackall" in Sydney, with the object of fighting the A.S.N. Company, without the consent even of his colleagues, brought about the downfall of the Ministry as soon as Parliament met in 1870, only one supporter, the late Mr. Henry Jordan, voting with them in a division on a want of confidence motion. Mr. (afterwards Sir) Charles Lilley was perhaps the most accomplished debater that ever spoke in the Queensland Parliament, and throughout most of his public career, as the member for Fortitude Valley, he was a popular hero. As an educationist he was undoubtedly both sincere and enthusiastic, but his colleagues found his imperious moods difficult to contend against. [Illustration: COAL WHARVES, SOUTH BRISBANE] The Palmer Ministry met Parliament in May, 1870, and held office for more than three and a-half years, although for a great part of the time the Government had no working majority. Indeed, for months it fought, with a majority of one in a full House of 32, a determined Opposition in the Assembly ably led by Mr. Lilley. All business was blocked for many weeks, and eventually 13 members of the Opposition, headed by Mr. Lilley, waited as a deputation upon the Governor (Colonel Blackall) requesting his intervention on the ground that Ministers did not possess their confidence or the confidence of the House. The Governor declined to interpose, and subtly remarked that he had known many Oppositions in Parliament, but never yet knew one that had confidence in the Government of the day. The interview did not assist the Opposition cause. A second session opened on 5th July, 1870, and, being defeated two days later by 17 to 11, Mr. Palmer was granted a dissolution.[a] The Premier had proved himself an indomitable fighter, and his appeal to the constituencies was not wholly unsuccessful. Obstruction continuing in the new Parliament, Mr. Palmer was granted another dissolution in June, 1871, and from that time had a fairly effective majority at his back for two years, when being defeated he was granted another dissolution, from which his party came back unsuccessful. If the Opposition of those days did not obstruct by means of the "stonewall" to the same extent that has been the case of recent years, they attained their end in another way. In the session of 1871-2 for a period of five weeks the Government failed to obtain a quorum except on two occasions, on both of which there was a "count out." The Opposition were desirous of forcing the Government to pass a Redistribution of Seats Bill before Supply was granted, and by persisting in these tactics they compelled the Government to agree to a compromise. The Palmer Ministry on assuming office had found the public finances in a bad way, but partly through good management and partly with the help of good seasons and improving markets for exports, they retired in January, 1874, after a succession of surpluses, and with railway construction being vigorously pushed on both in Southern and Central districts. In January, 1874, when the new Parliament met after the general election, Mr. Palmer and his colleagues found themselves in so hopeless a minority that they resigned without awaiting a debate on the Address in Reply. Amidst great hilarity in the Assembly, and despite the vehement protests of the candidate, Mr. William Henry Walsh was elected Speaker, although a member of the Palmer party; and on his refusal to accept the office was humorously threatened with the penalty of disobedience to the order of the House. But after consideration he assumed the Speakership, and while in the chair discharged his duties with credit. The Macalister-Hemmant Ministry forthwith assumed office, Mr. Lilley, who made the announcement in the Assembly on their behalf, declining a portfolio. Shortly afterwards he was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court. The Ministry was initiated with Mr. MacDevitt as Attorney-General, but in August following he retired, and Mr. S. W. Griffith, who had proved an inconvenient supporter of the Government as the leader of a subsection, accepted the portfolio. Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas McIlwraith was Mr. Macalister's Minister for Works, but at the close of the first session he differed from the Premier on the question of a great private railway scheme, and therefore resigned office. On the House reassembling in 1875 Mr. McIlwraith took the front cross-bench seat next the gangway on the Opposition side, and, while not approving of all the tactics of the party led by Mr. Palmer, gave it his general support. The first session of the Parliament had been distinguished by the passing of a Customs tariff incidentally protective, Mr. Hemmant, the Treasurer, showing uncommon qualities as a financial speaker. He closed his first year at the Treasury with an apparent deficit of £200,762. His predecessor, when making his Financial Statement in 1872, had anticipated a deficit. To prevent this he proposed--and Parliament agreed to the proposition--to transfer £350,000 from the Loan Fund to the Consolidated Revenue Fund to meet the Treasury bills floated or authorised to cover the accumulated deficits of earlier years. Mr. Hemmant disapproved of this method of financing, and rectified matters as far as possible by transferring to a Surplus Revenue Fund £240,000, which left him with a deficit of £200,762. This was equivalent to recouping the Loan Fund to the extent of £240,000, as the money was to be used for public works which would, under ordinary circumstances, have been constructed out of loan moneys. In the next year, 1876, soon after the opening of Parliament, the appointment of the Premier as Agent-General was announced. Ministers consequently resigned, and the Governor (Mr. W. W. Cairns) sent for Mr. George Thorn, who to the surprise of political circles succeeded in forming a Ministry including Mr. Griffith and most of the late Cabinet. Mr. Thorn was personally a general favourite, but not conspicuously fit for the position which he had fortuitously attained. Mr. Griffith became the actual leader, however, and the session was completed without disaster. During the recess Mr. Thorn retired, to visit England, and was replaced in the Cabinet by Mr. John Douglas, whose scholarly speeches had given him a high reputation in the House. As Premier, however, Mr. Douglas was less successful than had been anticipated. Conspicuously fair in debate, he appeared invariably to feel the force of his opponents' arguments more than those on his own side of the House, and therefore his leadership wanted decision; but the sessions of 1877 and 1878 were passed through without any defeat compelling a premature dissolution. The Liberal Ministries from 1874 to 1878 had been fertile in legislation, but after the retirement of Mr. Macalister they were badly led, Mr. Griffith, who attained the Attorney-Generalship at the age of twenty-nine, having been unwisely kept in the background on the plea of political immaturity. It was evident, however, that chiefly to him the passage of all important measures of legislation had been due. The colony suffered severely from drought during the years 1876-7-8; financial depression was the inevitable result, and, as usual under such circumstances, the Government lost popularity. In November, 1878, the general election resulted in the return of a House determined to effect a change of Administration. On the new Parliament assembling in January, 1879, Ministers were at once defeated, and Mr. McIlwraith was sent for by the Governor. He met Parliament a few days afterwards with colleagues representing all parts of the colony, and obtained a four months' recess in which to mature his policy. On Parliament reassembling in mid-May, however, the position of the Government was less strong than had been anticipated. During the recess they had been retrenching sharply, and a number of dismissals from the Ipswich railway workshops were declared to be tainted with partizanship. At no time in the first session, in a test division, did the Government sit with a majority of more than six, and usually they commanded only two or three. The Opposition, led by Mr. Griffith, were always at their posts, and the Government were frequently on the verge of defeat. The passing of a Three-million Loan Act and of the Divisional Boards Act, however, strengthened the Government's position, and in the following session the Torres Strait mail contract, making Brisbane the Australian terminus, though opposed by stonewalling measures for six consecutive weeks, added to their popularity. In the session of 1880 grave accusations were made against the Premier by Mr. Hemmant, who had taken up his residence in England. Mr. Hemmant presented a petition to Parliament charging the Premier with complicity in certain transactions connected with the purchase of a large quantity of steel rails for the Government which had involved Queensland in a heavy loss. The matter was referred to a select committee, on whose recommendation a Royal Commission was appointed to take evidence in England. Mr. Griffith visited London during the recess, and acted as honorary counsel for Mr. Hemmant. The Commission exonerated the Premier, but a great deal of party animosity was engendered, which did not die out for several years. In 1883 Sir Thomas McIlwraith ordered the British flag to be hoisted at Port Moresby, in Eastern New Guinea, annexing to the Empire that portion of Papua not already claimed by the Dutch, an act which showed true statesmanship and prophetic vision. Unfortunately, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Earl Derby, repudiated the annexation on the ground that it was a usurpation of the sovereign rights of the Imperial authorities. At the same time he acknowledged the patriotic motives which had inspired the Premier of Queensland, and declared that the British Government would regard any attempt at annexation by a foreign Power as an unfriendly act. Whatever may have been the views of political parties at the time, matured judgment formed in the light of subsequent events endorses the action of Sir Thomas. The hoisting of the German flag on the northern portion of the territory annexed by Sir Thomas has brought a foreign Power almost to our doors, and too late the home Government endeavoured as far as possible to retrieve their blunder by annexing the south-eastern portion of Papua, which was handed over to the Commonwealth after federation. In the same year, the Premier, who had for many years been a strong advocate of railway construction by private enterprise on the land-grant principle, brought forward a bill authorising the construction of what was commonly called the Transcontinental Railway, from Charleville to Point Parker, on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Against this proposal great popular clamour arose; the majority of the squatting members of the Assembly combined with the Opposition, and the second reading of the bill was negatived by 27 votes to 16. Sir Thomas McIlwraith, rightly regarding the rejection of the measure as equivalent to a vote of want of confidence, advised the Administrator of the Government, Sir J. P. Bell, to dissolve the Assembly. His Excellency accepted the advice, and the Premier asked for five months' Supply. Mr. Griffith, the greatest constitutional authority in Queensland, approved of the decision of the Administrator of the Government, only objecting to Supply being given for such a length of time. However, the House, by 24 to 19, agreed to pass the Supply asked for, and the dissolution took place in the middle of July. [Illustration: EXECUTIVE BUILDINGS, BRISBANE] The Opposition, led by Mr. Griffith, were returned with a large majority. Being defeated on the election of a Speaker and in two subsequent divisions, the Government resigned. Mr. Griffith was sent for, and formed a strong Administration. Parliament adjourned from November to January, when some pressing legislation was passed at once, including the repeal of the Railway Companies Preliminary Act, under which proposals were made by railway syndicates. On 6th March Parliament was prorogued until 8th July. The Premier had chosen as his Lands Minister Mr. Charles Boydell Dutton, a Liberal Barcoo squatter, with no previous experience of parliamentary life, but a determined land reformer. With the Premier's aid Mr. Dutton got the Land Act of 1884 safely through, and the Government secured credit for passing a most important measure of reform, one important change being the introduction of grazing farm leases, and another the resumption of the halves of all runs included in a comprehensive schedule of the unsettled districts. But the historical measure of the session and the decade was the Ten-million Loan Bill, which embodied a grand scheme for providing the entire colony with railways. The Opposition protested against the loan as unconstitutional on the ground that it covered a programme of railway construction which could not be completed for several years, but they dared not oppose any specific railway, and the bill passed without amendment. Sir Thomas McIlwraith retired from the Assembly in 1886, and during the whole life of the Parliament the Opposition found themselves helpless to resist the domination of the Ministry. But as the Administration aged its political force waned, and in 1887 the Treasurer, Mr. (afterwards Sir) J. R. Dickson, and Mr. Macdonald-Paterson retired from the Ministry because of their disagreement with a land tax proposed in Cabinet by the Premier. Despite the large loan expenditure, too, there was a portentous succession of deficits, due to unfavourable seasons, and Sir Samuel Griffith found in 1887 that his Government and party had outlived their popularity. Like his great rival, Sir Samuel gave abundant proof during his tenure of office of broad statesmanlike conceptions. No public man in Australia has done more to foster the federal spirit and bring about the union of the Australian colonies. He played a foremost part in creating the Federal Council, and to him is due the credit of drafting in 1887 the measure which was passed by all the colonial Parliaments granting a subsidy to an auxiliary Australasian naval squadron, although parliamentary vicissitudes robbed him of the honour of passing the bill in his own State until 1891. He is also entitled to the credit of making provision for the administration of British New Guinea by Queensland. In April, 1888, Parliament was dissolved, and when the new Parliament met in June the enfeebled Griffith Government were promptly ejected from office. Sir Thomas McIlwraith came in with a strong following, and he at once formed a Ministry which seemed likely to endure for several years. But at the close of the first session Sir Thomas retired from the Premiership with a view to visiting England on business. Mr. Boyd Dunlop Morehead then succeeded to the leadership. In September, 1889, Sir Thomas McIlwraith resigned his seat in the Ministry, and the following session he appeared in the Assembly as an open opponent of his late colleagues. To make provision for a revenue deficit, the Government brought down a proposal for a general property tax. This quickly brought Sir Thomas McIlwraith into concerted action with Sir Samuel Griffith, then leading the Opposition, and caused the resignation of the Ministry in August, 1890. Almost immediately the Griffith-McIlwraith Ministry was announced. A year or two earlier such a fusion of parties would have been deemed impossible, but the two leaders had fought away their mutual differences, and the financial outlook was so alarming that the coalition was generally admitted to be imperative. The new Government carried many important measures, and effected material improvement in the finances. In March, 1893, just before the banking catastrophe occurred, Sir Samuel Griffith accepted the Chief Justiceship, and Sir Thomas McIlwraith assumed the Premiership. A dissolution followed, the Government securing a commanding majority in the new Assembly. But the Premier's health failed, and in October following his Ministry was merged into that of Mr. (afterwards Sir) Hugh Nelson. Sir Thomas retained office without portfolio until March, 1895, when his connection with the Government ceased, though he retained his seat as a member of the House until the dissolution in 1896. After resigning office he left the colony, and died in England on 17th July, 1900. The new Premier proved a most capable financier, and although the depression in financial, commercial, and industrial affairs continued with great intensity he turned successive deficits into annual surpluses, and was soon enabled to negotiate loans in the London money market on unprecedently favourable terms. In April, 1898, Sir Hugh Nelson resigned Ministerial office and accepted the President's chair in the Legislative Council, that post having just become vacant by the death of Sir Arthur Palmer. Mr. Thomas Joseph Byrnes succeeded to the Premiership, and with Mr. Robert Philp as Treasurer it appeared as though the reconstructed Government had before it a life of several years. Five months afterwards, however, the young, brilliant, and much-esteemed Premier was removed by death, and Mr. Dickson was called to the Premiership. Fifteen months later the Dickson Government suffered defeat, and resigned office. Mr. Anderson Dawson, the Labour leader in the Assembly, being sent for, assumed the Premiership with six other Labour colleagues, but was defeated immediately he met Parliament a few days later, and resigned. He was succeeded by Mr. Philp, who assumed office on 7th December, 1899. There had been a drought in most parts of the West for a year or two previously, but wool prices were high, and better seasons were anticipated. The country had almost recovered from the blow sustained in 1893. Federation threatened some loss of revenue, but compensation was looked for in the enhanced prosperity resulting from interstate free trade. But for the two first years of the twentieth century there was everywhere in the State a very deficient rainfall, and in most inland parts absolute droughts. The double loss to the Treasury through Federation and parsimonious Nature was very serious. Mr. Philp made reductions in public service expenditure, but kept loan expenditure at the normal level, sanguine that when the change came there would be a swift recovery, and hesitating to add to the depression by suspending the construction of railways and other public works. Though by the end of June, 1903, the accumulated deficit exceeded a million sterling, and the general election of 1902 had given the Government a rather diminished majority, there appeared to be no apprehension of a crisis even when Parliament met for its second session in July, 1903. But the weight of successive deficits and the protracted tenure of the "Continuous Ministry" inspired a general desire for change; and, in September, Mr. Philp suddenly found himself without adequate support as the result of a number of influential Government supporters joining forces with the members of the Labour party. A new Ministry was at once formed, the Speaker, Mr. Arthur Morgan, resigning the chair and assuming the Premiership, Mr. William Kidston joining him as Treasurer. With a policy of retrenchment and reform the new Administration entered upon its career sustained by a strong backing of public opinion. Retrenchment had already been initiated by the late Government, and it was continued by Mr. Morgan and his colleagues. The bottom of the depression having been touched with the break-up of the drought, the financial year 1903-4 closed with a merely nominal deficit. In the next session, which opened in May, 1904, the Government encountered so much opposition that a dissolution was granted in July. So strongly were the constituencies in favour of the retention of office by Ministers that their party numbered 55 in a House of 72 when the new Parliament met in September, and the Government in that and the three following sessions were accordingly able to carry many of their measures of reform. In January, 1906, the death of Sir Hugh Nelson created a vacancy in the Presidency of the Legislative Council. The Premier, who had earned a reputation during his four years' occupancy of the Speaker's chair for an intimate and comprehensive knowledge of parliamentary procedure, was generally designated as peculiarly fitted to succeed to the position of President; and, having resigned both the Premiership and his seat as a member of the Assembly, he was translated to the Legislative Council. Mr. Kidston then became Premier. On the 11th of April, 1907, the Assembly's term having almost expired by effluxion of time, a dissolution took place, and a general election followed. The two chief objects for which the coalition between Liberals and Labour members had been brought about in 1903--sound financial administration and electoral reform--having been secured, disintegration had commenced to set in in the Government ranks. On the one hand some of the Liberals were desirous of reunion with their former associates led by Mr. Philp, and on the other the more extreme section of the Labour party adopted a socialistic platform, thereby causing their more moderate colleagues who followed Mr. Kidston to break with them before the election. The respective manifestoes of the Premier and the leader of the Opposition, issued some weeks before the dissolution, were found to embody practically the same policy in so far as vital measures of legislation were concerned. Both emphasised the necessity of having in office a Ministry possessing the steadfast support of a united following if full effect were to be given to their programme. The result was disappointing, for when the new House met in July the Philp party numbered 29, the Government party 25, and the Labour party 18. After a fight over the choice of the Speaker and Chairman of Committees, the Labour members gave a general support to the Government, but comparatively little progress could be made in consequence of the uncertainty of that support. The Legislative Council rejected several measures which both the Government and the Labour party were very anxious to see placed on the Statute-book. With a view to taking concerted action to overcome the veto of the Council on democratic legislation, Mr. Kidston made overtures to the Labour party for an offensive and defensive alliance in Parliament and at the polls. The Labour party replied that they were unable to give any assurance on the subject. Mr. Kidston then advised His Excellency, Lord Chelmsford, to recognise the principle that there resided in the Crown the power to nominate to the Legislative Council such a number of new members as might be required to overcome obstruction, and that the power should be exercised if, in the opinion of His Excellency's responsible advisers, such a course became necessary. The Governor declined to accept this advice, and the Premier resigned on 12th November. [Illustration: ROCKHAMPTON 1. Quay Street, from the North Side. 2. Custom House, Quay Street. 3. East Street.] Mr. Philp, being sent for by His Excellency, formed a Ministry, which was at once met in the Assembly by successive votes of want of confidence, the members of the Labour party uniting with the late Ministerialists in the divisions. A dissolution was granted, even though the House refused to vote Supply to the Government, and early in the new year (1908) a general election took place, Mr. Philp losing four seats, the Labour party gaining that number, while the Kidston party were again returned with the same following. The effect was that the Philp and Kidston parties each numbered 25 and the Labour members 22. As the two latter parties had in most cases assisted one another at the elections, the Philp Government resigned, and Mr. Kidston being recalled found his position practically unchanged, so far as relative numbers were concerned, and yet greatly strengthened as regards the constitutional reform he desired to effect. A short session was at once held. A reform of the Constitution limiting the vetoing power of the Legislative Council by providing for a referendum on any measure which the Council rejected twice, and also a number of democratic measures rejected by the Council in the two preceding sessions, were passed with the aid of the Labour party. When, however, the Government turned to legislation affecting the material progress of the State, and introduced two bills to authorise the construction of railways to mineral fields (to Mount Elliott in the Cloncurry copper area and to Lawn Hills in the Gulf district) on agreements made with two private companies who undertook to provide in one case one-half and in the other case three-fourths of the capital required, despite the fact that the railways were to be constructed, worked, and managed by the Railway Commissioner, that the companies were to receive no interest on the money they advanced until the railways earned it, and that when at the end of fifteen years the Government repaid the advance the companies were only to receive a sum equal to what their investment was then earning capitalised at 3½ per cent., the bills were obstructed by the Labour party, and were only passed with the assistance of the Philp party, under the closure, the Estimates being forced through by the same means at the close of the session. Before leaving on a mission to England, Mr. Kidston publicly intimated that he could no longer work with the Labour party. He returned in October, and the Philp party, recognising the mischievous futility of three-party government, agreed to accept the programme enunciated by Mr. Kidston at the election in 1907, and to join the Ministerial party, the Premier being granted a free hand, both by his colleagues and followers, in reconstructing the Government. The fusion of the two parties led to the immediate resignation of two Ministers and the formation of an Independent Opposition by these gentlemen and four more seceders from the Kidston party. A reconstruction of the Cabinet followed, three members of the Philp party taking office under Mr. Kidston. Mr. Philp declined to accept a portfolio, but undertook to give the new Government support as an unofficial member of the Assembly, an undertaking most loyally observed. Dissatisfaction was naturally felt by several members at the composition of the Cabinet, and when Parliament met on 17th November it was evident that the fusion had not had the desired effect of reducing the number of parties to two. On the Opposition side of the Chamber were the Labour party in direct opposition and the Independent Opposition of six sitting on the cross-benches, while on the Government back cross-benches were three or four members who joined forces with the Opposition in every division. The cohesive majority was still large enough to enable the Government to pass several railways, two or three bills, and the Estimates; but, unfortunately, it was found necessary to have recourse again to the closure to get the Estimates through the House before Christmas. Further defections took place during the recess. The sudden death of the Speaker, Mr. John Leahy, and the election for Bulloo of a Labour member in his stead, reduced the Government majority to two. Such a condition of affairs rendered it impossible for any party in the House to carry on public business. A trial of strength took place over the election of a Speaker when the House met on 29th June, the Government having a majority of two. Two days later Mr. Bowman, the leader of the Labour party, moved a want of confidence amendment on the Address in Reply. A very protracted and acrimonious debate took place, and the motion was only defeated by a majority of one in a full House. Arrangements had been made earlier in the year for the holding of a conference of Commonwealth and State Premiers and Treasurers with a view to making a final effort to arrive at a mutual understanding regarding the financial relations of the Commonwealth and the States after the expiry of the ten-year period provided for by section 87 of the Commonwealth Constitution. As it was considered highly important that Queensland should be represented at this Conference, which was to be held in mid-August, the Government secured an adjournment for a fortnight, but only by applying the closure. The Conference came to a unanimous agreement with regard to the future division of the surplus Customs and Excise revenue, justifying the determination of the Government of this State to be represented. But the efforts of the Opposition to defeat the proposal of the Government to adjourn furnished additional evidence, if any were needed, that no business could be done in a House so evenly divided. When the Premier returned from the Conference, which had been held in Melbourne, after consultation with his party, he advised the Lieutenant-Governor to dissolve the Assembly, provided it agreed to grant temporary Supply. His Excellency accepted Mr. Kidston's advice, but stipulated that the Supply must be for the shortest time in which it was possible to hold an election and summon the new Parliament. After another fight, the Government closured through an Appropriation Bill covering Supply for ten weeks, and the House was dissolved on 31st August, the election being fixed for 2nd October. The result of the appeal to the country has been to bring about a practical restoration of two-party government, an ideal for which the Ministerialists have been striving ever since the session of 1906. The Government have won 41 seats and the Labour party 27, while the Independent Opposition, which went out 12 strong, have been reduced to 4. The Government have thus a majority of ten over the combined Opposition parties, and should be able to carry to a successful issue their policy of railway construction, immigration, and land settlement, and to steer the State through the temporary difficulties arising from the pending rearrangement of the financial relations between the Commonwealth and the component States. It may be of interest to add that the last was the seventeenth Parliament of Queensland, which gives to each an average of about three years, the present maximum statutory term of the Legislative Assembly. The explanation is, of course, that in the earlier years of the colony the limit of the Assembly life-term was five years. As already stated, the Legislative Council when first constituted comprised 15 members. Since then the number has been periodically increased to correspond with the enlargement of the other Chamber. The present number of members of the Council is 44. Until 1865 the number of members of the Assembly was 26; thence till 1873 it was 32; thence till 1875 it was 42, increased in 1875 by the creation of the electorate of Cook to 43, at which number it remained until 1879, when there were 55 members. In 1886 the number was increased to 59, and in 1887 to 72, at which it still remains. Payment of members of the Assembly was first sanctioned in 1886 by an allowance of two guineas a day for attendance, and 1s. 6d. a mile for travelling expenses, the total in any one year for attendance not to exceed £200. In 1889 the payment was fixed at £300 a year, with a mileage allowance for one journey to and fro each session, unless where an adjournment exceeded thirty days, when mileage was again payable. In 1892 the salary was reduced to £150 a year. In 1896 it was again raised to £300, at which amount it still remains. The members of the Legislative Council receive no payment. In the foregoing sketch of the Legislature of Queensland many omissions will probably be detected by the careful reader. But as a rule mention of the names of public men has had to be confined to Premiers and such other Ministers or members to whom for some usually apparent reason it is necessary to give prominence. Had space permitted, many interesting character sketches of prominent men of the past, as well as of the present, might have been written; and it must not be forgotten that some of the services most worth recording have been rendered by men whose names have not become household words, and whose reward has been found in the lifelong consciousness that they have unobtrusively done their duty to the State. Enough has probably been said to prove that responsible government in Queensland, initiated among a mere handful of people fifty years ago, and carried on amidst discouraging difficulties until to-day, has been attended by results of which no patriotic subject of the King need feel ashamed. [Footnote a: An interesting incident occurred at the opening of the second session. The Speaker announced the receipt of a writ of election endorsing the return of the Right Honourable John Bright as member for Kennedy. As Mr. Bright had not been present during the preceding session--which had only lasted from 26th April till 4th May--the seat was declared vacant. This was not the first instance of an Australian constituency voluntarily disfranchising itself by electing a prominent British statesman by way of protest against some real or fancied injustice.] [Illustration: TOWNSVILLE: FLINDERS STREET, LOOKING WEST] CHAPTER II. PUBLIC FINANCE (1859-1884). Importance of Sound Finance.--A Great Colony Starts upon a Bank Overdraft.--First Year's Revenue.--Land Sales as Revenue.--Deficits in First Decade.--Transfer of Loan Moneys to Revenue to Balance Accounts.--Heavy Public Works Expenditure.--Crisis of 1866.--Inconvertible Paper Currency Proposals.--Flotation of Treasury Bills.--Higher Customs Duties.--Wiping Out a Deficit by Issue of Debentures. --Transfer of Surplus to Surplus Revenue Account to Recoup Loan Fund.--Incidental Protection.--Railway Land Reserves. --Proceeds Used as Ordinary Revenue.--Three-million Loan. --Condition of Affairs at Close of First Quarter-Century. --Phenomenal Progress; Prospects Bright. Sound finance is the sheet anchor of any Government, whether despotic or democratic. Without a prudent guiding hand at the Treasury the ship of State might as well be rudderless. In the fifty years of Queensland history financial mistakes have been made, from which much public loss as well as individual suffering has resulted. If those mistakes, or some of them, are laid bare in this book, the object is not to reflect upon Governments or individual Ministers, but to treasure the lessons thus taught for future use. Queensland began its career with a bank overdraft, for with "7½d. in the Treasury" on the date of the Queen's proclamation of the colony it was necessary to provide funds in anticipation of revenue collections. But at the outset borrowing was indulged in on a modest scale. For 1860 the revenue was £178,589, and the deficit only £1,514. For the second year there was a revenue surplus of £2,442 over the expenditure of £235,796. But there had been during the period an outlay of £63,210 on loan account. Besides this, of the total revenue for the two-year period--including the twenty-one days of 1859--the cash receipts from land sales, which strict political economists hold to be capital, were £114,803, equal to 27 per cent. of the total revenue. It may be assumed that the loan expenditure was entirely for permanent or reproductive works; but only 73 per cent. of the money spent for the service of the year was strictly revenue, the remainder arising from land sales. Yet as New South Wales practice had lent sanction to the use of land sales receipts as revenue, the Treasurer (Mr. R. R. Mackenzie) may be admitted to have managed well, since at the outset the estimates of revenue and expenditure were both wholly conjectural. Mr. Mackenzie's successors were less fortunate; for during the first decade, although the annual revenue had quadrupled, there were only two years with surpluses. There was another scarcely defensible transaction during the first ten years' term. In 1864 the Treasurer, finding he would otherwise have a relatively heavy deficit, balanced his budget by transferring from Loan Fund to Revenue the total expenditure incurred upon immigration since the foundation of the colony. In that year the loan outlay was £401,421, including the transfer to revenue, an increase of £337,950 in a single year. Thus the loan expenditure was at the rate of about £5 10s. per head of the population as ascertained by the census of the year. The deficit of 1864 seems less excusable because the revenue had increased by over 25 per cent. for the year. The incident illustrates the danger of suddenly increasing loan expenditure, which produces industrial and commercial activity, but at once adds to the cost of public administration in various ways. Loan money spent on the same scale per capita in Queensland to-day as in 1864 would mean a total sum of about £3,000,000 a year, whereas, even with the numerous railways lately started, the loan disbursements for 1908-9 did not quite reach 1¼ millions. Another consideration is that up to 1865 none of the loan works had become reproductive, and the 21¼ miles of railway then open for traffic did not earn working expenses. Further, the Government had been borrowing at 6 per cent. interest, which meant that the 1¼ millions of loan indebtedness at the end of 1865 imposed a burden upon the taxpayers of about £75,000 a year, or not far from £1 per head of the population. In 1866, the time of the great crisis, the revenue expenditure increased by £241,690, creating a deficit of £200,653 for the year. The loan expenditure for the year was £965,346, bringing the total debt up to £2,214,123, equal to over £23 per head of the population. The total expenditure for the year, including loan, reached nearly £17 per head. It is not surprising that a mere handful of people, plunging into debt at that reckless speed, found their credit suddenly shattered. In 1869, the last year of the decade, though the revenue had advanced to nearly three-quarters of a million, there was a deficit for the year of £37,217. For the ten years the net accumulated revenue deficit was £386,527, and the aggregate indebtedness nearly 3¼ millions. The interest charge was then about £225,000 per annum, and the entire weight of it fell upon consolidated revenue. The population being 109,897, the interest burden was at the rate of over £2 per head. It may here be remarked that in 1907-8 it was only £2 16s. 9d. per head, less railway net earnings of about £1 12s., reducing the net burden to about £1 5s. per head. Recurring to the debacle of 1866, it should be mentioned that the catastrophe was largely due to the failure of the Agra Bank, when all railway works were suddenly suspended, and the colony was plunged into the depths of extreme depression. During the two preceding years the loan expenditure had been largely in excess of revenue disbursements, no less than £685,246 of borrowed money having been spent in 1865. This was at the rate of nearly £8 per head of the total population, and its sudden cessation threatened thousands of the people of the colony with ruin. For not only had their sources of income been suddenly cut off, and landed property become almost valueless, but increased taxation had to be imposed. Yet the catastrophe was not wholly the fault of the Government. It was the consequence of the monetary and commercial crisis in the mother country in 1866. The Sydney branch of the Agra and Masterman's Bank had engaged to furnish £50,000 monthly to the Queensland Government for the prosecution of railways and other reproductive works pending the negotiation of the loan authorised by Parliament. The bank was of good standing, and under ordinary conditions its contract would have amply secured the position of the Treasury. Its failure could not have been foreseen; but the incident proves the unwisdom of a Government leaning upon any banking institution for heavy advances which can only be made on the assumption that normal deposits are maintained. In Queensland the position was intensified by the proposal of the Macalister Government to issue inconvertible legal tender notes, because it gave countenance to the economic fallacy that any Government can make money to an indefinable amount with the aid of the printing press. The resignation of Ministers because their advice had been refused by the Governor shook for the moment the very foundations of authority; and had not Mr. Herbert's services been available on the eve of his departure for England the consequences might have been grave indeed. But he consented to take office without portfolio for a few days with several other members, and, by getting authority from Parliament to issue Treasury bills, he saved the country from financial chaos. As it was, the ordeal proved a severe test of the loyalty of the people of the colony. On the establishment of Queensland a Customs tariff imposing light revenue duties was inherited from New South Wales. Under it spirits bore a duty of only 7s. per gallon. In 1865 the Treasurer, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Joshua Peter Bell, introduced a bill to raise the spirit duties by 3s. per gallon, and the duty on other intoxicants in proportion. The bill passed the second reading without debate, for it must have been felt that with the rapidly increasing interest charge further taxation ought years before to have been imposed. After the crisis of 1866 had subsided, further increased duties for temporary purposes were passed, as were also stamp duties, so that the revenue for the following year, despite the depression, showed the important increment of about £120,000. Happily the Crocodile goldfield, near Rockhampton, was discovered towards the close of 1866, and the Gympie goldfield during the next succeeding year. Hence for the remainder of the decade revenue, despite prolonged stagnation in business, steadily, if not rapidly, increased. In 1869 authority had been obtained from Parliament to liquidate the accumulated deficits by the issue of Treasury bills for the sum of £350,000, the increased duties of Customs imposed for temporary purposes in 1866 being at the same time continued for twelve months. In January, 1872, the Treasurer (Mr. Bell) referred in committee of the Assembly to the accumulated deficit, stating that the Treasury bills which had temporarily provided for it were falling due, and that there was no hope of paying the amount out of revenue. He therefore announced the intention of the Government to retire the bills and fund the debt by issuing long-dated debentures. That having been done, the effect was to produce a surplus for the year 1872 of £487,333. This indicated that had the Government exhibited a little more confidence the whole amount of the deficit might have been paid off out of revenue; for in the next year, shortly before the Palmer Government went out of office, a further surplus of £158,874 was realised. This sum, with the excess surplus of £137,333 for the preceding year, totalled £296,207, leaving only £53,793 short of the entire amount of the Treasury bills. In the next year there would have been a surplus, but the Macalister Ministry, which assumed office early in January, 1874--Mr. William Hemmant being Treasurer--carried £240,000 to a surplus revenue account, and ended the year with a revenue deficit of £200,762. While the revenue of that year only increased by £40,913, the expenditure, in addition to the surplus revenue item, increased by £160,550. The Macalister Ministry could not keep down expenditure, and in 1875-6--the end of the financial year having been changed from December to June--with a revenue slightly exceeding 1¼ millions, they had a further deficit of £51,663. The same party continued in power for a further two years under the leadership successively of Mr. George Thorn and Mr. John Douglas. Revenue continued fairly elastic, and the deficit period was followed by two years showing small surpluses. [Illustration: HINCHINBROOK CHANNEL, NORTH QUEENSLAND] [Illustration: THE NARROWS AND MOUNT LARCOMBE, NEAR GLADSTONE] Early in 1879 the McIlwraith Ministry assumed office, at a time when, as the Premier himself admitted in his Budget speech of 1880, the colony was "emerging from a state of depression induced by three bad seasons of an extraordinary character," so that the year 1878-9 closed with the considerable deficit of £216,808. This was partly due, however, to the operation of the Western Railway Act and the Railway Reserves Act, by which the most saleable land in the colony had been included in railway reserves, and the proceeds of sales, instead of as previously going into consolidated revenue, were placed to the credit of a special fund. Mr. (afterwards Sir Thomas) McIlwraith while in opposition had predicted that this course would produce a revenue deficit; consequently on attaining office he induced Parliament to sanction the transfer of all these sums, totalling £382,346, to consolidated revenue. Mr. McIlwraith argued that it would be impossible to construct a tithe of the railways needed in different parts of the colony out of the proceeds of land sales, and that it would be sufficient if the interest on railways, until they became fully reproductive, were defrayed from that source. Parliament accepted that view, and forthwith authorised a loan of 3 millions for a comprehensive schedule of railways proposed by the Government in 1879-80. Between August, 1879, and May, 1883, loans amounting to £5,553,000 were floated and a further sum of £1,233,000 was authorised, but not placed on the market. During the McIlwraith Administration of 1879-83 the revenue increased from rather less than 1½ millions to 2½ millions. The period was characterised by two deficits and three surpluses, showing accumulated surpluses of £272,412, without taking into account the sum of £382,346 transferred to revenue. During these years the colony was prosperous, the fair seasons, large loan expenditure, the establishment of the British-India service _via_ Torres Strait, and the free introduction of immigrants, all combining to push the country along the path of progress; but prosperity had compelled a _pro rata_ increase of expenditure. At the end of the quarter-century in 1884 the public debt was £16,570,850, on which the interest charge was £701,565. Of this amount £9,417,318 expended on railways was earning £2 18s. per cent. The length of lines open for traffic totalled 1,207 miles. The population was 309,913. About £2,350,000 had been spent on immigration, of which nearly a third of a million had come from revenue, £1,778,000 from loan, and the rest from "special receipts"--partly contributions from immigrants. The year's imports were of the declared value of £6,381,976, and the exports £4,673,864. Joint stock bank assets exceeded 11 millions, liabilities were nearly 7¾ millions, deposits exceeded 6 millions, and savings bank deposits were over 1 million. Of cattle there were 4¼ millions, of sheep less than 9½ millions, while horses numbered 253,116. There were 6,979 miles of telegraph line constructed. There were over 7 million acres of land alienated, which had produced over 4¾ millions sterling of revenue. The value of minerals won for the year was £1,325,624. There were 528 schools with 60,701 scholars, 5,185 subscribers to public libraries, and 60,257 volumes. Comparing these figures with those of 1860 it will be seen that, despite droughts, floods, and financial crises, the progress attained had been phenomenal. Thus in a financial aspect the first quarter-century closed glowingly, despite a severe Western drought in 1883. There had been rapid and apparently solid progression, and the disasters of 1866, which seemed at the time to threaten the solvency of Government and people alike, had become an unpleasant memory--a catastrophe very unlikely to recur for various reasons, among them being that the railways were beginning greatly to facilitate transport, as well as to show considerable net earnings; while instead of the Government borrowing at 6 per cent., as formerly, money in abundance could be got at 3½ per cent. Moreover, mortgage loans and bank overdrafts bore a greatly reduced rate of interest. CHAPTER III. PUBLIC FINANCE (1884-1893). The Ten-million Loan.--Ministers Practically Granted Control of Five Years' Loan Money.--Vigorous Railway Policy.--Effect of Over-spending.--Inflation of Values.--Increased Taxation. --Succession of Deficits.--Second McIlwraith Ministry. --A Protectionist Tariff.--Temporary Increase of Revenue. --Heavy Contraction in 1890.--Another Big Loan; Failure of Flotation.--The First Underwritten Australian Loan. --Amended Audit Act Limiting Spending Power of Government. At the end of 1883 the Griffith Ministry succeeded to office with a strong following. It was early in March, 1884, that the Appropriation and Loan Acts for 1883-4 became law, but the regular session of the year did not begin until 7th July. It was in this session that the Government introduced their colossal railway extension scheme, and their famous "Ten-million Loan Act"--actually, however, the amount was £9,980,000. This sum was to be spent during the following five years, which meant that the members of the Assembly voted in a lump sum, and on an unprecedented scale, the loan expenditure for the maximum term of the Parliament. The effect was also to ensure the life of the Ministry for the same term, as it was intended to expend about 2 millions sterling a year, or about £6 10s. per annum per head of the population. This was equal to about three-fourths of the total consolidated revenue for 1884. The Ministry no doubt meant well, and their preparation of a schedule of works to extend over five years was in the abstract commendable. But the expenditure of so much loan money provoked inflation in values, and led to unhealthy speculation in land. Although Ministers did not in any one year quite reach their 2-million conventional limit of loan outlay, the 10 millions were exhausted soon after their retirement from office, and a further loan had to be authorised to finish their uncompleted works. While such railways as the "Via Recta" (Ipswich to Warwick) and the Cloncurry to the Gulf lines were both on the 1884 loan schedule--the amount set down for each being £500,000--they have never been even commenced to this day, a quarter of a century since they were passed by the Assembly. Other lines then authorised absorbed more than the amount voted, and necessarily had afterwards to be completed to make them reproductive. The revenue not proving as expansive as the necessities of the Treasury required, an Act passed in 1885 imposed 5 per cent. ad valorem duties upon most kinds of industrial machinery, increased the spirit duties to 12s. per gallon, and levied upon log and undressed timber a duty of 1s. per 100 feet superficial and upon dressed timber of 1s. 6d. per 100 feet. In the following year the ad valorem duties were increased to 7½ per cent., except as to machinery, which remained at 5 per cent.; but small levies like these were as drops in the bucket by comparison with the constantly expanding needs of the Treasurer. The 10-million loan schedule did not exhaust the list of what were deemed necessary works. In 1886 a special Act was passed appropriating £123,000, to be raised by Treasury bills having a term of five years, for the duplication of the Brisbane-Ipswich railway, and the completion of the lines from Mackay to Eton and Hamilton, and from Ravenswood Junction to Ravenswood, respectively. In the year following an Act was passed authorising the issue of further Treasury bills amounting to £349,834 for the construction of eight small lines, and the extension of the Brisbane and Southport line, with a branch to Beaudesert, thus bringing the railways and works loan schedule of the Griffith Ministry up to £10,452,834. By the advent of the financial year 1888-9, most intelligent public men felt gravely disturbed. The bank deposits, which had been trebled in a decade, had to earn interest on the additional 7 millions of money held and advanced. When the Griffith Ministry retired from office in June, 1888, they had recorded four successive annual deficits aggregating £968,313, although between 1884-5 and 1887-8 the revenue had increased by £456,861, and there had been spent over 1¾ millions of loan money per annum in addition. During the year 1888-9, after Sir Thomas McIlwraith assumed office, the expenditure increased by £128,922, but he obtained a revenue increase of about £437,000. This increase chiefly arose from the heavier duties levied under the protectionist Customs tariff of 1888; but in 1889-90 there was an almost equivalent shrinkage in both Customs and total revenue. Bad times partly accounted for the subsequent inelasticity of Customs receipts, for not until 1895-6 were the total revenue figures of 1888-9 again touched. The year 1889-90 was characterised by a deficit of £483,979, for the drop of £402,857 in revenue and the increase of £197,969 in expenditure dislocated the finances, and caused the retirement of the Morehead Government after an ineffectual attempt to impose a general tax of 5 per cent. on all property, both real and personal. The coalition Griffith-McIlwraith Administration followed, but could not in such a time of value shrinkages materially increase revenue, while expenditure was thought to be irreducible. Despite a Loan Act for 1½ millions passed in 1888-9, to provide for works temporarily met by floating Treasury bills during the two preceding years, another large loan was authorised in 1890, its total being nearly 3¾ millions sterling. This money was needed to retire debentures maturing on 1st July, 1891, amounting to £1,170,950, and no less than £422,850 deficiency loss on the loans of 1882, 1884, and 1889, thus leaving little more than 2 millions for railway and harbour works. This 3¾ million Loan Act did not receive the Royal assent until December, 1890, and the stock was issued a few months later at a most unfortunate time. The monetary tension which culminated in 1893 was already felt in the London market, and the credit of Queensland had become much impaired by the fact that during the preceding decade (1880-81 to 1889-90) the colony's obligations had increased by £16,706,834, bringing the funded public debt up to £28,105,684--nearly £70 per head of the population--while railway net earnings were steadily dwindling. [Illustration: BARRON GORGE, BELOW THE FALLS, CAIRNS RAILWAY] The cable soon flashed the unwelcome news that only £1,554,834 was subscribed. After some difficulty a Stock Exchange syndicate was formed to underwrite £1,182,400 of the balance, the price realised for the whole amount taken up averaging £87 6s. 1d. per £100 of 3½ per cent. stock. Thus the net proceeds of the loan of £3,704,800 were only £3,234,376, a depreciation loss of £470,424. The interest charge on this new loan was £129,668; so that the interest, while nominally 3½ per cent., was really just 4 per cent. on the money received, and, in addition, at due date (1930), £470,424 depreciation will have to be made good. But the tragedy did not end there, for the money borrowed, or the greater part of it, had not reached the Treasury in 1893, but ranked among the "suspended bank deposits" which then paralysed both Government and private depositors. That the time chosen for going on the money market was not opportune may be gathered from the fact that in 1889 Queensland 3½ per cent. stock had brought £96 0s. 11d. per £100, and in 1894--three years after the forced sale at £87 6s. 1d. in 1891--an issue of our stock of the same denomination brought £98 14s. 0¼d. per £100. It may be noted that the Queensland loan of 1890-91 was the first underwritten Government loan issued by an Australian colony, though since that time all Government loans have been underwritten. Heavy as our sacrifice in 1891 may have been, it was infinitely less disastrous than making default must have proved; and perhaps after all the experience gained was worth its cost, for, although the colony staggered under the blow, its progress was checked only for the time. In 1890 an amending Audit Act was passed--Sir Thomas McIlwraith being then Treasurer--section 4 of which made the important provision that it should not be lawful for the Colonial Treasurer to expend any moneys standing to the credit of the Loan Fund Account except under the authority of an annual or special Appropriation Act, in like manner as moneys were expended out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the current expenses of government. By section 6 it was provided that, when it was necessary to expend for any work money in excess of the appropriation, then, if such sum were included in any Appropriation Act, the Governor in Council might authorise the additional expenditure from the Loan Fund. By section 8, annual Loan Estimates, specifying the nature of the work proposed, were to be submitted, as in the case of the Estimates of ordinary expenditure. This Act was passed to avoid the evil of placing large amounts of borrowed money at the uncontrolled disposal of the Ministry of the day. CHAPTER IV. PUBLIC FINANCE (1893-1898). Sir Hugh Nelson at the Treasury.--Credit of Colony Restored. --Assistance to Financial Institutions and Primary Industries. --Savings Bank Stock Act.--Public Debt Reduction Fund. --Treasurer's Cautious and Prudent Administration.--Money Obtained in London at a Record Price. When the banking crisis occurred in 1893, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Hugh Nelson, who had previously held office with distinction as Railway Minister for about two years, reluctantly took charge of the embarrassed Treasury. Entering Parliament after the general election in 1883, he had from the first given evidence of more than common knowledge of public finance. Mr. Nelson was an exceedingly modest man, and an indifferent public speaker at best; but he possessed courage, thoroughness, and scholarly knowledge. In public matters he always aimed at taking the line of least resistance; but knowing what he knew in March, 1893, his assumption of office as Treasurer must be regarded as an act of heroism dictated by regard for the public welfare. Quietly and unobtrusively he worked, refusing all invitations to appear on public platforms, and while affecting contempt for politicians who constantly apostrophised "the people," he determined to set the affairs of the colony straight. Revenue at that time had almost touched bottom, and was very inelastic; and Mr. Nelson followed the example of his immediate predecessor in keeping a tight hand upon expenditure. For 1892-3 there had been a reduction of outlay of about £70,000 only, as compared with the preceding year, the June deficit having been reduced to £111,676; but in the next year he realised rather less revenue, yet reduced expenditure by £206,000, closing the year with a small deficit of £8,467. As this was the time in which most commercial and financial disaster was suffered from the crisis, this economy was a feat worth accomplishing, although the drastic reduction of expenditure tended to aggravate the crisis by delaying the restoration of confidence. After 1893-4 followed six surpluses. In the midst of the bank reconstructions of 1893 there had been a general election, and Parliament met on 25th May. Between then and 18th October, 1893, Mr. Nelson, as Treasurer in the McIlwraith Ministry, passed those financial measures which were the greatest achievements of his career. An unpopular measure was his Civil Service Special Retrenchment Act, but it was imperative, and civil servants were indeed fortunate, when so large a number of their friends in private life were left destitute, in being able to draw their diminished salaries month by month. The Queensland National Bank Limited Agreement Act enabled that institution to resume business, though the public sacrifice was great. Acts were also passed for encouraging meat and dairy works; for advancing guaranteed loans by the Treasury to sugar works companies; for Treasury advances upon the notes of suspended joint stock banks; for the issue of Treasury notes, made legal tender throughout the colony save by the Treasury; and for the imposition of a yearly tax of 10 per cent. on notes issued by banks. In the same session was passed an Act for giving relief to public depositors, such as treasurers of hospitals and other public institutions, by making Treasury advances upon the amount of their locked-up deposits. Another important measure of this period was the Government Savings Bank Stock Act of 1894, under which any savings bank depositor may exchange his deposit for £10, or any multiple thereof, of Government stock redeemable in 1945, and bearing not more than 3½ per cent. interest. In 1897 the amount of such stock issuable was increased from £1,000,000 to £2,000,000. The object of this measure was to give depositors the opportunity of making investments in small amounts of Government stock, for which there would always be a buoyant market in the event of cash being required; and also to safeguard the Treasury by reducing the amount of money held on account of savings bank deposits repayable at call. In 1897 the total deposits did not exceed 2½ millions; to-day they total over 5 millions. It is therefore satisfactory to note that the Treasurer (Mr. Hawthorn) early in the current year made arrangements for enlarging the sale of savings bank stock in the manner intended by the author of the Act. In 1895 Mr. Nelson passed the amended Audit Act under which, if it appears by the Treasurer's annual statement that there is a surplus of receipts for any financial year, the money shall, before the 31st day of December following, be paid to the trustees of the Public Debt Reduction Fund created by the Act, and by them applied, first to the purchase of Treasury bills, and then to the purchase of inscribed stock at the current market price, stock so purchased to be cancelled. As a Treasurer with a deficit is bound to make provision for its liquidation at the end of a financial year, the effect of the Act has been to start every year with a clean sheet. By this practice an ingenious Treasurer is deprived of the opportunity of juggling with accumulated surpluses. [Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO MARKET, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND] [Illustration: FAT CATTLE, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND] In April, 1898, when Sir Hugh Nelson retired from active politics, he had just completed five years' service as Treasurer. During that time he had gone to the London money market only twice, and had issued stock to the amount of only 3¾ millions. Of that sum, moreover, the 2 millions asked for in 1894 was for retiring Treasury bills, and for the liquidation of the deficit on account of previously issued loans. In 1896 the Loan Act totalled £2,324,480, though it was not all placed by Sir Hugh Nelson. It provided for further railway extensions, and included half a million sterling for loans in terms of the Local Works Loans Act under the Sugar Works Guarantee Act; £600,000 was applied to the purchase at par of savings bank stock for cancellation, only 1½ millions being placed on the London market. Of these two loans issued subsequent to the 1893 crisis, the first, bearing 3½ per cent. interest, realised £98 14s. 0¼d. net per £100 of stock, and the other, floated in 1897, bearing 3 per cent., brought £95 15s. 10¾d., the record price for money obtained by the issue of Queensland Government stock in London. CHAPTER V. PUBLIC FINANCE (1898-1903). The Philp Ministry.--Large Surplus.--Loan Acts for Seven and a-half Millions Sterling.--Drought Disasters and Sacrifices for Federation.--Accumulated Revenue Deficits of over £1,000,000.--Rebuff on London Stock Exchange.--Resignation of Philp Ministry. When Mr. Philp took charge of the Treasury in March, 1898, the credit of the colony appeared to have been fully restored. True, the funded public debt had grown to 33½ millions, but the population had also increased to 484,700, so that the public debt proper was slightly more than £69 per head. The year 1897-8 closed with the small surplus of £20,724 at the Treasury, and revenue was steadily improving. In June, 1899, Mr. Philp had the largest surplus realised for seventeen years, nearly £150,000, but then an era of drought began. Still revenue continued to advance until the establishment of federation in 1901, when financial trouble was accentuated. The year 1899-1900 had shown a small surplus of £47,789, to be followed by three successive deficits aggregating £1,151,469. Mr. Philp, an old colonist, an experienced business man, and with a full knowledge of its varied resources, had unbounded confidence in the future of the State. Soon after he became Premier at the close of 1899, he essayed a bold public works policy, and during his first three years of office he induced Parliament to sanction the borrowing of nearly 7½ millions sterling. But he did not issue the whole of the last 2¼ millions. Owing principally to the South African war, colonial stocks were not high in favour in 1900, and the Queensland Government, acting on the best advice, decided to call for tenders for the £1,400,000 of 3 per cent. stock placed on the English money market in July of that year. The loan only realised £91 5s. 1½d. per cent., about the same price that was obtained by New South Wales and West Australia in the same year. Of the balance of the loan, £900,000 was taken up in Queensland by the trustees of the Government Savings Bank at £97 per cent., and £46,600, sold locally and bearing 3½ per cent. interest, realised £99 10s. 8¼d. net, the local market not being affected by the adverse influences and the choice of investments which operated in London. In October, 1901, for £1,374,213 offered in London at 3 per cent., the extremely low price of £88 12s. 4d. was obtained; and in 1903, when the then Treasurer (Mr. T. B. Cribb) again sought to enter the London market with 3½ per cent. stock, he could only place £750,000 worth at the low rate of £92 19s. 11¾d. Times had indeed changed, and for the moment the State was practically excluded from the London money market. The balance of the loan has been, and is being, issued in Queensland, about £456,000 being still unsold. The year 1899-1900, from the revenue standpoint, was the record year of the century. Wool brought extremely high prices in London, and loan expenditure had been maintained during the previous two years at an average of a little over £1,000,000 per annum. For the next year, one-half of which was subsequent to the proclamation of the Commonwealth, revenue showed a decline of nearly half a million sterling, although loan outlay had been increased rather than lessened. Two reasons could be assigned for this shrinkage--a bad season in the West, and the dislocation of accounts resulting from federation. Still, in 1899-1900, the expenditure from revenue was fully maintained, with the result that on 30th June, 1901, the deficit exceeded half a million. In the next year, 1901-2, there was a further decline of about half a million in revenue, arising (1) from one-fourth of the State's Customs revenue and the whole of its postal revenue being retained by the Commonwealth, and (2) from the sparse rainfall and the heavy drop in London wool prices. Thus, although the apparent expenditure showed a decline of about £650,000 due to the cost of the transferred departments being defrayed by the Commonwealth, the financial year ended with a deficit of £431,940. The year 1902 was the most disastrous with respect to rainfall that Australia ever experienced, and the drought struck Queensland with cruel intensity. The revenue of 1902-3 was maintained at nearly the level of the previous year, good rains having fallen early in 1903, while the expenditure was cut down by about a quarter of a million; yet there was a further deficit of £191,341, despite the fact that an income tax had been imposed and a Public Service Special Retrenchment Act passed which resulted in a saving of £87,000. The Philp regime practically ended with an accumulated deficit, as above mentioned, of £1,151,469; for, about two months after the close of the financial year 1902-3, the Ministry were compelled by a schism in their party to resign office. They had been long popularly stigmatised as the "Continuous Government." The work of the coalition of 1890 having been accomplished, Ministers had exhausted their popularity; yet the probability is that but for the financial debacle the end would not have come quite so soon. The drought having by this time broken, a return of prosperity was naturally expected; but on the one hand Ministers had made enemies by severe retrenchment, and on the other hand they were blamed for having failed to balance their budget. When Parliament met on 21st July, 1903, Mr. Philp appeared still to command a working majority--though somewhat diminished by the general election of 1902-3 compared with that which had followed him for three years previously. But on the 8th of September the Treasurer, Mr. T. B. Cribb, carried his taxation resolutions in Committee of Ways and Means, after an acrimonious debate, by a majority of only two votes in a House of sixty-five, several prominent Government supporters voting with the Noes. Mr. Philp then moved the adjournment of the House, and next day announced the resignation of his Ministry. [Illustration: MAROOCHY RIVER AND NINDERRY MOUNTAIN, NORTH COAST RAILWAY] CHAPTER VI. PUBLIC FINANCE (1903-1909). The Morgan-Kidston Ministry.--Economy in Revenue Expenditure.--Great Reduction in Loan Outlay.--Equilibrium Established at the Treasury.--Retrenchment and Taxation. --Improvement of Finances.--A Record Surplus for Queensland. --Land Sales Proceeds Act.--Abstention from Borrowing. --First Loan Floated since 1903.--Sound Position of Queensland.--Value of State Securities.--Reproductiveness of Railways Built out of Loan Money.--Public Estate Improvement Fund.--How Recourse to Money Market has been Avoided. On the 15th September, 1903, the Speaker's resignation was announced, and on the 17th Mr. (now Sir) Arthur Morgan announced the formation of a new Ministry with himself as Premier, his colleagues including the leader, (the late Mr. W. H. Browne) and another prominent member of the Labour party (Mr. W. Kidston). The new Ministry came in expressly to restore the financial equilibrium, the Treasurer being Mr. Kidston. Retrenchment became the order of the day, although the Estimates of the late Government were adopted, having regard to the fact that the first quarter of the financial year had practically expired. The pruning-knife was applied with vigour, and loan expenditure rapidly lessened, although existing railway contracts had of course to be completed. On 30th June following, revenue showed an increase of £69,000, while expenditure had been reduced by £110,000, the financial year ending with a deficit of only £12,424. Loan expenditure had been brought down to £603,805, a reduction of no less than £418,600 compared with the previous year. In the middle of the session of 1904 the Premier advised a dissolution, which was granted; and after the general election the Ministry returned in such strength as to warrant Parliament in treating their policy, especially the financial part of it, as practically a mandate from the constituencies. In 1904-5 the revenue being within £41 of the amount of the preceding year, while the expenditure was about £26,000 less, a surplus, the first for five years, was recorded for the nominal sum of £13,995. Seeing that loan expenditure had been reduced to less than a quarter of a million, that general retrenchment had been carried out, and that a recovery of trade and industry was not yet clearly apparent, the result must be deemed highly satisfactory; also, the Treasurer refused, after his first year of office, to continue the practice of charging to loan fund the amount spent by the Commonwealth Government on new works and buildings. The amount was not large, but even the £20,000 to £30,000 per annum so expended would, if transferred to loan, have improved the appearance of the State revenue account. In 1904 the obnoxious but necessary Special Retrenchment Act was re-enacted for the nine months of the financial year still remaining, the rate of deduction being diminished by one-half, while provision was made that any surplus revenue for the financial year should be paid to the public servants. The year closed with a surplus of £13,995, which was at once distributed _pro rata_ among the retrenched officers. The continuation of the Act was not popular among public servants, but it was deemed necessary in the interests of the wider community; and, as the net result was that a public officer only lost 7s. 6d. for every £1 deducted from his salary during the two previous years, it can hardly be considered unfair, having regard to the losses sustained by the general public during the same period. Another unpopular measure was the Income Tax Amending Act, which exempted from taxation incomes of £100 and under, but in regard to the larger incomes somewhat increased the taxation then levied. In 1906 a further Income Tax Amending Act was passed, adding to the taxation in some cases, but raising the exemption to £160 and granting an exemption of £120 on incomes between £160 and £200. In 1907 another amendment of the Act increased the exemption to £200 on all incomes, and reduced certain imposts, which had the effect of relinquishing revenue to the extent of £40,000 to £50,000 for the year. But times had then improved, and the Treasurer could afford this grateful relief to the poorer classes of the community. Early in 1906, owing to the death of Sir Hugh Nelson, Mr. Morgan retired from the Ministry, Mr. Kidston becoming Chief Secretary in his stead, while still retaining the Treasurership. Mr. Morgan then accepted the Presidency of the Legislative Council. In the year 1905-6 the revenue had become buoyant, the increase for the year being £258,124. The expenditure had also increased by over one-half that amount, the year closing with the surplus of £127,811. Loan outlay also showed an increase, totalling nearly £300,000. In 1906-7 there was a revenue jump of £454,389, with an increase in expenditure of £186,085, the record Queensland surplus of £396,115 being realised.[a] For 1907-8 the revenue increase was £180,486, while the expenditure increase was £461,299, and the surplus only £115,302. Loan outlay also advanced to £1,033,676. Including the Commonwealth collections the total revenue for 1907-8 approached 5½ millions, or nearly 1 million in excess of the most fruitful year before federation. In November, 1906, a brief but important Act was passed providing that all moneys received in payment for auction sales of town, suburban, and country lands, or of such lands if subsequently purchased by selection, should hereafter be paid into the Loan Fund Account. But proceeds of the land sold under the Special Sales of Land Act of 1901 were not included, those moneys having been already appropriated to the repayment of sums borrowed upon certain Treasury bills issued in aid of revenue in former years. It is the policy of the Kidston Government, however, not to alienate lands under the Special Sales Act; therefore the deficits of former years which had been liquidated with the proceeds of Treasury bills, and practically formed a floating debt, are being gradually compensated for by the transfer of annual surpluses to the Public Debt Reduction Fund, the total amount of stock thus cancelled having on 30th June, 1908, reached the respectable amount of £942,641 since the inception of the fund. One of the wise determinations of Mr. Kidston as Treasurer was to keep off the London money market for several years at least after the rebuff received by his predecessor in 1903. Consequently he abstained from making any attempt to float a loan till March, 1909, when £2,000,000 worth of 3½ per cent. stock was disposed of. The net proceeds were equal to £94 9s. 6½d. per cent., a price about equivalent to that obtained by New South Wales a little earlier in the year. This, although dearer money than was obtained by issues of Queensland stock in the closing decade of the last century, compares not unfavourably with the prices obtained earlier in the financial year for other gilt-edged securities on the London market. The net average rate of interest payable on the public debt of Queensland on 30th June, 1908, was £3 14s. 1d. per cent., but this rather high rate arose from the fact that more than a moiety of the total debt was incurred many years ago, when all Australian stocks bore 4 per cent. interest. The lowest average rate now paid by any Australian State is £3 8s. 9d. by Western Australia, most of whose stock was issued during the closing decade of the 19th century, and bears from 3¼ to 3½ per cent. Speaking generally, Queensland stands well on the London money market at present, as, according to the "Commonwealth Year Book" quotations from the "Economist" newspaper, the "middle price" of her 3½ per cents. quoted on 'Change on the 25th September of last year was £100, a figure only equalled at the time by Victoria among the Australian States; and in December following £99, which was on a par with New South Wales stock on the same date, and only 10s. per cent. below the quotation for Victorian stock. These prices, however, for comparative purposes seem to need slight adjustment on account of the interest respectively due at date of quotation. Having regard to the fact that the public debt of Queensland is higher than that of any other Australian State per head of the population, the policy of abstention from further borrowing from 1903 until 1909 has been vindicated in a most gratifying manner. A pregnant fact is that more than one-half the entire public debt has been invested in railways which in 1908-9 returned £883,610[b] in net earnings, all available for the payment of interest on capital, or equal to about £3 7s. 6d. per cent. per annum, which meant that our railway system was almost self-supporting, besides being the source of a large indirect gain to the Treasury by providing facilities for transport over 3,498 miles of line. It is no exaggeration to assert that directly and indirectly the railways assist the Treasury to the amount of the annual interest charge on the entire public debt of the State. Instead of the railways being a burden upon the taxpayer, as in former years, they have undoubtedly now become the backbone of the public credit. Seven years ago the interest charge on railway capital falling on the taxpayer amounted to £513,128. To-day, as shown by official figures, there is practically no such burden, and the existing state of the investment not only forms a complete justification for the railway policy of the past, but also for the vigorous way in which the construction of new lines is being pushed forward. With a continuance of good management it is apparent that the time is within measurable distance when the Railway Commissioner will, unless rates be reduced, hand to the State Treasurer a large annual surplus which will be available for lightening the public burdens. Among other minor financial reforms for which the Morgan and Kidston Governments have earned credit is the creation of the Public Estate Improvement Trust Account, to which is charged the cost of roads, water supply, and other improvements made to Crown lands about to be thrown open for settlement, such cost being afterwards added to the selling price of those lands. Up to 30th June, 1908, 1½ million acres of Crown land had thus been made available for selection by a total expenditure of £85,784, the value of which has thus been enhanced, it is estimated, by more than half a million sterling. This amount will ultimately find its way into consolidated revenue. And all this with a debtor balance of the account on 30th June, 1908, of only £58,287. Allowing that the profit is shown in figures yet to be realised, the estimated margin is so large that the result cannot be doubtful. [Illustration: SCENE ON BARCALDINE DOWNS, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND] [Illustration: BARCALDINE DOWNS HOMESTEAD, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND] Loan expenditure on public works, though greatly reduced, was never entirely stopped by the Morgan and Kidston Governments. In 1903 they inherited from their predecessors a loan cash balance of 1¼ millions. By compelling the local bodies to pay up arrears of redemption on local loans, by investing about £603,000 of revenue surpluses in unissued stock, with the help of interest accruing on public loan cash balances, and the annual instalments paid by the Queensland National Bank in liquidation of its extended deposit debt, nearly 3½ millions sterling was spent on loan account during the five years ended 30th June, 1909, without placing on the money market any part of the then unissued balance of the 1902 loan. [Footnote a: The so-called surplus of £487,333 in 1872 was obtained by the transfer of £350,000 from loan fund to revenue.] [Footnote b: These net earnings are Treasury cash figures. They differ somewhat from the departmental figures, which do not deal with cash, but with book receipts and expenditure.] CHAPTER VII. THE BOOM DECADE (1880-1890). A Great Boom Decade.--Causes of Inflation of Values. --Excessive Rating Valuations.--False Basis of Assessing Capital Value.--Prodigality Succeeded by Financial Stringency and Collapse of Boom.--Difficulty in Determining Real Values.--Sir Hugh Nelson's Legislation. --Sound Finance.--Stability of State.--Prospects Good To-day. The prospects of Queensland had seldom been brighter than they were at the opening of the 1880-90 decade. The seasons were good, the outlook was regarded as brilliant, and a general air of confidence reigned. The Government were spending loan money lavishly, and large amounts were being spent in introducing a stream of immigrants from Europe. These and other causes contributed to the prevailing over-confidence and the consequent excessive values put upon fixed property. One was the influx of capital for investment on private account, for the confidence felt in Queensland mortgage securities not only extended to the other colonies of Australia, but also to the mother country. Another was the discovery of subterranean water in Western Queensland, and the opinion expressed by geologists that more than one-half the total area of the colony, and that in the driest parts of the far West, was artesian water-bearing country. The discovery, it was argued, had added a new province to Queensland, and one whose fertility, water once provided, would not be excelled, despite a normally light rainfall, by any other part of the continent. One consequence was the sale of Western stations at high prices, and the investment by their late owners of the proceeds in city and town properties. They had experienced the risks of the far inland climate, and they wanted to invest in land in the seaport towns, which must quickly become centres of extensive trade. Another cause was the raising of rating values by the local authorities, of whom those having jurisdiction in suburban or country areas were endowed with £2 from the Treasury for every £1 raised by rates. To augment the claims for endowment, although the rate levies were in a few cases raised to the maximum legal limit, in most the valuations alone were raised, and the rate levy left untouched. It was held that it paid the property owner to contribute a high rate when with the endowment it meant three times that sum, most of which would be spent in improving his land by making roads and carrying on other local works calculated to enhance property values. A further cause of inflation was the cutting up of suburban land into 16-perch allotments, and selling them on long terms to working men and to speculators. A still further cause was, as already mentioned, the influx of external money at reduced rates of interest through the financial institutions. At first rents were so high as apparently to justify an advance on true values; but as the expanding process went on vendors ridiculed a capital value based on income-earning capacity. "What is the use of talking nonsense!" the agent would exclaim; "it is not what this property will bring in annually now, but what it will be worth in twenty years' time." Even conservative loan institutions accepted valuations based on actual sales. Prices in many cases doubled and quadrupled in a few months without much regard to the income-earning power. Then people were told that Brisbane would by and by, with an immense railway mileage finding its terminus at the wharves, be as big as Sydney or Melbourne; that land in George-street and Collins-street was realising £2,000 per foot frontage, bare; and that therefore choice sites in Queen-street could not be worth less than £1,000 per foot frontage. Thus prices advanced until the second half of 1888, when the demand for real property almost ceased. From that time until 1893 values were as far as possible upheld by the mortgagees, for they believed that the stagnation must be but temporary. Then came the crisis in the world's money markets, and it smote Queensland with prostrating force. The gradual reduction of local authority endowments, followed by their abolition in the year 1902-3, and the consequent increase of rate burdens, had a depressing effect upon property values, so that even to-day, more than sixteen years after the collapse of the boom, city lands do not realise more than one-half the prices demanded and often obtained in 1888. It is easy to blame the leading parliamentarians of the time for their prodigality in expenditure; but, when the most experienced bankers of the time threw prudence to the winds under pressure of a flooded money market, we may at this distance of time judge public men less harshly than they were judged in 1893. Confidence was universal, and the man who raised a warning voice found himself figuratively "sent to coventry." An epidemic of swollen values pervaded the entire continent. Even so late as 1893, two skilled and disinterested Ministers of the Crown, and both possessed of banking experience, who were commissioned by the Government to report confidentially on the securities of the Queensland National Bank soon after its suspension, failed to realise the full extent of the inflation of past years, or the depreciation in land values that had taken place despite the efforts made to maintain them. For they gave such a report of the values of the bank's securities as induced the Legislature to sanction an abortive scheme of reconstruction and the retention of Government moneys. It is, however, to Sir Hugh Nelson's credit that, three years later, he passed through Parliament an amending Act, embodying the scheme which has since restored the bank to the status of a "national" institution. Nineteen years have elapsed since the close of this period of extravagant borrowing and reckless expenditure, both public and private. For some years past Queensland has been enjoying almost unexampled prosperity, and the question naturally arises whether that prosperity may not be followed by another crisis. On this point examination of fixed property values, which are a good index, leads to a favourable conclusion. Of city or town lands there has of late years certainly been no inflation. Farming and dairying land values have no doubt risen rapidly, but not more, perhaps, than in proportion to the enhanced stable income-earning value arising from the success of the sugar and dairying industries and the enlarged markets available since federation to farmers all over Australia. In pastoral country there has certainly been no such inflation as occurred in the 1880-90 decade. Buyers discounted the future when, to justify their anticipations, the 372,105 square miles of artesian water-bearing country should have been already opened up and the country made increasingly productive by the streams from thousands of bores. To-day, as shown elsewhere in this book, artesian water is flowing to such an extent in Queensland that it would, with complete reticulation, supply 12,000,000 people with 40 gallons a day each. This in a country, too, which formerly was almost destitute of surface water. More bores are every year being put down, while geological research has lately added considerably to the area of artesian water-bearing country in Queensland. Generally trade is sound to-day, while banking deposits have made but gradual progression in volume during the last twenty years. Close settlement is rapidly going on, and the pastoral industry, which furnishes about 50 per cent. of our exports, is in a most prosperous condition after several good seasons capped by recently advancing prices. Wool alone, whose producers are realising highly satisfactory profits, formed 28·55 per cent. of our exports in 1907. Over gold mining there may be a fleeting cloud, but every year's laboratory research extends the area of remunerative ore deposits by reducing the cost of treatment. The cost of production and transport in all the primary industries is being gradually lessened. Happily there is no boom, present or prospective, to disturb the steady progress of the country; and it is reassuring to learn from recent public speeches by eminent Australian bankers that they are refusing to make advances for other than legitimate development. [Illustration: SWAN CREEK VALLEY, NEAR YANGAN, WARWICK DISTRICT] CHAPTER VIII. CROWN LANDS LEGISLATION. The Code of 1860.--Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1868. --Pastoral Leases Act of 1869.--Homestead Areas Act of 1872. --Crown Lands Alienation Act and Settled Districts Pastoral Leases Act of 1876.--The Griffith-Dutton Land Act of 1884. --Co-operative Communities Land Settlement Act.--Land Act of 1897.--Forms of Selection.--Act to Assist Persons to Settle on Land by Advances from the Treasury.--Extension of Pastoral Leases.--Closer Settlement Act.--Land Orders. The land code of the session of 1860, so enthusiastically eulogised by Sir George Bowen in his despatch to the Secretary of State, unfortunately by no means settled the complex questions involved in the management of public lands extending over 15 degrees of longitude and 18 degrees of latitude. Indeed, to-day the land laws are probably as complicated as ever they were in the history of Queensland, notwithstanding the desire of the Legislature to make them as simple as possible, and to meet the wants of every description of settler, whether he be a homestead selector with his 320 acres, a grazing farmer with his 20,000 acres, or a pastoral lessee with his 1,000 square miles. During the first decade several Land Acts, amending the Acts of 1860, were passed; but by the advent of the year 1867 it was found that the facilities offered for settlement were inadequate, and that new methods, especially in the direction of mixed farming adapted to the country and climate, and demanding holdings of increased area, were indispensable if there was to be close settlement on a more extensive scale than that contemplated by the pastoralist. Among the members of the Assembly in 1867-8 was Mr. Archibald Archer, of Gracemere, then member for Rockhampton, who earnestly voiced the popular contention that the upset price of £1 per acre was excessive, and that the holdings permitted to the settler by law were too restricted in area. In October, 1867, the Minister for Lands was Mr. E. W. Lamb, an old-time New South Wales land office official, and then a Peak Downs squatter. He introduced a Crown Lands Alienation Bill, which, after discussions showing its futility, was, on the motion of Mr. Macalister, then in opposition, referred to a Select Committee comprising the Minister and Messrs. Archer and Fitzgerald, the latter member for Kennedy. In the next session a new bill was introduced, giving effect to the recommendations of the Select Committee, which provided for the resumption of the halves of all runs within the Settled Districts, and for making available such resumed areas wherever required for settlement. The bill also provided for the opening of these areas to free selection before other than a feature survey had been made. This land was to be classified as (1) agricultural, in areas not exceeding 640 acres and at 15s. per acre; (2) first-class pastoral, in areas not exceeding 2,560 acres, at 10s. per acre; and (3) second-class pastoral, in areas not exceeding 7,680 acres, at 5s. per acre. The purchase was to be conditional upon actual occupation and improvement, the payment being spread over ten annual instalments, called rents, of 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d. per acre respectively. Provision was also made for homestead selections not to exceed 80 acres of agricultural land or 160 acres of pastoral land, at a yearly rental for five years of 9d. an acre in the case of agricultural land and 6d. an acre for pastoral country. This measure, having become law, caused a tremendous rush for land, and in some cases, no doubt, too large areas were taken up, regarded from the standpoint of the public interest, the abuse partly arising from faulty classification by the Government Commissioners. By at least one of these officers it was held, for example, that land, no matter how accessible or good its quality, was only second-class pastoral if destitute of surface water. But, whatever abuses crept in, there can be no doubt that the Act of 1868 was the first legislation to place the people on the land in areas of such extent, of such quality, and at such prices as were then deemed requisite for successful occupation. Many of the most prosperous farmers of to-day, or their parents, settled under the 1868 Act, and now form most valuable members of the community. In 1869 the Pastoral Leases Act was passed by the Lilley Government, and gave the lessees in the unsettled districts a better tenure than they had before enjoyed--21 years in respect of new country and renewed leases, and 14 years in the case of existing leases, with septennial automatic reappraisements of rent in all instances. The Liberal members of the Assembly assented to a pre-emptive purchase clause in this Act by which a lessee was empowered to purchase on his run without competition an area of 2,560 acres, containing permanent improvements made by him, at the price of 10s. per acre. But it was only discovered by many members after the Act had become law that a run might mean a block of 25 square miles, and that a lessee with a dozen blocks could secure strategic freeholds in as many different parts of his holding. However, the provision remained unaltered until in 1884 the Minister for Lands in the Griffith Ministry (Mr. Charles Boydell Dutton) refused to sanction further purchases of the kind, and during the same year endeavoured to sweep away the privilege by new legislation. Parliament, however, refused to repeal the provision, and would only consent to withhold the privilege of pre-emption in respect of leases acquired after the passage of the Land Act of 1884. Altogether 363 pre-emptive selections in respect of as many runs were made. By the Act of 1868 the pastoral lessees in the settled districts had also been granted ten years' leases for the unresumed halves of their runs; but in both cases the Minister was empowered to resume part of any run on giving six months' notice. The Homestead Areas Act of 1872 provided for the setting apart of special areas as "homestead areas," to be exclusively settled as homestead selections, or selections taken up by virtue of land orders issued under the Immigration Act of 1869. A departure from the generally accepted principle of "homestead" settlement--that the land is granted at a nominal price in consideration of the selector personally residing on it--was made in providing for increased areas up to 320 acres at conditional purchase prices. This anomaly was corrected by the Act of 1876, which styled such larger homesteads "Conditional purchases in homestead areas." In 1876 Mr. Douglas, as Mr. Thorn's Minister for Lands, introduced an amending and consolidating Land Bill, repealing all existing alienation Acts. Extended powers were given to Land Commissioners to expedite settlement. Monthly Commissioners' Courts were provided for, but no decision of a Commissioner's Court, except in case of certificates of performance of conditions, was to be final until confirmed by the Minister. The most noteworthy provision reduced the maximum area that one person might select. The area conditionally selectable by one person was made not less than 40 acres nor more than 5,120 acres. The Act declared all leased land reverting to the Crown on the Darling Downs to be homestead areas, and empowered the Government to establish such areas elsewhere. Within these areas conditional purchase selections were restricted to 1,280 acres and homesteads to 80 acres. Personal and continuous residence by the selector was made compulsory, and, before the fee-simple could be acquired, permanent improvements to the value of 10s. per acre were required to be made. A homestead was protected against claims for debt. A Settled Districts Pastoral Leases Bill also became law this year, providing that on the expiration of the ten years' leases then held runs should be offered at auction on a five years' lease at a rental of not less than £2 per square mile, an outgoing lessee being allowed six months' grace in which to remove his stock. In 1882 the Act of 1876 was amended so as to abolish the sale of runs by auction unless when there was no application for re-lease by the existing lessee, and lessees under the Act of 1876 were given the right to an extension of their leases for a period of ten years instead of five years. The rent, however, was to be subject to appraisement. The next great land measure was the Griffith-Dutton Act of 1884. Its main features were the abolition of the pre-emptive rights of pastoral lessees; the creation of a Land Board consisting of two members--an independent tribunal acting like Judges of the Supreme Court, and, like the Judges, holding office during good behaviour; and the introduction of the leasehold tenure in connection with grazing and agricultural farms. The object of the Government was to bring about close settlement. As it was recognised that it was not feasible at that time to devote the lands of Western Queensland to agriculture, provision was made for the gradual substitution of a smaller class of graziers for the pastoral lessees with their many hundreds of square miles of territory. Accordingly inducements, by way of fixity of tenure and compensation for improvements, were offered to pastoral tenants to surrender their existing leases and bring their holdings under the Act. The Crown was thereupon entitled to resume one-half, one-third, or one-fourth of such holdings, the proportion varying inversely with the length of time the leases had to run. These resumed areas were then divided into smaller holdings called "grazing farms," the maximum area being 20,000 acres, which were to be opened to selection on a thirty years' lease, with periodical reappraisements of rent by the Land Board. It was believed that the lessees of these smaller holdings would so improve the country that its carrying capacity would be greatly increased, and the Crown would derive a larger revenue from its pastoral lands, whilst at the expiration of the leases agricultural settlement might be possible. The success of the grazing farm system has amply justified the expectations of the framers of the Act. The leasehold principle was also applied to agricultural farms, the maximum area of which was fixed at 1,280 acres, with a fifty years' tenure, but the selector was given the right to acquire a freehold after ten years' (later reduced to five years) personal occupation. Although dropping the name of "homestead," the Act maintained the homestead principle by providing for the freeholding of agricultural farms not exceeding 160 acres in area at 2s. 6d. per acre after five years' personal residence by the selector. The Act, which practically superseded the Pastoral Leases Act of 1869, continued the right of pastoral lessees to depasture their stock on the resumed areas until they were required for closer settlement. It also repealed existing alienation Acts, and provided for all the contingencies which might be expected to arise. Among the repealed Acts were two which had given rise to much party contention in previous Parliaments--the Western Railway Act and the Railway Reserves Act, to which allusion is made in the parts of this work dealing with "Public Finance" and "Fifty Years of Legislation." [Illustration: SURPRISE CREEK FALLS, CAIRNS RAILWAY] Amending Acts were passed in 1885, 1886, 1889, 1891, 1892, 1894, and 1895, but these do not call for mention except to say that the Act of 1891 introduced a new mode of selection called "unconditional," providing for selections up to 1,280 acres at prices one-third greater than those for agricultural farms, and payable in twenty annual instalments. In 1890 an Act was passed providing for a five years' extension of leases held under the 1869 Act and not affected by the Act of 1884. In 1892 an Act (extended in 1894, 1895, 1897, and 1898) was passed giving a seven years' extension of term to pastoral lessees, and an extension of five years (afterwards increased to seven years) to the lessees of grazing farms selected before the introduction of the bill and situated in the southern part of the State, who should enclose their holdings with rabbit-proof fences. In 1893 the Co-operative Communities Land Settlement Act was passed at a time of stress, with a view to enabling men of good character but without capital to settle on the land with the aid of Government advances. In all, twelve "self-governing communities" were formed with a total adult male membership of 485. In no case did the venture prove successful, and by an amending Act passed in 1895 the several communities were dissolved, the members thereof were absolved from all liability to the Government for advances made, and the land and assets were suitably apportioned among the remaining members of the dissolved groups, to the number of 88. They were assigned an area aggregating 13,491 acres to be held on a five years' tenure at a rental of ¾d. per acre per annum, subject to a condition of personal residence and to the purchase of the land during the fifth year at 2s. 6d. an acre. Only three-fourths of these 88 settlers brought their selections to freehold, and the last transaction was not closed till ten years had elapsed, instead of five, from the dissolution of the groups. Consequent on another period of depression, Parliament in 1905 authorised another experiment by way of Government assistance to would-be settlers without means, but the communal element is not so prominent in the new measure, and the "self-government" principle is excluded. Only one settlement has been formed under the Act of 1905, and it is under Government control. While holding out some promises of success, these are not so tangible as to lead to further ventures of the sort. Indeed, the need for them has disappeared with the return of prosperity. The last comprehensive Act, extending over 101 pages of the Statute-book, was passed in 1897, and it still remains the principal Land Act, upon which all subsequent amending measures have been grafted. It is fitting to set out briefly what are the modes by which it is sought to secure settlement on the public lands of the State after half a century of legislation.[a] There is, first, the agricultural farm, in areas up to 1,280 acres on a tenure of twenty years and paying an annual rental of one-fortieth part of the purchasing price, such rentals being actually instalments of the price, and leaving only one-half of the price to be paid at the end of the term. The price cannot be lower than 10s. per acre, and there are conditions of occupation and improvement to be performed. There is the agricultural homestead in areas ranging up to 640 acres, the area varying inversely with the quality of the land. This form of settlement is subject to conditions of personal residence and improvement. The homesteads are capable of being converted into freeholds after five years and up to ten years for a total price of 2s. 6d. per acre, payable at the rate of 3d. per acre per annum. There is the unconditional selection in areas up to 1,280 acres, with no conditions to perform but the payment of rent during twenty years at the rate of 5 per cent. of the purchasing price each year, the purchasing price being one-third higher than that at which the land was available for agricultural farm selection. There are the grazing selections in the remoter districts in areas up to 60,000 acres. These selections are not capable of being made freehold, but are held on leasehold tenures of 14, 21, or 28 years, at rentals ranging from ½d. to 6d. per acre per annum, and subject to conditions of occupation and fencing. There are the scrub selections not exceeding 10,000 acres each, intended to secure the destruction of useless scrub in the remoter districts and the conversion of the land into good pasture. The tenure is purely leasehold, with a term of thirty years and at a peppercorn rental for a period having relation to the extent of scrub to be destroyed. Leasehold tenures are preferred for the remoter lands, and they have the advantage of leaving the settler's capital free for the development of his land. In case any should prefer a leasehold tenure in the more closely settled districts, the law now provides for the substitution of "perpetual leases" for the agricultural farm tenure. The rapid spread of the prickly pear in some parts of the State has been a peremptory call for the occupation of the threatened country on any terms. Provision has accordingly been made for prickly pear selections under conditions of eradicating the pest, the value of the land being assessed at rates ranging from a sum paid by the Government to the settler in addition to a free gift of the land, to a sum perhaps as high as £1 per acre to be paid by the settler to the Crown, such payments being in annual instalments of one-fifth or one-tenth, and commencing ten or five years respectively after the commencement of the lease, the period of exemption from payment having to be devoted to the task of eradication. Until 1901 the competitive principle was general in the selection of Crown lands, but in that year provision was made by a special Act to allot land non-competitively to bodies of settlers coming from abroad, who naturally desired to be assured of obtaining land in proximity to each other before pulling up their stakes and migrating to a new sphere of activity. Successive amendments have been made in this law, and, while in its inception it had application only to agricultural homestead selection, it has since been extended to all forms of selection tenure. The great drought, which ended in 1902, has stamped its mark indelibly upon the land legislation of the State. The earliest cry for relief came from the far West, where the remaining tenancies under the Pastoral Leases Act of 1869 chiefly lay. Large tracts of country had become forfeited, and the Crown tenants, unable to hold on to the remnants of their runs at the rents chargeable under their leases, applied for relief. To meet their case, the Pastoral Leases Act of 1900 was passed, which required the reoccupation of the abandoned country at nominal rents, and reduced the rents of the retained country to an extent that secured the reoccupation of 13,000 square miles. In the following year the Pastoral Holdings New Leases Act promised the relief of extended leases to the holders of pastoral country in the rest of the State, where the Act of 1884 operated; but the drought still continuing, a further appeal was made to Parliament, and in the Pastoral Leases Act of 1902 opportunity was given to lessees to secure extensions of leases up to forty-two years according to situation, subject to reappraisement of rent and to certain rights of resumption reserved to the Crown. The chief desideratum of the lessees was extended tenures to enable them to finance on more favourable terms and recover from their immense drought losses. In consideration of this concession and the surrender of resumption rights which it involved, the State had to look for increased rentals. The reassessments of the rentals under the new leases, however, have not compensated the State for the large concessions made to its tenants. The Closer Settlement Act of 1906 superseded the Agricultural Lands Purchase Acts, 1894 to 1901. These statutes provide for the acquisition by the Government of private estates for the purpose of subdivision and sale in areas adapted for closer settlement, payments being extended over twenty-five years. The principle is not quite impervious to criticism, for unless great prudence is exercised the acquisition of these large estates has a tendency to raise the value of agricultural land; but a few figures showing the settlement which has taken place furnish convincing proof that the primary object of the Legislature has been achieved, and that rich arable lands, which previously produced nothing but natural grasses for the sustenance of sheep and cattle, have become the homes of many hundreds of thriving yeomen farmers and the support of numerous rising townships. Since the passage of the first of these Acts in 1894, a total area of 537,449 acres has been repurchased at a cost of £1,490,489. Of this area 456,742 acres had been surrendered by the former owners at the close of 1908. By the same date 364,334 acres had been selected at an aggregate price of £1,050,864, and 10,677 acres, with the improvements thereon, had realised £70,727 at auction, the purchasing price of the whole area disposed of amounting to £1,144,081. The area remaining in the hands of the Government, after deducting roads and reserves, was 78,781 acres, valued at £264,200, almost entirely consisting of land only recently acquired and not yet offered for settlement. On 31st December last, no less than 1,654 agricultural selectors, the majority with families, and holding among them 1,909 selections, were settled upon what but a few years ago were twenty-six sheep and cattle stations, with a mere handful of employees. It has been mentioned that the Alienation of Crown Lands Act of 1860 provided for granting to any immigrant who had paid his passage-money, or to any other person by whom it had been paid, an £18 land order on arrival, and a further land order for £12 after he had resided two years in the colony. These land orders were made receivable as cash at any Crown land sale, and they led to a large traffic, as the fact that land orders could be bought from immigrants at a discount stimulated the demand for land, especially for town lots. At first these instruments could be bought at very low prices, but after a time the £18 land order had become of the recognised market value of £15 to £16 cash, and could be readily purchased at those prices from agents in Queen-street, Brisbane. But the effect upon land sales revenue alarmed the Government, and after a time they refused to receive land orders as payment in lieu of cash at sales of other than country land. In 1864 an Immigration Act was passed providing for the appointment of an Agent-General for Emigration in London, and for the repeal of the land-order sections of the 1860 Land Act. A new provision was made by which the Agent-General was empowered to issue to an approved passenger in London who had paid his passage-money a land-order warrant for £30. On arrival in the colony the passenger was granted in exchange for the warrant a non-transferable land order receivable as cash at face value at sales of suburban and country lands only. These restrictions lowered the market price of the instrument, although by means of a power of attorney the non-transferable provision was for a time evaded. Eventually, however, the restrictions were made so severe that for market purposes the land order was worth little, and immigrants who had come out and failed to settle on the land found themselves in possession of a document of no practicable value. The extent to which the land-order traffic prevailed will be understood when it is mentioned that, in 1865, of £218,431, the total revenue from land sales, only £59,461 was cash, the remainder being represented by land orders. By 1875 the system had become discredited, and was abolished by legislation, but outstanding land orders were still used. In 1883-4 the amount so received had fallen to £16, while the cash receipts for sales were £378,637. The total value of land orders received as cash between 1861 and 1883-4 was £853,583. Some public men have contended that, if the initial practice of receiving the land order at face value in payment for any Crown land sold at auction had been continued, the Treasury would have been recouped by the larger demand and higher prices realised, but obviously a system which stimulated speculation in land was not good for the country, besides which it encouraged dummying. In 1886 the Griffith Government determined to give the system a further trial, and in the Crown Lands Act Amendment Act of that year power was given to the Agent-General to issue land-order warrants to persons paying their own passages to Queensland. Each member of a family of twelve years of age and upwards was entitled to a £20 land order, and each child between the ages of one and twelve entitled the parent to a land order for £10. The land orders were not transferable, except in case of death, and were available for ten years for the payment of rent of Crown lands acquired by the immigrant. The Act authorising the issue of these land orders was repealed in 1894. The value of land orders issued under the Act amounted to £62,140, and of this sum only £8,956 was utilised. The great majority of the immigrants who received the orders had no desire to go on the land, and as the orders were not transferable they lapsed at the expiration of their currency to the extent of 85 per cent. of the whole. [Footnote a: For fuller details regarding various forms of land selection, see Appendix E, post.] [Illustration: FOREST SCENE NEAR WOOMBYE, NORTH COAST RAILWAY] CHAPTER IX. APPROPRIATION OF LAND REVENUE. Land Sales Receipts; not Consolidated Revenue.--Arguments used in favour of Treating Proceeds as Ordinary Revenue.--Auction Sales have now Practically Ceased.--Certain Proceeds Payable into Loan Fund.--Special Sales of Land Act; Appropriation of Receipts. The revenue from sales of land for the first quarter-century was £4,672,659, besides £853,583 representing grants made in consideration of land orders issued to immigrants but not included in the revenue and expenditure returns. Nor does it include the sum of £382,346 received in cash for land sold within railway reserves and afterwards transferred to revenue. The latter amount must, however, be added to the cash receipts for land sold, which therefore totalled £5,055,005. The practice of treating proceeds of land sales as ordinary revenue has already been incidentally alluded to, but it may be well to refer more fully to the subject. It is held that the taxpayer ought annually to provide for current expenditure, and that if land is alienated from the Crown at all the net proceeds, after defraying the cost of administration, should be applied to the construction of public works that would otherwise be of a character to justify charging their cost to the Loan Fund. This principle in the abstract is unexceptionable; but in a new country much work is expected to be done by the Government for posterity in the nature of "invisible improvements"; in fact, it is so done, and cannot well be provided for by loan. Roads have to be cleared and formed, and buildings erected for the benefit of posterity as well as of those who so invest their money. Moreover, the advent of population enhances the value of both public and private estates, while the maintenance of great public works like railways involves in most cases a heavy revenue loss for years after the lines are open for traffic. Only in very recent times have our railway earnings approximated, after payment of working charges and maintenance, to the amount of the interest charge upon the capital invested in them; but they have immensely benefited the country by providing facilities for internal transport, and by enhancing the value of the land, Crown and other, which they intersect and make accessible. Years ago, when the railway debt of Queensland stood at about 17 millions, an official estimate showed that, in making good the annual deficiency of interest and working expenses on the various open lines, at least as much had been spent by the Treasury as the entire first cost of their construction. So that contemporary colonists have still a charge against posterity for public works to be handed down, even though the first cost remains a liability in the form of interest upon inscribed stock held by the public creditor. Further, it has to be said that, since the railways have begun nearly to defray interest upon capital, the auction sale of Crown land, except in small areas, has practically ceased. The receipts from auction sales in 1907-8 totalled only £33,391, and much of that sum would be absorbed were it charged with its share of the cost of administration. By the Land Sales Proceeds Act of 1906, all moneys received in payment for land sold under the authority of Part VI. of the Land Act of 1897--by auction sales of town, suburban, and country lands, or of such lands sold by selection after having been so offered--must be paid into the Loan Fund Account, and be applied to defraying the cost of such works as Parliament may from time to time determine shall be executed out of moneys standing to the credit of that fund. True, receipts for lands sold under the Special Sales of Land Act of 1901, being applied to the special purpose of retiring Treasury bills issued to make good revenue deficits, are excluded from the general law in this respect. But it is satisfactory that, even though the recognition of the principle that land is capital and not revenue has been tardy, it has now in Queensland the full force of statute law. As to the past, it has been argued with much reason that small areas alienated were for farming purposes, and soon became far more valuable than when held for grazing purposes by tenants of the Crown. As to the future, what Parliament seems determined to guard against by every possible means is the alienation of large areas of the public domain to persons who will use the land for speculative purposes, or who by locking it up will seek to check the wave of closer settlement which it is obviously in the best interests of the State to foster and stimulate. As the Special Sales of Land Act of 1901 still remains upon the Statute-book a few words in explanation of its provisions and objects may be useful. The first Act of this kind was passed in 1891--(1) to provide for maturing Treasury bills for £500,000 authorised but not issued in 1887; (2) to make provision for meeting Treasury bills for £500,000 floated to cover a revenue deficit in 1890; (3) to make good an anticipated deficit of £300,000 for the financial year 1891-2; and (4) to retire £120,945 worth of Brisbane Bridge debentures--a total of £1,420,945. Despite any statute to the contrary, country lands, not within twenty miles of a railway or the permanent survey of one, or of any navigable stream, were authorised to be sold by auction in areas of 320 acres to 5,120 acres, at the upset price of 10s. an acre. Payments might be extended over three years, but the unpaid instalments must bear 5 per cent. interest. Any land so offered and unsold would remain open for six months for purchase at the same price and on the same terms. The proceeds of these sales were to be applied (1) to payment of the sums appropriated by Parliament for the service of the financial years 1891-2 and 1892-3 respectively, and (2) to the payment of interest upon and retirement of the Treasury bills before mentioned. In 1901 the Philp Government were in financial trouble through federal charges and the unexampled drought, and they passed a Treasury Bills Act and a Special Sales of Land Act, the former for the sum of £530,000; and the proceeds of the latter to be applied (1) to making good any revenue deficiency during the years 1901-2 and 1902-3, and (2) to the payment of interest upon and retirement of the bills issued under the Treasury Bills Act. In 1902 another Treasury Bills Act covering £600,000 was passed by the same Government. The Auditor-General in his report for 1907-8 showed that there were still outstanding £1,130,000 in Treasury bills issued under the 1901 and 1902 Acts, and maturing in 1912 and 1913 respectively. In the same report the Auditor-General refers to the sum of £8,148 received from special sales of land during the year, and appropriated to the payment of interest on Treasury bills. For some years past these special sales of land have been stopped, but instalments of payments were received annually until last year (1907-8), when they amounted to £3,279; but none are now outstanding, and the Act is practically a dead letter. [Illustration: HAULING TIMBER, NORTH COAST RAILWAY] [Illustration: STONY CREEK BRIDGE AND FALLS, CAIRNS RAILWAY] CHAPTER X. LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN QUEENSLAND. First Municipality Established.--Brisbane Bridge Lands.--Grant for Town Hall.--Consolidating Municipalities Act.--Provincial Councils Act.--Government Buildings not Rateable.--Brisbane Bridge Debentures and Waterway Acts.--Municipal Endowment. --Local Government Act of 1878.--Divisional Boards Act of 1879; Success of the Act.--Local Works Loans Act.--Two Pounds for One Pound Endowment Repealed.--Rating Powers Extended by Local Authorities Act of 1902.--Cessation of Endowment. --Valuation and Rating Act.--Decline in Land Values. --Unequal Incidence of Rates Levied.--Efficiency of Local Authorities. When Sir George Bowen proclaimed the establishment of Queensland there was only one municipality within the boundaries of the new colony. Brisbane had been incorporated just three months earlier, probably with the view of having the Mayor of a local authority to take his part in the inaugural celebrations. At that time the New South Wales Municipal Institutions Act of 1858 was in force, but it was quite inadequate to the needs of the country. Sir George Bowen, coming from residence among the crowded populations of Great Britain and several European countries, and recognising what powerful safeguards to public liberty municipal corporations had proved, publicly urged the establishment of local government in Queensland on every favourable opportunity. In 1861 two Municipalities Acts were passed, one empowering the Brisbane City Council to build a bridge across the river, and providing for endowment in the form of grants of Crown land not exceeding two-thirds of the unsold town and suburban allotments of Brisbane; also empowering the council to borrow for the purpose of erecting the structure. The other Act gave extended powers to municipal councils generally. It defined the rateable value of unoccupied lands to be 8 per cent. of their actual capital value, but the minimum rate of any allotment was not to be less than 10s. per annum. It also provided that unoccupied land might be leased for fourteen years by a council when rates had been permitted to fall into arrear for a term of four years. It further empowered a council to borrow on mortgage a sum not exceeding the estimated revenue for the ensuing three years. As additional endowment, it was provided that the Governor in Council might pay to a municipal council every year one-third of the proceeds of land sold within its jurisdiction; and where one-half of the land in a municipality had been sold the council were to be entitled to one-half of the proceeds of future sales. In 1863 an Act was passed giving the Brisbane Council power to erect a town hall on allotment 4 and part of allotment 3 of section 12, with a frontage to Queen street and Burnett lane respectively of 99 ft., and a depth of 138 ft., to be granted by the Government on the passing of the Act. The council were empowered to borrow £20,000 for the purposes of the hall. The Brisbane Waterworks Act empowered the Government to grant a site for the proposed works on the heads of Enoggera Creek, but the Government were to borrow the sum necessary for construction, and to hand over the money to the council as it might be required. In 1864 an amending and consolidating Municipal Institutions Act was passed giving larger and more specific powers to municipal bodies. In the same year a Provincial Councils Act was passed, empowering the Government to appoint such councils in the country districts, and place at their disposal money from time to time voted by Parliament for roads and bridges within their jurisdiction. But the members, not being elective, had no power to levy rates, so that the councils would at best have been no more than bodies delegated with power by the Works Department to carry out works with which the Government could not conveniently grapple. The only provincial council established under the Act, however, was one for the Peak Downs district, of which all the members were Crown lessees. That council had its place of meeting at Clermont, and on first assembling it resolved not to admit the Press to its meetings. This exclusive policy, combined with the class character of its members, made the council at once unpopular, and after spending £2,000 which had been placed to its credit by the Government it ingloriously collapsed. In 1865 an Act was passed dividing the Brisbane Municipality into six wards, each returning two members. In 1868 an amendment of the 1864 and 1865 Acts was passed enabling councils to forbid the erection of inflammable buildings. In the following year an Act was passed which forbade the levy of rates upon Government buildings. An Act of the same year enabled the Governor in Council to rescind any proclamation of town or suburban lands. In 1870 the Brisbane Bridge Debentures Act and the Brisbane Waterway Act were passed. By the former the council were empowered to issue debentures, bearing 5 per cent. interest and covering £121,250, for the payment of its bridge liabilities. The preamble recited that a contract had been entered into with Mr. John Bourne for the construction of the bridge; that owing to alterations in the plan assented to by the Government the cost had been largely increased, and the work had in fact been suspended; that the bank overdraft, secured upon all the bridge lands and the rates, exceeded £100,000; and that Thomas Brassey, having supplied the ironwork of the bridge, had undertaken to complete the structure on certain conditions involved in the issue of the debenture loan above mentioned. The Waterway Act provided for the repayment to the council of the cost of certain waterways by the sale of lands specified in the schedule. In 1875 another Act was passed providing for the payment to the Brisbane Council of the cost of certain drainage works by the sale of city lands specified in its schedule. In the same year the Rockhampton Waterworks Act, being the first for a provincial body, was passed. In 1876 an Act was passed for endowing municipalities to the extent of £2 for £1 on the rates collected for the first five years after incorporation and £1 for £1 in subsequent years. In 1878 was passed the ponderous Local Government Act, adapted from the recent Victorian legislation, but denounced by the Opposition in the Assembly at the time as far too cumbrous save for town municipalities. It formed, however, one of the bases of the Local Authorities Act of 1902. In 1879 a new departure was made by the first McIlwraith Government by passing a rudimentary measure--the Divisional Boards Act--in which the Government took power to apply the Act simultaneously to all parts of the colony. It gave power to levy rates, and therefore excited popular anti-tax demonstrations. But much that was said against the bill proved on investigation to be inaccurate, and the endowment it provided of £2 for £1 collected in rates for the term of five years ultimately went far to neutralise the hostility expressed towards the measure. Also the bill provided that to give the boards a start an additional £100,000 should be divisible among them as soon as their respective valuations had been made and a certified copy of each had been forwarded to the Treasury. After a stern and protracted struggle in the Assembly the bill was passed, and immediately the Colonial Secretary of the time (Mr. A. H. Palmer) cut into "divisions" the entire area of the colony outside the boundaries of existing municipalities, and proclaimed seventy-four local governing areas under that name, each in three subdivisions with nine members for each body. Then every division was invited to elect its first members, and rather more than one-half of them did so. Within four months from the passing of the Act--on 13th February, 1880[a]--the whole of the members were gazetted, the Government having taken advantage of the power given to the Governor in Council to appoint the first members where no action had been initiated to elect them within ninety days after the passing of the Act. Thus the names of between 600 and 700 members were proclaimed on one day, and the new boards forthwith proceeded to put the Act into execution. In a comparatively short time valuations were made, and on receipt of a copy the Treasurer placed to the credit of the board, in the branch of the Queensland National Bank nearest to the division, an amount equal to 1s. in the pound of the valuation. This done, works were forthwith commenced in all parts of the country, and a few years later visitors from the South were wont to compliment the people of Queensland on the vast improvement made in their bush roads. In the following year (1880) the Local Works Loans Act was passed, and attracted attention in different parts of the Empire as the first measure that provided for advancing local loans by a Government on the scientific basis of a term measured by the life of each work, and in accordance with an actuarial scale set out in a table in the schedule. The longest term was forty years, that being given for the most durable works, the rate charged being 5 per cent. interest, with 16s. 8d. per annum redemption money. Thus a council could borrow for waterworks on a forty years' loan, and redeem the principal as well as defray the interest charge, by payment of regular half-yearly instalments of £2 18s. 4d. per cent. during the term. This Act soon became very popular, and with slight amendments--one being the reduction of the interest charge to 4 per cent., and the half-yearly instalment in the case of a forty years' loan to £2 10s. 0½d. per cent.--it still remains on the Statute-book as part of the Local Authorities Act of 1902. Several millions sterling have since been lent by the Government under this Act, and scarcely a local authority has defaulted except for a short period. The principle has also been extended to sugar works and other loans not contemplated originally; yet with firm administration, such as the Government for several years past have insisted upon, the future losses, if any, will be slight, and the benefit of the Act continue to be great. [Illustration: TIMBER GETTING, NORTH COAST DISTRICT] In 1887 Sir S. W. Griffith passed an amending and consolidating Divisional Boards Act in which many defects of the original measure were corrected. About the same time he passed an Act to relieve the Treasury from the excessive burden of the £2 for £1 endowment, which had been extended in 1884 for a second five-year period. Under the amended law only such sum as Parliament might vote in each year was to be rateably divided among all local authorities. After that time the endowment diminished until in 1893 it reached a very small sum. Afterwards the amount remained at about 6s. in the pound until 1902, when, in passing the new amending and consolidating Local Authorities Act of that year, the Philp Government made no provision for continuance of the endowment. In 1903, therefore, owing to the embarrassment of the Treasury in consequence of heavy deficits for several years in succession, the endowment altogether ceased, and since that time the Government have steadfastly refused to listen to proposals for renewing the payment, on the ground that each governing authority should raise its own revenue by taxation or otherwise, and not depend upon endowments collected by any other governing authority. The stoppage of the endowment was in some degree compensated for by the extension of the rating powers of the local authorities, but the exercise of these has no doubt accentuated the drop which occurred in assessment values after the crisis of 1893. Some councils, through failure to make use of their powers of rating, have had an insufficient income, so that in parts of the country the roads are now in a less traffickable condition than they were a quarter of a century ago. In other cases, however, the local bodies have so used the powers conferred upon them that they make no complaint of insufficient income. From the day of the presentation to Parliament of the Divisional Boards Bill there had always been an outcry, among the farming ratepayers chiefly, against the taxation of improvements. In 1890, therefore, after ten years' experience, the Government of the coalition, whose leaders had long been severed by difference of opinion on the subject of land taxation, perceived in a universal levy on the unimproved value, so called, a method of mutual reconciliation which would meet the demands of many true exponents of local government principles, and they agreed to introduce the new system. The "unimproved value" is by no means an accurate definition of what either the taxpayers or the Legislature at the time desired. But no one has yet discovered a more satisfactory definition, and therefore it stands. Up to 1890 the assessment had been on the net rent a property might be reasonably expected to yield after deducting the cost of rates and insurance and the amount necessary to maintain the property in a condition to command such rent. This was, in short, the old basis of assessment in the mother country; but to meet the objection to the assessment of improvements the Government, in introducing the first Divisional Boards Bill, had modified the valuation clause by the proviso that the improvements on land should be assessed at one-half their value. This was a modification of the New Zealand assessment method, and it gave fair satisfaction for a time. Country ratepayers for the most part approved the change to the unimproved value assessment; but speculators in unoccupied city, town, and suburban lands regarded it as a gross injustice. They not unnaturally complained that an allotment bare, or with a mere hut upon it, would pay as much in rates under the new system as the adjoining allotment which might be the site of spacious business premises or of a palatial dwelling. To this the reply was that the speculative holding of city and suburban lands inflicted gross injustice upon the man who wanted at existing value an allotment for his own use. The Valuation and Rating Act of 1890 passed, however; and the law as it stands has the undoubted merit of simplicity in valuations. On the other hand, the rate levied under the unimproved value assessment upon vacant lands is sometimes oppressive, and appreciably reduces their capital value. Another unforeseen effect has also been realised. The value of a highly improved allotment tends to become depressed to the value of the unproductive and unoccupied allotment contiguous or adjacent to it. Hence an intending buyer is apt to ascertain the local authority valuation of any land he needs, and to regulate his price accordingly. In a buoyant land market this might not much affect the selling value, but for twenty years past the land market for city or suburban properties has been the reverse of buoyant. So the unimproved value mode of assessment has apparently assisted to make a substantial reduction in the market value of city and suburban properties. But that is perhaps a less evil than may at first sight appear. The speculative inflation of land values is simply a tax upon the user for all time; and the moment the income-earning value is exceeded the excess must be regarded as an unjust charge upon posterity. Of course land values will eventually find their true level, whatever law of rating may be in force. It may be conceded that the unimproved assessment has caused distress among landowners who had no means of improving their properties, and could only find a market for them at a heavy sacrifice. Still there is no disposition on the part of the majority of ratepayers to revert to the old annual value system, and there is not likely to be any alteration in the law in this respect unless for the removal of some obvious administrative anomaly. For, as the coalition leaders agreed nineteen years ago, the local rate has become a land tax pure and simple, and if it be held that more money is wanted for development the simpler course is to allow the local authorities to give another twist to the rating screw. This, as a matter of fact, most of them have of late years done, and in many local jurisdictions the rate is now 3d. in the pound, when twenty years ago only 1d. or 1½d. was levied. In 1884 the total local rates levied were £120,479; in 1908 the total was £452,052 for, it must be remembered, an identical aggregate area. A local authorities' rate has the distinct advantage in a young State like Queensland that, whereas a Treasury land tax would reach only the freeholders of less than 20,000,000 acres, the local government rate is levied upon 460,000 square miles. The subjoined table is compiled from Statistics of Queensland for 1884 and 1908 respectively:-- AMOUNT LEVIED BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES. ------------------------+-------------------------+------------------------ Year 1884. | Year 1908. | Increases, 1908. ------------------------+-------------------------+------------------------ CITIES AND TOWNS-- £ | CITIES AND TOWNS-- £ | CITIES AND TOWNS-- £ General Rates 46,208 | General Rates 150,744 | General Rates 104,536 | | Separate 4,845 | Separate} | Separate or | } 87,155 | Special 7,583 | Special } | Special 74,727 ------- | -------- | -------- Total £58,636 | Total £237,899 | Total £179,263 | | DIVISIONS-- | SHIRES-- | SHIRES-- Total £61,843 | Total £214,153 | Total £152,310 ------- | -------- | -------- Grand Total £120,479 | Grand Total £452,052 | Grand Total £331,573 ------------------------+-------------------------+------------------------ Thus, since the unimproved value system came into force, the levies of the local authority rates have multiplied about three and a-half times. In 1884, when the first quarter-century closed, the divisional boards drew £2 for £1 as Treasury endowment, which, assuming the rates were all collected, made their incomes from the combined sources £185,529 for the year. In 1908, without a penny of endowment, their successors'--the shire councils--rate levy totalled £214,153, or £28,624 in excess of both rates and endowment in 1884. In 1884 the city and town councils levied rates amounting to £58,636, which with endowment added should have given them £117,272. In 1908 the cities and towns levied an aggregate of £237,899, an increase upon 1884 of £120,627, despite the loss of the £1 for £1 endowment. These figures are interesting in view of the agitation for a Treasury land tax. They show that in 1908, with a total of 53,948 city and town ratepayers, their rate contribution was on the average £4 8s. 2d. per ratepayer. At the same time 97,553 shire ratepayers contributed the average of only £2 3s. 11d. each. The wide discrepancy between the payments of town and country ratepayers seems anomalous, but when it is recollected that the urban councils, of which there are only thirty-five, undertake many public services, and that the entire area of incorporated cities and towns is only about 354 square miles, it will be realised that the circumstances widely differ from those of the shires, whose various jurisdictions embrace almost the entire area of the State, the official estimate being 669,901 square miles. This area includes 210,359 square miles of unoccupied country, much of which is traversed by roads, but which presumably yields no rate revenue. Hence no useful comparison can be made between the rate levies of town and country local authorities respectively. At the same time a local "land" tax--which ranges from the general-rate of ½d. in the pound in the case of shires, to 3d. in the pound, besides special and separate rates, in cities and towns, and which makes the average total contribution of town ratepayers more than twice the amount levied upon country ratepayers--may at no distant time call for rectification, especially if a so-called bursting-up tax should be deemed necessary to meet the wants of close settlement. Meanwhile there is room for congratulation in the fact that every square mile of the vast area of the State--coastal islands alone excepted--is incorporated, and that 160 local authorities with 1,310 members carry on the entire local government work of the country. These men, unlike members of Parliament, are unremunerated by the State, even free railway passes not being conceded to enable them to attend the periodical meetings. The alderman or shire councillor gives purely honorary service, and relieves the State Government of a vast amount of worry and expense. [Illustration: CAIRNS RANGE AND ROBB'S MONUMENT, NORTH QUEENSLAND] One good effect of local self-government is the exclusion from Parliament of the pestilent road-and-bridge member who in former years made himself so troublesome to Ministers and so often twisted the decision of the Assembly on important questions. It would be a bad thing indeed for Queensland if the local authorities, or any substantial percentage of them, became inefficient. There may be room for anxiety at evidences of decadence which at times come to the surface; but that local government in Queensland is a vigorous and living entity is fairly evident from the fact that with very few exceptions the 160 city, town, and shire councils are members of the Local Authorities' Association which annually makes itself heard in conference in Brisbane. Manifestly the spirit of decentralisation is not dead in Queensland. The manner in which the various bodies have survived the stoppage of the Treasury endowment, simultaneously with the thrusting upon them of many new responsibilities by the Act of 1902, must be regarded as a clear indication that local government in Queensland retains undiminished vitality. [Footnote a: See "Queensland Government Gazette" of date mentioned.] CHAPTER XI. PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. Primary Education: Board of National Education; Education Act of 1860; Board of General Education; Education Act of 1875; Department of Public Instruction; Higher Education in Primary Schools; Itinerant Teachers; Status of Teachers; Statistics. --Private Schools.--Secondary Education: Grammar Schools Act; Endowments, Scholarships, and Bursaries; Success of Grammar Schools; Exhibitions to Universities; Expenditure.--Technical Education: Beginning of System; Board of Technical Instruction; Transfer of Control to Department of Public Instruction; Statistics; Technical Instruction Act; Continuation Classes; Schools of Arts and Reading Rooms.--University: Royal Commissions; University Bill; Standardised System of Education. From 10th December, 1859, the date of the founding of Queensland, to 30th September, 1860, primary education was under the control of a Board of National Education appointed by the Governor in Council. That board consisted of Sir Charles Nicholson (chairman), Messrs. R. R. Mackenzie, William Thornton, George Raff, and D. R. Somerset; the secretary was William Henry Day. There were then only two national schools in the whole of Queensland--namely, one in Drayton and one in Warwick. The system of primary education obtaining in New South Wales was continued, but the subject of education was one of the earliest matters which received the consideration of the first Parliament of Queensland, and in 1860 an Act to provide for primary education was passed. The Bill was initiated in the Legislative Council by Captain O'Connell, and Mr. R. G. W. Herbert had charge of the measure in the Legislative Assembly. The object of the Bill was to provide primary education under one general and comprehensive system, and to afford facilities to persons of all denominations for the education of their children in the same school without prejudice to their religious beliefs. PRIMARY EDUCATION. The Act provided for the appointment of a Board of General Education to consist of five members, together with a Minister of the Crown who would, _ex officio_, act as chairman. The members of the first Board were:--Mr. R. R. Mackenzie (chairman), Dr. W. Hobbs (vice-chairman), and Messrs. W. H. Day, J. F. McDougall, W. J. Munce, and George Raff. The scheme of primary education which the board framed was based generally upon the national system in operation in Ireland. Schools were divided into two classes--vested and non-vested. The vested schools were unsectarian in character. The aid granted by the board towards the establishment, equipment, and up-keep of schools varied from time to time, and ranged from one-half to two-thirds. The board appointed the teachers. The salaries of teachers were supplemented by school fees, ranging from 3d. to 1s. 6d. per week for each scholar according to his standard in the school work. When the board took office there were 10 teachers, 493 pupils, and 4 schools--Drayton, Warwick, Brisbane (boys), and Brisbane (girls). The total expenditure in 1860 was £1,615 2s. 3d. School fees were abolished by the Premier, Mr. Lilley, from the 1st of January, 1870, and since that date primary State education has been free, Queensland being the first of the Australian colonies to adopt the principle of free public education. The Education Act of 1860 was superseded by the State Education Act of 1875, which came into operation on 1st January, 1876, and is still in force. When passed it was regarded as the most progressive Act in Australia. Its author was Mr. S. W. Griffith, the present Chief Justice of the Commonwealth, and he was the first Minister for Public Instruction. The first Under Secretary was Mr. C. J. Graham. On 31st December, 1875, there were 230 schools in operation, the aggregate enrolment for the year being 33,643, and the average attendance 16,887. The number of teachers employed was 595, and the total expenditure for the year was £83,219 14s. 9d. The new Act provided that the whole system of public instruction in Queensland, formerly administered by the Board of General Education, should be transferred to a department of the public service, to be called the Department of Public Instruction. The Act provided that one-fifth of the cost must be contributed locally in the first instance towards the purchase of a school site, the erection of the necessary buildings, and the providing of furniture; thereafter the State bore the whole expenditure. Thus the State defrayed the total cost of repairs and maintenance, renewals, additions, and the like. State aid to non-vested schools was withdrawn as from 31st December, 1880. In 1895 a resolution was agreed to by the Legislative Assembly in favour of the establishment of superior State schools with a view to providing higher education for children in towns and populous centres where grammar schools did not exist. The ultimate result of this action was the passing of the State Education Act Amendment Act of 1897, which gave the Governor in Council power to prescribe that any subjects of secular instruction might be subjects of instruction in primary schools. The department immediately took advantage of this amending Act, and provided for the teaching of mathematics, higher English, and science in the fifth and sixth classes. So far as the resources at its disposal have permitted, the Department of Public Instruction has done what it could to bring primary education within the reach of all the children of the State, and it may be safely claimed that wherever twelve children can be gathered together there exists a school. But where the children cannot be gathered into groups the department goes to the homes of the pupils. Itinerant teachers, fully equipped with buggies, camping outfits, school requisites, and other necessaries, traverse the sparsely settled districts in the far West and North where the establishment of schools is not possible. The travelling teachers look for the homes of the pupils, be those homes rude wayside inns, log cabins, or even tents, and an effort is made to visit each home not less than four times a year. Under this system the little ones are at least taught to read, to write, and to count. The itinerant teacher system was initiated in 1901, when one teacher was appointed. There are now twelve of these teachers, and the expenditure in this direction has risen from £411 per annum to £5,129 per annum. In 1906 the department began to appoint trained teachers to the charge of all schools where the attendance exceeded twelve. By this process properly qualified teachers will soon be in charge of 90 per cent. of the schools of the State. One of the most difficult problems which has to be faced in England, Scotland, America, and also in some of our sister States, is the adequate staffing of small country schools by efficient teachers. Queensland has solved that problem, and it is doubtful if any country has done better in that respect. Primary school teachers are officers of the State, and are not subject to the caprices of boards or local committees; they enjoy the protection and privileges of the Public Service Act, and the interests of no branch of the public service are more zealously protected by Parliament. They stand high in public estimation in Queensland, and that estimation is steadily rising. The pay on the whole is good--particularly that of head teachers, and the conditions of service are by no means unattractive. In 1908 the total expenditure on education (including school buildings) was £393,378 1s. 8d.; the total number of departmental schools open during that year was 1,141, the net enrolment of pupils being 94,193, and the average daily attendance 67,309. [Illustration: VIEW OF GYMPIE FROM NASHVILLE RAILWAY STATION] [Illustration: COKE OVENS, IPSWICH DISTRICT] PRIVATE SCHOOLS. The number of private schools in operation in Queensland during 1908 was 157, namely:--Church of England, 8; Roman Catholic, 61; Lutheran, 2; undenominational, 86. These schools are not subsidised by the State. The number of teachers employed in them during the year totalled 665. The total enrolment of scholars was 14,098--males, 5,934; females, 8,164. The total average number of scholars attending the schools was 11,928--males, 5,114; females, 6,814. SECONDARY EDUCATION. In 1860, that is within one year of the founding of Queensland as a separate State, an Act was passed to provide for the establishment of grammar schools, in which was to be given an education higher than that which could be given in the elementary schools. The following remarks made by Mr. R. G. W. Herbert, who introduced the bill in the Legislative Assembly, are very interesting. He said: "The question of education might be considered under three heads as primary, grammar school, and collegiate. The bill introduced into the other branch of the Legislature was intended to provide for primary education, principally under the national system, and would make adequate provision for imparting fundamental instruction at a cheap rate to all classes of youth without distinction of creed or religious profession. The bill he now introduced was intended to provide for a higher order of instruction of a useful and thoroughly practical character by establishing grammar schools easily accessible to the colonial youth of all denominations throughout the colony.... It was desirable that the instruction to be afforded in the grammar schools should be afforded at a cheap rate, so that as many as possible might avail themselves of it, and that it should be such as would best qualify the youth of the colony for discharging the duties that would devolve upon them in after life." Captain O'Connell, who had charge of the measure in the Legislative Council, said: "It was merely a sequel to the Primary Education Bill, and was designed to give those who might desire it a higher education than could be afforded by the primary schools. It was a matter of the greatest importance that a system of this kind should be established on a broad and permanent foundation, and therefore it was not difficult to perceive that the creation of primary schools such as were contemplated under the other bill would be found extremely useful in carrying out the great objects now proposed to be accomplished." Under the provisions of the Grammar Schools Act a school may be established in any locality where a sum of not less than £1,000 has been raised locally, and the Governor in Council may grant towards the erection of school buildings and a residence for the principal a subsidy equal to twice the amount raised locally. An amending Act was passed in 1864 providing that when certain conditions had been complied with an annual endowment of £1,000 might be granted to each grammar school. Each school is governed by a board of seven trustees; of these, four are appointed by the Government, and three are nominated by the subscribers to the building fund; they hold office for three years. There are ten grammar schools in the State--seven in Southern, two in Central, and one in Northern Queensland. The Ipswich Boys' Grammar School was the first to be established; it was erected in 1863. The last established was the school for girls in Rockhampton, which was founded in 1892. Each of the schools has qualified for the annual endowment of £1,000; of this amount the State pays £750 a year unconditionally, and £250 on the understanding that the school will receive a certain number of State scholars per annum, the scholarships held by these pupils being known as district scholarships. Queensland has always been liberal in the granting of scholarships, and at the present time no less than 102, including the district scholarships, are granted every year; of these, 70 are available for boys, and 32 for girls. Each scholarship has a currency of three years. The State also grants seven bursaries to boys and three to girls. A bursary entitles the holder to free education at an approved secondary school for three years, together with a cash allowance of £30 per annum. The trustees of the various grammar schools also grant scholarships in addition to those provided by the State. In 1908 the aggregate enrolment of pupils in attendance at the grammar schools was 1,101, with an average daily attendance of 970; and of these pupils fully one-third were the holders of scholarships. Free railway passes to the nearest grammar school are granted to the holders of scholarships. To assist the children of poor parents to avail themselves of the scholarships which they may win, the Government grant a living allowance of £12 per annum to the winners of scholarships, provided that the income of the parents does not exceed £3 per week, or £30 per annum for each bona fide member of the family. This rule came into operation on the 1st of January, 1909. It is generally recognised that the Queensland grammar schools do good work; the success of their students in the junior and senior examinations of the Sydney University abundantly justifies this conclusion. Each school constructs its own programme, but, broadly speaking, the curriculum of the several schools is designed to lead up to the Sydney University. As each school practically shapes its own course, the success of the institution depends very largely upon the personality, efficiency, and vigour of the principal. In addition to the State-endowed grammar schools there are several other secondary schools. Some of these are denominational, and others are conducted by private persons. Schools of this class are not endowed by the State, but the winners of State scholarships or bursaries may attend these institutions if the Governor in Council is satisfied that they are of a sufficiently high standard. Queensland has not so far placed the coping-stone on her educational system by establishing a University, but each year she grants three exhibitions to Universities outside the State. The exhibitions are open to competition, and the test examination is the senior examination of the Sydney University. Each exhibition has a currency of three years, and is worth £100 a year. The winners may attend any University approved by the Governor in Council. It will thus be seen that Queensland has been fairly liberal in providing the means of higher education for her children. A comparison with her sister States of New South Wales and Victoria emphasises this fact. During the year 1906-7 New South Wales, with a population of 1,528,697, and a revenue of £13,392,435, granted £12,945 towards secondary education; Victoria, with a population of 1,231,940, and a revenue of £8,345,534, granted £5,874; Queensland, with a population of 535,113, and a revenue of £4,307,912, granted £12,909, this amount being exclusive of the £900 per annum granted on account of exhibitions to Universities. In 1908 the amount granted by the State towards secondary education in Queensland was £14,272 11s. 11d. TECHNICAL EDUCATION. The system of technical education in Queensland is in its infancy, but no branch is likely to make more rapid and lusty growth or to have a more important bearing upon the industrial and commercial development of the State. The Brisbane Technical College has been in existence as a distinct institution since 1882. It is only since July, 1905, that the Education Department has been closely associated with the administration of technical education. Previous to 1902 technical colleges, with the exception of the Brisbane College, were carried on in connection with schools of arts under the control of local committees, the State subsidising the colleges to the extent of £1 for each £1 paid in fees or subscribed for technical college purposes. In 1902 a Board of Technical Education was created; the board held office until 1905, when this branch of education was placed under the control of the department, and a special officer was appointed to supervise the work. Endowment is now paid upon a differential scale, the distribution being based on the general and practical utility of the subjects taught, the subsidy ranging from 10s. to £3 for every £1 collected in fees. There were seventeen colleges in operation during 1908. The progress which has been made during the past five years is shown in the following table:-- ---------------------+---------------------+---------------- Year. | Number of | Endowment. |Individual Students. | ---------------------+---------------------+---------------- 1904 | 3,600 | £4,732 4 6 1905 | 3,892 | 5,460 4 11 1906 | 4,321 | 7,930 13 5 1907 | 4,702 | 9,610 4 2 1908 | 5,187 | 10,719 12 7 ---------------------+---------------------+---------------- The importance of a highly developed system of technical education has been fully realised in this State, and in 1908 a Technical Instruction Act was passed. It provides for the establishment of a central technical college in Brisbane which shall be maintained by, and be under the direct control of, the State. It is intended that this college shall be the recognised technical institute of Queensland, and it is hoped that it may ultimately be one of the most important institutions of the kind in Australia. The colleges outside the metropolis will be affiliated with the central college, but will remain under local control. In addition to liberal assistance to technical education, provision has been made for evening continuation classes. These classes are to enable pupils who have left school before completing their primary education to continue their education; to assist persons to obtain instruction in special subjects relating to their employment; and to prepare students for the technical colleges. The classes are liberally endowed by the State, and very comprehensive regulations have been framed for their administration, the system being probably the best of its kind in the Commonwealth. [Illustration: GULF CATTLE READY FOR MARKET] [Illustration: BRIGALOW COUNTRY, WARRA, DARLING DOWNS] [Illustration: HEREFORD COWS, DARLING DOWNS] Schools of arts and reading rooms are also fostered by the State. A grant of 10s. is made for each £1 of subscriptions or donations, but the grant to any one institution cannot exceed £150 per annum. The State subsidises reading rooms at shearing sheds, sugar mills, and meat works to the extent of £1 for £1, with a view to assisting to provide reading matter, and such suitable recreation games as draughts, chess, &c., for the workers in those industries. The amount contributed by the State towards schools of arts and reading rooms is £5,000 per annum, and in 1908 there were 181 of these institutions. UNIVERSITY. The question of establishing a University has been under consideration from time to time for the past thirty-five years, and more than one Royal Commission has been appointed to inquire into and report upon the subject. In 1874 a commission recommended the immediate foundation of a University. In 1891 another commission was appointed, and made a similar recommendation. For various reasons, however, but principally financial stringency, no action was taken until September, 1899, when the Government introduced a bill for the establishment of a University. Unfortunately the bill did not become law, and Queensland remained without a University for another decade. The Government programme for the first session of 1909 included a University Bill, but owing to the untimely dissolution of the Assembly nothing was done in the matter. When Parliament met again on 2nd November, the bill was the first measure proceeded with. Both Houses being unanimously in favour of establishing a University on modern, democratic lines, it was speedily passed, and on 10th December, the jubilee of the foundation of Queensland, Government House was dedicated to the purposes of the University by His Excellency the Governor, Sir William MacGregor, in the presence of a large and representative gathering of citizens. With the State system of primary education established on a sound basis; technical education placed on a firm foundation and progressing steadily; secondary education linked to the other branches, and all leading towards the University, Queensland will have a system of education which will place her on a level with the most progressive of the nations. PART III.--OUR JUBILEE YEAR. CHAPTER I. GENERAL REVIEW. Good Seasons and General Prosperity.--Land Settlement and Immigration.--The Sugar Crop.--Gold and Other Minerals.--Reduction in Cost of Mining and Treatment of Ores.--Vigorous Railway Extension.--Mileage Open for Traffic.--Efficiency of 3 ft. 6 in. Gauge.--Our Railway Investment.--The National Association Jubilee Show. --The General Election.--The Mandate of the Constituencies. --Government Majority.--Practical Extinction of Third Party.--Labour a Constitutional Opposition.--Federal Agreement with States.--Federal Union Vindicated. During the half-century of Queensland's existence she has never experienced a more prosperous year than that of her Jubilee. Not only have the seasons been good, the rains well distributed though in some parts light, but prices of staple products have been high in the world's markets. The increase of sheep, cattle, and horses has been unusually large this year; the clip of wool has been highly satisfactory both in respect of quality and market value; the yield of butter and cheese has been above the average; and crops generally have been remunerative to the farmer. The wheat crop at the time this chapter is being written promises well, the area showing a considerable increase upon last year, while prices are certainly above the average. Trade and commerce have consequently been brisk and sound, and nearly all classes of the community have participated in the prosperity that has prevailed. Settlement upon the land has progressed by leaps and bounds; immigrants have begun to flow into the country in encouraging numbers, and, with few exceptions, the new arrivals have found a market for their labour at wages contrasting favourably with their earnings in the mother land. Of all staple products sugar alone shows declension in yield this year, but that arises, not from the season of 1909, but from the unprecedentedly severe frosts of the previous year. Yet, despite the lessened yield of cane, the sugar-growers do not complain of bad times, nor is their outlook discouraging. The gold yield has continued to fall off, but that is partly due to the prosperity of the pastoral and agricultural industries, which have attracted both capital and labour that under other circumstances would have been employed in prospecting for the precious metal. Silver and the baser metals have also exhibited a shrinkage in output, but that is explained by the low prices which have ruled since the American crisis of two years ago. Two of the great mining companies in Central Queensland--the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company and the Great Fitzroy Copper Mining Company--have both had a prosperous year, having found in simultaneous mining for gold and copper abundant scope for enterprise and energy; and improved methods of raising ore, as well as constantly lessened expense of treatment, have made the prospect for the future reassuring. Large profits are being made to-day in the treatment of the less rich but more abundant ores, which could not have been utilised even ten years ago except at ruinous loss. It is now recognised that a well-organised laboratory is as essential in the equipment of a great mine as a corps of skilled miners or a range of smelting furnaces. Hence it is that the mining outlook is encouraging, and that in the opinion of scientific experts the industry in Queensland has scarcely yet passed the infantile stage. It is natural that in accordance with the progressive spirit of the times the Government should have induced Parliament to authorise the expenditure of much more than the recent average amount of loan money in the construction of railways and other public works. No less than eleven railways, as stated in the Commissioner's report recently published, have been under construction this year. These lines are expected to be completed within a few months, so that nearly 4,000 miles will be open for traffic before the close of the financial year. Besides this large mileage for a population of 568,000 persons, 446 miles of other railways and tramways, more or less under the control of the State, are available for public traffic. Being of the same gauge as the State railways, they have been the means of developing large areas and materially improving the position of the Government lines. Thus the length of railway which will be open for traffic before 30th June, 1910, will amount to 4,320 miles of the standard 3 ft. 6 in. gauge, which will be equal to the traffic of a comparatively dense population. The increased breadth of rolling-stock has been found to conduce to comfort without imperilling the safety of passengers, and by the use of heavier rails and more powerful engines the carrying capacity of the narrow-gauge lines has of late years been greatly increased.[a] The Commissioner puts the total cost of our railway system on 30th June last, including £1,139,405 spent on lines not yet open, at £24,534,727. The total authorised outlay is, however, given as £27,221,805, so that at the rate of expenditure of last year the balance unexpended will enable construction to be continued for over two years. The net revenue available for the defraying of interest accruing on capital for the financial year 1908-9 was £883,610,[b] equal to £3 7s. 6d. per cent. The mean rate of interest payable on the total public debt of Queensland, which includes much stock bearing more than 3½ per cent., is £3 14s. 1d. per cent., so that our railways may be deemed almost directly reproductive; and, what is still more satisfactory, they are rapidly improving in net earning capacity. As every extension adds to the volume of traffic, apart altogether from the added value given to Crown lands by providing them with railway communication, every inducement is held out to maintain a vigorous policy of construction. There is every reason to believe that in a few years our railway system will be the greatest and most stable of all contributors to the Consolidated Revenue; and when it is recollected that forty-five years ago there was not a mile of railway or tramway open for traffic in Queensland, the progress made in providing transport facilities is brought out in bold relief. One of the most noteworthy events of the Jubilee Year was the thirty-fourth exhibition of the National Agricultural and Industrial Association. This exhibition is the occasion of the most generally observed holiday of the year in the metropolis, and attracts thousands of visitors from all parts of Queensland, and many from the Southern States. It has come to be regarded as the annual meeting-ground of friends from widely separated localities. Year by year the attendance of visitors has grown, and the interest taken in the display has increased. This year special efforts were put forth by the council of the Association; and, fearing that their own resources would prove unequal to the strain, they applied to the Government for a jubilee grant. But the Government refused to do more than provide jubilee medals for certain classes of successful exhibitors, and enter some splendid exhibits from the State farms and others illustrative of the mineral wealth of Queensland. They held that to accede to the request would be to supply a precedent for similar applications from kindred associations in provincial towns, and that one of the glories of the metropolitan exhibition is that it is a self-supporting, self-reliant institution. The sequel proved the correctness of this view, for the exhibition far exceeded all predecessors in magnitude, and gave a handsome profit to the National Association, which richly deserved such a reward for months of self-sacrificing work. [Illustration: ABOVE STONY CREEK FALLS, CAIRNS RAILWAY] The official opening was attended by unusual pomp and ceremony, the Governor-General of the Commonwealth, the Earl of Dudley, performing the task of declaring the exhibition open. His Excellency took advantage of the opportunity to impress upon the people of Queensland the urgent need for a vigorous immigration policy if the country is to be successfully developed and its well-being maintained. To attempt a detailed description of what was not inappropriately termed "Our Jubilee Carnival" would be beyond the province and the scope of this volume. When it is mentioned that the exhibits numbered over 8,000, the magnitude of the undertaking will be realised. It will be sufficient to mention a few salient points. For example, there were no less than 1,580 exhibits of live stock; and as, in the case of sheep and cattle, an entry often included pens and not single animals, the provision made for this attractive and paramount feature of the show was taxed to its utmost capacity. These pastoral exhibits represented stock yielding more than a moiety of the £14,000,000 worth of annual exports; and the industry connected with grazing stock on the natural pastures of the country not only employs much labour and contributes largely to the revenue of the State directly in the shape of Crown rents and railway freights, but it assists the Treasury indirectly in many other ways. The magnificent display of stud and pedigree stock and their products spoke volumes for the value of the indigenous grass crop which costs nothing to raise and only wire fencing to protect. Among the exhibits was a trophy of that world-commanding product, wool, of which the value exported from Australia in 1908 is given in the Federal Treasurer's Budget delivered in August last as £22,914,236. The Commonwealth returns do not differentiate between the various States, but, assuming the average value of the fleece to be the same throughout Australia, the value of Queensland's share of the clip was about £5,000,000. Another product which has the world for its market is cotton. Of this article there were three splendid exhibits--one from West Moreton, in Southern Queensland; another from Rockhampton, in Central Queensland; and the third from Cairns, in Northern Queensland. Nothing save the cost of labour in picking prevents cotton being classed among the staple products of our State, and it is hoped by experts that as families upon the farms increase this difficulty will be removed. The Cairns exhibit was of Caravonica cotton, a variety of the valuable Sea Island species, concerning the extensive cultivation of which the most sanguine anticipations are expressed. In agricultural products emulation was greatly stimulated by the district exhibits, of which there were five, and on the whole they were superior to any that had ever before been shown in Queensland. Almost every product of the temperate and torrid zones appeared among the exhibits, though, of course, many of them are not yet being cultivated on a commercial scale. Among the most prominent of those of commercial value may be mentioned sugar, butter, cheese, hams, bacon, wheat, maize, fodder crops, potatoes, pineapples, and citrus and deciduous fruits, in all of which the displays were a revelation, not only to visitors from other parts of the continent and oversea, but also to many of our own people. The same may be remarked of the magnificent exhibits of gold, copper, tin, coal, and other minerals, which form so large a proportion of our wealth-producing exports. Statistics relating to the production and export of these commodities will be found in the appendices to this volume, and need not be further referred to here. Another attraction meriting special notice was the collection of gems and precious stones, the industry represented by which is at present struggling against the want of access to profitable markets; but the great interest aroused at the Franco-British Exhibition of last year by the magnificent display of Queensland gems is calculated to remove this disability, and to place the industry on a prosperous and permanent footing. The great variety of foods manufactured in Australia was another feature of the display, while in the machinery section the entries surpassed any previous exhibition in Queensland. Consequent upon the removal of border duties and the adoption of a uniform tariff, Queensland has suffered keenly from the competition of the Southern States. Statistics abundantly prove that some of our nascent manufactures have been checked seriously by such competition, although these losses are being gradually compensated for by gains in the form of enlarged free markets for products in which Queensland is safeguarded by natural conditions; but even freetraders must admit that our protective Customs duties are stimulating what are called native manufactures in a surprising degree, and that year by year Queensland and the Commonwealth at large are becoming less dependent upon the outside world for the products and manufactures which are essential to the existence of a civilised nation. Politically, 1909 has been rather a trying year, but the result of the general election on 2nd October seems to give promise of better things in Parliament. Both the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition agree that the practical extinction of the third party by the appeal to the electorate will be beneficial to the country. The election also ratifies the fusion of parties carried out towards the end of last year, with the consequential placing of the Labour party in the position of a constitutional Opposition. These salutary changes are held to be equivalent to a restoration of responsible government, which had been practically suspended by the impossibility of any party carrying on the work of legislation without making humiliating terms with an irresponsible section. It was contended that there were three parties in the country, and that the existence of the same phenomenon in the Assembly proved it to be a true reflex of the electorate at large; but the late general election has dispelled that illusion, for on no occasion since the splitting up of parties had the issue been put in so clear-cut a form to the country. Another result of the election has been to add somewhat to the strength of the Labour members, who are now sufficiently numerous in the Assembly to give them a reasonable expectation of being called upon in due time to assume the responsibilities of government. The State must gain from the resolution of the House into two parties, for the purity and effectiveness of party government demand that His Majesty's Ministers shall always be faced by an Opposition fitted and prepared to become the advisers of the King's representative whenever the existing Administration loses the confidence of the Parliament and the country. As mentioned elsewhere, a most satisfactory event of the year is the prospect of a settlement of the financial relations between Commonwealth and States on a durable and mutually acceptable basis. Public opinion throughout the continent is so clearly in favour of the agreement that its ratification seems certain during the present financial year, and it seems also certain that it will come into force on 1st July next. From that date there is reason to hope that the benefits of federal union will become so conspicuous as to silence cavilling opponents and justify the aspirations of its advocates. The general opinion throughout the Commonwealth with respect to the vital question of national defence has undergone a marvellous change for the better during the past twelve months, the unanimity displayed justifying the most sanguine anticipations of future unbroken concert between Great Britain and her self-governing dominions, and the supremacy of the British Empire on the ocean, a supremacy which means the protection of the world's trade routes and unimpeded maritime commerce. [Footnote a: As indicative of the progress made in the local manufacture of railway stock, it may be mentioned, on the authority of the Commissioner, that one Brisbane engineering firm has this year completed its 100th locomotive for the Department.] [Footnote b: Treasury figures. The Commissioner's figures differ somewhat from those of the Treasury. In estimating the percentage return the Railway Department takes into account only the expenditure on open lines, whilst the Treasury bases its calculations upon the expenditure on all lines, and charges the Railway Department with its proportion of loan deficiencies and flotation charges.] CHAPTER II. THE FEDERAL OUTLOOK. Proclamation of the Commonwealth.--The Referendum Vote.--Queensland's Small Majority in the Affirmative. --Representation in Federal Parliament.--The White Australia Policy.--Temporary Effect on Queensland. --An Embarrassed State Treasury.--Assistance to Sugar Industry.--Continued Protection Necessary.--Unequal Distribution of Federal Surplus Revenue.--The Transferred Properties.--Effect of Uniform Tariff.--Good Times Lessen Federal Burden on State.--The Agreement between Prime Minister and Premiers.--Better Feeling Towards Federation. --National Measures of Deakin Government. After several vain attempts on the part of Australian statesmen to bring about federation, the Commonwealth Constitution Act was adopted by the several States in 1899 and ratified by the Imperial Parliament in 1900; and Her Majesty Queen Victoria issued a proclamation, declaring that on and after 1st January, 1901, the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia should be federated under the name of the Commonwealth of Australia, the several colonies being thereafter known as "States." The union took place by the freewill of all the colonies, a popular vote being taken in each. The poll was small, only 583,865 electors recording their votes, of which number 422,788 voted for federation and 161,077 against, the majority in favour being 261,711. In Queensland 38,488 voted in the affirmative and 30,996 in the negative, giving the narrow majority of 7,492, equal to only 10·78 per cent. of the total votes polled. That majority was obtained by an almost block pro-federation vote throughout the Centre and North of the colony, the majority in the Southern district, which contained about two-thirds of the population, being adverse to union. There was no objection to the abstract principle or to the wisdom of a federal union--rather the reverse; but Queensland had not been represented at any of the Conventions at which the Constitution was drafted, and no provision was made, such as was made in the case of West Australia, to meet the peculiar geographical, industrial, and financial circumstances of this State. In the absence of legislative safeguards and guarantees, the unsatisfactory experience of New South Wales administration in pre-separation days led the people of Southern Queensland to doubt whether the vaunted fraternal spirit would withstand the actual attrition of business competition. They feared that the great urban populations of Sydney and Melbourne would, under the proposed democratic Constitution, secure for themselves industrial, commercial, and administrative advantages at the expense of their brethren, but none the less rivals, in the more remote parts of the continent. Believing that, though their occupations and products were the same as those of the Southern States, their interests were conflicting, the majority in Southern Queensland cast their votes against the union. Finding themselves in a minority, many of the opponents of federation deliberately refused to exercise the franchise in the first election, held in 1901. Instead of taking steps to secure the return to the Commonwealth Parliament of men who would try to avert any evil consequences arising from non-representation at the Conventions and who would oppose any unfair discrimination, the short-sighted abstention of these people from voting enabled the Labour party, who certainly did not comprise a majority of the electors, to return nine out of our fifteen representatives in the two Houses. [Illustration: MOUNT MORGAN: OPEN CUT AND DUMPS] [Illustration: MOUNT MORGAN: MUNDIC AND COPPER WORKS.] One of the first results of this predominance of Labour representation was the early passage of legislation abolishing Pacific Island labour in the sugar industry--which is almost exclusively confined to Queensland--and requiring all the islanders to leave Australia for their native homes not later than 31st December, 1906. With a view to compensating the cane-growers for the added cost of labour, and to induce them to abandon all forms of coloured labour, a bounty, ranging at the present time from 7s. 6d. per ton of cane in the extreme North to 6s. per ton in Southern Queensland and on the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, was offered upon all cane grown exclusively with white labour; while to provide funds for payment of the bounty an excise duty, first of £3 and then £4 per ton, was imposed. These radical changes occurred at a time, unfortunately, when the State was suffering from severe depression resulting from an unprecedented succession of adverse seasons and the substitution of a uniform protective Customs tariff for the State tariff, which had for years previously yielded a large revenue per head while affording protection to many native industries. The abolition of interstate Customs duties caused a further loss to the Queensland Treasury; so that the Government felt compelled to ask Parliament to impose new taxation as well as sanction severe retrenchment in order to check the alarming series of revenue deficits which, despite large loan expenditure, marked the stressful period. All this tended to make federation unpopular, and obscure the benefits the union under the Commonwealth Constitution was calculated to confer eventually. The popular sentiment was, however, overwhelmingly in favour of the White Australia policy; and even most of its opponents took exception to the hasty methods of enforcement rather than to the principle itself. Much difficulty was at first experienced in securing reliable white workers, but the remuneration year by year attracted, in increasing numbers, men accustomed to farm work, until, in 1908-9, the owners of about 90 per cent. of the cane grown found themselves in a position to claim the bounty. Pacific Island labour is now almost a thing of the past, though a few islanders who were not repatriated still engage in field work. In the more severely tropical of the sugar districts some Asiatic labour is also employed, the planters alleging that white men will not, unless at prohibitory wages, face the muggy heat of the cane-brake. The bounty, together with the £6 import duty, appears at length to have re-established the industry on a durable basis; but many growers look forward with some apprehension to the gradual extinction of the bounty and the possibility of a reduction in the import duty, holding that without the protection at present afforded Australian cane sugar cannot compete against the product of the cheap coloured labour of Java, Fiji, and Mauritius, or the beet sugar of Europe. A further objection to federation was found in the mode adopted of distributing the Federal surplus revenue among the States. The 87th section of the Constitution required that for ten years the Federal Government should not expend on its own purposes more than one-fourth of the net Customs and Excise revenue of the Commonwealth, and that the balance of such revenue should be returned to the States. Prior to federation this had been interpreted to mean that each State would receive back not less than three-fourths of the net Customs and Excise revenue collected within its jurisdiction. But the Commonwealth Crown law officers placed a different construction on the section, and held that, so long as at least three-fourths of the net Customs revenue was distributed collectively, the Commonwealth had no obligation to return that proportion to any individual State. This has caused great uncertainty and embarrassment to the Queensland Treasurer, and has impelled many public men to stigmatise the union as a curse instead of a blessing. In illustration of the unequal division of the surplus Federal revenue among the States, it may be mentioned that, according to a table published by the Commonwealth Auditor-General, while the aggregate sum beyond the three-fourths of Customs and Excise revenue returned to the States amounted to £6,059,087, Queensland actually received £44,951 less than her three-fourths during the eight and a-half years ended 30th June, 1909; and her Treasurer was much embarrassed by the uncertainty of the return owing to tariff alterations and the determination of the Federal Government to defray from revenue otherwise accruing to the State under the Constitution Act the cost of permanent buildings, which the State had formerly provided for out of loan moneys. Another grievance of the States--especially of Queensland, which borrowed largely to construct its 10,253 miles of telegraph lines, and incurred a heavy annual charge upon revenue in providing postal communication throughout its vast and scantily populated territory--is that the Commonwealth Government treat section 85 of the Constitution as a dead letter. This provision expressly enacts that "the Commonwealth shall compensate the State for the value of any property passing to the Commonwealth under this section"; but not a penny of compensation has ever been paid, although there is a considerable interest charge to be met annually by the State Treasuries on account of money borrowed for the purposes of these transferred properties. The chief revenue loss suffered by the Queensland Treasury under federation arose from the passing of the uniform tariff, which drew considerably less than the former State tariff from the pockets of the taxpayers. Of course the remedy had to be sought in other taxation, and it could only be found in direct levies much more objectionable than the indirect charge imposed by Customs duties. However, the feat was ultimately accomplished, despite the depressed condition of the State through years of scanty rainfall and the enormous losses of live stock consequent thereon; but successive State Governments have had to bear much unmerited odium and have suffered in popularity on account of their efforts to restore financial equilibrium when the principal disturbing element was the advent of federation and not State mismanagement. Since times began to improve throughout Australia, the Federal burden has been less in evidence; and at the late Melbourne Conference, held to confer with the Commonwealth Government with the view to adjust mutual relations, no State Premier recognised more frankly than did Mr. Kidston the claims of the Federal Government to increased revenue to defray the cost of old-age pensions, naval and military defence, and other great national objects. The provisional agreement entered into by the Conference was recognised by all the Premiers as less advantageous than they had desired, but they were unanimous in admitting that under the altered conditions it was the best they could now hope for. On the Commonwealth side it was recognised that the States had made a large voluntary surrender, and that the position of the Federal Treasury would be greatly strengthened under the operation of the agreement. The apparent dread of diminishing Customs revenue in after years was clearly not well founded, because the Commonwealth Parliament can easily, by readjustment of duties, make up any deficiency. On the other hand, an immense advantage will be gained by both parties to the agreement from the separation of Federal and State finances except in respect of the liability of the Commonwealth to hand over, and the right of the States to receive, a fixed annual contribution of 25s. per head of the population. The representatives of the States granted a further concession to the Commonwealth by permitting the retention of an additional £600,000 of the Customs revenue for the current year to reimburse the cost of old-age pensions not already provided for by the Commonwealth Trust Fund created by the Surplus Revenue Act of 1908. The bill embodying the agreement received the approval of the statutory majority in both Houses of Parliament. It now rests with the electors of the Commonwealth to accept or reject the necessary amendment of the Constitution; and there is every reason to hope that the compact will be made as permanent as any other part of the Constitution. In that event, the relations between Commonwealth and States will undoubtedly improve, and harmonious co-operation for the public welfare may be safely anticipated from the Parliaments. The Federal session of 1909 has been distinguished by the passage of epoch-making bills for the appointment of a High Commissioner in London and for naval and military defence, measures which are calculated to raise the Commonwealth to an exalted position in the scale of young nations. [Illustration: QUEENSLAND 1859] [Illustration: QUEENSLAND 1909] [Illustration: AUSTRALIA 1859 SHOWING SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES] [Illustration: THE WORLD Showing relative position of AUSTRALIA.] PART IV.--THE PRIMARY INDUSTRIES. CHAPTER I. THE PASTORAL INDUSTRY. Importance of Industry.--Small Beginnings in New South Wales.--Extension of Industry.--Stocking of Darling Downs and Western Queensland.--Rush for Pastoral Lands.--Difficulties of Early Squatters.--Influx of Victorian Capital.--Changes in Method of Working Stations.--Boom in Pastoral Properties. --Checks from Drought.--Discovery of Artesian Water. --Conservation of Surface Water.--Introduction of Grazing Farm System.--Closer Settlement of Darling Downs. --Cattle-Rearing.--Meat-Freezing Works.--Overstocking. --Dairying.--Station Routine.--Charm of Pastoral Life. --Shearing.--Hospitality of Squatters.--Attraction of Industry as Investment and Occupation. The pastoral industry in Queensland is, in point of duration, well within the compass of a single life. In about seventy years it has attained its present dimensions, and, as progress in the early years was very slow, its magnitude to-day supplies striking testimony to the energy and enterprise of two generations. The description of Queensland as a huge sheep and cattle farm with contributive industries, which without very great extravagance might have been offered forty years ago, has long ceased to be applicable. But though other industries have grown into importance, reducing its pre-eminence, the pastoral still retains its unquestioned lead and is deservedly regarded as the main source of the State's wealth. Bearing in mind that the total exports from Queensland for 1907 were rather over fourteen and a-half millions sterling, of which pastoral produce claimed more than half, it will be seen that this title to precedence cannot be challenged. With an abatement of £529,000 for butter--dairying being associated with agriculture--this imposing sum is the direct product of the natural grasses. It can hardly be surprising then, after realising the potential wealth of these pastures, that visitors should be struck with the fact that rainfall--past, present, and prospective--is a constant and very prominent topic in all grades of social intercourse. That a continent so suited to the abundant propagation of animal life should have been so poorly equipped by Nature with an indigenous fauna can only be accounted for by Australia's primeval isolation. Similar vast prairie lands, which in America sustained countless herds of bison and in Africa literally swarmed with antelope and many species of game, were in Australia almost uninhabited. The absence of large rivers and a general scarcity of water had doubtless much to do with this destitute condition of the great pasture lands of the interior, but still the wonder remains that a continent which now carries more sheep than any other country in the world should have been in its original state, except along its coastal belt, almost tenantless. The fierce carnivora of the older world were entirely unrepresented, the principal denizen of the lonely land being the timid kangaroo; but the curious problems presented by the Australian fauna have compensated the naturalist for its modest numbers. In Queensland what is recognised as the Western Interior occupies about half the area of the State and is distinct in its geological formation from the coastal belt, the waters of which run into the ocean to the east and north. The region of these watersheds, with the exception of some comparatively limited areas of downs country on the heads of the rivers, is regarded as unsuitable for sheep, the rainfall being more abundant than on the Western waters and the grass coarser, so that cattle are almost exclusively run there. In the Western Interior are the true sheep pastures. The farther one goes west the more treeless the country becomes. Here undulating downs for the most part stretch to the horizon, intersected by watercourses fringed with timber, and although in summer many of these creeks shrink to a chain of disconnected waterholes, few of which are permanent, they offer abundant opportunities for water conservation. In the last few years many for several miles of their course have been converted into running streams by artesian bores. Before, however, dwelling on the present position, we must briefly glance at the origin of pastoral enterprise in Australia and its tardy extension to Queensland. As soon as settlement was established, the new land had to be stocked with the domesticated animals of the old. Captain Phillip, the first Governor, in 1788 made a very modest start. He brought with him from England 7 horses, 7 cattle, and 29 sheep, besides pigs, rabbits, and poultry. Remembering that in those days England was from six to nine months distant from the new settlement, it is not perhaps surprising that pastoral progress was slow. In 1800 there were only 6,124 sheep and 1,044 cattle in Australia. But five years prior to this the seed destined to produce a giant growth was already germinating. A shrewd young soldier had detected the germ of Australia's future wealth. With a strange prescience, unaided by experience, Captain Macarthur recognised that the dry climate of Australia was peculiarly adapted to the growth of a fine type of wool. Starting from most unpromising ewes from India, he gradually improved the strain by the introduction of Spanish blood. He was fortunate at the start in getting three rams from the Cape, part of a gift from the King of Spain to the Dutch Government, and by sedulous culling with a bold disregard for carcass, although fat wethers at the time sold for £5, he succeeded in establishing a good merino flock the wool from which created an excellent impression in England. English manufacturers, who had hitherto drawn their limited stocks of clothing wool from Spain, welcomed the promise of a new source of supply. Macarthur had taken some wool with him to England, when deported in consequence of a fatal duel in 1803, and its fine quality was at once recognised and appreciated. He was fortunate in being still there in the following year, when George the Third, in the hope of encouraging the production of fine wool, sold a portion of his Kew stud flock, the progeny of Negretti sheep, another gift of the Spanish King, so that they might be distributed amongst his subjects. Macarthur was the principal buyer, securing seven rams and a ewe at very moderate prices, the highest being under £30. He was an enthusiast, and could see the enormous possibilities of the virgin continent he had left, with its mild dry climate and almost limitless pasture lands, for the maintenance of great flocks, the wool of which could be improved to the finest type. He asked the British Government for a grant of land to feed his flocks, assuring them that he was "so convinced of the practicability of supplying this country with any quantity of fine wool that it may require that I am earnestly solicitous to prosecute this important object, and on my return to New South Wales will devote my whole attention to accelerating its complete attainment." This request--in spite of the adverse opinion of Sir Joseph Banks as to the suitability of the new land for wool-growing--was granted, Lord Camden instructing the Governor of New South Wales to grant Macarthur such lands "as would enable him to extend his flocks in such a degree as may promise to supply a sufficiency of animal food for the colony as well as a lucrative article of export for the support of our manufactures at home." Macarthur selected near Mount Taurus, and the Camden estate, long famous as the source from which many studs were either formed or replenished, was established. How limited at this time was the world's production of this superfine wool--suited to the manufacture of the finest fabrics--may be gathered from the fact of one bale of Macarthur's being sold at Garraway's Coffee House in 1807 at 10s. 6d. per lb., the cloth from which provided England's Farmer King with a coat. But not till the merino had passed beyond coastal influences was the improvement of growth due to an eminently suitable habitat fully realised. Wentworth and others had in 1813 pushed across the Blue Mountains, and the occupation of the interior began. In the Mudgee district, which was stocked with sheep about 1824, the clip improved so distinctly on the original Spanish stock as to form almost a new type. Increasing in length and gaining in softness and elasticity, it has commanded ever-increasing attention from manufacturers, and has long been recognised as the premier fine wool of the world. Tasmania, starting with Macarthur's stock, and following on his breeding lines, had proved peculiarly adapted for the growth of a dense fleece of fine wool. As numbers rapidly increased in this small island, flockmasters had to look about for an outlet. This was easily found on the mainland, and sheep were soon pouring across the narrow strait into the district of Port Phillip, which in 1851 was proclaimed the colony of Victoria. After Macarthur's death in 1834, his system of breeding was carefully followed by his widow, and when in 1858 the flock was dispersed the stud ewes numbered about 1,000. These, passing into the hands of flockmasters of New South Wales and Victoria, were the foundation of many of the noted studs of to-day. The Victorian flocks, starting from the Tasmanian, early competed with the island of their origin in excellence, and, though Tasmania still maintains its reputation as the home from which the studs of the other States are constantly replenished, it has of late years gone largely into crossbreds. The most noted studs, however, are still maintained undefiled, except that the introduction of the American Vermont blood has been in some cases cautiously tried, with results that have provoked much controversy. Other pioneers of the industry, the Rev. Samuel Marsden for one, started with the same Spanish blood, crossed with the hardy and prolific Indian ewe, but unlike Macarthur they found the temptations of the fat stock market irresistible. Remembering the great price fat wethers commanded in those early days, it must be admitted that the temptation was considerable. Macarthur, however, by steadily rejecting all mutton breeds and making a fine description of fleece his one object, deserves grateful recognition as the founder of the Australian merino. [Illustration: FAT CATTLE, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND] [Illustration: CATTLE COUNTRY, WEST MORETON] Although the settlement of Moreton Bay was started in 1824, it was long before the pastoral industry made any progress in the territory which is now Queensland. In that year Governor Brisbane sent Oxley to explore Moreton Bay and report on its suitability for a convict out-station. From information given by two white castaways living with the blacks, he found the river which Cook in 1770 and Flinders ten years later had failed to discover--though both, confident of its existence, had spent days in the Bay searching for its embouchure. Sheep and cattle were sent as supplies. But in a few years the settlement was abandoned, the officials and prisoners returning to New South Wales; and in 1842, when Moreton Bay was proclaimed a free settlement, the Government live stock were dispersed by sale amongst the settlers. Blacks were numerous and very hostile, and, though cattle throve well, the country was found unsuitable for sheep, so that expansion from the Moreton district was very slow. But already in 1827 one man had been favoured with a glimpse of what is still regarded as the garden of Queensland. Allan Cunningham, starting from the Hunter, had pushed steadily North for 500 miles till he emerged from the broken highlands of New England on to the famous Downs which he named after Sir Charles Darling. He was enraptured with the country, which he described as clothed "with grasses and herbage exhibiting an extraordinary luxuriance of growth." Yet it was thirteen years before anyone took advantage of his discovery. To a later generation acquainted with the great value of the lands, which as a distinguished botanist Cunningham could not have failed to recognise, this appears one of the most astounding facts in the history of exploration. Many a time he must have discoursed to his friend Patrick Leslie on the rich vision he had been privileged to look on, yet it was not till 1840 that the latter with a small flock followed in his footsteps. What increases the surprise at this apparently strange lack of enterprise is that the year after Cunningham had found the Darling Downs he visited Moreton Bay, and succeeded in crossing the range from the coast by a gap since known by his name and reached the vicinity of his old camp, thus demonstrating that the natural port of this rich region was little over a hundred miles distant. Leslie, who settled in the neighbourhood of where the flourishing town of Warwick now stands, was rapidly followed by others who established the fine squattages that have since become famous. Although a few sheep had previously been introduced in the Moreton district, Leslie and his confreres must be regarded as the fathers of sheep-farming in Queensland. Difficulties of carriage long retarded any attempt to occupy the splendid territory farther West which Sir James Mitchell had explored in 1846 and Kennedy had farther penetrated a year later, crossing the Barcoo and discovering the Thomson River. Though the existence of these vast rolling plains was known, the presumption that no industry requiring a fair amount of labour could pay, handicapped with five to six hundred miles of land carriage, checked any attempt to occupy them. Nor was this unreasonable. The difficulties and uncertainties of such an undertaking might well prompt hesitation. Yet, in view of the rich returns from flocks elsewhere, it was impossible that these solitudes should for very long await easier conditions. A few adventurous spirits pushed out to these great undulating plains. Their example was quickly followed. In the early sixties a general migration westward began, and wherever water was met with the country was taken up. In 1869 an Act was passed granting 21-year leases to applicants who had taken up areas and stocked them to the extent of twenty-five sheep or five cattle to the square mile. It was found that on these Western pastures, rich with succulent grasses and saline shrubs all the year round, and in winter abounding in herbage of many descriptions, all stock grew and fattened amazingly. The climate, too, falsified all predictions, and instead of converting the wool to hair, which experts had prognosticated as the inevitable result of an ardent summer, grew an excellent fleece of fine lustrous combing wool. A frantic rush for country set in. Flocks and herds were hurried out by jealous owners anxious to forestall one another in the scramble for leases. In a few years the whole territory, except where absence of water forbade settlement, was parcelled out in sheep and cattle runs. It had not yet been recognised how country destitute of surface water could be utilised. On these neglected areas are now many prosperous sheep-runs, the pioneers little suspecting the inexhaustible supplies awaiting the magic touch of the boring-rod to provide the abundant streams they longed for. With such easy conditions of tenure and lands of unsurpassable quality for grazing, it might naturally be expected that these pioneers amassed easy fortunes. The falsification of such expectation is a melancholy story. Though the cattle-men in many cases managed to struggle on, the majority of the sheep-owners went under. The difficulties were enormous. Railways had not yet penetrated the country, though a small start had been made. Wool took from six to nine months reaching the coast by bullock dray, and the carriage of supplies to the station cost more than the goods themselves. Frequently the next clip was awaiting carriage ere the previous one had left the station. Wages were high, and all forms of labour scarce. The quality of sheep, too, was poor, many of them being the culls from Southern flocks, bought at high prices. The depression in the wool market, with high rates of interest on borrowed money, strained the pioneer's resources to breaking point, and in too many cases years of strenuous endeavour and hardship ended in ruin. But brighter days were in store. As railways pushed out, the attention of Victorian capitalists was attracted by the potentialities of Western Queensland. The phenomenal gold production of Victoria had produced a plethora of money seeking investment, which constituted Melbourne the financial capital of Australia. This accumulated wealth, after fructifying New South Wales, flowed into Queensland. A Victorian invasion began. The knell of the shepherd had sounded, wire fences taking his place. Sheep that had hitherto been run in flocks of 1,500 to 2,000, tended during the day by a man and a dog and yarded at night, were now turned into large paddocks by tens of thousands with only a boundary rider to look to the fences. It was found by this method that the carrying capacity of country was enormously increased. Yarded sheep, driven to and fro twice daily, destroy more grass than they can eat, whereas when left to themselves it is all utilised. The smaller the paddocks, the less the sheep wander and the larger the number that can be carried on a given area. It was found, too, that stocking greatly improved the water. On the spongy surface of virgin country, untrodden by any hoof, there was little "run" off the surface after rain, but when hardened by the tread of stock the creeks received a fairer share of the downpour. The best rams procurable from the Darling Downs and noted Southern studs rapidly improved the flocks. In 1873 wool rose to a price not touched for many years; a boom in Queensland stations set in, and the remnant of the pioneers who elected to do so sold out at prices that gave a rich though tardy reward for long and toilsome enterprise. Although the general course of the industry has been one of great prosperity, it has not been without its serious checks. A severe drought throughout nearly the whole of Australia, culminating in 1902, inflicted terrible losses of both sheep and cattle. Waterholes supposed to be permanent dried up; and pastures within reach of those which proved permanent were trodden into a desert condition till the stock were too weak to travel back to the surviving pasturage. The outlook was so gloomy that almost universal ruin seemed impending. It is sad to think that whilst stock were perishing in multitudes abundant subterranean streams, flowing southward to discharge uselessly in the Great Australian Bight, might have been available to avert this national calamity. The uses of adversity have never been more strikingly exemplified than by the number of artesian bores put down since that hard experience. These, as the cost of sinking decreases, are multiplying yearly. The artesian basin exists throughout nearly three-fifths of Queensland, and whilst the origin of these subterranean stores is still somewhat of a mystery they are apparently inexhaustible. The supply and the depth at which water is obtained vary considerably; the former runs as high as 3,000,000 gallons per diem, and the latter averages about 1,600 feet. Whilst artesian boring has been prosecuted with commendable enterprise, the storage of surface water on an extensive scale has not yet received the attention it deserves. Many schemes have been mooted for conserving a portion of the huge volume of water that in the rainy season flows through regions which would gladly retain a share, to waste itself in the Southern Ocean. Doubtless in the future a problem of such fascination will attract the best engineering skill, and a number of inland lakes will result. But that day may yet be distant. One such scheme only need be noticed. The Diamantina River, which in time of flood stretches out to many miles in breadth, flows south-westward through several degrees of Western Queensland. At a point known as Diamantina Gates it finds an exit through a narrow gorge in a low range. Although never yet tested by accurate survey, competent judges have surmised that a substantial dam at this spot would throw back an amount of water which would constitute a veritable inland sea. Other large rivers--the Thomson, Barcoo, Hamilton, Georgina--also offer to the hydraulic engineer splendid opportunities of winning distinction. In 1884 a notable change of land policy was adopted. The 1869 leases were expiring, and it was recognised that the big squattages could not longer be allowed to monopolise the country. Room was required for smaller holdings. All available country was already occupied under the 1869 leases, and, although under another Act 5,120 acres could be acquired with conditions of improvement and residence, there was no way of getting an area capable of carrying 10,000 sheep. There did not exist a small squatting class. The Minister for Lands, Mr. C. B. Dutton--himself a large squatter--recognised the desirability of creating such a class, which would stand in the same relation to the "squattocracy" that the yeomen of Britain do to the large landowners. In granting a new lease to the original lessee, Dutton's Act required him to surrender a portion of his run, from a half to a quarter according to the length of time his lease had been running. A Land Board independent of Ministerial control was appointed to arrange an equitable division of the runs and to fix the rent of the new lease, which was for fifteen years. Two years later this was increased to twenty-one years, on condition of the lessee surrendering another quarter of his area at the end of the fifteenth year. The portions resumed from the old squattages were surveyed into areas up to 20,000 acres and thrown open to selection. The old lessee--who regarded any area under 400 square miles as a paltry holding and counted his crop of calves by thousands and his yearly lambing increase by tens of thousands--ridiculed the new departure, maintaining that any man must starve on such an absurdly inadequate area as 20,000 acres. But these sinister predictions did not deter selectors from testing the question. At first grazing farms were only very gradually applied for, but a few years' experience justified Mr. Dutton's expectations, and a great demand set in, till now, as soon as opened to selection, there is a keen competition for them. The difficulty is to survey them fast enough to provide for requirements. The maximum area has since been increased so that now as much as 60,000 acres can be held by an individual, provided the total rent does not exceed £200. It is not unusual for three or four grazing farmers to combine and manage the combined leasehold as a co-partnership, which, although not provided for in the Act, is sanctioned by the Land Court. [Illustration: HORSES AT GOWRIE, DARLING DOWNS] [Illustration: SHEEP AT GOWRIE, DARLING DOWNS] [Illustration: HORSES, WESTERN QUEENSLAND] [Illustration: FAT CATTLE, BURRANDILLA, CHARLEVILLE] A new Act in 1902 offered those who elected to take advantage of it a fresh lease, at the expiration of the current one, of from ten to forty-two years, according to classification; and farther resumptions were made for closer settlement. The classification, which was decided by the Land Court, was governed by the degree of remoteness from railway and the demand for land in the neighbourhood. The low range of hills surrounding the Darling Downs encloses over 2,000,000 acres of land of a quality that invites the plough to convert it into the granary of the State. As the railway to the New South Wales border takes its rather serpentine course southwards, coasting round many of the undulations to avoid cutting through them, the traveller looks upon a land which he must recognise as capable of maintaining a large farming population. What he actually saw till quite recently was paddock after paddock of sheep on each side, then a paddock of cattle and horses, and again more sheep. It was palpable that this could not continue indefinitely. The railway built at the cost of the general taxpayers had greatly increased the value of these estates and rendered their working more profitable. The owners of these flocks and herds had done good service to the State, and deserved the most generous treatment. Successors of the original pioneers, they had bred the stock that helped to occupy the West, and had founded studs that enabled others to replenish their flocks and herds from the purest sources. It was important above all things that no legislative interference should harass men who deserved so well of Queensland, and that no step should be taken to dispossess them which could be suspected of any taint of harshness. In time, doubtless, they would themselves have parcelled out their estates for tillage, but the process would have been slow, the easy terms of payment possible to a Government borrowing money at a low rate of interest not being generally convenient to an individual, and time in the development of a young country is important. Parliament therefore took the matter in hand and decided that where possible these landholders should be bought out on a valuation made by an independent tribunal. A number of properties have been bought by the Government, cut up into farms of from 80 acres upwards, and sold to farmers on liberal terms, payment extending over twenty-five years. Mixed farming and dairying are the chief purposes to which the land has been put, and busy townships have sprung up at the railway stations where a few years ago the stationmaster, his family, and an assistant porter formed the bulk of the resident population. Breeding lambs for export is found to be a profitable branch of the pastoral business on the Downs, and the breeding of crossbreds is consequently increasing, the Lincoln or Leicester being mated with the merino. Southdown and Romney rams have also been tried, but the Lincoln cross has been generally preferred. Crossbred lambs three to four months old bring 10s. in Brisbane, the railage costing from 1s. to 1s. 3d. So far little mention has been made of cattle. It may be generally stated that where country is suitable for sheep, or, more accurately speaking, where they can be profitably run, cattle are only depastured in very small herds. The coastal belt and the Northern Gulf region are exclusively cattle country, and in the extreme West, although sheep thrive excellently, the long carriage causes cattle to be preferred, the expense of cattle management being much below that of sheep. The product of these distant pastures travels on the hoof to market, the Western cattle being noted for their great weight of flesh and the distance they carry it without great waste. Most of the herds have been improved to a high degree of excellence by importation of some of the best blood in England, and high-class stud herds have been long established in the different States from which drafts of herd bulls are drawn as required at from about 10 to 15 guineas per head. With a population of little over half a million occupying a territory of 670,500 square miles, it will be realised that the yearly cast of "fats" greatly exceeds local requirements. The Southern States take a large number. New South Wales and Victoria are the best customers, as, with a combined population of roughly five times that of Queensland, the total of their cattle is only slightly in excess of the Queensland herd. South Australia is also a regular buyer of "fats." The "stores" that go South to be fattened beyond the State are almost exclusively bullocks of three to four years. Amongst the "fats" of ripe ages is a proportion of dry cows, and a limited number of breeders and mixed cattle also find sale with Southern buyers. But these outlets would have been quite inadequate for the absorption of the Queensland annual surplus had not meat-preserving come to the rescue of the stock-owner. Before freezing works were established, boiling down was the one resource, the tallow, hides, and sheepskins giving a meagre return, whilst the valuable carcass went to the pigs. The late Sir Arthur Hodgson, a leading pastoralist, used to relate with humorous comments his experiences with a first draft of sheep from his Darling Downs station (Eton Vale), brought to Brisbane to be boiled down at the Kangaroo Point works. During the process the owner--educated at Eton, and subsequently a Minister of the Crown in Queensland--went round daily with a handcart selling the legs of mutton at sixpence apiece. Such commercial enterprise has long fallen into desuetude. To bring the surplus meat of Australia within reach of the eager millions of Europe has not been an easy problem, but it has at length been fairly solved by freezing the carcass, though much has yet to be done in discovering the best method of distribution of so perishable an article and its proper treatment from the freezing chamber to the spit. The various works buy cattle at about 18s. to 20s. per 100 lb., the weight of bullocks averaging about 750 lb., though many mobs, notably the huge beasts from the West, go as much as 200 lb. beyond this. The works are also buyers of fat sheep, a 50-lb. wether two or three months after shearing bringing from 9s. to 10s. In the six years 1901-6 the exports of frozen meat from Australia totalled 353,514,135 lb. of beef and 371,692,090 lb. of mutton. An occupation the profits of which are capable of such large additions by increasing numbers is apt to foster a spirit of gambling. In a season of bountiful rainfall it is almost impossible to over-stock country, and owners too often take the risk of availing themselves to the full of Nature's prodigality. Such a policy is most dangerous. When the time of more limited rainfall comes the owner of over-stocked pastures pays a heavy toll for his improvidence, whereas he who has regulated his numbers on the assumption of fair average seasons comes scathless through the time of trial. Dairying comes more within the department of agriculture, as crops must be grown for feed, the dairy-farmer being necessarily the occupant of a very limited area. The benefit dairying has been to the small stock-owner can hardly be exaggerated. In old days the owner of a herd of 50 to 100 head could look only for a poor living, working for wages for part of the year whilst his family looked after the herd. Now he is a rich man. The monthly cheque from the creamery for a man milking 25 cows easily reaches an average of £20. Except in the few cases where the business has been conducted in a large way by capitalists, it is mostly an enterprise for small men. The work is unremitting, the herd having to be milked twice a day, but the rewards are sure and ample. Butter and cheese factories have sprung up like mushrooms in the last few years, there being now 79 in the State. The yield of butter for 1907 totalled 22,789,158 lb. As returns depend on the amount of butter-fat produced, owners have converted the ordinary breeds of cattle to good dairy herds by plentiful introductions of the true milking strains--Jersey, Alderney, Ayrshire, Holstein, and milking Shorthorn. Many will probably wonder how cattle grazed over an area of many hundred square miles of country, which in the outside districts is probably unfenced, can be mustered or even kept on the run. Cattle are docilely subservient to custom, and once broken into "camps" will voluntarily seek repose in these shelters. On a well-managed station the crack of a whip will start any mob within hearing trotting for their camp, formed in a clump of shade on the creek, or, if shade is available, on some better galloping ground. Others, seeing them on the move, head towards the same well-known resort, there to pass the day till the shadows lengthen, only moving off in the cool of the evening to feed. If they are being mustered for branding, the cows with calves are "cut out" and brought to the stockyard to be dealt with; if for a butcher to select a draft of fats, these only are taken and delivered either on the spot or where arranged. At the general muster, which is only made every few years, as the cattle are brought in they are put through a lane in the yard, the long lock at the tip of the tail being cut short; they are thus easily distinguished on the run, so that only long-tails are brought in subsequently. A "bang-tail" muster is recorded in the station books, and, as all sales and other disposals are carefully noted and an allowance made of from 3 to 5 per cent. for deaths, it is not necessary to repeat an operation taxing horseflesh so severely at nearer intervals than three to five years. Stock-horses become very clever, and will turn and twist with a beast through the mob, the rider's whip playing on either side till the animal is run out. Large tailing yards are maintained in different parts of the run to avoid much driving, and at weaning time the weaners are herded for a month or six weeks and yarded at night, which has a quieting effect they never forget. A well-managed herd is noted for absence of rowdyism amongst its members. On a well-improved station the bullocks, heifers, and weaners will be in separate paddocks, and at a certain season the bulls are taken out of the herd and put in a paddock by themselves. [Illustration: WOOL TEAMS, WYANDRA, WARREGO DISTRICT] [Illustration: HAULING CEDAR, ATHERTON, NORTH QUEENSLAND] Much has been written of the Australian squatter's life, both in fact and in fiction; yet the charm it exercises remains unexplained. The invigorating influence of perfect health doubtless has something to do with it, as well as the utter freedom and escape from all conventionality. Much of the bushman's time is passed in the saddle, and his dress consists of moleskin trousers, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to the elbow, and a soft shady hat. He rises at daybreak and after an early breakfast starts his day's work. As frequently he will not return to the homestead till nightfall, his lunch is in his saddle-pouch, to be enjoyed in the shade by some waterhole, where he boils the quart "billy" that dangles all day from a dee on his saddle, and makes the inevitable brew of tea. Probably he has companions and is mustering a paddock half the size of an English county; bringing the sheep to the drafting yards, it may be to draft out the fats from a mob of several thousand wethers, or perhaps to take lambs from their mothers for weaning, or to separate the sexes in a mob of mixed weaners, or to bring sheep to the shed for shearing. Shearing is of all times the busiest. At this season men, each usually riding one horse and leading another packed with his swag, roam the country in gangs and undertake the work at contract rates, which of late have been raised from 20s. per 100 to 24s. There will be from ten to forty men on the shearing board, according to the size of the flock; and in most of the large sheds men write beforehand to bespeak a stand. Shearers earn great wages; a good man will do from 100 to 200 per day, though the latter number is of course exceptional. The introduction of shearing machines has helped to increase the shearer's daily tally. A host of other men are employed in the shed. Boys gather the fleeces which they throw on a table where they are skirted, the trimmings being divided into "locks and pieces" and "bellies," and the rolled fleece is thrown on another long table at which the wool-classer presides. He is an expert, and orders each to its respective bin, according to quality--judged by condition, length of staple, and brightness. From the various bins so graded men feed the wool-press worked by two wool-pressers, who turn out, sew, and brand the bales, of an average weight of from 3 to 4 cwt. Wagons are waiting to convey these to the railway, horse and bullock teams being almost equally used. A whip cracks like a pistol shot, and with lowered heads, the bullocks straining at the yoke, the first team draws slowly off to the incomprehensible objurgations of the driver, an incredible number of bales in three tiers piled on the wagon and securely roped. But this bustling activity is not confined to the shed. Shorn sheep have to be returned to their paddocks, fresh mobs brought in, and the morrow's shearing housed in the shed to escape the night's dew or a chance shower. From daylight to dark during this harvest time everyone is at full stretch. The shearers have their own cook and "find" themselves, sharing together in a general mess; and as they earn good money they "do themselves" really well, denying themselves no delicacy obtainable at the station store. The whistle sounds at 6 p.m.; the last fleece has been gathered, and the men stroll to their camp to discard sodden shirts and moleskins and clean up generally before supper. The twilight is short, night chasing it swiftly from the world. The weird charm of a Queensland night in the bush penetrates with a calm satisfaction difficult to analyse. It is, let us suppose, spring or summer, and the stars appear to hang low from the deep clear indigo vault. The silence is unbroken, appealing to some indefinable emotion. No cry of beast or bird ruffles the stillness, save perhaps the faint tinkle of the bell-bird or the solemn plaint of the mopoke from some distant scrub. The men are sitting outside their hut smoking, or with tired limbs stretched on the short dry grass lying full length drawing the quiet night into their blood, its cool soft breath soothing the fatigue of the arduous day's toil. Very entertaining to a listener would be the symposium of experiences and amazing political theories of these rough good-humoured toilers, whilst in the pauses one might perhaps enjoy the fantasia executed by the musician of the party on his concertina. Life at the homestead of many of the old-established stations differs little from that of a wealthy country home in other parts of the world. Froude in his "Oceana" draws a diverting picture of his anticipations of a bush home and its reality. He had pictured a log-hut in the wilderness, and was taken to Ercildoune, where he was amazed to find a mansion amidst splendid gardens, with conservatories, elaborate drawing-rooms, well-dressed ladies, and all the appurtenances and customs of refined life. Expecting chops, damper, and tea, the culinary triumphs of a skilful _chef_ would strike an author in quest of the barbaric life with a keen reproach. Had Mr. Froude visited Queensland, he might have found something more suitable for literary treatment. Although in the older settled districts, especially on the Darling Downs, the lessees live in comfortable, well-furnished homes, many bush homesteads are still very primitive. The farther a station is from the railway the more the owner is inclined to dispense with the superfluous, till in many cases he restricts himself to the absolutely necessary. But every year sees an improvement in this respect. Hospitality is unlimited, any visitor being sure of a welcome and a night's lodging; he turns his horses into his host's paddock, and, if there are ladies of the household, his evening is enlivened with music and cultured talk. Some of the more gigantic enterprises are conducted by squatting companies, the sheep numbering several hundred thousand and the cattle up to thirty or forty thousand. But these stupendous figures need not deter small investors. In the purchase of a station the goodwill is an asset to be paid for, and in many cases this is valued at a high figure. The selector who takes up a grazing farm pays nothing for goodwill, and gets into what is possibly a going concern from the outset with no other payment than the year's rent and the value of the existing improvements erected by the former lessee before the area was resumed from his holding. It may happen that the country is bare of all improvements, in which case he has to fence it before he gets a lease, his neighbours being liable for half the cost of this work, which forms their common boundary. He pays a higher rent than the representative of the pioneer who created the goodwill which has descended by purchase. What more desirable opening can be found for a young man of limited capital than a farm that will carry 10,000 sheep or 1,500 cattle? He leads the healthiest life in the world, and, although it is full of hard work and includes what would be thought hardships in the home he comes from, a manly youth takes the latter with a frolic welcome, and if he works hard he also plays hard when the occasional races, cricket carnival, and festivities in the nearest township or perhaps at some neighbouring station give the occasion. But above all things it is important that he should not invest till he has gained experience. There is no difficulty in acquiring this, as stockowners are without exception glad of the assistance of a willing young fellow who accepts the knowledge acquired and perhaps a trifling salary as an equivalent for his time and work. After a couple of years of this novitiate as a "Jackeroo," he will be equipped for facing the future on his own account, which with ordinary steadfastness, energy, and forethought he may regard with confidence. [Illustration: DAIRY CATTLE ON DARLING DOWNS] [Illustration: SHEEP, JIMBOUR, DARLING DOWNS] [Illustration: HORSES, IVANHOE STATION, WARREGO] CHAPTER II. AGRICULTURE IN QUEENSLAND. Tripartite Division of Queensland.--Climate.--Development of Agriculture in Queensland.--Wide Range of Products.--Early History.--Exclusion of Farmers from Richest Lands.--Origin of Mixed Farming.--Extension of Industry Westward.--Inexperience of Early Settlers.--Cotton-growing.--Chief Crops.--Dairying. --Cereal-growing.--Farming in the Tropics.--Farming on the Downs.--Farming in the West.--Irrigation.--Conservation of Water.--Timber Industry.--Land Selection.--Assistance Given by the Government.--Immigration.--Attractions of Queensland. --Defenders of Hearth and Home. Situated between 10½ degrees and 29 degrees South latitude and 138 degrees and 153½ degrees East longitude, Queensland covers 670,500 square miles, or 429,120,000 acres--greater than the combined areas of France, Germany, and Austro-Hungary. Of this immense territory 53·5 per cent. lies within the Tropics, and 46·5 per cent. within the South Temperate Zone. The State may be divided into three belts--the tropical, stretching from Cape York to the 21st parallel in the neighbourhood of Mackay; the sub-tropical, between Mackay and Gladstone, about 24 degrees South; and the temperate, from Gladstone to the 29th parallel on the border of New South Wales. These three zones lend themselves, in turn, to a tripartite subdivision of littoral, tableland, and Western plain. Running generally in a North and South direction, and distant from the Eastern coast 30 to 100 miles, the Great Dividing Range separates the littoral from a series of tablelands having an altitude of 3,000 ft. at the two extremes, with a lesser elevation between Herberton in the North and the Darling Downs in the South. Almost imperceptibly the intermediate plateau sinks into a vast plain, which extends westward for hundreds of miles and into South Australia. The mountain barrier between coast and tableland, though rarely exceeding 4,000 ft. in height, is still sufficiently lofty to cause the clouds of the Pacific to deposit most of their moisture on the Eastern slopes. The precipitation in this coastal belt ranges from a yearly average of 135 in. at Geraldton (at the foot of the Bellenden-Ker Mountains, in the North) to 40 in. between the Tropic of Capricorn and Brisbane, with a heavier fall wherever the mountains are in close proximity to the ocean. On the Western side of the Great Divide the rainfall decreases from 40 in. to about 30 in. at the Western limit of the tableland, and, gradually diminishing with increasing distance from the seaboard, averages only about 10 in. in the extreme South-west. Temperature, rainfall, and soil necessary for the successful cultivation of almost every known crop are to be found in Queensland. Pastoral pursuits and mining have been the principal wealth-producers in the past; but steadily agriculture is coming to the front, and, long before the present generation has passed away, will occupy first place among the primary industries. That it has not done so already is due partly to the comparative youth of the country and its small population, and partly to its rich natural pastures and vast mineral resources. For many years the fascination of a pastoral life and the search for gold, with the hope of winning fortunes in those avocations, proved more attractive than the regular, uneventful life of the farmer, with its prospect of a competence; but the old-time glamour of grazing and mining is passing away, and the independence of the farmer is now preferred to the lot of station hand or working miner. On the inestimable value of a rural population to the permanent well-being of a nation Mr. Roosevelt, the late President of the United States, lays stress in these pregnant words:-- "I warn my countrymen that the great recent progress made in city life is not a full measure of our civilisation; for our civilisation rests at bottom on the wholesomeness, the attractiveness, and the completeness, as well as the prosperity, of life in the country. The men and women on the farms stand for what is fundamentally best and most needed in our national life. Upon the development of country life rests ultimately our ability, by methods of farming requiring the highest intelligence, to continue to feed and clothe the hungry nations; to supply the city with fresh blood, clean bodies, and clear brains that can endure the terrific strain of modern life; we need the development of men in the open country, who will be in the future, as in the past, the stay and strength of the nation in time of war, and its guiding and controlling spirit in time of peace." Too large a proportion of the people of Australia is already congregated in the capital cities on the seaboard, and this centripetal tendency constitutes one of the problems most difficult of solution in our young communities, as it is proving in the older countries of the world. Here, however, we are not confronted with the obstacle of high-priced land, and no effort is being spared to turn the tide of settlement to the true source of national virility and prosperity--the land. The suitability of the State for agriculture is amply demonstrated by the condition of those engaged in that industry, for there is no considerable class in the community so prosperous. Comfortable homes, well-stocked farms, overflowing barns, and other evidence of labour richly rewarded, bear witness to this fact. The abundance of a series of fat years more than compensates for the loss of crops and stock in occasional years of drought, and these losses it is possible to minimise by devoting attention to afforestation, the conservation of water, irrigation, and the storage of fodder. Diversity of products is to be expected in a country stretching through 18½ degrees of latitude, possessing an infinite variety of soils, and divided into a hot and humid coastal belt, an elevated tableland with cool climate and moderate rainfall, and a huge plain with light rainfall and dry, invigorating atmosphere. There is probably no country in the world with so wide an agricultural range. To mention crops which can be, and are being, grown with gratifying results would be to set forth in detail nearly every crop of economic value found in the torrid or the temperate zone. Wherever Nature is so generous with her gifts there must be accompanying drawbacks in the shape of vegetable and insect pests, but, by the application of intelligence and industry, the farmers of Queensland are able to combat these petty foes. Some of the principal objects of culture have a remarkably extensive distribution. Citrus fruits, fodder crops and artificial grasses, pumpkins and melons, flourish in every part of the State. Maize is very prolific throughout the littoral and on the tableland. Sugar-cane and tropical fruits grow luxuriantly on all the coastal lands. Most of the fruits of the British Isles and Continental Europe are at home everywhere except on the coast north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and reach perfection on the elevated lands of the Darling Downs. Cereals and root crops are produced in the Southern and Central West districts equal in quality and yield to the crops in the Southern States and oversea countries. "Agriculture," says Professor Robert Wallace, of Edinburgh University, "is one of the oldest of human arts, dating from long before the dawn of history. The savage who lives on the roots and fruits he finds ready to his hand stands lower in the scale than the huntsman living by the chase. The herdsman leading a nomadic life belongs to a higher stage of human culture; but civilisation in any full sense only begins amongst men with settled habitations, who till the soil for their sustenance." Judged by this standard, Queensland has passed through the evolutionary stages. Eighty-five years ago, when the first British settlers landed on the shores of Moreton Bay, the country was sparsely inhabited by savages of the lowest type, dependent upon native roots and fruits and the chase for a subsistence. For a quarter of a century, settlement on the coast was confined to a few convicts and military guards stationed at Brisbane and Ipswich, and a handful of free settlers. In the year 1840 some adventurous spirits, searching for sheep country west of the Main Range, found themselves on the magnificent tableland which Allan Cunningham had discovered in 1827, and which, during the intervening years, had remained untrodden by the foot of a white man. Soon the whole of the Darling Downs was parcelled out into large sheep stations. Agriculture, until the advent of small selectors many years later, was only represented by garden patches of cereals, vegetables, and fruit trees, grown for the use of the station-owners and their employees. On the Eastern side of the Range the industry was in almost as backward a state before the arrival of the first shipment of agriculturists in the ship "Fortitude" in January, 1849. Gangs of convicts felled the scrub on the banks of the Brisbane River adjacent to the barracks; with the hoe they planted maize among the stumps and tree-trunks under the constant surveillance of armed guards, and, when the corn was ripe, dragged it in carts to the windmill on Wickham terrace, still a conspicuous landmark, though now used as an observatory. There the maize was ground into "hominy," an important item in the menu of those days. A band of Moravian missionaries settled at what is now known as Nundah, and they and the majority of the "Fortitude" immigrants were the real pioneers of agriculture in the infant settlement. Land orders, free immigration, and the discovery of gold were all factors in the development of the country, and the demand for farm lands led to the unlocking of areas previously given over to grazing. The pastoralists regarded agriculturists with disfavour, and in some cases with open antagonism. By the exercise of "pre-emptive rights," which their influence in the Legislature secured for them, they converted into freehold large blocks of the best land, as well as strategic areas by the possession of which they were able to close against settlement immense tracts preeminently suitable for farming. This was particularly the case in the settled districts of Moreton, Darling Downs, Wide Bay, and Burnett, and to a lesser degree in Maranoa. To such an extent was the right of preemption used that many squatters seriously crippled themselves, the price paid being too high for grazing to be remunerative on their freehold lands. [Illustration: HARVESTING WHEAT, EMU VALE, NEAR WARWICK] When, in after years, it would have been to their advantage to subdivide and sell to farmers, it was not in their power to give titles. In the course of time railways were built through some of these large estates, but their earning power was seriously hampered by country capable of supporting a very large agricultural population being devoted to pasturing sheep and cattle. As the most satisfactory solution of the difficulty, successive Governments have repurchased a number of properties at a cost exceeding a million sterling, and resold them in small areas to farmers, with highly gratifying results both to the settlers and to the State. The immediate effect of the exclusive policy adopted by the pastoralists, however, was to force many selectors to take up land in dense scrubs on steep mountain slopes and in river pockets which were useless to stockowners. They had literally to hew their homes out of the jungle. Having no roads, they were thrown upon their own resources, and were obliged to live very largely upon the produce of their farms. Erecting a rude makeshift fence around a clearing of a few acres, the "cocky" or "cockatoo farmer," as he was contemptuously styled by those who regarded him as an interloper, planted maize and pumpkins among the remains of the scrub. Despite the ravages of bird and beast, he persevered, until at last success began to crown his efforts. A cow or two provided him with milk and butter, any surplus butter being sold to the storekeepers in the towns which quickly followed in the wake of settlement. Lucerne, sorghum, and other fodder crops formed part of his husbandry, live stock multiplied, and thus commenced that system of mixed farming to which thousands of the farmers of Queensland owe their prosperity. The coming of neighbours and the making of roads rendered life less lonely. With increasing prosperity, improved implements and methods were adopted. The plough succeeded the hoe; the harvester or the reaper and binder took the place of sickle and scythe; and the slab humpy or bark hut gave way to the comfortable farmhouse. Though these early selectors were driven into almost inaccessible scrub, they were at least within the region of heavy rainfall, and, even where some distance from permanent streams, suffered little from drought. Settlers who went over the Range, profiting by the experience of the pastoral pioneers regarding the vicissitudes of climate, avoided the mistake of relying upon a single crop, or, to use a homely phrase, of putting all their eggs in one basket--an error which brought ruin to thousands upon thousands of the people who, between thirty and forty years ago, flocked from the Atlantic seaboard to the arid regions of America, west of the Mississippi. Mixed farming became the general rule on the further side of the Main Range, so that, if wheat and maize failed, the farmers had their flocks and herds and their shearing cheques as a standby until the next harvest was garnered. It is sometimes said with scorn that there is comparatively little real farming in Queensland; but the conditions peculiar to settlement in the State are responsible for the trend of agricultural development. In the United States and Canada, the flood of immigration and the part played by the great railway companies as land-owners and promoters of settlement to provide traffic for their railways led to the creation of small holdings, which, in turn, led to intense cultivation of field and orchard crops. In Queensland, immigration has never been conducted on an extensive scale, and, indeed, for over a decade almost ceased. There was no great demand for land, and, as the mistaken belief long prevailed that the quantity of arable land was small, the area of so-called agricultural farms was made sufficiently large to enable a man to make a living from stock-raising, dairying, and pig-breeding. Field labourers being scarce and stock cheap, the farmer's aim has rather been to grow feed for his stock than crops for human consumption. He has followed the line of least resistance, so using his land as to carry on his operations with family labour and a little casual assistance during the busy seasons. Events have justified this mixed farming from the point of view of the farmer, and doubtless the monthly returns from dairying will cause most of the farmers of Southern and Central Queensland to rely chiefly upon that industry so long as high prices continue, and to look to pig-breeding and lamb-fattening as subsidiary branches. But for the swelling tide of newcomers the supplies of rich scrub, alluvial flat, and volcanic downs country must sooner or later prove inadequate. Indeed, within the last few years settlers have been turning their attention to land which was once regarded as inferior. From the lighter soils of plain and upland larger and more certain crops of grain are being won, and on these lands dairying will take second place to cereal production. Since an enlightened Legislature has resumed many millions of acres previously held under pastoral lease, and repurchased large estates in districts enjoying the advantages of railway communication, there has been no need to go far afield, and settlement has been chiefly confined to the lands adjacent to the rivers and railways in the coastal belt, on the Darling Downs, and, of recent years, in the Burnett district. Still, within the last thirty years, from one cause or another, groups of settlers have made their homes far beyond those limits. Thus the wheat lands of Maranoa were settled when there was no farming more than a few miles to the west of Toowoomba. Over eighteen hundred years ago Tacitus wrote of our Saxon forefathers: "They live apart, each by himself, as woodside, plain, or fresh spring attracts him." And this racial characteristic is strong in many of their descendants in Queensland. Better results and greater profits might have accrued from concentration, but the wonderful development of the British Empire owes much to this centrifugal impulse and to the spirit of independence and self-reliance which it has fostered; and as the flag has followed the adventurer in so many parts of the globe, so are the scattered pioneers of our Western lands nuclei around whom settlement is gradually gathering. To people coming for the most part from the mother country, experience constituted no safe guide to the agricultural possibilities of their new home in the South. Naturally, mistakes were made and time and money lost before they discovered which crops were the most profitable, and on what kind of land those crops could be grown with greatest certainty of success. When Dr. Lang induced the "Fortitude" immigrants to cast in their lot with the Moreton Bay settlement, in whose welfare he took so deep an interest, his desire was to establish the cultivation of cotton, to which he believed the climate and soil were specially adapted. But, despite the heavy crops produced on the river flats, cotton did not prove remunerative until, after the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the Lancashire spinners were reduced to such straits that they gladly paid high prices for all that could be obtained from Queensland. The product was of excellent quality, but the cost of picking precluded competition with countries where cheap labour was plentiful, and, with the return to normal conditions in the United States after the termination of the war, cotton passed almost out of cultivation, and has never since become a crop of commercial importance. An effort was made some years back to resuscitate the industry by the offer of a Government bonus upon manufactured piece goods. The bounty was earned by a mill at Ipswich, but the industry did not long survive the stoppage of the bonus. Since the drought of 1902 cotton has again been grown, principally in West Moreton and North Queensland, as a subsidiary crop, and farmers have been encouraged to extend their operations by the recent offer of a bounty by the Commonwealth; but, until machinery takes the place of hand-picking, farmers are likely to prefer crops which are not subject to competition with the cheap labour of other lands. The first European colonists in America found there two valuable native products--maize and tobacco. Australia, on the other hand, presented a virgin field to the agriculturist. Like the rest of the Commonwealth, Queensland, blessed with the richest natural pastures, possesses no indigenous food plants of proved economic value. The early settlers naturally availed themselves of the wealth of native grasses and edible shrubs, and became graziers. When a commencement was made with agriculture, farmers sowed the crops to which they had been accustomed in Great Britain. Though these grew well, it was soon found that they were, on the whole, better adapted to the elevated downs than to the forcing climate on the coast. Maize, sugar-cane, and the fruits of the tropics, on the other hand, revelled in the sunshine and moist atmosphere of the seaboard. The farmer's first consideration is how he may utilise his land to the best advantage. The most profitable crops are those for which there is a world-wide demand but only a limited area of production, and therefore little competition for the grower; or, alternatively, crops which, by reason of natural advantages, he can produce more abundantly and at less cost than his competitors. Next in value are crops for which he has a monopoly in a limited but protected market, or enjoys natural advantages which give him a partial monopoly in such a market. Of less value, but still profitable, are crops which he can place on the market as cheaply as his rivals. In the first-mentioned category the Queensland farmer has butter, cheese, hams, and bacon. With good stock, cheap land, unrivalled pastures, and a climate which permits production to go on uninterruptedly from January to December, Queensland is most favourably situated, and farmers have not been slow to profit by their natural advantages. Large as are the present dimensions of the dairying industry, they are small compared with the possibilities of expansion. Already the value of butter, cheese, and milk is well over £1,000,000 per annum, the butter export alone being worth considerably more than half that sum. The export has multiplied tenfold in the last six years; and, as Queensland is the leading cattle State, there is every justification for believing that in dairy produce she will soon become one of the principal exporting States of the Commonwealth. [Illustration: SURPRISE CREEK CASCADE, CAIRNS RAILWAY] So late as twenty years ago, much of the butter consumed in Queensland came from the Southern States. The local product was inferior in quality, although an agreeable change from the imported salted butter. The passage of the protective tariff of 1888 gave a great impetus to the production of butter and cheese. A heavy impost was placed on dairy produce, and the Government lent further aid to the industry by sending experts through the farming districts in charge of travelling dairies. Valuable instruction was given; the cream separator came into general use, and there was soon a noticeable improvement in both butter and cheese. Factories sprang into existence in every agricultural centre, and by degrees the farmers became suppliers of cream instead of manufacturers of butter. Speedily production overtook the local consumption, importations ceased, and manufacturers began to look oversea for a market for their surplus stocks. Difficulties at once arose in connection with refrigerated space and freight rates. Regular shipments and rapid transport involved transhipment at Sydney from the coastal steamers, increased expense, and risk of deterioration. A State subsidy induced first one and then another shipping company to make Brisbane its terminal port in Australia, and to provide refrigerated chambers for butter at reduced freights; and now Queensland, in respect of these matters, is on precisely the same footing as the other States. On the first appearance of Queensland butter in London, lower prices were obtainable than were paid for other brands with an established reputation, and some dissatisfaction was expressed by buyers on account of variations in quality. To remedy this, legislation was passed providing for Government inspection and grading of all butter intended for export. Whether grading and price do or do not stand in the relations of cause and effect, it is beyond dispute that it is only since the initiation of the system that Queensland butter has been on a parity with the butter of the Southern States and New Zealand, and the general standard is undoubtedly higher than in pre-grading days. Coincident with the improvement in the quality of the butter, a great change for the better has taken place in the dairy herds. Good milking strains have been introduced, and more attention is paid to the feeding of the cows, with the result that it is by no means uncommon for the milk from one cow to bring as much as £8 or £9 a year. The tariff of 1888 and the educative policy of successive Governments have also been largely responsible for the establishment of the allied industry of bacon and ham curing on a firm basis, and local brands are favourably known in many parts of the world. Under the heading of crops for which our farmers enjoy a monopoly in a limited but protected market--or natural advantages which are equivalent to a partial monopoly--are sugar, maize, tomatoes, tropical and citrus fruits, and cigar tobacco. The Commonwealth tariff gives Queensland a practical monopoly in Australia for sugar. She has a virtual monopoly for tropical fruits, being the only State in which these are produced in excess of local requirements. The warmer climate and earlier crop give her temporary command of the Southern markets for citrus fruits, tomatoes, maize, and a number of minor products, before they mature in the cooler South, an advantage that will extend in time to many other crops, with the increasing interchange arising from interstate free trade. Chief among products which can be placed as cheaply on the market as in other countries are the cereals. Queensland has all the essentials of a great grain-producing country. Her name does not yet figure among the list of exporters of foodstuffs, but the reasons for her backwardness are not far to seek. At the close of 1908 the number of people in the State, scattered over its 670,500 square miles of territory, was only 558,000--little more than the population of Sydney or Melbourne, and less than that of several second-class cities in the mother country. Probably not more than ten per cent. of the people are engaged in farming, but, acre for acre and man for man, Queensland compares favourably with countries that are regarded as primarily agricultural. The lands most sought after have been scrub, deep alluvial flats, and black and chocolate loams; and, until recently, it was on land of this kind that most of the wheat and barley was grown. Heavy crops were harvested, as a rule, but the results were not uniformly satisfactory, and it is now recognised that these highly fertile lands are better suited for other forms of cultivation than the growth of cereals. For several years, incoming selectors--many Southern wheat farmers from preference--have been settling to the west of the heavy Downs country on the lighter soils of ridge and plain. From these lands, of which Queensland has a practically unlimited supply, but which the settlers of twenty or even ten years ago regarded as poor, more and more of the wheat crop is now coming. With less labour and at less expense than on the heavy soils, the farmer has greater certainty of a payable yield. Sugar has first place among agricultural products from Port Douglas to the Mary River, followed by maize and the luscious fruits of the tropics. From Maryborough to the Tweed, maize takes precedence of sugar. Crops of less importance are potatoes, pumpkins, citrus fruits, pineapples, and bananas. In the Central and Southern divisions of the coastal belt, where dairying is the chief industry, large areas are under fodder crops and permanent grasses. From the Northern section of the littoral, thousands of bunches of bananas are shipped weekly to the South. Mangoes and pineapples are also sent South in very considerable quantities. Citrus fruits and tomatoes ripen at least two months earlier in North Queensland than in New South Wales and Victoria, and this fact has led to an important and profitable trade in these commodities being opened up with Sydney and Melbourne. The spices and food and other economic plants of the tropics grow to perfection north of Mackay. Cigar tobacco of good quality is being grown in small quantities in several parts of the North, and the Commonwealth bounty and the willingness of manufacturers to take the leaf should lead in time to the bulk of the cigars consumed in Australia being made from Queensland leaf. Despite the heat and humidity of the climate, dairying is being carried on with success as far north as Cairns, and at Atherton on the hinterland it promises to become an important industry. Except on the Darling Downs, progress on the tableland has been retarded until a comparatively recent date through the land being locked up in pastoral leaseholds. At Atherton in the North and on the Burnett lands in the South, however, agricultural settlement is proceeding by leaps and bounds. Following the usual practice on scrub land, maize and grasses are the principal objects of culture, as they can be planted among the fallen timber and converted into milk long before the land can be put under the plough. The Darling Downs, famous for their beauty and fertility, well deserve their title of "Garden of Queensland." Other districts, notably Atherton and the Burnett, have as good land, and the latter may have an equal area; but nowhere can there be seen 4,000,000 acres of splendid agricultural country requiring so little labour to bring it under cultivation. Far beyond the horizon stretch these fine lands, formerly clothed with nutritious natural grasses, but now passing into cultivation and dotted over with prosperous homesteads. More than 70 per cent. of the wheat, oats, and barley of Queensland comes from the Downs, which are capable of supporting a population far larger than the whole State now contains. Shipments of malting barley grown on the Downs attracted such favourable notice in England a few years back that offers were made to buy large quantities, and modern and well-equipped malting houses have since been built at Toowoomba and Warwick by a leading firm of English maltsters. Oats are grown for hay, no grain being ground into meal. There is an increasing tendency, founded on experience, to look to the lighter soils for cereal production, and to put the heavier volcanic soils of the Eastern Downs to uses for which they are better adapted. To dairying much of the prosperity of the Downs farmers is due. Butter and cheese factories have been erected every few miles along the railway line, and the number of cream-cans awaiting transport on every platform bear striking testimony to the importance of the industry. Most of the fruits of Northern and Southern Europe flourish, and the many fine orchards between Stanthorpe and the New South Wales border are giving handsome returns to their fortunate owners. In the neighbourhood of Texas, to the west of Warwick, pipe tobacco of fine flavour is being cultivated. The extension of the railway from Warwick to Goondiwindi has rendered available additional areas suitable for this crop, and circumstances favour the creation of a great industry. The boundless plains of the West, where the annual rainfall varies from 30 inches to 10 inches, are the seat of the pastoral industry, and agriculture is still in its infancy. In the vicinity of Roma, on the Southern and Western Railway, wheat is the staple crop. Further West, on river banks and adjacent to artesian bores, vegetables, grapes, and oranges are grown. The oranges at Barcaldine, in the Central West, have been pronounced by the Government Fruit Expert to be the finest he has seen. In the same locality areas of grain, lucerne, and other hay crops show the capabilities of the plain lands when irrigated; but these small patches do not constitute an industry. The soil has in it all the elements of fertility, and is of inexhaustible depth; but, unhappily, the rainy season does not coincide with the period of growth of the cereals for which these lands seem otherwise intended by Nature; and until science becomes the handmaid of husbandry, and irrigation is demonstrated to be both practicable and remunerative, agriculture is likely to make little headway in the West. [Illustration: PINEAPPLE FARM, WOOMBYE, NORTH COAST RAILWAY] [Illustration: SUGAR-MILL, HUXLEY, ISIS RAILWAY] [Illustration: A FIELD OF MAIZE, EEL CREEK, GYMPIE] The farmers of Queensland may well lay to heart the experience of America. Forty years ago disaster overtook every attempt at cultivation west of the Mississippi basin until the aid of irrigation was invoked. The response to the application of water was immediate, and millions of acres are now under intense cultivation in the dry belt, and supporting a population far outnumbering that of Australia. These are the words in which an American writer graphically describes the wonderful work that has been done on lands that bear a striking resemblance to those of Western Queensland both in regard to climate and soil:-- The actual amount of land that may be reclaimed and cultivated in the semi-arid region furnishes no measure of the value of irrigation in this vast district. By enabling thousands to engage in farming, irrigation has made it possible to use the surrounding plains as the pasture for great numbers of beef cattle. In many instances small herds are owned by the farmers themselves, but to a large extent their crops are bought by those whose sole business is cattle-raising. Thus all the resources of the region are brought into use, and a wonderful prosperity has followed as the logical result. From Canada to Mexico the revolution of the Great Plain is now in full tide. It is the most democratic page in the history of American irrigation. It has saved an enormous district from lapsing into a condition of semi-barbarism. It has not only made human life secure, but revolutionised the industrial and social economy of the locality. To a considerable extent it has replaced the quarter-lot with the small farm, and the single crop with diversified cultivation. It has transformed the speculative instincts of the people into a spirit of sober industrialism. It has raised the standard of living and improved the character of the homes. It has planted the rose bush and the pansy where only the sunflower cast its shadow, and it has twined the ivy and the honeysuckle over doors which formerly knew not the touch of beauty. It has made neighbours and society where once there were loneliness and heart-hunger. It has broken the chains of hopeless mortgages and crowned industry with independence. The history of irrigation in the United States reads like a romance. Competent authorities have expressed the opinion that truly scientific farming is only possible where irrigation takes the place of rain, and where the elements of fertility are retained in the soil. American experience supports this view. Farms of from ten to forty acres support whole families in comfort, if not in affluence, and one acre yields as much as five of the best land in the rainfall belt. Whether land is used for mixed farming or crop cultivation, the best results are achieved when moisture can be applied or withheld according to the needs of the crop. Without irrigation, crops may be more certain in the coastal belt and on the intermediate tableland, but with irrigation the advantage will undoubtedly lie with our Western lands. A downpour may do irremediable harm to a ripening crop or at harvest time, and to that danger the plain lands of the interior are less liable than those in the region of heavier rainfall. In some parts of Queensland, principally near the coast, irrigation has already attained some prominence. In 1907 water was applied artificially to 9,612 acres. Of this area, 4,492 acres were in the Burdekin Delta, the water being drawn from the Burdekin, from lagoons, and from wells. The rainfall is comparatively light, and the marked increase in the cane crop on the irrigated lands is apparent to the most casual observer. In the Bundaberg district 2,350 acres were irrigated from the Burnett River and from wells; the vegetable and fruit growers of Bowen irrigated 356 acres; and water was applied to 482 acres in the neighbourhood of Rockhampton. Artesian water was supplied to 100 acres at Barcaldine and 240 acres at Hungerford far out on the New South Wales border. In the Western States of America, where water is measured out with mathematical accuracy and applied with clockwork regularity, agriculture has been raised almost to the rank of an exact science. The soil of Western Queensland is quite equal to that of the States in fertility, and similar methods should here produce similar results. When even the sterile Sahara is gradually disappearing before the irrigation works of French engineers, there is no need to despond regarding the future of the very driest parts of Queensland. In Egypt and Spain and in several of the American States, the water for irrigation is obtained from perennial streams drawing their supplies from distant snow-clad mountains. Kansas differs in this respect from other States. The description of the rivers of Western Kansas by an American humorist might have been penned with equal appositeness of the rivers of Western Queensland: "They are a mile wide, and an inch thick; they have a large circulation, but very little influence." Fortunately for Kansas, water is everywhere procurable by sinking shallow wells. In Dakota and Texas, thousands of millions of gallons are poured on to the land daily from thousands of artesian wells. Though lofty mountain chains are lacking, with summits high above the line of perpetual snow and giving birth to rivers rivalling Nile and Mississippi in volume, both of these latter sources of supply are available in Queensland. East and west of the Great Divide, abundance of water has been obtained from wells. Our western rivers may flow intermittently on the surface, but sub-artesian water is plentiful in many localities, and the great artesian basin, with its area of no less than 372,000 square miles, coincides generally with that part of the State which has a rainfall of 20 inches or less, a wise Providence having apparently created this huge subterranean reservoir to guard against excessive evaporation and to compensate for the light rains. There is still another supply open. Allowing for a very large percentage of the water that finds its way into the watercourses of the West sinking into the earth or being lost through evaporation, a tremendous quantity that now runs to waste could be conserved by works such as the Government of New South Wales are constructing in the Murrumbidgee basin. Irrigation on a large scale is beyond the means of individuals--it must be undertaken either by private co-operation or by State enterprise; and preferably the latter. Irrigation and afforestation are both necessary for the successful development of the West. If water can be supplied to settlers at a cost which is not prohibitive, whether it be drawn from storage reservoirs or from subterranean sources, the face of the country will quickly be changed. Instead of a handful of pastoral lessees controlling in some instances areas of hundreds of thousands of acres, a much larger population of grazier farmers will be settled on much smaller holdings, enjoying all the benefits--educational, social, and civic--which result from concentrated settlement. A product of the land which is intimately connected with settlement, if somewhat outside the scope of this chapter, is timber. The forests of Queensland are very extensive, and contain numerous timbers of great value for building and cabinet-making. Chief among the former are several species of pine, hardwood, beech, and ash. The most beautiful and valuable of the ornamental woods are red cedar, silky oak, bean-tree, and maple. In the earliest settled districts in the South most of these have become comparatively scarce. The timber-getter has been through the scrubs and forests, and much that could not be converted into lumber has been destroyed by fire, to make the ground ready for the plough. In North Queensland there are immense quantities available, especially of the ornamental varieties, and a profitable trade has been opened up with the southern part of the State and with Sydney and Melbourne. Formerly the timber became the property of the selector, but now a royalty is charged, which yields the Crown a considerable revenue, and selection is deferred until the marketable trees have been removed. To prevent the exhaustion of the supplies, and as a preliminary to reafforestation, reserves have been proclaimed in several parts of the State to act as nurseries. Of the 429,120,000 acres contained in Queensland, at the close of 1908 some 21,500,000 acres--or just one-twentieth of the total area--had been selected as agricultural farms and homesteads; 31,000,000 acres were held as grazing and scrub selections, 56,000,000 acres were under occupation license or depasturing right, and 186,000,000 acres under pastoral lease, the remainder consisting either of reserves, mineral lands, or unoccupied land in remote localities. From every district where land is open to agricultural selection, however, comes the report that the demand is keen. No sooner is an area thrown open to selection than it is eagerly applied for, and the number of those who signify their desire to become personal residents in order to obtain priority is fast increasing. The Australian States, New Zealand, the British Isles, and Germany are all furnishing their quota of seekers after the cheap and excellent lands Queensland has to offer. Provision has been made by the Legislature for all kinds of settlement--purely agricultural, mixed farming, and grazing. The areas vary, being governed by the quality of the land, rainfall, the presence or absence of permanent water, and proximity to a market or a railway--in other words, by the amount required to provide the settler with a comfortable income. The State is a generous landlord, and every allowance is made for the difficulties of selectors in the earlier stages of their occupancy. The man who wishes to acquire a freehold has the opportunity of gratifying his desire. The man who objects to that tenure has it in his power to obtain a lease in perpetuity. The best settler being generally the man who intends to earn his living entirely from the soil, and is prepared to reside continuously upon the land, men of that class are very properly accorded priority over those who do not intend to reside in person. Particulars regarding the different tenures and the conditions upon which land may be obtained from the Crown will be found in Appendix E. The State assists the agriculturist in many ways. The Agricultural College at Gatton is doing valuable service in training young men and in carrying on experimental work. Six State farms, at two of which apprentices are taken, have been established in as many widely separated districts to ascertain by experiment the crops and methods of cultivation most suited to local conditions, and impart the results of their labours to the neighbouring farmers. Some of these farms have valuable stud flocks and dairy herds, from which settlers can obtain high-class stock. At Cairns tropical products are being tested and propagated at a State nursery. Useful educational work is also being done at the Sugar Experiment Station at Mackay. These institutions are under the direct supervision of the Department of Agriculture, which also employs experts in dairying, fruit culture, and tobacco growing and curing. A botanist, an entomologist, and an agricultural chemist are highly necessary and valuable members of the departmental staff, and much useful information is disseminated through the medium of the "Agricultural Journal," published by the Department. [Illustration: THRESHING WHEAT, EMU VALE, KILLARNEY RAILWAY] [Illustration: COFFEE PLANTATION, KURANDA, CAIRNS RAILWAY] In addition to giving instruction, the Government have built sheds in the principal farming centres on the Darling Downs for the storage of wheat and other grain until the farmers can dispose of their crops to advantage. Cheap money is supplied through the medium of the Agricultural Bank. There are trust funds from which advances are made to those who desire to build co-operative flour or sugar mills, butter and cheese factories, or meat-preserving works. Railways have been constructed in the older farming districts, produce is carried at moderate rates, and subsidies are given to steamship companies for the carriage of produce to oversea markets. All this has been done for the man already on the land. Much is likewise being done to help the man who wishes to become a settler. Railways are being built into districts in which the Crown owns large areas fit for close settlement. In other localities roads are made, land is cleared, and wells and bores are sunk. Money is advanced on liberal terms and at a low rate of interest by the Agricultural Bank for the making of improvements and the purchase of stock, implements, and machinery. Land is cheap, and special concessions are given by the Railway Department to new settlers when taking up their land. The annual rent forms an instalment of the purchase money, and payments may be deferred during the initial years of occupancy, when the selector is under heavy expense and is getting little or no return from his land. North and south along the coast, and west to the setting sun, long stretches of thick wood or grassy plain present themselves to the eye, solitary as in the dawn of creation, only awaiting the advent of the settler to be transformed into a scene of bustling activity. Endowed with a sunny and salubrious climate, a fruitful soil, an immense territory, Queensland has room for many millions of people; but those people must be of European birth or descent. For many years the settled policy of the country in regard to immigration was conservative. Now, however, all political parties are agreed upon the need for a larger population--but primarily an agrarian population. The great obstacles to immigration from Europe on any considerable scale are distance and expense. America is distant but a few days' sail, and the cost of a passage is correspondingly low. To place Queensland on an equally favourable footing, the Government have arranged with the British-India Steam Navigation Company to bring adult males from the United Kingdom to the State upon payment by the immigrants of £4 each. The rate for adult females is £2 per head, and £8 for males and females over 40 and under 55 years of age. Free passages may be granted to agricultural labourers introduced under contract if the employer pays a fee of £5 and guarantees a year's employment at approved wages. The balance of the passage-money in every case is paid by the State. Female domestic servants, and the wives and children of contract or part-paying immigrants, are carried free. Immigrants may select land before leaving the old country, with the option of getting a refund if not satisfied with their choice after their arrival in Queensland. Full particulars of the various forms of immigration will be found in Appendix F. In 1908 the number of those who came from the British Isles was only 2,584, but the numbers are increasing since the inauguration of the B.I.S.N. service _via_ Torres Strait, 2,737 immigrants having arrived during the first nine months of this year. Hundreds of desirable settlers and their families are coming every year from the Southern States and New Zealand, attracted by the cheaper land and brighter prospects. The stream of newcomers is now but a tiny rivulet; but, when each proclaims to his friends his success in the land of his adoption, that rivulet will swell to a mighty river. Cheap passages and the cheap land across the Atlantic have till now turned westward the eyes of the millions of Europe anxious to become their own masters and to live a wider, freer life than is possible in their native lands. Queensland is taking steps to bring her attractions more prominently under the notice of the British and European public in order to secure a share of the rural populations of the Old World for herself. She has advantages--natural, material, social, and political--in no way inferior to those presented by other countries. Life and liberty are nowhere more secure. A wide expanse of sea divides us from the nearest foreign Power. Living is cheaper and existence easier than in those lands to which the people of Europe are flocking. The sun is always shining, and winter, instead of being a period of enforced idleness, is a season when labour is greatly in demand. Crop succeeds crop without pause, and seed-time and harvest follow each other in quick procession. Stock feed in the open throughout the year, and winter brings little diminution in the yield of dairy produce. With free institutions, individual liberty, and great natural resources, Queensland is destined to become the home of a numerous and prosperous people. It is our manifest duty to see that it forms part of a strong, self-reliant, British nation beneath the Southern Cross, linked in the bonds of affection with the Motherland and our brethren across the seas, with arms open in welcome to our kin and colour, but ready to defend ourselves against aggression. In the great work, the men who are subduing the wilderness and converting it into a smiling garden can be relied upon to play their part. Nature is a tender foster-mother; freedom is in the air. Stalwart in frame, courageous in heart, true scions of the race from which they spring, rejoicing in their manhood, grateful for their heritage, the yeomen of Queensland are the pride of their country. "Not without envy Wealth at times must look On their brown strength who wield the reaping-hook And scythe, or at the forge-fire shape the plough Or the steel harness of the steeds of steam; All who, by skill and patience, anyhow Make service noble, and the earth redeem From savageness. By kingly accolade Than theirs was never worthier knighthood made." CHAPTER III. THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. Sugar-cane in the Northern Hemisphere.--The Rise of the Beet Industry.--Abolition of Slave Labour in West Indies. --Reorganisation of Industry on Scientific Basis. --Establishment of Industry in Queensland.--Difficulties of Early Planters.--Stoppage of Pacific Island Labour. --Evolution of Small Holdings and Erection of Central Mills.--Reintroduction of Pacific Islanders.--Stoppage of Pacific Island Labour by Commonwealth Legislation.--Bonus on White-grown Sugar.--Benefits Arising from Separating Cultivation and Manufacture.--Contrast between Past and Present Methods.--Scientific Cultivation.--Recent Statistics. --The Future of the Industry.--Queensland Leading the Van in Establishing White Agriculturists in Tropics. Long before the Christian era classical and sacred writers made mention of that "sweet cane" whose product plays so important a part in the everyday requirements of modern life. Sugar-cane was introduced into Spain by the Moors early in the eighth century. The Moorish empire sank before the combined might of Spain in 1492, and in that year Columbus added a new world to the realm of Castile. Within a few years the sugar industry had taken firm root in the West Indies, and on every isle dotting the Spanish Main waved countless fields of cane, yielding crops beside which the production of Andalusia, already waning under the dead hand of Spain, paled into insignificance. To the first Spanish planters is due the system upon which the sugar industry was conducted in the tropics for more than three hundred years. The haughty hidalgo, scorning to labour with his own hands, forced into his service the unresisting natives of the West. Unused to strenuous toil, they sank beneath the burden. Touched with pity for their sad lot, and anxious to save them from extirpation, Las Casas, "the Apostle of the Indians," urged the substitution of the children of Ham, whom he and all good Christians believed to have been doomed to perpetual bondage; and African slavery thus became an established institution in the West. Whether under Spanish or British rule, the sugar industry of the West Indies, and of all other tropical countries to which it was extended, was carried on under a system of large plantations, owned as a rule by men of good family, who, deeming personal control beneath their dignity, deputed to overseers of meaner rank the supervision of their servile labourers. The profusion of Nature, coupled with vicarious management and the absence of competition, engendered extravagance, improvident husbandry, and wasteful and unscientific manufacture, the while there rose to Heaven-- "Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little-meaning, tho' the words are strong; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil." [Illustration: SUGAR-MILL, CHILDERS, NORTH COAST RAILWAY] Until well on in the nineteenth century little progress was made either in cultivation or manufacture. For more than three hundred years the history of the industry was one of slave labour, crude methods, and planters to whom life in the tropics meant exile from Europe, and whose sole object was to amass wealth to be spent in the pleasures of the courts of St. James, Versailles, or Madrid. The first blow struck at the old-time theory that the tropics were created solely to supply the needs of dwellers in temperate climes was dealt by Napoleon when he took steps to establish the beet-sugar industry in France. His object was twofold--to render Continental Europe, which was then lying at his mercy, independent of Britain and the British colonies; and to cripple the trade of the only Power which had never stooped to his sway. Unconsciously, at the same time he laid the foundation of a tropical Britain peopled by the British race. The successful establishment of the beet-sugar industry called for the application of industrial, scientific, and organising capacity of the highest order, and the Governments of France and other European countries fostered its development by heavy bounties. The abolition of slavery in the British West Indies in 1834 and the later emancipation of the negroes in the United States so disorganised the sugar industry of the West that those engaged in it were too engrossed with their own affairs to heed the progress of the beet industry of Europe. The output of beet sugar steadily forged ahead until, in the early eighties, it was almost equal to the output of cane sugar. Tropical planters and manufacturers then found themselves engaged in a life-and-death struggle for which they were ill-equipped. Forced by inexorable necessity to face the situation, they realised that only by following the example of their rivals--by calling in the aid of science both in cultivation and in manufacture, and by paying the strictest attention to the financial side of their enterprise--could they hope to hold their own. Just at the time that the Southern States of America were fighting desperately in defence of the slave system, the foundations of the Queensland sugar industry were being laid. Despite the high prices then ruling for sugar, the profits were not large, owing to the primitive methods of cultivation and manufacture adopted on the plantations. In time, even in this remote quarter of the globe the growth of the beet industry compelled the planters to make radical changes. Antiquated husbandry, crude processes, and wasteful management were superseded by modern scientific methods. The subdivision of large estates, the substitution of small white growers for gangs of unskilled coloured labourers, and the establishment of co-operative central factories were Queensland's contribution to the solution of the problem of Beet _versus_ Cane. As Napoleon in his wildest dreams had no conception that his anti-British policy would ultimately lead to the expansion and evolution of the sugar industry of the tropics, so the Queenslander who first planted a few sticks of sugar-cane on the shores of Moreton Bay half a century ago little foresaw that from that humble beginning would develop the greatest agricultural industry of this State--an industry which, if treated with continued consideration and sympathy by the Commonwealth, bids fair to revolutionise the hitherto accepted view of the relations of the white races to the tropics. Yet, if we read aright the brief history of the Queensland sugar industry, and appreciate its present position, that first planter commenced a work which is likely to lead to permanent settlement in the tropics by men of European descent. There was little to distinguish the establishment of our sugar industry from similar ventures in other parts of the tropics where the supply of cheap coloured native labour was insufficient for the requirements of the planters. The men who opened up the first plantations in Queensland were not Australians, except by adoption. Their experience had been gained in Java, Mauritius, the West Indies, and elsewhere. They came to this country imbued with the old notion that the best and most economical means of carrying on tropical agriculture was to cultivate large estates by the aid of gangs of coloured labourers; and it is a moot point whether, fifty years ago, any other method of establishing tropical industries in Queensland was possible. Certain land concessions were given to encourage the newcomers, and they were permitted to import Pacific Islanders, under Government supervision, as contract labourers for work in the fields. Not all the early planters had been sugar-growers previously. In the Mackay district, which has always been one of the chief sugar centres, the first settlers grew cotton, tobacco, and arrowroot. But early in the sixties it was recognised that the production of sugar offered the most satisfactory and profitable field for their enterprise. Generally, they were representatives of that class of whom Benjamin Kidd, in his "Control of the Tropics," says: "The more advanced peoples, driven to seek new outlooks for their activities, will be subject to a gradually increasing pressure to turn their attention to the great natural field of enterprise which still remains in the development of the tropics." It was not sufficient for these early planters to take up land and plant their crops; they had to erect mills, where the cane could be converted into sugar, and this required capital. The cost of labour, provisions, and supplies was enormous. Communication along the coast was such that goods were taken North in small sailing vessels, and the pioneers were quite accustomed to travelling in a small steamer which anchored under the lee of a convenient island during the darkness of the night. Those who see the condition of the industry which has evolved from these first efforts must, in justice to the pioneers, recall the difficulties and risks which were faced by them. Forty years ago the industry was an infant struggling with its teething troubles, still liable to premature death. In 1871 there were only 9,581 acres under sugar-cane in the whole of Queensland, and the production of sugar was only 3,762 tons, not equal to half the output of one of our large modern factories. The industry was then chiefly confined to the South, but it soon made its way northwards, and expanded so rapidly that, in 1881, the area under cane had increased to 28,026 acres, and there were no less than 103 mills in operation. The industry then entered upon the first of its great reverses. Owing to the enormous increase in the output of beet sugar in Europe, prices fell rapidly. The first of the larger class of factories, conducted on modern lines, with improved appliances, came into existence, and small mills, unable to compete successfully, began to close. Labour supplies from the South Sea Islands became more expensive, and a class of white men, originally labourers who had saved money, took up selections as sugar farms, and sought to dispose of their crops of cane to the planter-proprietors of existing mills. The latter, alarmed by the passage of legislation decreeing an end to the employment of coloured labour, planted larger areas with the object of taking off as much cane as possible before they were deprived of the services of the Polynesian labourers then under contract. The immediate result was that the small farmers were unable to sell their crops at reasonable rates; and to help them the Government of the day, whose avowed policy it was to have the industry carried on by white labour, decided to advance money to groups of these farmers to enable them to erect co-operative factories for the treatment of their cane. As an experiment, two such factories were built in the Mackay district, where the need was most clamant; and thus was laid the foundation of the central mill system, which has given such an impetus to the growth of the industry, conducted on the basis of white labour. Tentative though the experiment was, and though for many years not a complete financial success from the point of view of the mills, the erection of these mills at least showed that the interests of the farmer and the factory were mutually interdependent. It was seen almost at once by the large planter that the farmer, working in the field beside his employees, was more eager for success than when he worked as labourer or overseer for another. The control of the factories, under directorates of farmers, was found to be more satisfactory and more economical than when in the hands of planters or managers with old-fashioned ideas of organisation--with managers, sub-managers, and large administrative staffs. Five years after the first loan was granted by the Government, and barely three after the rollers were started in the first of the two pioneer mills, these facts had become manifest. It says much for the sense and courage of the planters that this revolution in established methods did not dismay them, and their wisdom was shown in setting to work energetically to put the new methods into practice in the conduct of their own business. In 1891 the Colonial Sugar Refining Company set the example by cutting up one of its large estates into farms of moderate size. Ten years earlier that estate was a cattle station, employing a couple of white men and a few aboriginals. Before the first six months of 1891 had passed, it was the home of fifty or sixty settlers, a number trebled within the next few years. The new departure largely overcame the labour difficulty; in addition to that, it went far to meet the low prices for sugar. Many of the factories still continued to make sugar for sale in the open market, and a considerable quantity found its way, profitably, to London. In 1892 a special Commissioner of the London "Times" (Miss Flora Shaw, now Lady Lugard) travelled through the sugar districts, and noted the evolution which was taking place. She seemed to foresee the future more clearly than many of those actually engaged in the industry. "Even the sugar industry," she wrote, "appears as a whole to be half-unconscious of the results of the reorganisation through which it has passed, and lies, as it were, still asleep in the dawn of its own prosperity." [Illustration: SISAL HEMP AND CANEFIELDS, SOUTH ISIS] [Illustration: CANEFIELDS, ISIS RAILWAY] [Illustration: SUGAR CANE AND MILL, HUXLEY, ISIS RAILWAY] The middle nineties saw the fuller development of the central mill system. More groups of farmers were formed, loans were obtained from the Government, and further factories, mostly large and all well-equipped with the most modern machinery, were erected. A sudden demand arose in all parts of the coastal belt for sugar lands. The wiser of the planters subdivided their estates; owners of lands hitherto unutilised cut them up, and sold them to the inrush of farmers. The financial crisis of the early nineties and the action of Parliament in removing the embargo on the introduction of Pacific Islanders were no doubt contributing factors to the rapid increase in the number of would-be sugar-growers; but, whatever the cause, certain it is that at this time the spurt in cane cultivation and white settlement was greater than at any other period in the history of the industry in Queensland. The year 1898 saw no less than 111,012 acres under cane, with a sugar production of 163,734 tons. The factories employed 3,709 men, nearly all Europeans, and the declared value of the sugar sent away from Queensland exceeded £1,300,000. The actual number of farmers cultivating cane in that year is not ascertainable, but it approximated 2,500. It may fairly be claimed that Queensland has conquered her tropical littoral. Between Nerang in the South and Port Douglas in the North stretches a coastline of nearly 1,000 miles. At intervals along this great distance are large areas under cane and a number of considerable towns almost entirely dependent upon the sugar industry--including important centres like Bundaberg, with over 10,000 inhabitants, and Mackay and Cairns, each containing over 5,000 souls. Uninhabited swamps and forests and mountain lands--covered with rank tropical grasses or dense growths of trees and creepers--have given place to cultivated fields, in which stand thousands of comfortable homes rendered accessible by well-made roads, while many districts are provided with most of the adjuncts to modern civilisation. In fact, the white settler and worker live under conditions in no way inferior to those prevailing in agricultural centres in other parts of the world. European brains and European labour have brought into being a flourishing industry, and converted into one of the healthiest portions of Australia, fitted to become the permanent home of millions of our own race, a malarial belt where it had for long been thought none but coloured people would ever be able to labour and live. The latter end of the nineties and the opening years of the present decade saw a further development of the principle of white settlement in our tropics. The federation of the Australian States offered the sugar-producer some escape from the keen competition of the world's markets through its fiscal policy of unhampered interstate freetrade, with protection against the world. The Commonwealth Parliament, in its first session (1901), decided that the eight or nine thousand Pacific Islanders employed in cultivation should be returned to their islands, granting, by way of compensation for the increased cost of production, a bounty upon all white-grown sugar. As was the case under somewhat similar circumstances nearly twenty years before, this withdrawal of coloured labour gave a great impetus to planting. There was naturally some anxiety as to whether the supply of white labour in the future would be sufficient; but the profits made in the industry enabled the farmers to pay high wages at harvest time, and men flocked to the sugar districts from all parts of Australia. One result of the labour legislation has been that many of the growers on large areas have considered it to their interest still further to subdivide their holdings, and their action has had the effect of increasing largely the number of farmers. It was estimated that last year the registered white growers of sugar-cane in Queensland numbered no less than 4,425. In addition to these, there is still a small number employing casual coloured labour. Of the whole output of 151,000 tons of sugar, fully 93 per cent. was produced without the aid of any coloured labour. In other words, white men almost exclusively, whether as employers or as workers, are now engaged in developing our tropical resources, and peopling with our own race solitudes previously untrodden save by a few aboriginal natives. Less than thirty years ago it was the belief of most of those engaged in sugar production that the work of the mills was one of extreme complexity, and that success depended upon the possession of some special secret in the working. At that time the planter was also the miller. Now the work of cultivation is generally dissociated from the manufacture of sugar. Principally owing to the proprietary interest of the farmers in the various central mills, every stage of the work is openly and intelligently discussed, results are compared, and an efficiency attained which in many respects is equal to any in the sugar world. The factories no longer make sugar for the open market, but sell to the refiners. Analytical chemists check the work at every stage in the factory, and labour-saving appliances are the rule and not the exception. A modern factory is a wonderful illustration of the application of science, mechanical invention, and organisation to human industry. Nothing can better indicate the evolution of the Queensland sugar industry during the past forty years than a comparison between one of the first mills established in the State and one of the most modern. Forty years ago the sugar-cane was drawn in a cart close to the single set of crushing rollers, flung on the ground, and then fed, stick by stick, through the rollers, emerging with less than half the juice extracted. The crushed sticks were taken out and spread on the ground in the open, until dry enough to be collected and brought to the furnaces for use as fuel. In the modern factory the cane arrives by tram or train, is mechanically placed on a long endless carrier, and passes, at the rate of twenty tons or more per hour, through several sets of rollers, the refuse, caught by strainers, returning to the rollers, while the megass, or exhausted fibre, goes direct to the furnaces. The old mill crushed enough cane during six months to make two or three hundred tons of sugar. The modern factory deals with sufficient to produce anything from six to ten thousand tons, and in some cases more. Steam has taken the place of fires at the boiling stations, and boiling _in vacuo_ has been as fully adopted in Queensland as in other parts of the sugar-producing world. In the old mill the _masse cuite_, the last stage of the product before the sugar is dried off, had to be dug out from tanks, men standing up to their knees in the sticky substance, and handling it in buckets. Now, the _masse cuite_ goes direct from the vacuum pans to the receivers, and thence into the centrifugals. There the molasses is separated, and the sugar is carried automatically to the bags standing on weighing machines only a few feet from the railway trucks which are waiting to take the product to the ship's hold. The old-style factory carried on its operations solely by day. The present-day factory is lit throughout with electric light, and works day and night (Sunday excepted) for five or six months, employing, according to its capacity, from 100 to 150 men. Around each factory has sprung up a small settlement of artisans, storekeepers, and others, while, under a statute passed by the Queensland Parliament, the employees are decently housed, fed, and assured of good sanitation, their mental, moral, and financial welfare being provided for by the institution of reading and recreation rooms, and the establishment of branches of the Government Savings Bank. Turning to the agricultural operations, similar evidence of the evolution of the industry is to be found. Time was when a visitor could stand on some slight eminence and look over vast areas of cane, the vista unbroken save for a few trees, or the plantation roads running like ribbons through a sea of waving green. Now the prospect discloses the homes of farmers standing out amongst the cane, with all the evidences of a closely settled and thriving population. The large gangs of labourers tending the cultivation have for the most part disappeared. Instead, the farmer and his sons, with possibly one or two labourers, work side by side in the fields. At harvest time long lines of carts drawing cane to the mills no longer make a picturesque feature in the landscape; locomotives now haul cane-trains over the hundreds of miles of narrow-gauge tramline which radiate from the factories to all points from which supplies of cane are drawn. Where but a few years back was naught but the lonely bush, its silence broken only by the lowing of a few cattle, the occasional passing of an aboriginal stockman or a party of drovers, carriers, or a chance swagman--birds of passage between the inland stations and the ports on the coast--townships have sprung into being, and every half-mile reveals the home of the farmer nestling among his fields of emerald green. During the past few years, mainly owing to the satisfactory prices received for their cane, the farmers have been profitably employed. They have learned in the school of experience that cane cultivation requires practical knowledge, and that in many cases their land needs special treatment, which they must study for themselves. Nothing has brought this fact home to the farmers more thoroughly than the work of the Sugar Experiment Station at Mackay, and the valuable reports published by the late Director, Dr. W. Maxwell. In the early seventies the sugar-planters of Mackay awoke one morning to discover the whole of their crops destroyed, as if a fire had passed over them. They then grew only one variety of cane, which had become diseased. Fresh varieties had to be introduced from abroad, with all the risk of introducing canes that were worthless, or, worse still, of bringing in pests or diseases. So far, sugar-cane in Queensland has been singularly and fortunately free from natural enemies. Thanks to the work of Mr. H. Tryon, the Government Entomologist, the grower readily recognises the presence of insect pests, and knows how to deal promptly with them on their first appearance. The farmer is learning to know his cane; he studies its habits, and is quick to appreciate the good and bad effects of his operations. The analyses at the mills have directed his attention to the importance of cane being a good sugar-producer, and, as he is in many cases a shareholder in a factory, he is alive to the fact that weight of cane is not the only essential to success. For many years the need for securing canes richer in sugar was largely neglected all over the world, but recently efforts have been made to repeat in the case of cane the splendid results won by such men as the late Sir J. B. Lawes and the French chemist, Vilmorin, in connection with the sugar-producing qualities of the beet. The officials at the Queensland Sugar Experiment Stations have tested fully sixty varieties of cane, including some from Papua, to discover the agricultural and milling value of each. [Illustration: CAMBANORA GAP, HEAD OF CONDAMINE, KILLARNEY] [Illustration: MINTO CRAG, DUGANDAN, FASSIFERN DISTRICT] It is only natural that in an industry whose operations extend over so many degrees of latitude conditions must greatly vary. Irrigation is necessary in some districts, notably in the Burdekin Delta, which lies in a dry belt. Drainage is the prime requisite in other places. Fertilisation varies with the soils, and information as to the latter has been compiled in a series of exhaustive analyses made by Dr. W. Maxwell at the laboratory in Bundaberg. In South Queensland the cane frequently takes two years to mature, while in the extreme North fifteen months after planting it is fit for the rollers. According to the official estimate of the Commonwealth Treasurer for 1908, 4,825 farmers were then engaged in the industry in Queensland, 91·7 per cent. of whom employed white labour only, the number of employees being in round figures 30,000. In 1902 the number of farmers was only 2,496, showing the rapidity with which closer settlement is taking place. It is true that of late there has been a reduction in the area under cultivation, but this is probably attributable to the tendency to make "intense cultivation" a feature of the industry in order to solve the labour problem. Some of the larger areas under crop have been curtailed, and the reduction has not been made good by the increased settlement; but, as in the eighties those engaged in the industry found, possibly unconsciously, a remedy for the dearth of labour, so we may reasonably expect that the present difficulty in obtaining men for the ordinary work of cultivation will be met by new developments. What does the future hold for us? Can we continue the work of building up a white nation beneath a tropical sun--a task which in many parts of the world is considered quixotic? The areas available for cane cultivation are still enormous, and, though hesitancy and doubt may for a time join hands in checking expansion, the main facts remain that there is room for the people and that there is a demand for the product. Australia, in her fiscal policy, has recognised that the sugar industry is a national industry, and our statesmen realise that it is doing for the Australian tropics what no other industry on the coastal lands has yet seriously attempted--what, indeed, no other country in the world is as yet prepared to try. Assuming, as we have a right to assume, a sympathetic Australian Government, we can turn to the future with eyes full of hope. There are many directions in which we may look for the expansion of the industry. The increasing population of the Commonwealth involves an added capacity to consume the product. The field of invention in regard to the harvesting of the cane has yet to be explored and exploited. At present the cost of cutting and loading a field of cane is from eight to ten times that of harvesting an equal amount of sugar beets. Experiments are constantly being made with mechanical appliances for cutting and loading and unloading cane, and this is one direction in which Queenslanders may look forward hopefully to the time when they will not only lessen the volume of labour required, but when they will reduce the burdensome nature of the work, and place the cane-sugar industry in a position to compete successfully with the great beet-sugar industry of Europe. Some 250,000 gallons of rum are distilled annually at Bundaberg, but we are told officially that 4,000,000 gallons of molasses go to waste every year. The conversion of this product into foodstuffs for live stock as an adjunct to the main industry would add materially to the profits. In some sugar districts, dairying is finding a footing, and possibly the time is not far distant when a form of mixed farming will enable the cane-grower to utilise more of the by-products of his industry, at the same time rendering him more independent of unfavourable meteorological conditions. Generally speaking, improvement in the quality and quantity of the cane, intense culture, mechanical inventions, and the use of by-products are all within the bounds of possibility, and will make for further progress. But all these things are of secondary importance compared with the need of a settled working population. Back from the coast lies a range of mountains, rising often 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. Along and behind these mountains are excellent lands, well suited for close settlement and for the production of cereals, and the fruits and vegetables so greatly needed in the more humid areas of the littoral belt. The climate of this elevated hinterland is excellent, and the close settlement of these lands will furnish one of the safeguards of the sugar industry, seeing that a permanent population within easy reach will always be available for employment in the canefields and sugar-mills. To a large extent, the populations of the lowlands and the highlands will be mutually dependent upon each other. In the early days of settlement in East and West Moreton and on the Darling Downs, the small selector, with no capital in many cases save a pair of strong hands, a courageous heart, and a tireless energy, made his way every year to the squatter's shearing shed. No thought had he of "knocking down" his hard-earned cheque. Labour disputes never entered his mind. With his earnings he paid his rent and improved his land. It was men of this stamp who built up the great agricultural industry of Southern Queensland, and they and their descendants of the second and third generations are the very cream of the farmers of to-day. It is to a similar class of settlers in the sugar districts and their hinterland that we look for the proper settlement and development of our tropical lands. And in our aspirations for a great white agricultural population we are entitled to expect the sympathetic assistance of our kinsmen in the South and of the Empire at large. For not only are we doing what we can to make a prosperous and contented people, but we are doing a great work for the whole of the white races. We are proving that the tropics can be conquered and permanently settled by people of our own race and colour; we are holding one of the gateways of the East; and we are garrisoning an important outpost of the Empire. Kipling's stirring words, written of Queensland, find an echo in the hearts of Queenslanders-- The northern stirp beneath the southern skies-- I build a Nation for an Empire's need, Suffer a little, and my land shall rise, Queen over lands indeed! CHAPTER IV. A HALF-CENTURY OF MINING. The Quest for Gold a Colonising Agency.--Earliest Discoveries of the Precious Metal in Queensland. --Port Curtis.--Rockhampton District.--Peak Downs. --Gympie.--Ravenswood.--Charters Towers.--Palmer.--Mount Morgan.--Croydon.--Later Discoveries.--Yield at Charters Towers and Mount Morgan.--Copper Mining.--Tin.--Silver. --Queensland the Home of All Kinds of Minerals and Precious Stones.--Mineral Wealth in Cairns Hinterland.--Copper Deposits in Cloncurry District.--The Etheridge.--Anakie Gem Field.--Opal Fields.--Extensive Coal Measures.--Railway Communication with Mining Fields.--Value of Queensland Mineral Output.--Prospects of Industry. The quest for gold, to say nothing of other minerals, has had much to do with the settlement and development of Queensland, apart from the direct advantages conferred on the State by her mining industry. It has brought to our shores many thousands of people who would not otherwise have come here; it has helped to open up for occupations other than mining previously unknown and unexplored regions that, but for the prospector, might have lain dormant for many more years; while the successful development of the territory's rich and almost unlimited mineral wealth has aided in making our State known in other parts of the world, and thus assisted in attracting hither the people and capital that have been the chief contributing factors to our wonderful progress. Fifty years ago, when what is now Queensland, casting itself free from the parental skirts of New South Wales, began to walk alone, its mining industry did not exist. It would not be correct to say that gold--here, as elsewhere in Australia, the first to be sought and found of the numerous minerals that have since proved a source of so much wealth to the State--had not been then discovered upon our shores. Fifteen years before, men attached to an official establishment at Gladstone, Port Curtis, found "colours" of the yellow metal; and in 1858, the year preceding "Separation," occurred the Canoona "rush," which proved so disastrous to the 15,000 or 20,000 adventurers who then swarmed to the Rockhampton district in search of the "saint-seducing gold." But the so-called "colours" detected at picturesque Gladstone were nothing more than can to this day be traced in scores of places in Queensland; while the find at Canoona proved a fiasco so great as to spread abroad the impression that this part of Australia, as a prospective field for mining enterprise, was a delusion. But was it? Within a dozen miles or so of the scene of the Canoona disappointment was situated the "mountain of gold" that has since earned world-wide fame under the name of Mount Morgan; and by the end of Queensland's first half-century the Rockhampton (or Central) district has turned out gold to the sum of nearly 3,500,000 fine ounces, representing a money value of over £14,500,000--the bulk of it won within the last moiety of the half-century. [Illustration: MOUNT MORGAN: COPPER WORKS, LOOKING NORTH] [Illustration: MOUNT MORGAN: GENERAL VIEW OF WORKS] Three years after the foundation of the colony of Queensland gold in payable quantities was discovered on the Peak Downs, inland from Rockhampton; but it was not till the finding of the Gympie field late in 1867--eight years after severance from New South Wales--that Queensland first definitely took rank as a gold producer. Within six months from the time when the wandering digger Nash, fossicking in the gullies running into the upper Mary River, found the promising specimens in his dish which made him hasten to Maryborough to report his discovery, 15,000 men had flocked to the spot from all parts of Australia. The place had hardly been heard of before. Pressmen in Brisbane did not even know how to spell the name "Gympie" when first the news arrived; but within a very few weeks its fame spread far and wide. The gullies in the vicinity of Nash's claim were rich and numerous. One nugget brought to light weighed nearly a thousand ounces, and was worth £3,675. Soon alluvial gave place to quartz mining, and within five years gold to the value of more than £1,500,000 had been won. Up to the end of 1908--that is, in forty-one years--the field had produced gold worth £10,350,000, and is still "going strong." Like all other fields, it has of course had its ups and downs, and just now is recovering its feet after one of its "downs." Last year Gympie produced gold to the value of nearly £270,000; the grade of its ore is improving, and its monthly yields are now showing comparative increases. Since the discovery of the Gympie goldfield there has been no cessation in the progress of mining in Queensland. From one end of the territory to another the existence of gold and other minerals has from time to time been disclosed. For many years-- "Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold--" but still much to be desired--was the magnet which attracted the peripatetic prospector away from the comforts of civilisation into the rugged wilds of the coastal ranges and the gullies and stony stream-beds of the eastern watershed; and for a long while it was only the gold discoveries that attracted much attention. A year or so after the Gympie find, the Ravenswood goldfield, south-west from Townsville, "broke out," to use the phrase of the old-time digger. In 1869 the precious metal was found on the Gilbert River, and the Gilbert, Etheridge, and Woolgar fields were proclaimed. Then came Charters Towers, our premier goldfield, in 1872; the Palmer, inland from Cooktown (then the very far North), in 1873; the Hodgkinson, a little more to the south, in 1875; the great Mount Morgan in 1882; Croydon in 1886; and other discoveries, until Dickie, a veteran prospector, found the Hamilton and Alice River fields in the Peninsula--the former in 1899 and the latter as late as 1904. In its thirty-six years of existence Charters Towers has turned out over 5,800,000 ounces--more than £24,600,000 worth of gold; last year's output was of the value of £700,000; and to-day the indications in the deeper ground of the field are such that there is reason to expect that both the term of its existence and the volume of its output will be greatly extended. At Mount Morgan--the show mine of Queensland, and one of the greatest in the world--there has been quarried out of the hill and dug from the depths beneath stone that, under treatment by works in every way worthy of such a mine, has, in a little over twenty-two years, yielded gold to the value of over £13,760,000; has paid in wages and other expenditure about £7,000,000; and has given to the fortunate holders of its 1,000,000 shares some £7,230,000 in dividends. That is what the big mine has done. What is it doing now? True, the phenomenal yields of gold and the high grade of its auriferous ores that characterised the earlier years of its history showed signs of diminishing as time went on; but diminishing yields were counterbalanced by improved methods of mining and treatment, with consequent reduction of costs; and a few years since copper as well as gold was found in the lower levels, with the result that the mine has become at once the most productive copper and the most productive gold mine of the State. It has already turned out copper to the value of about £1,500,000, which has to be added to the gold yield, given above, to arrive at its total product; while the value of the mine's aggregate output for 1908 (over £1,017,000) was greater, with perhaps one exception, than that of any previous year in its history. Though for some years gold was the only string to the bow of Queensland's mining industry, that state of things has long since changed. In the early sixties copper was mined in the State, but then and for many years afterwards only to a limited extent. Tin came on the scene in 1872. During the first forty years of Queensland's existence the gold won within her borders was four times the worth of all other minerals and coal produced; but so rapid has been the increase during the past ten years in the production of the industrial metals--or "other minerals," as they are officially termed, to distinguish them from gold--that in 1907 their value exceeded that of the gold yield by over £170,000. Indeed, during the five years ending with that year there was an almost phenomenal expansion. The output of 1902 was of the value of only £589,960. In the following year it increased to £846,280, and then for four years jumped up by leaps and bounds, until in 1907 the yield was worth no less than £2,153,226. The known mineral-producing country of Queensland extends over an immense area. It begins on the southern border, where the Silver Spur mine maintains a constant output of silver and other mineral products, and where the Stanthorpe district, our first stanniferous field, still materially assists, with the aid of dredges, in the tin production of the State; and extends northerly a hundred miles beyond the goldfield of Coen, in the Cape York Peninsula. Over this immense distance of some 1,300 miles from south to north, and extending inland from 50 to 200 miles from the eastern coast, are located at varying intervals fields producing gold, silver, copper, tin, coal, lead, sapphires, manganese, wolfram, molybdenite, bismuth, and graphite; while further to the west are the opal fields of Jundah, Opalton, and Kynuna, the copper deposits of the vast Cloncurry district, the silver-lead mines of Lawn Hills in the Burketown district, and the Croydon goldfield, also on the Gulf waters. Queensland, with a huge area of 670,500 square miles and a scant population of little more than half a million of people, has a hundred proclaimed gold, mineral, and coal fields, having a combined area of about 50,000,000 acres. Apart from goldfields, by far the most important and productive of these areas is the tract of country which forms the hinterland of the port of Cairns--a tract which includes the tin-mining centres of Herberton, Stannary Hills, Irvinebank, Nymbool, and Reid's Creek; the copper and silver-lead mines of Chillagoe and Mungana; the copper mines of Mount Molloy and O.K.; the wolfram, molybdenite, and bismuth mines of Wolfram Camp, Bamford, and Mount Carbine; and the antimony deposits of the Mitchell River. The two large mineral fields into which this portion of the State is now officially divided--Chillagoe and Herberton--have together an area of over 8,500,000 acres. The port of Cairns was not established till 1876--seventeen years after the foundation of the State. Now there yearly pass through it from the area mentioned minerals worth from £600,000 to £800,000, exclusive of the mineral product from the Etheridge and Croydon fields, which also, for the most part, finds an outlet through the same channel. Copper and tin are responsible for more than half the amount named, but the potentialities of the district as far as other minerals are concerned are almost unlimited. Of wolfram--taking only one example--this part of the State alone can supply the world's demand, and have a good deal to spare afterwards. The Queensland Government Geologist has estimated that the wolfram-bearing country in this portion of Queensland extends over an area of 3,500 square miles. Given anything like a permanent demand and a fair and steady market, wolfram production would soon take a prominent position in our mining industry. The historical tin mine of the district is the Vulcan, at Irvinebank, which has attained the greatest depth (1,450 feet) reached by any tin mine in Queensland, and where the appliances for recovering the metal are more up-to-date than at Dolcoath, the most famous tin mine of Cornwall. During the twenty-five years of its existence, the Vulcan Mine has from 106,000 tons of tin ore produced over 9,790 tons of concentrates, worth something approaching £500,000, and has paid its lucky shareholders dividends to the extent of £160,000. The opening up of this large and prolific district is largely due to the enterprise of the Chillagoe Company, which not only has developed extensively its several mines and erected large ore-treatment works, but has built the railway--in length 93 miles--which connects those mines and numerous others with the Government railway at the top of the Coastal Range at Mareeba, and is building a further extension to the Etheridge field, nearly 150 miles further inland. Queensland is known as a country of magnificent distances, and one example of its vast expanse is the extent of the copper area of the Cloncurry district, which is tapped by the Great Northern Railway 480 miles westward from the port of Townsville. This district is by far the largest tract of copper-bearing country in Australia, and one of the largest in the world. As the crow flies, it extends north and south for more than 150 miles, and east and west some 80 or 100 miles. Over this large area, covering at least 15,000 square miles, copper has been proved to exist. At the close of 1907 there were on the Warden's books over 800 mineral leases, besides some hundreds of claims and several freeholds. The outcrops throughout the district have been described by one of the Government Geologists as innumerable and phenomenally rich. But the district is still in the prospecting stage, and it is yet too soon to pronounce an opinion as to whether the deposits generally will live at depth, or of what value they will be if they do, although it may safely be said that the developments in the more important mines during the past twelve months have been distinctly encouraging. Smelting operations are already in progress at two, if not three, of the principal mining centres of the district, and a railway extension from Cloncurry 74 miles southward is now in course of construction. Another Queensland mineral field of vast extent is the Etheridge. It has an area equal to half that of Scotland, and the Warden for the field, when he undertakes his periodical patrol, has an itinerary of about 400 miles. [Illustration: CHARTERS TOWERS: PLANT'S DAY DAWN] Passing reference has been made to the sapphire field of Anakie, in Central Queensland, and to the opal to be found in her trackless West. As a matter of fact, isolated finds of many kinds of gems besides these two have been made in widely separated parts of the State, but as a recognised branch of the mining industry opal and sapphire mining has for years occupied an important place. In the Anakie field, 190 miles from Rockhampton, on the Central Railway, the existence of gem-stones was officially reported as early as 1892. Ten years later the Government Geologist, reporting on these sapphire fields, stated that "the total distance along which deposits are found ... is altogether about fifteen miles. Of an area of 400 square miles examined, fifty square miles contain deposits carrying sapphires of more or less value." In 1905, another member of the Geological staff reported that the most important recent development had been the opening up of a second bed of the sapphire wash at a depth of 25 feet, and that excellent stones, freer from flaws than those nearer the surface, were being obtained from the lower deposit. Mining for these precious stones, many of which are of the most beautiful description, has been to a considerable extent detrimentally affected by the difficulty experienced in getting a regular market and what is considered a fair price for the gems; but, notwithstanding this drawback, there was a large expansion in the industry during the four years preceding 1907--the annual production having increased in that period from £7,000 to £35,000 in value. In 1908, however, there was a considerable falling off, mainly because miners were not satisfied with the prices obtainable; but, with an improvement in this respect, renewed activity on the field, which even now supports a population of over 1,000 persons, may be looked for. The opal-bearing country extends over a much wider area than sapphires. The width of this country is, roughly, about 250 miles, while in length it extends right from the New South Wales border half-way up the State in a curve bending towards the South Australian border. The chief centres of production have been Kynuna (near Winton), Opalton and Fermoy (in the Longreach district), Eromanga, and Yowah (near Thargomindah). The Queensland opal is recognised as being unsurpassed for its brilliance and iridescence, and there is reason to believe that much more will be found than has yet been unearthed; but the quest for it is difficult owing to the arid nature and vast extent of the western plains where it occurs. In good seasons men in those regions find ready employment on the pastoral stations; in very dry ones, they cannot prospect for the precious stone, and the result has been that the industry has fluctuated even more than that of sapphire mining. The highest point was attained in 1895, when the value of the opal product reached nearly £33,000. Of late years Queensland has been blessed with good seasons, and the uncertain occupation of opal mining has, with many men, given place to the more regular and more comfortable station life. While the opal, the sapphire, and other precious stones have been dug from Queensland's earth, her Northern waters have for years yielded the lustrous pearl, and in 1908 pearl-shell to the value of £71,000 was exported. Sir William Ramsay, speaking as a scientific authority, lately stated that the day will come when Great Britain, if she continue to be dependent on her own coal supplies, will find it difficult not only to carry on her manufactures but to provide fuel for household purposes. Well, when that day does come, she can send to Queensland for what coal she wants. Here there are coal measures in abundance--in the South, Central, and Northern divisions of the State, and on the Darling Downs. True, we have not yet done much in the way of production, but all that is wanted is a market, and coal, both bituminous and anthracitic, can be dug out of the earth and sent away in practically unlimited quantities. Of ironstone, also, there is an abundance, and that, too, in such close proximity to the coal supplies that when the time arrives for Australia to enter earnestly into the enterprise of iron and steel manufacture Queensland should play an important part both in producing the raw material and in preparing the product for the market. With only one or two exceptions, all the important mining centres of Queensland are now connected with the eastern coast by rail, and those that are not are being rapidly linked up. During the year 1908 thirteen new railways were authorised by Parliament, five of them to serve mineral districts. Four of these lines are now under construction; and in addition the railway to the Etheridge field is completed for two-thirds of its length. To sum up: Queensland during the half-century of her existence has produced gold to the value, in round numbers, of over £69,000,000, and other minerals, coal, and precious stones worth more than £21,000,000--or an aggregate of £90,000,000. Last year's mineral production was worth £3,844,000, so that, even at the same rate of output, in less than three years we shall have topped the £100,000,000. The number of men obtaining employment in connection with the industry during 1908 was just upon 21,000--only 4,000 less than Queensland's total population in 1859. The value of machinery and plant used for mining and ore reduction purposes throughout the State is over £2,000,000. The worth of the coal output of the West Moreton district alone last year (£193,000) was more than the total revenue of Queensland during the first year of her existence; while the mineral product of the Herberton district during the same period was nearly four times as great. In the space available for this article it has been possible to take but a cursory view of the mineral progress which has characterised the first half-century of Queensland's life, but enough has been written to show that that progress has been remarkable, if not phenomenal. And who shall say what strides will be made during the next fifty years, or venture to predict what will be the value of our mineral wealth in the year 1959? It is a safe rule "not to prophesy till you know," but even the most timid prophet could hardly hesitate to predict expansion for Queensland's mining industry. Where there has been so much growth in the past, and where there is such an unlimited field for greater growth in the years to come, it would be absurd to suppose that there will be no further advance. As a matter of fact, many well qualified to judge do not hesitate to say that the industry is as yet in its infancy. It has been truly said of gold that "what it is, there it is"; and what you have to do is to find where it is. When it is remembered, however, that the prominent hill known as Mount Morgan, with its millions' worth of golden ore, was within a day's journey of the populous town of Rockhampton, and remained undiscovered until 1882, although alluvial gold had been found at its base for years previously and the disappointed miners from Canoona had twenty-three years before swarmed in its vicinity; when we recollect that only quite recently nuggets have been found in the streets of some of the oldest of Victorian mining townships, who shall say what has yet to be unearthed in the wide expanses of Queensland's bush, a great deal of which is already known to be "rich with the spoils of Nature"? "Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;" and the experience of the last half-century amply justifies the belief that untold millions lie hidden in the earthen depths of Queensland. [Illustration: GYMPIE: SCOTTISH GYMPIE GOLD MINE] [Illustration: GYMPIE: No. 1 NORTH ORIENTAL AND GLANMIRE] CHAPTER V. OUR ASSET IN ARTESIAN WATER. Erroneous Judgment of Western Queensland.--Scarcity of Surface Water.--Water Supply Department.--Discovery of Artesian Water in New South Wales.--Prospecting in Queensland.--Difficulties Experienced by Early Borers.--First Artesian Flowing Bore. --Dr. Jack's First Estimate of Artesian Area.--Revised Figures. --Number of Bores and Estimated Flow.--Area Capable of being Irrigated with Artesian Water.--Cost of Boring.--Value of Artesian Water.--Extent of Intake Beds.--Waste of Water. --Necessity for Government Control of Wells.--Value of Water for Irrigation, Consumption, and Motive Power.--Artesian Water a Great National Asset. Fifty years ago the white population of Australia, including Tasmania, scarcely exceeded a million persons. At that time the theory was generally accepted that only a fringe of the coast south of the tropic of Capricorn would be found habitable by a British or European population. The reports of explorers led to the conclusion that the vast inland area of our continent was an irreclaimable arid desert, save when, at long and uncertain intervals, it was ravaged by destructive floods, the water from which, licked up by a fiery sun or absorbed by a porous subsoil, disappeared from the surface with marvellous rapidity. A little more than forty years ago squatting occupation had been pushed towards the interior of the continent with not only rapid strides, but it was held by many explorers with a presumptuous boldness that could only be followed by disaster. So deeply had this conviction been driven into the minds of experienced men that a distinguished Australian explorer, the late Sir A. C. Gregory, declared in his late maturity, little more than ten years ago, that on what is now some of the richest and most productive country in Western Queensland a bandicoot could not live; and on the statement being challenged he said he spoke from personal experience as an explorer after two visits separated by an interval of nine years. The country more particularly so condemned was the well-known pastoral run, Wellshot, a little to the south of Longreach, and one of the largest and finest wool-growing properties in Australia. It must be frankly conceded that the occupation by flocks and herds nearly forty years ago of what was then known as the Barcoo and Thomson country was venturesome to the point of recklessness. Except in the sandy beds of these rivers there was practically no surface water of a permanent nature; and the average rainfall was so inadequate, not to mention its capriciousness, and the ground in many places so porous, that any attempt to provide artificial water by the construction of dams or tanks seemed almost tempting Providence. Yet there arose a persistent belief, afterwards more than justified, that underneath the arid surface was flowing water in great abundance. The rainfall, however copious in exceptional seasons, certainly did not reach the sea, and the hypothesis that great subterranean rivers would disclose themselves to a systematic search attracted much notice. In the dry year of 1883 the necessity of an improved water supply if the country was not to be denuded of stock forced itself upon the attention of our leading public men. The Premier, the late Sir Thomas McIlwraith, decided to constitute a Government Hydraulic Department with a competent engineer at its head. There had previously been so-called hydraulic engineers, but their work was chiefly confined to the water supply of a few towns and of the more settled districts on the coast. But Sir Thomas McIlwraith, as a runholder in the Far West, realised that nothing but heroic efforts, assisted by the Government, would save the country from desertion, with appalling loss to its adventurous occupiers and their flocks and herds. Mr. J. Baillie Henderson was at the time in the Queensland public service, and the Premier knew that he had served with distinction as an engineer in the Water Supply Department of Victoria. That gentleman was therefore selected to organise a Water Supply Department in Queensland, and on 1st February, 1883, he was gazetted Hydraulic Engineer, an appointment which he has ever since held with credit to himself and advantage to the country.[a] At that time the existence of artesian water in Queensland was no more than suspected. It had been tapped four years previously in New South Wales, but the boring appliances were so inadequate as to make the process tedious and of questionable practicability on an extensive scale. In Queensland some prospecting work had been done, and in some places fair supplies of water obtained by sinking ordinary wells. But in the Far West there was little scope for enterprise in that direction. Hence some extensive dams were constructed across watercourses ordinarily dry, but without conspicuous success. For often the rush of flood waters either carried away the embankments, or the reservoirs they created quickly silted up, or the porousness of the subsoil could not be entirely combated by "puddling." Then streams at times complaisantly abandoned their old channels and formed new ones, leaving the intended reservoirs high and dry after the most deluging rains. After a time it was found that better sites than the beds of main watercourses could be found for dams, and that the construction of tanks would suffice in many places to provide sufficient water for a scattered population and the increasing numbers of live stock, although the expense of this mode of conservation was great for the limited supply obtained. Evidently, if the Far West was ever to be completely utilised, its almost illimitable areas of splendid pastures must be watered by some more effective means. Attention was at this time attracted to the success of the few artesian bores in New South Wales, and to the vast scale on which water had been tapped by that means in the United States of America. The chief obstacles, however, were the great depth at which artesian water might be expected to be found, and the utter inadequacy of the boring machinery then in use in Australia; moreover, the search was most needed in the areas practically inaccessible by reason of the absence of surface water. For a considerable time, as is disclosed in the digest of the Hydraulic Engineer's annual reports reproduced in Appendix H, little progress could be made. It was not until October, 1884, in fact--just twenty-five years ago--that information was obtained of the striking of sub-artesian[b] water by the Messrs. Bignell at Widgeegoara Station, close to the New South Wales border. The place was visited by Mr. Henderson, and by him reported upon encouragingly. In the same month the Treasurer received a letter from the late Hon. George King, of Gowrie Station, Darling Downs, directing attention to the "Walking Beam Rig" machine, an American well-boring apparatus, by the use of which it had been ascertained that his firm might have saved £4,500 out of the £6,000 spent by it in well-sinking in the Warrego district. The letter being referred to the Hydraulic Engineer, that officer recommended the introduction of American bore-sinking machinery, and the engagement of American skilled drillers who would undertake to give instruction in the use of the machinery as well as engage in drilling work for the Government of Queensland. Delays occurred, however, apparently through the unwillingness of the Government to adopt the advice tendered. It was not until December, 1885, that Mr. Arnold, an American well-borer, was despatched to Blackall to sink a bore there. The first attempt failed, but afterwards water was struck in abundance, though not by him, or until after the first Queensland flowing well had been sunk by the Government at Barcaldine in December, 1887. In April, 1887, the Hydraulic Engineer had visited Thurulgoona Station, and there found that Mr. Loughead, with the "Canadian Pole Tool" boring apparatus, had obtained a supply of excellent fresh artesian water from a depth of 1,009 feet, the flow rising 20 inches above ground. From that date boring went on apace, and the exploratory success of the Government encouraged private persons to follow their lead. There were failures to strike artesian water, of course, both on the part of the Government and private persons, but on the whole the results have been such as to add to Queensland occupiable country equivalent to a great new province in the Far West. [Illustration] The map presented herewith shows the area of artesian water-bearing country in Australia as estimated by Dr. R. L. Jack, formerly Government Geologist. Since 1893 Queensland has been credited with the area of 376,832 square miles, this being equal to 56 per cent. of the estimated total. But that total has since been reduced to 569,000 square miles, and late information shows that the approximate area of the Queensland artesian basin, as ascertained by scaling off the most recent map issued by the Hydraulic Engineer, is 372,105 square miles--4,727 square miles less than the area given in his report for 1893. Yet the revised figures bring the Queensland artesian area up to 65 per cent. of the Australian total. The difference is accounted for by later information acquired in the field. Of the 372,105 square miles mentioned the area of 146,430 square miles has been tested and found to be less or more artesian or sub-artesian. Mr. Henderson says: "The flows from many of the artesian bores which at one time or another yielded artesian water have failed, but owing to the suspension of the hydraulic survey the available data are quite insufficient to admit of a trustworthy estimate being made of the area so affected." [Illustration: FLOWING ARTESIAN WELLS, WESTERN QUEENSLAND] The total supply of bore water has not been ascertained by actual measurement except from Government bores. But all possible reports of reputed flows have been obtained from the owners of private bores, and the figures cut down to 47 per cent. of the furnished estimates. This reduction is not an arbitrary one, however, but is the equivalent of the difference found to exist between the average estimate and the measured flow of such bores as the Hydraulic Department has been enabled to test. Information from the Hydraulic Engineer's office shows that up to the end of May last there were 716 flowing bores in Queensland, pouring forth an enormous supply of sparkling water estimated at slightly over 479¼ million gallons a day, equal to a discharge of 175,000 million gallons per annum.[c] This flow, if conserved in tanks and pipes, would furnish a population of nearly 12 millions with 40 gallons of water per capita a day. It would irrigate 644,366 acres of cultivated land with 12 inches of water per annum.[d] An area so irrigated, utilised solely for wheat-growing, would produce, at 20 bushels per acre, nearly 13 million bushels of grain, which is equal to 28·87 per cent. of the entire Commonwealth wheat crop for the year 1907-8. The average Commonwealth yield for the last five years, however, was 61½ million bushels. The average area under wheat for the same period was 5,864,114 acres, the average yield for the Commonwealth therefore being slightly over 10½ bushels to the acre. As much wheat is cut for fodder, and as irrigated land should produce a largely increased crop, 20 bushels per acre for such land seems a moderate estimate. Moreover, in 1902-3, the Commonwealth crop was under 12½ million bushels, or less than one-fifth of the mean average for the succeeding five years. At the same time the area of land under crop was in 1902-3 but little below the succeeding five-year average on an acre of land.[e] The presumably perpetual daily flow of 479¼ million gallons of artesian water--the quantity named being equal to only 47 per cent. of the reputed flow in the case of unmeasured wells--has cost, so far as an estimate can be made, £1,873,515. This works out at the average of £2,616 per flowing bore, supplying 669,369 gallons a day. Calculating on the basis of 5 per cent., including interest and redemption payments, the annual charge for this money is equal to £131 per well, spread over a forty-one years' term, the average cost to each well-owner being thus £1 for 1,865,000 gallons of water a year. Thus, although much money has been lost in sinking unsuccessful bores, the investment has on the whole been amazingly profitable, even allowing that a further annual charge for maintenance must be added. It need hardly be said, however, that in practice this enormous flow of artesian water could not be utilised solely either for human consumption or for irrigation. Under existing conditions the first claim upon it may be said to be for the sustenance of live stock, as the domestic consumption in the region of the flow is comparatively trifling. And here arises a problem of vast importance. Will this flow be perpetual, or will it gradually decline until exhaustion of the sources of supply ultimately takes place? The latter contingency there seems to be little reason to fear, for the area of the intake beds, estimated by Dr. R. L. Jack at 5,000 square miles, affords the assurance that our artesian springs will be constantly replenished by the rainfall over that large extent of country. Yet, when the existing number of artesian wells has been doubled or trebled, it seems not improbable that many of them will become sub-artesian, and only yield their fertilising streams in response to pumping-power. On this question, however, expert opinions widely differ. But, taking the experience of America and other countries in which artesian springs have been tapped, it may be said that the flow steadily decreases as the number of bores multiplies. The Hydraulic Engineer estimates that about two-thirds of the artesian water at present tapped flows to waste. As to the definition of "waste," however, there is sharp conflict of opinion. A pastoralist who distributes a supply of a million gallons of bore water a day by replenishing dry creeks or constructing artificial channels may contend that in his case the loss by evaporation or soakage is not waste, but an expenditure of water necessary to make his artesian well serve its desired purposes. To control and distribute by means of reticulating pipes the product of all Queensland's flowing bores would involve a heavy investment of capital, and one not warranted by the existing population in the artesian area--a population mainly dependent upon sheep-raising and wool-growing for subsistence. But the time may come when it will be deemed indispensable that flowing wells should be brought under Government control, or their product be subject, as in the case of surface water, to riparian rights. The pastoralist who has spent several thousand pounds in sinking a successful bore not unnaturally claims the water issuing from it as his own property; but public policy may require that after diverting so much as may be requisite for his reasonable individual uses the remainder shall be made available for the occupiers of neighbouring lands. The information that little more than one-half the area of the artesian basin in Queensland has yet been explored is in some respects disappointing, but it is reassuring in others. For if the unexplored country yields as much water per square mile of surface as is now pouring forth from the wells on the tested area--which is not yet fully developed--the total daily yield will ultimately approach 1,000 millions of gallons. Never, according to official information, was bore-sinking more active than it is during the current year, and the thoughtful reader will sympathise with Mr. Henderson's repeated expression of regret that want of money some years ago compelled the department to discontinue both exploration on scientific lines and the periodical measurement of all artesian flows. For with careful surveys of the entire water-bearing area much capital might be saved by teaching where copious springs might or might not be expected to be met with; while with measurement and registration of all flows the question as to the perpetuity or the contrary of the supply would be placed beyond controversy. In that case legislation could be initiated with confidence, and the public interest safeguarded with the least possible disturbance of private interests. An important consideration in connection with the artesian area is that the land watered by bores is as a rule more than commonly fertile. Its pastures produce some of the most nutritious natural grasses and herbage found on the face of the earth; and, what is of immense significance, they are grasses and herbage that either would not live or would deteriorate under a tropical sun, with a rainfall equal to the coastal average. Thus it may be argued that artesian bore water--at any rate, when so free from mineral impregnation as to be unquestionably potable--is more valuable, gallon for gallon, than the supply direct from the clouds. In several of his numerous reports the Hydraulic Engineer makes reference to the subject of irrigation by means of artesian water. It is certain that the water from some bores, while useful for live stock, is not fit for either domestic use or for irrigation. The Hydraulic Department many years ago began what was intended to be a systematic analysis of bore water with the view to providing an official record that would be highly useful for public purposes. But in one case at least water pronounced by the Government Analyst as useless even for stock was highly esteemed on the run whence it was obtained; and evidently much has yet to be learned as to the value of subterranean waters not regarded as potable by scientific standards. Some of the most copiously flowing bores, however, discharge water of unexceptional quality, whether for domestic use, manufacturing purposes, or irrigation. The Hydraulic Engineer doubts, having regard to the immense quantity of water required for irrigation, whether it will ever be found useful for that purpose in so far as the greater agricultural industries are concerned; but for intense cultivation around the homestead he thinks bore water might well be utilised. In some cases it would be in sufficiently large supply for the raising of green fodder for stud stock--perhaps even for protection against minor local droughts. An irrigated crop needs three or four waterings of 3 inches each, and as each inch means 22,614 gallons, the quantity required for a crop, with four waterings, would be 271,368 gallons per acre; so that a cultivation plot of 20 or 30 acres would absorb from 5 to 8 million gallons a year, according to the seasons, the nature of the soil, or the soakage. While doubtful as to the suitability of bore water for irrigation on a large scale, Mr. Henderson strongly advocates its being applied to machinery of small power. Many years ago he directed attention in one of his annual reports to the extensive use of water power in competition with steam in certain parts of America; and it is satisfactory to note that in some inland towns of Queensland the American example has been followed. In quite a number of towns the public water service is artesian, and in a few it is the motive power of electric lighting systems. The information that the flowing wells of Queensland are discharging daily 320 million gallons of water "to waste" indicates that when population in the artesian area becomes more dense bore power will become an invaluable aid in economic manufacture. The water so harnessed would not be wasted, as every gallon would still be available for human or animal consumption. [Illustration: ABERDARE COLLIERY, IPSWICH DISTRICT] The money value of the water annually discharged from the flowing bores of Queensland runs into stupendous figures, even at the rate of 6d. per 1,000 gallons. At that rate its annual value would exceed 4¼ millions sterling. Capitalise this sum at 4 per cent., and the artesian water flow of Queensland becomes worth upwards of 109¼ millions sterling, less, of course, the cost of maintenance and supervision similarly capitalised. And this colossal endowment is the result during the last quarter of a century of a total expenditure of less than 2 millions sterling. Granting that to utilise all this water already under pressure would mean a very large additional expenditure in tanks, aqueducts, and pipes, that expenditure may be calculated in advance to a minute fraction in every case, and it would of course be disbursed gradually as the demand for the delivery of water under pressure developed with the increase of population and the multiplication of industries. It must be apparent, therefore, that any needful public expenditure to ascertain whether the flow diminishes or increases as the years go on, and to prevent waste if waste there be, is more than justified. Indeed, should any great public loss be suffered for want of State control of this life-giving national asset, it might be difficult for Parliament entirely to clear itself from blame if charged with neglecting the reiterated advice of its own responsible officer in this respect. [Footnote a: For digest of Hydraulic Engineer's reports, 1883 to 1908 inclusive, see Appendix H, post.] [Footnote b: "Sub-artesian" is a term applied when the water in a bore rises to or near the surface, but does not automatically flow along it.] [Footnote c: It will be seen on reference to Appendix H that since the Hydraulic Engineer supplied his figures a number of additional flowing bores have been sunk, and have substantially increased the aggregate flow, although, the figures not having been officially verified, the aggregate flow remains in the text as from the 716 bores recognised by the Hydraulic Engineer.] [Footnote d: The quantity of water deposited on an acre of land by an inch of rain is 22,614 gallons.] [Footnote e: See "Commonwealth Year Book," 1909, page 382.] APPENDICES. APPENDIX A. READJUSTMENT OF WESTERN BOUNDARY. The following summary of correspondence between Governor Bowen and the Secretary of State for the Colonies gives information in addition to that furnished in "The Subdivision of Australia," page xiv., relating to the readjustment of the Queensland western boundary:-- On 30th September, 1860, Sir George Bowen--in transmitting an Address passed by the Queensland Legislature asking that "the western boundary of Queensland should be declared to extend at least so far as to include the Gulf of Carpentaria, without which declaration the Legislature would not feel authorised in taking steps towards the development of the colony in that direction"--referred to the opinion of Mr. A. C. Gregory, then Surveyor-General, that "a boundary at the 141st meridian would just cut off from Queensland the greater portion of the only territory available for settlement, _i.e._, the Plains of Promise, and the only safe harbour, _i.e._, Investigator Road, in the Gulf of Carpentaria." The Governor added that until receipt of the Duke of Newcastle's despatch of 21st October, 1859, enclosing the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown, the general belief here was that the western boundary of Queensland was identical with the eastern boundary of Western Australia, that is, with the 129th degree of east longitude. But now the Law Officers had declared expressly that the 141st meridian was the western boundary, he urged that the prayer of the local Legislature should be complied with by extending the boundary to the 138th meridian of east longitude. On 8th December, 1860, Governor Bowen again wrote to the Colonial Office urging that the boundary should be extended, and contending that the question was of Imperial as well as colonial importance. Replying on 26th February, 1861, the Duke of Newcastle said that South Australia had asked for the territory desired by Queensland, and that certain gentlemen in Victoria were desirous of forming a settlement on the northern coast of Australia. His Grace added that there were doubts whether the Government had the power to annex the territory as desired, and if these doubts had any foundation he would submit a Bill to the Imperial Parliament to remove them. In September, 1861, Sir George Bowen again urged the annexation of the territory, remarking that "Queensland can gain little but trouble and expense from undertaking the management and protection of any future settlement on the Gulf of Carpentaria; for it is certain that so soon as it becomes self-supporting it will demand to be erected into a separate colony." On 14th December following the Duke of Newcastle wrote to the Governor stating that he had "no objection to the proposal that this territory should be temporarily annexed to the colony of Queensland, and accordingly that Letters Patent would be issued for giving effect to this arrangement under 24 and 25 Vict., cap. 44." But his Grace warned the Governor that the annexation would probably be revoked when the growth of population or other circumstances rendered separation desirable in the interests of the new territory. He closed with these words--"I am not prepared to abandon definitely, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, the power to deal with districts not yet settled, as the wishes or convenience of the future settlers may hereafter require." APPENDIX B. THE FIRST PARLIAMENT. (First Session, 1860.) THE GOVERNOR: His Excellency Sir George Ferguson Bowen, K.C.M.G. THE MINISTRY: _With Seats in the Legislative Assembly._ Colonial Secretary--The Honourable Robert George Wyndham Herbert. Attorney-General--The Honourable Ratcliffe Pring. Colonial Treasurer--The Honourable Robert Ramsay Mackenzie. _With Seats in the Legislative Council._ Minister without Portfolio--The Honourable Maurice Charles O'Connell.[a] Minister without Portfolio--The Honourable John James Galloway.[b] MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL (15). President--The Honourable Sir Charles Nicholson.[c] Chairman of Committees--The Honourable Daniel Foley Roberts.[d] [c] Balfour, Hon. John. [c] Bigge, Hon. Francis Edward. [c] Compigne, Hon. Alfred William. [d] Fitz, Hon. Henry Bates. [c] Fullarton, Hon. George. [c] Galloway, Hon. John James. [d] Harris, Hon. George. [c] Laidley, Hon. James. [c] Massie, Hon. Robert George. [c] McDougall, Hon. John Frederick. [c] O'Connell, Hon. Maurice Charles. [d] Simpson, Hon. Stephen. [c] Yaldwyn, Hon. William Henry. MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (26). Speaker--The Honourable Gilbert Eliott (_Wide Bay_). Chairman of Committees--Arthur Macalister (_Ipswich_). Blakeney, Charles William (_Brisbane_). Broughton, Alfred Delves (_West Moreton_). Buckley, Henry (_East Moreton_). Coxen, Charles (_Northern Downs_). Edmondstone, George (_East Moreton_). Ferrett, John (_Maranoa_). Fitzsimmons, Charles (_Port Curtis_). Forbes, Frederick Augustus (_Ipswich_). Gore, St. George Richard (_Warwick_). Haly, Charles Robert (_Burnett_). Herbert, Robert George Wyndham (_Leichhardt_). Jordan, Henry (_Brisbane_). Lilley, Charles (_Fortitude Valley_). Mackenzie, Robert Ramsay (_Burnett_). Moffatt, Thomas de Lacy (_Western Downs_). [e] Nelson, William Lambie (_West Moreton_). O'Sullivan, Patrick (_Ipswich_). Pring, Ratcliffe (_Eastern Downs_). Raff, George (_Brisbane_). Richards, Henry (_Brisbane South_). Royds, Charles James (_Leichhardt_). Taylor, James (_Western Downs_). Thorn, George, sen. (_West Moreton_). Watts, John (_Drayton and Toowoomba_). [Footnote a: Captain O'Connell resigned on 28th August, and became President of Legislative Council.] [Footnote b: Appointed 28th August, 1860; resigned 10th November, 1860.] [Footnote c: Appointed for five years by Sir William Denison.] [Footnote d: Appointed for life by Sir G. F. Bowen.] [Footnote e: Unseated on petition in June, 1860--disqualified, being a minister of religion; succeeded by Joseph Fleming.] [Illustration: COCOA-NUT PALMS, JOHNSTONE RIVER, NORTH QUEENSLAND] [Illustration: CUSTOM HOUSE AND PETRIE BIGHT, BRISBANE] APPENDIX C. THE EIGHTEENTH PARLIAMENT. (1909.--Second Session.) THE GOVERNOR: His Excellency Sir William MacGregor, G.C.M.G., C.B. THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR: The Honourable Sir Arthur Morgan. THE MINISTRY: _With Seats in the Legislative Assembly._ Vice-President of Executive Council and Chief Secretary --The Honourable William Kidston. Secretary for Public Lands --The Honourable Digby Frank Denham. Treasurer --The Honourable Arthur George Clarence Hawthorn. Secretary for Public Instruction and Secretary for Public Works --The Honourable Walter Henry Barnes. Home Secretary and Secretary for Mines --The Honourable John George Appel. Secretary for Railways and Secretary for Agriculture --The Honourable Walter Trueman Paget. _With Seats in the Legislative Council._ Minister without Portfolio--The Honourable Andrew Henry Barlow. Attorney-General--The Honourable Thomas O'Sullivan. MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL (44). President--The Honourable Sir Arthur Morgan. Chairman of Committees--The Honourable Peter MacPherson. Annear, Hon. John Thomas.[a] Barlow, Hon. Andrew Henry. Beirne, Hon. Thomas Charles. Brentnall, Hon. Frederick Thomas. Brown, Hon. William Villiers. Callan, Hon. Albert James. Campbell, Hon. William Henry. Carter, Hon. Arthur John. Clewett, Hon. Felix. Cowlishaw, Hon. James. Davey, Hon. Alfred Allen. Deane, Hon. John. Fahey, Hon. Bartley. Gibson, Hon. Angus. Gray, Hon. George Wilkie. Groom, Hon. Henry Littleton. Hall, Hon. Thomas Murray. Hart, Hon. Frederick Hamilton. Hinchcliffe, Hon. Albert. Jensen, Hon. Magnus. Johnson, Hon. Thomas Alexander. Lalor, Hon. James. Marks, Hon. Charles Ferdinand, M.D. McDonnell, Hon. Frank. McGhie, Hon. Charles Stewart. Miles, Hon. Edward David. Moreton, Hon. Berkeley Basil. Murphy, Hon. Peter. Nielson, Hon. Charles Frederick. Norton, Hon. Albert. O'Sullivan, Hon. Thomas. Parnell, Hon. Arthur Horatio. Plant, Hon. Edmund Harris Thornburgh. Power, Hon. Francis Isidore. Raff, Hon. Alexander. Smith, Hon. Robert Harrison. Smyth, Hon. Joseph Capel. Stevens, Hon. Ernest James. Taylor, Hon. William Frederick, M.D. Thomas, Hon. Lewis. Thynne, Hon. Andrew Joseph. Turner, Hon. Henry. MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (72). Speaker--The Honourable Joshua Thomas Bell (_Dalby_). Chairman of Committees--William Drayton Armstrong (_Lockyer_). Allan, James (_Brisbane South_). Allen, Barnett Francis Samuel (_Bulloo_). Appel, Hon. John George (_Albert_). Barber, George Phillips (_Bundaberg_). Barnes, George Powell (_Warwick_). Barnes, Hon. Walter Henry (_Bulimba_). Blair, James William (_Ipswich_). Booker, Charles Joseph (_Maryborough_). Bouchard, Thomas William (_Brisbane South_). Bowman, David (_Fortitude Valley_). Brennan, James (_Rockhampton North_). Breslin, Edward Denis Joseph (_Port Curtis_). Bridges, Thomas (_Nundah_). Collins, Charles (_Burke_). Corser, Edward Bernard Cresset (_Maryborough_). Cottell, Richard John (_Toowong_). Coyne, John Harry (_Warrego_). Crawford, James (_Fitzroy_). Cribb, James Clarke (_Bundanba_). Denham, Hon. Digby Frank (_Oxley_). Douglas, Henry Alexander Cecil (_Cook_). Ferricks, Miles Aloysius (_Bowen_). Foley, Thomas (_Townsville_). Forrest, Hon. Edward Barrow (_Brisbane North_). Forsyth, James (_Moreton_). Fox, George (_Normanby_). Grant, Kenneth McDonald (_Rockhampton_). Grayson, Francis (_Cunningham_). Gunn, Donald (_Carnarvon_). Hamilton, William (_Gregory_). Hardacre, Herbert Freemont (_Leichhardt_). Hawthorn, Hon. Arthur George Clarence (_Enoggera_). Hodge, Robert Samuel (_Burnett_). Hunter, David (_Woolloongabba_). Hunter, John McEwan (_Maranoa_). Keogh, Denis Thomas (_Rosewood_). Kidston, Hon. William (_Rockhampton_). Land, Edward Martin (_Balonne_). Lennon, William (_Herbert_). Lesina, Vincent Bernard Joseph (_Clermont_). Macartney, Edward Henry (_Brisbane North_). Mackintosh, Donald (_Cambooya_). McLachlan, Peter Alfred (_Fortitude Valley_). Mann, John (_Cairns_). Maughan, William John Ryott (_Ipswich_). May, John (_Flinders_). Morgan, Godfrey (_Murilla_). Mulcahy, Daniel (_Gympie_). Mullan, John (_Charters Towers_). Murphy, William Sidney (_Croydon_). Nevitt, Thomas (_Carpentaria_). O'Sullivan, James (_Kennedy_). Paget, Hon. Walter Trueman (_Mackay_). Payne, John (_Mitchell_). Petrie, Andrew Lang (_Toombul_). Philp, Hon. Robert (_Townsville_). Rankin, Colin Dunlop Wilson (_Burrum_). Roberts, Thomas Robert (_Drayton and Toowoomba_). Ryan, Thomas Joseph (_Barcoo_). Ryland, George (_Gympie_). Somerset, Henry Plantagenet (_Stanley_). Stodart, James (_Logan_). Swayne, Edward Bowdick (_Mackay_). Theodore, Edward (_Woothakata_). Thorn, William (_Aubigny_). Tolmie, James (_Drayton and Toowoomba_). Walker, Harry Frederick (_Wide Bay_). White, John (_Musgrave_). Wienholt, Arnold (_Fassifern_). Winstanley, Vernon (_Charters Towers_). [Footnote a: Acting Chairman of Committees.] APPENDIX D. FIFTY YEARS OF LEGISLATION. In the following epitome of Queensland legislation during the last half-century no mention is made of Land Acts, Local Government Acts, Revenue or Loan Acts, or Education Acts, those subjects being dealt with in the text of the book. The rule has been to notice in this appendix the first legislation of the Parliament on each subject exclusive of those above mentioned, and only to refer to amending Acts of a consolidating and extending character. Nor is any attempt made to furnish a digest of the Acts mentioned, but only to direct attention to what are deemed the salient points of each. The first session of the first Parliament has been specially dealt with in "Our Natal Year." THE FIRST PARLIAMENT: 29th May, 1860-22nd May, 1863. It may not be generally known that in 1861, before Government railways were authorised in Queensland, an Act was passed incorporating the Moreton Bay Tramway Company, formed to construct a railway "from Ipswich to the interior of the colony." The company failed to raise the capital required, however, and the project fell through. In the same year a Loan Act was passed, but it made no provision for railway construction. In 1861 an Act was passed giving facilities for the naturalisation of aliens. A Fencing Act, a Carriers Act, and a Masters and Servants Act also found a place on the Statute-book. There were also passed a Savings Bank Act, a Supreme Court Act, and, among several others, twenty-two in all, the Real Property Act of 1861, which adopted the Torrens system of registration of titles, and may be regarded as one of the most useful reforms of the fifty-year period. An Act to facilitate the incorporation of religious and charitable institutions also became law. In 1862 an Act to provide for the appointment of a second Supreme Court Judge, at a salary of £1,500 a year, was passed, the result being the introduction of the late Chief Justice Cockle, much to the dissatisfaction of the late Mr. Justice Lutwyche, who, having been sole Judge before separation, preferred a prior claim to the appointment. Interference with political and party affairs was the alleged cause of this non-recognition of seniority; and the charge had some justification, as his Honour once issued an address to the electors through the Press urging them to vote for a Liberal candidate. Another noticeable measure was an Act to provide for the introduction of labourers from British India. In all thirteen measures were passed in this session, the last of the first Parliament. THE SECOND PARLIAMENT: 22nd July, 1863-29th May, 1867. In 1863 the second Parliament passed twenty-seven Acts, among them one empowering the Government to construct a railway from Ipswich to Toowoomba, "and such other lines as may hereafter be specified," and providing generally for the management of railways. The Inquests on Fires Act, the Liens on Crops Act, the Trading Companies Act, the Queensland Bank Act, the Civil Service Act--providing liberal allowances for retiring public officers--Police, Publicans, and Quarantine Acts, and other measures, made this a very fertile session. In 1864 no less than thirty Acts became law, including the Gold Export Duty Act, imposing a duty of 1s. 6d. per ounce on the precious metal. The Immigration Act of 1864, providing for the issue of land-order warrants by the Agent-General, instead of land orders, and generally restricting the traffic in these instruments, was passed. The Marriage Laws Act, the Military Contribution Act, appropriating £3,640 towards the cost of Her Majesty's troops in the colony, the Volunteer Corps Act, the Small Debts Act, the Roads Closing Act, the Bank of New South Wales Act, and the Brisbane Gas Company Act, with several others, became law. The publication of "Hansard" was begun in this year. Twenty-two Acts were passed in 1865, among them one for the Prevention of the Careless Use of Fire, a Selectors Relief Act, the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act, and eight measures amending the Criminal law. In 1866 twenty-six measures were passed, including the Friendly Societies Enabling Act, the Inquests of Deaths Act, abolishing coroners' juries and providing for magisterial inquiries at a cost of two guineas each as a fee to the presiding justice. The Standard Weight for Agricultural Produce Act and an Act declaring Port Albany, Cape York, a free port also became law, as well as a number of legal statutes. THE THIRD PARLIAMENT: 6th August, 1867-27th August, 1868. The third Parliament commenced its career in 1867 with a list of forty-eight Acts. The Constitution Act of 1867 and the Legislative Assembly Act of the same year laid the foundation of the Queensland Legislature, while the basis of our judiciary is the Supreme Court Act, the District Court Act, the Small Debts Act, and the Jury Act, all passed in the same session. Other important measures which were passed were Probate Act, Succession Act, Statute of Frauds and Limitations, Equity Act, Trustees and Incapacitated Persons Act, and the Polynesian Labourers Act, the latter the first of a long series of statutes legalising and regulating Polynesian labour. Most of the others were amendments of Acts passed in previous sessions. In August, 1868, the Parliament was prematurely dissolved. THE FOURTH PARLIAMENT: 18th November, 1868-13th July, 1870. The fourth Parliament opened in November, 1868, and the first session lasted till April, 1869. Only nineteen Acts were passed in the two sessions of 1868 and 1869. In the latter year two measures were passed to encourage the establishment of industries, one by means of grants of land, while the other authorised bonuses for the manufacture of woollen and cotton goods--the growth of cotton having attained some prominence during the American Civil War in the early sixties. The principal work of the session, however, was the passage of the Pastoral Leases Act, and an Act to repeal the Civil Service Act of 1863, on the ground that it was imposing undue liabilities on the Treasury. The session of 1870 only lasted for a week, and was consequently barren. [Illustration: IN THE SCRUB COUNTRY, KIN KIN, NORTH COAST RAILWAY] [Illustration: ON THE BLACKALL RANGE, NORTH COAST RAILWAY] THE FIFTH PARLIAMENT: 16th November, 1870-21st June, 1871. The fifth Parliament lived only seven months. It met in November, 1870, and passed twenty-two Acts, among them being the University Act of 1870, giving the Governor in Council power to establish local examinations for degrees in connection with universities in Great Britain and Ireland. In this year an Act legalising the collection of border duties was passed. An Act providing for a pension of £400 a year to the Assembly's first Speaker also became law, but has not since been used as a precedent. By the Country Publicans Act a license for a house not within five miles of any town in which the Towns Police Act was in force was reduced to £15. The Gold Fields Homestead Act authorised the granting of agricultural leaseholds not exceeding forty acres on any proclaimed goldfield. A Wages Act enabled an employee to claim six months' pay from a mortgagee on taking over a property. In the session of 1871 only six Acts were passed, one repealing the proviso to section 10 of the Constitution Act of 1867 which required a two-thirds majority of both Houses to a bill altering the number or apportionment of members of the Assembly. The other measures of this session demand no notice here. THE SIXTH PARLIAMENT: 8th November, 1871-1st September, 1873. The sixth Parliament met in November, 1871, and passed six measures in its first session, none of them of more than temporary importance save the comprehensive Brands Act, which received the Governor's assent in the following year. The main session of 1872 was fertile in practical legislation, the Health Act and a Railway Act--providing for the fixing of compensation for land resumptions by a railway arbitrator, and empowering the Governor in Council to accept proposals for railway construction from private individuals or corporations--becoming law with twenty-four other measures. An Act of this year provided for the gradual abolition of the export duty on gold; another provided for homestead areas on liberal terms; and another for the sale of mineral lands. A number of legal measures, all of an amending character, also became law. And finally, a Loan Act, authorising the Government to raise £1,466,499 for railways from Ipswich to Brisbane and from Westwood to Comet River on the Central Railway, and other public works, gave a new impetus to development. In 1873 the Parliament met at the end of May, and after the session had lasted two months the Houses were prorogued for the purpose of a dissolution. Only six Acts were passed during the session, and those of no permanent significance except, perhaps, an equally elaborate and Algerine Customs Act. THE SEVENTH PARLIAMENT: 7th January, 1874-2nd October, 1878. The seventh Parliament opened on 7th January, 1874, and the Palmer Government, being defeated on the election for the Speakership, at once retired. After nearly three months' adjournment to enable the new Ministry to formulate its policy, the session was resumed at the end of March, and eighteen public and six private Acts were passed. Among the most important was the Audit Act, which, among other provisions, altered the opening date of the financial year to 1st July, instead of 1st January, with the object of getting the work done during the cool weather. But the Act failed in this respect, for Governments seldom care to call Parliament together much before mid-July, in time to provide for the first Treasury payments of the new financial year. On the other hand, the Assembly members usually protract the sittings until close to Christmas week, at whatever date the session opens. Among the other measures passed in 1874 were the Insolvency Act, of which Mr. S. W. Griffith was the author; the Crown Remedies Act, providing for the conduct of suits on behalf of the Crown; a Supreme Court Act, making provision for the appointment of a third Judge to be stationed at Bowen, and fixing the salaries and pensions of the Judges at the amounts still payable; a comprehensive Goldfields Act; an Act for the protection of oysters and the establishment of oyster fisheries; and an Act to encourage the manufacture of sugar. In 1875 sixteen Acts were passed, one of the two most important being the Western Railway Act, providing for the reservation of the land for fifty miles on either side of a straight line drawn from Dalby to Roma, and the sale of such lands to pay for the construction of a railway to connect the two towns. The other and great measure of the session, however, was the State Education Act, the scope of which is elsewhere explained. In 1876 twenty-three Acts were passed, two of them being temporary Supply Acts, measures which first became necessary with the alteration of the date of the financial year. A Crown Lands Alienation Act, passed this year, is noticed elsewhere, as is also the Customs Duties Act, introducing a tariff incidentally protective. Mr. Groom's Friendly Societies Act became law, as also did Mr. Griffith's Judicature Act, and the Fire Brigades Act. A Municipality Endowments Act provided a £2 for £1 endowment for municipalities during the first five years after their establishment, and then £1 for £1. The Department of Justice was provided for, enabling a layman to hold the portfolio of Minister for Justice in a Ministry, and, so far as official practice was concerned, to qualify such Minister to discharge the duties of the Attorney-General. In 1877, twenty-eight measures were placed on the Statute-book, including the Navigation Act, Bank Holidays Act, Chinese Immigration Regulation Act, an Act to punish disorderly conduct in places of religious worship, the Victoria Bridge Act, and the first of a series of enactments for the destruction of marsupials and the protection of native birds. But the most important piece of legislation was the Railway Reserves Act, which, before it was finally repealed, caused considerable trouble in regard to the disposal of the moneys received from the sale of land within the reserves which were set apart in the various districts to provide funds for the construction of railways in the several reserves. In 1878, the last session of the seventh Parliament, only a few measures were passed, among them, however, being the Deceased Wife's Sister Marriage Act, the Intestacy Act, a comprehensive Local Government Act, and a Volunteer Act. An Electoral Districts Act redistributed the electorates of the colony, and increased the number of members of the Assembly from 43 to 55. THE EIGHTH PARLIAMENT: 15th January, 1879-26th July, 1883. In January, 1879, a new Parliament opened, and the ensuing five years contributed but a moderate number of Acts to the Statute-book. First in political importance was the Divisional Boards Act of 1879; then the Licensing Boards Act; the Orphanages Act; the Bills of Exchange Act; and the Life Insurance Act, providing among other things that after an insured person had held a policy for life assurance, endowment, or annuity for three years his age, unless in the case of fraud, should be deemed to have been admitted by the company, and also protecting the interest of the assured in the event of his insolvency. A short Act was passed requiring all moneys received under the Western Railway Act and the Railway Reserves Act to be paid into the consolidated revenue fund; and a Loan Act for £3,053,000 was also placed on the Statute-book. The Local Works Loans Act, referred to elsewhere, was also passed. The Rabbit Act, passed on the initiative of a private member, Mr. E. J. Stevens, was the forerunner of several measures having for their object the extermination of this national pest. In 1880, out of the twenty-four Acts passed, four were for appropriations, and four for private purposes. A new Pacific Island Labourers Act became law, providing for the engagement of all islanders under the inspection of a Government agent travelling in the recruiting vessel, restricting the employment of the islanders to tropical and semi-tropical agriculture, and making provision for their payment and treatment. The Post Card and Postal Notes Act provided for the issue of those instruments. The greatest political measure was the Railway Companies Preliminary Act, passed with the view of inducing capitalists to undertake railway construction in consideration of land grants. In 1881 fifteen Acts, exclusive of appropriations, were passed, among which were the Macalister Pension Act, authorising the payment to the ex-Agent-General of a pension of £500 a year; the Pearl-shell and Beche-de-mer Fishery Act; the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, and the United Municipalities Act. In 1882, with the exception of the Tramways Act, nearly all the measures passed were amending Acts. In 1883 only two measures were passed--the Queensland Stock Inscription Act and an Appropriation Act--dissolution following upon the defeat of the Government on the second reading of the Transcontinental Railway Bill, which was introduced to ratify an agreement made with a company, represented by General Feilding, under the provisions of the Railway Companies Preliminary Act of 1880, for the construction of a railway from Charleville to Point Parker on the Gulf of Carpentaria. THE NINTH PARLIAMENT: 7th November, 1883-4th April, 1888. The ninth Parliament opened on 7th November, 1883, and the Government resigned after being thrice defeated. Mr. Griffith became Premier, and he at once set to work to reverse the policy of his rival in several respects. The Assembly passed a bill to repeal the Labourers from British India Acts of 1862 and 1882, but the Council rejected it. The passage of the Chinese Immigrants Regulation Act (introduced by Mr. Macrossan as a private Opposition member), which restricted the number of Chinese passengers arriving by any vessel to one to every fifty tons register, and imposed a landing fee of £30 per head on such passengers, had a salutary effect in limiting this form of Asiatic immigration. The Pacific Island Labourers Act Amendment Act further safeguarded the interests of white workers in Queensland. The Railway Companies Preliminary Act was repealed, and its repeal put a stop to the negotiations which had been going on in connection with the Transcontinental Railway under the previous Government. The chief measure passed in the regular session of 1884 was the Crown Lands Act, which has been dealt with elsewhere. A comprehensive Defence Act established the principle of compulsory service in time of war. Among other measures passed were a comprehensive Health Act, a Bills of Exchange Act, a Wages Act, a Pharmacy Act, and the Native Birds Protection Act; also the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act. Many of the other Acts were legal measures, but one may be mentioned as of interest--the New Guinea and Pacific Jurisdiction Contribution Act, which provided for the amount of annual contribution by Queensland in the event of a British Protectorate being established over Eastern New Guinea and other islands in the Western Pacific. An Act of interest to civil servants was that which required all fees thereafter received by them to be paid into the Treasury. The Acts of this single session--the first of Mr. Griffith's Premiership--extended over 405 pages of the then quarto Statute-book. The Officials in Parliament Act--passed to create an additional Minister, to readjust the division of portfolios between the two Houses, and to render officers in the Imperial and Queensland military and naval forces eligible to sit in the Legislative Assembly--had the effect of bringing about an innovation not intended at the time the Act was passed, and which had no parallel in parliamentary government in the Empire. The passage of section 3 involved the repeal of sections 5 and 6 of the Legislative Assembly Act of 1867, the latter of which made it obligatory for members of the Assembly to submit themselves for re-election upon taking office as Ministers. Curiously enough, the effect of this repeal was not discovered until certain Ministerial changes were made in 1893. The members of the McIlwraith Government in 1888 and the members of the Griffith-McIlwraith Coalition in 1890 went before their constituents for re-election; but since the latter year the practice has ceased, and the electors have now no opportunity of showing by their votes whether they approve or disapprove of Cabinet changes. The session of 1885 was also productive of much legislation. There were a new Licensing Act containing local option provisions, a Federal Council (Adopting) Act, and an Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act, making the minimum width of new streets 66 feet, and of lanes 22 feet, and buildings were not to be erected within 33 feet of the middle line of a lane; while suburban or country lands could not be sold in areas of less than 16 perches. This measure put a stop to subdivisions which could only be regarded as a grave abuse. The law relating to parliamentary elections was consolidated and amended. Another Act prohibited the introduction of Pacific Islanders after 31st December, 1890. Altogether eighteen measures, irrespective of appropriations, were passed. During this and the following session a series of conflicts arose over the power of the Legislative Council to amend bills dealing with appropriation and taxation. In 1884 a bill was introduced which made provision for granting to members of the Assembly payment of expenses at the rate of £2 2s. per sitting day, with a maximum amount of £200 per annum, and in addition payment of travelling expenses to and from electorates once a year at the rate of 1s. 6d. per mile. The bill was laid aside by the Council. It was reintroduced in 1885, and again laid aside by the Council. The Government thereupon included a sum of £7,000 in the annual Appropriation Bill for the payment of members' expenses, and the Council took the extreme step of amending the Appropriation Bill by omitting this vote. After communications had passed between the two Chambers, it was agreed to submit to the Imperial Crown Law Officers two questions to settle whether the Council possessed co-ordinate powers with the Assembly in the amendment of all bills, including money bills, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided against the Council. The following year, the Members' Expenses Bill was passed by the Council without any attempt at amendment. The Council having also amended the rating clauses of a Local Government Bill in 1885, the bill was laid aside by the Assembly. It was reintroduced next year, and again amended by the Council. Warned by the fact that a Divisional Boards Bill had been laid aside by the Council because the Assembly claimed that the Upper House had no power to amend rating clauses, the Assembly accepted the Council's amendments, but at the same time asserted their sole power of altering taxation provisions. In the year 1886 no less than thirty-two Acts, exclusive of appropriations and private measures, were passed. Among them was the Elections Tribunal Act, which gave to a Supreme Court Judge, assisted by a panel of members of the Assembly acting as assessors, the decision of election petitions, as the trying of such petitions before an Elections and Qualifications Committee consisting of members of the Assembly had proved unsatisfactory. The Members' Expenses Bill was also passed. The important Justices Act was a measure of this session. The Labourers from British India Acts were repealed, the repealing measure having been rejected by the Council in the 1883-4 session, thus closing the door to the long-desired importation of coolie labour for pastoral holdings. Two measures of great importance to workers which were placed on the Statute-book in this session were the Employers Liability Act and the Trade Unions Act. The Offenders Probation Act embodied a new departure in the treatment of first offenders, which has since been copied by many other countries. Another Act which proved of material assistance to the working classes was the Building Societies Act. Several of the measures were amendments of the work of former Parliaments. The session of 1887, though less fruitful than the three preceding sessions, was by no means barren. Twenty-one bills were passed, one of which made provision for a contribution to the British New Guinea civil list. The Divisional Boards Bill, which had been laid aside by the Council in 1886, was reintroduced. The taxation clauses were this year embodied in a separate bill--the Valuation Bill--and both measures became law. An Electoral Districts Bill was also passed, increasing the number of members of the Assembly to 72. No change has since been made in the representation of the State. The passage of this bill was urged as a reason for not passing the Australasian Naval Force Bill, the Opposition contending that no important legislation should be attempted after Parliament had agreed to a redistribution of seats, and Sir S. W. Griffith was in this way prevented from giving legislative force to the agreement which he had drafted, and which was passed into law in all the other colonies before its author finally succeeded in securing its passage in Queensland in the year 1891. The session closed in December, 1887, but the Assembly was not dissolved until four months later. THE TENTH PARLIAMENT: 12th June, 1888-5th April, 1893. The tenth Parliament opened on 12th June, 1888, and the Griffith Ministry gave place to that of Sir Thomas McIlwraith. Only ten public measures were passed, however, exclusive of appropriations. The struggle of the session arose on the Customs Bill, imposing protectionist duties, and increasing the complexity of the tariff. On entering Parliament in 1874, Mr. Macrossan had earnestly demanded, on behalf of the Northern miners, effectual anti-Chinese legislation, but the attitude of the Imperial Government compelled the Queensland Parliament to proceed warily. In 1877 an Act was passed requiring the master of any ship to pay £10 for each Chinese passenger landed, and forbidding more than one to every 10 tons burthen, a penalty of £10 being imposed in each case of breach. In 1884 the number to be introduced was further restricted to one Chinese for each 50 tons, with a landing payment of £30, and £30 penalty for each landed in excess of the prescribed number. In 1888 the representatives of the various Australasian Governments met at Sydney, as, owing to the unwillingness of the Imperial Government to give the Royal assent to the legislation desired, there was doubt as to whether a measure passed by an individual colony would be assented to. The conference agreed to a bill, and the Queensland Parliament passed it in 1888, but it did not become law until February, 1890. It placed the limitation at one Chinese passenger to every 500 tons registered, made the penalty on the master £500 for every Chinese landed in excess of the number, and, in default of payment, twelve months' imprisonment, and £100 for a master failing to report at the Customs. For failure to supply a correct list of Chinese passengers the master rendered himself liable to a penalty of £200 for each act of default, and £30 for permitting Chinese to land without payment of the landing tax. A Chinaman landing illegally, either overland or by ship, was himself liable to a penalty of £50, and, in default of payment, to six months' imprisonment. A comprehensive Railways Act was passed, its main object being to entrust the control of the railways to three Commissioners. The other measures were not of permanent interest. The session of 1889, under the Morehead Administration, was more productive. The Totalisator Restriction Act was among the measures passed, as was also the Trustees Act. The Civil Service Act, which embodied superannuation provisions on the basis of a 4 per cent. contribution from salary, was passed, but the superannuation sections were repealed in 1894 chiefly because of the representations of junior officers who alleged that the system was unjust. The Payment of Members Act repealed the Members' Expenses Act of 1886, and under it members were paid an annual salary of £300. The session was also notable by reason of the passage of the Defamation Act, introduced by Sir S. W. Griffith as a private member, by which journalists were relieved of the Algerine law under which their profession had previously been carried on. The session of 1890 was marked by the formation of the Griffith-McIlwraith Ministry, and the passing of twenty-seven Acts, many of importance, one of them being the Married Women's Property Act. The dividend duty was first imposed in this session, and sketching fortifications was made a penal offence; but the more important measures of this year are elsewhere noticed. In the session of 1891 a comprehensive Water Authorities Act, which is still in force, became law. An Act permitting solicitors to do work for their clients by agreement was passed, as was also an Act for the better protection of women and girls. In all thirty-eight measures, many of them of a legal character, became law in this session. The one of greatest importance was the Australasian Naval Force Act, to which allusion has already been made. In 1892 thirty-nine Acts were passed, among which was one for the treatment and isolation of lepers; others provided for strengthening the law penalising bakers for selling bread under weight; for subsidising railway construction by grants of land; for the establishment of harbour boards, and the levy of harbour dues; for penalising the publication of indecent advertisements; for making a person accused of an indictable offence and the wife or husband of such accused person a competent but not a compellable witness for the defence; for raising the Chief Justice's salary to £3,500 with a view to securing the services of Sir S. W. Griffith; for reducing the payment of members of the Assembly to £150 per annum; and for taxing the receipts of totalisators on racecourses, a duty being imposed of sixpence in the pound of money passed through the totalisators. A new principle in rabbit legislation was introduced by an Act encouraging pastoral lessees to destroy the pest by granting them an extension of their leases as compensation for their outlay. The Pacific Island Labourers (Extension) Act reversed the decision of Parliament in 1885, and permitted the reintroduction of islanders for work in the sugar industry. The recruiting continued from this date until terminated by the Commonwealth legislation of 1901. This session proved a very long one, the Houses sitting from March till November. THE ELEVENTH PARLIAMENT: 26th May, 1893-22nd February, 1896. The eleventh Parliament was opened on 26th May, 1893, Sir Thomas McIlwraith being then Premier. A Ministerial crisis was produced on the Railway Border Tax Bill, which imposed a duty of £2 10s. per ton on every bale of Queensland wool taken across the border. Ministers tendered their resignations, but the Governor, Sir Henry Norman, declined to accept them. In a minute read in the Assembly, His Excellency expressed the opinion that the vote in question did not constitute a vote of want of confidence in Ministers, and he gave it as his belief that on most questions of importance likely to arise they would have the support of a substantial majority of members of the Assembly. Consequently Sir Thomas McIlwraith continued in office, and both Houses passed the bill. It was a retaliatory measure against the New South Wales Railway Commissioners because of the preferential rates conceded by them to draw traffic to Sydney that legitimately belonged to Brisbane. The Meat and Dairy Produce Act became law in this year; also the Sugar Works Guarantee Act, and the Co-operative Communities Land Settlement Act, which proved an utter failure in spite of the passing of amending Acts in the two succeeding years. Various financial measures noticed elsewhere were also passed, these last being rendered imperative by the banking crisis which then paralysed industry and commerce. At the end of the session, Sir Thomas McIlwraith's health failing him, he retired from the Premiership, which was taken by Sir Hugh Muir Nelson. In 1894 the session opened on 17th July, and one of the most hotly contested measures was the Peace Preservation Bill, introduced in consequence of the disturbances connected with the shearers' strike in the West in 1891, and the apprehension that they would be repeated unless drastic legislation was enacted. Its passage was strenuously opposed by the Labour Opposition, and it was only forced through the Assembly by the application of the closure. Violent scenes culminated in the suspension of eight Labour members, the suspension being followed by an appeal by the ejected members to the Supreme Court, when that court decided that Parliament was the only tribunal for determining matters affecting its own jurisdiction. In all thirty-six measures were passed, but the majority were either financial or designed to amend existing statutes which caused friction in operation. The effort at this time seemed to be rather to pass practicable laws than enact measures embodying so-called advanced principles. The most noteworthy of these laws was the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act, which authorised the purchase by the Government of large estates at a cost not exceeding £100,000 in any one year, and the subdivision of the land into farms. In 1895 thirty-five Acts were the product of the session, and they were generally characterised by the same adaptation of means to ends that was noticeable in the preceding year. In fact, during these two years the colonies were all suffering a recovery which did not incite to heroic legislation for securing the rights of man, including woman. Deserving of special mention are the Suppression of Gambling Act, and the Railways Guarantee Act which made provision for local authorities guaranteeing the State against loss in connection with the construction and working of railways built under the Act. In consequence of friction between the three Railway Commissioners, an Act was passed in this year reducing the number of Commissioners to one, Mr. Mathieson, the Chief Commissioner, being retained. A short measure of considerable value was the Standard Time Act, the object of which was to place Queensland in line with New South Wales and Victoria by adopting the time of the 150th meridian of east longitude as the standard time for the three colonies. [Illustration: BARRON GORGE, CAIRNS RAILWAY, NORTH QUEENSLAND] THE TWELFTH PARLIAMENT: 17th June, 1896-15th February, 1899. In 1896 there was a general election, and the new Parliament opened on 17th June. Public confidence had been fairly restored after the financial crisis of 1893, and thirty-five Acts were passed, not one of which was of a highly contentious political nature. Even the Factories and Shops Act, introduced by the Government, was supported by the Labour party; indeed, no party or section opposed it, although the compulsory closing of shops at 1 p.m. on Saturdays throughout an area within the radius of ten miles of the General Post Office excited much individual opposition. Mr. Mathieson having accepted the position of Chief Commissioner of the Victorian railways, an amending Railways Act was passed empowering the Governor in Council to appoint a Commissioner for three years, reducing the salary from £3,000 to £1,500, and providing for the appointment of a Deputy Commissioner. Mr. R. J. Gray, one of the three original Commissioners, was appointed Commissioner, and Mr. Thallon, the present Commissioner, became his deputy. A measure of some importance repealed the existing Payment of Members Act, and made the new Act an integral part of the Constitution, the salary being fixed at £300 a year. The object, as stated by the Government, was to stop the incessant agitation that was carried on in political circles on the one hand for an increase, and on the other for a reduction of the salary. In the session of 1897, Sir Hugh Nelson being still Premier, thirty Acts were passed. There was again a remarkable absence of measures of a party character, most of them being useful amendments of existing laws. Of these the Elections Consolidating Act was important. The Home Secretary, Mr. J. F. G. Foxton, deserves credit for introducing this session the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, the first measure for the preservation and care of our fast-disappearing aboriginal blacks. It must be recorded with shame that the Government of Queensland should have allowed so many years to pass before taking steps to protect the race who had been dispossessed of their heritage from some of the curses attendant on our civilisation. Since 1897 the stigma no longer rests on our fair fame, everything possible being done now to save the natives from extinction. In this year, too, the Mareeba to Chillagoe Railway Act, which has proved very beneficial to the Cairns hinterland, became law. A comprehensive Land Act, occupying 110 pages of the Statute-book, was passed, and also an amending and consolidating Trustees and Executors Act. The session of 1898--the last of the Parliament--opened on 26th July, and closed on 30th December. The principal work of this session was the passage of an amending Mining Act which greatly improved the condition of the working miners. Other measures were an Act to incorporate the Brisbane Technical College, and the Game and Fishes Acclimatisation Act, providing for the proclamation of districts, for an open season, for the issue of game licenses, and the appointment of guardians. Sir Hugh Nelson, in consequence of the death of Sir A. H. Palmer, had been translated to the Presidency of the Legislative Council, and the Premiership was assumed by Mr. T. J. Byrnes on 13th April. Mr. Byrnes died in the following September, and was succeeded by Mr. (afterwards Sir) J. R. Dickson. On 1st December, 1899, Mr. Dickson and his colleagues resigned in consequence of a vote of the Assembly, and for seven days the Dawson Labour Ministry held office, but they were defeated immediately on the reassembling of the House. In the meantime Mr. Philp had been chosen leader of the Opposition, and on 7th December he returned to power as Premier with most of his old colleagues. THE THIRTEENTH PARLIAMENT: 16th May, 1899-4th February, 1902. The year 1899 was remarkable for the passage of two great measures--the Australasian Federation Enabling Act, passed in a session specially summoned for the purpose, which authorised a referendum to be taken on the new Constitution; and the invaluable and monumental Criminal Code Act, extending with its four schedules over 270 pages of the Statute-book. The Code was compiled by Sir S. W. Griffith, and was afterwards submitted to the whole of the Judges of the Supreme and District Courts before being presented to Parliament. A bill was also passed legitimising children born before marriage on the subsequent marriage of their parents. The other public measures of the session were for amending purposes. The session of 1900 was a fairly active one, thirty-four measures being passed. A short Act of far-reaching importance empowered the Government to enter into arrangements with the Governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, Victoria, New South Wales, and New Zealand, for laying a Pacific cable. By a short measure the Government were empowered to prohibit the exportation of arms or naval stores. A great consolidating and amending Health Act was passed; also a measure, in connection with the appointment of Dr. Maxwell, of Honolulu, for the establishment of sugar experiment stations. In this year the Railway Commissioner was reappointed for three years at a salary of £2,000 per annum, being an increase of £500. The Factories and Shops Act of 1896 was repealed, and a more comprehensive measure passed. An amending Defence Act was passed providing, among other things, for the military training of boys between twelve and eighteen years. An Act also became law providing for the inspection of grammar schools by a graduate of a British or Australian University. Another measure provided for the holding of the first Commonwealth elections, and for the temporary division of the State into nine electorates for the House of Representatives election. Several bills authorising the construction of railways to mineral fields by private companies evoked the bitter opposition of the Labour party. To force them through the popular House the Government were obliged to introduce an amendment of the Standing Orders, colloquially known as the "guillotine," and to closure the bills through the House. In the session of 1901 twenty-seven Acts were passed. The Chief Justice's salary, on the retirement of Sir S. W. Griffith to accept the Federal Chief Justiceship, was reduced to its former amount of £2,500 a year. The first legislation to eradicate the prickly pear took place in this year. The bill was introduced by a private member, Mr. Bell, who has always taken a keen interest in the destruction of this pest. It was based on the principle that close settlement is the only effective remedy, and offered inducements to settlers to select infested lands. The Public Service Act was so amended as to constitute the members of the Ministry for the time being the members of the board. A measure was passed requiring every life assurance company carrying on business in Queensland to hold £10,000 in Queensland securities, and otherwise protecting policy-holders. An Agricultural Bank Act was passed authorising the Government to advance to settlers on the land loans for carrying out improvements. An Animals Protection Act was also passed for the more effectual prevention of cruelty to animals. THE FOURTEENTH PARLIAMENT: 8th July, 1902-21st July, 1904. The fourteenth Parliament opened on 8th July, 1902, twenty-seven public measures becoming law in the first session. An amending Aboriginals Protection Act, chiefly dealing with the sale of opium, was passed. The sum to be paid as duty on totalisator stakes or bets was increased to one shilling in the pound from the sixpence provided by the Act of 1892. A Railway Act amending measure was passed authorising the appointment of a Commissioner for a term of seven years, and making other changes to facilitate the working of the department. In consequence of the drought and Federal embarrassments, the Public Service Special Retrenchment Act was passed, reducing the salaries of public servants on a sliding scale; and an Income Tax Bill became law, imposing a tax of sixpence in the pound upon incomes derived from personal exertion, and one shilling in the pound when derived from property, incomes under £100 being mulcted in 10s., and when not exceeding £150 £1 a year. Provision was made for the appointment of a Government department for collecting the tax, and the last section enacted that the tax should cease on 1st January, 1905. The monumental Local Government Act of 1902 also became law in this year. The next session opened in July, and closed in December, 1903, but in mid-September progress was suspended by a change of Ministry, the Morgan-Kidston Government assuming office. Among the measures passed after the change of Ministry was an Act providing that the senior puisne Judge resident in Brisbane should be the senior puisne Judge of the Supreme Court, and discretionary power was given to the Governor in Council with regard to filling the vacancy created on the Supreme Court bench through the acceptance by Sir S. W. Griffith of the more dignified position of Chief Justice of the High Court of the Commonwealth. The Government were subjected to severe criticism for making no appointment, but the number of Judges was allowed to remain at four until the appointment of Mr. Justice Shand in November, 1908. Parliament reassembled in May following, and sat two months, when a dissolution was granted on 21st July, in consequence of the Government being left without a working majority. THE FIFTEENTH PARLIAMENT: 20th September, 1904-11th April, 1907. The fifteenth Parliament opened on 20th September following, and sat until Christmas. Among the measures passed was a comprehensive Dairy Produce Act providing for the appointment of inspectors; the registration of premises, a fee being charged proportioned to the number of cows kept; for compulsory grading of butter for export; and for the general regulation of dairies. The Income Tax was continued, but gave relief to persons with small incomes, though on the whole it yielded more revenue. Owing to the exigencies of the Treasury, the Public Service Special Retrenchment Act was continued for a further period of nine months, but the rate of retrenchment was reduced by one-half, and provision was made for devoting any surplus revenue at the close of the year to the repayment to public servants of the amounts so deducted from their salaries, and in this way they received a return equal to 8s. in the pound.[a] A Registration of Clubs Act and fourteen other measures were also passed. An extraordinary session of twenty days was held in January, 1905, to reconsider the Elections Bill, rejected by the Legislative Council in December previously. This having been done, and the Council having agreed to the bill, Parliament was prorogued, and met for the regular session of the year in July following, the sittings being continued till the Christmas holidays. The ordinary session of 1905 was a busy one, though the measures generally were short and of a practical nature. A distinguishing feature of the work of this Parliament was the humanitarian and social legislation which was placed on the Statute-book. The interests of workers generally were conserved by the Workers' Compensation Act, which made injuries or fatal accidents met with by employees a charge upon the industry in which they were engaged. The comfort of a very large number of workers in the pastoral and sugar industries was provided for by the Shearers and Sugar Workers Accommodation Act. A most valuable piece of legislation was the Infant Life Protection Act, the object of which was to prevent the alarming sacrifice of infant life in nursing homes from neglect, all such homes having to be registered and made subject to Government inspection. An Act imposing a penalty of £10 upon any person selling or giving tobacco or cigars to a young person under the age of sixteen years was passed, as was also an Act forbidding the sale or supply of firearms to a young person under fourteen years, and also forbidding such young person to use or carry firearms, the penalty for a breach of the Act being £20. Another measure of interest, which was passed in response to the request of a large number of workers, was an Act providing for railway employees a Board of Appeal against disciplinary decisions of superior officers. A short Act became law giving the right to women to admission and practice as barristers, solicitors, or conveyancers. Quite a number of other small Acts was passed, among them being a Fertilisers Act, the object of which was to prevent loss to farmers by the sale of fraudulent fertilisers. The most contentious measure of the session of 1906, which opened, as usual, in July, was the Railways Act, its principal object being to hold the ratepayers of a benefited area responsible for all losses in working a newly-constructed railway. It empowers the local authority to levy a railway rate to make good the deficiency, if any, after providing for working expenses and interest at the rate of three per cent. on capital expended on the line. If the local authority fails to levy and collect the railway rate, the Commissioner is empowered to do so. An important principle of the Act requires, when lands in a benefited area are being valued for rating purposes, that to the capital value shall be added the enhancement through the railway facilities provided. The object of the Act is undoubtedly good, in so far as it discourages landowners from agitating and bringing political pressure upon the Government in favour of railway undertakings not justified by the prospective traffic. It was supposed that persons desiring a new railway would hesitate to guarantee the Government against loss through its construction, but the applications for new lines have not been less numerous since the passing of the Act than when the burden fell entirely upon the general taxpayer. Yet there can be no doubt that many unwarranted undertakings have been quashed by the liability imposed upon local landowners. During the session there were thirty-four Acts passed, among them one for the protection of opossums, native bears, and other wild animals specified in the schedule, by the proclamation of a close season, and the prohibition of the use of cyanide as poison by collectors of skins for export. The Mining Machinery Advances Act empowered the Minister to advance loans from moneys appropriated by Parliament to persons or companies erecting machinery for carrying on mining operations or treating metalliferous ores, such loans to be made on the basis of £1 for £1 of money expended by the applicant. A comprehensive Weights and Measures Act also became law. Another useful measure was the amending Public Works Land Resumption Act, the compensation provisions being greatly improved. The Etheridge Railway Act also passed in this session despite the objection of several members of the Labour party to "syndicate" lines. The opposition of these members, however, was not characterised by the obstructive tactics adopted in regard to similar measures in 1908. [Footnote a: See page 50, ante.] THE SIXTEENTH PARLIAMENT: 23rd July to 31st December, 1907. The sixteenth Parliament was elected in May, 1907, but none of the three parties, into which the Assembly was divided by the cleavage between the moderate and the extreme sections of the Labour party consequent upon the adoption by the latter of the socialistic objective at the Convention held earlier in the year at Rockhampton, came back with a majority, and little legislation was found possible, the only public Acts passed relating to Appropriations, Children's Courts, Poor Prisoners' Defence, and an amending Income Tax measure raising the exemption to £200, and giving other relief to taxpayers. Towards the end of November the Government, failing to pass several democratic measures through the Council and to obtain adequate support from the Labour party, resigned, and Parliament was dissolved on 31st December on the advice of Mr. Philp, who had been called on to form a new Government from the Opposition party, and had failed to secure a parliamentary majority. THE SEVENTEENTH PARLIAMENT: 3rd March, 1908-31st August, 1909. The result of the appeal to the constituencies was to leave parties much as before, the Kidston and Labour parties being slightly strengthened numerically, and the Philp party--the Government at the moment--weakened correspondingly, they and the Kidston party numbering 25 each, while the Labour party were 22 strong. Mr. Philp's appeal having thus failed, he retired, and Mr. Kidston, being recalled, sought to secure for his Government more than casual support from the Labour party. The House met on 3rd March, 1908. The session lasted barely seven weeks, and among the fifteen measures which became law were the following:--An amending Constitution Bill repealing the provisoes to section 9 of the principal Act, the first of which required a two-thirds vote of both Houses to any amendment for varying the mode of appointment or number of members of the Legislative Council; and the second, that any such amending bill should not receive the Royal assent until it had lain thirty days on the table of both Houses of the Imperial Parliament. Another Constitution Bill provided for a referendum to the electors when a bill passed by the Assembly had been twice rejected by the Council. The first of the above-mentioned bills received the Governor's assent forthwith, but as to the second such assent was reserved, and the bill transmitted to England. On 19th August, however, the King's assent was proclaimed, and the incompatibilities between the two Houses were thus satisfactorily adjusted by a comparatively simple process. A measure which aroused strong party feeling was a bill to amend the Elections Act by repealing the postal voting sections, substituting provisions to enable absent voters to vote at any polling place in the State, and also ensuring greater secrecy by having the ballot papers from places where a small number of votes are recorded counted in some larger centre. A useful Land Surveyors Act was passed, requiring registration after approval of candidates by a board to be constituted under the Act, and prescribing a variety of other regulations for the purposes of securing the competence and protecting the interests of surveyors generally. Other measures placed on the Statute-book included an Old Age Pensions Act, which has now lapsed in consequence of the passing of a Commonwealth pensions law; an Act for the Inspection of Machinery and Scaffolding; an amending Factories and Shops Act containing many democratic provisions; a Wages Boards Act, which has been kindly taken to by both employers and employed, and promises to adjust most of the differences between masters and men; a Religious Instruction in State Schools Referendum Act, the poll to be taken on the same day as the polling for the first Federal election after the passing of the Act; and an amending Technical College Act dissolving the councils of both metropolitan technical colleges, and vesting the property and future management in the Government. Two bills were also passed authorising the construction of railways to the Mount Elliott and Lawn Hills mineral fields. These bills directly led to the Labour party assuming an attitude of open hostility to the Government, and brought the latter and the Opposition, led by Mr. Philp, together, as the policy put before the electors by these two parties was identical in almost every respect. Before the opening of the second session on 17th November, 1908, the Kidston and Philp parties were fused into one on the common basis of the policy enunciated by Mr. Kidston in 1907 at Rockhampton. A reconstruction of the Cabinet preceded the meeting of Parliament. When the session closed on 22nd December very little legislative work had been done, most of the Government time being occupied with consideration of the Estimates, the Labour party, which had then become the Opposition proper, again offering obstruction to Government measures, and again compelling resort to the closure. An important measure of a non-party character was passed, however, for a revision of the statute law in many important details. The most significant measure of the session was the Loan Act of 1908, authorising the borrowing of £3,208,000, the vote affording proof of the determination of the Government and Parliament to enter upon a vigorous policy of railway and public works extension. The third session of the seventeenth Parliament opened on 29th June, 1909. The two sides of the House were so evenly balanced, owing to several supporters of the Government having crossed to the Opposition benches, that the majority of the Government was reduced to one. Finding themselves impotent to transact public business, the Government advised the Lieutenant-Governor to grant a dissolution, provided the House would grant Supply. This was done, and His Excellency accordingly dissolved the Assembly on 31st August. THE EIGHTEENTH PARLIAMENT: 2nd November, 1909. The eighteenth Parliament met on 2nd November. The Address in Reply was adopted without division on the 5th, and Parliament at once proceeded to the business outlined in the Opening Speech of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, a laudable desire to transact business without unnecessary discussion being evinced. The most important measure was the University of Queensland Act, which was passed in time to enable the dedication ceremony to take place on 10th December, Queensland's jubilee day. Of vital importance to Brisbane and its suburbs was the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Act. An amendment of the Workers' Compensation Act and a Workers' Dwellings Act also became law. Resolutions were also passed approving of the construction of railways in various parts of the State. APPENDIX E. LAND SELECTION IN QUEENSLAND. [OFFICIAL COMPILATION.] The State is divided into Land Agents' Districts, in the principal town of each of which there is a Government Land Office and Land Agent. Plans and information respecting the quality, rents, and prices of lands available for selection may be obtained on personal or written application to the Land Agent of the District in which the land is situated, or to the Officer in Charge, Inquiry Office, Department of Public Lands, Brisbane. Land is opened or made available for Selection by proclamation in the _Government Gazette_. The proclamation, which is made not less than four weeks before the time appointed for the opening, specifies the modes in which the land may be selected, the area, rent, price, &c. The several modes of Selection for which the law provides are--(1) Agricultural Selections, _i.e._, Agricultural Farms, Perpetual Leases, Agricultural Homesteads, and Free Homesteads; (2) Grazing Selections, _i.e._, Grazing Farms and Grazing Homesteads; (3) Scrub Selections; (4) Unconditional Selections; and (5) Prickly Pear Selections. The more accessible lands are usually set apart for agricultural selection in areas up to 1,280 acres, or, if pear infested, as Prickly Pear Selections in areas up to 5,000 acres; while opportunities of acquiring Grazing Selections in areas up to 60,000 acres are given over a great extent of Queensland territory. Except in the case of Scrub Selections, Unconditional Selections, and Prickly Pear Selections, no person who is under the age of sixteen years, or who seeks to acquire the land as the agent or servant or trustee of another, will be allowed to select. A single girl under the age of twenty-one years is debarred from selecting an Agricultural Homestead, Free Homestead, or Grazing Homestead. A married woman is not competent to select a Homestead unless she has obtained an order for judicial separation or an order protecting her separate property, or is living apart from her husband and has been specially empowered by the Land Court to select a Homestead. A married woman may, however, acquire a Grazing Homestead by transfer after the expiry of five years of the term of lease. An alien may, under certain conditions, acquire a selection, but, unless he becomes a naturalised British subject within three years thereafter, all his right, title, and interest in the land will become forfeited. Applications for selections must be made in the prescribed form, in triplicate, and be lodged with the Land Agent for the District in which the land is situated. [Illustration: FARM SCENE, BLACKALL RANGE] [Illustration: SISAL HEMP, CHILDERS, NORTH COAST RAILWAY] [Illustration: WOOL TEAMS, LONGREACH, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND] They must be signed by the applicant, but may be lodged in the Land Office by his duly constituted attorney, and must be accompanied by the prescribed deposit. In the case of a Prickly Pear Selection the deposit must be the full amount of the prescribed survey fee, and in other cases, except Free Homesteads, a year's rent and one-fifth of the survey fee. In the case of a Free Homestead application the deposit consists of an application fee of £1 and one-fifth of the survey fee. Ordinarily, applications take priority in the order of their being lodged with the Land Agent, but applications lodged _prior_ to the time proclaimed as that at which land is to be open for selection are regarded as simultaneous with those lodged at that time. If land is open for Selection in two or more modes alternatively, and there are simultaneous applications to select it under different modes, priority among such applications is given to an application for the land as an Agricultural Homestead as against an application for it as an Agricultural Farm; to an application for it as an Agricultural Farm as against an application for it as an Unconditional Selection; and, if the land is open for Grazing Selection, to an application for it as a Grazing Homestead as against an application for it as a Grazing Farm. In the case of simultaneous applications for the same land, as an Agricultural Farm, priority is secured by an applicant, other than a married woman or a single girl under twenty-one years of age, who, when making application, undertakes to personally reside on the land during the first five years of the term. In other cases of simultaneous applications for the same land by the same mode of selection, priority is determined by lot, unless in the case of simultaneous applications for the same land as a Grazing Selection, Unconditional Selection, or Prickly Pear Selection, a higher rental is tendered than that proclaimed. In that event the tender most favourable to the Crown secures priority. Under the Special Selections Act land may be set apart for any body of settlers who, having some measure of common interest or capacity for mutual help, are desirous of acquiring land in the same locality. The procedure to be followed is for a request to be made to the Minister by the members of the body, explaining the grounds on which they are co-operating and setting out the land they desire to acquire. Should the request be acceded to, the land will be opened for selection in the usual way, but for a period to be set out in the proclamation it will only be available for the members of the body of settlers for whom it has been set apart. When an application has been accepted by the Land Commissioner and approved by the Land Court, and the applicant has paid for any improvements there may be on the land, he becomes entitled to receive a license to occupy the land in the case of an Agricultural Selection or a Grazing Selection, or a lease in the case of a Scrub Selection, Unconditional Selection, or Prickly Pear Selection. Within six months after the issue of a license, the selector must commence to occupy the land, and must thereafter continue to occupy it in the manner prescribed. AGRICULTURAL SELECTIONS. AGRICULTURAL FARMS. The largest area that may be acquired by any one person as an Agricultural Farm is 1,280 acres. If the same person is the selector of both an Agricultural Farm and an Agricultural Homestead, the joint areas must not exceed 1,280 acres. The purchasing price may range from 10s. an acre upwards, as may be declared by proclamation. The term is twenty years. The annual rent is one-fortieth of the purchasing price, and the payments are credited as part of the price. The land must be continuously occupied by the selector residing personally on it or by his manager or agent doing so. Within five years from the issue of the license to occupy, or such extended time as the Court may allow, the selector must enclose the land with a good and substantial fence, or make substantial and permanent improvements on it equal in value to such a fence. On the completion of the improvements the selector becomes entitled to a lease of the farm, and may thereafter mortgage it; or, with the permission of the Minister, may subdivide or transfer it; or, with the approval of the Court, may underlet it. The selector of an Agricultural Farm, who has obtained priority by undertaking to reside personally thereon during the first five years of the lease, must comply strictly with that undertaking, and is not allowed during such period to mortgage, transfer, or assign the holding. After five years of the term have elapsed, the prescribed conditions of occupation and improvement having been duly performed, a deed of grant may be obtained on payment of the balance of the purchasing price and deed fees. PERPETUAL LEASE SELECTIONS. Land proclaimed to be open for Agricultural Farm Selection may also be opened for Perpetual Lease Selection, and the latter mode may be conceded priority of application over the former. The rent for the first period of ten years of the lease is 1½ per cent. on the proclaimed purchasing price of the land for Agricultural Farm Selection. The rent for each succeeding period of ten years shall be determined by the Land Court. The same conditions of occupation and improvement as are prescribed for Agricultural Farms are attached to Perpetual Lease Selections, and, except as specially prescribed, the provisions relating to Agricultural Farms apply to them also. As the name implies, the selections are leases in perpetuity, and are not capable of being converted to freeholds. AGRICULTURAL HOMESTEADS. Land open for selection as Agricultural Farms is not available for Agricultural Homesteads unless so proclaimed. The area allowed to be selected as an Agricultural Homestead varies with the value of the land, and is fixed by proclamation within the following limits, viz.:--160 acres in the case of land valued for Agricultural Farm Selection at not less than £1 an acre; 320 acres in the case of land valued at less than £1 but not less than 15s. an acre; and 640 acres in the case of land valued at less than 15s. an acre. The price for an Agricultural Homestead is 2s. 6d. an acre, the annual rent 3d. an acre, and the term ten years. The land must be continuously occupied by the selector residing personally thereon. Within five years from the issue of the license to occupy, or such extended time as the Land Court may allow, the selector must enclose the land with a good and substantial fence, or make substantial and permanent improvements on it equal in value to such fence. On the completion of the improvements the selector becomes entitled to a lease, which, however, is not negotiable in any way. At any time after five years from the commencement of the term, on the selector proving that the conditions have been duly performed and that the sum expended in improvements on the land has been at the rate of 10s., 5s., or 2s. 6d. an acre respectively according to the value of the land, he may pay up the remaining rents so as to make his total payments equal to 2s. 6d. an acre, and obtain a deed of grant of the land in fee-simple. A deed fee must be paid. FREE HOMESTEADS. Land is not available for Free Homestead Selection unless specially so proclaimed, and the area of no selection must exceed 160 acres. The term is five years, and during that period the selector must occupy the land by personally residing on it, and must effect improvements to the total value of 10s. per acre. A Free Homestead cannot be sold or mortgaged until a deed of grant is obtained. GRAZING SELECTIONS. GRAZING FARMS. The greatest area which may be applied for as a Grazing Farm under any circumstances is 60,000 acres, but, as in the case of other modes of selection, each proclamation opening land for grazing selection declares the maximum area which may be selected in the area to which it applies. In the event of lands open under different proclamations and of a total area exceeding 20,000 acres being applied for by the same person, a rental limitation of £200 per annum must be observed as well as the maximum areas declared by the several proclamations. Thus, of lands open at 2d. an acre, the greatest area obtainable would be 24,000 acres; at 1½d. an acre, 32,000 acres, and so on. The term may be fourteen, twenty-one, or twenty-eight years, as the opening proclamation may declare. The annual rent for the first period of seven years may range from ½d. an acre upwards, as may be proclaimed or tendered. The rent for each subsequent period of seven years will be determined by the Land Court. A Grazing Farm must be continuously occupied by the selector residing personally on it, or by his manager or agent doing so. Within three years from the issue of the license to occupy, or such extended time as the Land Court may allow, the selector must enclose the land with a good and substantial fence, and must keep it so fenced during the whole of the term. In the case of two or more contiguous farms, not exceeding in the aggregate 20,000 acres, the Court may by Special License permit the selectors to fence only the outside boundaries of the whole area. If the proclamation declaring the land open for selection so prescribed, the enclosing fence must be of such character as to prevent the passage of rabbits. In the case of a group of contiguous Grazing Farms not exceeding eight in number, or 200 square miles in total area, and which are situated within a District constituted under "_The Rabbit Boards Act, 1896_," the Court may by Special License permit the enclosure of the whole area with a fence of such character as to prevent the passage of rabbits, instead of requiring each farm to be separately enclosed. The selectors of a group of two or more Grazing Farms, the area of none of which exceeds 4,000 acres, may associate together for mutual assistance, and on making proof of _bona fides_ to the Commissioner may receive from him a Special License enabling not less than one-half of the whole number by their personal residence on some one or more of the farms to perform the condition of occupation in respect of all the farms. When a Grazing Farm is enclosed in the manner required, the selector becomes entitled to a lease of it, and may thereafter mortgage it; or, with the permission of the Minister, may subdivide or transfer it; or, with the approval of the Court, may underlet it. GRAZING HOMESTEADS. Land open for selection as Grazing Farms must also be open for selection as Grazing Homesteads, and at the same rental and for the same term of lease. As already stated, an application to select as a Grazing Homestead takes precedence of a simultaneous application to select the same land as a Grazing Farm. The requirements of the law as regards Grazing Homesteads are the same as in the case of Grazing Farms, except in the following respects:-- (1.) During the first five years of the term of a Grazing Homestead the condition of occupation must be performed by the continuous personal residence of the selector on the land. (2.) Before the expiration of five years from the commencement of the term, or the death of the original lessee, whichever first happens, a Grazing Homestead is not capable of being assigned or transferred. Unless with the special permission of the Minister, a Grazing Homestead may not be mortgaged. SCRUB SELECTIONS. Lands entirely or extensively overgrown by scrub may be opened for selection as Scrub Selections up to 10,000 acres in area and with a term of thirty years. These are classed according to the proportion covered by scrub, and for periods varying from five to twenty years, according to the classification, no rent is chargeable. During the first period the selector must clear the whole of the scrub in equal proportions each year, and must keep it cleared, and must enclose the selection with a good and substantial fence. The annual rent payable for the subsequent periods ranges from ½d. to 1d. an acre. A negotiable lease is issued to the selector when his application has been approved by the Court. UNCONDITIONAL SELECTIONS. The greatest area allowed to be acquired by any one person as an Unconditional Selection in one district is 1,280 acres; the price per acre ranges from 13s. 4d. upwards, and is payable in twenty annual instalments. As the term implies, no other condition than the payment of the purchase money is attached to this mode of selection. A negotiable lease for the term of twenty years is issued to the selector when his application to select has been approved by the Court. A deed of grant may be obtained at any time on payment of the balance of the purchasing price and the deed fee. PRICKLY PEAR SELECTIONS. PRICKLY PEAR INFESTED SELECTIONS. Prickly Pear Infested Selections comprise lands heavily infested with prickly pear. The area must not exceed 5,000 acres. The term is fifteen years, with a peppercorn rental for the first ten years and an annual rent of one-fifth of the purchasing price for the remaining five years. During the first ten years of the term the land must be absolutely cleared of prickly pear--one-tenth of the pear being eradicated during each year--and must be kept clear for the remainder of the term. The freehold may be obtained prior to the expiry of the term on proof being made that the land has been maintained free from prickly pear for three years consequent on the eradication having been completed in advance of the prescribed period. PRICKLY PEAR FRONTAGE SELECTIONS. Prickly Pear Frontage Selections are confined to proclaimed prickly pear frontage areas, comprising lands free from or only lightly infested with prickly pear, but which adjoin and do not extend for more than seven miles from lands heavily infested. The greatest area allowed is 5,000 acres. The term is fifteen years, with a peppercorn rental for the first five years and an annual rent of one-tenth of the purchasing price during the remaining ten years. During the first five years of the term the land must be absolutely cleared of prickly pear, one-fifth of the pear being eradicated during each year, and must be kept clear during the balance of the term. The freehold may be obtained prior to the expiry of the term on proof being made that the land has been maintained free from prickly pear for three years consequent on the eradication having been completed in advance of the prescribed period. PRICKLY PEAR (BONUS) SELECTIONS. In the case of Prickly Pear (Bonus) Selections, the freehold of the land, and a bonus in addition, are granted in return for the complete eradication of the pear. The maximum amount per acre payable as bonus is stated in the opening proclamation, but each applicant must lodge a tender specifying a bonus per acre not in excess of that mentioned in the proclamation. In the case of simultaneous applications for the same land, priority attaches to the lowest tender. The size of the portions opened must not exceed 2,560 acres. The term of lease is ten years, at a peppercorn rental throughout. The land must be absolutely cleared of prickly pear during the first seven years--one-seventh each year--and the clearing must be maintained until the expiry of the lease. One-seventh of the bonus payable may be claimed at the end of each of the first seven years of the term, on proof to the satisfaction of the Commissioner that the condition of eradication has been complied with. If the eradication is completed at an earlier date than is required by the conditions of the lease, the balance of the bonus will then become payable. The freehold may be obtained prior to the expiry of the term on proof being made that the land has been maintained free from prickly pear for three years consequent on the eradication having been completed in advance of the prescribed period. OTHER MODES OF ACQUISITION. Crown lands may be acquired in fee-simple by auction purchase in areas up to 5,120 acres. There is no limitation to the area of freehold land which may be held by any one person. The minimum purchasing price for agricultural land bought at auction is £1 an acre, and for other land 10s. an acre. Terms up to ten years may be allowed, with interest at 5 per cent. per annum on instalments paid after six months from the time of sale, or the purchaser may elect to hold the land as a lease in perpetuity at a rental, for the first ten years, equal to 3 per cent. of the purchasing price, and for such rent for each succeeding period of ten years as the Land Court may determine. Opportunity is also afforded for the occupation of Crown lands for pastoral purposes from year to year under an occupation license, or for a fixed term not exceeding forty-two years under pastoral lease. There is no limitation to the area which may be held by one person under either of these tenures. TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SELECTION ON REPURCHASED ESTATES. "THE CLOSER SETTLEMENT ACT OF 1906." AGRICULTURAL FARMS. 1. An application to select must be made in the prescribed form, in triplicate, and be lodged with the Land Agent for the district in which the land is situated. It must be signed by the applicant, but may be lodged in the District Land Office by his duly constituted attorney, and must be accompanied by a deposit of one-tenth of the purchasing price of the land and one-fifth of the prescribed survey fee. 2. In the case of simultaneous applications for the same land, priority is secured by an applicant, other than a married woman or a single girl under twenty-one years of age, who, when making application, undertakes to reside personally on the land during the first five years of the term of lease. In other cases of simultaneous applications for the same land priority is determined by lot. 3. Land cannot be acquired in the interest of another person, and an applicant is required to declare that he requires the land for his own exclusive benefit, and not as the agent, servant, or trustee of any other person. An alien may, on passing a reading and writing test, acquire a selection; but unless he becomes a naturalised subject of the King within three years thereafter, all his right, title, and interest in the land will become forfeited. 4. The term of the lease of a selection is twenty-five years, dating from the 1st January or 1st July nearest to the date of the Commissioner's license to occupy the land. 5. No rent will be payable during the second, third, or fourth years of the term. The rent payable during the remainder of the term will be at the rate of £8 2s. 7d. for every £100 of the purchasing price of the land, and will be allocated to principal and interest according to the table appended hereto. 6. Within two years of the issue of a license to occupy, the selector must enclose the land with a good and substantial fence, or make substantial and permanent improvements on it of a value equal to the cost of such a fence, and must within such period make application to the Commissioner for a certificate that he has performed this condition. 7. When the prescribed improvements are made, a lease will be issued to the selector, and the selection may then be mortgaged, or, with the permission of the Minister, may be subdivided or transferred, or, with the approval of the Land Court, may be sublet, except in the case of a selection on which the selector has undertaken to reside personally during the first five years of the term, in which case neither the lease nor the selector's right, title, or interest thereunder can be mortgaged, except to the trustees of the Agricultural Bank, assigned, or transferred during such period. 8. A selection must be occupied by the residence thereon of the selector in person, or by his duly appointed agent, as the case may require or permit, during the whole term or until the leasehold tenure is determined by freehold. 9. At any time after five years' occupation the leasehold tenure may be converted into freehold by payment of the unpaid balance of the purchasing price. The amount payable in any year, after payment of the rent for that year, shall be at the rate specified in the last column of the appended table for every £100 of the purchasing price. TABLE OF THE ANNUAL PAYMENTS TO BE MADE AS INSTALMENTS OF PURCHASE MONEY (SHOWING PRINCIPAL AND INTEREST SEPARATELY), AND THE PAYMENT, EXCLUSIVE OF RENT, TO BE MADE IN ANY YEAR AFTER THE FIFTH TO ACQUIRE THE FREEHOLD OF ANY SELECTION UNDER "THE CLOSER SETTLEMENT ACT OF 1906." ----------+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+--------------- | ANNUAL PAYMENT. | Payment to be | | made in any +-----------------+----------------+-----------------+ Year after the | | | | Fifth to | Principle. | Interest. | Total. | acquire | | | | Freehold. ----------+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+-------------- | £ _s._ _d._ | £ _s._ _d._ | £ _s._ _d._ | £ _s._ _d._ | | | | 1st year | 10 0 0 | ... | 10 0 0 | ... 2nd " | ... | ... | ... | ... 3rd " | ... | ... | ... | ... 4th " | ... | ... | ... | ... 5th " | ... | 8 2 7 | 8 2 7 | ... 6th " | ... | 8 2 7 | 8 2 7 | 98 4 2 7th " | ... | 8 2 7 | 8 2 7 | 94 19 10 8th " | ... | 8 2 7 | 8 2 7 | 91 12 3 9th " | 1 18 7 | 6 4 0 | 8 2 7 | 88 1 6 10th " | 3 14 6 | 4 8 2 | 8 2 7 | 84 7 0 11th " | 3 18 2 | 4 4 5 | 8 2 7 | 80 8 10 12th " | 4 2 1 | 4 0 6 | 8 2 7 | 76 6 9 13th " | 4 6 3 | 3 16 4 | 8 2 7 | 72 0 6 14th " | 4 10 6 | 3 12 1 | 8 2 7 | 67 10 0 15th " | 4 15 1 | 3 7 6 | 8 2 7 | 62 14 11 16th " | 4 19 10 | 3 2 9 | 8 2 7 | 57 15 1 17th " | 5 4 10 | 2 17 9 | 8 2 7 | 52 10 3 18th " | 5 10 0 | 2 12 7 | 8 2 7 | 47 0 3 19th " | 5 15 6 | 2 7 1 | 8 2 7 | 41 4 9 20th " | 6 1 4 | 2 1 3 | 8 2 7 | 35 3 5 21st " | 6 7 4 | 1 15 3 | 8 2 7 | 28 16 1 22nd " | 6 13 7 | 1 9 0 | 8 2 7 | 22 2 6 23rd " | 7 0 4 | 1 2 3 | 8 2 7 | 15 2 2 24th " | 7 7 4 | 0 15 3 | 8 2 7 | 7 14 10 25th " | 7 14 10 | 0 7 9 | 8 2 7 | +-----------------+----------------+-----------------+------------- | £100 0 0 | £80 14 3 | £180 14 3 | ----------+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+------------- [Illustration: VIEW ON BARRON RIVER, CAIRNS RAILWAY] AN ACT TO FACILITATE THE ACQUIREMENT OF SELECTIONS BY CERTAIN BODIES OF SETTLERS. "THE SPECIAL SELECTIONS ACT OF 1901." PREAMBLE. Whereas it is desirable to promote closer settlement upon the agricultural lands of Queensland by affording to bodies of settlers special facilities for the acquirement of Agricultural Selections to be held in conjunction with portions in adjacent Agricultural Townships: Be it therefore enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly of Queensland in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-- SHORT TITLE AND CONSTRUCTION OF ACT. 1. This Act may be cited as "_The Special Selections Act of 1901_," and shall be read and construed with and as an amendment of "_The Land Act, 1897_," hereinafter called the Principal Act. PROCLAMATION OF LANDS TO WHICH THIS ACT APPLIES. 2. (1.) The Governor in Council may from time to time, by proclamation, declare any unoccupied country lands to be open for selection as Agricultural Homesteads, or as Agricultural Farms, or as Prickly Pear Selections, or as Perpetual Lease Selections, or as Grazing Selections, or as Agricultural Farms to be held in conjunction with Grazing Farms under the provisions of this Act by members of the body of settlers in the proclamation specified. Notwithstanding the provisions of section eighty-three of the Principal Act, such proclamation declaring the lands mentioned therein open for selection as Agricultural Homesteads need not also declare such lands to be also open for selection as Agricultural Farms. No Agricultural Homestead to be selected under the provisions of this Act shall exceed three hundred and twenty acres. No Prickly Pear Selection to be selected under the provisions of this Act shall exceed two thousand five hundred and sixty acres. No Grazing Farm to be held in conjunction with an Agricultural Farm selected under the provisions of this Act shall exceed two thousand acres, and the total aggregate area of the Agricultural Farm and the Grazing Farm held in conjunction therewith shall not exceed three thousand two hundred and eighty acres. No other Grazing Selection to be selected under the provisions of this Act shall exceed three thousand acres. Such lands shall remain open for selection under the provisions of this Act for such time as may be declared by Proclamation. During such time such lands shall be open to be selected only by persons who shall, at the time and in the manner prescribed, furnish to the Commissioner for the District in which the lands are situated proof that they are members of the body of settlers for whom such lands have been set apart. MAXIMUM AREA. (2.) No person shall at the same time apply for or hold two or more Homesteads under the provisions of this Act the aggregate area of which is greater than three hundred and twenty acres, or two or more Prickly Pear Selections under the provisions of this Act the aggregate area of which is greater than two thousand five hundred acres, or two or more Grazing Selections under the provisions of this Act the aggregate area of which is greater than three thousand acres. AGRICULTURAL TOWNSHIPS. (3.) The Governor in Council may by proclamation set apart any Crown lands in the said District as Agricultural Townships, and may cause the whole or any part of such lands to be subdivided into portions for purposes of residence. Such lands shall be in the vicinity of the lands open for selection under the foregoing provisions. The area of any portion shall not exceed ten acres. Any selector of a selection under the provisions of this Act shall also be entitled to one of the portions in an Agricultural Township, which portion shall, for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to be a part of the Selection, so that the condition of occupation may be performed by the residence of the selector either upon the Selection or upon the portion in the Township. The area of the portion in the Township shall not, however, be taken into consideration in estimating the maximum area which a selector may apply for or hold. IMPROVEMENTS. (4.) In order that the selector may become the purchaser of an Agricultural Selection under this Act, the certificate of the Commissioner given under section one hundred and thirty-four or one hundred and thirty-eight, as the case may be, of the Principal Act must show that a sum at the rate of ten shillings per acre has been expended in substantial and permanent improvements on the land. The value of any improvements made upon the portion in the Township shall be reckoned as part of the improvements required to be made upon the Selection. The provisions of this subsection do not apply to Prickly Pear Selections or to Perpetual Lease Selections or Grazing Selections. CONDITION OF OCCUPATION. (5.) During the first five years of the term of the lease of an Agricultural Farm (including an Agricultural Farm held in conjunction with a Grazing Farm) selected under this Act, the condition of occupation shall be performed by the continuous and _bona fide_ personal residence of the lessee on the Selection; and subsection 5A of section one hundred and thirty-two of the Principal Act shall accordingly be applicable.[a] (6.) During the first five years of the term of the lease of a Prickly Pear Selection selected under this Act, the lessee shall occupy the land; such condition of occupation shall be performed by the continuous and _bona fide_ personal residence of the lessee on the Selection; and during such period subsection 5A of section one hundred and thirty-two of the Principal Act, except the last paragraph thereof, shall be applicable to every such Prickly Pear Selection. (7.) Notwithstanding anything in the Principal Act, or any Act amending the same, when the proclamation opening the land for selection so declares, lots which are not contiguous may be applied for and held as one selection under this Act. REGULATIONS. 3. The Governor in Council may make Regulations prescribing the manner in which applicants for selections under the provisions of this Act shall give proof of their qualification to become selectors, and prescribing such other matters and things as may be necessary to give effect to the provisions of this Act. [Footnote a: Inter alia the subsection referred to provides that the lessee shall not, during the first five years of the term of the lease, mortgage, assign, or transfer the lease.] APPENDIX F. IMMIGRATION TO QUEENSLAND. [OFFICIAL COMPILATION.] ASSISTED IMMIGRANTS. 1. Immigrants approved by the Agent-General, who deposit with him the sum of £50, shall be provided with passages by a steamer from the United Kingdom to any port in Queensland for £5, the £50 deposit to be returned to them on their arrival in Queensland. NOMINATED IMMIGRANTS. 2. Persons resident in Queensland wishing to obtain passages for their friends or relatives in the United Kingdom, or on the Continent of Europe, may do so under the provisions of the 9th section of "_The Immigration Act of 1882_," at the following rates:-- £ _s._ _d._ Males between 18 and 40 years 4 0 0 Females between 18 and 40 years 2 0 0 Males and Females over 40 and under 55 years 8 0 0 A full description of the nominee must appear on the application form supplied by the Immigration Department of Queensland. The application must be signed by the nominor, who must be of full age. The Immigration Agent or Clerk of Petty Sessions must satisfy himself by personal inquiry that the person for whose passage application is made is a relative or personal friend of the applicant. Passage warrants shall be made out in duplicate. One copy, to be marked "provisional," will be issued to the applicant and the other copy, to be marked "final," will be sent to the Agent-General, who will cause inquiries to be made through his agents as to the eligibility of the persons named therein to be nominated under the provisions of this Order. If the Agent-General is satisfied that all the conditions of this Order have been complied with he will, upon surrender of the provisional warrant, issue the final warrant to the person nominated, which will entitle him to a passage contract ticket. A memorandum shall be printed on the provisional warrant stating that it must be surrendered and exchanged for a final warrant at the office of the Agent-General before a passage can be obtained. The Agent-General will refuse to issue a final warrant to any person named in a provisional warrant if he finds that such person is not eligible to be nominated under the provisions of this Order, or that the description in the application is incorrect in any material particular, or that the nominee is otherwise undesirable. CONTRACT IMMIGRANTS. 3. Free passages may be granted from the United Kingdom to any part of Queensland to agricultural labourers introduced under contract if the employer pays a fee of £5 for each labourer introduced, provides him with suitable accommodation, and guarantees him a year's employment at wages approved by the Chief Secretary. The choosing of such labourers to be left to the Agent-General, unless they are known to the applicant, in which case the Agent-General's duty is restricted to passing or rejecting them. FREE IMMIGRANTS. 4. The Agent-General may grant free passages to the wives and children (under the age of 18 years) of assisted, nominated, and contract immigrants and to female domestic servants who are desirous of emigrating to Queensland. 5. The Chief Secretary may direct that a passage warrant be not issued in respect of any person nominated or proposed to be indented. 6. The Order in Council of the fourth day of June, 1891, published in the _Government Gazette_ of the 5th June, 1891, shall be and is hereby rescinded. And the Honourable the Chief Secretary is to give the necessary directions herein accordingly. APPENDIX G. SOME STATISTICS AND THEIR STORY. The figures contained in this Appendix, save those for 1908, and in relation to certain financial matters for 1908-9, are drawn from the Statistics for 1908 laid before Parliament this year, but all are official. GROWTH OF POPULATION. The population of Queensland, estimated at 28,056 on 31st December, 1860, a little more than a year after separation from New South Wales, more than doubled during the succeeding three years. Thence it again more than doubled in the next eight years, the census of April, 1871, providing a basis for the estimate of 125,146 at the end of that year. Thence to 1882, two years before the close of the quarter-century, the figures had again nearly doubled, the population on 31st December, 1884, reaching 309,913. Of the number of arrivals in excess of departures there is no record for 1860 or 1861, but of the total increase, 51,509, for the four years ended 1865 the recorded arrivals in excess of departures aggregated 46,422, leaving only 5,087 for excess of births over deaths for the period. In 1866, in spite of the crisis resulting from the Agra and Masterman's Bank failure, there was still an excess of 6,632; but by the next following year the number of such excess had fallen to 917, while the net increase of population in that year was only 3,648. The census of 1886, the second year of the new quarter-century, showed a total population of 342,614, and the next census five years later 410,330. This marked the end of the "boom" period, and the amount spent on immigration, as compared with 1883 and 1884, was cut down in the next year by nearly three-fourths, or from the maximum of £361,632 in 1883-4 to £91,143 in 1889-90. In 1891 there was severe commercial depression, and by that time arrivals had annually decreased, and departures came very near in numbers to the arrivals. During the next ten years the increase in population, as shown by the census, was 95,614, bringing the total up to 505,944. Here it may be explained that the intercensus estimates between 1891 and 1901 proved fallacious, for the total number in the latter year was 6,660 less than the estimate had been for two years previously, although the arrivals for the intervening period recorded an excess over departures of 6,389. So that adding to that number the 17,350 increase by excess of births over deaths the population in 1901 would have been shown as 536,343 had the estimates between the censuses been continued on similar lines. The error would therefore have been 30,399 had not the census figures in 1901 enabled an adjustment to be made. Similar over-estimating had occurred previously, it is understood, through many oversea departures not being recorded by those who supplied information to the department. Of late years allowances have been made for unrecorded arrivals and departures in preparing the intercensus returns, and it may be hoped that in future the discrepancies will be less disconcerting than in the past. The population at the end of the first quarter-century having been 309,913, and on 31st December last year (1908) 558,237, the increase for the period was 248,324. But the second quarter-century does not actually close until 31st December next, when the total population should be approximately 570,000 souls. During the half-century, therefore, the number of people in Queensland as compared with the population in 1859 may be taken to have multiplied by twenty-two. In other words, at the time of separation, a year earlier than the official record begins, the total population was scarcely greater than it now is in several of our provincial cities. PUBLIC FINANCE. Public revenue, which began in 1860 with a total of £178,589, reached £2,720,656 in 1884-5, the figures of the natal year being multiplied nearly fifteen times at the close of the quarter-century. The second quarter-century showed continued increase until 1888-9, but the figures of that year were not again reached until 1895-6. They progressed until in 1899-1900, the last year before federation, they reached over 4½ millions sterling, an amount not again realised till 1908-9. In 1901 the State figures were considerably disturbed by the proclamation of the Commonwealth on 1st January. In 1901-2 there was a large apparent decline of £1,053,145, the Commonwealth having taken over the whole of the postal and telegraph revenue and about one-fourth of the Customs. There was also a considerable loss by the discontinuance of State border duties, as well as by the Commonwealth tariff, which took effect in the second quarter of 1901-2, many revenue duties being either sacrificed or lowered in favour of protectionist imposts which only yielded revenue until they excluded imports. By 1908-9, despite the loss of post-telegraph and Customs revenue, the total receipts at the State Treasury formed the half-century record of £4,766,244. The expenditure on loan account began with the foundation of the colony. At the end of the first quarter-century the public debt amounted to £16,570,850, exclusive of Government Savings Bank and Treasury bills obligations. In the first decade of the second quarter it had almost doubled, standing at the end of 1894 at £30,639,534. By the end of 1900 there had been a further increase of nearly 5 millions, and on 30th June, 1909, it stood at £41,568,827, or at the rate of £74 per head of the estimated population. But the railway net earnings alone of the last two financial years (1907-8 and 1908-9) have provided a mean sum of £884,616 per annum towards the interest charge. LAND STATISTICS. In 1860 there were 108,870 acres of land alienated in Queensland. In 1872 the area exceeded 1 million acres, the first quarter-century closing in 1884 with over 7 million acres. The 10-million-acre limit was passed in 1890, and the 15-million-acre limit in 1908, when the total area alienated was 15,108,439 acres. The cash received at the Treasury from land sales up to the close of 1884 was over 4¾ millions, and at the close of 1908 exceeded 8½ millions sterling. In process of alienation there were then over 6 million acres. For the last ten years the total area leased or otherwise in occupation has been recorded. In 1899 the area thus occupied was 296½ million acres, and in 1906 only 247 million acres. Since then there has been some recovery in this respect, the total occupied area of Crown lands being now 273,180,864 acres. The unoccupied area in 1899 was over 131¼ million acres, and in 1902 only 121½ million acres. Since then there has been both an increase and a decrease, the area unoccupied in 1908 being almost 135 million acres, equal to nearly one-third of the total area of the State. This unoccupied land consists largely of rangy and waterless country, but a not inconsiderable area would be occupiable were water and transport facilities provided, and much of it is in what the geologists have delimited as the artesian area. LIVE STOCK. In 1860 the number of live stock in Queensland totalled--Horses, 23,504; cattle, 432,890; sheep, 3,449,350; pigs, 7,147. There was an almost continual yearly increase in horses until 1902, when drought reduced the number by 62,997, or at the rate of about 14 per cent. Not until 1907 was this loss recovered, when the total number of horses stood at 488,486, the number being still further increased in 1908 to 519,969. There was an almost uninterrupted increase of cattle until 1882, when the total exceeded 4¼ millions. At the close of the quarter-century the number was 4,266,172. In 1885 and 1886, owing to a drought, there was again a small decline in cattle numbers, but from that time there was a continued increase until 1894, when the total of 7 millions was recorded. But droughts and the tick pest had cut them down to less than 2½ millions in 1903. In 1908 the number had recovered to 4,321,600. The enlarged Australian consumption has been a factor in the shrinkage of numbers, but the large increase in prices fully compensated the owners for the diminished numbers of their herds. The increased price of wool during recent years renders the same remark applicable to the sheep-owners of the State; and it may be said generally that the pastoral industry was never in a more flourishing condition. Sheep, which totalled fewer than 3½ millions in 1860, reached 7¼ millions in 1866, and 9 millions two years later. Thence till 1878 there was a series of fluctuations which brought the total in that year below 6 millions. But in 1882 the number had vaulted to over 12 millions, after which there was a descent to a little more than 9¼ millions at the close of the quarter-century. The year 1885 closed with a further decrease, but by 1887 the number had increased to nearly 13 millions. Three years later it reached 18 millions, and in 1892 it touched the record of nearly 21¾ millions. By 1900, which had been preceded by bad seasons, the number of sheep had dropped to 10-1/3 millions, and in the second year of the twentieth century the low-water mark of less than 7¼ millions was touched. Since then there has been a rapid increase, and the numbers in 1908 had recovered to 18,348,851, or within 3,359,459 of the record number of seventeen years ago. It must be mentioned that, while scanty rainfall on the Western pastures was accountable for much of the depletion in stock numbers, overstocking and absence of possible provision for bad seasons had much to do with the losses incurred. However, the second quarter-century will close with flocks in number almost equal to those of 1892, and with fleeces immensely more valuable than the pastures then carried, and the stock-carrying capacity of the country has also been much increased by fencing, water conservation, and artesian wells. Pigs are also becoming a valuable asset of the Queensland dairy farmer. In 1860 they numbered 7,147; at the close of the quarter-century, 51,796; and in December, 1908, 124,749. [Illustration: HAULING TIMBER, BARRON RIVER, NORTH QUEENSLAND] DAIRYING. The phenomenal growth of the dairying industry is shown by the table headed "Dairying." It shows that, whereas in 1860 10,400 lb. butter were imported and 450 lb. exported, in 1908 there were 23,838,357 lb. made, 13,752,118 lb. exported, and only 201,924 lb. imported. Even in 1896 Queensland could hardly be accounted a butter-exporting country, when the shipments were only 13,942 lb., the imports 1,003,680 lb., and the quantity made 6,164,240 lb., for in that year the excess of imports was 989,738 lb.; while in 1908 the excess of exports was 13,550,194 lb., or more than a moiety of the amount manufactured. Of cheese, in 1896 the quantity made was 1,921,404 lb., whereas in 1908 it had increased to 3,199,510 lb., and the amount exported was 732,090 lb., the excess of exports over imports being 685,629 lb. Twenty-five years ago the excess of imports over exports was 1,068,033 lb., which meant that there were practically no exports. Even in 1896 the cheese exported totalled only 8,505 lb. It is evident that the dairying industry in Queensland is yet only in its youth, and that in another quarter of a century the exports of both cheese and butter will have increased enormously. SUGAR PRODUCTION. Sugar first appears as a Queensland export in 1870, the quantity being, however, only 26 cwt. By 1879 the quantity had reached 206,269 cwt., the quarter-century closing in 1884 with 368,626 cwt., valued at £454,759. But these figures do not represent the quantity of sugar manufactured, the total in 1884 being given at 33,361 tons, the export being 18,431 tons. In 1885 the export, as compared with the previous year, increased by 58½ per cent. in value. In 1888 the value declined to £384,375, or by more than one-half as compared with 1886. Thence for many years there was a fluctuating export, a drop to £681,038 in 1897 being followed by a jump to £1,329,876 in 1898. Two years later there was a heavy fall to £669,389 worth; then two years' progression followed by a fall to £646,875 in 1903. In 1904, owing to the Commonwealth bounty and good seasons, there was a recovery to £1,257,815, followed by substantial progression each following year, till 1907, when the record export of £1,779,624 was made. In 1908, owing to abnormal frosts, there was a decline to £1,482,320. The quantity of sugar made of course showed corresponding fluctuations. In 1896 the 100,000-ton limit of manufacture was for the first time passed. It was followed by a slight drop in the following year, but in 1898 the record to that date in manufacture, as well as in export, was made, the product of the mills reaching the high figure of 163,734 tons. After that year there was a fluctuating decline in manufacture to the minimum of 76,626 tons in 1902, the great drought year; but there was an improvement in 1903, and in 1905 152,722 tons were manufactured, the two following years being very close together with a mean production of 186,342 tons. In 1908 the sugar manufactured was 151,098 tons, a decrease, through frost, of 37,209 tons for the year. In glancing through the figures not only will the effects of good and bad seasons be recognised, but also of the suspension of kanaka labour importation in 1888, its revival in 1890, and the payment of the Commonwealth bounty during the last five years. MINERAL PRODUCTION. When in 1866 railway construction suddenly ceased, both on the Southern and Central (then called the Northern) lines, there was general distress, mitigated shortly afterwards by the discovery of gold at the Crocodile Field, near Rockhampton; and in 1867 by the opening up of the Gympie Goldfield. The first important discovery of gold, however, had been on the Peak Downs in 1862, after which the production of that metal advanced from 2,783 oz. in 1863 to 15,660 oz. in 1864, slightly in excess of which level it remained for the next two years. The gold raised then jumped to 35,581 oz. in 1867, and to 111,589 oz. in 1868. During the next two years the production dropped by about 19,000 oz., but it recovered to 115,986 oz. in 1871. In 1874 it made another big jump to 254,959 oz., owing to the discoveries at the Palmer, Charters Towers, and elsewhere in the North. This volume of production was rather more than maintained during the next two years, after which there was a fluctuating annual diminution until 1887, when there was a recovery to 348,890 oz. For seven years of the first quarter-century the value of gold won exceeded a million sterling per annum, high-water mark being touched in 1875--a year of heavy rainfall and abundant water--with a gold yield of £1,196,583. In gold production the second quarter-century opened well with a total of 250,137 oz., and this yield for 1885 was followed by continuous progression until 1889, when the total of 634,605 oz., valued at £2,695,629, was reached. Thence for seven years there was a fluctuating decline, the minimum of 477,976 oz. being touched in 1891. From that year there was a gradual recovery until in 1898 647,487 oz. was reached, the record being made with 676,027 oz. in the last year of the century. Since then there has been a continuous annual decline until the total gold raised in 1908 had fallen to 465,085 oz., which is rather less than half the quantity declared to be exported in 1898 and 1903. But the export and production figures of course differ, the former being the actual weight exported in the year, which may be less or more than the production. Moreover, the production figures are stated in fine ounces, so that the difference between gold won and exported is considerably less than the figures would at first sight indicate. Of copper the recorded quantity produced in 1860 was only one ton, valued at £50; but two years later the value reached £10,332 through the discovery of the Peak Downs mines. The two following years showed an almost entire cessation of export, although some £90,000 worth had been won. In 1865 the value of copper produced was £58,440. Thence there was fluctuating progression until 1871, when the value rose to £174,300, with a further rise to £196,000 in 1872. Declension followed until in 1882 the production had dropped to £14,982, the quarter-century closing in 1884 with a total of £30,872 worth. The explanation is that during the period there was practically only one copper mine at work in Queensland, and that in 1871 the policy was commenced of smelting all the richer ores and paying the highest possible dividends. In one year an amount of about £300,000, equal to the total capital of the company, was distributed, and shortly afterwards the mine was closed for want of remunerative ore. Had money been freely spent in exploration, as at the Mount Morgan Gold Mine, and only moderate dividends paid to the shareholders, it is believed that the life of the Peak Downs Copper Mine would have been indefinitely prolonged. During sixteen years of the second quarter-century copper mining languished, the highest production in any one year being valued at £20,340, while in 1891 the lowest descended to £865. In 1901, however, through the opening of the Chillagoe mine, the production rose to £194,227 worth; by 1906 it had continuously ascended to £916,546, and in 1907 to £1,028,179. In 1908 there was a phenomenal decline in production value, owing to the low price obtainable for copper, the total being stated at £882,901. The first production of tin is recorded in 1872, when the yield was valued at £109,816, through the discovery of stream tin in the Severn River district of Queensland. The record year for tin production of the half-century was in 1873, when the value raised was £606,184. Thence there was a fluctuating decline in output till 1884, which closed with £130,460 worth for the year. In the second quarter-century there was a fluctuating diminution of production, till in 1898 it was only worth £36,502. After that date there was a continuous improvement, the figures reached in 1907 being £496,766. The tin won in 1908 was declared to be of the value of only £342,191, the reduction arising chiefly from lowered market prices. The coal raised in Queensland in 1860 was only 12,327 tons; in 1884 120,727 tons were raised; and in 1908 the production was 696,332 tons, valued at £244,922. IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. The imports into Queensland in 1860 were of the declared value of £742,023; at the close of the first quarter-century they exceeded 6¼ millions a year; in 1900 they exceeded 7 millions; in 1908 they totalled nearly 9½ millions. The declared value of exports totalled a little more than half a million in 1860; the first quarter-century closed in 1884 with a total of under 4¾ millions. In 1889 the value was slightly under 7¾ millions, and in 1908 it reached over 14 millions. During the last quarter-century the exports have trebled in value, while the imports have increased by only about 48·4 per cent. These figures indicate that the State is rapidly liquidating its external indebtedness on private account, whatever may be the increase in public loan obligations. RAILWAYS. Railways form a very gratifying asset. In 1865 there were only twenty-one miles open for traffic, and they yielded no net revenue. In 1884 there were 1,207 miles open, of which the net earnings were £273,096. In 1898 2,742 miles open had £534,992 of net earnings. In 1901 there were 2,801 miles open, with net earnings of £223,853 only, the cause being the historic drought of the period. Since then there has been a rapid increase in both traffic and profit, the net earnings of 3,498 miles in 1908-9 having been £885,622. These figures afford complete justification for a policy of vigorous construction, for they show that the capital invested in our railways, £25,183,529, earned £3 10s. 4d. per cent. in 1907-8. In 1908-9 the net earnings were £883,610, the return on capital invested being £3 7s. 6d. per cent. With the object of supplying the latest official data, the Government Statistician, Mr. Thornhill Weedon, has compiled the following tables, which practically divide the half-century into four equal periods. It must be borne in mind that, except under the heading "Finance," the statistics are for the calendar year and not for the financial year, which closes on 30th June:-- COMPARATIVE STATISTICS. VITAL STATISTICS. -----------------------+------------------------------------------------- | CALENDAR YEAR. +---------+---------+---------+---------+--------- | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1896. | 1908. -----------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+--------- Births No. | 1,236 | 5,265 | 10,679 | 14,017 | 14,828 | | | | | Marriages No. | 278 | 1,125 | 2,661 | 2,823 | 4,009 | | | | | Deaths No. | 478 | 1,936 | 6,861 | 5,645 | 5,680 | | | | | Population, State No. | 28,056 | 133,553 | 309,913 | 472,179 | 558,237 | | | | | " Brisbane [a] No. | 6,051 | 15,002 | 23,001 | 110,554 | 137,670 -----------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+--------- [Footnote a: The area in 1860, 1872, and 1884 is not quite the same as that in 1896 and 1908, but the population quoted is fairly representative.] FINANCE. ----------------------+---------------------------------------------------- | FINANCIAL YEAR. +---------+---------+----------+----------+---------- | 1860. | 1872. | 1883-4. | 1895-6. | 1907-8.[b] ----------------------+---------+---------+----------+----------+---------- REVENUE-- | | | | | | | | | | From Customs and | | | | | Excise £| 59,210 | 419,853 | 900,916 | 1,361,212| 1,498,131 | | | | | From other sources £| 119,379 | 576,471 | 1,665,442| 2,280,371| 3,953,501 | | | | | Total Revenue £| 178,589 | 996,324 | 2,566,358| 3,641,583| 5,451,632 | | | | | EXPENDITURE-- | | | | | | | | | | From Revenue £| 161,503 | 865,743 | 2,532,045| 3,567,947| 5,336,330 | | | | | From Loan ... ... £| 19,384 | 156,424 | 1,665,823| 592,158| 1,033,676 | | | | | ----------------------+---------+---------+----------+----------+---------- [Footnote b: The figures for 1907-8 include both Federal and State collections and disbursements on Queensland account.] BANKING. ----------------+----------------------------------------------------------- | CALENDAR YEAR. +---------+-----------+------------+------------+----------- | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1896. | 1908. ----------------+---------+-----------+------------+------------+----------- BANKING | | | | | COMPANIES-- | | | | | | | | | | Assets £| 574,661 | 2,200,346 | 11,155,423 | 18,850,945 | 19,122,646 | | | | | Advances £| 490,861 | 1,489,515 | 9,338,716 | 15,481,960 | 14,698,195 | | | | | Liabilities £| 332,173 | 1,842,848 | 7,662,543 | 11,346,303 | 16,072,757 | | | | | Deposits £| 286,917 | 1,590,283 | 6,322,025 | 10,879,640 | 15,440,427 | | | | | SAVINGS BANK-- | | | | | | | | | | Depositors No.| 163 | 8,121 | 33,067 | 58,226 | 100,324 | | | | | Amount to credit| | | | | at end of year £| 7,545 | 466,754 | 1,220,614 | 2,329,381 | 4,921,881 ----------------+---------+-----------+------------+------------+----------- CROWN LANDS. -----------+--------------------------------------------------------------- | CALENDAR YEAR. +-----------+------------+------------+------------+------------ | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1896. | 1908. -----------+-----------+------------+------------+------------+------------ Area | | | | | Alienated | | | | | Acres | 108,870| 1,069,208| 7,099,275| 12,850,843| 15,108,439 | | | | | In Process | | | | | of | | | | | Alienation | | | | | Acres | ... | ... | ... | 1,776,034| 6,200,930 | | | | | Leased or | | | | | otherwise | | | | | occupied | | | | | Acres | 41,027,200| 123,737,093| 316,113,760| 254,787,200| 273,180,864 | | | | | Not | | | | | occupied | | | | | Acres |387,983,930| 304,313,699| 105,906,965| 159,705,923| 134,629,767 -----------+-----------+------------+------------+------------+------------ LIVE STOCK. -------------+------------------------------------------------------------ | CALENDAR YEAR. +-----------+-----------+-----------+------------+----------- | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1896. | 1908. -------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+------------+----------- Horses | 23,504 | 92,798 | 253,116 | 452,207 | 519,969 | | | | | Cattle | 432,890 | 1,200,992 | 4,266,172 | 6,507,377 | 4,321,600 | | | | | Sheep | 3,449,350 | 6,687,907 | 9,308,911 | 19,593,696 | 18,348,851 | | | | | Pigs | 7,147 | 35,732 | 51,796 | 97,434 | 124,749 -------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+------------+----------- DAIRYING. ------------------+------------------------------------------------------------ | CALENDAR YEAR. +-----------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------- | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1896. | 1908. ------------------+-----------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------- | | | | | BUTTER-- | | | | | Made Lb.| ... | ... | ... | 6,164,240 | 23,838,357 | | | | | Imported Lb.| 10,400 | 454,698 | 1,271,964 | 1,003,680 | 201,924 | | | | | Exported Lb.| 450 | 1,310 | 12,724 | 13,942 | 13,752,118 | | | | | Excess of | | | | | Imports Lb.| 9,950 | 453,388 | 1,259,240 | 989,738 | ... | | | | | Excess of | | | | | Exports Lb.| ... | ... | ... | ... | 13,550,194 | | | | | Estimated | | | | | Wholesale | | | | | Price of | | | | | Butter Per Lb.| 1s. 11¼d. | 9½d. | 11d. | 10d. | 10¾d. | | | | | | | | | | CHEESE-- | | | | | Made Lb.| ... | ... | ... | 1,921,404 | 3,199,510 | | | | | Imported £| 1,559 |lb. 186,916 | 1,069,620 | 77,275 | 46,464 | | | | | Exported £| 247 |lb. 20 | 1,587 | 8,505 | 732,093 | | | | | Excess of | | | | | Imports £| 1,312 |lb. 186,896 | 1,068,033 | 68,770 | ... | | | | | Excess of | | | | | Exports £| ... | ... | ... | ... | 685,629 ------------------+-----------+------------+-----------+-----------+----------- AGRICULTURE. -----------------------+---------------------------------------------------- | CALENDAR YEAR. +-------+--------+------------+-----------+---------- | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1896. | 1908. -----------------------+-------+--------+------------+-----------+---------- | | | | | Total Area Cropped | | | | | Acres| 3,838 | 62,491 | 187,381 | 322,678 | 535,900 | | | | | Wheat, Area for Grain | | | | | Acres| 196 | 3,661 | 11,389 | 34,670 | 80,898 | | | | | " Result of Crop | | | | | Bushels| ... | 78,734 | 195,727 | 601,254 | 1,202,799 | | | | | Maize, Area for Grain | | | | | Acres| 1,526 | 21,143 | 61,064 | 115,715 | 127,655 | | | | | " Result of Crop | | | | | Bushels| ... | ... | 1,312,939 | 3,065,333 | 2,767,600 | | | | | English Potatoes, area | | | | | Acres| 333 | 2,837 | 3,775 | 7,672 | 6,227 | | | | | " Result of Crop | | | | | Tons| ... | ... | 6,834 | 18,451 | 11,550 | | | | | Sugar-cane, Area Cut | | | | | Acres| ... | 5,018 | 29,930 | 66,640 | 92,219 | | | | | " Result of Crop, | | | | | Cane Tons| ... | ... | ... | ... | 1,433,315 | | | | | " Result of Crop, | | | | | Sugar Made Tons| ... | 6,266 | 33,361 | 100,774 | 151,098 -----------------------+-------+--------+------------+-----------+---------- MINING. -------------------+----------------------------------------------------- | CALENDAR YEAR. +--------+---------+-----------+-----------+---------- | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1896. | 1908. -------------------+--------+---------+-----------+-----------+---------- Gold raised in | | | | | Queensland Oz.| 2,738 | 124,163 | 250,127 | 502,146| 465,085 £| 11,631 | 537,365 | 1,062,471 | 2,132,979| 1,975,554 | | | | | Silver raised in | | | | | Queensland £| | | 35,327 | 32,162 | 117,889 | | | | | Copper raised in | | | | | Queensland Tons| 1 | 2,448 | 1,653 | 580 | 14,698 £| 50 | 196,000 | 30,872 | 21,042 | 882,901 | | | | | Tin raised in | | | | | Queensland Tons| | 1,407 | 3,383 | 1,554 | 4,826 £| | 109,816 | 130,460 | 49,018 | 342,191 | | | | | Coal raised in | | | | | Queensland Tons| 12,327 | 27,727 | 120,727 | 371,390 | 696,332 £| 9,244 | 16,120 | 60,025 | 154,987 | 244,922 | | | | | All other in | | | | | Queensland £| | | 6,469 | 30,440 | 281,030 | | | | | Total £| 20,925 | 849,301 | 1,325,624 | 2,420,628 | 3,844,487 -------------------+--------+---------+-----------+-----------+---------- SECONDARY PRODUCTION. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CALENDAR YEAR. -----------------+-------+---------+-----------+------------+------------ | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1906. | 1908. -----------------+-------+---------+-----------+------------+------------ FACTORIES No.| 13 | 593 | 955 | 1,332 | 1,481 Hands | | | | | Employed No.| | | | 19,733 | 29,510 Plant and | | | | | Machinery £| | | | 6,145,548 | 4,484,340 Output £| | | | 6,482,824 | 11,242,437 Leather Lb.| | 427,168 | 2,221,856 | 3,324,832 | (c)152,611 Butter Lb.| | | | 6,164,240 | 23,838,357 Cheese Lb.| | | | 1,921,404 | 3,199,510 Bacon and | | | | | Hams Lb.| | | | 5,108,726 | 11,324,323 Meat, | | | | | Cured Lb.| | | 4,283,024 | 69,442,447 | 50,418,522 Timber, Sawn | | | | | Super. Ft.| | | | 22,309,900 | 100,759,016 -----------------+-------+---------+-----------+------------+------------ [Footnote c: Now collected on sides.] IMPORTS. ---------------------+----------------------------------------------------- | CALENDAR YEAR. +---------+----------+----------+-----------+--------- | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1896. | 1908. ---------------------+---------+----------+----------+-----------+--------- Apparel, including | | | | | Boots and Shoes £| 32,701 | 113,371 | 318,910 | 232,077 | 552,071 Linen, Drapery, and | | | | | Haberdashery £| 154,454 | 293,155 | 742,357 | 806,638 |1,233,776 Wine, Beer, and | | | | | Spirits £| 66,909 | 177,601 | 394,764 | 247,259 | 325,484 Tobacco, Cigar, &c. £| 17,727 | 30,659 | 78,093 | 74,501 | 204,131 Wheat, Flour, | | | | | Biscuits, &c. £| 95,318 | 208,447 | 383,504 | 555,460 | 483,794 Other Grain and | | | | | Products thereof £| 4,867 | 42,991 | 197,929 | 118,968 | 202,549 Potatoes and Onions £| 3,410 | 15,789 | 77,897 | 104,233 | 147,584 Green Fruit, Jams, | | | | | and Jellies £| 3,487 | 27,755 | 118,309 | 73,184 | 175,967 Hardware, Machinery, | | | | | Metals, and Metal | | | | | Goods £| 63,622 | 217,659 |1,019,374 | 766,217 |1,661,999 Stationery, Books, | | | | | Paper, &c. £| 16,482 | 26,528 | 148,682 | 135,127 | 220,746 Kerosene and other | | | | | Oils £| 3,916 | 32,580 | 69,202 | 94,048 | 156,460 | | | | | Total all imports £| 742,023 |2,218,717 |6,381,976 |5,433,271 |9,471,166 ---------------------+---------+----------+----------+-----------+--------- EXPORTS--HOME PRODUCTION. ----------------------+------------------------------------------------------- | CALENDAR YEAR. +-----------+----------+----------+----------+---------- | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1896. | 1908. ----------------------+-----------+----------+----------+----------+---------- Wool--Clean Lb.|}5,007,167{|12,622,067| 9,030,701|24,479,769|23,459,014 Greasy Lb.|} {| 5,171,245|26,495,276|64,012,465|66,802,873 | | | | | Clean £|} 444,188{| 952,450| 682,774| 1,130,170| 1,670,664 Greasy £|} {| 217,362| 1,206,730| 1,846,814| 2,459,190 Total Value £| 444,188 | 1,169,812| 1,889,504| 2,976,984| 4,129,854 Tallow--Quantity Tons| 640 | 2,890| 2,623| 18,554| 7,292 Value £| 25,628 | 100,201| 76,019| 337,967| 197,229 Gold--Value £| 14,565 | 660,396| 923,010| 2,089,166| 1,941,229 Copper--Value £| 50 | 257,723| 3,014| 32,401| 831,699 Tin--Value £| ... | 108,310| 228,457| 46,779| 290,389 Live Stock (Horses, | | | | | Cattle, Sheep) £| 510 | 366,003| 572,010| 859,367| 1,699,381 Meat (all kinds, | | | | | including extract) £| 5,356 | 67,579| 70,833| 898,545| 850,772 Sugar--Quantity Cwt.| ... | 23,959| 368,626| 1,507,503| 2,645,333 Value £| ... | 36,833| 454,759| 863,080| 1,482,320 Hides and Skins £| 14,030 | 93,218| 109,291| 449,265| 421,987 Pearlshell £| ... | ... | 94,021| 94,865| 49,898 +-----------+----------+----------+----------+---------- Total all Exports £| 523,477 | 2,998,934| 4,673,864| 9,163,726|14,194,977 ----------------------+-----------+----------+----------+----------+---------- [Illustration: FALLS NEAR KILLARNEY] [Illustration: ABORIGINAL TREE CLIMBERS] INTERCOMMUNICATION. -----------------+--------------------------------------------------------- | CALENDAR YEAR. +--------+-----------+-----------+------------+----------- | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1896. | 1908. -----------------+--------+-----------+-----------+------------+----------- RAILWAYS-- | | | | | | | | | | Miles Open | ... | 218 | 1,207 | 2,430 | 3,498 Passengers No.| ... | 40,539 | 1,025,552 | 2,462,020 | 6,538,411 Cost of | | | | | Construction £| ... | 2,345,385 | 8,631,835 | 17,248,678 | 23,102,158 Net Revenue £| ... | 18,213 | 273,096 | 424,862 | 806,797 | | | | | SHIPPING-- | | | | | | | | | | Inward Vessels | | | | | No.| 210 | 522 | 1,042 | 649 | 881 Tonnage| 45,736 | 148,630 | 572,124 | 562,759 | 1,601,107 | | | | | Outward Vessels| | | | | No.| 183 | 507 | 1,061 | 645 | 847 Tonnage | 39,503 | 143,380 | 579,988 | 531,289 | 1,563,911 -----------------+--------+-----------+-----------+------------+----------- CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS, EDUCATION, AND PUBLIC LIBRARIES. --------------------------+--------------------------------------------- | CALENDAR YEAR. +-------+--------+--------+---------+--------- | 1860. | 1872. | 1884. | 1896. | 1908. --------------------------+-------+--------+--------+---------+--------- | | | | | CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS-- | | | | | | | | | | Number | 6 | 21 | 46 | 77 | 107 Persons Relieved | 397 | 2,796 | 11,614 | 19,917 | 28,310 | | | | | EDUCATION-- | | | | | | | | | | Number of Schools | 41 | 210 | 528 | 957 | 1,104 Scholars on Rolls | 1,890 | 23,728 | 60,701 | 103,733 | 105,436 Average Attendance | ... | ... | ... | ... | 67,309 | | | | | PUBLIC LIBRARIES-- | | | | | | | | | | Number of Subscribers | 538 | 1,711 | 5,185 | 6,904 | 12,770 Volumes in Libraries | 4,945 | 20,890 | 60,257 | 129,883 | 249,257 --------------------------+-------+--------+--------+---------+--------- APPENDIX H. DIGEST OF HYDRAULIC ENGINEER'S REPORTS. OUR ARTESIAN WATER SYSTEM. The water supply problem is of importance so momentous, and the official information collected by the Hydraulic Engineer being scattered through reports covering about twenty-five years--from 1883 until 1908--it is thought desirable to present the main official facts in a convenient digest for the general reader. SUB-ARTESIAN WATER IN 1884. Up to 1883, when the McIlwraith Government created the Hydraulic Engineer's Department by appointing Mr. J. B. Henderson to organise it, little had been done by the State for the improvement of the water supply of the country except in cities and towns. At that time no artesian water was known to exist in Queensland, but there was a popular belief that there were great underground supplies, especially in Western Queensland. Many station-owners had been active, and the diamond drill had been brought into use, but deep drilling had not then been undertaken. In October, 1884, the Hydraulic Engineer reported that he had just visited Widgeegoara Station, where the owners, Messrs. E. and J. Bignell, partly by sinking shafts and partly by boring, had obtained an underground pumped supply aggregating 94,000 gallons every twenty-four hours. This resulted from sinking four 5 ft. × 2½ ft. shafts an average depth of 102 ft. each, and thence boring and tubing below the bottom of each shaft to the average depth of 161 ft. Of the total quantity 20,000 gallons a day was obtained from the Four-mile well, a shaft sunk to a depth of 150 ft. below the natural surface. Besides this there was a homestead well 33 ft. deep. Analyses of the water showed that, in the opinion of the Government Analyst, only in one bore was it useful for watering sheep, it being brackish; but according to the station reports the supply from the Four-mile well and Nos. 1 and 2 shaft-bores was good stock water. Mr. Henderson warmly commended the Messrs. Bignell's enterprise. IMPROVED BORING MACHINERY. During the same month the late Hon. George King, of Gowrie, brought under the notice of the department a report by Mr. Darley, C.E., to the Government of New South Wales respecting certain American well-boring machinery by the use of which in Mr. King's opinion three-fourths of the cost of £6,000 incurred by his firm in sinking shafts in the Warrego district might have been saved. Besides which much greater depths could be reached, a machine costing £600 in America being capable of boring 2,000 ft. The matter being referred to the Hydraulic Engineer, that officer made inquiries which induced him heartily to endorse Mr. King's suggestion that the Government should secure from America a machine with two men experienced in working it and capable of themselves making any ordinary repairs. Mr. Henderson also recommended that a staff should be trained by the Americans after arrival, and expressed the opinion that this course would save both money and time, and prove a large gain to the colony. But he reminded the Minister that until there had been an abundant rainfall extensive operations in bore-sinking in the West could not be carried on, though he advised the introduction of a sufficient number of machines and enough tubing in order that during the next season, if rain fell, work should be vigorously commenced. On 4th September, 1885, the Hydraulic Engineer replied in unequivocal terms to a minute of his Minister requesting him to comply with the wish expressed that he should purchase a Victorian diamond drill, then under offer, for coal-prospecting purposes. Mr. Henderson strongly recommended that no drill be purchased unless capable of boring holes at least from 5 in. to 2 in. in diameter. He also pointed out that where drifts and loose gravels were met with, and tubed, a deep bore must be commenced of large diameter to ensure success. Although the proposed drills were not ostensibly to be used for water-finding, it is evident that the Hydraulic Engineer, in reporting upon them, had that kind of work in view. GOVERNMENT URGED TO IMPORT PLANT AND MEN. On 2nd December following the Hydraulic Engineer addressed the Minister touching water-boring operations, and pointed out that, while there would be no difficulty in importing the machinery and appliances requisite for deep bores, he was convinced that men must be introduced from America to start and teach others here to work them. He recommended that an efficient plant should be ordered capable of boring up to 12 in. in diameter to a depth of 2,500 ft., for (say) £1,000, delivery at the works, and four good drillers under a two years' engagement brought out to work them at 21s. to 23s. per day, apparently of twelve hours; board, lodging, and travelling expenses to be defrayed by the Government. OBSTACLES FROM DROUGHT. On 20th February, 1886, the Hydraulic Engineer wrote that, understanding from conversations with the Minister that "the policy of the Government is to carry on water conservation works and boring for underground water with increased energy, he recommends the purchase of three Wright and Edwards' boring machines, capable of reaching a depth of 1,000 ft., for delivery within four months from the date of order." Three days later Mr. Henderson wrote:--"Unfortunately it can be said with much truth that, ever since the department's existence, the seasons have been unfavourable in the extreme for carrying out its plans." After mentioning the specific difficulties encountered, he added:--"I do not share in the idea that the late rains broke up the drought, as I cannot disguise from myself the fact that they have not been general, or even yet of sufficient quantity." FIRST BORING STARTED AT BLACKALL. Although the Hydraulic Engineer, so long before as December, 1884, had recommended the Minister to import American boring machinery with men trained to work it, it was not until 19th October, 1886, nearly two years later, that he was able to announce that his advice had been so far followed that Mr. Arnold, an American borer from Honolulu, had gone to Blackall with a Pennsylvania Walking Beam Oil Rig boring machine which had been constructed in Brisbane. It seems that so long previously as July, 1885, two tenders for boring by Americans--one being from Mr. Arnold--were submitted by the Hydraulic Engineer to the Minister, with the intimation that they were both too vague for acceptance, and expressing the hope that Mr. Arnold, "who seemed a man of considerable experience, would submit a more liberal and definite offer." The same report mentions that on the 30th June previously the Blackall bore had been carried to a depth of 775 ft., and that at 127 ft. good water had been struck that rose to a height of 60 ft. below the surface, but was deemed insufficient for the requirements of the town. Up to that time nine bores had been completed, chiefly by the ineffective Tiffin auger, but not one had reached artesian water, the deepest being that at Blackall, and the average depth 371 ft. ARTESIAN WATER STRUCK AT THURULGOONA. In his report of 12th November, 1887, the Hydraulic Engineer states that it is essential that only the best quality of tubing, or "casing," should be used in bores. In April he had visited, by direction of the Treasurer, Thurulgoona Station, on the New South Wales border, and there carefully inspected boring operations. He found that one bore had, by means of the Canadian Pole Tool boring machine, been sunk to 1,079 ft., a supply of excellent water having been struck at a depth of 1,009 ft., "the water overflowing in my presence to a height of about 20 in. above the surface of the ground." This was apparently the first artesian water Mr. Henderson had seen in Queensland, though he had years previously seen the artesian well at Sale, in Victoria; and he naturally pronounced the opinion that the result at Thurulgoona was "very satisfactory." During this year boring had been carried on in Queensland without success so far as the formation of flowing wells was concerned. Mr. Arnold, having sunk to 1,039 ft. at Blackall, resigned, but it was decided to continue sinking, all the tubing being recovered with the exception of a few feet, and being capable of use several times over if need be. During this year also tenders had been received from Mr. Loughead, of Thurulgoona, to put down three bores of 2,500 ft. in Queensland, and Mr. Henderson reported that there was every prospect of a tender being received from a company recently formed in Brisbane at a slightly lower price than Mr. Loughead had named. GOVERNMENT'S FIRST FLOWING WELL. It was at this time, after three years' fighting with difficulties arising from drought, the want of knowledge of deep-boring machinery, and the indisposition of the Government to spend much money in so speculative an undertaking, that the first gleam of daylight appeared. On 6th October, 1888, the Hydraulic Engineer reported that four contracts had been entered into for deep boring, with as many different persons or companies, in the aggregate over 20,000 ft. Included among these was the contract with the Canadian Pole Tool Company (of which the late Mr. Percy Ricardo was then the financial head, and Mr. William Woodley, who had been induced to come over from Canada, was the head driller) for completing the Blackall bore to a depth of 2,000 ft. if necessary. In this bore, on 26th April, 1888, after many vexatious stoppages, "an abundant supply of overflowing, sparkling, fresh artesian water, excellently adapted for domestic purposes, was tapped at a depth of 1,645 ft." The rate of flow, as measured from 3 in. piping attached to a screw plug and valve to control the flow, was found to be 210,000 gallons per diem, with a temperature of 119 degrees. This had been an expensive bore, for it cost £5,748. It was not the first artesian water officially utilised in Queensland, for four months earlier than water rose to the surface in the Blackall bore the Barcaldine bore was yielding 175,416 gallons of water a day, at a temperature of 101 degrees, obtained from a depth of 691 ft., and at a cost of only £1,220. THIRTEEN ADDITIONAL BORES. These results were so encouraging that the Hydraulic Engineer recommended the sinking of thirteen additional bores, and the recommendation was approved. As early as possible tenders were advertised, and there then seemed some difficulty in getting eligible applications, partly, it may be assumed, because of the activity of private enterprise in bore-sinking. To those engaged in this undertaking Mr. Henderson in his 1889 report pays a graceful tribute, congratulating them on their successes, and expressing regret at their failures, in which they only met the same luck as the Government had encountered. It was in this report also that the Hydraulic Engineer suggested that a map be prepared showing the position, altitude, and other useful particulars of all Government and private bores and wells in Queensland, and he invited information from all persons capable of giving it. Mr. Henderson mentioned the successful sinking of the Cunnamulla bore, having a flow of 22,500 gallons per hour of "excellent fresh water," with a pressure of 186 lb. to the square inch, a temperature of 106 degrees, and a depth of 1,402 ft. The total cost of this bore was £1,928. The success of the Tambo bore was also reported at the same time, 8,333 gallons per hour having been obtained at a depth of 1,002 ft., with a temperature of 98 degrees, and for a cost of £1,515. THE CHARLEVILLE BORE. The Hydraulic Engineer's report dated 11th September, 1890, supplies evidence of the importance of the discoveries made up to that date of artesian water in Queensland. The striking of a supply of 3,000,000 gallons a day of "water clear, colourless, soft, and potable" in the Charleville bore is noted with satisfaction. In the text of the report this was said to be, so far as the writer knew, the "best well in Australia," but a footnote added that soon afterwards a bore in the Cunnamulla district was reported to have been tapped with a daily supply of 3½ million gallons. The depth of the Charleville bore was only 1,370 ft., and its cost £2,389. The striking of a supply of 1,095,000,000 gallons per annum at so small a cost was naturally a subject for both official and general congratulation. INFORMATION SOUGHT AS TO PRIVATE BORES. In the same year is reported the striking of water in the Muckadilla bore, which yielded about 10,000 gallons a day from a depth of over 3,000 ft., and was then believed to be the deepest bore in Australia. The cost was £2,673. A somewhat better supply was afterwards struck at 3,262 ft. In this report the Hydraulic Engineer expresses regret that through the absence of barometrical measurements, owing to scarcity of money, the height above sea level of proposed sites for bores was not known, but sites were selected from surface indications and the results achieved by sinking in the neighbourhood. The wells sunk by the Government had been of much use in assisting private enterprise to select likely sites, but it would have been more satisfactory had better information been obtained by the use of the spirit level. Acknowledgments were made to those who had responded to the circular invitation sent out for information, and regret was expressed that in some cases there had been no response. The effort made, however, had enabled several new features to be embodied in the report, among which was a table containing a list of both public and private bores, and a large map locating, so far as possible, the position of each. Another map showed the rainfall in different parts of the colony, while a handsome diagram of the Brisbane rainfall was furnished for the first time. Both of these remained features of the Hydraulic Engineer's annual reports until 1901, when revenue considerations compelled their suspension. HINDRANCES FROM FLOODS. During 1890 excessive rains and bad roads hindered work in bore-sinking, instead of the dry periods which had been the cause of embarrassment for the preceding seven years. The only newly completed bore during this year was that at McKinlay, which at 1,002 ft. gave a supply of 224,000 gallons a day. Water was struck in two other bores, but of insufficient quantity, and work was still proceeding. The obstacles encountered in boring, often from the breaking of machinery, but more frequently from the want of thoroughly skilled drillers, must have been disheartening, especially in cases where the sinking was done without useful scientific information, and bores had to be abandoned after months--even years in cases--of labour and worry. In his report of 20th January, 1893, the Hydraulic Engineer discusses at length the question of artesian water supply. The country is, he holds, now in a much improved position to encounter long droughts. Valuable information has been and is still being obtained by exploration as to the prospects of artesian water being found, and also as to the conservation of surface water by artificial means. He says that fifteen bores, averaging 1,571 ft. each, have been sunk by the department, and that although the work has been of a pioneering character only one sunk to the contract depth has proved a failure. He estimates that about 88,000 square miles in the western country have been proved to be water-bearing, and he urges that as large areas still remain to be explored the present is a favourable time for inviting tenders for the work. STREAM-GAUGING RECOMMENDED. In this report the Hydraulic Engineer directs attention to the necessity of acquiring information as to the extent of our surface-water resources. In three of the southern colonies, he mentions, a systematic practice of gauging streams has for some time been in force. The work will be useless unless it is carried on for a number of years. The essential thing to be ascertained is not the maximum flow of a stream, but the minimum; or rather, perhaps, the maximum that can be expected from a stream in a season of maximum aridity. "Without such data," he continues, "no fair distribution of water, no scheme of water supply, or irrigation, or drainage can be well considered; nor can storage and distribution or drainage works be economically designed, or their permanency and efficiency ensured." He therefore urges the matter of stream-gauging upon the favourable consideration of the Government, adding that the paramount necessity of active administration in respect of water conservation generally has been recognised by Parliament by legislation already placed upon the Statute-book. WASTE OF ARTESIAN WATER. Two official pages of the 1893 report are devoted to the "misuse of water," a member of Parliament having already objected to the application of the word "waste" to water allowed to flow unchecked from bores. The aggregate capacity of the ten Government bores then flowing was 5,000,000 gallons daily, all measured; while of the 137 private wells the flow was estimated at 100,000,000 gallons daily. This total of 105,000,000 gallons would be equivalent to a rainfall of 29 in. on 91 square miles of country. This was the rate of average rainfall on the assumed outcrop of water-bearing country that supplied the artesian area. And it had to be remembered that a part of this rainfall of 29 in. had to be carried off by streams as well as by evaporation, and therefore did not sink into the water-bearing strata of the arid west. As to the extent of the outcrop, it was estimated not to exceed one-eighth of a mile, with a total length of 1,600 miles, which meant a total supply of 200 square miles of water-bearing outcrop area.[a] Arguing on these and other grounds, the report contends that the falling off of the yield of many bores affords proof that, wherever the supply comes from, the outflow already exceeds the inflow. The Engineer can only regard as wasted two-thirds of the water that now flows from the artesian bores in Queensland; indeed, adopting the language of an American, "the waste is a crime against the well-owner and against the State." [Footnote a: For fuller particulars see Hydraulic Engineer's Report for 1893, pages 5 and 6.] CONTROL OF FLOW NECESSARY. The Hydraulic Engineer adds that while he cannot assert that the artesian flow is being exhausted, he yet holds that the flow ought to be controlled by legislative action.[b] [Footnote b: On this passage the Hydraulic Engineer notes that, in 1891, a bill was introduced into Parliament by Sir Thomas McIlwraith for controlling the artesian water supply, and passed through the Assembly, but was rejected by the Council. Since then no action in that direction has been taken.] IRRIGATION BY BORES. The same report contains an interesting article on irrigation. It points out that at the beginning of 1892 there were only 200 irrigators among the land cultivators of the colony, and that the area irrigated was only 5,000 acres. It was believed that in the last year the amount of land so fertilised had largely increased. Many of the plants and distributing apparatus were of a most primitive kind. "Some are expensive, others badly erected, and not a few are of a type ill-adapted to the object in view." The report goes on to discuss the probability or otherwise of water in sufficient quantities for irrigation being obtainable by conservation. In summarising his argument the Hydraulic Engineer says, "Looking at the question broadly, I am much disposed to regard the possibilities of a sufficiently abundant supply of water being obtained for irrigation, especially for land in small areas devoted to intense culture, as of considerable promise." He then urges the inadequacy of artesian wells for the irrigation of large areas, pointing out, among other things, that the entire discharge of the wells then flowing in Queensland would suffice to irrigate only 219 square miles to a depth of 1 ft. He thinks that in Queensland we shall have to depend upon "natural" water for irrigation purposes. A VALUABLE MAP--376,832 SQUARE MILES IN ARTESIA. A new feature in the 1893 report was the map giving information as to (1) artesian bores applied for, (2) under contract, (3) in progress, and (4) completed. It showed that out of a total of 668,497 square miles of the "Rolling Downs Formation" (Lower Cretaceous) no less than 376,832 square miles, chiefly in the arid west, was likely to be water-bearing. This estimate, it may be noted, has been very slightly reduced of late, but the scope for exploration in water-finding seems still great in Western Queensland. The report alludes to the success attained in the Queensland manufacture of well-boring machinery. All the plant used, the wire rope alone excepted, was manufactured in the colony, where improvements had been made in the originally imported article. Yet it is admitted that the apparatus used was "not a perfectly scientific one, because it does not produce a core by means of which the nature of the strata and the angle and direction of the dip can be fully ascertained." Queensland yellow-wood (_Flindersia Oxleyana_) had quite replaced American timber in the manufacture of drilling poles. [Illustration: SCENE ON LOGAN RIVER, SOUTH QUEENSLAND] EFFECT OF GOOD SEASONS. In closing, the Hydraulic Engineer reports that the succession of good seasons experienced (years 1890-93), and the abundance of water and grass resulting, has occasioned much inattention to water conservation, and he also expresses regret that financial exigencies have compelled the dispensing with some valued members of his staff. The article is illustrated by diagrams, and the studious reader will peruse it with profit. THE SOURCE OF ARTESIAN WATER. In his report for 1st November, 1894, the Hydraulic Engineer recurs to the source of artesian water. He regrets that very little can be added to the previous assumption that it lies in the outcrops of the porous beds of the Lower Cretaceous formation on the western slope of the coast range; and he urges the necessity of accumulating facts relating to the bores already sunk, and complains that some owners neglect to give the department the information sought. He urges that legislation should make the furnishing of statistical matter of this kind compulsory. He doubts whether, in the absence of information as to the precise geological conditions subsisting beneath the surface, a map of Queensland can ever be prepared showing with certainty where artesian water can be found; but much may be done by accumulating accurate information with respect to the sinking of bores, nature of strata passed through, amount and pressure of flow, temperature of water, and depth beneath the surface whence obtained in each case. The map issued by the Geological Department would show the water-bearing areas, which means the formation in which water may be expected to be found; but bores can only be put down with reasonable certainty when the entire western country has been prospected. THE LIFE OF ARTESIAN WELLS. The life of an artesian well with a permanent spring, says the report, is limited by the durability of the casing. The corrosive action of some water is much greater than others; but there should be no difficulty in renewing the casing when necessary. It has often been discovered that an interruption of the flow, or its serious diminution, is the result of worn-out casing. So much is this the case that there is still controversy as to whether there is any general diminution in the supply consequent upon continuous waste. ARTESIAN WATER POWER. The report then discusses the question of using artesian water for power in the industries. The Hydraulic Engineer points out that of the total horse-power used in the United States at that time about 39·5 per cent. was hydrodynamic. Artesian water, he says, can be applied to driving all kinds of machinery, "from a sewing machine or a cream separator to a saw or flour mill; and for fire-extinguishing it is most excellent." He therefore recommends the employment in Western Queensland of turbines and Pelton wheel motors for sheep-shearing, electric lighting, and other kinds of machinery used there, pointing out that the horse-power available was--At Blackall, 8·04; at Cunnamulla, 41·53; at Charleville, 123·41; and at Thargomindah, 63·51.[c] He further recommends the utilisation of the artesian supply for street mains, a suggestion since carried out with great public advantage in several western towns. While Mr. Henderson doubts the utility of artesian water for irrigation, he says that, generally speaking, it is quite as valuable as that from town mains, rivers, and falls for developing power. The aggregate area to date in which precious artesian water has been found in Queensland is 117,000 square miles, and he feels that this area would be rapidly enlarged by exploration by both Government and private borings. The shallowest completed flowing well in Queensland at that date was 60 ft., and the deepest 3,630 ft.; the average depth so far as known to the department was 1,289 ft. [Footnote c: Mr. Henderson notes that these horse-powers have since been very much reduced.] STATIC PRESSURE AND HYDRAULIC PRESSURE. Explaining why the volume flowing from a well does not depend upon the diameter of the "static" pressure of the water, Mr. Henderson says that the flow depends principally upon the relative altitudes of the outcrops of the water-bearing beds, and of the mouth of the bore or well, and upon the character and texture of the porous beds from which the well derives its supply. The static pressure is ascertained by stopping the flow by artificial means, when the pressure generally rises, sometimes quickly, at other times slowly, until it reaches a maximum. But when the well is again opened it will be found that the static pressure has been more or less reduced by friction. This reduced pressure is called the "hydraulic." The hydraulic pressure can never exceed the static pressure; nor can the volume of water flowing from an artesian well be ascertained by its pressure, or the height to which the water may rise over the top of the casing, any more than the pressure can be ascertained by knowing its volume.[d] In the same report is announced the striking at Winton, at a depth of 3,235 ft. of a supply amounting to 100,000 gallons a day, at a temperature of 140 degrees. It was determined to continue sinking under a new contract. [Footnote d: See Votes and Proceedings, 1894-5, for Hydraulic Engineer's Report, 1st November, 1894, page 5.] SUBTERRANEAN WATER BELONGS TO THE STATE. Mr. Henderson again returns to the misuse of water, suggesting that the utility of the artesian supply can easily be tested by intense cultivation of a small area at each bore. He complains that one of Queensland's most valuable assets is not as carefully guarded as it should be. He estimates that the quantity allowed to run uncontrolled and generally misused amounts to 66,000,000 gallons per diem, or 66 per cent. of the estimated total flow in Queensland. He invites attention to a recommendation in a previous report that all underground or artesian water should be declared State property. This would not prevent owners of artesian water taking and using a reasonable supply of water, but all consumption beyond what might be called a "liberal" amount should be paid for, the State receiving the water rate. The experience of America in this matter proved that in some States control by the Government was enforced, while in others the greatest care was exercised to prevent any further granting of subterranean water franchises unless the absolute right of the State was reserved to regulate the consumption. Appended to the report is a copy of a recommendation by a Commission in the State of Colorado for regulating, distributing, and using water. Mr. Henderson thinks the recommendation too severe, but insists that some State control should be exercised. The same report contains an interesting review of the condition of irrigation enterprise in Queensland, and again insists that scientific stream-gauging is indispensable if surface water is to be made generally available for irrigation purposes. EXTENT OF ARTESIAN SUPPLY. The report dated 5th October, 1895, recurs to the Hydraulic Engineer's previous estimate that the outcrops of the water-bearing beds of the country covered an area of about 200 square miles. He is glad to learn that Mr. R. L. Jack, Government Geologist, had since worked the matter out, and, while approving of Mr. Henderson's suggestion as to the source of artesian supplies in Queensland, estimated the area as 5,000 square miles, or twenty-five times the Engineer's estimate. This information seems to have allayed Mr. Henderson's dread of the exhaustion of the supply, for he says that the Geologist's figures indicate that "the gathering-ground is larger than can possibly be required for years to come if there is no extensive leakage, of which as yet there is no evidence that I am aware of." He next writes strongly in favour of a comprehensive search for artesian water by the Government, and of Government aid being offered by loan to persons willing to sink bores on Crown lands or even on private property. Such assistance would encourage settlement by leaving the settler in possession for other purposes of money which would otherwise be spent on water provision on his holding, and prove an incalculable benefit to the State by mitigating periodical droughts. PROGRESS TO 1895. The report then gives statistics relative to artesian bores as follows:--Number of bores, 397; average depth, 1,195 ft. Of these 286 overflow with a total output of 213½ million gallons per diem. Total cost of boring and casing, £860,321, as nearly as could be estimated, "remarkable results for eight years' work, as in 1887 boring in Queensland was in its infancy." With a view to greater accuracy provision for the salaries of two inspectors had been made on the Estimates for the year, in order that uniform records might be secured as to the strata pierced, the flow, the pressure and temperature of the water, amount of rainfall at the outcrop of water-bearing beds, and the alleged diminution of artesian streams. The suggestion is then made that land, the leases carrying water rights, might be made available for settlement in small areas around tanks and bores. THE WINTON BORE. In this report the Hydraulic Engineer is able to announce the success of the Winton bore. At about 3,555 ft. a daily supply of 720,000 gallons of excellent artesian water was struck, and boring being continued to 4,010 ft. without increasing the supply work ceased, the total cost of the bore having been about £7,000. An article on irrigation shows a total irrigated area of 7,641 acres, an increase for the year of 2,240 acres. Included in the area are 2,000 acres of natural grass land and 2,000 acres sown with artificial grasses; also 11½ acres irrigated from artesian wells in the Warrego district. Flood mitigation is also dealt with at length, and a system of flood warnings on the various streams recommended. DR. R. L. JACK'S OPINION. The report for 2nd October, 1896, brings records up to date. By map it is shown that not only does the water-bearing country extend over 56 per cent. of the area of Queensland, but also continues into New South Wales and South Australia, and enters Western Australia. It "marks the position of the ancient Cretaceous sea which connected the Gulf of Carpentaria with the Great Australian Bight," and "divided the continent into two islands." "They were," wrote Dr. R. L. Jack, "laid down by this sea; their present position is due to subsequent general upheaval, and they lie directly and unconformably on schists and slates of undetermined age, or on granite or gneiss. Except in Queensland, where they are overlaid here and there by the remains of the Upper Cretaceous or Desert Sandstone formations which have not been removed by denudation, they seem to be covered to a considerable extent by Tertiary rocks. The Desert Sandstone beds lie horizontally but unconformably on those of the Rolling Downs, which dip to the south." [e] [Footnote e: See "Geology and Palaeontology of Queensland and New Guinea," by R. L. Jack, F.G.S., Government Geologist, and R. Etheridge, jun,. Government Palaeontologist, New South Wales, page 390.] IMPROVED DRILLING MACHINERY. In the same report the improvement in drilling machinery is discussed, and Queensland manufacturers are congratulated on making American and Canadian machines with improvements which greatly add to their efficiency. Bores in Queensland are generally begun with 10-in. casing, and carried to not lower than 500 ft. Then 8-in., 6-in., and 5-in. casings are used. The necessity of these casings being as perfect as possible is emphasised by the Engineer. The cost of sinking bores by contract, which is almost the universal method, depends upon the facilities offered by the site for the transport of wood and water, but the range then was from 17s. to 24s. per foot for the first 500 ft., and increased with depth until, at 4,000 ft. odd, sinking had cost 55s. per foot. The inspectors appointed the previous year had done good work, though the wet season delayed travelling. Sectional diagrams compiled from the inspectors' reports appear among the appendices. Then follows an interesting description of surface artesian water known as Elizabeth Springs, in latitude half a degree south of the tropic, and in 140¾ degrees west longitude. The account of these remarkable springs is well worth reading.[f] [Footnote f: See Votes and Proceedings for 1897 for Hydraulic Engineer's Report, 2nd October, 1896, page 5.] PROGRESS TO 1896. Number of bores in Western Queensland to October, 1896, 454; average depth, 1,168 ft.; feet bored, 530,332 (nearly 100 miles); overflow, 193,000,000 gallons per diem. There were also nineteen deep bores on the coast. The total cost had been £928,081. BORES IN THE GULF TOWNS. Reporting on 2nd August, 1897, the Hydraulic Engineer mentions that the Burketown bore has been carried to a depth of 2,304 ft., with a supply of 155,560 gallons of good water at a pressure of 60 lb. per square inch, and a temperature of 155 degrees, the cost being £4,155. A few months earlier the Normanton bore had struck water at 2,330 ft., for 293,000 gallons a day, with a temperature of 151 degrees, at a total cost of £3,803. PROGRESS COMPARED WITH SOUTHERN COLONIES. The same report glances at the progress made in artesian water discovery in the southern colonies. Queensland aggregate flows on 30th June, 1897, were estimated at 140,000,000 gallons daily, or 51,135,000,000 gallons annually. This would suffice to cover 294 square miles with water 1 ft. deep, or 100 square miles 35-1/3 in. deep. In New South Wales, in 1897, there were thirty-four flowing and twelve pumping bores, yielding 22½ million gallons of water per diem. In Victoria only one or two flowing bores had been put down, the country being generally unfavourable for artesian water. In South Australia there were in all sixty-two bores, seven being still in progress, but of the total only nineteen wells gave good fresh water, and twenty-two wells salt water. Seeing that artesian water exploration began in the three colonies named before any steps were taken in Queensland, the success here may be regarded as phenomenal, although of course a very considerable amount of capital was lost in sinking abortive bores. GRAZING FARM SELECTORS' BORE. The report dated 15th September, 1898, mentions that the Bando bore sunk for the Lands Department for the accommodation of grazing farm selectors was completed during the year at a depth of 2,081 ft., giving a supply of 2,000,000 gallons daily, and at a cost of £3,289. It was estimated to water 146,000 acres. The Roma bore for the town supply had also been completed at a depth of 1,678 ft., and yielded a controlled supply of 111,000 gallons daily, which sufficed for the wants of the town. STATISTICS TO DATE.--THARGOMINDAH ILLUMINATED. Particulars of thirty-seven bores sunk in the colony to a depth of 3,000 ft. and over are given. Of these eleven had reported flows, either large or small, during the year, three had been abandoned, and nine were still in progress. The yield of 376 bores in the colony was estimated at 214,000,000 gallons a day, the average per bore being over half a million gallons. Besides these, fifty-five sub-artesian wells--those whose water did not rise above the surface--yielded 2½ million gallons a day; and perennial springs gave an ascertained continuous flow of nearly 4,000,000 gallons a day. The report calls attention to a serious diminution in the yield of certain wells, and says that it has been ascertained in some cases that the loss was due to loss of head, and not to any leakage or obstruction in the casing. The Hydraulic Engineer therefore again urges legislation to give the Government control of bore water. As to power, it is mentioned that a small electrical installation had been set up at Thargomindah by the Bulloo Divisional Board, and that the number of lamps of sixteen candle-power that would exhaust the bore power was 150 to 200. THE DROUGHT OF 1899. When the report dated 30th August, 1899, was prepared the country was held in the throes of a protracted drought, and the Hydraulic Engineer speaks of compression in his report on the ground of economy. For years past the reports had been becoming increasingly bulky, appendices and maps being supplied on a generous scale. Government expenditure in bore-sinking had now nearly ceased, presumably because private enterprise had already benefited greatly by Government prospecting for water, and the same necessity did not exist for State action as in previous years. The new feature of the departmental year's work is stated to have been the comparative analysis of the height of bore sites and the water potentials thereat, upon which the iso-potential map, with the full description given in page 56 of the report, is based. By this time the number of bores sunk to a depth of 3,000 ft. and over was fifty, an increase for the year of thirteen, which shows that private enterprise was still active in the search for artesian water. The total number of flowing bores in the colony was given as 440, with a yield of water of nearly 266½ million gallons a day. The report dated 25th August, 1900, mentions that during the year in the Adavale bore 9,000 gallons of water a day had been struck at 1,494 ft., and although further sinking had been carried to 2,930 ft. there was no increase in the supply. By this time the number of bores sunk to 3,000 ft. and over had increased by nine, or to fifty-nine, while the aggregate flow of artesian water was put at over 321½ million gallons per day. REGRETTABLE ECONOMIES. The report dated 31st August, 1901, was the last to supply the very full information customarily given annually by the department. There was almost universal drought and difficulty. In some parts of the State, however, the drought had broken, so that needful works could be again pushed on. But this was by no means the end of the great drought of 1898-1903, and the appendices and valuable maps which added so greatly to the permanent value of the reports of the department were discontinued, and only a brief report was presented. This is much to be regretted, but retrenchment was enforced by revenue shrinkages and the dislocation temporarily caused by federal union. Happily, however, the information has since been carefully collected, and is now available to complete this sketch of the work done and results achieved since the year 1883, when the department was created under Mr. Henderson's direction. In the 1901 report the success of the Adavale bore is recorded, the depth being 3,398 ft., with a flow of 990,890 gallons per day, and at a total cost of £5,369. The striking of a supply of water in the Dalby bore to the amount of 46,470 gallons an hour at a depth of 1,841 ft. is also mentioned in this report. This success is interesting on account of the site being the furthest easterly where artesian water has been found. The report for 1902 was cut down to the minimum limit. It was prepared while the country was in the grip of the worst drought ever known, and yet private enterprise was active as ever in bore-sinking, no less than thirty-six flowing wells having been completed during the year. The total number in the State was thus brought up to 563, yielding 375,000,000 gallons a day, the average flow per bore being 666,231 gallons. ADDITIONAL FLOWING BORES IN 1903. The report for 1903 was brief. During the year the number of flowing bores had increased by thirteen, and the aggregate flow by 10,000,000 gallons. The average flow was 669,279 gallons, or 3,048 gallons increase upon the flow for the preceding year. This in the face of the diminution of the flow in many bores cannot be considered unsatisfactory. The entire cost of well-boring in the State to 1903 is set down at £1,463,326, including abortive bores, and heavy sums for carriage of boring plant in the earlier days. It is mentioned in this report that the Whitewood bore, Bimerah, yielding only 70,000 gallons a day, at 5,045 ft., is still the deepest in Queensland. The shallowest is given as at Manfred Downs, at 10 ft., yielding 2,000 gallons a day; and the hottest water at Elderslie No. 2, where from a depth of 4,523 ft. emerge more than 1½ million gallons per diem at a temperature only 10 degrees below boiling point. The greatest static pressure is at the Thargomindah bore, where it is nearly 240 lb. to the square inch. LATER INFORMATION. Since 1902 until this year annual reports at length have not been furnished by the Hydraulic Engineer; but this year the work has been resumed, and advance information supplied in a condensed form. In the foregoing epitome of the Hydraulic Engineer's reports extending over twenty-five years, no particular mention has been made of the failures inevitable when either the Government or private persons were engaged in deep boring for water exploration. The following particulars show some of the obstacles encountered in tapping the subterranean springs of our arid western country:-- In his report for 1902 the Hydraulic Engineer mentioned that a contract had been entered into with Mr. W. Woodley for the sinking of a bore at Eromanga to a depth of 2,000 ft. for the sum of £1,438, but that work could not be prosecuted in consequence of the prevailing drought in the West. The contract depth was reached on 29th August, 1903, without finding water. A further contract to carry the bore to 3,000 ft. was subsequently entered into, and on 30th June, 1904, at a depth of 2,612 ft., the work was suspended until the arrival of casing, which was delayed by rain. It was not until November, 1904, that the casings reached the bore site, and that work could be resumed. A suspension of work occurred on 4th March following for want of a competent driller. Boring was resumed in August and continued till March, 1906, without success. The only water tapped up to that time was a supply of 10,000 gallons per diem at a depth of 1,640 ft. The casings were allowed to remain in the bore, the gross cost of which had been £4,480. In May, 1906, a new contract with Mr. Woodley, for sinking another bore to a depth of 3,000 ft., was entered into. At 1,660 ft. a supply of 12,000 gallons a day was tapped; but, this being considered insufficient, another contract for deepening the bore to 3,500 ft. was entered into with Mr. Woodley, the additional cost being £1,000. On 9th March, 1908, the depth of 3,500 ft. was reached without any additional supply. Then a contract for sinking a further 500 ft. was entered into. At 3,980 ft. a small flow was tapped which dribbled over the surface, and the 4,000 ft. depth being reached arrangements were made for sinking another 100 ft. At 4,050 ft. a small flow of 110 gallons per hour was struck. At 4,135 ft. the flow increased to 250 gallons per hour. Delays occurred after this, until January, 1909, when boring was resumed, and at 4,270 ft. a flow of 306,234 gallons per diem was struck. The water was then brought under control, and found to have a pressure of 219 lb. per square inch, with a temperature of 198 degrees F. The water was fresh and drinkable, though having a slightly gaseous taste; but this was not noticeable after it had stood exposed to the air for a little time. On completion of the surface fittings the discharge was measured, and the flow ascertained to be 256,825 gallons per diem. The cost had not been adjusted at the date of our information, but it will be understood that a work extending over five years, and then yielding a comparatively small supply, makes bore-sinking a highly speculative industry, even in what the geologists declare to be artesian water-bearing country. [Illustration: COOKTOWN AND ENDEAVOUR RIVER, NORTH QUEENSLAND] [Illustration: PEARLING FLEETS OFF BADU ISLAND, TORRES STRAIT] At the Kynuna bore, work had been suspended at the time of the last annual report at a depth of 2,221 ft., the flow being 807,608 gallons a day. When cased to the bottom the flow was 880,154 gallons per day. It was handed over to the Winton Shire Council, the total cost having been £2,610, half of which was granted as a loan to the council by the Government, and the other half as a free gift. Another unsuccessful bore was at Windorah, where, under contract, a depth of 4,000 ft. was reached, with no water save an insignificant spring touched at 103 ft. below the surface. The total cost, including casing and supervision, was £7,508. A bore at the joint expense of the Booringa Shire Council and the Government was started at Mitchell in January, 1908, and on 18th May, at a depth of 1,405 ft., the work was stopped, the supply, equal to 205,000 gallons a day, being considered sufficient. The cost of the bore was £1,935. SUMMARY BY THE HYDRAULIC ENGINEER. Summarising the information supplied in the accompanying tables, Mr. Henderson writes:--"The total continuous yield from 716 bores--the flows from which have been estimated by various persons, not connected with the department, and communicated to me either directly or through the public prints, for the accuracy of which I cannot vouch, and measured under the hydraulic survey which was suspended in 1899 and not yet resumed--is now estimated at 479,268,000 gallons per diem; hence the average flow per bore is 669,369 gallons in the same time. "These figures do not include the flows from nine sub-artesian wells the flow from which is artificially produced by cutting down the outlet, but which it is understood have since ceased to flow, nor do they include the yield from 215 sub-artesian wells which are pumped more or less regularly during periods of drought, and which are estimated to yield 8,600,000 gallons per day, or an average of 40,000 gallons per well if pumped continuously night and day; but as it is impossible to form a trustworthy estimate of the daily volume raised I have put it down at what I think is approximately true--namely, 1,720,000 gallons. "I may also mention that owing to the suspension of the departmental hydraulic survey previously mentioned, I have obtained no official data relating to perennial springs. The last data to hand are given in my summarised report for the year 1902." WELLS SUCCESSFUL AND ABANDONED. The following table shows the progress of boring and artesian supplies to end of 1908 [but it must be stated that only part of the data for the years 1907 and 1908 is to hand]:-- ----------------------------+----------+-----------+--------------+-------- | Artesian | Pumped | Progress | Sunk by | Flows. | Supplies. | Abandoned or | Total. | | | Uncertain. | ----------------------------+----------+-----------+--------------+-------- [g] Government | 32 | 10 | 76 | 118 Local Governing Authorities | 16 | 0 | 24 | 40 Private Owners | 668 | 205 | 315 | 1,188 +----------+-----------+--------------+-------- Total to end of 1908 | 716 | 215 | 415 | 1,346 ----------------------------+----------+-----------+--------------+-------- [Footnote g: Pioneering bores sunk to explore and ascertain the artesian possibilities of new country.] AGGREGATE MILEAGE BORED, AND AVERAGE FOR EACH WELL. For comparison with former years I may mention (writes Mr. Henderson) that the total aggregate number of feet bored in search of artesian water in Queensland up to end of 1908 is estimated, from the best information at hand, at 1,498,700 ft., equal to 283·84 miles. The average depth per bore is 1,113 ft. The total aggregate depth bored is as follows:-- -------------------------------+-----------+-------------------------------- Date | Miles. | Increase in Each Year. -------------------------------+-----------+-------------------------------- Up to the end of October, 1894 | 82·75 | " " " 1895 | 92·21 | 9·46 miles in twelve months " " September, 1896 | 102·43 | 10·22 miles in eleven months " " June, 1897 | 111·02 | 8·59 miles in nine months " " " 1898 | [h]135·85 | [h]24·83 miles in twelve months " " " 1899 | 159·61 | 23·76 miles in twelve months " " " 1900 | [i]184·98 | [i]25·37 miles in twelve months " " " 1901 | 202·01 | 17·03 miles in twelve months " " " 1902 | 215·04 | 13·03 miles in twelve months " " " 1903 | 221·87 | 6·83 miles in twelve months " " " 1904 | 225·04 | 3·17 miles in twelve months " " " 1905 | 229·53 | 4·49 miles in twelve months " " " 1906 | 236·41 | 6·88 miles in twelve months " " " 1907 | [j]273·66 | [j]37·25 miles in twelve months " " December, 1907 | [k]276·50 | [k] 2·84 miles in six months " " " 1908 | [k]283·84 | [k] 7·34 miles in twelve months -------------------------------+-----------+-------------------------------- [Footnote h: This includes a considerable number of old bores discovered and added to the 1898 year's list.] [Footnote i: This includes thirty-four sub-artesian wells and bores in the Dalby district, representing an aggregate of 3,500 ft.] [Footnote j: Data collected by Police Department at the beginning of 1907, which include a number of old bores not previously heard of.] [Footnote k: Only a small part of data to hand, which was chiefly compiled from newspaper reports. It is a fact well known to this Department that never before was there in any year so much boring done as during the years 1907 and 1908.] FLOWING ARTESIAN BORES--1908. Number of artesian flows of various magnitudes to end of 1908:-- Under 10,000 gallons per day 49 From 10,001 to 150,000 gallons per day 151 " 150,001 to 750,000 " " " 296 " 750,001 to 1,500,000 " " " 129 " 1,500,001 to 2,500,000 " " " 57 Exceptional flows of over 2,500,000 gallons per day 34 ---- Total flowing bores 716 The continuous yield of water is estimated at 479,268,000 gallons per diem, equal to 1,763·22 acre feet, or 2·755 square miles of water 1 ft. deep, in the same time. The average flow of the 716 bores is thus 669,369 gallons per day, and their average depth is 1,575 ft. The estimated value of 1,346 borings is £1,873,375. ARTESIAN WELLS OVER 3,000 FEET DEEP. The following is a list, compiled from the latest available information, of the Artesian Wells of the State over 3,000 ft. deep, in order of their depth:-- ---------------------------+------------------+-------+--------------- Name of Bore. | Date of | Depth.| Date of | | | Completion or | Commencement. | | Suspension. ---------------------------+------------------+-------+--------------- | | Feet. | 1. Bimerah Run, No. 3, | 11 Aug, 1898 | 5,045 | June, 1900 Whitewood | | | 2. Bimerah Run, No. 1, | May, 1895 | 4,860 | July, 1897 Bothwell | | | 3. Elderslie Run, No. 2, | April, 1900 | 4,523 | Sept., 1902 Cathedral | | | 4. Ruthven Run, No. 1 | 1 Aug., 1905 | 4,515 | April, 1908 5. Ayrshire Downs Run, | Jan., 1895 | 4,438 | Sept., 1897 No. 1 | | | 6. Warbreccan Run | Jan., 1894 | 4,333 | 22 April, 1898 7. Manuka Run, No. 1 | Aug., 1896 | 4,310 | April, 1898 8. Bimerah Run, No. 2, | Oct., 1897 | 4,310 | Jan., 1900 Munjerie | | | 9. Eromanga (Government) | 16 July, 1906 | 4,270 | Jan., 1909 10. Rockwood Run, No. 1, | 15 Dec., 1891 | 4,220 | 15 July, 1897 Glenariffe | | | 11. Albilbah Run, No. 1, | 1 July, 1889 | 4,205 | Sept., 1902 Cable End | | | 12. Ruthven Run, No. 1 | 1 Aug., 1903 | 4,105 | 22 June, 1905 13. Lorne, No. 1 | ... | 4,057 | In Progress 14. Minnie Downs Run | 11 May, 1899 | 4,040 | 30 April, 1902 15. Malboona, Manuka | 18 Feb., 1899 | 4,032 | 7 June, 1900 Resumption | | | 16. Winton (Government) | 16 July, 1889 | 4,010 | 25 June, 1895 17. Darr River Downs Run, | | | No. 4, Overnewton | Feb., 1892 | 4,006 | 28 Mar., 1894 18. Thornleigh (Kargoolnah | May, 1901 | 4,003 | 15 Sept., 1902 Shire) | | | 19. Windorah (Government) | 1 July, 1902[l]| 4,001 | 24 May, 1905 20. Vindex Run, No. 2 | Oct., 1898 | 4,000 | June, 1900 21. Ayrshire Downs Run, | Sept., 1899 | 3,983 | Sept., 1902 No. 3 | | | 22. Katandra and | | | Stamfordham Runs, No. 1 | 8 Oct., 1892 | 3,980 | -- 1896 23. Evesham, No. 1 | ... | 3,970 | In Progress 24. Malvern Hills Run, | 1 July, 1890[m]| 3,942 | 10 May, 1894 Gowan | | | 25. Darr River Downs Run, | | | No. 2, Fairlie | 1 Nov., 1899 | 3,890 | May, 1891 26. Talleyrand, Camoola | ... | 3,870 | -- 1898 District | | | 27. Burenda Run, No. 3, | | | Gidyea Creek | 16 Oct., 1895 | 3,840 | Sept., 1898 28. Oondooroo Run | Jan., 1900 | 3,800 | 1 April, 1901 29. Mount Abundance, No. 2 | -- 1907 | ... | -- 1908 30. Albilbah Run, No. 2, | 21 Dec., 1889 | 3,800 | -- 1893 Jackson's | | | 31. Greendale, No. 1 | ... [n] | 3,799 | In Progress 32. Vindex Run, No. 3 | 24 July, 1901 | 3,795 | 6 Sept., 1902 33. Muckadilla (Government)| 21 Oct., 1889 | 3,762 | 24 Dec., 1898 34. Redcliffe Run, | Jan., 1893 | 3,750 | 20 Mar., 1895 Redcliffe | | | 35. Clio G. F., Ayrshire | | | Downs Resumption | -- 1901 | 3,745 | April, 1902 36. Katandra and | | | Stamfordham Runs, No. 2 | ... | 3,723 | -- 1896 37. Ayrshire Downs Run, | 11 April, 1898 | 3,721 | Sept., 1899 No. 2 | | | 38. Roma Town, No. 2 | 28 June, 1899 | 3,710 | 17 Oct., 1900 39. Nive Downs Run, No. 2, | | | The Ironbarks | 1 Jan., 1893 | 3,710 | 5 Sept., 1894 40. Roma Mineral Oil | -- 1907[o]| 3,702 | Dec., 1908 Company | | | 41. Wellshot Run, No. 4 | Sept., 1901 | 3,698 | -- 1902 42. Elderslie Run, No. 3 | Mar., 1900 | 3,680 | 18 May, 1901 43. Kensington Downs Run | -- 1897 | 3,650 | June, 1898 44. Wyora, Winton District | 23 May, 1899 | 3,650 | 12 Mar., 1900 45. Darr River Downs Run, | Jan., 1890 | 3,650 | Aug., 1891 No. 3 | | | 46. Darr River Downs Run, | | | No. 1, Nine-mile | 23 Dec., 1888 | 3,600 | Mar., 1899 47. Longreach Town, Aramac | April, 1897 | 3,590 | 10 Dec., 1897 Shire | | | 48. Noondoo Run, No. 2, | Nov., 1897 | 3,586 | July, 1899 Dareel | | | 49. Manuka Run, No. 2 | Feb., 1899 | 3,581 | June, 1901 50. Fairbairn, Dagworth | -- 1900 | 3,579 | Sept., 1900 Resumption | | | 51. Wellshot Run, No. 3, | 27 Oct., 1894 | 3,561 | 17 June, 1895 Totness | | | 52. Barcaldine Downs Run, | | | No. 1, Twenty-mil e| -- 1889 | 3,533 | 21 Jan., 1896 53. Lansdowne Run, No. 3, | Oct., 1894 | 3,529 | Jan., 1896 Downfall | | | 54. Jericho (Government) | Mar., 1902 | 3,518 | 15 June, 1903 55. Lerida Run, No. 1 | Sept., 1897 |?3,511 | 16 July, 1898 56. Katandra and | | | Stamfordham Runs, No. 4 | ... [p]| 3,510 | -- 1907 57. Wellshot Run, No. 1, | 16 Nov., 1892 | 3,504 | 2 Nov., 1893 Bradnich | | | 58. Elderslie Run, No. 1, | Oct., 1896 | 3,500 | July, 1898 Farewell | | | 59. Lerida Run, No. 2, | 12 July, 1898 | 3,500 | 3 Mar., 1900 Glenullen | | | 60. Westlands Run, No. 2, | 18 April, 1893 | 3,480 | 13 May, 1896 Buffalo | | | 61. Acacia Downs G. F., | Feb., 1897 | 3,480 | 20 July, 1897 Bowen Downs | | | 62. Hamilton Downs Run, | | | No. 2, Campsie | July, 1898 | 3,457 | Jan., 1900 63. Tintinchilla Run, Milo | Before 1895 | 3,411 | Mar., 1895 64. Dagworth Run, No. 2, | April, 1898 | 3,400 | Dec., 1898 Pinnacle | | | 65. Adavale Town | 27 Dec., 1899 | 3,398 | 8 Nov., 1900 (Government) | | | 66. Westbury, Camoola | ... | 3,340 | -- 1900 District | | | 67. Dagworth Run, No. 1, | | | Crescent Creek | April, 1892 | 3,335 | July, 1893 68. Arabella Run | 13 April, 1896 | 3,335 | 16 May, 1897 69. Jacondol G. F., , | | | Campbell's Barcaldine | Mar., 1895 | 3,333 | -- 1905 70. Thomson Watershed | Aug., 1891 | 3,319 | July, 1893 (Government) | | | 71. Burenda Run, No. 2, | Nov., 1894 | 3,315 | 14 Sept., 1895 Burenda | | | 72. Bowen Downs Run, | | | No. 4, Muttaburra road | Aug., 1891 | 3,308 | Oct., 1894 73. Hamilton Downs Run, | ... | 3,301 | April, 1895 No. 1, Clio | | | 74. Noorindoo Run, No. 1 | Mar., 1901 | 3,300 | -- 1904 75. Cooinda, Winton North | 7 June, 1898 | 3,298 | 20 Jan., 1899 District | | | 76. Portland Downs Run | 14 Aug., 1897 | 3,280 | 14 June, 1899 77. Chatsworth Run, No. 1 | ? 1894 | 3,266 | 5 Feb., 1895 78. Sesbania Run, No. 2 | May, 1898 | 3,252 | 19 Sept., 1898 79. Alice Downs Run, |11 April, 1898 | 3,248 | Dec., 1898 No. 2, Norwood | | | 80. Mount Cornish Run, | ... | 3,219 | 4 June, 1907 No. 2 | | | 81. Sesbania Run, No. 5 | 5 June, 1901 | 3,186 | Mar., 1902 82. Sesbania Run, No. 6 | ... | 3,179 | -- Aug., 1909 83. Terrick Terrick Run, | -- 1907[q]| 3,140 | -- 1908 Lorne | | | 84. Sesbania Run, No. 4 | Feb., 1899 | 3,103 | Jan., 1900 85. Noorindoo Run, No. 2 | Feb., 1903 | 3,103 | 2 April, 1904 86. Noondoo Run, Narine | -- 1896 | 3,098 | Nov., 1897 87. Birkhead Run, No. 1, | 29 June, 1898 | 3,095 | -- 1906 Macfarlane | | | 88. Authoringa and | 1 Jan., 1896 | 3,086 | June, 1898 Riversleigh Runs, | | | No. 2, Rocky | | | 89. Llanrheidol Run, No. 2,| June, 1896 | 3,085 | 3 April, 1897 Acacia | | | 90. Hughenden M. C. | 3 Jan., 1894 | 3,069 | July, 1898 Town Bore | | | 91. Muttaburra District, | ? 1895 | 3,065 | April, 1895 Brookwood | | | 92. Authoringa, No. 3, | Aug., 1898 | 3,060 | -- 1899 Spinifex | | | 93. Muttaburra District, | | | Weewondilla | ... | 3,060 | Dec., 1903 94. Albion Downs Run | Oct., 1897 | 3,033 | Sept., 1899 95. Muttaburra District, | -- 1906 | 3,030 | 27 July, 1908 Crossmoor | | | 96. Barcaldine North | | | District, Fairview | ... | 3,028 | 20 July, 1907 97. Myall Plains, Boombah | Feb., 1907 | 3,024 | Dec., 1908 98. Lansdowne, No. 2, | Nov., 1889 | 3,005 | Feb., 1892 Narambla | | | 99. Yarrawonga Run, Ada | ... | 3,000 | June, 1898 100. Tarra Grazing Farm, | ... | 3,000 | -- 1906 No. 4 | | | ---------------------------+------------------+-------+--------------- [Footnote l: Abandoned or suspended at 4,001 feet.] [Footnote m: Abandoned at 3,942 feet.] [Footnote n: In progress at 3,799 feet.] [Footnote o: In progress at 3,702 feet.] [Footnote p: Abandoned or suspended at 3,510 feet.] [Footnote q: In progress at 3,140 feet.] The hydraulic survey, suspended some years ago, has not yet been resumed; therefore the foregoing return, furnished by the Hydraulic Engineer in advance of his report, has been compiled from unofficial documents which have not yet been verified, and is given for what it is worth. STATISTICS SUPPLIED BY WELL-BORING COMPANIES. In order to make the record of artesian boring in Queensland as complete as possible, the following information has been obtained from the two principal drilling firms at present engaged in the State. It will be noticed that the list of the Intercolonial Boring Company includes three bores in South Australia:-- LIST OF BORES OVER 3,000 FEET IN DEPTH PUT DOWN BY INTERCOLONIAL BORING COMPANY, LIMITED. Depth. Name of Bore. Feet. Date Completed. Ayrshire Downs, No. 3 3,983 September, 1902 Brookwood, No. 1 3,065 May, 1895 Boombah, No. 1 3,024 December, 1908 Chatsworth, No. 1 3,266 February, 1895 Cooindah, No. 1 3,289 January, 1899 Dagworth, No. 1 3,335 July, 1893 Dagworth, No. 2 3,400 December, 1898 Dareel, No. 1 3,586 July, 1899 Elderslie, No. 3 3,626 May, 1901 Evesham, No. 1 3,970 In progress Fairview, No. 2 3,028 July, 1907 Greendale, No. 1 3,799 In progress Goyder's Lagoon, S.A. 4,850 March, 1905 Hamilton Downs, No. 1 3,301 April, 1895 Hamilton Downs, No. 2 3,457 January, 1900 Kynuna, No. 7 3,226 December, 1908 Lerida, No. 1 3,511 July, 1898 Lerida, No. 2 3,500 March, 1900 Llanrheidol, No. 2 3,085 April, 1897 Lorne, No. 1 4,057 In progress Manuka, No. 2 3,581 June, 1901 Mungeranie, S.A. 3,360 February, 1900 Mulka, S.A. 3,445 December, 1906 Mount Cornish, Tablederry 3,219 June, 1907 Mount Cornish, No. 3 3,015 June, 1909 Narine, No. 1 3,098 November, 1897 Ruthven, No. 1 4,105 June, 1905 Ruthven, No. 2 4,515 April, 1908 Roma Mineral Oil 3,715 In progress Sesbania, No. 2 3,252 September, 1898 Sesbania, No. 4 3,103 January, 1900 Sesbania, No. 5 3,186 March, 1902 Sesbania, No. 6 3,179 August, 1909 Vindex, No. 2 4,000 June, 1900 Vindex, No. 3 3,795 September, 1902 Warbreccan, No. 1 4,333 June, 1898 Winton (deepened) 4,010 June, 1895 Wyora, No. 1 3,600 March, 1900 Note.--Bores marked S.A. are in South Australia. Brisbane, 1st October, 1909. BORES COMPLETED AND IN PROGRESS BY WOODLEY LIMITED, BRISBANE, SINCE 31ST MARCH, 1909. 1. Bore at Millie Station, near Charleville, D. McNeill owner. Depth, 1,732 ft.; water 8 in. over casing; flow ¾-million gallons per diem. 2. At Claverton Downs, near Wyandra, Mrs. Whitney owner. Depth, 1,955 ft.; water 22 in. over casing; flow about 1½ million gallons. 3. At Bendena Station, Burgess and Co. owners. Depth, 2,232 ft.; water 4 ft. 6 in. over casing; flow about 3½ million gallons. 4. At Bonus Downs Station, Mitchell, Sir S. McCaughey owner. Depth, 3,424 ft. 6 in.; water rising to 60 ft. below surface; boring ceased in slate formation. 5. At Eurella Station, Donald Fletcher owner. Depth at end of September, 2,124 ft., still in progress; water rising to within 150 ft. of the surface. 6. At Clifton Station, C. H. T. Schmidt owner. Depth, 26th June, 225 ft.; in progress. 7. At Koreelah Station, Charleville. Depth at end of June, 400 ft.; in progress. 8. At Comongin Station, Bulloo, McLean, Barker, and Co. owners. Depth on 30th June, 600 ft.; in progress. 9. At Aberglassie Station, J. R. and H. C. Loughran owners. Starting. 10. At Cytherea Station, R. T. Winter owner. Starting. 11. At Airlie Downs, A. Leeds owner. Starting. APPENDIX J. CLIMATIC CONTRASTS. COMPARATIVE VITAL STATISTICS. Vital statistics are set forth by the various Government Statists of Australia with extreme particularity. But it is not easy to make comparative analyses for the purpose of ascertaining the birth rates, marriage rates, or death rates in the different States of Australia. The birth rates per 1,000 of the population give no accurate bases for comparison. They supply only what the statists call the crude birth rate. The information necessary to ascertain true comparative birth rates involves knowledge of the number of women of the different child-bearing ages in the several States; the proportion of marriages at different ages in each; the number of married women, their ages, and also the number of spinsters. Married women in their teens are more fertile than in their twenties, in their twenties than in their thirties, in their thirties than in their forties. So that to ascertain the true birth rate the comparative number of married or marriageable women in the contrasted countries must be ascertained. For example, if there were 20,000 married women in Queensland between twenty and thirty; and 60,000 married women of the same age in New South Wales; and if the number of births among those 20,000 and 60,000 respectively were ascertained, the true birth rate among women of that age would be obtained. Similar remarks apply to the death rate. The comparison must be made between a given number of men or women of the same ages, and then the true comparative death rate per 1,000 of such persons will be ascertainable, but not otherwise. It is supposed in many parts of Australia that North Queensland is less salubrious than South Queensland, and that the Southern States are healthier than Queensland as a whole. The crude death rate does not give a basis for this assumption, because there are fewer old people and fewer young children per 1,000 of the population in sparsely peopled areas than in settled districts. The lightest average mortality is among persons between the ages of two and eighteen years; the greatest mortality among children under two years. Information is not procurable showing the number of persons in Queensland in age groups, this information being only obtainable in census years. The Queensland Government Statistician has furnished the accompanying table, based on the results of the censuses of 1891 and 1901, showing the relative salubrity of different parts of the Commonwealth in those two years for all the States save Western Australia; and it will be noticed that it differentiates also between children north and south of the Tropic of Capricorn in Queensland. These figures are valuable for comparative purposes. It will be noticed that among children under two years the rate of mortality north of the Tropic of Capricorn in 1891 was 74.85 per 1,000, and in 1901 73.42 per 1,000. South of the tropic the corresponding figures were 70.33 and 64.97 per 1,000 respectively, the difference in favour of the south being 4.52 and 8.45 per 1,000. Of children under five years in the north the mortality was 39.44 and 32.80 respectively; while south of the tropic it was 33.54 and 29.72 respectively. Thus the difference in favour of the south was 5.90 and 3.08 respectively. Above the age of five years the difference between north and south is rather more marked, but the comparison of these, for reasons analogous to those stated above with respect to comparative birth or death rates, is valueless. If we take the New South Wales figures, we find that as to children under two years the mortality in 1891 was 85.12, and in 1901 72.42 per 1,000. Thus North Queensland compares very favourably with the parent State by 10.27 in 1891, and unfavourably in 1901 by only 1 per 1,000. With South Queensland the comparison shows a difference against New South Wales in 1891 of 14.79 per 1,000, and of 7.45 per 1,000 in 1901. As to children under five years the difference in favour of New South Wales in 1891, as against North Queensland, was only 0.16 per cent., and in 1901 0.43 per 1,000; and as against South Queensland it was 5.74 on the wrong side in 1891, and 2.65 in 1901. It is needless further to analyse the figures, but evidently the only States whose mortality among young children is more favourable than South Queensland are South Australia and Tasmania. Although these figures are official it may be wise to use them with reservation. The comparatively high mortality north of the Tropic of Capricorn is fully accounted for by the absence of the comforts of life in that newly settled area. In 1901 the mortality beyond the tropic was, for children under five years, almost the same as in New South Wales and Victoria. So that, so far as young children are concerned, we need not fear that the climate of Tropical Queensland will be found unfavourable to the British race. The death ratio of the population is somewhat higher in the tropics than in the South for each age group mentioned, and consequently of course for persons of all ages; this applies to both the years cited, 1891 and 1901. These years have been selected as, being "Census" years, the numbers at each age can then be definitely determined. The mortality rate for 1901 showed a distinct improvement on that for 1891 in all instances except with persons over five years of age in the South; as regards these the experience for 1901 was fractionally less satisfactory than in 1891. [Illustration: "QUEENSLAND and Territory of PAPUA 1909"] RETURN SHOWING THE POPULATION, NUMBER OF DEATHS, AND THE RATE OF MORTALITY AT CERTAIN AGES FOR THE YEARS 1891 AND 1901. ----------------------------+----------------------------------------++ | 1891. || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ | Census | Number of | Ratio || ------ | Population. | Deaths. | per 1,000 || | | | of the || | | | Population. || ----------------------------+--------------+-----------+-------------++ QUEENSLAND-- | | | || | | | || NORTH OF THE TROPIC OF | | | || CAPRICORN-- | | | || | | | || Under 2 years | 6,426 | 481 | 74·85 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ Under 5 years | 15,061 | 594 | 39·44 || Over 5 years | 93,925 | 1,088 | 11·58 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ All ages | 108,986 | 1,682 | 15·43 || |==============|===========|=============|| | | | || SOUTH OF THE TROPIC OF | | | || CAPRICORN-- | | | || | | | || Under 2 years | 18,598 | 1,308 | 70·33 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ Under 5 years | 45,264 | 1,518 | 33·54 || Over 5 years | 239,468 | 1,970 | 8·23 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ All Ages | 284,732 | 3,488 | 12·25 || |==============|===========|=============|| | | | || WHOLE STATE-- | | | || | | | || Under 2 years | 25,024 | 1,789 | 71·49 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ Under 5 years | 60,325 | 2,112 | 35·01 || Over 5 years | 333,393 | 3,058 | 9·17 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ All Ages | 393,718 | 5,170 | 13·13 || ----------------------------+--------------+-----------+-------------++ [cont.] ----------------------------++---------------------------------------- || 1901. ++--------------+-----------+------------- || Census | Number of | Ratio ------ || Population. | Deaths. | per 1,000 || | | of the || | | Population. ----------------------------++--------------+-----------+------------- QUEENSLAND-- || | | || | | NORTH OF THE TROPIC OF || | | CAPRICORN-- || | | || | | Under 2 years || 6,933 | 509 | 73·42 ++--------------+-----------+------------- Under 5 years || 17,166 | 563 | 32·80 Over 5 years || 132,466 | 1,448 | 10·93 ++--------------+-----------+------------- All ages || 149,632 | 2,011 | 13·44 ||==============|===========|============= || | | SOUTH OF THE TROPIC OF || | | CAPRICORN-- || | | || | | Under 2 years || 18,454 | 1,199 | 64·97 ++--------------+-----------+------------- Under 5 years || 45,460 | 1,351 | 29·72 Over 5 years || 308,174 | 2,645 | 8·58 ++--------------+-----------+------------- All Ages || 353,634 | 3,996 | 11·30 ||==============|===========|============= || | | WHOLE STATE-- || | | || | | Under 2 years || 25,387 | 1,708 | 67·28 ++--------------+-----------+------------- Under 5 years || 62,626 | 1,914 | 30·56 Over 5 years || 440,640 | 4,093 | 9·29 ++--------------+-----------+------------- All Ages || 503,266 | 6,007 | 11·94 ----------------------------++--------------+-----------+------------- NOTE.--Death rates calculated on the estimated mean population of the two years mentioned above and published in the Reports on Vital Statistics were-- 1891 12·77 1901 11·88 The utilisation of Census figures in order to quote the age condition at the time is accountable for the slight difference in the total ratio. RETURN SHOWING THE POPULATION, NUMBER OF DEATHS, AND THE RATE OF MORTALITY AT CERTAIN AGES FOR THE YEARS 1891 AND 1901.--_continued:_ ----------------------------+----------------------------------------++ | 1891. || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ | Census | Number of | Ratio || ------ | Population. | Deaths. | per 1,000 || | | | of the || | | | Population. || ----------------------------+--------------+-----------+-------------++ NEW SOUTH WALES-- | | | || | | | || Under 2 years | 66,719 | 5,679 | 85·12 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ Under 5 years | 165,750 | 6,510 | 39·28 || Over 5 years | 966,484 | 9,776 | 10·12 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ All ages | 1,132,234 | 16,286 | 14·38 || |==============|===========|=============|| | | | || VICTORIA-- | | | || | | | || Under 2 years | 62,102 | 5,822 | 93·75 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ Under 5 years | 148,359 | 6,518 | 43·93 || Over 5 years | 982,104 | 12,113 | 12·33 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ All ages | 1,130,463 | 18,631 | 16·48 || |==============|===========|=============|| | | | || SOUTH AUSTRALIA-- | | | || | | | || Under 2 years | 17,875 | 1,180 | 66·01 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ Under 5 years | 45,166 | 1,407 | 31·15 || Over 5 years | 270,367 | 2,804 | 10·37 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ All ages | 315,533 | 4,211 | 13·35 || |==============|===========|=============|| | | | || TASMANIA-- | | | || | | | || Under 2 years | 8,414 | 524 | 62·28 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ Under 5 years | 21,466 | 599 | 27·90 || Over 5 years | 125,201 | 1,635 | 13·06 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ All ages | 146,667 | 2,234 | 15·23 || |==============|===========|=============|| | | | || WESTERN AUSTRALIA-- | | | || | | | || Under 2 years | ... | ... | ... || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ Under 5 years | 6,835 | 293 | 42·87 || Over 5 years | 42,947 | 576 | 13·41 || +--------------+-----------+-------------++ All ages | 49,782 | 869 | 17·46 || ----------------------------+--------------+-----------+-------------++ [cont.] ----------------------------++--------------------------------------- || 1901. ++--------------+-----------+------------ || Census | Number of | Ratio ------ || Population. | Deaths. | per 1,000 || | | of the || | | Population. ----------------------------++--------------+-----------+------------ NEW SOUTH WALES-- || | | || | | Under 2 years || 64,376 | 4,662 | 72·42 ++--------------+-----------+------------ Under 5 years || 159,146 | 5,151 | 32·37 Over 5 years || 1,199,987 | 10,870 | 9·06 ++--------------+-----------+------------ All ages || 1,359,133 | 16,021 | 11·79 ||==============|===========|============ || | | VICTORIA-- || | | || | | Under 2 years || 54,669 | 3,817 | 69·82 ++--------------+-----------+------------ Under 5 years || 131,986 | 4,251 | 32·21 Over 5 years || 1,069,355 | 11,653 | 10·90 ++--------------+-----------+------------ All ages || 1,201,341 | 15,904 | 13·24 ||==============|===========|============ || | | SOUTH AUSTRALIA-- || | | || | | Under 2 years || 15,988 | 1,059 | 66·24 ++--------------+-----------+------------ Under 5 years || 39,940 | 1,166 | 29·19 Over 5 years || 318,568 | 2,808 | 8·81 ++--------------+-----------+------------ All ages || 358,508 | 3,974 | 11·08 ||==============|===========|============ || | | TASMANIA-- || | | || | | Under 2 years || 8,484 | 492 | 57·99 ++--------------+-----------+------------ Under 5 years || 20,865 | 531 | 25·45 Over 5 years || 151,610 | 1,283 | 8·46 ++--------------+-----------+------------ All ages || 172,475 | 1,814 | 10·52 ||==============|===========|============ || | | WESTERN AUSTRALIA-- || | | || | | Under 2 years || 9,303 | 882 | 94·81 ++--------------+-----------+------------ Under 5 years || 20,675 | 957 | 46·29 Over 5 years || 163,449 | 1,562 | 9·56 ++--------------+-----------+------------ All ages || 184,124 | 2,519 | 13·68 ----------------------------++--------------+-----------+------------ RAINFALL AND TEMPERATURE. The subjoined map shows the curves of equal mean annual rainfall for every 10·0 inches for Australia, compiled from the most recent information:-- [Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF THE RAINFALL OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA] The following table shows the relative rainfalls at the six Australian capital cities for the periods set severally against them; also for the ten-year period subsequent to 1896, during which the average precipitation was much below that of the total number of years over which the records extend:-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ten Years' Total Average Ten Years' Difference Difference Percentage Place. Number Rainfall Average between for per Annum of for all Rainfall. the Two. Ten Years. above or Years. Years. below True Mean. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Inches. Inches. Inches. Inches. Brisbane 57 47·47 39·16 -8·31 83·10 -18 Sydney 67 48·80 44·28 -4·52 45·20 -9 Melbourne 63 26·35 25·50 -0·85 8·50 -3 Perth 31 33·03 32·54 -0·49 4·90 -1 Hobart 66 23·38 22·98 -0·40 4·00 -2 Adelaide 67 20·89 20·53 -0·36 3·60 -2 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The following table supplies similar information with respect to seventeen representative Queensland stations, from which it will be seen that the mean annual rainfall at Geraldton for twenty-one years was 145·27 inches, and for the ten years subsequent to 1896 135·81 inches. Thus Geraldton is by far the wettest place in the State. The lightest mean rainfall for the same period was at Boulia, which recorded 11·45 inches; and for the ten years, 8·72 inches. The last column of the table shows that the fall for the ten years was under the average at every station mentioned, the shortage at Cooktown having been 28 per cent. each year of the ten. The number of wet days is not supplied, except for the capital cities. The driest part of Australia--that which receives a rainfall of 10·0 inches and under--comprises an area equalling nearly one-third of the Commonwealth, and includes the central Territory of South Australia, the extreme western parts of New South Wales, the south-western parts of Queensland, and the south-eastern, central, and part of the north-western portions of Western Australia. The limits of this dry area are shown by the 10·0-inch isohyetal line:-- ------------+------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------- | | | | | |Ten Years' |Total | Average |Ten Years'|Difference|Difference|Percentage |Number| Rainfall | Average | between | for |per Annum Place. |of | for | Rainfall.| the Two. |Ten Years.|above or |Years.|all Years.| | | | below | | | | | |True Mean. ------------+------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------- | | Inches. | Inches. | Inches. | Inches. | | | | | | | Cooktown | 29 | 68·96 | 49·91 | -19·05 | 190·50 | -28 | | | | | | Geraldton | 21 | 145·27 | 135·81 | -9·46 | 94·60 | -7 | | | | | | Brisbane | 57 | 47·47 | 39·16 | -8·31 | 83·10 | -18 | | | | | | Mackay | 36 | 69·42 | 61·73 | -7·69 | 76·90 | -11 | | | | | | Maryborough | 36 | 46·58 | 39·49 | -7·09 | 70·90 | -15 | | | | | | Goondiwindi | 28 | 29·27 | 22·99 | -6·28 | 62·80 | -21 | | | | | | Tambo | 21 | 22·87 | 18·08 | -4·79 | 47·90 | -21 | | | | | | Bowen | 36 | 40·40 | 35·62 | -4·78 | 47·80 | -12 | | | | | | Blackall | 27 | 22·59 | 17·92 | -4·67 | 46·70 | -21 | | | | | | Charleville | 34 | 19·71 | 15·30 | -4·41 | 44·10 | -22 | | | | | | Hughenden | 22 | 19·12 | 14·92 | -4·20 | 42·00 | -22 | | | | | | Thursday | | | | | | Island | 16 | 68·11 | 63·99 | -4·12 | 41·20 | -6 | | | | | | Springsure | 30 | 26·25 | 22·54 | -3·71 | 37·10 | -14 | | | | | | Boulia | 21 | 11·45 | 8·72 | -2·73 | 27·30 | -24 | | | | | | Thargomindah| 25 | 12·53 | 10·03 | -2·50 | 25·00 | -20 | | | | | | Cloncurry | 23 | 19·35 | 17·02 | -2·33 | 23·30 | -12 | | | | | | Normanton | 35 | 37·11 | 35·26 | -1·85 | 18·50 | -5 ------------+------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------- The following table shows the distribution of the average rainfall from 10·0 inches and under to over 40·0 inches:-- -----------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ Average Annual | | | | | Rainfall. | N.S.W. | Victoria. |Queensland.| South | | | | | Australia.| -----------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ | sqr. mls. | sqr. mls. | sqr. mls. | sqr. mls. | | | | | | Under 10 inches | 81,144 | nil | 135,600 | 306,663 | 10-20 " | 116,363 | 36,300 | 255,300 | 57,935 | 20-30 " | 77,910 | 27,900 | 173,400 | 13,908 | 30-40 " | 20,414 | 18,770 | 58,700 | 1,198 | Over 40 " | 14,541 | 4,914 | 47,500 | 366 | +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ Total Area | 310,372 | 87,884 | 670,500 | 380,070 | -----------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ [cont.] -----------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-------------- Average Annual | | | | Rainfall. | Northern | Western | Tasmania.| Commonwealth. | Territory.| Australia.| | -----------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-------------- | sqr. mls. | sqr. mls. | sqr. mls. | sqr. mls. | | | | Under 10 inches | 6,300 | 408,300 | nil | 938,007 10-20 " | 213,430 | 400,720 | nil | 1,080,048 20-30 " | 96,790 | 113,700 | 11,395 | 515,003 30-40 " | 120,600 | 39,100 | 5,396 | 264,178 Over 40 " | 86,500 | 14,100 | 9,424 | 177,345 +-----------+-----------+-----------+-------------- Total Area | 523,620 | 975,920 | 26,215 | 2,974,581 -----------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-------------- The comparative rainfalls and temperatures at the respective State capitals, and at Canberra, the embryo Federal capital, are shown in the following table:-- ------------+-------+--------------------------------+ | | ANNUAL RAINFALL. | Place. | Height+----------+----------+----------+ | above | | | | | M.S.L.| | | | | | Average. | Highest. | Lowest. | ------------+-------+----------+----------+----------+ | Ft. | Ins. | Ins. | Ins. | | | | | | Perth | 197 | 33·05 | 46·73 | 20·48 | Adelaide | 141 | 20·38 | 30·87 | 13·43 | Brisbane | 137 | 50·00 | 88·23 | 24·11 | Sydney | 144 | 49·35 | 82·81 | 23·01 | Melbourne | 91 | 25·62 | 44·25 | 15·61 | Hobart | 160 | 23·40 | 40·67 | 13·43 | Canberra {| 2,000 |} | | | (District) {| to |} 23·00 | 50·69 | 16·56 | {| 2,900 |} | | | ------------+-------+----------+----------+----------+ [cont.] ------------+-------+----------------------------------------------------- | | TEMPERATURE. Place. | Height+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------- | above | Mean | Mean |Highest | Lowest | Average| Average | M.S.L.| Summer.| Winter.| on | on | Hottest| Coldest | | | | Record.| Record.| Month. | Month. ------------+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------- | Ft. | Fahr. | Fahr. | Fahr. | Fahr. | Fahr. | Fahr. | | | | | | | Perth | 197 | 73·9 | 55·6 | 112·0 | 33·6 | 75·1 | 54·6 Adelaide | 141 | 72·3 | 52·0 | 116·3 | 32·2 | 73·3 | 52·5 Brisbane | 137 | 76·0 | 60·0 | 108·9 | 36·1 | 77·3 | 58·0 Sydney | 144 | 70·8 | 53·9 | 108·5 | 35·9 | 71·5 | 52·3 Melbourne | 91 | 64·9 | 49·2 | 111·2 | 27·0 | 66·3 | 47·7 Hobart | 160 | 61·4 | 47·0 | 105·0 | 27·7 | 62·1 | 45·7 Canberra {| 2,000 |} | | | | | (District) {| to |} 69·7 | 45·0 | 109·0 | 16·0 | 72·0 | 42·0 {| 2,900 |} | | | | | ------------+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------- The mean humidity at the several capitals is as follows:--Brisbane mean averages, 68·1; highest, 85; lowest, 47. Sydney mean averages, 73, 90, 55. Melbourne mean averages, 72, 76, 67. Adelaide mean averages, 56, 84, 33. Perth mean averages, 63, 83, 45. Hobart mean averages, 72, 76, 67. APPENDIX K.--EDUCATION STATISTICS. I.--STATE PRIMARY EDUCATION (1907). ----------------------------+------------+-----------------+-----------+ | Queensland.| New South Wales.| Victoria. | ----------------------------+------------+-----------------+-----------+ | £ s. d. | £ s. d. | £ s. d.| Amount per head of estimated| | | | population | 0 10 11 | 0 10 6 | 0 9 6 | Amount per district scholar | 3 3 2 | 3 9 2 | 2 18 7 | ----------------------------+------------+-----------------+-----------+ II.--PRIVATE SCHOOLS (1908). ------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-------+ |Undenomi-|Church of| Roman |Lutheran.| Total.| |national.| England.|Catholic.| | | ------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-------+ Number of schools | 86 | 8 | 61 | 2 | 157 | Teachers--Male | 26 | 6 | 57 | 2 | 91 | Female | 170 | 32 | 372 | | 574 | Gross enrolment--Male | 786 | 236 | 4,883 | 29 | 5,934 | Female | 1,386 | 344 | 6,400 | 34 | 8,164 | Average daily attendance| | | | | | --Male | 654 | 216 | 4,220 | 24 | 5,114 | Female| 1,289 | 297 | 5,200 | 28 | 6,814 | ------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-------+ CHURCH OF ENGLAND SCHOOLS (1909).[a] -------------------------+------------+--------------+----------------+ Schools. | On Roll. | Average | Teachers. | | | Attendance. | | -------------------------+------------+--------------+----------------+ St. John's Day School, | 44 boys, | 33 boys, | 6, and 1 music | Brisbane | 134 girls | 107 girls | and 1 drawing | | | | | Holy Trinity Day School, | 33 boys, | 30 boys, | 3 | Woolloongabba | 42 girls | 37·6 girls | | | | | | St. Paul's Day School, | 35 | 29 | 2 | Maryborough | | | | | | | | High School for Boys, | 112 | 112 | 9 | Southport | | | | | | | | Glennie Memorial School | 50 | Very good | 6 | for Girls, Toowoomba | | | | | | | | Eton High School for | 50 | 97 per cent. | 9 | Girls, Toorak, Hamilton | | | | | | | | St. Paul's Day School, | 35 boys, | 25·3 boys, | 4 | Ipswich | 62 girls | 47 girls | | | | | | Theological College, | 14 students| ... | 3 | Nundah | | | | | | | | Tufnell Orphanage, | 70 children| ... | 5 workers | Nundah | | | | | | | | Industrial Home, | 21 inmates | ... | 2 instructors | Clayfield | | | | | | | | High School for Girls, | ... | ... | ... | Stanthorpe | | | | -------------------------+------------+--------------+----------------+ [Footnote a: Furnished by Mr. A. A. Orme, Diocesan Registry, Brisbane.] ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS (1909).[b] -------------------------------------------------------+---------+ SCHOOLS TAUGHT BY SISTERS-- | On Roll.| | | _Archdiocese of Brisbane_-- | | | | Brisbane (High School), All Hallows; (Primary) | | --Elizabeth street, Ivory street, South | | Brisbane, Kangaroo Point, Red Hill, Wooloowin, | | Toowong, Rosalie; Sandgate; Ipswich; | | Helidon; Toowoomba (2); Dalby; Roma; Warwick; | | Stanthorpe; Gympie (2); Maryborough; | | Bundaberg; Beaudesert; Southport; | | (Orphanage), Nudgee | 6,226 | | | _Diocese of Rockhampton_-- | | | | (High School), Rockhampton; Townsville; | | Charters Towers; (Primary), Rockhampton; | | Townsville; Charters Towers; Mount Morgan; | | Hughenden; Gladstone; Longreach; | | Winton; Mackay; Ravenswood; Clermont; | | Emerald; (Orphanage), Neerkol | 4,228 | | | _Diocese of Cooktown_-- | | | | (High School), Cooktown; (Primary), | | Cooktown; Cairns; Geraldton; Mareeba | 572 | | | SCHOOLS TAUGHT BY CHRISTIAN BROTHERS-- | | | | _Archdiocese of Brisbane_-- | | | | (College), Nudgee; (High School and Primary), | | Brisbane; Ipswich; Toowoomba; Gympie; | | Maryborough | 1,880 | | | _Diocese of Rockhampton_-- | | (High School and Primary), Rockhampton; | | Charters Towers | 740 | |-------- | Total | 13,646 | -------------------------------------------------------+---------+ [Footnote b: Supplied by the Church authorities.] [Illustration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE, NOW DEDICATED TO UNIVERSITY PURPOSES] APPENDIX L. INAUGURATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND. In older lands Time seems to move with so deliberate a step that his march is scarcely noticed, and the passing of fifty years is but a small matter, though within the past half-century discovery after discovery, advance after advance, has been made. Still these things have come gradually, and, like all the great triumphs of peace, have been achieved calmly, orderly, and almost imperceptibly. It has been different in these new countries, whose practical history comprehends scarcely more than the span of one man's life. Queensland has grown out of nothing (from the point of view of civilisation) to a fair stature of importance. Fifty years is the sum of its existence as a self-governing State, but within that brief period the country has been reclaimed from the wilderness, and made the home of a happy, progressive, and enlightened people. Bearing in mind what Queensland was fifty years ago, and what it is to-day, it will be admitted that its jubilee was eminently worth celebrating, not in a mere spirit of festivity, but in the spirit of a people conscious of what has been done, and full of enthusiasm for continued development. No better evidence of that could have been afforded than by the particular method of celebration decided upon--the dedication of the most historic building in Queensland to the purposes of a University. It would have been easy to have devised a more showy plan, to have arranged for festivities that would have given greater immediate pleasure, but it would not have been possible to have marked the jubilee day with anything so admirably calculated to promote the best interests of the people, or so likely to abide in the public memory. That was the view of Mr. Kidston and his Government, to whom belong the honour of having given effect to the long-cherished aspirations of that numerous body who desire to see Queenslanders an educated as well as a prosperous people. For many years there had been a movement afoot for the establishment of a University. As far back as 1891, a Royal Commission, under the presidency of the late Sir Charles Lilley, had inquired into the matter and reported strongly in favour of the project. Premiers who were themselves graduates of universities and cultured, far-seeing men had recognised the need for a University, but the matter obstinately remained in the air. For some sixteen years, largely supported by the Sydney University, a Council had carried on University Extension Lectures, educating not only the students, but the public. Finally, the present Premier, realising that the time was ripe for a definite forward move, placed educational reform in the forefront of his policy, and succeeded in getting legislation passed for the establishment of the institution and in securing a liberal provision for maintaining it. This much achieved, everything was sufficiently far advanced for an impressive dedicatory ceremony on the day chosen for celebrating the jubilee of Queensland--Friday, 10th December, 1909. It was not possible, of course, for the University to be actually in operation by that date, but it was possible to take the first step by solemnly setting apart for its uses the building in which it is proposed to conduct it. That was precisely what was done on this occasion, and with a simple dignity and an earnestness of purpose that could not well have been surpassed. Everything combined to make the day and the event memorable, to lift it out of the commonplace of public occasions, in a word to make it historic--the most historic event since the promulgation of Queensland's free Constitution. The building itself had been the honoured home of every Governor since 1861. As was happily phrased in one of the speeches, it had been the centre of social and political life. What more appropriate than that it should be invested with a new function--be given, as it were, a new lease of life in the great cause of citizen-making? What more interesting than that the chief figure in the ceremonial should be Sir William MacGregor, himself a great witness to the value of university training, a distinguished servant of the Empire, one of the select band of Empire builders who have united ripe scholarship with tireless energy and firm grasp of national business and the ways of the world? It was a singularly happy circumstance that this was his first important public act as Governor of Queensland. But a few days before he had taken over the reins of government from the hands of the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Arthur Morgan. As befitted the occasion and the interest which they had taken in the matter of the University, Sir Arthur and Mr. Kidston also took a prominent part in the ceremony. The presence of Professor David, of the Sydney University, who was a prominent member of the Shackleton Expedition to the Antarctic regions, and of Professor Stirling, of the Adelaide University, lent additional distinction to the event, visibly representing, as it did, the cordiality with which those important institutions regarded the advent of Queensland into the sisterhood of Australian University-States. Never before in its history had Government House been the scene of a gathering so unique. The Premier struck the keynote of the whole proceedings, when he said that they were met "to erect this white stone, as it were, to mark this point in our national progress." He was alluding to the marble tablet, which had been affixed to the wall near the main entrance, recording the dedication of the building to its new purposes. Also, he declared the democratic foundation of the institution in the significant sentence: "In very truth it may be said that the Queensland University is of the people, and I trust that the Senate, when they start to manage this institution, will remember that it is also to be for the people." To the ceremony were bidden all who could lend to it distinction and interest. It was no mere official or exclusive gathering, but one which represented in full measure the democratic character of the Queensland people. Those high in place were there; those who in university life had won honour; those who had laboured to lay the foundations of the educational system of which this was the culmination; the people for whose children this was to be in a real and practical sense the great training school and character-building institution; the children from whose ranks were to be drawn the earliest students. The scene was one which will live in memory long after the University has begun its work, and will be recalled when in their gladsome, perhaps boisterous, fashion the students hold their commemoration days, or when in more thoughtful times the men and women who have gone forth from it girded for the battle of life revisit its shady walks and studious halls. The building and its charming environments lent themselves to an impressive spectacle. In the bright summer day, the well-kept grounds and the rich foliage of the neighbouring gardens presented a picture of rare colour and beauty. Beyond lay the broad river glistening in the sunlight. Above arched the ineffable azure scarcely flecked by clouds. In the distance lay the far spreading city, with its pulsating life and varied activities. Under the shadow of the graceful building and in a sweeping semi-circle were massed the spectators, with eyes concentrated on the main portico, which had been converted into a stage for the interesting drama of the afternoon. A curved structure had been thrown out from the masonry, and decorated and canopied with maroon and white. Grouped around this were arranged the chairs provided for the seven hundred invited guests. Among these were many wearing their university costumes, which vied in colour and variety with the dresses of the ladies. Beyond this enclosure were drawn up, rank behind rank, 250 boys and 550 girls chosen from the fifth and sixth classes of the metropolitan schools, each wearing Queensland's colours, maroon and white, and 200 State school cadets in uniform. All had been assembled in Alice street, and marched in procession to the space allotted to them. They were there for the double purpose of supplying a choir and adding to the representative character of the assembly. Beyond their lines were gathered the members of the general public. The arrangements entailed a good deal of planning and forethought, but every part of the ordered and dignified ceremony was smoothly carried out. The military element, drawn from the 9th Australian Infantry Regiment, was lined up along the whole front of Government House, the scarlet coats and white helmets supplying a fringe of colour to that part of the picture. The time fixed for the ceremony was half-past 3 o'clock. The reserved enclosure was then filled, the intermediate space was thronged with school children and cadets, and the outer circle was made up of those whom interest or curiosity had drawn to the spot. It was no small evidence of the genuineness of that interest that, though hundreds were too far away to hear the speeches, they remained during the whole proceedings. They took their cue from those who were nearer, and when they saw or heard them applauding they joined in and swelled the volume of enthusiasm. One of the first to take his place on the dais was Mr. W. H. Barnes, to whom it had fallen, as Secretary for Public Instruction, to pilot the University Bill through the Legislative Assembly. Not long afterwards there came Mr. A. H. Barlow, M.L.C., the veteran Minister, who had had much to do with the preparation of the measure, and who had charge of it during its progress through the Upper House. Among early arrivals were Miss MacGregor, His Excellency's daughter, and Mrs. Kidston. Punctually at half-past 3 His Excellency the Governor, Sir William MacGregor, arrived, dressed in his Windsor uniform and wearing the long flowing blue silk cloak and decorations of the Grand Cross of St. Michael and St. George, accompanied by Lady MacGregor and Mr. Kidston, Premier of Queensland. Mrs. Kidston presented Lady MacGregor with a beautiful bouquet, and almost at the same time the band of the 9th Regiment struck up "The National Anthem," the whole assemblage rising as the patriotic strains were heard. The duties usually devolving upon a chairman fell to the Premier, who occupied a chair on one side of a small flag-draped table, while His Excellency sat on the other side. Near by were the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Arthur Morgan, wearing his robes of office, the Chief Justice (Sir Pope A. Cooper) in court dress, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly (Mr. J. T. Bell) in his flowing robes, Professor David (representative of the Sydney University) in his official robe, Professor Stirling (the representative of the University of Adelaide) wearing the scarlet robe of an M.D. of Cambridge, and His Grace Archbishop Donaldson in the scarlet and ermine of a D.D. Central Queensland had a venerable representative in the person of the Right Rev. Dr. Hay, Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly. The Roman Catholic Archbishop, the Right Rev. Dr. Dunne, had as his representative Rev. Father Byrne, the Administrator of his diocese. The distinguished company included also Mr. Justice Real and Mrs. Real, Mr. Justice Chubb and Mrs. Chubb, Mr. Justice Shand, Mr. D. F. Denham (Minister for Lands) and Mrs. Denham, Mr. T. O'Sullivan, M.L.C. (Attorney-General) and Mrs. O'Sullivan, Mr. W. T. Paget (Minister for Agriculture and Railways) and Miss Paget, Mr. J. G. Appel (Home Secretary) and Miss Appel, Mrs. Barnes, Mr. A. G. C. Hawthorn (Treasurer) and Mrs. Hawthorn, Mr. W. Lennon, M.L.A. (Acting Leader of the Opposition) and Mrs. Lennon, Miss Celia Cooper, Mr. C. W. Costin (Clerk of Parliaments), Mr. Anthony Musgrave, (Private Secretary to His Excellency), Captain Scarlett, A.D.C., and Captains Newton and Claude Foxton, honorary AA.D.C. Members of both Houses of Parliament, prominent public servants, the mayors and aldermen of Brisbane and South Brisbane, representatives of other metropolitan civic bodies, leading citizens, and consular representatives had their seats in the enclosure fronting the official dais. By a happy arrangement the ceremony was inaugurated by the assembled children singing "The National Anthem," to which were added three of the patriotic verses of "The Australian Anthem" composed by Queensland's sweet singer, the late J. Brunton Stephens. The fresh musical voices rang out true and clear, carrying far through the still, scented air the simple words of devotion and patriotism-- What can Thy children bring? What save the voice to sing "All things are Thine"?-- What to Thy throne convey? What save the voice to pray "God bless our land alway, This land of Thine"? Oh, with Thy mighty hand Guard Thou the Motherland; She, too, is Thine. Lead her where honour lies, We beneath other skies Still clinging daughterwise, Hers, yet all Thine. Britons of ev'ry creed, Teuton and Celt agreed, Let us be Thine. One in all noble fame, Still be our path the same, Onward in Freedom's name, Upward in Thine! [Illustration: VIEW OF DEDICATION CEREMONY] The last notes had scarcely died away, when the Premier rose to invite His Excellency to assent to the University Bill of 1909, and to dedicate the building to the University. He prefaced that proceeding by a speech, which summarised the course of progress in Queensland, touched upon the difficulties it had been necessary to overcome, and the achievements in settlement and development which had made this ceremony possible. More than that, it focussed as it were in a few sentences the destined scope of the University, and the liberal provisions by which it was to be made accessible to "all our young people without regard to class, or creed, or sex." Twenty foundation scholarships were the generous birthday gift to the University. There was a great outburst of enthusiasm at this announcement, and the applause rang out again with renewed strength when His Excellency stepped forward, and read a congratulatory message from His Majesty the King. This was a fitting prelude to the able and statesmanlike speech which His Excellency made. This over, Mr. Costin presented the University Bill for His Excellency to sign. His Excellency dipped his pen in the ink held by a handsome silver inkstand, and affixed his signature to the charter of the University. Then, pressing an electric button, he revealed to view a marble tablet--the white stone of which the Premier spoke--designed "to mark this point in our national progress." The building had now been dedicated, but it yet remained symbolically to hand it over to the people. This was done by His Excellency's presentation to Mr. J. T. Bell of the University Act, and Mr. Bell's acceptance of it on behalf of the people of Queensland. Eloquent speeches from Mr. Bell, Professor David, and Professor Stirling followed, each in his turn drawing from the assemblage the endorsement of enthusiastic applause. Once more the aid of the children was invoked, and, under the direction of Mr. George Sampson, F.R.C.O., they sang to the music of "The Old Hundredth" "The Children's Ode," specially written for the occasion by Mr. W. J. Byram-- Dear land, the queen of all fair climes! To jewels of thy diadem We add to-day its brightest gem, A guiding star for after-times. Thy sons shall grow in wisdom's power, Thy daughters win an ampler grace, And both shall mould that higher race Gifted with learning's priceless dower. Here as the seasons wax and wane May Science still increase her store, And Truth be reverenced more and more, And Tolerance and Justice reign. Father of all, our effort bless! Without thy aid we are as nought, We are but children to be taught Thy way that leads to perfectness. One graceful ceremony remained, and that typical of beauty, life, and growth--the planting of a tree to be known as "The University Tree," its destiny to grow with the University, and afford grateful shade to those brought within its wholesome influence. The pleasant duty of planting devolved upon Lady MacGregor, and it was carried out by means of a silver trowel presented to her by the Premier. The business of the afternoon had now concluded; the first step toward the establishment of the University had been taken: its future home had been dedicated. THE DEDICATION SPEECHES. The PREMIER (Hon. W. Kidston), in rising to ask His Excellency to dedicate Government House to the purposes of the University, said: Your Excellency and Ladies and Gentlemen,--To-day Queensland completes her first half-century as a self-governing community; and we are met to honour the occasion--to erect a white stone, as it were, to mark this point in our national progress. Fifty years ago a handful of settlers, not quite 24,000 in number, claimed and obtained the right to manage their own affairs; and the British Government, in granting that right, virtually handed over to those few pioneers the ownership of this vast territory now called Queensland--a territory exceeding in area the combined areas of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. If we consider how few they were and the way in which they undertook the work of opening up and civilising this vast territory, we must recognise that our first pioneers were men of enterprise, of self-reliance, and of high courage. (Hear, hear.) Although our population has increased twenty-four times since then, we are still but a handful in this vast land. When we try to compare the Queensland of to-day with the Queensland of fifty years ago--the cities and towns that have been built where then was the untrodden bush; the thousands of miles of railways and the many thousands of miles of roads, like a network all over this great area; the rivers that have been spanned by bridges; the harbours that have been made; the endless miles of telegraph lines that give rapid communication between the townships scattered all over the State--all the things that go to mark a civilised people--when we consider to what extent that work has been carried out by such a mere handful of people, we may well commend the men who have preceded us. (Hear, hear.) And it was not only in the matter of material development that these men did good work. Many years ago they established an educational system which still obtains--a system so effective and comprehensive that all over this vast territory of Queensland wherever ten or a dozen children can be brought together there you will find a State school. (Hear, hear.) And even beyond that, by means of the itinerant teachers, the scattered children of the bush are sought out and have at least the rudiments of education brought to their isolated homes. (Hear, hear.) To-day we seek to commemorate our establishment as a self-governing community, and at the same time to show our appreciation of the excellent work done by our predecessors in opening up this new land and in promoting the civilising and humanising agencies that have made Queensland what she is; and I hold that we can show our appreciation of the good work our predecessors did in no better way than by imitating and continuing that good work. We who have eaten of the fruit of the trees which our predecessors planted; we, the men of to-day, may also seek to plant so that the children of to-morrow may gather the fruit. (Hear, hear.) [Illustration: THE PREMIER (HON. W. KIDSTON) OPENING THE PROCEEDINGS] Perhaps, Your Excellency, I am not just the person to discuss educational methods, or to seek here to give instructions to the Senate who will manage this University; but I may express the hope that the University of Queensland will provide for the youth of Queensland the highest culture and the best university training that can be got, at any rate, this side of the line. (Hear, hear.) At the same time I would not have it forgotten that Queensland is a hive of working bees; and all our educational institutions, from Kindergarten to University, should keep that fact in view. There is this difference between the youngest University in the Empire and the oldest: Oxford was established by a King; the University of Queensland is established by the People. (Hear, hear.) Queensland is democratic not only in her political institutions: she is democratic in heart and sentiment; and the desire of our people for a University is simply the desire that Queensland may be an educated democracy--the safest, the strongest, and the happiest community in which men can live. (Hear, hear.) I would have the Senate always remember that it was the desire of our people that inspired the crowning of our educational system by the establishment of a University, that in very truth the Queensland University is "of the people," and I trust that the Senate will never forget that it should be "for the people." (Hear, hear.) It is not all of us who can go to a University or directly share in its advantages; yet the whole community should, and I hope will, receive a general benefit. I hope that its influence will radiate downwards through all the ranks of our social organism; that those who have the advantage and the privilege of the more liberal education which our University will give will be like the leaven which the woman put in three measures of meal, and will leaven the whole community. (Hear, hear.) Parliament has made what I think is fairly adequate financial provision for our University. A sum of £50,000 is being set aside from this year's revenue for meeting what may be called the initial cost. (Hear, hear.) And, besides that, a sum of £10,000 a year is being provided for what may be called the annual working charges. (Hear, hear.) I may also announce to-day that the Cabinet, subject of course to the approval of Parliament, has resolved to institute a certain number of foundation scholarships as a step towards equalising educational opportunities for our young people and by way of opening the door to ability and special merit. (Applause.) It has been decided to establish twenty foundation scholarships--(applause)--tenable for three years, each of which will carry free entrance to the University and £26 per year, or, in cases where students, to attend the University, must live away from home, £52 a year. These scholarships will be equally open to all our young people without regard to class, or creed, or sex. (Applause.) There will also be a foundation gold medal, carrying a prize of £100 a year for two years, for the purpose of encouraging original chemical research--(applause)--a similar medal and prize of a similar amount, tenable for two years, for engineering--(applause)--and a foundation travelling scholarship of £200 a year, tenable for two years. (Applause.) The scholarships will of course be competed for annually, so that in the third and each succeeding year there will be sixty of these scholarship students at our University. (Applause.) I now ask Your Excellency, as representing His Majesty, to assent to the Bill, which has been approved by both Houses of Parliament, for the establishment and endowment of the University of Queensland, and on behalf of our people to dedicate this building, now your home, to the purposes of the University. (Loud applause.) HIS EXCELLENCY SIR WILLIAM MacGREGOR said: Mr. Kidston, Ladies and Gentlemen,--The first duty I have to perform here to-day is to read to you a telegram which I received this forenoon from the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies. This telegram is dated London, 9th December, at 1.45 p.m., and is addressed "The Governor, Brisbane." The Secretary of State says:-- "I am commanded by His Majesty the King to convey to you the following message:-- "His Majesty the King heartily congratulates the people of Queensland on the completion of fifty years of responsible government. It is the earnest hope of His Majesty the King that the enterprise and loyalty which have marked the first half-century of the State of Queensland may be its abiding heritage and that the prosperity which is evident at the close of this period may be multiplied abundantly in the years to come." "CREWE." For two reasons I have put in writing what I have to say on the important subject that has brought us here to-day. The first is that I cannot make myself heard by a large audience. The second is that we are assembled here on the occasion of the Jubilee of Queensland, and that fifty years hence the Jubilee of the University of this State will also be celebrated, and it is desirable that those who participate in that ceremony should know in what spirit the University is being founded: what are our hopes, our aspirations, what appreciation we have of our duty towards our posterity and the future of the great country we and they have to develop. I trust that for this reason all speeches made here to-day may be carefully recorded, as we now enter upon a new phase of the intellectual life of Queensland, a matter that cannot but be of far-reaching importance to the next and succeeding generations of this State. I deem it a fortunate circumstance that, a few days after my arrival in Brisbane, I should have the privilege of participating in a ceremonial for the establishment of "The University of Queensland," of taking part in a State function of historical and of great social and economic importance. We live in an age of more rapid progress than any that has ever preceded our own day: and for my part I am prepared to believe that we owe to education the enormous advances in recent years in health, wealth, and in the amenities and comforts of life. It is now well known to us all that the nation that is backward in education is, or soon will be, behind in all that makes a people great and prosperous. I am aware that these facts were fully recognised by many men in Queensland long years ago, for I well remember the former efforts that were made to found a University here--efforts that failed through causes that happily no longer exist. One of the most noticeable facts in the social and economic life of English-speaking people in recent years is the great impulse that has been given to the development and extension of university teaching. It may with a good show of reason be said that Australasia led up to the great educational revival of the last quarter of a century, by the opening of the now famous Universities, of Sydney in 1852, of Melbourne in 1855, and of Adelaide in 1876. Then followed the University of Tasmania in 1889. The wave of university education has left the United States with 40 universities, 16 of which are very great, and 415 colleges. The movement has been as pronounced in Canada, where higher education is receiving great attention, due in a large measure to the splendid liberality of wealthy and patriotic citizens. The same influence has been profoundly felt in the United Kingdom. The Victoria University was founded in 1880, and the London University was reconstituted in 1900. Birmingham University dates from 1900, Liverpool University from 1903, the University of Wales from 1903, Leeds University from 1904, Sheffield University from 1905, and the two national Universities of Ireland from 1908. To come nearer home, New Zealand has her University and affiliated colleges; and West Australia is at this moment taking active steps for the establishment of her own State University, so that it remains at present doubtful whether Queensland or West Australia is to play the part of the most retiring of this pleiad of Australasian Universities. Hitherto the youth of Queensland has had to go elsewhere for residential university education. Fortunately for Queensland, she has had an active and influential committee for university extension lectures, the members of which have patriotically performed good service to the State by arranging for lectures that have helped to procure from beyond the State university certificates of competence by a considerable number of the youth of this country. This committee has fortunately been able to do enough to demonstrate how much we need a University of our own. They are entitled to the warm thanks of the community for what they have done. I have had an opportunity of knowing from the admirable lectures of Professor David, on the 4th and 8th of this month, how interesting, instructive, and valuable those lectures can be. I have said enough to show you that if Queensland did not now, without any further delay, proceed to found her University, this, one of the greatest, most promising, and wealthiest provinces in the Empire, would, as far as education is concerned, occupy a very conspicuous and unenviable position among the great countries of the world; especially would this be the case in regard to the sister States and Dominions. What is a University? I have seen a University defined as a place at which students from any quarter of the universe could be received to study, irrespective of nationality. What we understand here by a University, and what we aim at, is an institution where any person can find the fullest and best instruction of the day in any branch of knowledge. It will be the head corner-stone of the system of education that has been legalised in this State, a school that will be accessible to all, and will afford equal chances and opportunities to rich and poor alike, without reference to sex or religious denomination. I know of no institution in modern social life that equals the University in giving a fair chance in life to the youth that is capable and is able and willing to work; although, for my part, I can only regard schools of all grades as only preparatory for the studies that have to be incessantly pursued after one ceases to attend classes, if one does not resign oneself to falling behind; thus the primary school prepares for the secondary school, and that school leads to the university, which last furnishes the highest and best intellectual equipment for one's life work, an equipment of such character that it can be obtained and be certified to by the university, and by that alone. It supplies to the bearer the hall-mark of the State that the man or woman that bears it has had the best instruction that the country can supply. [Illustration: HIS EXCELLENCY SIR W. MACGREGOR ADDRESSING THE AUDIENCE] What is to be taught in the University? You will find that the University Act makes provision for the establishment of certain faculties in which instruction shall be given; the preamble shows that the University is to provide "a liberal and practical education in the several pursuits and professions of life in Queensland." In no other country can the pursuits and professions of social and economic life be greater than they are, or will be, in Queensland, having regard to the extraordinary multiplicity of its resources. Such a broad purpose as that set out in the University Act leaves little option to the ruling power of the University as to what subjects are to be taught. That question is determined in a large measure by the work of other universities, for it is a foregone conclusion that the University of Queensland is not to occupy a position in the educational world inferior to that of any sister university in Australasia. We are well aware that their standard is high; and we recognise that we start late, and are therefore behind, and that we have a hard task before us to overtake the other universities; but this has to be done, and will be done. I dwell on this because there should exist no misconception as to the scope of the Queensland University, especially in regard to what is called the classical side of instruction, in contradistinction to the scientific or practical. We recognise that the literary records of the world have, in the main, been successively committed to the languages of the Chaldeans, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Anglo-Saxons. If those languages are dead, their remains are so constantly brought before us every hour of our lives that acquaintance with those of them that are usually taught in what is called the faculty of arts forms a necessary and indispensable part of the education of every accomplished or finished scholar, and of most professional men or women. At the same time, therefore, that this University will provide the best tuition in the classical languages of the past, we cannot but see that times have changed; that, for example, in no country in Europe or America could the Prime Minister now conduct official business in Latin with King or Governor, as was the case in England not very long ago. No Prime Minister could now electrify a drooping Parliament with a Latin quotation, as Pitt did. So far as I know, the last Parliament in Europe to use Latin as its language ceased to do so some three-score of years ago. The classics have come into disfavour owing in a large measure to the fact that they were overdone, that time was wasted on utterly valueless subtleties in learning them. They were associated with too much book and too little practical work. Here we shall have a course of classics, an arts faculty, equal to that of other universities, but without unduly encroaching on other faculties of more modern development and of more direct utility in the evolution of modern economic life. It would, however, be unreasonable to expect that the University of Queensland could be brought into the world full-grown at its birth. The University of Sydney began with four professors. I am informed by the very distinguished gentleman who is Chancellor of the University of Adelaide that the now great University of that city entered on its career, in rented premises, thirty-four years ago, with three chairs--classics, mathematics, and natural science. Now it has faculties of arts, science, law, medicine, electrical, mining, civil engineering, commerce, and music; and it has ranked, by letters patent, for the last twenty-eight years, with the old universities of the United Kingdom. The Adelaide University now has eleven professors and twenty-six lecturers. It supplies to us a splendid example of courage, of energy, and of perseverance, and that example we mean to follow. (Applause.) Our late start is not without some compensation, for not only are we able to profit from the experience of others, but, what is equally important, we can adapt our University courses to the needs of the country untrammelled by the vested interests and the threadbare traditions that make it so difficult for old universities to adapt themselves to the exigencies of modern educational requirements. If one thinks of Queensland as she was this day fifty years ago, and as she is to-day, it can be seen that he would be a bold man that would predict what faculties, what tuition, may be required, and may be given, in the Queensland University half a century from now. The moral to be drawn from this is, to make a start on an elastic plan that may admit of indefinite expansion. We require a broad and strong foundation, able to carry a great edifice, sufficient to provide the most comprehensive tuition, not only in what is known, but also to facilitate and encourage original research and invention, as set out in the Act. Even sport will not be forgotten, for it is an important consideration, in a non-residential university, to foster that feeling and regard for a bountiful mother that should animate the students of every great University. One thing is abundantly clear: that because we are determined to have a university equal to the needs of this great State, a university that shall stimulate those of the sister States, and because we start at so late a date, we must begin with the very best teachers that can be procured, the most learned and enthusiastic men in their several departments. On those men will in a large measure depend the future character and standing of our University. The best men will be the cheapest. Queensland can afford to employ them, and we know they will be a profitable investment. (Applause.) A university costs money, much money, especially in the technical departments, such as engineering, mining, and agriculture. The endowment of universities has been recognised in recent years as having such strong claims on public funds that they cannot be overlooked. That principle is accepted here. Our nearest neighbours have conferred valuable land areas on their universities; and they have been very liberal to them in money grants. In this respect the oldest of our Universities, that of Sydney, led the way with wisdom and a liberal hand, and to-day New South Wales reaps her reward. It may safely be assumed that the Parliament and Government of Queensland will be equally liberal and far-seeing. But the different Universities have in recent years profited in an extraordinary manner from the munificence of private citizens. In ten years the technical schools, colleges, and universities of the United States received in that way £23,000,000. Perhaps the largest amount of such gifts in any one year was in 1903, when they received £3,350,000. It appears that in 1907 nearly £300,000 was bequeathed to universities and colleges in the United Kingdom. It has become a common practice for private citizens to found a university chair to bear the name of a person whose memory it is desired to preserve and to honour. Others that are not in a position to do so much as that have very frequently established a bursary or scholarship, sometimes sufficiently large to maintain a student at the university, or to partly do so. The bursaries that produce the best results are those that are given by open competition. But others that are limited to a specified name or locality, according to the desire of the donors, are very useful. Some men of good will are not permitted by their means to do more than to found a prize for proficiency in some branch taught in the university. This State possesses an enormous area; the productions are varied in a very unusual degree, and they are of enormous value present and prospective; and there can be no reason to suppose that Queenslanders are to be less generous and patriotic towards their University than our neighbours have been towards theirs. I shall be satisfied if we have citizens here as generous as Russell in Sydney, as Ormond in Melbourne, and Elder and Hughes in Adelaide. I think that no more patriotic nor useful disposition of one's money could be made. We start under the best auspices, for we have before us now a most gracious message of congratulation and good wishes from His Majesty the King, whose life is devoted to the welfare of his subjects, and there are with us to-day representatives from the great Universities of Sydney and Adelaide. Each of these Universities has sent us a man of world-wide reputation. I know well what I am saying when I tell you that the names of Professors David and Stirling are as well known, and are as highly honoured, by the learned men and women of Europe and America as by the people of Australia. (Applause.) It is a great honour to us to have such representatives here to-day, and for their presence we owe hearty thanks to their respective Universities, and I bid them a hearty and appreciative welcome to Brisbane, for I feel sure that they and the Universities they represent will always extend to us sympathy, good advice, and an excellent example; and I am certain that they will be delighted to see us here in a position to offer them that healthful emulation that cannot but be advantageous to all concerned. I now, ladies and gentlemen, take the first practical step towards the founding of the University of Queensland by complying with the request of the Hon. William Kidston, Premier of the State, to assent to the University Bill of 1909; and I shall thereafter, in your presence, deliver this copy of the Act to the Hon. Joshua Thomas Bell, who will receive it on behalf of the people of Queensland; and, this done, I shall, by unveiling a commemorative tablet, dedicate this building to the purposes of the University of Queensland. (Loud applause.) [Illustration: HIS EXCELLENCY UNVEILING THE DEDICATION TABLET] HIS EXCELLENCY, having signed the University Bill, and assented to it on behalf of His Majesty the King, handed a copy to Mr. Bell, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, saying: It is with profound pleasure and great hope that I present this Act to you on behalf of the people of Queensland. (Applause.) HIS EXCELLENCY: I now proceed to unveil the commemorative tablet which dedicates this house to the University of Queensland. By pressing a button, His Excellency unveiled a tablet bearing the following inscription:-- DEDICATED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR, SIR WILLIAM MACGREGOR, G.C.M.G., ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE OF QUEENSLAND, ON 10TH DECEMBER, 1909, THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT IN QUEENSLAND. W. KIDSTON, CHIEF SECRETARY. The HON. J. T. BELL (_Speaker of the Legislative Assembly_) said: Your Excellency, Mr. Kidston, Your Grace, Ladies and Gentlemen,--If I may for a second, before uttering the few sentences I propose to do, mention a personal matter in regard to His Excellency, I should like to do it, and that is to express the consternation I felt at the announcement which His Excellency made that in his opinion all the speeches that are delivered upon this occasion should be of such a character that they may be perused with pleasure and with instruction by those who are celebrating the jubilee of this institution fifty years hence. May I say that I find it sufficiently difficult to cope with my contemporaries without having to make in addition provision for posterity? I listened to His Excellency's address with the greatest satisfaction, as everyone did who heard it, because it was felt to be a fitting deliverance for such an occasion as this. Whether now, or five years hence, or ten years hence, or when the jubilee of this institution is celebrated--as it will be celebrated--anyone who wants authoritative information concerning the present education systems of the world, of the Empire, and particularly of Australia and in regard to this University, can turn to His Excellency's deliverance with the knowledge that he can get all the information there. (Hear, hear.) I at least feel--and so does everyone who has any acquaintance with the fact--sympathy with the allusion which His Excellency made during his remarks to that body of men who are known as the University Extension Council. I do not know how far back their labours began--it was certainly more than ten years--but these men, free from any instinct of self-advertisement, and prompted only by influences that were unselfish, did their very best in our small community years ago, and year after year, to lay the foundations of a university. (Hear, hear.) I am of opinion, although these things are difficult to trace, that it was the labour of these men of the University Extension Council, and their influence upon the public and upon the men in public life, which really laid the foundations of this gathering, and caused the Government of the day to institute the University. I say all honour to those men, and I hope that their names will be perpetuated somewhere or other. (Hear, hear.) I should like to say that in dedicating this building to the purposes of a University, those of us who are Queenslanders born and bred, not of the first but even of the second generation, must feel some interest in the transformation that such an edifice undergoes. I can only hope that it will play its part as well as a University edifice as it did as a Government House. Ever since, I suppose, 1861 or 1862, it has been the home of Her Majesty's or His Majesty's representative in this State. It was the headquarters of the social and political life of the State, and it has, through its various inhabitants, performed its duties well. There is this to be said, that it has housed in the past men of the character that it will house in the future--men who possessed qualifications that equally adapted them to live in this building in the future, and within its new surroundings, as they were qualified to inhabit it in the past. Let us think for a moment of some of the men who have made this building historical. Let us think of Sir George Bowen, our first Governor, a man who, before he became private secretary to Mr. Gladstone, was the representative of the Crown in the Ionian Isles, was an Oxford don, a fellow of his college, and a man with an academic reputation. He came out here and lived with us, and in one way at least his classical impulses have left their impression on the community in the nomenclature of a number of creeks and hills in Southern Queensland. (Hear, hear.) Then we had Lord Lamington, a man of some academic pretensions; but, greatest of all from a university standpoint, we had Lord Chelmsford, a man who was an honour to his college, his university, and to the State which he governed. (Hear, hear.) He was one of the very few men in the public service of Great Britain who had ever come south of the line who were able to say they were fellows of All Souls--(applause)--which represents in university distinction what the V.C. means in the military field. (Applause.) He was a man of qualifications that we were proud to have in our Governor, and I know that when the proposal was made to him that this building which he inhabited should be converted into a university he was one of the first and most enthusiastic advocates of the proposal. (Applause.) Lastly, we come to the last occupant of the building, our present Governor, Sir William MacGregor, and no happier instance can be found of what a university education can do to produce an Empire builder and a stern man of the world than is to be found in the person of His Excellency. Whatever may be the class of inhabitants who are going to labour within these walls in the future, they have had forerunners of whom they have no reason to be ashamed. Just let me add a few sentences more. This building has some distinct advantages from a university point of view. The sole object of a university is not to instruct men to pass examinations; it has a wider sphere than that. There was a time--it existed through ages--when the conception of a university was an institution that turned out scholars. To-day, I venture to say, it has become recognised that the duty and the object of a university is the production of citizens. (Applause.) And you will not produce citizens merely by making them go to lectures and periodically answer questions in an examination. In the university life one of the chief and most valuable features is the comradeship, the common citizenship with the other members of the university, the participation in athletic sports, the _esprit de corps_ that comes from belonging to such an institution. And from that aspect I look with pleasure upon the Brisbane River, only a few yards away, where we shall find in the future, I hope, a university boat club, which club has always been a prominent feature of universities in Great Britain, as it is now becoming in Germany. And in connection with athletics, and especially aquatic athletics, you will find the students of this University will uphold the reputation of British students. (Applause.) I do not propose to speak at any greater length. I am convinced that after the liberal and, as far as we can see at the present time, adequate provision that has been made by the Government of the day for the management of this University, you will see men attending it who will make their mark upon the community. (Hear, hear.) I repeat that I hope that the test of the success of this University is not going to be purely a literary test, though let it be tested in that way too. I am convinced that those who look at the University from the broader standpoint feel confident that this University is not going to turn out merely scholars--merely men who can pass examinations--but is going to turn out men of the world, and is going to have a striking effect upon the tone of our citizenship. (Hear, hear.) I hope that not merely morals, but, in some degree at all events, manners, will be cultivated in this University; and we, a handful of people, who spend comparatively enormous sums every year on primary and secondary education, shall have additional reason to be proud when we see the effects of the University now inaugurating being spread throughout the land. (Applause.) I thank Your Excellency for dedicating this building to the purposes of a University, and I rejoice that we have a man of your character performing such a ceremony. (Applause.) THE HON. W. KIDSTON: I have here apologies from the Chancellors of the Universities of Melbourne and Tasmania, regretting their inability to be present with us to-day. One of the pleasing features of this celebration is the kindly and friendly way in which the Universities of sister States have received the advent of their younger sister, the University of Queensland. (Hear, hear.) But the Universities of Sydney and Adelaide have done more: they have sent Professor David and Professor Stirling respectively to say a few words to us on this occasion and to wish us Godspeed. I now ask Professor David to speak. (Applause.) PROFESSOR DAVID (_Sydney University_) said: Your Excellency, Mr. Kidston, Your Grace, and Ladies and Gentlemen,--It is a great honour for me, as representing the elder sister amongst the Universities of Australia, to bring a message of goodwill to our young University--the University of Queensland. (Applause.) It is under happy auspices that this young University is having this grand building, with such fine memories of the past, dedicated to its uses. We have in our present representative of His Majesty a gentleman of ripe scholarship and learning, one who has been throughout his whole life, as he is now and as he long will be too, a great power for good, a great power for all that is uplifting and ennobling to the British Empire--Sir William MacGregor. (Applause.) We have, too, this dedication ceremony performed in the presence of a representative of the Government who has shown that he has the greatest possible grip of all that is needed to make a university such as this young University a People's University; one, too, who has at heart, I know, the good and prosperity of his country--the Honourable the Premier, Mr. Kidston. (Applause.) The present Ministry, with great foresight, have resolved to make this University not merely a University of Brisbane, but the University of Queensland. (Hear, hear.) And it seems to me, as one who has studied university matters for some years in the past, that it is an act of great wisdom on the part of those who have controlled the inception of this movement that they have decided to associate here together the Technical College and the University. (Applause.) I feel sure that the association will make for the good of both these institutions, which never should be divorced from one another, and between which there should be nothing more than friendly rivalry, and always an interchange of courtesy, of hospitality, and of confidence. (Applause.) Another point, and a very important one, which I was delighted to hear from the lips of Mr. Kidston, is that this University is to be able to appeal to the farthest boundaries of this great State, by virtue of these sixty splendid scholarships which the Government have decided to endow--(applause)--that will bring in many boys and girls who otherwise, through remoteness or want of means, would have been unable to avail themselves of this University education. Thus I am sure that, although this University will start, no doubt, with but a small number of students, even amongst the small group of students who may come first to this University the nation will reap no less rich reward than did the University of Sydney when it started with a mere handful of students. That University celebrated its Jubilee only in 1902, and amongst its first handful of students was no less a man than he who was the honoured Chancellor of our University, Sir William Windeyer; than he who did so much not only for New South Wales but Australian science, our late Government Astronomer, Mr. H. C. Russell; than he who is now an ornament to the Bar, an honour to his University, and a great honour to this State and to the whole of this Commonwealth, Sir Samuel Griffith. (Applause.) Certainly it will not be for want of plenty of good material that this University will not flourish, for we in Sydney know of what splendid materials your grammar schools, both for boys and girls, are made, as well as many of your other schools. We know it right well in Sydney, for there, many a time and oft, your boys and girls take prizes over the heads of our own. (Applause.) Then a word in conclusion, and that is this, Your Excellency, and ladies and gentlemen: That, just as in medieval times when the universities were started, Feudalism, which made for isolation and all that was selfish, was broken down chiefly by the University influence, which gathered the people and drew them together in that great bond of brotherhood and learning, so in these troublous times, when class is ranged against class, and when Labour is pitted against Capital, surely we need the levelling influence of a University--not an influence to level down but an influence to level up in a noble, common brotherhood. (Applause.) We need universities as well as we need "Dreadnoughts" and Kitcheners--as we do need them to keep our country foremost in the arts, not only of war--even in war a university may do much; we have a Director of Military Studies at our University at Sydney, and I trust you will have one here--but to keep us foremost in the arts of peace. In the matter of the foundation of the universities of the Old World, you will remember that it was through the Crusaders that those universities were founded. It was the fiery zeal for Faith that started those universities. The Crusaders were brought into contact with the learning of the Eastern World, and so Learning and Faith were brought together in the foundations of those old Universities of Paris and Oxford. Sometimes Learning only flourished: sometimes only Faith: sometimes Reverence only, sometimes Faith. May it be our fervent prayer that in this noble hall both Reverence and Learning shall for ever dwell together in sweet harmony. (Applause.) As representing the older sister University of Sydney, from the bottom of my heart I wish to our young sister University on this historic occasion all goodwill--a message of goodwill, a message of Godspeed. (Applause.) PROFESSOR STIRLING (_Adelaide University_) said: Your Excellency, Mr. Premier, and Ladies and Gentlemen,--My first duty is to present to the Government of Queensland, on behalf of the University of Adelaide, its very cordial thanks for the invitation so courteously extended to it that it should be represented on an occasion which will assuredly be a memorable episode in the annals of this great and prospering State. And in this connection I am desired by our Chancellor, Sir Samuel Way, to convey to this gathering his great regret that his judicial duties, now of a very exacting kind, have prevented his acceptance of the invitation extended to him in the first place as our chief official, and of doing honour to the event that is being celebrated. My second and principal duty is to offer the cordial congratulations of the University I represent to the Government of Queensland, and through it to its whole people, that now at last, after many years, the keystone is being placed upon the arch of the educational edifice of this State. (Hear, hear, and applause.) I have had the honour of being connected with the University of Adelaide ever since its foundation, now thirty-four years ago. I can well remember its early struggles, its efforts to take a fitting place in our national life, and I am glad to have lived long enough to see many of its aspirations fulfilled--(hear, hear)--aspirations that have been fulfilled in spite of what has not always been a very whole-hearted support either on the parts of successive Governments or of the people for whose benefit it was intended. But I think it is now well recognised that the University is playing a useful and essential part in the intellectual life of the community, and that any arrest to its progress would be nothing short of national disaster. These recollections of our early struggles lead me to say that it will now be very interesting to us, as onlookers, to see whether this last-born of the great educational centres of Australia--founded as it has been by a Government that claims to be at least as democratic as the Governments of its sister States--will escape the criticisms, sometimes quite undeserved, that have at one time or another been directed, certainly against my own University, and, as I think I may say also, against its sister institutions. Then, too, in the adjustment of the work of the University there will no doubt recur the perennial discussion--indeed it has already been initiated to-day by His Excellency--as to the relative importance in an educational system of culture as opposed to material science. I am glad that I am not called upon to enter into that question to-day. But, speaking now from a point of view which concerns literature no less than science, I may be permitted to say that it is gratifying to hear the announcement of the Honourable the Premier that the claims of original research will be brought within the scope of the institution which takes its origin to-day. (Applause.) Surely it is a desirable, even a necessary, function of the chief seat of learning of a State that its professors and teachers should not only teach that which is known, but that they should themselves be contributors to the sum of human knowledge. There can be no doubt that the prestige of a university depends far more upon the extent to which its teachers are known as originators of knowledge than upon their daily routine lectures, however honestly or however ably these may be delivered. [Illustration: LADY MacGREGOR PLANTING THE UNIVERSITY TREE] Every professor worthy the name will admit that the burden of teaching, unrelieved and uninspired by the stimulus of independent work and thought, may indeed become destructive of the intellectual energies. This infant University, launched as it is upon its career with the goodwill of a prudent Government and with, I believe, to an unusual degree the good wishes and support of the people, has the great advantage that it may profit by the example of the institutions that have preceded it; and fortunate will be the University of Queensland if, by adopting the good that may be discerned in its sister institutions, and by avoiding their mistakes, if such have been made, it shall enter upon and pursue a blameless career of which all men shall speak well. Even in their relatively short careers, as time goes for States and institutions, it can be perceived that the Australian Universities have to some extent developed individualities of their own, and this is just what is to be desired. A Minister of France under the Third Empire once made it his boast that on the same day and at the same hour every corresponding class in every Lycee throughout the length and breadth of the land was performing the same allotted task. That boast bespoke an undesirable uniformity which is not likely to find favour in British communities, least of all in these States, where we have become accustomed to strike out new lines in education for ourselves. Therefore, it is to be desired that the University of Queensland will in its turn, evolve an individuality of its own, that it will be inspired by the particular requirements of the State whose interests it serves; and, further, may I express the hope that the fact will become recognised, which has not easily gained recognition in the Australian communities--namely, that a well-founded and well-equipped university may be one of the best assets, material as well as intellectual, that can be possessed by any State or Nation. Your Excellency, I have been ordered to be brief in my remarks, and, interesting as are many of the thoughts that arise on such an exceptional occasion, I must conclude by expressing once more, on behalf of the University I have the honour to represent, and with all earnestness and sincerity, our fervent hope that this University of Queensland, so auspiciously inaugurated, will prosper to the uttermost, and that it will grow in usefulness and dignity as it grows in years, and that at length it will stand forth as a noble monument to the great State whose far-seeing Government and whose public-spirited citizens have this day launched it on its career of promise. (Applause.) THE HON. W. KIDSTON: I have now to invite Her Excellency, Lady MacGregor, to plant a "University tree," which I hope will grow and flourish as we expect the University to do, and that in the years to come, when many who are here to-day have passed away, the tree will be known as "Lady MacGregor's tree." On a spot in front of the dais, Her Excellency planted a tree with a silver trowel on which was inscribed: "To Lady MacGregor, from the Chief Secretary of Queensland, Hon. W. Kidston, 10th December, 1909." Lady MacGregor then declared the tree well and truly planted. BRISBANE: ANTHONY JAMES CUMMING, GOVERNMENT PRINTER. 1909. * * * * * Transcriber's Note: Missing or damaged punctuation has been repaired. The mid-dot, usual for the period, was used for decimals, and where used, has been retained. L.s., _locus sigilli_ ( = the place of the seal). Part of the text of Map 8 was on the next page after 2 pages of maps, and has been moved to join the beginning of the map 8 text, for better flow. The Barwan River, described in the Proclamation in the Government Gazette, and under Queensland (Map 9) is now known as the Barwon River. Illustrations (photographs) through the book appear facing every 4th or 8th page. Where a photograph intersects a paragraph of text, it has been moved to the end of the paragraph. Page 27: 'freetrade' corrected to 'free trade' "... the enhanced prosperity resulting from interstate free trade." Page 69: 'arrear', archaic, but probably correct in 1909. "... unoccupied land might be leased for fourteen years by a council when rates had been permitted to fall into arrear for a term of four years." (Webster's Dictionary, 1913 Edition). Page 207: Mining: 1872: Gold raised in Queensland: £537,365. The first '3' could be '2'. The scan is smudged and unclear. Page 229: 'Mount Cornish, No. 3'. The '3' may be a '5'. The scan is unclear, even at different magnifications. Page 237: Brisbane, mean summer temperature, '76.0' could be '73.0' or '75.0'. This is a 'best guess'; the scan is smudged and unclear, and part of the number is missing. '76.0' has been selected after a careful comparison of the '6' with nearby numbers. 76.0°F is also closest to the current Brisbane mean summer temperature of 24.8°C, or 76.6°F, and in the same chart, the current Brisbane mean winter temperature of 15.6°C, or 60°F is the same as that given in this 1909 book (60°F). Page 243: 'acessible' corrected to 'accessible'. "... by which it was to be made accessible to all our young people without regard to...." 
38649	----	EARLY DAYS IN NORTH QUEENSLAND [Illustration: (Signature: Edw^d. Palmer.) _From photo, by "Tosca," Brisbane._] EARLY DAYS IN NORTH QUEENSLAND BY THE LATE EDWARD PALMER SYDNEY ANGUS & ROBERTSON MELBOURNE: ANGUS, ROBERTSON & SHENSTONE 1903 TO THE NORTH-WEST. _I know the land of the far, far away, Where the salt bush glistens in silver-grey; Where the emu stalks with her striped brood, Searching the plains for her daily food. I know the land of the far, far west, Where the bower-bird builds her playhouse nest; Where the dusky savage from day to day, Hunts with his tribe in their old wild way. 'Tis a land of vastness and solitude deep, Where the dry hot winds their revels keep; The land of mirage that cheats the eye, The land of cloudless and burning sky. 'Tis a land of drought and pastures grey, Where flock-pigeons rise in vast array; Where the "nardoo" spreads its silvery sheen Over the plains where the floods have been. 'Tis a land of gidya and dark boree, Extended o'er plains like an inland sea, Boundless and vast, where the wild winds pass, O'er the long rollers and billows of grass. I made my home in that thirsty land, Where rivers for water are filled with sand; Where glare and heat and storms sweep by, Where the prairie rolls to the western sky._ _Cloncurry, 1897._ --"_Loranthus_." _W. C. Penfold & Co., Printers, Sydney._ PREFACE. The writer came to Queensland two years before separation, and shortly afterwards took part in the work of outside settlement, or pioneering, looking for new country to settle on with stock. Going from Bowen out west towards the head of the Flinders River in 1864, he continued his connection with this outside life until his death in 1899. Many of the original explorers and pioneers were known to him personally; of these but few remain. This little work is merely a statement of facts and incidents connected with the work of frontier life, and the progress of pastoral occupation in the early days. It lays no claim to any literary style. Whatever faults are found in it, the indulgence usually accorded to a novice is requested. It has been a pleasant task collecting the information from many of the early settlers in order to place on record a few of the names and incidents connected with the foundation of the pastoral industry in the far north, an industry which was the forerunner of all other settlement there, and still is the main source of the State's export trade. NOTE BY MR. G. PHILLIPS, C.E. The author of this book, the late Edward Palmer, was himself one of that brave band of pioneer squatters who in the early sixties swept across North Queensland with their flocks and herds, settling, as if by magic, great tracts of hitherto unoccupied country, and thereby opening several new ports on the east coast and on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, to the commerce of the world. In writing of these stirring times in the history of Queensland, Mr. Palmer has dealt with a subject for which he was peculiarly qualified as an active participant therein. Very few of those energetic and indomitable men are now left--veritable giants they were--great because they attempted great things, and though few of them achieved financial success for themselves individually, they added by their self-denying labours a rich province to Queensland, which has become the home of thousands, and will yet furnish homes for ten of thousands under conditions of settlement and occupation adapted to the physical and climatic characteristics of North Queensland. Mr. Palmer was a native of Wollongong, in New South Wales, and came to Queensland in 1857. He took up and formed his well-known station, Conobie, on the western bank of the Cloncurry River, situated about midway between Normanton and Cloncurry, in 1864, first with sheep, but subsequently, like most of the Gulf squatters, he substituted cattle therefor, which by the year 1893 had grown into a magnificent herd. Mr. Palmer also took part in the political life of Queensland, representing his district, then known as the Burke, but afterwards as Carpentaria, until the general election of 1893, when he retired in favour of Mr. G. Phillips, C.E., who held the seat for three years. In the financial crisis of 1893 and subsequent years when the value of cattle stations in North Queensland owing to the ravages of ticks and the want of extraneous markets, gradually dwindled almost to the vanishing point, Mr. Palmer was a great sufferer, and he was compelled to leave his old home at Conobie, which was bound to him by every tie dear to the human breast, and most dear to the man who had carved that home out of the wilderness by sheer courage and indomitable endurance. Mr. Palmer's constitution, originally a very good one, was undermined partly by a long life of exposure and hardship under a tropical sun, but chiefly owing to the misfortunes which latterly overtook him, and after a few years of service under the State in connection with the tick plague, he died in harness at Rockhampton on the 4th day of May, 1899. Edward Palmer was essentially a lovable man, kind-hearted and genial, a great lover of Nature, as his poems prove, a true comrade, and a right loyal citizen of Queensland, which he loved so well, and which, in the truest sense of the word, he helped to found. GEO. PHILLIPS. Brisbane, February 12, 1903. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I--INTRODUCTORY 1 " II--THE NAVIGATORS 21 " III--INLAND EXPLORATION 32 " IV--EXPLORERS IN NORTH QUEENSLAND 61 " V--PIONEERING WORK IN QUEENSLAND 85 " VI--THE SPREAD OF PASTORAL OCCUPATION 110 " VII--THE RISE OF THE NORTHERN TOWNS 144 " VIII--THE MINERAL WEALTH 168 " IX--INCIDENTS OF THE EARLY DAYS 177 " X--THE MEN OF THE NORTH 185 " XI--ABORIGINALS OF NORTH QUEENSLAND 208 " XII--PHYSICAL FEATURES 226 " XIII--SOME LITERARY REMAINS 260 CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTORY. The pioneers of Australian civilisation in the territory known as North Queensland have mostly passed away; they were too busy with other activities and interests and more absorbing local topics to make notes of the days that are gone. A record of the work they did, and their march of progress through the unknown land, was a matter that no one recognised as of any importance to themselves or others. "The daily round and common task" took up most of their time, and sufficient for the day was the work thereof. If one (however unqualified) should record a few of those early steps of settlement, and thus help to preserve the remembrance of events connected with the occupation of a prosperous country, the facts would remain, and be available for those more competent to utilise them in other ways and for other purposes. It is well that some one should do it, and one who has experienced the vicissitudes of Northern pioneer life, with its calls on active endurance and its ceaseless worries would not be altogether unfit to note the progress of a great movement, or to place on record some of those events that helped to make up the early life of Queensland, however unqualified the writer might be, in a literary sense. A pioneer is one who prepares the path for others to follow, one who first leads the way. The life of the pioneer in the early days of Northern settlement, from want of ready communication with seaports, and the lack of means of obtaining supplies, was one that called out all the energy, resource, and bushmanship of those who had been trained to this life, and who had pushed far in the van of civilisation to make a living for themselves, and open the way for others who might follow. Though the whole country is fitted for settlement and occupation by European races, such fitness had to be demonstrated by the residence and work of the pioneers, some of whom did good service in the way of exploration and discovery. By living their lives in the far outside districts and making their homes therein, they proved the adaptability of the soil and climate to the wants and civilisation of the European. That there were more shadows than lights in those early days was not so much the fault of the settlers as of their surroundings, but the best was made of all circumstances, and the result is satisfactory. Very few of the pioneers made wealth for themselves, though they helped to convert the wilderness into prospective homes for millions of their own race. The story of North Queensland's childhood is simply one of gradual discovery and advancing settlement from the Southern districts, where the same severe course of wresting the land from uselessness and sterility had been gone through. The source of this movement may be traced chiefly to a desire for pastoral extension by squatters, always on the move for new pastures, and to the ever roving prospector in search of fresh mineral discoveries. First the navigator outlines the coast with its bays and islands and openings for ports; such were Cook, Flinders, Stokes, and others. Then the explorer appears on the scene, and discovers its rivers and facilities for establishing the occupation of the country, and maps out its capabilities. Such were Leichhardt, Mitchell, Gregory, Landsborough, and many others. Thus the way is opened up for the pioneer squatter with his flocks and herds and the attendant business of forming roads and opening ports for his requirements, holding his own against many odds, droughts, floods, outrages by blacks, fevers that follow the opening up of all new countries, and losses peculiar to life in the wilderness. Following the pioneer (or Crown lessee, as he is called) in course of time comes a closer settlement, when the large runs become divided, and the selector or farmer holds the country under a more permanent tenure. Cultivation follows, whilst families reside where the pioneer squatter strove with nature in a long struggle many years before. The development of North Queensland has taken place since separation from New South Wales; the period of a single generation covers the time that it has taken to settle this large extent of country. The continuous discovery of natural wealth, the progress of settlement, the healthy growth of the great industries, the establishment of a system of oversea, coastal, and inland communications, the creation of great cities, the founding of social and educational institutions, in fact all that makes the colony of to-day, with its potentialities of industrial wealth and expansive settlement, have been covered by the span of a single life. In 1824, Lieutenant Oxley discovered and explored the Brisbane River. Redcliffe, so named a quarter of a century before by Flinders, but now generally known as "Humpy Bong," was the original site selected for the first settlement on the shores of Moreton Bay. Some convicts had been forwarded there from Sydney to form the settlement, but owing to attacks by blacks and the unsuitability of site, it was removed to the present one of Brisbane. Up to 1839, the dismal cloud of convictism was over this fair land before it was thrown open to free settlers. Over 12 degrees of latitude, and as many of longitude, through a country previously unknown and untested as to climate and soil, the course of advancing occupation went on unchecked, until the land was filled with the outposts of civilisation, and the potentialities of the colony were ascertained. Great indeed are the conquests of peace; much greater than those of war; more beneficial and more permanent. The first sale of Brisbane lands took place in Sydney in 1841, and next year a sale was held in Brisbane; the third took place in 1843, and there was not enough land surveyed to meet the demand, so small was Brisbane in those early days. The upset price was £100 per acre, although much more was realised for some lots. Even at those prices, many buyers suffered a loss, for a commercial crisis occurred shortly afterwards, and much of the property was forfeited, or resold at much lower prices. For the year 1843, the exports consisted of 150 tierces of beef, 450 hides, 1,998 bales of wool, 3,458 sheepskins, and 3,418 feet of pine timber. The foundations of trade, so modest at the start, have developed in one lifetime to a nation's wealth. In 1844, in the territory then forming the colony, there were 650 horses, 13,000 cattle, 184,000 sheep, and scarcely more than 1,500 of a population, one half of whom were domiciled in North and South Brisbane. At the present day, the products of the live stock of the State furnishes employment for thousands, and forms a volume of trade that employs the finest lines of steamers sailing in the Southern Seas. It is needless to dwell on the history of the dark days of bondage and weakly infancy, which has little to do with the early days of settlement in North Queensland, except to show the starting point. The North is free from the stain and drag of convictism. The real life of the colony began with the first days of free settlers, then immigrants poured in rapidly, and the occupation of the interior advanced. With this strong growth of material progress, came also the desire for self-government, and separation from New South Wales. This, however, was not obtained without much exertion, self-sacrifice, and display of patriotic energy. The history of the separation movement is long, extending over many years, but it was finally consummated on 10th December, 1859, when Sir George Ferguson Bowen was sworn in as the first Governor of Queensland. The boundary line of the new colony commenced at Point Danger, near the 28th parallel of south latitude and ran westward, leaving the rich districts watered by the Clarence and Richmond rivers, although much nearer to Brisbane than to Sydney, still belonging to New South Wales. After separation and self-government, came the commencement, in 1865, of the railway from Ipswich towards the interior. The discovery of gold at Gympie, near Maryborough, in 1867, and the rapid extension of the ever-spreading pastoral industry, laid the foundation of national life in Queensland. From this solid basis, the settlement of North Queensland commenced in earnest, with a more rapid extension than had been seen in any other part of Australia. Telegraphic communication was established between Brisbane and Sydney on November 9th, 1861, and its inauguration had a marked effect on local affairs. The immigration induced by Mr. Henry Jordan was an important factor in the settling of people on the land in the early days of Queensland. In 1869, Townsville was connected by wire with Brisbane, and in 1872 the line was extended to the mouth of the Norman River at Kimberly, now known as "Karumba," the intention being that the first cable to connect Australia with Europe should be landed at the mouth of the Norman River, but, for reasons which have never been made public, South Australia was allowed to step in and reap the advantages which should have belonged to Queensland, although we carried out our share of the work by constructing, at great expense, a special land line across the base of the Cape York Peninsula, from Cardwell, across the Sea View Range, to Normanton and Kimberly at the mouth of the river. The last service rendered by Walker, the explorer, was in connection with the selection of the route of the telegraph line from Cardwell to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Mr. Walker's second in command was a fine young man of the name of Herbert Edward Young, who was subsequently telegraph master in Townsville in the year 1871. Mr. Young received an injury in the service which eventually resulted in his untimely death very shortly after his marriage. Australia was connected with Europe by cable in 1872. Queensland thus starting on its career so hopefully was nevertheless subject to periods of depression, booms, and crises, prosperity and hard times alternated. And then came the "salvation by gold." The discovery of gold came as a hope and help to all, as it came to the North a few years later. It helped to find markets for stock of all kinds and employment for thousands, and also to extend the settlement of the land and open up commerce with other countries, introducing immigrants or diggers, many of whom remained and settled in the country. But the young country had to be opened up and some degree of settlement established before mining for gold could be carried on. In all parts of Queensland, pastoral settlement has preceded all others, including mining. Though the squatter is now, in the more settled districts, becoming a thing of the past, his work being finished and his day gone by, at the first enterprise, bush knowledge and a practical life were the most potent factors in making known the possibilities of the land of Queensland. The name "squatter" was given in the early days to the pastoral tenants of the Crown, who rented pasture lands in their natural state. The first pastoral occupation took place about 1840, and this may be said to have commenced the life history of the movement that made Queensland known to the world. Large areas were occupied on the banks of rivers and creeks where the splendid and nutritive indigenous grasses required no further cultivation. All that the squatters did was to turn their stock loose on them and exercise some care to prevent them from straying, or being killed and scattered by the blacks. No country was ever endowed by Nature with a more permanent, healthy, and beneficial pasturage than Australia, though heavy stocking and hot dry seasons have somewhat diminished the value of this natural wealth in some of the earlier settled districts. The chief source of employment in the Colony of Queensland, and the leading export, is still derived from the stock depastured on the native grasses that were found when the State was first explored. A company or syndicate was formed in February, 1859, for the purpose of establishing a new pastoral settlement in North Australia. The project was conceived in consequence of the reports of explorers who had passed through much of the country to be operated on. These reports were from the journals of Sir Thomas Mitchell, Dr. Leichhardt, A. C. Gregory, the Rev. W. B. Clarke, and others. The prospectus was of a most ambitious and comprehensive nature, and it showed an intention to overcome, or make light of, all obstacles, and to march straight on to glory and wealth, as well as to start a young nation on its prosperous career. The area of the proposed new settlement was comprised within the 22nd parallel of S. latitude, the 137th degree of east longitude on the west, and on the north and east by the ocean, practically including what is now known as North Queensland. The report of the Rev. W. B. Clarke, which was favourable to the probability of auriferous country being discovered, and of rich deposits of gold being met with on the northern rivers, was a great factor in promoting the project of founding a settlement which was to establish a thriving and industrious European and Oriental mercantile and planting community. The immediate design was to commence a detailed exploration of the country reported on by Dr. Leichhardt. The prospectus dwelt on the advantages of thoroughly exploring the rivers and country and making known the capabilities of the soil and climate to the capitalists of Australia as a field for investment. The programme mapped out was:--To proceed from Rockhampton direct to Leichhardt's camp in the bed of the Burdekin River at Mount McConnel. To trace the Burdekin down to the sea in canoes, taking soundings to establish its navigable capabilities; to fix its mouth and its qualifications as a seaport. To fix the probable head of navigation, and a favourable site for a goods depôt there. To return to Mount McConnel; thence to explore the lower Suttor, lower Cape, and Burdekin Valley as far as the Valley of Lagoons, ascending the river by its western, and returning by its eastern bank; to fix the most favourable position as near as possible to water carriage for the first establishment of pastoral stations, and to trace the most accessible route from the latter to the former. To return to the settled districts by a different route, viz.: to trace up the Cape or Belyando River to its head in latitude 24 degrees, to cross the great watershed, and to drop down upon the Maranoa, which was to be followed to about latitude 26 degrees, where the course was to be left and a route made down the River Culgoa, arriving in the settled districts by the lower Condamine. By adopting this route, the whole frontier, from the Valley of Lagoons to Gregory's last track down the Victoria (or Barcoo) would be explored; thus, without additional outlay, deciding whether Leichhardt pushed westward by the Victoria according to Gregory, or what is more probable, from some point upon the Belyando or Burdekin, according to the Rev. W. B. Clarke. The person in charge of the party was to prepare a full report upon the country traversed, while the surveyor of the party was to draw out a chart of the region explored, copies of the report and chart to be furnished to each of the subscribers, who would then be in a position individually or collectively to take measures for tendering for and occupying the country, by sending their stock overland, and their stores, etc., by water to the depôt at the head of navigation. The cost of the exploration was estimated at about £1,000, to meet which it was proposed to raise that sum by subscription; unless that amount were subscribed, the expedition to be abandoned. The leader proposed was George Elphinstone Dalrymple. The names of the subscribers of £50 each were:--Captain J. C. Wickham, R.N., Messrs. J. C. White, John Douglas, Gilbert Davidson, P. N. Selheim, A. D. Broughton, George Perry, W. A. Simpson, Ernest Henry, A. H. Palmer, Garland and Bingham, J. B. Rundle, Joseph Sharp, D. McDougal, Raymond and Co., R. Towns and Co., Griffith, Fanning and Co., How, Walker and Co., Dennison and Rolleston, F. Bundock, Edwd. Ogilvie, R. G. Watt, and J. R. Radfort. It was intended that a committee of these subscribers should be at once formed in Sydney. The reasons given for the projection of a party with such a comprehensive and magnificent scheme before it were: 1st--Because the supply of butchers' meat was even then unequal to the demand, and the latter increased more rapidly than the former. 2nd--Because the demand for sheep stations as an investment for capital was far beyond the capabilities of the settled districts; and the capital available for speculation in Melbourne in particular, was seeking new fields for employment. 3rd--Because the number of small or moderate capitalists who annually immigrate with a view to pastoral pursuits could find no field of operations within the settled districts, had to push northwards, and in a short time would occupy all available country within practicable distance of the most remote existing, or contemplated ports of shipment--Port Curtis and Broad Sound. It was anticipated that other ports equal to Moreton Bay, with its highly-favoured back-ground, Darling Downs, would be opened up by exploration. The character of the country reported on by Dr. Leichhardt, intersected as it was by some very interesting rivers, such as the Suttor, Burdekin, Mitchell, and Lynd, warranted such a favourable conclusion. The tablelands were high, and possessed of a cool and healthy climate; the soil on the banks of the rivers was of a rich nature, suitable for agriculture; the pasturage was unequalled for stock of all kinds; and the mineral prospects were favourable towards the settlement of a mining community. All this undeveloped natural wealth lay at the disposal of any who might enter and bring it under the magic influence of capital and enterprise. In their wildest moments of enthusiasm, none of those enterprising colonists could have foreseen what a few years would bring forth. None could have expected to see in the short space of less than thirty years that, where the mangrove then fringed the shore, jetties and harbours would be built, and that great ocean-going steamers and vessels from all parts of the world would be found discharging valuable cargoes collected from many lands; that great cities would arise adjacent to these harbours, that land would be sold by the foot at high prices; that these thriving towns would be the termini of many railways reaching far away into that unknown interior which they were so anxious to explore, bringing in the natural products of the soil valued at many millions of pounds annually for shipment to the markets of the world, or that the mining prospects so modestly alluded to in their prospectus would be developed to such an extent as to produce hundreds of tons weight of gold. These men were the pioneers of a new colony; they looked out over the wilderness extending northwards to the Indian Ocean, and laid their plans to conquer and subdue it to the wants of civilised man. The promoters of this pioneering enterprise anticipated the probability of the deep indentation of the Gulf of Carpentaria enabling direct oceanic communication with the Western world, as well as with India and China, to be established, and that the projected telegraphic connection with Europe by way of Timor and Java might be extended by way of the level bed of the Gulf, and along the valley of the Lynd and Burdekin Rivers into the territory of Moreton Bay, thus bringing North Queensland and Brisbane nearer to the marts of the world than any of the sister colonies. The progress of civilisation has brought all this to pass within the memory of those now living. Our Queensland land policy is a legacy of the old days of New South Wales, where the first attempt to confer a right to property in land was by way of grant. It dates from the time of Governor Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales; these grants were made to any free immigrants on certain conditions. The system of tenure by occupation began about 1825, and was the origin of the squatting system; the production of fine merino wool gave a great impetus to the occupation of the waste lands. The licenses were annual, the rate of charge rested with the Governor, and they were renewable and transferable. But much dissatisfaction arose with the administration by the Crown Lands Commissioners who had the disposal of all disputes connected with the new system. Hence an agitation was set up for a redress of grievances, and this led to the passing of the 9th and 10th Victoria c. 104--28th August, 1846. In this act power was granted to the Crown to lease for any term of years not exceeding fourteen, to any person, any waste lands, etc., or license to occupy; such lease or license to be subject to the regulations thereafter mentioned. On the 9th of March, 1847, the celebrated orders in Council, framed under the authority of this act, were issued. The lands in the Colony of New South Wales were divided into three classes, "settled," "intermediate," and "unsettled." As respects Queensland, the settled districts were confined to very limited areas within ten miles of the town of Ipswich, and within three miles of any part of the sea coast. All the rest of the territory now comprised in the boundaries of the State was left in the unsettled districts; but power was given to the Governor to proclaim any portion as within the intermediate districts when necessary. The lease gave the right to purchase part of the land within the lease to the lessee and to him only; other acts dealing with the sale of land had been passed, and land had been alienated under them; but the leases and regulations under the orders in Council forbade the sale of any waste land to anyone except the lessee. When a run was forfeited, tenders might be given, stating the term of years for which the tenderer was willing to take it, the rent he would give in addition to the minimum fixed by the act, and the amount of premium he would pay. In the event of competition, the run was to be knocked down to the highest bidder. Where new runs were tendered for, the tenderer was to set forth in his tender a clear description of the run and its boundaries, and also whether he was willing to give any premium beyond the rent. The rent was to be proportioned to the number of sheep or equivalent number of cattle which the run was estimated to be capable of carrying according to a scale to be established by the Governor; but no run was to be capable of carrying less than 4,000 sheep, or to be let for less than £10 per annum, to which £2 10s. was added for every additional 1,000 sheep. The estimated number of sheep or cattle was decided by a valuator named by the intended lessee and approved by the Commissioner of Crown Lands, who, with an umpire chosen by the two, acted as a small court of arbitration. The scheme was fitted in its simplicity to encourage exploration on the largest possible scale. Proclamations issued by the Government of New South Wales to give further effect to the "orders," authorised an assessment on stock pastured beyond the settled districts, which was levied at the rate of a halfpenny for each sheep, three halfpence for every head of cattle, and threepence for every horse; and returns were directed to be made by every pastoral lessee under severe penalties. Under these several acts and orders, the Executive and the squatters came into collision, and disputes arose as to the meaning of many clauses in the various Land Acts; but no material alteration had been made at the time when Queensland was separated from New South Wales, although the Constitution Act of New South Wales, July, 1855, vested in the local legislature the entire management and control of the waste lands of the colony. In 1859, when the Colony of Queensland was separated from New South Wales, the pastoral interest was in the ascendant, and this is considered to have been made evident by the first land legislation of the new colony. The first consideration of the new Government was legislation for leasing and selling the land. A very large number of tenders for Crown Lands had been accepted by the New South Wales Government, or had been applied for and were in abeyance, and until a decision was given on these applications, the land was lying idle and waste. One-fourth of the entire unoccupied territory had been applied for, the result of the energy of pioneering pastoralists, and the prospects opening up for new pastoral settlements. The first bill presented to the new Parliament on 11th July, 1860, was introduced by the Colonial Treasurer, an old squatter, Mr.--afterwards Sir R. R.--Mackenzie. Some of the provisions of the old orders in Council were followed; they accepted the unsettled districts as declared in them. The intermediate were abolished. Applications for licenses for a year were to be accompanied by a clear description of runs, to be not less than 25 nor more than 100 square miles, with a fee of 10s. per square mile. These entitled the lessee to a lease of 14 years. The land to be stocked at the time of application to be one-fourth of its grazing capabilities. This was fixed by the act at 100 sheep or 20 head of cattle to the square mile; the rent to be appraised after four years for the second and third remaining periods of five years each, at the commencement of each period. As to the runs tendered for and still unstocked, the provisions were extended, but lessees were compelled to stock their land to one-fourth of the extent fixed by the act. The tide of speculation in unoccupied land was stayed, there arose a great demand for stock of all kinds, and those pastoralists in the south, who had flocks and herds to dispose of, realised great prices. Afterwards the colony passed through some troublesome years, and a Relief Act was required; and as a vast area of the young colony had still to be occupied, encouragement was held out to settlers to take up runs. The Pastoral Leases Act of 1869, gave another impetus to the settlement of outside districts, and acted as a relief to many who had taken up runs under the previous acts. The new leases were to be for a term of 21 years, and the new Act also dealt with leases under existing acts. Where new country was applied for, a license had to be taken out, and a declaration made that the country was stocked to one-fourth of its grazing capabilities, the rent being 5s. per square mile for the first 7 years; 10s. for the second term, and 15s. for the third term. Every succeeding Government tried a new Land Bill, some dealing with selection, land orders to new arrivals being part of the system; but the tendency of all succeeding land legislation down to the present day has been to allow more liberal terms to the prospective selector. The conditions were made so restrictive in the first days as to lead one to conclude that land selection was almost a crime; whereas the genuine selector in remote districts has enough to contend with in opening his land for some kind of cultivation and facing the seasons, etc., without being forced to make improvements he will not require. The grazing selector is a coming power in the land; a grade between the old squatter and the small selector. The discovery of artesian water will be a factor of the utmost importance to him as tending to assure his position from loss by drought. The grazing selector is spreading over the interior rapidly; and before the expiration of the leases now in existence, more land legislation is sure to be introduced to liberalise the terms and initiate a system for obtaining the freehold of parts of these large grazing farms. The history of our land laws shows them to have been simply experimental at every stage, hence the need for repeated alterations. It would have been a good thing for Queensland, I might say for Australia, if a similar policy to that of the United States of America had been followed, namely the throwing open of the public estate on the most liberal terms and the encouragement of private enterprise in railways. CHAPTER II. THE NAVIGATORS. According to historical record, the first part of Australia discovered by Europeans, was the northern part of Queensland, and it also bears the mournful distinction of being the first scene of their death at the hands of the natives. Nearly three hundred years ago, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, a boat's crew belonging to the "Duyfken," one of the early Dutch vessels exploring there, was cut off and killed. The knowledge of the country obtained in those days produced no results as regards settlement, and very little addition was made to geographical knowledge until Captain Cook discovered and made known the eastern seaboard of North Queensland. The occupation and settlement of this large territory was initiated by the enterprise of pastoralists from the southern districts in search of new runs for their stock. Thus the first record of Queensland is of the North; her growth and settlement comes from the South. The Dutch yacht "Duyfken," despatched from Bantam in November, 1605, to explore the island of New Guinea, sailed along what was thought to be the west side of that country, as far as 14 deg. South latitude. The furthest point reached was marked on their maps Cape Keer Weer, or Turnagain, and the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria were supposed to be a part of New Guinea. Torres was the first to sail between New Guinea and the mainland of Australia; he commanded the second vessel of an expedition fitted out by the Spaniards for the purpose of discovery in 1606. He sailed through from the eastern side, and he describes the numerous islands lying between New Guinea and Cape York. It is probable he passed in view of the mainland, and his name is perpetuated in that of the Straits. The Gulf of Carpentaria is supposed to have been named by Tasman after the Governor of the East India Company; and so little by little the coast was explored, and the outline of Australia mapped out, until Captain Cook's memorable discoveries of the east coast completed the chart of Australia and its history commenced. The west coast had been visited frequently by many Dutch ships, as it lay in their line of route in sailing to Batavia. Dampier, in 1688, was the first Englishman to land there, and his description of the country and the natives was far from encouraging. He spoke of them as the worst people he had ever met, and the country as the meanest. It was not until 1770, when Captain Cook ran the east coast up from Cape Everard to Cape York, and took possession of the whole territory in the name of King George the Third, that the veil began to lift from this land of silence and profound mystery. His voyage furnished the most reliable and scientific information about the coast line of Australia hitherto published. Captain Cook had been commissioned by the English Government to make a scientific expedition to the island of Otaheite, as it was then called, to witness the transit of Venus, on June 3rd, 1769. He was accompanied by Dr. Solander as a botanist, and Mr. Banks (afterwards Sir Joseph Banks), as a naturalist. After carrying out his commission, he sailed in search of the southern continent. He circumnavigated New Zealand, and thence steered westward till he sighted the shores of Australia on April 19th, 1770. After landing at Botany Bay on the 28th of the same month, he sailed north along the east coast to Torres Straits. He passed and named Moreton Bay and Wide Bay, and rounded Breaksea Spit on the north of Great Sandy Island, named Cape Capricorn, and Keppel Bay, Whitsunday Passage, Cleveland Bay, and Endeavour River, where he stayed some time to repair his vessel, the "Endeavour." The spot where he beached his ship is now Cooktown, and a monument stands where his vessel was careened under Grassy Hill. Many of the principal headlands, bays, and islands, along the coast were named by him. Finally, he passed through Torres Straits, naming Prince of Wales Island, and Booby Island, and then sailed homeward by Timor and Sumatra. Captain Matthew Flinders, navigator and discoverer, gave up his whole life to the cause of discovery, having as a young man in company with Bass, made trips along the southern coast of Australia in an open boat, soon after the settlement of Sydney. In 1799, he sailed from Sydney to explore Moreton and Hervey Bays in the "Norfolk," and went as far as Port Curtis, landing at several places and examining the country. He was appointed to the command of the "Investigator" in 1801, and arrived in Sydney in May, 1802; thence he proceeded up what is now the Queensland coast, which he examined from Sandy Cape northwards. He named Mount Larcombe, near Gladstone; surveyed Keppel Bay and other places, correcting and adding to Cook's charts; he sailed into the open ocean through the Great Barrier Reef in latitude 19 degs. 9 mins., longitude 148 degs., after many narrow escapes among the shoals and reefs. His destination was the Gulf of Carpentaria, and on his way he sighted Murray Island, where he saw large numbers of natives using well-constructed canoes with sails; from thence he steered west, anchoring close to one of the Prince of Wales Islands, where he and his crew mistook the large anthills for native habitations; then steering southwards, he found himself in the Gulf of Carpentaria, of which very little was then known. Flinders was the first English navigator to sail along its coasts, where such shallow waters prevail that they were at times afraid to go within three miles of the low shores, and had to be content with merely viewing the tops of the distant mangroves showing above the water. * * * * * There is only one tide in the twenty-four hours; it takes twelve hours for the tide to flow in, and twelve hours for it to flow out again; and very uninteresting is the aspect of the coast line sailing down the Gulf. Flinders anchored near Sweer's Island, which he named, and examined Bentinck, Mornington, and Bountiful Islands adjacent thereto, the whole group being called Wellesley's Islands. An inspection made here of the "Investigator" showed that there was scarcely a sound timber left in her, and the wonder was that she had kept afloat so long; however, Flinders determined to go on with his explorations. One island was called Bountiful Island from the immense number of turtles and turtles' eggs which were there procured, and when leaving on the continuation of their course, they took forty-six turtles with them averaging 300 lbs. each. * * * * * There is at the present day on Sweer's Island, a well containing pure fresh water called Flinders' well, supposed to have been sunk by him, and near to it was a tree marked by him. This tree was standing in 1866-8, but as it showed signs of decay, it was removed in 1888 by Pilot Jones, and sent to the Brisbane Museum, where it now is. This tree (which is generally known as the "Investigator" tree) has a number of dates and names carved thereon, as follows:-- 1.--1781, "Lowy," name of early Dutch exploring vessel, commanded by Captain Tasman, after whom the Island of Tasmania is named. 2.--1798, and some Chinese characters. 3.--1802, "Investigator." "Robert Devine." (Devine was the first lieutenant of Flinders' ship "Investigator.") 4.--1841, "Stokes." (Captain Stokes commanded the "Beagle," surveying ship, which visited the Gulf in 1841.) 5.--1856, "Chimmo." (Lieutenant Chimmo commanded the "Sandfly," surveying vessel.) 6.--"Norman." (Captain Norman of the "Victoria," visited the Gulf in 1861 with Landsborough's party in search of Burke and Wills. The Norman River is named after Captain Norman.) In skirting the western shores of the Gulf, Flinders identified many leading features which were marked in Tasman's chart, and which were found quite correct. On the last day of 1802, the "Investigator" was in sight of Cape Maria, which was found to be on an island. To the west was a large bay or bight, called by the Dutch Limmen's Bight; and the whole coastal line seemed to be thickly inhabited by natives. Flinders mentions seeing many traces of Malay occupation along the shores of the islands of the Gulf--temporary occupation for the purpose of collecting _beche de mer_. Blue Mud Bay was so named by him on account of the nature of the bottom. This bay was surveyed. The country beyond was found to be higher and more interesting than the almost uniformly low shores of the Gulf they had been skirting for so many hundreds of miles. Melville Bay completed the examination of the Gulf of Carpentaria, which had taken one hundred and five days; the circuit being twelve hundred miles. Shortly afterwards they fell in with six Malay proas, held intercourse with the crews, and learned that the object of their expedition was to find trepang, or _beche de mer_; and as they had been trading for many years on the northern coasts of Australia, it is evident that they must have been well acquainted with the seas and shores of the Gulf. Flinders sailed for Timor, and thence to Sydney, as his vessel was now utterly unseaworthy, and reached the harbour in June, 1803. His vessel after arrival was condemned, and Flinders determined to go to England to procure another ship to continue his surveys of the coast. On his way home, he was wrecked on a reef, and, returning to Sydney, obtained a small craft, in which he made another start, but, touching at Mauritius, was detained a prisoner for six years by the French, notwithstanding his passport as an explorer. After his release, he set about editing his journals and preparing an account of his researches. He completed this work, but died on the very day his book was published. No navigator or explorer has done more than Flinders in the matter of accurate surveys, or in the boldness of his undertakings, and his great work for Australia was entirely unrewarded. He spent his life in voyaging and discovery, and suffered many hardships, besides imprisonment. One of the largest and most important rivers flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria has been named after him "The Flinders." * * * * * In 1823, an expedition was sent out from Sydney under the command of Lieutenant Oxley to survey Port Curtis, Moreton Bay, and Port Bowen, and to report upon a site for a penal establishment. The party went up the Tweed River some miles, and then went northward to Port Curtis harbour. After landing in several places, a river was discovered which was named the Boyne. The vessel employed on this service was the "Mermaid," and finding nothing about Port Curtis suitable for a settlement, Oxley returned south, and anchored at the mouth of the Bribie Island passage, which had not been visited by Europeans since Flinders landed there in 1799, and called it Pumicestone River. Here they were joined by two white men, Pamphlet and Finnegan by name, who had, with one other, been cast away on Moreton Island a short time previously, and had since been living with the blacks. These men piloted Oxley into the Brisbane River, which was named by him after Sir Thomas Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales. They pulled up the river a long way above the present site of the city, and admired the beautiful scenery along its banks. This discovery led to the occupation of Moreton Bay as a penal settlement, and the foundation of the town of Brisbane. * * * * * Captain Wickham and Lieutenant Stokes of the "Beagle" were surveying the coast in that vessel, from 1838 to 1843, and Lieutenant Stokes afterwards wrote an account of their journeying. They named the Adelaide and Victoria Rivers on the north-west coast, both of which they located and explored. In 1841, the "Beagle" was on the east coast. She passed Magnetic Island, and sailed through Torres Straits into the Gulf of Carpentaria on an exploring cruise. In latitude 17 deg. 36 min., they entered a large river, which was followed up a long way in the boats, and was called the Flinders; it is one of the principal rivers entering the Gulf. Further west, in 1840, they had discovered and pulled the boats up the Albert River. Stokes was astonished at the open country found on the Albert. As far as the eye could reach, nothing was to be seen but open extensive plains, which he named "The Plains of Promise." The fine stream of the Albert was followed until the boats were checked by dead timber about fifty miles from the entrance. The geography of northern tropical Australia owes a great deal to Stokes, who wrote most interesting accounts of his journeys. Stokes surveyed and charted the estuaries of the Albert and Flinders Rivers, and he named Disaster Inlet, Morning Inlet, Bynoe Inlet, Accident Inlet, and the Van Diemen River, the latter he also examined and charted for some miles up from its mouth. Mr. G. Phillips, in 1866-8, made the first examinations and surveys of Morning Inlet, Bynoe Inlet, (which he found to be a delta of the Flinders), Norman River, Accident Inlet, and the Gilbert River. Mr. Phillips was accompanied by the late Mr. W. Landsborough, the work being done in an open boat belonging to the Customs Department. * * * * * H.M.S. "Rattlesnake" left Portsmouth in 1846, under Captain Stanley, on a surveying and scientific cruise. She reached Queensland waters in 1847, and visited the Molle Passage, inside of Whitsunday Passage, where some of the most striking and charming scenery on the north coast of Queensland is to be found. They went as far as Cape Upstart, and failing to find water ashore, returned to Sydney. In 1848, they returned to the northern coasts, bringing the "Tam o' Shanter," barque, on board of which were all the members and outfit of Kennedy's exploring party. Captain Stanley assisted Kennedy to land at Rockingham Bay and make a start on his ill-fated trip to Cape York. They found cocoanut trees growing on the Frankland Islands, the only instance known of their indigenous growth on the coast of Australia. They rescued from Prince of Wales Island a white woman who had been four and a half years among the blacks. She was the sole survivor of the crew of a whaling cutter, the "American," wrecked on Brampton Shoal; she had been adopted by the tribe, and spoke the language fluently; she returned to her parents in Sydney when the "Rattlesnake" reached port. Professor Huxley, the scientist, was one of the party of the "Rattlesnake." CHAPTER III. INLAND EXPLORATION. The cause of exploration and discovery in Australia has never lacked enthusiastic volunteers, whether on sea or land. Like the North Pole, the hidden secrets of the continent have always attracted men of enterprise and energy anxious to penetrate the veil of mystery and silence that has hung over this vast territory since Creation's dawn. Little by little has the land been explored and opened up for occupation; and those geographical secrets so long sought after have been unfolded as an open page for all to study and make use of. The records of some of the early pioneers, the motives which promoted their search, their hardships, and their journeyings, their failures and their endurance, will always remain an interesting portion of colonial history. The explorers were types of the men of a generation now gone by; they were men who endured a thousand perils and hardships to solve the mystery of Australian geography. By their enterprise and discoveries, they became the forerunners of the early pastoral pioneers who opened up the vast plains of the interior to occupation, and settled the towns and ports of the coast. The navigators were the first to make known the outlines of the country, then the explorers followed, starting from various points to trace its geographical features, follow the courses of its rivers, and investigate the suitability of the soil and herbage for the sustenance of stock. In this manner was the path opened for the pioneer squatter or pastoralist with his flocks and herds to settle on and portion out the land, and turn the wilderness to profit and occupation. The skeleton map of the country being traced out, the details were worked in gradually by the spirit of enterprise and adventure that has always been ready in these lands for such work. The first land explorer of the territory now called Queensland, was, in point of time, Allan Cunningham, botanist, explorer, and collector for the Royal Gardens at Kew, who arrived in New South Wales in 1816. After many journeyings on sea along the coasts of Australia, and inland to the Liverpool Plains through the Blue Mountains, he left the Hunter River in 1827 with a party of six men and eleven horses, discovering the Darling Downs, and thus opening the way to settlement in Queensland. He named Canning Downs on this trip, and returned the same year. In the following year, 1828, he went by sea to Brisbane, and connected that port with the Darling Downs by discovering a gap in the coast range, still known as Cunningham's Gap. He spent most of his life collecting and exploring, and died at the early age of 48 in Sydney. His brother, Richard Cunningham, also botanist and collector, accompanied Sir Thomas Mitchell in one of his early trips; while camped on the Bogan, he wandered away, lost himself, and was killed by the blacks. * * * * * Of all the explorers who have taken a prominent part in discovering the inland territory of Australia in general, and Queensland in particular, Dr. Leichhardt occupies the most conspicuous position, and his discoveries have been followed by the most extensive and advantageous results. He explored all the country on the east coast inland as far as the Mitchell River, and on the northern coast as far as Port Essington. He was a man of considerable scientific attainments, and his travels had a marked effect in inducing settlement along his line of march. His memorable trip from Brisbane to Port Essington reflects great honour on his memory, and his name will last as long as colonial history. Leichhardt left Sydney in 1844 in the steamer "Sovereign" for Brisbane; he had with him Calvert, Roper, Murphy, Phillips, and Harry Broome, an aboriginal. The party later on was joined by Gilbert, a naturalist, and one coloured man, a native. They left Jimbour on the Darling Downs, on October 1st, 1844, crossed the Dawson on November 6th, and on the 27th Leichhardt named the Expedition Range. Two days after that they came to the Comet River, so named because a comet was seen there. On December 31st, the party came across the remains of a camp evidently made by a white man, consisting of a ridge pole and forks cut with a sharp iron instrument, probably the halting place of some adventurous pioneers who travelled on the outside fringe of all settlement, and who frequently made long journeys into the unknown land. On January 10th, they reached the Mackenzie River, and on February 13th were on the Isaacs River, coming from the north-west, which they named after F. Isaacs of Darling Downs. Leichhardt's account of his journey is very interesting. It gives a description of the geological formations, of the mountains and peaks, and also a botanical description of the flora of the country through which he passed. He describes the game, some of which they turned to account to supplement their already scanty fare. The expedition passed on March 7th from the heads of the Isaacs to another creek, which they called Suttor Creek, after Mr. Suttor of New South Wales, who had contributed four bullocks to the expedition. The stream enlarging with the additions of other creeks, eventually merged into the Suttor River, which they continued to follow down, passing a great number of native encampments on the way, and observing large numbers of water fowl and other game. The junction of the Cape River was passed, and they camped close to a mount which they called Mount McConnel, after Fred McConnel, who had contributed to the expedition. Near here they discovered the junction of the Suttor with a large river coming from the north, called the Burdekin, after Mr. Burdekin of Sydney, who had also liberally contributed to the expedition. The river is described by Leichhardt as being here about a mile wide, with traces of very high floods coming down its channel; the junction of the two rivers is in latitude 20 deg. 37 min. 13 sec. On April 22nd, after following up the Burdekin through fine open country well grassed, they discovered the Clarke River coming in from the south-west, called after the Rev. W. B. Clarke, of Sydney. The course of the Burdekin River, which was closely traced, served the little party through more than two degrees of latitude and the same of longitude, with a never failing supply of pure water and good grass, and then passing over some large fields of basalt towards the north-west, they arrived on another watershed, the first river of which they called the Lynd, after Mr. R. Lynd, a gentleman to whom the explorer was much indebted. The first camp on the Lynd was in latitude 17 deg. 58 min.; the country throughout its course was very rough, consisting mostly of large granite boulders; its course was generally north-west, and the adventurous party were now on waters flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria. The Lynd was followed to its junction with the Mitchell in latitude 16 deg. 30 sec., and a marked tree of Leichhardt's is still visible at the junction of the two streams. Although they were so far from the termination of their journey, their flour had already been exhausted for several weeks, their sugar bags were empty as well, they were also without salt, and had scarcely any clothes. However, the explorer speaks in great praise of the congenial climate they were experiencing, the weather being almost perfect (this in June). Having followed the course of the Mitchell River till it took them past the latitude of the head of the Gulf, it was decided to leave it, and their first camp thereafter was in latitude 15 deg. 52 min. 38 sec. Three days after leaving the Mitchell, the party was attacked by the natives early in the night; Gilbert was killed at once, Calvert and Roper were badly wounded, and the whole party had a narrow escape from total destruction. After burying their companion, they continued their journey towards the Gulf, where the finding of salt water in the rivers gave them great encouragement. One river they named the Gilbert after their late companion, and after crossing all the rivers flowing into the Gulf within tidal influence, the party steered north-west, naming Beame's Brook and the Nicholson River after two of Leichhardt's benefactors. They had now crossed Captain Stokes' Plains of Promise, and were making their way along the coast to Port Essington. They travelled through poor, scrubby, rough country, crossing many rivers and creeks, and enduring a thousand hardships, till on September 21st they reached the largest salt water river they had seen, with islands in it; this they called the Macarthur, after the Macarthurs of Camden, who had given liberal support to Leichhardt. Continuing north-west through poor, scrubby country, on October 9th they encamped on what was named the Limmen Bight River on account of its debouching into Limmen Bight, and about the 19th, the Roper was discovered and named after a member of the expedition. Here they had the misfortune to have three of their horses drowned, and Leichhardt was compelled to leave behind much of his valuable collection of plants and stones; a matter that grieved him sorely. A great quantity of game was obtained here, ducks, geese, and emus were killed every day, and made a welcome addition to their fare of dried or jerked bullock meat. They thickened their soup with green hide, which was considered a treat; they made coffee from a bean found growing along the river banks, which Leichhardt called the "River Bean" of the Mackenzie; and they were constantly making experiments, sometimes rather dangerous, as to the value as food of the seeds and fruits they found on their line of march. The South Alligator River was reached, and the same north-west course, continued through rocky country, which lamed their two remaining bullocks, and when they reached what Leichhardt considered the East Alligator River over some extensive plain country in which large numbers of geese and ducks were seen, they were full of hope on meeting some friendly natives, who could speak a few words of English, evidently visitors to the settlement towards which our way-worn explorers were trying to find their road. Many tracks of buffaloes were seen, and one was shot, and made a welcome change from their usual fare. Eventually they reached Port Essington, where Captain Macarthur gave them a kindly welcome, and after a month's rest they left in the "Heroine," arriving in Sydney March 29th, 1846. Their arrival created great astonishment and delight, as they had been mourned as dead for a long time. The Legislative Council granted £1,000, and the public subscribed £1,578 to the party, which was presented to them by the Speaker of the Legislative Council at a large public gathering in the School of Arts in Sydney. Leichhardt's journey from Moreton Bay to Port Essington furnished the first knowledge we had of the capabilities of North Queensland. It was the turning of its first leaf of history, for his journey was for the greater part through the territory now comprised within its boundaries. The record of his trials, hardships, and endurance, will stand unequalled among all histories of explorations in any part of Australia. Mr. John Roper, who was badly speared in the night attack by blacks and lost the use of one eye afterwards, died a few years ago at Merriwa, New South Wales, and was the last survivor of Leichhardt's first trip to Port Essington. On a subsequent exploring trip, in which he intended to cross Australia from east to west, Leichhardt and his party disappeared, and no definite information has ever been forthcoming as to the fate that overtook them. On this occasion he started from the Darling Downs, and his companions were Hentig, Classan, Donald Stuart, Kelly, and two natives, Womai and Billy. His last letter is dated April 4th, 1848, from Macpherson's station--Coogoon, beyond Mount Abundance, situated about six miles west of the present town of Roma. Traces have been discovered of their journey through a part of the Flinders River country. Two horses found by Duncan Macintyre on the Dugald, a branch of the Cloncurry, about 1860, were identified as having belonged to Leichhardt's expedition, and some traces were discovered by A. C. Gregory in latitude 24 deg. south, consisting of a marked tree at one of his old camps. These form the only records we possess of the ill-fated travellers. Drought may have split his party up in the desert interior, and, disorganised and scattered, they would fall an easy prey to thirst and delirium, for so soon does extreme thirst in a hot and dry climate demoralise the strongest men, that hope is lost even in a few hours, and delirium sets in. People thus distracted, lie down under the nearest bush to die, after having wandered to every point of the compass in search of water until their strength fails. On the other hand, the party may have been destroyed by flood, by hunger, or by the attacks of hostile natives, a mutiny may have broken out and the party, split up into fragments, may have wandered by devious paths and perished in detail. Many expeditions were sent out in search of the lost explorers, and although not able to find any definite traces of his route, or to account for his disappearance, they were instrumental in opening up vast tracts of hitherto unknown territory, and adding largely to the knowledge of the geography of the interior. The following beautiful verses were written by Lynd, a friend of Leichhardt's, and have been set to music:-- "Ye who prepare with pilgrim feet Your long and doubtful path to wend. If whitening on the waste ye meet The relics of my martyred friend. "His bones with reverence ye shall bear. To where some crystal streamlet flows: There by its mossy banks prepare The pillow of his long repose. "It shall be by a stream whose tides Are drank by birds of every wing, Where Nature resting but abides The earliest awakening touch of spring. "But raise no stone to mark the place. For faithful to the hopes of man. The Being he so loved to trace, Shall breathe upon his bones again. "Oh meet that he who so carest, All bounteous Nature's varied charms, That he her martyred son should rest Within his mother's fondest arms. "And there upon the path he trod, And bravely led his desert band, Shall science like the smile of God Come brightening o'er the promised land. "How will her pilgrims hail the power, Beneath the drooping Myall's gloom. To sit at eve and muse an hour, And pluck a leaf from Leichhardt's tomb." --Lynd. The following descriptions are taken from a journal of an expedition into the interior of tropical Australia in search of a route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria by Lieut.-Colonel Sir T. L. Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales, in 1845. The money for this attempt was found by the Legislative Council of New South Wales. The Secretary for the Colonies sanctioned the expedition, which had been suggested by the leader himself, during a slack time in his department. This trip, though it never approached the Gulf, or even its watershed--which was its main object at starting--nevertheless discovered such an extent of available country as to make it one of the most valuable and interesting expeditions that were ever carried out in North Queensland. This was Mitchell's third exploring trip, and it is referred to now, as it relates to the discovery and opening up of a large part of western, as well as a part of North Queensland. There is no doubt that Mitchell would have reached the Gulf waters if his equipment had not been so cumbersome and altogether dependent on good seasons. An account of his outfit will be interesting reading in these times when people think little of moving from the South to the North of Australia with any kind of a party, and his departure must have looked like the start of a small army on the move to conquer a new country. Sir Thomas Mitchell took with him eight drays drawn by eighty bullocks, two iron boats, seventeen horses (four being private property), and three light carts; these were the modes of conveyance. There were 250 sheep to travel with the party as a meat supply. Other stores consisted of gelatine and a small quantity of pork. The party consisted of thirty persons, most of whom were prisoners of the Crown in different stages of probation, whose only incentive to obedience and fidelity was the prospect of liberty at the end of the journey. According to the testimony of their leader, they performed their work throughout creditably; they were volunteers from among the convicts of Cockatoo Island, and were eager to be employed on the expedition. Some of those engaged on a previous trip were included in this expedition. The whole party left Parramatta on November 17th, 1845, and crossed the Bogan on December 23rd, that country being then settled with stations, the result of discoveries made in previous years by the same intrepid explorer. Their journey led them by St. George's Bridge, the present site of the town of St. George, on to the Maranoa River, then entirely unsettled, and this river was followed up towards its source. Touching on the Warrego, discovering Lake Salvator, and passing the present site of Mantuan Downs, they reached the head of Belyando. This was thought at first to be a river likely to lead to the Gulf country, but after following it down nearly to the latitude where a river was described by Leichhardt as joining the Suttor from the westward, Mitchell decided it was a coast river, and so the party returned on their tracks to a depôt camp which had been established on the Maranoa, coming to the conclusion that the rivers of Carpentaria must be sought for much further to the westward. Therefore, continuing their travels in this direction, the Nive River was discovered, and this was thought for a time to be a water leading to the Gulf, but after following it towards the south-east, the party turned northwards, and thus discovered the far-famed Barcoo River, which they thought was the Victoria of Wickham and Stokes. Again high hopes were entertained that at last a river was found that would lead them to the desired end, and that this was a Gulf River. They followed the course through all the splendid downs country, below where the Alice joins it, and found it was going much too far to the south to be a Gulf river, being thus again disappointed in their expectations. Mitchell speaks in glowing terms of the country through which they passed, and named Mount Northampton and Mount Enniskillen, two prominent landmarks. Returning to his party, he took the route home by the Barwon and Namoi, and so back to Sydney, which all reached in safety after an absence of over twelve months. Mitchell's discovery of the Barcoo River was due to a division of his party, and a light equipment, by which he could advance as much as twenty or twenty-five miles a day, and still keep a record of his latitude and progress. This trip of Mitchell's led to the appointment of his second in command, Mr. E. Kennedy, to return and discover where the Victoria or Barcoo really went to, and to obtain further information of the mysterious interior of the great Australian continent, and its peculiar river system. Mitchell was famous for his exploring trips in the southern part of Australia, and his two volumes of explorations remain a classic in literature. His account of Australia Felix and the Werribee are most interesting. Mitchell invariably traversed his route with compass and chain, so that his positions can always be verified. * * * * * Edward Kennedy, who was second in command under Sir T. L. Mitchell when the Barcoo was discovered, was appointed to lead a party to the same districts in 1847. He followed down the Barcoo to where a large river came in from the north, which he named the Thomson, after Sir E. Deas Thomson, of Sydney. The Barcoo he identified with Mitchell's Victoria, which at a lower stage is called Cooper's Creek. Kennedy intended to go to the Gulf of Carpentaria, but the blacks removed his stock of rations left at the Barcoo, and so he decided to return to Sydney by way of the Warrego, Maranoa, Culgoa, and Barwon Rivers. * * * * * The Gregory brothers had successfully conducted several exploring expeditions in West Australia before entering on those journeys in North Queensland that have helped to make known its north-eastern parts. A letter from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Duke of Newcastle, to the Governors in Australia, was received, in which it was recommended that an expedition should be organised for the exploration of the unknown interior of Australia, stating that a sum of £5,000 had been voted by the Imperial Government for the purpose, and suggesting that Mr. A. C. Gregory should be appointed to the command, and Brisbane be the point of departure. The expedition was to be conveyed by sea to the mouth of the Victoria River, on the northern coast of Australia. It was to be an Imperial expedition, paid for by the Imperial Government, for the purpose of developing the vast and unknown resources of the continent. It was called the North Australian Exploring Expedition. The preliminary arrangements having been completed, the stores, equipment, and a portion of the party were embarked at Sydney on the barque "Monarch," and the schooner "Tom Tough," and sailed for Moreton Bay on July 18th, 1855, arriving at the bar of the Brisbane River on the 22nd. The horses and sheep were collected at Eagle Farm by Mr. H. C. Gregory, and shipped on board the "Monarch" on July 31st. After some difficulties in getting over the bar and obtaining the necessary supply of water at Moreton Island, the expedition may be said to have started on its responsible task on August 12th, 1855. The party consisted of eighteen persons, the principal members being:--Commander, A. C. Gregory; Assistant Commander, H. C. Gregory; Geologist, J. S. Wilson; Artist and Storekeeper, J. Baines; Surveyor and Naturalist, J. R. Elsey; Botanist, F. von Muller; Collector and Preserver, J. Flood. The stock consisted of fifty horses and two hundred sheep; and eighteen months' supply of rations were taken. They sighted Port Essington on September 1st, but the next day the "Monarch" grounded at high water on a reef, and was not worked off for eight days, during which time the vessel lay on her side, and the horses suffered very much in consequence, indeed, the subsequent loss of numbers of them is attributed to the hardships endured during the period. The horses were landed at Treachery Bay under great difficulties, having to swim two miles before reaching the shore. Three were drowned, one lost in mud, and one went mad and rushed away into the bush and was lost. The "Monarch" sailed for Singapore, while the "Tom Tough" proceeded up the Victoria River, where Mr. Gregory and some of the party took the horses by easy stages to meet them, as they were so weak from the knocking about on the voyage that they had frequently to be lifted up. This little trip occupied three weeks before they joined the party on the schooner. When they met, it was to learn that mishaps had again occurred, the vessel had grounded on the rocks, and much of the provisions had been damaged by salt water; the vessel had also suffered injury; some of the sheep had died from want of water, and the rest were too poor to kill. The record is one continuous struggle with misfortune, but owing to good general-ship and patience, progress was made, and the main objects of the expedition being constantly kept in view, each step taken was one in advance. After the horses had recovered a little from their journey, Mr. Gregory and a small party made an exploring trip towards the interior, and to the south to latitude 20 deg. 16 min. 22 sec., passing through some inferior country, and touching the Great Sandy Desert seen by Sturt, red ridges of sand running east and west, covered with the inhospitable Triodia or Spinifex grass. As his object was to visit the Gulf country, he retraced his steps to the camp on the Victoria River; and after adjusting matters there, dividing his party and sending the vessel to Coepang for supplies, with directions to come to the Albert River, he started on his journey to the Gulf of Carpentaria on June 21st, 1856. His party comprised the two Gregorys, Dr. Mueller, Elsey, Bowman, Dean, and Melville, seven saddle and twenty-seven pack-horses, with five months' provisions. They followed down the Elsey River to the Roper, so called by Leichhardt, and passed a camp of some explorers some six or seven years old, where trees had been cut with sharp axes. They reached the Macarthur River on August 4th, after passing through much poor country covered with inferior grasses. Their track skirted the tableland, and as the journal states, the country was barren and inhospitable in the extreme. The Albert River was reached on August 30th, 1856, and not finding any traces of the "Tom Tough" having been there, the explorer started from that point to Moreton Bay. Coming to a large river, which Leichhardt thought to be the Albert, Mr. Gregory named it after the great explorer, and it is now known as the Leichhardt. This river they crossed, and travelled east-south-east. After crossing the Flinders River, where the country consisted of open plains, the party travelled east-north-east through a flat ti-tree country, north of what is now the Croydon goldfield, a barren, flat, and dismal prospect. Gregory says in his journal, that had the season been earlier, he would have preferred travelling up the Flinders, and turning to the Clarke from its upper branches. However, they moved on to the Gilbert River, and followed it up through rocky defiles and rough granite country till they reached the Burdekin River on October 16th; the next day they passed one of Leichhardt's stopping places, where he camped on April 26th, 1845, in latitude 19 deg. 37 min. S. They were living on horseflesh at this time, and mention is made of a horse that had not carried a pack since leaving the Gilbert, being killed for food, and its flesh dried in the sun, forming what is called jerked meat, an article well known to early pioneers when salt was absent. They frequently saw the blacks, who mostly ran away at the sight of the horses, probably the first they had ever seen; but no casualty happened during the whole trip, owing to the good management of the leader, and the caution always shown where danger was likely. On October 30th they camped near the Suttor River, with Mount McConnell in view. After the junction of the Suttor and Burdekin Rivers had been passed, the Suttor was followed up past the latitude of Sir Thomas Mitchell's camp on the Belyando, and thus his route connected up with Dr. Leichhardt's. They left the Belyando, and on November 8th, killed the eleven months' old filly, born on the Victoria River after landing, the flesh was cured by drying, and the hair scraped off the hide, which was made into soup. They passed the Mackenzie River, went on to the Comet, below the junction, and found a camp of Leichhardt's party on their second journey. They reached the Dawson River, and following a dray track, they came again in contact with civilisation at Connor and Fitz's station, where they were hospitably received. They then travelled past Rannes (Hay's station), Rawbelle, Boondooma, Tabinga, Nanango, Kilcoy, Durundur, reaching Brisbane on December 16th, 1856. * * * * * Mr. A. C. Gregory's expedition in search of Leichhardt was equipped by the New South Wales Government. The objects of this expedition were primarily to search for traces of Leichhardt and his party, and secondly the examination of the country in the intervening spaces between the tracks of previous explorers. The expedition was organised in Sydney, and made a start from Juandah, on the Dawson River, on March 24th, 1857. They crossed the dense scrubs and basaltic ridge dividing the Dawson waters from those trending to the west, flowing into the basin of the Maranoa River. The Maranoa was reached in latitude 25 deg. 45 min., and they followed it up to Mount Owen, advanced to the Warrego River, westward from there to the Nive, and pursued a north-north-west course to the Barcoo River, then called the Victoria. As the captain of the "Beagle" had discovered and named the Victoria River on the north-west coast first, the name of Sir T. Mitchell's river was changed to the Barcoo, a native name. When Mr. Gregory traversed this fine country, one of those devastating periodical droughts that visit this inland territory now and again, must have been prevailing for many months, and had left the land a wilderness. That land Mitchell had described in 1846 in glowing language as the fairest that the sun shone on, with pastures and herbage equal to all the wants of man, and water in abundance covered with wild fowl. When Gregory passed through it in 1857, it was bare of all vegetation, there was scarcely any water in the bed of the river, and that only at long intervals, nothing but the bare brown earth visible. In latitude 24 deg. 35 min. S., longitude 136 deg. 6 min., a Moreton Bay ash tree was discovered with the letter [Symbol: L] cut in, and the stumps of some small trees cut with an axe, evidently one of Leichhardt's camps, but no further traces could be discovered, though both sides of the river were followed down. The Thomson River was reached and followed up to latitude 23 deg. 47 sec., and here they were compelled to retrace their steps owing to the terrible state of the country through drought; it being impossible to travel either north or west, although at that time the country was not stocked. The far-reaching plains were devoid of all vegetation except for drought-resisting herbage. The principal object of their journey had to be abandoned and a southerly course taken, as it was considered madness to travel into the sandy desert bordering on the river during such a season. So, with horses weakened by hard living, they followed down the Thomson, over dry mud plains that wearied both man and beast, and across stony desert ridges to Cooper's Creek and to Lake Torrens. Before reaching the branch of Cooper's Creek called Strezlecki Creek by Captain Sturt, they saw the tracks of two horses lost by that explorer in this locality years before. Their course was continued south-south-west towards Mount Hopeless at the northern extremity of the high ranges of South Australia, which had been visible across the level country at a distance of sixty miles. Eight miles beyond Mount Hopeless, they came to a cattle station, recently established by Mr. Baker. After that they proceeded by easy stages to Adelaide. It is, perhaps, with reference to the physical geography of Australia that the results of the expedition are most important, as by connecting the explorations of Sir T. Mitchell, Kennedy, Captain Sturt, and Eyre, the waters of the tropical interior of the eastern portion of the continent were proved to flow towards Spencer's Gulf, if not actually into it, the barometrical observations showing that Lake Torrens, the lowest part of the interior, is decidedly below sea level.[A] * * * * * As the people of Victoria were desirous of taking part in the explorations of Northern Australia, a most elaborate and expensive expedition was organised to travel across Australia from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Great credit is due to the enterprise of the people and the Government of Victoria for this display of public spirit, for, apparently, Victoria had less to gain than any of the other colonies by geographical discoveries in the interior. Robert O'Hara Burke was appointed leader, G. J. Landells second, and W. J. Wills third in command. Burke and Wills and two others reached the Gulf, and named the Cloncurry River; but the notes of the trip do not give much information as to the journey or the country travelled through. The expedition left Melbourne on August 20th, 1860, fifteen men in all, provided with twelve months' provisions, making twenty-one tons of goods. The party was too large and cumbersome, and the time of year was badly chosen for a start; there were no bushmen with them, and the leader was a man unfamiliar with bush life, though full of devotion to the cause he had taken in hand. The record of the trip is one full of disaster, arising from mistakes that could have been avoided had men competent for the task been chosen. They started from Cooper's Creek, where Brahe was left with a depôt store, while Burke, Wills, King, and Grey with three months' provisions set out for the Gulf on December 16th, 1860. The party that had been so well equipped in every way on leaving Melbourne, was reduced to too small a compass when the critical time for action arrived. They followed the edge of the stony desert to the point reached by Sturt on October 21st, 1845, and then steered for the Gulf of Carpentaria, at the mouth of the Flinders. After passing through the Cloncurry Ranges, the little party followed one of the tributaries of that river, one that had numerous palm trees on its banks, which must have been either the Corella or Dugald, to the west of the Cloncurry River, and on February 11th, 1861, in the middle of the wet season, Burke and Wills reached tidal water in the Gulf, on the right bank of the Bynoe River, which is a delta of the Flinders River. Thus the object of the expedition was attained. On the return journey, Grey died through exhaustion and weakness. The ground was very heavy for walking owing to the rains, and the only horse had to be abandoned, while the camel was almost too weak to travel, even without any load. Burke, Wills, and King arrived at Cooper's Creek on April 21st, having been absent four and a half months on their trip. They found the depôt had been deserted that morning by Brahe; he, however, had remained several weeks beyond the time he was instructed to stay. Instead of following on his tracks, Burke decided on starting via Mount Hopeless to Adelaide, but not finding water, they returned to Cooper's Creek, growing weaker every day. Their last camel died, and they were forced to live on the seeds of the Nardoo (Marsilea quadrifida), which, however, gave them no strength. The blacks treated them kindly, but they left the creek, and then came the mournful end. Burke and Wills died, and Howitt's search party found King, the only survivor of the little band, wasted to a shadow in a camp of the blacks. As no proper record of the journey, or description of the country was made, and in the diary many gaps occur of several days together, the expedition was barren of scientific results. There is merely the fact of visiting the shores of the Gulf, and returning to Cooper's Creek, under the most distressing circumstances and hardships. Although successful in the main, it is a record of sorrow, despondency, and a sacrifice of life. On this expedition camels were used for the first time in Australia. Until the fate of Burke became known, many efforts were made to discover what had become of him, and to this end, there were five exploring parties sent out in search of him. They were Howitt's, Walker's, Landsborough's, Norman's, and McKinlay's, and their discoveries led to an important increase in the knowledge of Australia. [Footnote A: There is reason to believe from later and more detailed surveys that Lake Torrens is not below the level of the sea.] * * * * * Mr. A. W. Howitt's party proceeded to the spot where Brahe had kept the depôt, and seeing no traces there of the missing party (although they had dug up the stores left), he searched down the river, and they came on King sitting in a hut which the blacks had made for him. He presented a melancholy appearance, wasted to a shadow, and hardly to be recognised as a civilised being except by the remnants of clothes on him; this was on September 15th, 1861. As soon as King was a little restored, they looked for Wills' remains, and having found them, gave them burial, marking a tree close by; a few days afterwards Burke's bones were found and interred. They called all the blacks around, and presented them with articles such as tomahawks, knives, necklaces, looking glasses, combs, etc., and made them very happy indeed. When the sad story was revealed there was much sorrow and grief throughout Victoria; and it was agreed that Mr. Howitt should go back and bring down the bodies for a public funeral in Melbourne. A large sum of money was voted to the nearest relatives of Burke and Wills, and a grant made to King sufficient to keep him in comfort for life. A searching inquiry was made into the circumstances relative to the conduct of some of the officers of the expedition, and a few of them were severely censured for neglect of duty in not properly supporting the leader. * * * * * One of the expeditions in search of Burke and Wills was led by John McKinlay, who travelled through a great part of North Queensland, and reported favourably on its capacity for settlement. He started from Adelaide in August, 1861, and arrived at the Albert River in May, 1862, thus crossing the continent a second time. He was a bushman well fitted for such an enterprise by experience, endurance, and decision. The second in command was W. O. Hodgkinson, subsequently Minister for Mines in Queensland. McKinlay found a grave near Cooper's Creek which he examined, and found a European buried there, which he understood from the natives to be a white man killed by them, but afterwards it was known to have been Gray's burial place. The party made an excursion into the melancholy desert country described by Sturt many years before, consisting of dry lakes, red sand hills, and stones. They travelled through to the Cloncurry district, and onwards to the Gulf, passing through country now under occupation, Fort Constantine, Clonagh, and Conobie being the principal stations there, and thence over the Leichhardt River to the Albert, which was reached on May 13th. McKinlay expected to receive supplies from the "Victoria," but she had sailed three months before, and thus short of provisions and generally hard up, he had to tackle a long overland journey to the settlements on the eastern side of North Queensland, a most trying and harassing undertaking, which, however, he accomplished successfully. He had first to eat the cattle, then the horses, then the camels. They killed their last camel for food--it was called "Siva"--and it proved a saviour, as they arrived at Harvey and Somer's station, on the Bowen, with their last piece of camel meat, and one horse each left. They had a hard rough trip from the Gulf, travelling in by the Burdekin, and McKinlay proved himself a daring and most persevering and experienced explorer. The McKinlay River--a branch of the Cloncurry--and the township of McKinlay are named after him. * * * * * Though not pertaining to any exploration or discovery connected with North Queensland, it will be interesting to refer shortly to the Horn Exploring Expedition which was carried out on a scientific basis to make known the country in the more central part of the Australian continent. The scientific exploration of central Australia, or that part known as the Macdonnell Ranges, had long been desired by the leading scientific men of Australia. The party consisted of sixteen in all, with twenty-six camels, and two horses, and made a final start from Oodnadatta (which is the northern terminal point of the railway from Adelaide), on May 6th, 1894. In the very centre of the continent there exists an elevated tract of country known as the Macdonnell Ranges. These mountains, barren and rugged in the extreme, rise to an altitude of nearly 5,000 feet above sea level, while the country surrounding them has an elevation of about 2,000 feet above the sea level, and slopes away towards the coast on every side, which at no point is nearer than 1,000 miles. The mountains are at the head of the Finke River; the region is called Larapintine from the native name of the river. The existence of these ranges saves that portion of the continent from being an absolute desert, as they catch the tropical showers, which flow down the sides of the mountains, and cause inundations in the low country, and a spring of grass, which, however, is not permanent, the rainfall being from five to twelve inches annually. These ranges measure, from east to west, about 400 miles, with a width of from twenty to fifty miles, the entire area covering more than 10,000 square miles of country. Apart from these ranges, there are several remarkable isolated masses, about 32 miles S.S.W. from Lake Amadeus. Rising like an enormous water-worn boulder, half buried in the surrounding sea of sand hills, is that remarkable monolith known as "Ayers' Rock." Its summit can be seen more than forty miles away, as it rises about 1,100 feet above the surrounding plain. The circumference at its base is nearly five miles, and its sides are so steep as to be practically inaccessible, although Mr. W. C. Gosse, the explorer, succeeded with great difficulty in ascending it. It is quite bare of vegetation, except a few fig trees growing in the crevices. Fifteen miles west of Ayers' Rock is another remarkable mountain mass called Mount Olga, rising to 1,500 feet from the plain. The Finke River flows south from these Macdonnell Ranges towards Lake Eyre, and water is only found after floods. Both alluvial gold and quartz reefs are found in the ranges. Professor Ralph Tate, of the University of Adelaide, and Mr. J. A. Watt, of the Sydney University, assisted in drawing up the report. CHAPTER IV. EXPLORERS IN NORTH QUEENSLAND. The second journey of Edmund Kennedy, in 1848, was confined to the east coast of North Queensland, and is one of the most mournful narratives of disaster and death; only three of the party returning out of the thirteen that started. The party was hampered with an unsuitable outfit of drays, as well as some undesirable men, unused to the bush and out of accord with the objects of an exploring expedition. The members of a party going into an unknown country have to depend on the fidelity of each to all, and according to the devotion displayed by each, so will success or failure attend the expedition. Kennedy had men in his party he had better have left behind. His troubles and trials commenced after landing at Rockingham Bay, near the site of the present town of Cardwell, in trying to pass over swamps, and then cutting his way through tangled, dark, vine-scrubs to the summit of the steepest ranges in North Queensland. They were obliged to leave their carts and harness behind, and wasted much time in looking for a place to ascend the ranges. They quarrelled with the blacks soon after starting, and some of the men took fever. They reached the Herbert, and went into the heads of the Mitchell and Palmer Rivers, passing over the site of the Palmer goldfield. Here the strength of the party began to fail, and horse flesh was their main dependence for food. At Weymouth Bay, Carron and seven men were left, all sick with disappointment and hardship, and in a low state of health. Kennedy and Jacky, with three men, pushed on along the coast northwards to Cape York. One man was wounded by a gun accident, and he and the other two were left at Pudding Pan Hill, and were never heard of again. The leader and Jacky went on, intending to return to the scattered party. They were followed by hostile blacks, who speared the horses, and afterwards mortally wounded Kennedy himself, who died in Jacky's arms. Jacky himself was also speared, but he buried his leader in a grave dug with a tomahawk, and after many hairbreadth escapes and much privation, he reached the northern shore, where the "Ariel" was waiting for the arrival of the party. Only one man, and he an aboriginal, endured to the end, and but for his keen bush knowledge, courage, and splendid devotion, neither of the two other survivors would have been rescued, nor any tidings of the mournful fate of the party have been made known to the world. The "Ariel" sailed to Weymouth Bay, and found the two men, Carron and Goddard, barely alive, the only survivors of the eight left there by Kennedy. Kennedy's papers planted in a tree by Jacky, were afterwards recovered by him. When the nature of the country through which Kennedy travelled is understood and its difficulties known, it is no wonder that mishaps occurred to him. Stony mountainous country, thick dark scrubs, long dense grass, with tribes of fierce blacks ready to throw a spear on every occasion, were enough to tax the capacity of any leader, without the accompaniment of sickness, want of rations and disorganisation. E. KENNEDY. His task is ended, his journeying o'er. He rests in the scrub, by that far northern shore; By the long wash of the Coral Sea, Brave Kennedy sleeps now quietly. Not lonely he lies in his last bed, For loving memories o'erbrood his head; Kindly to him, the tall ferns lean, In love, their fellowship of green. Sweetly for him, the bird's deep song, Is sung when summer days are long; Soft drips the dew in the morning sun, Rest harassed one, thy task is done. His native friend, faithful to death, Stayed by him to his latest breath; Nor thought he had himself to save, Till he had made his leader's grave. Mr. W. Landsborough left Brisbane in the brig "Firefly" on August 24th, 1861, in company with the colonial warship "Victoria," taking the outer passage. Rough weather on the voyage caused distress and a loss of seven horses out of thirty, and they were compelled to seek refuge inside the Barrier Reef at Hardy's Island. The brig grounded broadside on the reef; the masts had to be cut away to save the vessel; and the horses were landed through a large hole cut in the side of the ship. After some delay, the "Victoria" appeared in sight, towed the crippled craft off, and proceeded with her in tow in order to carry out the objects of the expedition. Passing through Torres Straits, they called at Bountiful Island and obtained a good supply of turtles, anchoring in Investigator Roads, situated between Bentinck and Sweer's Islands. Landing on Sweer's Island, they found the wells left by Flinders in 1802, also the "Investigator" tree. After clearing the sand out of the wells, the water was found fresh and good. Mr. Landsborough made a preliminary survey of the Albert River to find a site for landing his horses and for starting on his overland journey. The Albert had not been surveyed since Captain Stokes had ascended it as far as Beame's Brook in 1842, but being known, it was appointed a rendezvous for exploring parties. They found no traces of Burke having visited this spot. The hulk of the "Firefly" was towed up the Albert, and used as a depôt for the expedition, and this was her last voyage. The writer saw her early in 1865; she was then in an upright position, close to the left bank of the river, with the tide flowing in and out where the side had been cut open for the horses to land on the reef. The horses soon recruited after landing, the grass round the depôt being excellent. They now got ready for a start to Central Mount Stuart, leaving the "Victoria" to wait ninety days for their return. The party consisted of Mr. Landsborough, Messrs. Campbell and Allison, and two blackboys, Jimmy and Fisherman. Their horses had improved so much that they gave a lot of trouble at first, throwing their packs and scattering the gear over the plains, but they soon quietened down to work. The little expedition followed mainly the Gregory River towards its source, and were much surprised to find a beautiful river with a strongly flowing stream and long reaches of deep water, overhung by pandanus, cabbage-palm, and much tropical foliage. They soon discovered the use of the heart of the palm as a vegetable, though it can only be obtained by the destruction of the tree. Blacks were frequently seen, observing their movements, looking on at a distance, as they usually do at the first sight of a white man; but they did not attempt to interfere with them. The Gregory River is distinct from most of the Gulf rivers. The luxuriant foliage along its banks, cabbage-palms, Leichhardt trees, cedar and pandanus, denote the permanency of the running water, while level plains, covered with fine pasture grasses, extend on either side for scores of miles. They named the Macdam, an anabranch of the Gregory, and observing a river joining on the right side of the Gregory, called it the O'Shannassey; the source of the flowing stream that made the river so useful and picturesque was shortly afterwards found, where a large body of clear water fell over some basaltic rocks, showing that springs caused the flow, and not summer rains in the interior as was thought at first. This is not the only instance in North Queensland where running streams flow from springs bursting forth from the basaltic table lands. Above the source of the water, the Gregory partook of the character of other Gulf rivers, dry sandy channels, dependent for their supply of water on tropical rains. They followed up the now dry river, and reached a fine tableland over 1,000 feet above sea level, which was called Barkly's Tableland, after Sir Henry Barkly, late Governor of Victoria. Open basaltic plains, covered with the very finest pastures now met them everywhere, though water was scarce. After journeying across the open country southwards, a river was found, which was called the Herbert; it flowed in the opposite direction to the tributaries of the Gregory. Following down the Herbert, they spent Christmas Day on a sheet of water called Many's Lake, and lower down Francis Lake was seen; still lower down grass and water both became so scarce as to induce the leader, much against his will, to abandon the project of reaching Central Mount Stuart. In latitude 20 deg. 17 min., and longitude 138 deg. 20 min., he was compelled to retrace his steps. It was a season of drought, no water having come down the Herbert, and being limited to time to meet Captain Norman at the Gulf in ninety days, forty-three of which had already passed, no resource was left but to return by the route they had come. They followed the right bank of the Gregory River, and met a large number of natives, who threatened them on several occasions, but the little party of five passed through without any mishap, owing in a great measure to the care taken by the leader, who was well aware of the good old bush maxim of always being prepared and never giving a chance away. In following the Gregory, they ran Beame's Brook, which forms the head of the Albert, down on the right bank. This is an effluent from the Gregory, and is one of the most remarkable streams in Queensland. It is very little below the level of the adjoining plains, and is a clear stream of pure water, overshadowed by cabbage-palms, pandanus, and ti-trees; it traverses the plains some fifty or sixty miles before it flows into the Albert. It is said the blacks can turn the water out of this channel by blocking up the exit from the main stream with stiff mud, and thus catch fish that may be left in the holes. The little channel is boggy in its course, and the country is subject to great floods in the wet season. The party came to the depôt, and found all well, and there learnt that Mr. F. Walker, another explorer, had been there and reported finding Burke's tracks on the Flinders, about seventy miles distant; and having restocked himself with some provisions, had left to follow up the traces. After three weeks' detention, and arranging matters with Captain Norman, Landsborough took his departure with his party, intending to go right through to Melbourne. Their supply of rations was of the most miserable kind, not even as good as prison fare. The stores provided for the expedition were ample for all requirements, but they were refused tea, sugar, and rum. Starting on a long hazardous overland journey of unknown duration, the inadequate outfit accorded to these enterprising men from a steam vessel within a fortnight's sail of a commercial port, was unjustifiable, and must be condemned. The expedition left the Albert on February 8th, 1862, a party of six, Mr. Landsborough, Mr. Bourne, and Mr. Gleeson, with three blackboys, Jimmy, Fisherman, and Jacky, and twenty-one horses, whilst there was a continent to cross before they could reach their destination. The tracks of Walker's party were just discernible, as they followed a course that took them to the Leichhardt River, over level plains covered with flooded box and excæcaria, commonly called "gutta percha," one of the Euphorbia family; these plains are subject to floods, and are very much water-logged during the rainy seasons on account of their being so level. The grass grows in great tussocks, showing only the tops above the water for many miles, and these were the "Plains of Promise" of which so much was expected from the reports of the early explorers! They crossed at the bar of rocks at what is now Floraville, and directed their course to the Flinders River, eastward through Newmayer Valley, and on past Donor's Hills, so named in honor of an anonymous contributor, a Melbourne gentleman, who gave £1,000 to the exploration fund. In following the right bank of the Flinders, they passed Fort Bowen, a small mount rising abruptly from the plains near the right bank of the river, which was called after the first Governor of Queensland. Many springs were met with surrounding the base of the little mountain forming mounds on the top of which water may be found. The nature of the ground in places is very treacherous; the water has a strong taste of soda, and is quite undrinkable in some of the springs. About twenty miles south-east from Fort Bowen are two similar small mountains, Mount Browne, and Mount Little (now forming part of Taldora run), at which springs similar to those at Fort Bowen are also to be met with. These small mountains, the highest of which is only seventy-five feet above the surrounding plain, were named by Mr. Landsborough after a firm of solicitors in Brisbane, the Hon. E. I. C. Browne, and Robert Little. The latter subsequently became the first Crown Solicitor of Queensland, but both gentlemen are now dead. The ground in places is dangerous, for under the light crust, that shakes and bends beneath the weight of a horse, are depths of soft mud, sometimes of a bluish colour, that would engulf both horse and rider. One spring is hot, the water at the surface being 120 deg., evidently a natural artesian well. Heavy tall ti-trees surround all these mud springs, and also innumerable small mounds that are the result of the pressure of water from the great depths below. The whole extent of country travelled through consists of open treeless plains, covered with good pasture grass, and occasionally some small white wood trees (atalaya hemiglauca). As the river ran in the direction they were travelling, they followed it up, and about where Richmond now stands, they saw the fresh tracks of a steer or cow making south, supposed to have wandered from some of the newly-formed stations towards the Burdekin. After this, the river trending too much to the east, they crossed the divide, thus leaving the Gulf waters behind them. The change occurs in an open downs country without any ranges to cross. A watercourse called Cornish Creek took them to the Landsborough, and following it down to the Thomson River, they passed Tower Hill, where Mr. Landsborough had been exploring before, and had left his marked trees. Travelling southwards, they made for the Barcoo, and thence to the Warrego, and on May 21st they came to a station of the Messrs. Williams where they were received in a most cordial manner. They were now about eight hundred miles from Melbourne, and seven hundred from Brisbane, and it was decided to make for Melbourne by following the Darling. McKinlay and Landsborough on their return were the recipients of a public demonstration by three thousand people in the Melbourne Exhibition Building, and had a splendid reception. Landsborough died on March 16th, 1886, from an accident caused by his horse falling with him, and he is buried close to the north end of Bribie Passage at Caloundra, where he had resided with his family for some years previously. Landsborough was a very honorable and lovable man, of simple tastes, fond of reading and indefatigable in his love for travelling about the country. * * * * * F. Walker led a party from Rockhampton in search of Burke and Wills in 1861. He was a bushman of varied experience, and he has the credit of originating the system of native police in Queensland. He performed the task of exploration with which he was entrusted creditably and ably. Starting from C. B. Dutton's station, Bauhinia Downs, on the Dawson River, he and his small party went through the Nogoa country to the Barcoo, where he saw traces of Gregory and Leichhardt. They then went north-west to the Alice and on to the Thomson River, and from there on to the head of the Flinders, which was called the Barkly. A marked tree of Walker's exists near the town of Hughenden. Instead of following down the river, he struck across the basaltic ranges and tableland northwards till he came to the heads of a river which he called the Norman, but which is more likely the head of the Saxby River; however, he followed it down to its junction with the Flinders, where he saw the tracks of Burke and Wills going down with four camels and one horse; crossing the river he found the same traces returning. Walker now went to the Albert River, where he met Captain Norman of the colonial warship "Victoria" at the depôt there, and obtaining fresh supplies, he returned to the Flinders. And now commenced a painful march through the ranges and tableland, so hard on the horses' feet that they could be traced along the stones by the tracks of blood from their hoofs. The men suffered from the seeds of the speargrass, which penetrated the skin and caused irritation. The Burdekin was reached, and some fresh supplies were obtained at Bowen; and then passing through the settled districts to the south of that town, Walker arrived at Rockhampton early in June, having been absent about nine months. He had several encounters with the blacks during his journey--attacks and reprisals. About 1865, Walker was sent out by the Queensland Government to report on the best route for an overland telegraph line to connect the Gulf with Brisbane. On his recommendation, the line was taken up the Carron Creek by way of the Etheridge to the east coast at Cardwell, through some very poor country. He selected this route on account of there being timber suitable for poles; but as the white ants soon destroyed them, the line had to be rebuilt with iron poles. Poor Walker died of Gulf fever in 1866 at a miserable shanty on the Leichhardt River, close to Floraville, and is buried there. His second in command on the telegraph expedition was a Mr. Young, who was subsequently telegraph master at Townsville in 1870. Young was a fine honorable man, but, unfortunately, he received an injury whilst in the execution of his duty repairing the telegraph line between Bowen and Townsville, from the effects of which he subsequently died, only a few days after his marriage. * * * * * A small private expedition, under the charge of J. G. Macdonald, started from Bowen, on the east coast of North Queensland, in 1864, for the purpose of discovering a practicable route for several mobs of cattle then being sent towards the Flinders or westward for the occupation of new country. The party consisted of Mr. Macdonald, G. Robertson, Robert Bowman, and Charlie, a native of Brisbane, with seventeen horses, and two months rations. The starting point was from Carpentaria Downs, on the Einasleigh River, then the farthest out settlement, the latitude being 18 deg. 37 min. 10 sec. S., long. 144 deg. 3 min. 30 sec. E. The course generally was westward, following down the Gilbert River, and thence to the Flinders and Leichhardt Rivers. These they crossed, and then travelled on to the Gregory, which was followed down to the Albert. The object of the expedition having been achieved, and the country deemed suitable for stocking, the party commenced their return journey, crossing the Leichhardt River at a rocky ford, where the scenery was beautiful and the site admirably adapted for a head station. Eventually one was formed there, but was swept away in the disastrous flood of 1870, when the waters covered all the surrounding country to a great depth. The journey home was uneventful, the only occurrence being the finding of the skeleton of a horse they had left on their outward journey at the Gilbert River, and which had been killed by the blacks and eaten. The stages made were somewhat astonishing for an exploring party. The time taken by the journey outwards and the return was fifty-three days to Carpentaria Downs, and to Bowen seventy-one days in all; this trip proves what can be done with a lightly-equipped party, in contrast to many of the unwieldy expeditions fitted out in the south. Mr. Macdonald's favourable report of the country was the direct means of a good deal of settlement on the Gulf. Mr. Macdonald, in conjunction with Mr., afterwards Sir, John Robertson, and Captain Towns, of Sydney, took up many stations on the Gulf waters and expended large sums of money in stocking them. They also despatched the first vessel with loading to the Albert, bringing consigned goods to settlers, as well as supplies for their own consumption. This vessel was the "Jacmel Packet," which arrived in the Albert River from Sydney in 1865, thus leading to the establishment of Burketown. Sir John Robertson personally visited the Gulf in 1868, travelling overland from the east coast as far as Normanton and Burketown, and returning the same way. * * * * * Mr. Hann, one of the pioneers of the Burdekin country, was the leader of a small expedition sent out by the Queensland Government for exploring and prospecting purposes through the peninsula to Cape York. The party started from Fossilbrook station, in 1872; they named the Tate and Walsh Rivers, and then went on to the Palmer River, after crossing the Mitchell, which they found a strong running stream. On the Palmer gold was discovered, and the place was called Warner's Gully, after Frederick Warner, the surveyor to the party; this being the first discovery of gold in that country. Travelling still north, they reached the Coleman River, and visited Princess Charlotte Bay. They discovered the Kennedy and Normanby Rivers, taking a few sheep with them as far as this. They then travelled to the present site of Cooktown, and followed up the Endeavour River for thirty miles, striking south to the Bloomfield River, where the dense vine scrubs greatly impeded their progress. On their way back they passed through some very rough country. So successful an expedition, made in so short a time, reflects credit on the leader of the party, who was a thorough bushman, and well acquainted with the dangers from hostile blacks in such a country. This expedition resulted in the development of one of the richest goldfields in Australia; bands of prospectors soon followed on their tracks and opened up the great alluvial diggings of the famous Palmer Goldfields, from which nearly £5,000,000 worth of alluvial gold was won. * * * * * W. O. Hodgkinson had been a member of the Burke and Wills expedition in 1860, and crossed Australia as second in command of McKinlay's party in 1862. In 1876, he led an expedition sent out by the Queensland Government to explore the north-west country from the Cloncurry to the South Australian boundary. The party was only a small one, but the work was well carried out, and the results were satisfactory and justified the expenditure incurred. They started from Cloncurry, which at that time, 1876, was already a settled mining township, but the country west and south was not well mapped out. They crossed the rolling plains on the Diamantina River, and in their reports describe life in the far west in its natural aspect, the game of the country, the vegetation, the spinifex, the awful sand ridges, and all the details of a journey made at the cold time of the year. The country, according to the vicissitudes of the season, may be either a desert or a meadow, for the rainfall is very uncertain. They followed up the Mulligan River in well-watered country, reaching Mary Lake, on the Georgina, and then on to Lake Coongi in South Australia. Mr. Hodgkinson's expedition was described in a diction not much used by the old explorers, whose records were made in a matter-of-fact style, with little attention to effect. Nevertheless, his descriptions are eminently interesting and life-like, and have a charm for all who like to read a traveller's report of an unknown land. Hodgkinson's name is commemorated by the goldfield named after him, as well as the river upon which it is situated. * * * * * G. E. Dalrymple led the north-east coast expedition fitted out by the Queensland Government in 1872. This was altogether a coasting trip by boats, and led to much information about the high values of the rich alluvial lands fringing the banks of the rivers which run into the sea on the east coast of the northern part of Queensland. The Johnstone, the Russell, and Mulgrave Rivers were named by him, as well as the Mossman and Daintree. Here was found most magnificent scenery, and on the Johnstone they discovered some fine cedar (one tree measuring ten feet in diameter), besides a vast extent of rich land fit for sugar growing. All these rivers have since been opened up for cultivation, and sugar-cane, with other tropical products, has taken the place of dense scrubs that then lined the banks of these comparatively unknown rivers--although the boats of the "Rattlesnake" had been into the Russell and Mulgrave Rivers in 1848. The country appeared to Dalrymple to be inhabited by very large numbers of blacks, and game was to be found in abundance. The name of Dalrymple is perpetuated in many places on the map of Queensland. A township on the Burdekin River, as well as several mountains and other remarkable features, have been named after George Elphinstone Dalrymple, who was a splendid type of man in every sense of the word. He was at one time treasurer of the Colony. * * * * * A search expedition for Leichhardt was promoted by the ladies of Melbourne, and although very little is recorded of its work, it has a melancholy interest from the fact that the leader, a man of great promise and energy, lost his life in endeavouring to carry out the task entrusted to him, and he now lies in an unmarked grave on the bank of a lonely billabong near the Cloncurry River, a few miles from his brother's station, Dalgonally. The expedition was entrusted to Duncan McIntyre, who had found on the Dugald River, during a private expedition in 1861, two horses that belonged to Leichhardt's last expedition. Mr. McIntyre went out with camels and horses, and formed a depôt camp at Dalgonally station on Julia Creek in 1865. He went on to Burketown, then just opened, for the purpose of buying stores; at the time of his visit the Gulf fever was at its worst, and he took ill and died on his return to the camp. He is spoken of as a man of high attainments and of large experience in bushmanship, and his untimely death was fatal to the objects of the expedition, the leadership of which was assumed by Mr. W. F. Barnett. A short trip was undertaken by him, in company with J. McCalman as second in charge, Dr. White, a medical man, Colin MacIntyre, G. Widish, and Myola, a blackboy. They started with nine camels, six of which were young ones, ten horses, and stores for five months. They travelled westward over the Cloncurry to the Dugald to the camp, marked XLV. of Duncan McIntyre on his first expedition to the Gulf, the camp where he found the two horses that Leichhardt lost on his last trip. Near here is the grave of Davy, one of their blackboys, who died from fever. After travelling over the country in the neighbourhood for a few weeks, and not having any fixed plan or instructions, they returned to the depôt camp. The expedition, which was well equipped, was eventually given up and the party dispersed. In consequence of the death of the leader, no notes of his journey were obtainable. The camels remained on Dalgonally, the property of Mr. Donald McIntyre, for years, and increased to quite a herd. The ladies of Melbourne sent a handsome gravestone suitably inscribed to be erected over the lonely grave of the explorer, but for many years it lay unnoticed on the beach at Thursday Island, and is probably still there. * * * * * The trip of Major-General Fielding to Point Parker is in no sense of the term an exploring trip through new country, but rather an exploratory survey for railway purposes through a fairly well settled tract. Nevertheless, some notes of the journey may be found of interest. In 1881, negotiations were entered into between the late Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas McIlwraith, then Premier of Queensland, and a syndicate called Henry Kimber and Co., to construct a railway on the land grant principle, between Roma and Point Parker, on the Gulf of Carpentaria. These negotiations resulted in the formation of a larger syndicate called the Australian Transcontinental Railway Syndicate, Limited, which initiated their scheme by making certain proposals to the Government of Queensland, and sending out General Fielding to traverse the proposed route in 1882. The party, under General Fielding's leadership, started from Roma, and went by way of Victoria Downs and Yo Yo to Biddenham, on the Nive, thence by Lansdowne and Barcaldine Downs to the Aramac, and on to Mount Cornish, delays occurring along the route for repairs to waggonettes and harness, and for the purpose of exchanging horses or buying new ones. Following down the Upper McKinlay, they reached the Cloncurry on October 7th, and were joined there by the Government Geologist, Mr. R. L. Jack. More delays occurred here for the want of stores, and it was not until November 1st that all the members of the expedition reached Kamilaroi station, on the Leichhardt River; Gregory Downs was reached on the 7th, and Point Parker on November 15th; the expedition having camped sixty-seven times. On the night of their arrival at Point Parker, the natives surrounded the camp at midnight. There were about a hundred of them, but they left when three shots were fired over their heads; no one was hurt on either side, and this was the only demonstration made by the aboriginals. Point Parker is described as having a very limited area for settlement, only about 7,000 acres being available. The Government schooner "Pearl" was waiting here, and after a careful survey of Point Parker and Point Bayley, they visited Bentinck and Sweer's Islands and Kimberley (now called Karumba), at the mouth of the Norman River. Finally, on November 13th, they sailed up the Batavia River in the "Pearl" for about forty miles, and explored it still further in the boats, thence on to Thursday Island on December 4th, 1882. In General Fielding's opinion, the country traversed on his route may be divided into sections; the first part between Mitchell and Malvern was neither fitted for pastoral purposes nor for agricultural settlement; thick scrub, bad soil, and poor timber prevailing. Between the Ward and the Nive, and thence to the Barcoo, Thomson, and Diamantina Rivers was first-class sheep country, requiring a good deal to be done in the way of providing water to enable the country to be fully stocked. The country between the McKinlay and Fullerton Rivers is subject to flood. Approaching the mining district of Cloncurry, the country is not so favourable for sheep, and is better adapted for raising cattle and horses. From the Cloncurry through the Gregory to the Nicholson River is all good cattle country, but the grass seed along the banks of the watercourses, and the flooded nature of parts of the country in the rainy seasons, render it unfit for profitable sheep-farming. From the Nicholson to the Gulf at Point Parker, the country is described as particularly useless. The formation is desert sandstone overlaid with nodular ironstone conglomerate; the vegetation dense, chiefly ti-tree scrubs growing upon spuey or rotten ground, together with spinifex, saltpans, and marshes. Such was General Fielding's estimate of the country through which the line was to pass. Captain Pennefather of the "Pearl" schooner had been surveying the waters between Allan Island and Point Parker. He was very reticent as to the qualifications of the place as a port; but looking at the soundings, and the open nature of the anchorage, coupled with the utterly valueless nature of the soil surrounding the place for over one hundred miles, the less said about it as a shipping port the better. The whole scheme was condemned by Parliament, and the general election of 1883 returned a majority against the principle of land grant railways. One of the first reform acts of the new Parliament was to repeal the Railway Companies' Preliminary Act. No doubt, had the scheme been favoured by the people of Queensland, a great impetus would have been given to settlement by the introduction of so much private capital into the colony, while the large annual payment of interest on borrowed money would have been avoided to a great extent. At all events, there is no transcontinental railway as yet, and when it does arrive, Point Parker will not be chosen as the terminus. Mr. Frank Hann, a brother of William Hann, the discoverer of the Palmer Goldfield, accompanied General Fielding as pilot. Hann is a first-class bushman, as hard as nails and full of energy. He was for many years the owner of Lawn Hill, situated on a western tributary of the Gregory River, but ticks ruined his herd. He is now in Western Australia. * * * * * The first surveyor appointed by the Queensland Government in the Gulf was Mr. George Phillips, lately the member for Carpentaria. He surveyed and laid out Burketown, Carnarvon, on Sweer's Island, and Normanton, on the Norman River. In company with W. Landsborough, in 1866, he explored and named the Diamantina and other western rivers. The former was named after Lady Bowen, the Governor's wife, whose Christian name was Diamantina Roma. The party passed close by the spot where Winton now stands, and by Kynuna, and from the head waters of the Diamantina they struck across via the heads of Rupert's and Alick's Creeks to Minamere (then Sheaffe's), thence to the Flinders, and on to Burketown. There were no signs of settlement between the Thomson River at Mount Cornish, and where they struck the Flinders River. Mr. Phillips and Mr. Landsborough were the first to navigate the Norman River, and they chose the site for the township. The writer met this party coming down the Flinders on their way to Burketown, in which place he had been laid up for several weeks with the Gulf fever; he was then on his way back to Conobie, more dead than alive. This was in the early part of 1866. CHAPTER V. PIONEERING WORK IN QUEENSLAND. The narrative of the pastoral industry in Queensland is almost the history of North Queensland itself. The outward flow of that restless and progressive industry can be traced from its infancy, when Mr. Patrick Leslie, of Collaroi, in the district of Cassilis, New South Wales, moved his stock northwards, and after first exploring the country by himself and a man named Peter Murphy, placed his sheep in June, 1840, and formed the first station in Queensland on the Darling Downs (discovered by Allan Cunningham 13 years before). He called this first station Toolburra, and afterwards selected Canning Downs station also. The stock consisted of nearly 6,000 sheep, two teams of bullocks and drays, one team of horses and dray, ten saddle horses, and twenty-two men, all ticket-of-leave men, pronounced by Mr. Leslie to be the best men he ever had in his life. The town of Warwick is built near this classic spot, where first the pioneers of the squatting industry pitched their original camp. The next to reach the Darling Downs were Hodgson and Elliott, who occupied Etonvale in September, 1840. No white man had settled on Darling Downs previous to Patrick Leslie in 1840. After Hodgson, King and Sibley were next to hold Gowrie, and these were followed by others, until in 1844, there were thirty stations formed and occupied in that district, the stock mostly coming from the Hunter River district of New South Wales. In 1843, the first station on the Burnett River was formed by Russell and Glover who took up Burrandowan, and they were soon followed by other settlers, occupying all the beautiful country on the Upper Burnett and Mary Rivers. Here the soil is rich, the surface water abundant, the climate equal to any in Australia; and thus a rich territory was added to the young colony. The names of the early settlers and pioneers of this country are as well known as the stations they formed. The Healeys of Tabinga were settled not far from Burrandowan. Over the Brisbane Range, John Eales, from the Hunter, was the first settler with stock in the Wide Bay District. The Jones', of merchant fame in Sydney, were also among the first over the range at or near Nanango. The course they followed took them down Barambah Creek to Boonara station. All the centre of the Burnett district was occupied by squatters coming by this line, while the upper, or Auburn portion, from lower down by Burrandowan. Lawless Bros. took up Boobijan; Anderson and Leslie occupied Gigoomgan; whilst McTaggart, H. C. Corfield, Perrier, Forster, Herbert W. H. Walsh, Dr. Ramsay, E. B. Uhr, and others followed soon after. Following on this, came the occupation of the runs on the Dawson River, a tributary of the Fitzroy, and onwards to the north and far out to the great west, where the downs rolled towards the setting sun. The Fitzroy River, draining an enormous territory, equal to any river in Queensland, and surpassed by but few in Australia, was gradually and successfully occupied. Through the brigalow and mulga scrubs, dense and forbidding, over mountain ranges, stony and steep, across flooded rivers, and over or around all obstacles, the pioneers still moved on and took up and occupied runs. Westward to the Maranoa and Warrego, and northward by the Fitzroy to the Burdekin and Flinders River, and even over the South Australian borders to Port Darwin, their mission was carried on, to fill the land with the outposts of civilisation. Before 1853, the Archer family were squatting on the Burnett River, and in that year Charles and William Archer went northward on an exploring trip during which they discovered and named the Fitzroy River, and rode over the spot where now stands the city of Rockhampton, with all its wealth, civilisation, and promise of prosperity. They started from Eidsvold, on the Burnett, simply with pack horses and two men, passed from Dalgangal to Rawbelle, and at the foot of Mount Rannes found the establishment of the brothers Leith Hay, then the farthest out station. They had some very troublesome country to penetrate. Besides hilly mountainous ranges, brigalow and vine scrubs surrounded the base of Mount Spencer, whose thousand feet of height they climbed, and gave to it its name. They crossed the Dee, and passed close to the site of the famous Mount Morgan gold mine. And so on they journeyed to the top of a range, where the most astounding view lay beneath them. Through a large and apparently open valley, bounded by table-topped, pyramidal and dominant mountains, with here and there fantastically-shaped sandstone peaks, a large river wound its way towards the sea. They supposed this river to be the confluence of the Dawson and Mackenzie, and the sea before them to be Keppel Bay. They explored the valley of the Fitzroy, which they named after Sir Charles Fitzroy, they being the first to discover it, and then went on to Gracemere Lake, a magnificent sheet of fresh water, about two miles long and three quarters of a mile wide. They rode on till they came to tidal water in the Fitzroy, and found it a fine navigable stream, with the tide running strongly up it. Near here they came upon a large lagoon covered over with a beautiful pink water-lily (nymphoea), which they called the Pink Lily Lagoon. In the account of their journey, they described the cycas palm growing with clusters of round smooth nuts encircling the top as a crown, under the leaves. After inspecting the country from opposite Yaamba to what is now known as Archer's cattle station, and laying it out in blocks, they returned to the Burnett. These pioneers were looking for new country, and being perfectly satisfied with the Fitzroy and its promise of future prosperity, they returned with stock two years later, in 1855, and took legal possession. It was on August 10th of that year that they brought the first stock on to Gracemere and occupied it as a run. In the same year, 1855, the site of the future town of Rockhampton was examined. The name of the town was chosen by Mr. Wiseman, Commissioner of Crown Lands for New South Wales, who had been sent up from Sydney to confirm the Messrs. Archer in the possession of their discovery. The rocks crossing the river situated above the present suspension bridge and forming the limit of navigation, helped to the choice of a name for the new northern town. Gracemere head station is on the south side of the Fitzroy River, and is distant seven miles from Rockhampton. Till then, Rannes had been the outer limit of occupation towards the north, in which direction settlement was extending. The Archers were a family of pioneer settlers, several brothers assisting in the enterprise of opening up country and forming new stations. They were extremely popular men of high character and attainments; and the name of Archer will be known as long as Rockhampton exists. Archibald Archer represented the town and district for many years in the Queensland Assembly, and acted as Colonial Treasurer in the first McIlwraith Ministry with credit to himself and much benefit to the young colony.[B] The Archers may justly be said to be the original discoverers and actual founders of Rockhampton, for although the town took its great start on the road to importance from the time of the Canoona rush in 1858, called in those days the Port Curtis rush, the site of the town had been made known five years previously by the Archer Brothers. Amongst the early settlers in the country about Gladstone were the Landsboroughs, at Raglan Station, James Landsborough, a brother of the explorer William, living there after taking it up. They held a run in the Wide Bay district, called Monduran, on the banks of the Kolan River, a beautiful and picturesque stream of clear flowing water, with varied patches of dark pine scrubs growing down to the water's edge. William Young, a sturdy self-reliant old pioneer, took up a run called Mount Larcombe, and held it with sheep. Mount Larcombe can be seen from the deck of passing steamers close to Gladstone. Mr. Young was foremost in opening the country between Gladstone and Rockhampton. He obtained a rough sketch from Mr. Charles Archer of country they had tendered for, and on going out came across a large branch of the Calliope which had not been so taken up. This he chose for his new run, and Mount Larcombe being at the head of the creek, he named the station after it. He took his sheep from the Burnett, and settled on his new country on May 29th, 1855. The reason for those of the advance guard pushing out so far was on account of the tendering system for runs then in force. By this system, those who marked out country could hold it unstocked, and unless a few hundred pounds were paid by them for the right of actual occupation, the pioneers in search of land had to go out further. Prospecting thus for new country without any intention of stocking it, but merely of selling the information and the claim to the country to any one in search of a run for their stock, became a regular speculation. [Footnote B: Mr. Archibald Archer died early in 1902, in London, at the age of 82. Mr. Alexander Archer and his wife (a daughter of the late Sir R. R. Mackenzie) were both lost in the "Quetta," which foundered near Cape York.] The Wide Bay district only extended as far as Little's station at Baffle's Creek, and on to Blackman's. When separation took place, and a new district was declared, those who had tendered for new country for the purpose of reselling, had nine months allowed them to stock their country in. Otherwise they were called upon to forfeit it. Mr. Young had a great deal of trouble from the blacks; they made a raid on his shepherds, killing several, but afterwards he found them very useful for minding sheep, etc. At that time, two small trading vessels handled the trade to Sydney, and from this port Mr. Young had to get his rations, as well as shepherds. Many of the latter sent to him were found useless for bush life.[C] [Sidenote: Rockhill, No. 3.] [Sidenote: Bugulban, No. 1.] [Sidenote: Gunyah, No. 2.] [Sidenote: Borroran, No. 4.] No. 55117. Crown Lands Office, Sydney, 29th January, 1855. Nos. 2, 5, 11 and 12 of December. Gentlemen, I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your tenders (opened on the 4th ultimo), for new runs of Crown Lands in the district of Port Curtis, named in the margin, and I beg to inform you, that the same now await the report of the Commissioner of the district, in accordance with the Regulations of the 1st January, 1848. I have the honor to be, Gentlemen, Your most obedient servant, GEO. BARNEY. Chief Commissioner of Crown Lands. Messrs. R. & F. BLACKMAN, Maryborough, Wide Bay. This copy of the letter from Colonel Barney to the Messrs. Blackman regarding the tenders of their runs shows that they were early in the Port Curtis district, and occupied a run called Warrah, still held by Mr. F. A. Blackman in 1897. The whole of the Wide Bay district had become settled with stations, and the necessity for an outlet for produce and receipt of supplies led to the port of Gladstone being opened. Among the first to establish a business there was Richard E. Palmer, who built a wharf and a large wool shed, so that the wool from Rannes and other stations lately formed could be shipped away. He then took up Targieni station, near Mount Larcombe, and lived there for many years. Among the early settlers in the district about Gladstone were the Bells of Stowe, father and sons, Mrs. Graham on the Calliope; and Charles Clarke, James Landsborough, John Forsyth. Edwin Bloomfield held Miriam Vale; Robinson and Wood had taken up Caliungal; William Elliott passed Gracemere with sheep, and took up Tilpal in 1857. Ramsay and Gaden held Canoona run when the gold rush took place in 1858. Mr. A. J. Callan, for some years member of the Legislative Assembly for Fitzroy, took up Columbra run. All the surrounding country became parcelled out among the early arrivals, and settlement began to spread itself into far-away districts to the north and north-west. Civilisation was pronounced enough when ladies followed their husbands on many of the new stations. Raglan was famous for its hospitality as early as 1860, when Mrs. James Landsborough presided, and her numerous family grew up there. [Footnote C: Mr. Young ended his days peacefully in Sandgate in 1899, at an advanced age.] From Marlborough, a small village on the outward stock route, the track led out west towards Peak Downs, a beautiful tableland discovered by Leichhardt. Mr. Stuart, known as Peak Downs Stuart, took up one of the first runs in 1861 with sheep brought from Victoria. These sheep were destroyed by order on account of scab breaking out among them. Mr. P. F. Macdonald and Sydney Davis were among the earliest settlers on Peak Downs. Mr. William Kilman, whose name is so well known in the central districts, was one of the enterprising pioneers of the north. In 1854, when he was twenty-five years old, he set out on an exploring trip along the Queensland coast. On that journey, he came to the river on which Rockhampton now stands, and, passing up the coast, went as far as Cleveland Bay, where Townsville was founded some years later. He returned to New South Wales from Cleveland Bay, and in 1856 took up a large tract of country on the upper waters of the Dawson. It would thus appear that Mr. Kilman visited the locality of Townsville ten years before Mr. Andrew Ball came down from Woodstock station to explore the country. Captain John Mackay, explorer and pioneer settler, as well as navigator, discovered Port Mackay in 1860. The history of the discovery and settlement of the district and town of Mackay is of interest, showing what individual effort in conjunction with large experience and great physical fortitude and endurance can accomplish. Captain Mackay left Armidale on January 16th, 1860, with a party of seven men and twenty-eight horses, to explore the north country for runs for stocking purposes; they travelled by Tenterfield, Darling Downs, Gayndah, and Rockhampton. After recruiting and refitting here, they started again on March 16th, passed Yaamba and Princhester, on to Marlborough, where Mr. Henning was forming a station. They left civilisation behind them when leaving this place, and bearing to the north-west over the range, which was very rugged and broken, followed the Isaacs and travelled on towards the Burdekin. Returning towards the coast, they found a river they called the Mackay, traced it to the coast, and having marked trees along its course, they decided to return south, having been successful in the object of their expedition. The party now fell sick of fever and ague, a most prostrating malady, and were reduced to the utmost extremity for want of provisions, for the sick men were for some time unable to travel. In suffering and pain, hungry and thirsty, and utterly weary, they started again for civilised parts. The blackboy, their faithful companion, died on the journey, while some of the others could scarcely manage to ride. On returning, they met Mr. Connor, who was forming Collaroy station; here they remained a few days recruiting, then crossing the Broadsound Range, they camped with Mr. John Allingham, who was travelling with stock looking for country, passed Mr. Macartney at Waverley, and arrived at Rockhampton after an absence of four months. They tendered for the country discovered in accordance with the Crown Lands Regulations, and the tenders were accepted by the Queensland Government, from which date they were allowed nine months for stocking, failing which, any person putting stock in, could legally claim the country. In order to obtain some compensation for the discovery they had made, Captain Mackay got cattle on terms, and started from Armidale on July 26th, 1861, with 1,200 cattle, fifty horses and two teams of bullocks. The stock travelled by Dalby to the Burnett and Dawson, passing Banana and Rannes, and thence to Rockhampton on October 27th, where supplies were waiting for them from Sydney. They then passed northwards through the Broadsound country, where several stations were then forming, and arrived at the foot of the coast range, when by double-banking the teams, that is, putting two teams on to one dray with only a part of a load on, they managed, after several days' hard work, to get the loads and stock across the terrible barrier. After great trouble in forcing a way through ranges, scrubs, and other obstacles, the stock arrived at the spot selected for the head station on the Mackay River, now called the Pioneer, on January 11th, 1862. The station was named Green Mount, and having turned their weary stock loose on the well-grassed plains, the party set to work to form a station hut and yards. All their stores were exhausted, and after waiting long months for the vessel that was to have come from Rockhampton, they at last discovered that she was below Cape Palmerston at anchor; she was brought up the river four miles west of where the town now stands, and landed the stores on the south bank. Captain Mackay then chartered the vessel at the rate of £8 per day, and spent a few days in taking soundings, bearings, etc.; having made a rough chart of the river and adjacent coast line, it was sent with the correct latitude and longitude to the Crown Lands Office, Brisbane, on which report the Mackay River was declared a port of entry. The name of the river was changed to the Pioneer, as Commodore Burnett (afterwards lost in H.M.S. "Orpheus" on the Manakau Bar in New Zealand), had, in 1863, named a stream flowing into Rockingham Bay, the Mackay, and recommended the new discovery should be called after H.M.S. "Pioneer," which he commanded. The Queensland Government not wishing to detract from the merit of discovery, named the town Mackay. There can be no manner of doubt but that the honor of discovering the Pioneer River and the Port of Mackay, and making that discovery public information, so as to be of service in opening up the district, rests entirely with Captain John Mackay.[D] The discovery of the fine pastoral country in the Barcoo by the Mitchell expedition was soon followed by occupation. On October 12th, 1862, the first mob of cattle arrived on the Thomson River, for Mount Cornish and Bowen Downs. The Thomson River was at that time supposed to be the Barcoo, but Mr. N. Buchanan found out that it was the same river that had been named the Thomson by Kennedy in 1847. The first station was named Bowen Downs, and the first stock to arrive on these waters were the cattle started from Fort Cooper, where they had been depasturing for some time. The mob consisted of five thousand head, and the route followed was by Lake Elphinstone on to Suttor Creek, down that creek to the Belyando, following that river up a short distance, then across by Bully Creek, crossing the range at the Tanks by Lake Buchanan on to Cornish Creek, and down that creek to their destination. [Footnote D: Captain Mackay, in 1902, succeeded the late Captain Almond as Harbour Master at Brisbane.] Suttor Creek station then belonged to Kirk and Sutherland, and was the farthest out station in that direction. On arriving at Bully Creek, a dry stage ahead of forty-five miles, caused the leader to leave 1,500 head behind him, the balance arriving at their destination on October 12th, 1862. Mr. R. Kerr was in charge, with four white stockmen, one blackboy, three gins, and a white man named Maurice Donohue, who died before he had been there very long, and was doubtless the first white man buried in the district. In the following year, 1863, a drought occurred on the Thomson, the plains were left destitute of grass, and the waterhole, on the banks of which the station was formed, was reduced to two feet in depth. When full there would be about eighteen feet of water in it, and it was afterwards found that it took eighteen months without rain to bring it down to that level. In about March of this year, Messrs. Rule and Lacy, as also Mr. Raven, arrived on Aramac Creek with sheep, the former taking up and stocking the country now known as Aramac station. Mr. Raven first settling down higher up the creek, afterwards returned to Stainburne, taking up and stocking the present Stainburne Downs. At the same time that these sheep arrived at the Aramac, three thousand cows from the Narran (N.S.W.) arrived on Bowen Downs, Messrs. Hill and Bloxham in charge; all these stock went out by the Barcoo, and the cattle suffered severely from the effects of the drought, one thousand head being lost en route. Four of the party, Messrs. Hill, Bloxham, Burkett, and Best, who took out these cows to Bowen Downs, decided to go upon an exploring trip on their own account. They went up Landsborough Creek, and on to the Flinders River, intending to go to Bowen; after getting over the Range on the east side of the Flinders, it commenced to rain, and continued an incessant downpour for four days, making the country so boggy that they could not travel; some of their horses died, and some got crippled by getting bogged among the rocks; so they decided to return to Bowen Downs. They got down from the ranges into one of the gorges, and then Mr. Best was laid up with rheumatic fever, and was unable to travel. Their supplies ran short, and they had to kill some of their horses for food; by the time Mr. Best was able to move, they had only three horses left; so they decided to kill one of these, take a portion of the flesh with them, and walk to Bowen Downs for assistance, leaving Mr. Best behind, as he was still unfit to travel. They left the two horses with him, and the remainder of the horse they had killed, jerking the meat for him before they started. The three then began their tramp, Mr. Bloxham being leader and guide; they promised to be back in twenty-eight days, and urged Mr. Best to remain where they were leaving him, but if he did move to be sure to follow their tracks. They also gave him directions as to the route to follow to reach Bowen Downs. They got to Bowen Downs in due course, after surmounting innumerable difficulties. Mr. Bloxham, who was the oldest of the party, was very weak on arrival, and suffering severely from the consequences of subsisting on jerked horse flesh; they were all wearing horse hide sandals, their boots being worn out. After several days spell, Mr. Bloxham made up a party and went to the rescue of the man left behind. The other two left for civilisation. The rescue party met Mr. Best on the twenty-ninth day from leaving him, a few miles from his camp. He had stayed the twenty-eight days as agreed, and started in on the twenty-ninth. They, of course, were very glad to find him, and the meeting was mutually satisfactory. During his sojourn in the gorge, Mr. Best only saw the blacks once; and then he fired his gun off to attract their attention, but they took no notice of him. Another report said that as he had been using his gun as a crutch, the muzzle had got blocked up with mud, and when he fired it off to scare the blacks away the gun burst with such a terrible roar that they never ventured near him again. The first pioneer to stock country on the Flinders was James Gibson, who took up a run called the Prairie, in 1861. He also stocked several runs in the neighbourhood and on the Clarke River. He started two lots of cattle from the Barwon (N.S.W.), one in charge of Mr. E. R. Edkins, now of Mount Cornish, the other mob in charge of Mr. George Sautelle, now long settled at Byrimine station, near Cloncurry. These cattle passed by Goondiwindi, through the Downs country, by Yandilla, to the Dawson, by Rockhampton, and then by Fort Cooper and Bowen on to the Clarke River. These, according to the Land Office records, were the first runs taken up in the pastoral district of Burke. Their cattle were supplemented by other large mobs, all destined to form new stations in the far north, in connection with Mr. W. Glen Walker, of Sydney, an enterprising and speculative merchant. In 1864 the country first taken up by this firm was sold or transferred, and the cattle (as many as ten thousand head), were removed to the Lower Flinders then quite unoccupied. They travelled through Betts' Gorge, a creek forcing its way through the basalt to join the Flinders. A large stretch of well-watered country on the Saxby Creek, known as Taldora and Millungerra was taken up by James Gibson in 1864. The first man to open the way to the Albert at Burketown was Mr. N. Buchanan, with cattle from Mount Cornish and Bowen Downs on the Thomson River; he selected Beame's Brook station on the Albert, eighteen miles above the present site of Burketown, and also occupied another run on the Landsborough River, a tributary of the Leichhardt, on a waterhole about twelve miles long. Following him in order of succession came Mr. J. G. Macdonald's cattle from the Burdekin. These travelled by a different route via the Einasleigh and Etheridge Rivers, the latter called after Mr. D. O. Etheridge, one of the overlanders, a man long resident there afterwards, and well known. They followed the route opened up by Mr. J. G. Macdonald when on his private exploring expedition to the Gulf country a year or two before. The country this stock occupied was on the Leichhardt River, at a place called Floraville, situated where a great bar of rocks crosses the river above all tidal waters, the falls being about twenty feet in height. Another run this firm took up at the same time was situated on the Gregory River, and called Gregory Downs; but this country was abandoned later on, and is now held by Watson Bros.; it is an excellent piece of well-grassed cattle country, watered by the finest perennial river in North Queensland, a clear, flowing stream of water, shaded by palms, pandanus, and ti-trees. The Gregory River, named by the late Mr. W. Landsborough in honor of the Honorable A. C. Gregory, M.L.C., C.M.G., the well-known explorer and scientist, has never been known to go dry. In March, 1896, Mr. G. Phillips, C.E., estimated the flow of the river--which was then low--at 133 millions of gallons per day at Gregory Downs. There can be no doubt that the discharge is due to a leak from the great artesian beds underlying the Barkly Tableland, on which the town of Camooweal is situated, on the head waters of the Georgina River. The Barkly Tableland was also named by Mr. Landsborough in honor of Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of Victoria, 1856-1863. Donor's Hills station was settled by the Brodie Bros., who came from Murrurundi, in New South Wales early in 1865. They travelled by Bowen River and along the Cape River route, and took up the country about the junction of the Cloncurry and the Flinders Rivers, near some peculiar isolated ironstone hills, which were named Donor's Hills. It was considered a good run and well watered, and is now held by Mr. Chirnside, of Victoria, being still stocked with sheep. Among the last wave of pioneers was Mr. Atticus Tooth, who brought cattle from the Broken River, near Bowen, and took up a run on the lower Cloncurry, which he called Seaward Downs; the stock belonged to a business firm in Bowen called Seaward, Marsh and Co. It now forms part of Conobie run, taken up by Messrs. Palmer and Shewring, who brought sheep and cattle from Pelican Creek, in 1864. The cattle were driven from Eureka, in the Wide Bay district, by Edward Palmer, one of the firm who from that time resided on the station, and who is the author of these notes. The stock followed the route up the Cape River, and were detained in the desert at Billy Webb's Lake nearly two months waiting for rain to take them through. After the usual vicissitudes of travelling stock down the Flinders, and searching for country all round the Gulf it was decided to occupy Conobie, where the Dugald, Corella, and Cloncurry Rivers form a junction. The sheep were placed on the run in May, 1865, and then the trip back to Brisbane had to be undertaken in order to apply for the lease of the country. One of the partners, Mr. W. Shewring, died about a year afterwards from the effects of the Gulf fever, and also several of the men. They were all buried on the bank of the large lagoon, near which the head station was formed. Supplies to this place were carried from Port Denison by bullock dray, but the first wool was shipped for Sydney from the new port, Burketown. The price of everything was extremely high, flour and sugar often selling at one shilling per pound, while wages for ordinary hands ranged from thirty-five shillings to fifty shillings a week, and men were scarce even at that. Pioneers as well as explorers, the settlement of Cape York Peninsula will always be associated with the names of the Jardines. The account of their trip from Bowen with cattle and horses through the most troublesome country ever traversed by stock, will stand as a lasting monument to their superior bushmanship and hardihood. The narrative of the journey adds a most interesting page to the records of Australian exploration, as it was conducted throughout without any mishap, although surrounded with many dangers, through a country almost unknown and during a season when the risks were much increased by reason of the advent of the annual heavy rains. The uncommon task of taking a mob of cattle such a distance with success, reflects the highest credit on the Jardine Brothers. The origin of the trip was a report made by the first governor, Sir G. Bowen, in 1862, to the Imperial Government recommending Somerset, Cape York, as a harbour of refuge, coaling station and entrepôt for the trade of Torres Straits and islands of the North Pacific. The task of establishing the new settlement was confided to Mr. Jardine, Police Magistrate at Rockhampton, who was qualified by experience and judgment to carry out the work. Mr. Jardine proposed to establish a cattle station there, by sending cattle in charge of his two sons through the Peninsula, in order to supply the requirements of trade with fresh beef. Frank and Alick Jardine, aged respectively 22 and 20, carried out the task of overlanding very creditably, being strong, active, and hardy young men, full of resource and inured to bush work and discomforts. Those who know by experience what a wet season means in the Peninsula, with flooded creeks and rivers, poison plants killing the horses and cattle, and hostile blacks always on the alert to damage anything in their way, will understand the full meaning of the successful issue of such a trip. The writer settled a cattle station on the Mitchell River in 1879, and can thus enter fully into all the troubles of these young overlanders, and appreciate the magnitude of their task. The party, consisting of ten persons and twenty-one horses, left Rockhampton in May, 1864; they travelled overland to Bowen, where they obtained cattle from Mr. William Stenhouse, of the Clarke River. The furthest out station then was Carpentaria Downs, to the north-west, held by J. G. Macdonald, supposed to be on the Lynd River, but afterwards proved to be on the Einasleigh, a branch of the Gilbert River. On October 10th they were ready for a final start with the cattle from Carpentaria Downs. The party were composed of the following:--F. L. Jardine, leader; A. Jardine; A. J. Richardson, surveyor; C. Scrutton; R. N. Binney; A. Cowderoy; and four blackboys, Eulah, Peter, Sambo, and Barney, natives of Wide Bay and Rockhampton; also forty-one horses, one mule, and 250 cattle, with provisions to last for four months. They started under the impression they were following down the Lynd of Leichhardt, that led to the Mitchell River, hence the troubles and doubts about their journey were much increased, and it was a considerable time before the mistake was discovered. Not long after getting into the wilderness, a fire burnt one half of their camp gear and rations, which was a loss they felt throughout their journey. Travelling through poor, flat ti-tree country, covered with spinifex and wire grass that no stock would look at, they encountered the further misfortunes of the loss of horses and cattle by poison and delay owing to their being hunted by blacks. In addition to the loss of cattle, travelling was excessively heavy in consequence of the rains. But the journey was prosecuted in spite of all troubles and risks. The blacks soon commenced to attack them, and had to be checked, although they never ceased all through the journey to harass them. The party struck salt water when following down the Staaten, and then knew that they were out of their course, and not near the Mitchell River of Leichhardt. They saw the marine plains extending along the coast, and finally, about December 18th, crossed the long-looked for Mitchell River, covered here with dense vine scrubs, and having numerous wide channels. They lost some horses that went mad through drinking salt water, and at the crossing had a severe contest with the blacks, who had been daring and mischievous all the time. After crossing the Mitchell, they followed a course along the coast line of the Gulf, meeting with disasters all the way, their cattle being poisoned, their horses failing, their rations exhausted, and hardships accumulating. They finally left the Mitchell and made straight running for Cape York on December 22nd; the wet season came on them then, and nothing but rain was recorded while going through a most dismal, miserable country, poor in grass, and full of obstacles, such as scrub, etc. Heavy storms of rain and wind passed over them frequently, from which they had no shelter, the tents being blown to pieces. They had no salt, and the weather was too muggy to dry or jerk the meat when a beast was killed. In this way they crept along the coast line, crossing all the rivers and creeks in full flood, and by the time they reached the Batavia River they had to do most of the travelling on foot, so many horses having died from the fatal effects of the poison plants common in this despicable country. As all the creeks were lined with vine scrubs, they were compelled to cut tracks through every one of them for the cattle and to swim creeks every day, while the prickles of the pandanus leaves gave them special discomfort. Several attempts were made to search for the settlement at Cape York by advance parties, but it was not until March 2nd that the brothers, having met some friendly natives, were piloted into the settlement, and thus this most wonderful trip was concluded, having taken over five months to get through about 1,600 miles, the last two or three hundred being done on foot, and without even boots to their feet. The country passed through was mostly of a forbidding and sterile character, except on the Einasleigh River banks, and in consequence of their report, no occupation of runs followed. As the Peninsula became more explored, better country was discovered near the heads of the rivers flowing into the Gulf; and in after years a few stations were stocked with cattle. Frank Jardine, the elder brother, has lived at Somerset ever since, and his house is seen when passing through the beautiful Albany Pass. Alick Jardine became a surveyor and engineer, and for many years was employed by the Government of Queensland. He attained the position of Engineer for Harbours and Rivers, but was among the officers retrenched in 1893. CHAPTER VI. THE SPREAD OF PASTORAL OCCUPATION. After the Canoona rush in 1858 and 1859, the tide of pastoral run hunting set in; the route northwards followed by stock going out to occupy new country led by Princhester and through Marlborough. Here the route turned off westwards towards the Peak Downs, and extended still further to the interior where the Barcoo, Thomson, and Alice Rivers flowed into a mysterious land. The northern road led on to Broad Sound, where Connor's Range had to be passed; this spur of the main coast range comes close in to the coast. Overlanders could not avoid crossing it, and this was an undertaking. It was reckoned to be two miles from the first rise to the summit, and to get drays and stock across sometimes took several days, as they had to unload some of their goods at the steep pinches and return empty for the balance of the loading. The road was in a state of nature, and wound round gullies and sidings through the forest trees that grew on the steep sides of the mountain; many a curse was wasted on its stony, dusty inclines ere the long looked for summit was reached. After crossing the range, the first settlement in those early days, about 1860, was Lotus Creek station. From Lotus Creek the road led on to Fort Cooper station, considered one of the best coast stations then discovered. As early as 1863, Nebo Creek, west of Mackay, was made a recruiting centre, where stores could be obtained from a firm named Kemmis and Bovey. Passing along Funnel Creek, still going northwards, the head of the Bowen River was reached. The Bowen River country was soon occupied with runs and stock from the south, passing along the coast route that led by Rockhampton, Marlborough, and Nebo. The roads were lined with flocks and herds of those entering on the pioneering work of the North of Queensland, and business men were following in the wake of the early stock settlers to commence a trade wherever an opportunity offered. The settlement was bona fide and genuine; men with means, energy and experience were entering on it with great enthusiasm and high hopes of the future of the new country. The wave of occupation passed on to the Burdekin River, causing a great demand for sheep and cattle for the purpose of stocking new country in the north and west. The requirements of this great augmentation of the stock northwards led to the opening of Bowen or Port Denison as a port of shipment for supplies. The discovery and opening of Port Denison will be treated of elsewhere; its opening to commerce was a boon to those who were occupying the country immediately at the rear of the port. Many overlanders took advantage of the port by shearing or lambing their sheep wherever a chance offered, and after obtaining supplies for the road, were prepared to extend their search for new country still further away. The Bowen River country is very interesting and its scenery most picturesque; it has first-class grazing qualities, small open plains, with patches of brigalow scrub scattered over black-soil country. Sandstone ranges bound the creeks on the coast side, whence they come down to the main stream. The river is a fine stream, with long and deep reaches, in which are found alligators of large size that have come up from the Burdekin River. Among the early settlers to take up country was Mr. J. G. Macdonald, afterwards an early pioneer in the Gulf country, though not a resident there. He took up, in conjunction with others, a large area of country in the Bowen district, afterwards known as Dalrymple, Inkermann, Strathbogie, and Ravenswood. His residence at Adelaide Point was at one period the show place of the North, where Mrs. Macdonald (after whom Adelaide Point was named) dispensed hospitality with a kindly grace which won all hearts. Of all this, nothing now remains but a memory. The house is gone; Mr. Macdonald is dead, and the family dispersed. Carpentaria Downs was also taken up by J. G. Macdonald, on the head of the Einasleigh River, for a long time the outside settlement. One of the early sheep stations held by Mr. Henning was located on the Bowen River, while lower down a fine piece of country called Havilah was held with sheep by Hillfling and Petersen--this was before 1862. Other stations occupied somewhere about this time, or even earlier, were Strathmore and Sonoma, held by Sellheim and Touissaint, with stock from Canning Downs. These stations were a stage still further north, the surrounding country being fine open forest land, very well grassed and watered. These runs were the first taken up in the pastoral district called Kennedy. The main stock route northward followed the Bowen River settlements crossing Pelican Creek, a tributary of the Bowen, through Sonoma run, then to the Bogie, and across to the Burdekin River, following up that stream to the Clarke and Lynd Rivers. Knowledge of a great pastoral country away to the shores of the Gulf and extending far up the Burdekin River was in the possession of many pioneer explorers whose names are unrecorded, and the tide of advancing settlement followed on as fast as was possible, stations being formed to the right and left of the main routes, while others moved forward with a restless energy that nothing would satisfy but the best country for their stock. One route turned on the Bowen River to the west, and crossed the Suttor River above Mount McConnel near the junction of the Cape River that came in from the westward. This stock track soon became a main road owing to the traffic which was carried on from the newly-opened port of Bowen or Port Denison to the western settlements, even to Bowen Downs station. The road led across the Leichhardt Range--another heavy piece for teams, equal to Connor's Range, the sharp stones laming the bullocks, and making the ascent a trial of patience and endurance to man and beast. A station called Natal Downs was held by Kellet and Spry on the Cape River, and by this route a great many of the early settlers in the far west travelled their stock during 1864-65. The blacks were aggressive in those days on Natal Downs, and were in the habit of cutting off the shepherds at outstations; it was reported and believed that as many as eighteen shepherds were killed at various outstations in the first few years of settlement there. Onward and westward went the movement of stock. The principal topic of conversation turned always upon new country, the latest discoveries of good grazing lands, and the men who were following with sheep and cattle. The way out west in those first days led up the Cape River through poor country, with a good deal of spinifex grass and patches of poison bush. On the flat tableland dividing the Gulf waters from those flowing towards the Thomson, were a series of large shallow swamps, known as Billy Webb's Lake, a kind of halting place for stock. Between this and the Flinders waters lies a tract of country nearly two hundred miles in width, called the Desert--and the name is a well-deserved one. The Desert consists of spinifex ridges and sandy sterile country, covered in large patches with the desert poison shrub botanically known as "Gastrolobium grandiflora." This dangerous plant grows to a height of six to eight feet in separate bushes, and exhibits a bluish-silvery sheen conspicuous afar off. It bears a scarlet blossom like a vetch, and the leaf is indented at the outer end. Its poisonous nature was soon proved by the first stock that attempted the passage. Many of the early drovers lost large numbers of both cattle and sheep from its deadly effects. In one camp, Halloran's and Alexander's, as many as 1,500 sheep died in one night from eating it. All the stock passing through this belt of desert country paid some tribute to its evil properties. This poison plant is peculiar to the strip of desert country that extends along the dividing watershed for many hundreds of miles, from the Alice River reaching north as far as the Lynd. The symptoms of poisoning from this plant are a kind of madness, causing animals to rush about furiously, and then, becoming paralysed, to fall helpless to the ground, and soon expire. There are but one or two varieties of the plant in Queensland, though in Western Australia twelve or fourteen varieties of Gastrolobium are found. Besides the destructive poison plant, there is the evil-smelling repellant spinifex growing through this strip of vile country, as well as a low, close scrub, through all of which stock has to be got before the open plain country is reached. A great scarcity of surface water, and low stony ridges with heavy patches of red sand, are characteristic of poison country. Glad indeed were the pioneers to leave it behind, and with great satisfaction to stand on the rocky eminence that bounded it on the western side, whence they looked down the open valley of the Jardine, and beheld the downs and the grassy plains of the Flinders spreading out before them for many miles. The sight came as a surprise and relief after so much disagreeable travelling through the worst portion of North Queensland, especially should a thunderstorm have passed over the country recently and caused a spring in the herbage. The Flinders River flowing to the west and north-west towards the Gulf of Carpentaria, through most extensive plains and downs, traverses a different geological formation to that which the pioneers crossed when coming from the east coast. The edge of the great cretaceous formation which forms the major portion of the western country, is here entered on for the first time, and a new strange world seems to open up. A new fauna and flora is evident on the very first entrance into the new region; the birds are different and more numerous; galas, parrots, and pigeons abound, and assure the newcomer that he has found a new pastoral country, the grasses and herbage of which are more permanent, enduring and nutritive than those he has hitherto met with. The downs, covered with the Mitchell grass, with scarcely a bush or shrub to break the monotony, stretch away as far as the eye can see; while the heavy timber along the creeks and rivers indicates their course. A dreary monotony prevails on the western rivers, the same everlasting plains, the same great grassy waste of downs like an ocean without its interesting motion. Far ahead can be seen the river timber winding through the brown plains, so that the traveller can see a whole day's stage ahead. For over a hundred of miles along the north-eastern, or right bank of the Flinders River, is a tableland of basaltic formation, near which the river winds its course; a dark fringe of rocks rises abruptly, broken here and there by indentations through which flow creeks to join the main channel. The cone of eruption for this vast overflow of lava is said to be somewhere about Mount Sturgeon, to the eastward. The lava has flowed over the original sandstone formation, and formed a level tableland now broken and covered with black, porous blocks of lava of every size. It is utilised for pasture purposes, notwithstanding its forbidding aspect. Some time after Rule and Lacy stocked the Aramac, Mr. Hodgson arrived on it with sheep and took up and stocked Rodney Downs; he crossed the spinifex country from the Belyando to the Alice River, and lost about six thousand sheep on this track by poison bush, the Gastrolobium grandiflora. Mr. Meredith arrived in May of the same year on the Thomson, and took up and stocked Tower Hill station. During June of this year the Thomson and Aramac Creek were in high flood; Rule and Lacy were flooded out of their first camp, and removed to where Aramac station now is. Some stockmen looking after the company's cattle on an anabranch of Cornish Creek, were surrounded by water, and lived on jerked beef for a month. About July the head station was shifted up to Cornish Creek, taking the name of Bowen Downs with it, which name it has since retained. In 1872 the cattle station was formed into a separate establishment under the management of Mr. E. R. Edkins, who called it Mount Cornish, in honor of the late E. B. Cornish, of Sydney. This year wound up with a wet Christmas. Wages in those days were very high, stockmen getting as much as 40s. a week, and cooks 30s.; any old horse would bring £25. The year 1864 may be styled the year of Hegira or flight of stock outwards to settle new country; they came from all parts, and helped to fill the land everywhere with the beginning of civilisation. A boom had set in for pastoral occupation; the reports of recent explorations told of enormous tracts of grand open country waiting for stock to utilise it, and each one was anxious to be the first to secure some of it for his sheep or cattle. The head of the Flinders River was occupied by a few settlers, and two lots of sheep passed Bowen Downs, en route to the Flinders. They belonged to Kirk and Sutherland, and Mr. J. L. Ranken, and came from Fort Cooper way, losing heavily in crossing the range between Bully Creek and Lake Buchanan, between eight and ten thousand sheep perishing through eating the desert poison bush. They discovered what was the cause of such losses by feeding some sheep on the suspected plant when they died with all the symptoms of the victims in the desert track. The first white man known to have been killed by the blacks on the Thomson was one of the shepherds with Kirk and Sutherland's sheep. He was killed on Duck Pond Creek, a tributary of Cornish Creek. After he was buried, the blacks dug the body up at night and drove a stake through it, pinning it to the ground. Kirk and Sutherland must have reached the Flinders about April, and then occupied and stocked Marathon. Mr. J. L. Ranken occupied Afton Downs, but was dried out the following year, and he lost a number of his sheep in consequence of having to remove them lower down the Flinders. In March of this year Mr. Meredith, of Tower Hill, formed a station on the east side of Landsborough Creek, naming it Eversleigh, and stocked it with cattle. In March also Bowen Downs sent cattle up the Landsborough for the purpose of stocking the west side of the creek. The men with the cattle had a very rough trip, as there was incessant rain, and the country became one vast quagmire; all their rations and ammunition were spoilt, and they had to live on young calf, "staggering bob," as they called it. Mr. E. H. Butler was in charge, and after leaving the cattle, started for home at the Mud Hut, when a thunderstorm occurred that put out their fire and wet all their matches. The river branches were flooded, and during the next two days they had nothing to eat, and no fire, and were drenched to the skin by thunderstorms; their pack-horse with all their blankets had knocked up, and they passed the night without sleep, being wet and cold and hungry; next morning they had to swim the main branch of the river, and then walk four miles to the station, leaving behind one of their mates knocked up on an island in the river. About September of this year (1864), Bowen Downs despatched about fifteen hundred head of cattle in charge of Mr. Donald McGlashen to the Gulf of Carpentaria for the purpose of taking up country and stocking it. These cattle travelled up the Landsborough, crossed the watershed on to Walker's Creek, followed it down to the Flinders, and down that river to the turn off to Sackey's Lagoon, and down the Alexandra to the Leichhardt, then across by Miller's Waterhole to Beame's Brook, where the first station was formed called the Brook, about sixteen miles above where Burketown now stands; they arrived there before the end of 1864, and were the first stock to occupy the Gulf country. When Mr. Landsborough left the Albert River on his trip in search of Burke and Wills, he left a four hundred gallon tank there with a lot of rations in it for the use of any distressed explorers or others, and fastened the lid in such a way that he thought the blacks would be unable to open it; but when Mr. McGlashen found the tank, he discovered that the blacks had solved the problem, and the rations were not there. When they were mustering these cattle before starting, the boss, Mr. A. Scott Holmes, riding along with a stockman, met a blackfellow whose gin had two half-caste children with her, aged about nine and seven years; the blackfellow evidently wanted them to see the children, as he kept pointing to them. Some years after this it was reported that two half-castes were with the blacks out to the west of the Thomson, but nothing more was heard of them. It was during this year of 1864 that the first settlers found their way to the Barcoo, although the fame of its pastures had been known years before from the reports of Sir Thomas Mitchell and others explorers. Among the first to settle there was J. T. Allen, who took up Enniskillen in 1862, and who still resides there. Bell and Dutton took up Tambo station, close to where the township of the same name sprang up afterwards. Govett and Parsons took up Terrick, and Yaldwyn occupied Ravensbourne, while Moor and Reid held Moorsland, now called Lorne. Henry Edwards, from the Burnett, took up Malvern, which was sold the same year to the Ellis Bros., who then occupied Portland. In 1865, C. Lumley Hill, with Allen and Holberton, took up Isis Downs. Then a pause ensued in occupying new runs, and progress was checked; but after the passing of the Pastoral Leases Act of 1869, which gave greater facilities for the occupation of new country, and more liberal terms, many runs were occupied; among them, Mr. Hill held Westlands. A. B. Buchanan took up Wellshot, while Welford took up Welford Downs, and was killed by the blacks in 1872. Among the runs opened in those days were Tocal, Bimerah, Mount Marlow, and Louisa Downs. The stock to occupy all these runs in those early days mainly came from the Darling Downs and Burnett, as in the first days of the Queensland Parliament an Act was passed excluding New South Wales stock. Mr. Hill, in 1874, sold Isis Downs, which was divided into three runs called Albilbah, Ruthven, and Isis Downs. A great deal of the western plain country was occupied during the years between 1865 and 1870, and a great deal of interest and energy was exhibited in taking up and selling large blocks of fine pastoral country. Sheep for stocking country rose to high prices, but when the crisis occurred, there was a collapse in values, and many abandoned a good deal of the country and disappeared from the scene. Berkelman and Lambert discovered and settled Elizabeth Creek and Listowel Downs. Mr. H. E. King was the first Land Commissioner, and superintended the laying out of Tambo, the first town on the Barcoo. The price of carriage for supplies in those day was £46 per ton. Cameron and Crombie took up Barcaldine in 1864 with sheep from New England, and, in conjunction with Mr. Allen, they also took up Home Creek, Enniskillen, Minnie Downs, Vergemont, and Evesham. They brought their stock by the Burnett, the Dawson, and Springsure, over the Expedition Range. There was the usual trouble with the blacks after settling down. The natives killed the shepherds and robbed the huts of rations and cooking utensils that were very difficult to replace in those days. The Peak Downs was first reported on by Dr. Leichhardt, but many years elapsed before occupation set in. Among those who were prominent in the opening up and early settlement of the fine tableland of Peak Downs, with its rich soil, were De Satge and Milford, of Wolfang; Mackay, of Huntley; Gordon Sandeman, of Gordon Downs; Hood, of Hood and Manning; and Lamb and Black, of Yamala. As the character of the new country became known, many other runs near Hughenden were occupied by overlanders struggling along with stock, among them was Fairlight, on the basalt ridge, held with sheep by Henry Betts. Afton Downs, as has already been mentioned, was taken up with sheep by Mr. Ranken, who deserted it later with a considerable loss of stock owing to drought. Kirk and Sutherland, who had come from Suttor Creek with sheep in 1863 were also dried out from Marathon, and suffered great losses. Both of these runs now possess flowing streams in every direction, formed by artesian bores. Notable among the early settlers was the family of the Annings, father and sons, from Victoria. They held Reedy Springs, on the head waters of the Flinders, Charlotte Plains, and several other stations formed by their enterprise; the sons still occupy the same country, and have grown gray in pioneering. Another Victorian firm, Muirson, Jamieson and Thompson, occupied Mount Emu with sheep in 1862, after much travelling about in search of suitable country. Mrs. Thompson, with a young family, accompanied her husband in those early pioneering days of roughness and privation, and lived at Mount Emu for many years, where her large family grew up, and her sons are now occupying runs throughout the district. The hospitality of Mount Emu was proverbial, and the refinement that prevailed in all the arrangements at the head station gave additional value to the welcome that was extended to all travellers. On the Burdekin country, the family of the Hanns, father and sons, possessed themselves of Maryvale, a splendid piece of country. The farthest outstation north in 1860-61 was that of W. Stenhouse, on the Clarke, a tributary of the Burdekin. Seventy miles nearer Bowen, was the station of Allingham Bros., and thirty-five miles still nearer port were located the Messrs Cunningham. Ernest Henry very early took up Mount McConnel, at the junction of the Suttor and Selheim Rivers; this is one of the old landmarks of Leichhardt when on his trip to Port Essington in 1844-45. Stock were taken there from Baroondah, on the Dawson, in 1860; and later on Hughenden station was settled with stock taken from Mount McConnel. Hughenden is situated at the beginning of the open plain country on the Flinders; it was one of the first stations settled there in 1864. The present head station is on the exact spot taken up so long ago, but is somewhat different in style to the original slab hut on the ridge in which Mr. R. R. Morrissett and his hutkeeper, old Jack Ryan, dwelt in 1864, when water for the use of the head station was drawn from the junction of the creek with the river, that being the only surface water within miles. Mr. Ernest Henry, a most energetic and indefatigable pioneer carried on a good deal of prospecting on the Cloncurry, and was the earliest discoverer of the mineral wealth of the district. A company was formed in 1868 to work the copper lodes discovered by Mr. Henry, but after expending large sums of money on smelting works, etc., they were obliged to cease operations on account of the expense of carriage and the low price of copper. H. Devilin was one of the most active and venturesome pioneers in discovering and making known to others the country on the Flinders. He opened the way for several stockowners in that extensive district, though he himself does not appear to have had much personal interest in any of the speculations. In opening up the highway through the head of the Flinders to the far west, these pioneers were the forerunners of the great wave of settlement that followed on immediately afterwards, notwithstanding the deterrent features of the desert and the poison bush, through which they had to pass with their stock. Up to 1864 the runs that had been stocked on the Upper Flinders downs were Fairlight, by Betts and Oxley with sheep, and Telemon station by Collins and Walpole. This last property is now owned by J. L. Currie, of Melbourne, is mostly freehold, and with the discovery of artesian water, and the introduction of fine wooled sheep, has become a most valuable estate. It consists of open rolling downs, with patches of gidya, a species of acacia. Marathon, on the Upper Flinders, was taken up by R. H. Sheaffe, who for five years represented the Burke district in the Legislative Assembly. The run was sold by him to Kirk and Sutherland, who were in search of grass for their sheep. Marathon is now owned by a Melbourne firm, and by means of artesian wells, carries 200,000 sheep. After being dried out from Afton Downs, John Ranken, a member of a very old colonial family in New South Wales, eventually found his way to Barkly Tableland, where he settled for a time. Afton Downs is situated on Walker's Creek, a tributary of the Flinders on the western side, and is of the usual open rolling downs formation. All these runs, as previously mentioned, were occupied before the discovery of artesian springs, and therefore subject to being periodically dried out. At the present day, with judicious expenditure on artesian wells, and other improvements, this run annually shears close on 100,000 sheep. Following down the Flinders through the great plain country, the next station occupied was Richmond Downs, where a struggling township named Richmond now stands; this was held in 1864 by Bundock and Hays, with cattle from the Clarence River, in New South Wales. They lost many on their way out by pleuro-pneumonia and the desert poison bush already described. Opposite to Richmond Downs, across the Flinders River, Kennedy and Macdonald took up about the same time a run which they called Cambridge Downs, now a large sheep station. All these runs on the Upper Flinders were first settled in 1864, and formed an outpost of settlement by which other pioneers directed their course lower down the river. During 1865 and the following year, another wave of occupation flowed on past these outside stations, and the new pioneers finding country further on, became in their turn a starting point for others, and still the tide flowed outwards and westwards till all available country was taken up. Those who came out during 1864 and 1865 had a serious difficulty to contend with in facing a drier season than has since been experienced up to 1897. The pioneers with their stock were compelled to follow the course of the river, as it was almost certain death to go far to the west looking for water or country. All the tributary creeks of the Flinders were dry, and those who ventured out had soon to return to the main watercourse. The native dogs crowded in on the Flinders in thousands, and the blacks themselves had also to resort to it. During that trying season, none of the rivers ran in their channels, and even most of the large waterholes in the bed of the Flinders dried up, while stages of thirty or forty miles without water were frequent. Notwithstanding these drawbacks to stockowners who were on the search for some unfrequented nook to unharness on, the crowd pressed on in the hope of better country ahead, some Canaan far beyond, where hills were always green and water abundant. These men followed each other in quick succession and took up runs on the Lower Flinders and all over the Gulf country, wherever water could be found. This settlement, carried out in those early years, was most extensive and comprehensive, and during the time the western country was being sought out and utilised the Burdekin was being stocked in every part. One of the pioneers was Mr. Robert Stewart, of Southwick station, on Fletcher's Creek, a stream of pure, clear water, flowing from the great basaltic wall into the Burdekin. Reedy Lake station was stocked with sheep by O'Reilly and Reeve, near Dalrymple, where the main route from Bowen to the Gulf crossed the Burdekin River. Many other runs were taken up on the Burdekin and towards the coast, and many soon changed hands, the first settlers passing on to occupy country in the interior. Several of these first-comers took up coast runs and stocked them with sheep, believing they would thrive there. This was found to be a mistake, and from Wide Bay to the north scarcely any sheep are now to be met with on coastal runs. For a few years in some places they did well enough, but they soon began to die from fluke, worms, and grass seeds, and they were accordingly replaced by cattle. The sheep on being removed to western pastures throve well, and soon recovered health. The seeds of the spear grass (Andropogon contortus) were a terrible scourge--they are finely barbed and intensely sharp and hard; once entered they pass right through the skin of the sheep, even into the flesh, causing great annoyance and leading to poverty and death. The soil in which this grass thrives best is in the sandy strips along the banks of creeks. After seeding, the heads bunch together, in tangled masses, and shower the seeds on to sheep passing through. It is of use as a fodder grass only when young and green, although cattle thrive fairly well upon it, and its presence in any quantity at once determines whether the pasturage is favourable to sheep or not. The cattle that were brought from Bowen Downs to stock the runs taken up on the Gulf, were brought to their northern starting point from Fort Cooper and further south during 1860 by N. Buchanan and W. Landsborough, who were both very active and enterprising in opening up new country. This splendid property (Bowen Downs) was settled by the Landsborough River Company, held in shares by Messrs. N. Buchanan, W. Landsborough, Cornish, and W. Glen Walker, with Messrs. Morehead and Young, of Sydney. The first four went out of the company shortly afterwards, and Mr. Cornish, after visiting the Gulf country, fell a victim to maladies contracted during the journey. Mount Cornish was known in the early days as the Mud Hut. Mr. E. R. Edkins, who has now been the manager for many years, was among the very early drovers of stock to the Gulf. He left the Murray in 1861, and started from the Gil-gil in January, 1862, passed Rockhampton, took in charge Mr. R. Stewart's cattle, and brought them to Fletcher's Creek, now Southwick, on the Lower Burdekin, and reached Maryvale in September of that year. He then returned to the Murray, and brought out another lot of cattle, passing Bowen in April, 1864. Here the cattle were placed in quarantine. After being inoculated for pleuro, they travelled on to Mount Emu, in September, 1864. James Gibson also took up a run on Junction Creek, also Wanda Vale and Cargoon stations. Among the settlers who were first in the new country on the Flinders were Messrs. Little and Hetzer, who took up a run called Uralla, near the junction of the Saxby and Flinders Rivers. Their stock consisting of cattle and sheep came by Bowen Downs to the head of the Flinders, and then followed the usual route. The blacks made some trouble at the station and several lives were sacrificed. Others of the pioneers to try their fortune in the general rush for new country were the Earle Brothers, who had a station near Bowen; one of them, Mr. Thomas Earle, took up country on Spear Creek, the head of the Norman River, in 1865, and called the station Iffley. The season was so uncommonly dry, that permanent water was the chief attraction, and the splendid waterhole at Iffley, more than two miles long, and very deep, decided the Earles to fix themselves there with their cattle and drays. There was at the time a vast extent of country open for settlement; the terms were fairly liberal, and the prospects good for those in search of new runs. The settlers were like a great advancing army, confident in their numbers and strength; and so they advanced into the unknown land, and left the rest to fortune. They came from all the settled parts of Australia; that was what induced Mr. H. F. Smith, of Barnes and Smith, to bring cattle from Lyndhurst and take up a run on the Lower Flinders, called Tempe Downs, on L Creek, so called from a tree marked L, one of Leichhardt's marked trees when on his expedition to Port Essington, 1844-5. In 1865 James Kennedy took stock from Cambridge Downs, and held a fine run on the Upper Leichhardt River, calling it Pentland Downs. In the same year, James Cassidy occupied country lower down on the same river with sheep. One of the pioneers who went through much personal privation and hardship in the general forward march to discover new country, was Mr. Reginald Halloran, associated with his brother-in-law, Mr. Robert Alexander, of Proston, on the Burnett. They suffered heavy losses among the sheep while going through the desert, from the poison plant, and also from want of water. With the party was a young fellow named Briggs, who was killed by the blacks on Skeleton Creek before reaching Hughenden while a detachment of the party was camped there. The remnant of the stock that survived the trip were placed on a piece of country on the Lower Flinders, which they named Home Creek, but which was soon deserted by this firm, though held as a station years afterwards. Mr. Halloran was a man conspicuous for his utter disregard of personal comfort; he would start on a ride of a hundred miles without rations or blanket, trusting to the chapter of accidents for food, and to his saddle cloth for covering for the night, and he was always welcome at any camp owing to his geniality and fund of humour. The young fellow, Briggs, who met with an untimely death, had arrived at the advance camp only the night before for rations, and while alone in the tent next morning, the other man being absent horse-hunting, a party of blacks visited the camp. The white man showed fight, breaking a gun over the head of one of the blacks, but was soon killed, and when the horse-hunter returned, he found Briggs dead and the camp looted. A place called Sorghum Downs, on the Lower Cloncurry, now part of Conobie, was claimed by an old colonist and pioneer named Murdoch Campbell; he and his wife (a Devonshire woman), had camped on the Bowen River in 1863, but it was a long time before they found their way out so far west. Mrs. Campbell's hospitality and kindness to all travellers was one of the pleasant remembrances of those early hard times. Campbell died in 1867, and Mrs. Campbell ultimately went to New Zealand, where she had friends. A small firm of two men, Anderson and Trimble, successful diggers from the Snowy River, in New South Wales, joined the rest of the pushing crowd, and held a good run on the Saxby River with sheep. Still the tide of occupation flowed on, and when all the available watered runs around the Gulf were occupied in 1865 and the following year, those remaining unsatisfied, marched on, restless as the surges that beat on the shore. Several of those in charge of stock travelled up the Gregory River southwards, and out far away on to Barkly Tableland, discovered by Mr. W. Landsborough. These were among the first to make known the capabilities of this splendid district. The Stieglitz Brothers held country far away to the south on the Herbert River, called now the Georgina, having passed through all the Flinders and Gulf country unrewarded. Gregg and Nash, with sheep for the Messrs. J. and E. Brown, of Newcastle, followed on the far-away track to the inland Never-Never, Mrs. Gregg and her daughter accompanying the party in all their wanderings. The attention and hospitality of this lady to all travellers was as conspicuous as it was highly prized, and it will not be easily forgotten. Several other pioneers occupied runs on the Barkly tablelands, which was recognised as some of the finest pastoral land in Queensland. In after years, when this country came to be restocked by a new generation from the south, after being deserted and forsaken by the original pioneers, the new settlers were surprised to find evidences of a previous occupation. Where the early settlers had come from, where they had gone to, and who they were, were matters of curiosity; sheets of galvanised iron they well knew did not grow like the gidya trees, neither were old sheepyards (built of basaltic stones) the work of blacks. But who those early pioneers were, and what their fate, was utterly unknown, and caused much speculation. All the country bordering on the Gulf suitable for grazing purposes was portioned out and occupied between the years 1864 and 1868. Though in most cases the number of stock on each run was small, the runs were numerous, and most of the owners were resident. It was recognised that a great future was in store for this vast new territory just opening up to enterprise and capital. The Plains of Promise, named by one of the early navigators (Captain Stokes, of the "Beagle," in 1842), had been much talked of for years, but when they were stocked, the distant fields lost much of their interest. The fine rivers flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria, through hundreds of miles of open plains and rolling downs, covered with permanent and valuable pasturage, gave to the early settlers good reasons for believing they were the pioneers in opening up a grand and wealth-producing territory. Stations were formed, stock brought out, improvements made, and the way opened for permanent occupation. The high hopes entertained seemed likely to be realised, until a change came over the aspect of things--a change brought about by influences far removed from the local scene, and in which the settlers had no voice--a change in which no amount of energy or sacrifice on their part could avail aught. The days of commercial panic set in, culminating in the crisis of 1868-69, the march of settlement was instantly checked, and the outward flow of civilisation turned backwards. The financial crisis was felt all over the mercantile world; banks of old standing collapsed, and low prices for wool and stock, and all station produce, brought the pastoral industry to a low ebb. In consequence of these monetary disturbances, agents declined to find money to carry on places so far distant as the Gulf stations--even the little required for current expenses. All credit was stopped, and supplies also, and as the newly-formed stations could not be made self-supporting in the absence of local markets, the stock had to be abandoned or removed. The tide began to ebb at a greater rate than it had risen; some of the stock were sent south, while the rest were boiled down, scarcely clearing expenses in either case; the improvements were abandoned as well as the runs. The sheep came in from Barkly Tableland, the Gregory, and the Leichhardt, and by the year 1871, there were but few runs occupied. The great flood of 1869-70 helped to fill the cup of misfortune for the Gulf residents; no such flood was ever dreamt of, or has ever been seen since; it rained all January, February, and most of March, and the rivers covered all the plain country, though the loss of stock was small. A few runs on the Flinders and Cloncurry were still kept in occupation, but they were not many, and these only struggled along, hoping for better times. No value was attached to runs or stock in any of the Gulf country then, as runs could be obtained much nearer settlement for next to nothing, many being thrown up through the general depression. It seemed as if the bottom had fallen out of the pastoral industry, and hope had gone, but relief came sooner than was expected. The Etheridge goldfield was opened, and served to employ a good deal of the floating population. This field is situated to the east of Normanton on the Delany and Etheridge Rivers, about 250 miles towards the east coast. The discovery of auriferous reefs there, as well as some alluvial gold, helped to keep trade alive, until the discovery of the rich fields on the Palmer in 1873, when a great demand set in for cattle. The financial depression lifted, the price of wool went up 100 per cent., and a demand again arose for runs to stock; the old ones were all taken up, new country was applied for, and the voice of the man with money was heard again in the land. In the years following, up to 1884, much speculation was carried on in buying and selling runs and stock, and country for occupation was as eagerly sought after as in the early days. Advantage was taken of the liberal provisions of the Pastoral Leases Act of 1869, to take up unoccupied country, even if it was dry. Cattle were selling on the Palmer diggings at £10 and £12 a head cash, and the supply of bullocks was not equal to the demand, because the runs had been so thinned by the exodus of stock south to clear expenses, that no surplus was available to meet such a sudden demand as that caused by the arrival of 20,000 diggers in the north. Then the tide flowed again, and became the flood that helped to fill the country with work and life. Cattle came out in large numbers, and passed on to occupy country in the northern territory of South Australia, and even in Western Australia. As many as 30,000 head passed over the border in one year at Burketown, for the purpose of stocking country around Port Darwin. For several years travelling stock went out to the far north-west, and all had to pass through the Gulf country. The route followed from the borders of Queensland was by the track that Leichhardt took on his journey to Port Essington, between the tableland and salt water, crossing the Macarthur, Roper, Calvert, and other rivers. Stations were occupied on the Orde and Victoria Rivers on the Cambridge Gulf side with stock from North Queensland. In those districts some very fine open downs country had recently been discovered. Fisher and Lyons had 20,000 head of cattle sent out to their country in the north-west. Osman and Panton also had large numbers of cattle from Queensland. Dr. Brown is reported to have expended £100,000 is sending sheep and cattle from the Adelaide side to the northern territory. The stocking of this far away country was extremely expensive owing to the distance the cattle had to travel, and the unusually high percentage of losses on the way. Some of the stock were two years on the road, and a new disease called red water attacked them when passing the Roper River. This disease is supposed to be due to cattle ticks (Ixodes Bovis), and has since carried disaster into many herds in Queensland. The average cost of some of the cattle when arrived on their country was equal to £7 a head, in consequence of losses and expenses. The Gordon Brothers were among the early drovers to take stock over the borders to West Australia, and they made several trips. The Duracks are another family of pioneer settlers in the northern territory, and held extensive possessions. The country bordering the rivers that flow into the Cambridge Gulf was reported to be of a superior description and of a fattening nature. Though much of the country in the northern territory was reckoned of an inferior description for grazing, the encouraging terms of leasing offered by the South Australian Government induced many to venture on the hazardous undertaking. The markets opened up by the goldfields of Port Darwin repaid some of their enterprise. Bullocks were sold at from £17 to £20 cash for butchering purposes. Eventually a shipping trade in cattle was opened up with Singapore from Port Darwin; a company built special steamers for carrying stock and passengers to the northern ports. The results have proved satisfactory, as the s.s. "Darwin" lately (1897) took a cargo of 190 head of fat bullocks on board, this being her forty-second trip. The Cape York Peninsula, within which was found the rich Palmer diggings, came in for a share of settlement between 1875 and 1880. The first of the early pioneers to take up a cattle run on the Mitchell River was Mr. A. C. Grant, now of Messrs. B. D. Morehead and Co. He left the Bowen River with three hundred fat cattle from Havilah station for Messrs. Skene and Henderson, and took up Wrotham Park in 1873, situated between the Mitchell and Walsh Rivers, on Elizabeth Creek, 120 miles N.N.E. from Georgetown, a nice open piece of country, consisting of black soil flats and ridges. The cattle he took up realised £11 5s. per head cash all round; beef was then selling on the field at 1s. per lb. Mr. Patrick Callaghan held a few blocks of country along the Mitchell River, chiefly as a depôt for bullocks for sale on the various diggings, as he became a large buyer of cattle from the local market in conjunction with F. Leslie, J. Edwards, and J. Duff. The transactions and profits of this enterprising firm were on a very large scale, one partner travelling outside buying cattle, another superintending the supply to local butchers, and the other two attending to the gold buying, slaughtering, and financial business of the concern. The next to take up country for pastoral purposes on the Mitchell water was Edward Palmer (the author of these notes), who, in conjunction with John Stevenson and Walter Reid, took up and stocked Gamboola in 1879 with cattle from Ravenswood and Mount McConnel runs. The extent of good pasture land on the Mitchell waters, or anywhere on the Peninsula, further north, is limited. When the Palmer goldfield was opened the farthest outstation stocked on the overland route was Mount Surprise, on Junction Creek, held by the Firths, and this was over 200 miles from the diggings by the nearest practicable road. The road was opened by drovers taking stock, and carriers and miners passing northwards with their faces set direct to the wonderful land of gold. The road crossed the Tate, the Walsh, and the Mitchell Rivers, and then followed up the Palmer River through some of the roughest country in North Queensland. When Cooktown was opened as a port for the diggings, the overland route was abandoned for dray traffic, and droving stock alone used it. The consumption of beef on the field for several years demanded an average annual supply of from 15,000 to 20,000 head, most of the cattle realising from £7 to £10 each. The stock came from coastal runs mostly, Dotswood and the Burdekin country supplying much of it, Bowen Downs and Aramac[E] also sending in many large mobs. Very few breeding cattle were brought out, but some small runs towards Cooktown were occupied with cattle, the country consisting of open timbered ridges of only a second-class description, but fairly well watered. The Mitchell River was named by Dr. Leichhardt in memory of another explorer, Sir Thomas Mitchell. Leichhardt saw this river where it junctioned with the Lynd, and one of his old camps is still to be seen on the Lynd a little above this junction. It is really a beautiful river, with a clear running stream all the year round, and some deep reaches of still water; the banks are covered with scrubs of pencil cedar and a great variety of hanging vines and thick shrubs. The principal source of the river is near Port Douglas on the east coast, within six miles of the township, on the top of the range, from whence the water flows north-west, and continues its course to the Gulf of Carpentaria, where it empties itself in latitude 15 deg. 10 sec. In its course, it receives the waters of the Walsh, Lynd, and Palmer Rivers, as well as the Hodgkinson, and becomes a mighty stream. Indeed it is one of the most picturesque and interesting rivers in Queensland. The upper parts of this stream were explored by J. V. Mulligan and his party of prospectors in 1875. Leichhardt followed it below the junction of the Lynd when on his trip to Port Essington, before leaving it to cross to the Gulf country. The Mitchell River country is famous for its native game; the scrubs abound with wallaby, turkeys, and pigeons; the river and lagoons teem with fish of every variety, and waterfowl cover the shallow waters where the alligators are unable to reach them. The open country surrounding has the large kangaroo and the common bustard (plain turkey) in abundance. The country fattens stock, and is well watered. It consists of alluvial soil and open ridges of a sandy nature, where the grass is coarse and is covered with a low mimosa scrub. [Footnote E: The word "Aramac" was coined by the late Mr. W. Landsborough, the well-known explorer, and is an euphonious abbreviation of the name of the late Sir Robert Ramsey Mackenzie, who was Colonial Secretary in the first Macalister Ministry (1866) and Colonial Treasurer and Premier 1867-8. Mr. Landsborough was fond of coining words by joining the first syllable of one name to the first syllable of another name--thus the run known as "Willandspey," on Vine Creek, near Mount Hope, just below the junction of the Belyando and Suttor Rivers, is a combination of the names of William Landsborough and Peyton, the first lessee of the run.] Among the many other disabilities that cattle were subject to in this new country was a poison bush or tree, growing along the banks of creeks and rivers, called the peach tree (Cannabis sp.) It is said to have been the cause of many deaths, for hundreds of cattle that were unused to the plant died along the bends of the rivers, though young stock bred in the country appeared to be immune to its evil effects. Notwithstanding all these drawbacks and discouragements, runs were taken up on the Archer and other rivers in the Peninsula as far as Cape York, and the rivers flowing into Princess Charlotte's Bay were all occupied by the pioneers of settlement in face of all opposition and discouragement. CHAPTER VII. THE RISE OF THE NORTHERN TOWNS. The site of Rockhampton, now the principal city of Central Queensland, was chosen in 1855 by Mr. Wiseman, a Land Commissioner of New South Wales who had been despatched from Sydney to confirm the Archer Brothers in the possession of their Gracemere run. The town received its name from the bar of rocks running across the river at the head of navigation. Its first expansion dates from the rush to the Canoona diggings, then called Port Curtis rush, which took place in 1858, as it was then the nearest port to the field, and therefore handled all the trade to and from the diggings. When the field was declared a "duffer," and the miners departed in disgust, they left the nucleus of a settlement behind which was subsequently to become the seaport and distributing centre for all the rich pastoral country now comprised in the Central District. * * * * * Among the first settlers to open up Gladstone was R. E. Palmer, who built a large wool store and wharf so that the wool from Rannes and other stations lately formed could be shipped from there. He then took up Targinie cattle station over the harbour on the north side. The town is now noted for its healthiness and pleasant climate, and the beautiful view of the harbour, studded with islands. A North Australian settlement was attempted here when the Gladstone Government was in power, in January, 1847. Colonel Barney was head of the colonising party in the "Lord Auckland." Both these names are perpetuated in Barney Point, and Auckland Creek. The party were recalled after three months stay, and the locality was left alone until 1854, when Captain (afterwards Sir) Maurice O'Connell was sent up as Government Resident. * * * * * The first to discover and report on the grand harbour of Port Denison was Captain Sinclair, in the schooner "Santa Barbara." An expectation had been held out by the New South Wales Government that a handsome reward would be given to anyone who discovered a good harbour north of Port Curtis. In hope of obtaining this reward, this little craft of only nine tons was fitted out at private expense, and sailed from Rockhampton on September 1st, 1859. The party consisted of Captain Sinclair, master; W. H. Thomas, seaman; and Messrs. James Gordon and Benjamin Poole, passengers. After piloting their way through islands and reefs and heavy storms, besides unknown dangers from the natives, they sailed into Port Denison on October 17th, 1859, and were gratified and surprised to find such a capacious and secure harbour. They landed and examined the bay, surveying and sketching some parts of it, but owing to the hostility and treachery of the natives, who were very numerous both on the islands and the mainland, they were not permitted to extend their knowledge of the port. The "Santa Barbara" left Port Denison on October 19th, and after boxing about for some time among the Cumberland Islands, reached Keppel Bay on her return on October 31st. The harbour is of an oval form, probably some ten miles in extreme length, and about four miles across from Station Island to the mainland; it is formed partly by an indentation in the coast, and partly by two islands running across it. Here at last was a port that would be a starting point for further settlement in the interior, a most suitable and secure harbour, discovered and opened up without any expense to the Government, and with such small means and outfit that the journal of those enterprising and heroic voyagers reads like a tale of romance. Although successful in this matter, they were not able to obtain the promised reward, for just at that time the separation of the new colony took place, and their claim was handed over to the new Government. A petition presented to the Queensland Parliament procured no further recognition than that Captain Sinclair was made Harbour Master, and Mr. James Gordon the first customs officer in Townsville. Very little was at that time known of the interior comprising the Kennedy district, which was thrown open to pastoral occupation on November 17th, 1859, by proclamation of the New South Wales Government, it being then part of that colony. Leichhardt had passed through it down the Suttor; Mitchell just touched its southern extremity; Landsborough penetrated from the direction of Fort Cooper, into the upper waters of the Bowen, which river he discovered and called the Bonnar. Bowen was settled by George Elphinstone Dalrymple, Police Magistrate and Commissioner of Crown Lands, and several squatters who had come overland with him, and also by a number of persons, including Mr. James Gordon, who arrived at Bowen from Rockhampton per schooner "Jeannie Dove" with stores, a few days before Mr. Dalrymple. On the organisation of the new Queensland Government, a proclamation was issued withdrawing the Kennedy district from occupation, and the tenders previously received were returned to the tenderers. These explorers of a new port and future city were deserving of a much higher and better recognition than was accorded them by either Government. The first sale of Bowen town lands was held in Brisbane on October 7th, 1861, when eighty-nine lots were sold, realising £2,083. Many of those early investors were Brisbane men, well known in business and the professions. The lots were mostly half-acres in area, and averaged about £25 to £50 per acre, the first Bishop of Brisbane (Tuffnell) figuring largely among the land buyers. In 1863 the demand for land called for several sales, as the town was progressing on account of the large overlanding of stock and the shipments of supplies for parties taking up country to the north and west. A land sale on April 20th, 1863, was held in Bowen, when seventy-nine lots were sold, realising £1,718; all the lots went above the upset price. On June 8th, 1863, another land sale took place in Bowen, when seventy-four lots were sold, realising £1,135; among these were some country lands in ten-acre lots, which realised the upset price, £3 7s. 6d. per acre. For town lots the upset price was £20 per acre; the competition for fancy lots was keen enough to run them up to as much as £100 per lot. Still another land sale had to be held to keep pace with the growing town, and the demands of speculators. This was held in Bowen on August 3rd, 1863, when seventy-three lots found purchasers, realising £2,643. This sale consisted mostly of country lands, put up in lots of from seventeen to fifty acres, at the upset price of £1 per acre; 1,518 acres were sold at this last land sale. These figures from official sources testify to the rapidity of the expansion of the new town, and to the high expectations that were formed as to its future rise and progress. Many familiar names occur in the annals of the official register, but most of the purchasers are now dead. Seaward, Marsh, and Genge, who had a large business as storekeepers, figure extensively as buyers, also Mr. J. G. Macdonald, James Hall Scott, Korah H. Willis, Thomas Cavanagh--a well-known celebrity of Bowen--and many other old identities are called to mind by looking through the list of the first land buyers in Bowen. Few now remain of those early speculators. The treasury of the young colony benefited by their ambition to hold land in the future capital of the north by the sum of £7,579. The town wore gay and holiday aspect when the Governor, Sir G. F. Bowen, landed in 1865. The jetty at that time was being built, and the town was filled with squatters from all parts of the north, getting supplies or tendering for new country. Flags were flying, addresses of welcome were presented, a bullock was roasted whole on the beach, barrels of beer were on tap alongside the bullock, tons of bread were there to go with it, and an assorted crowd was ready to do justice to both bullock and beer. A levee was held, an undress one, of course, as evening dress had not reached so far north at that time, but coats were found for every one in which to make a bow to the Governor. The only block hat that had reached the latitude of Bowen was worn by Mr. R. H. Smith, afterwards member for the district, who had the honor of escorting His Excellency up to the town. A ball was held in the evening in honor of the event, and many other things took place that this chronicle will pass over. Frederick Bode, at Strathdon, W. Powell, of Salisbury Plains, J. G. Macdonald, of Inkermann, Collings, at Eton Vale, A. C. Grant, at Dartmoor, all were settlers in Bowen district in the early days. * * * * * Townsville was named after Captain Robert Towns, of Sydney, of the firm of R. Towns and Co., who held stations inland from Cleveland Bay, and as it became necessary to open some other port north of Bowen, which had hitherto been the distributing centre, explorations were made by some of the managers of these stations, foremost among whom was Mr. Ball, the result being the discovery of the site of the present town, which was gazetted as a port of entry in October, 1865. On the 10th of that month, Mr. James Gordon arrived to perform the duties of Sub-Collector of Customs, and a great number of other official duties as well. * * * * * Cardwell is situated near the head of Rockingham Bay, opposite the north end of Hinchinbrook Island, and distant north-west from Brisbane about 950 miles, in latitude 18 deg. 16 sec. S., longitude 146 deg. 4 sec. E. Population of district and town, 3,435. The first settlement in the locality took place in 1863, and it became a place of considerable importance, being the nearest port on the east coast to the Gulf of Carpentaria, but since then other ports have been opened, offering greater facilities for shipping. The first telegraph line from the east coast to the Gulf of Carpentaria commenced at Cardwell, but the expense connected with keeping the line open across the Sea View Range and through the dense jungle on the coast side thereof, proved too great, and the route was finally abandoned. Up to 1873, Cardwell was the most northern port on the east coast of Australia, and the port of entry for the Herbert River district. The town is now in a languishing state, but the excellence of the port may yet redeem it from obscurity. It was from here that Kennedy's expedition took its final departure for the north early in June, 1848, and in connection with that memorable event, we may quote a paragraph recently appearing in a Queensland journal:-- "A SAD REMEMBRANCE BRINGS." Recently a remarkable discovery was made at the foot of the Coast Range to the north of Cardwell--relics of the vehicles left by Kennedy, the explorer, when on his ill-fated journey up York Peninsula. It may be remembered that the party landed at Tam O'Shanter Point, Rockingham Bay, on May 30th, 1848, and that on July 18th the carts were abandoned, the party going on with twenty-six pack horses and fifty sheep. The story of the fate of Kennedy and nearly all of those who accompanied him has been frequently told, and the discovery of the remains of the carts, which have lain for nearly half a century in the jungle, revives interest in one of the saddest episodes in Australian exploration. The exact locality of the relics is kept a strict secret, the possessor of the secret being of opinion that he should profit by it. No doubt the Government would be glad to secure information which would enable it to establish the authenticity of statements which have been made on the subject. The first intimation the southern parts had of the existence of gold in the north was a telegram from Cardwell dated September 9th, 1873. It ran as follows:--"Prospectors Mulligan, Brown, Dowdall, A. Watson, and D. Robertson, got one hundred and five ounces on the Palmer River, which they prospected for twenty miles. They say nothing of the country outside the river. Nearly all are leaving here." This news spread like wild-fire and created a great sensation all over Australia; the difficulty was to get to the Palmer quick enough. The Government sent Mr. Bartley Fahey, Sub-Collector of Customs at Normanton, to explore the Mitchell River in order to open communication from Normanton towards the new field. Mr. G. E. Dalrymple, leader of the north coast expedition, was ordered to proceed to the Endeavour River, and he arrived at Cook's Landing on October 24th, 1873, but the expedition was recalled. In the meantime, the A. S. N. Co.'s steamer, the "Leichhardt" (Captain Saunders), left Brisbane on October 15th with some members of the Endeavour River expedition on board. Mr. A. C. MacMillan and his party were taken on at Bowen. The "Leichhardt" arrived at Townsville on October 20th, and took on all the horses, forty-six in number, and one hundred and fifty diggers, all for the new Palmer rush. Mr. Howard St. George and party embarked at Cardwell, and on Saturday, October 25th, 1873, the "Leichhardt" was made fast to the mangroves on the Endeavour River, in sixteen feet of water, and the new township began its existence on the site where the famous navigator, Captain Cook, on June 17th, 1770; beached his damaged vessel for repairs. The gold fever was irresistible, and helped to lift the town into prominence at once, drawing people from all parts of Australia. Four months after the landing of Mr. St. George, J. V. Mulligan, arriving from the Palmer field, described Cooktown as a large progressing township, about half a mile long, with stores, public houses, and shops of all sorts, with steamers and other boats coming in and going out every few days, and containing not less than two thousand people, though some estimated the numbers at a much higher figure. Cooktown dates its existence from the landing of the passengers by the steamer "Leichhardt" in 1873. The first Police Magistrate appointed was Mr. Thomas Hamilton, who also acted as Sub-Collector of Customs. Mr. James Pryde was the first Clerk of Petty Sessions. When the first court was held on December 27th, 1873, it was to deal with the charge of stealing a goat from Townsville. Mr. Gold, Commissioner St. George, and Mr. A. C. MacMillan, soon started on their expedition after landing at Cooktown, accompanied by eighty-six diggers, the command being one hundred and eight strong. They reported finding a good track to the Palmer. One reminiscence of their journey remains in the name of the original track, which is now known as Battle Camp, because the natives came down from the adjoining hills to dispute the right of the white men to travel through their country. Things in Cooktown kept booming along, and in April, 1874, there were from three to four thousand people camped between Grassy Hill and the outside boundary of Cooktown. During that month, sixty-five publicans' licenses were issued, and thirty more applied for; there were also twenty eating houses, twelve large stores, twenty small ones, six butchers, five bakers, three tinsmiths, four tent makers, six hairdressers, seven blacksmiths, besides doctors, chemists, fancy shops, watchmakers, bootmakers, saddlers, etc., in proportion, and all going full speed ahead. Until the discovery of the Palmer field, and the opening of Cooktown, Cardwell was the most northern port of call on the Queensland eastern coast, and was the telegraphic centre of news from the Etheridge and Gilbert goldfields. The golden news from these far northern diggings was of a most glittering nature, but there was a reverse side of the picture in the hardships and privations endured. In 1874, the Cooktown "Courier" was started, and shortly afterwards the "Herald." The journalistic standard of the early days of Cooktown was esteemed, comparatively speaking, brilliant. The Queensland National Bank opened a branch there in 1874, followed by the Bank of New South Wales and The Australian Joint Stock Bank. Religion was not neglected either. In 1876, Cooktown was proclaimed a municipality, and from thence to 1878, it prospered mightily. Gold was plentiful, and its export was measured by the ton. The official returns in 1878 showed something over forty tons as having passed through the Customs, but that did not represent the measure of the enormous richness of the Palmer, as thousands upon thousands of ounces of gold were secretly taken away to China. Since then the goldfields have gradually dwindled down in their returns, and the Palmer of to-day, or even the Palmer of a few years ago, was not the grand and glorious field that made Cooktown rise like magic by the side of its splendid harbour. The later discovery of tin on Cannibal Creek, and the Annan River, again caused some stir in business, but of a much quieter description than in the halcyon days of golden light. The beche de mer industry has also been a great help to business people in Cooktown. The great red-letter day in Cooktown was the turning of the first sod for the Cooktown-Maytown Railway, on April 3rd, 1884, by the Mayor, Mr. Edward D'Arcy, when a tremendous public demonstration took place. Mr. George Bashford was the contractor for the first section, and he gave a great banquet on the occasion, inviting people from all parts of Queensland to be present. Like many other towns in Queensland, Cooktown in recent years has suffered from depression, but there is a solid future before it still. With one of the finest harbours on the east coast, it is the key to the Torres Strait route and to New Guinea. The reef-bearing country on the Palmer has still to be developed, and the great extent of this mineral wealth is as yet quite under-rated. Besides containing tin and coal in abundance, North Queensland has other grand resources in its back pastoral and agricultural country. * * * * * The town of Normanton was opened by the settlers as a better port for shipping for the Lower Flinders stations than Burketown, which was inconvenient, being too far to the west, and difficult of access. The Norman River, so called by Landsborough after the captain of the Victorian Government ship "Victoria," is a fine and deep river. Messrs. W. Landsborough and G. Phillips were the first to navigate the Norman, in January, 1867. They chose the site for the township on the left side of the river, where some high ironstone ridges come close in on the river bank. Here was room for the extension of a large city, naturally drained, and free from the possibility of floods, with ready access to the back country. Unfortunately, the upper reaches of the river are obstructed by bands of rocks running across from bank to bank, that hinder navigation. These, however, could be removed at small cost. Among the first to settle in the town was Dr. Borck, a popular medical man; his brother still keeps a store in the town. Another hotel built in the first days was that of Mr. A. McLennan, who had been concerned in the first occupation of Burketown. Ellis Read, trading for R. Towns and Co., soon had a fine store established, and carried on a large business with the stations, and also with the diggings opening on the Etheridge River. The first team to arrive in the town was driven in down Spear Creek by George Trimble from his station on the Saxby, at the head of the Norman River. Then wool commenced to arrive from Donor's Hills and other stations on the Flinders, even as early as 1868, and was shipped away to Sydney by any chance vessel offering. One of the early traders to the Norman was a well-known skipper on the east coast, Captain Till, of the "Policeman," schooner, who made several voyages there. Normanton was never affected by sickness as Burketown had been, and its progress was steady, though slow. The country around was well watered, but not adapted to agriculture. Lagoons of fresh water fringed the river, and were well supplied with game, the river full of splendid fish, some of which ranged up to twenty pounds in weight. Alligators abounded in all the brackish waters, as they do in all tidal rivers in the Gulf, while the crocodile (so called), a smaller but quite harmless creature, is found in fresh water only. Being amphibious in its nature, it can adapt itself to pools and rivers a long way inland, and is found wherever there are deep lagoons, and in all the waters flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria. In the early times, when one of R. Towns and Co.'s vessels was unloading at the bank of the river, one of the Kanakas employed was seized by an alligator. The man held on to a mangrove tree, and his mates beat the alligator over the head until he let go, but not before he had so torn the flesh from the man's leg that he bled to death. Among those who are to be reckoned as the oldest inhabitants of the Gulf country, was John Harrix, who came over with the first cattle of Mr. J. G. Macdonald from Bowen in 1864, and who owned some teams and a small station near Normanton. A partner of his named Macdonald came down the Flinders early in 1865. Percival E. Walsh, a nephew of Mr. W. H. Walsh, of Degilbo, helped to settle some runs in the Gulf country. He took up a run on the Dugald, naming it Granada, which was sold afterwards to Messrs. Hopkins Brothers. He also restocked Iffley after its desertion by its first owners, the Earle Bros., now of Yacamunda, on the Suttor River. The early citizens of Normanton include the names of Peter Armstrong, David Swan, Charles B. Hely, Charles Borck, John Edgar Byrne, for many years proprietor of "Figaro," and a hundred others who more or less helped to form this city of the Gulf. Many of them are now resting in the cemetery outside the town. R. Towns and Co. had forty thousand sheep on the Leichhardt, near Floraville, and a shearing shed near tidal water lower down the river, where a small steamer (the old "Pioneer," the remains of which are still to be seen at Sweer's Island), came for the wool. The country proving subject to terrible floods and unsuitable for sheep, the numbers gradually decreased until the remnant were finally removed. The Etheridge goldfield was opened in the early days of Normanton, and found occupation for many teams and much labour. Prices in the early days were at a really famine level; flour was often sold at £40 a ton, and other goods at a corresponding rate. The writer had experience of these prices when loading his own team in those early days. Normanton had many advantages over her sister settlement, Burketown, and when the port became known, all the station trade drifted there, and Burketown declined in consequence. Normanton was, in 1891, connected with Croydon by a railway ninety-four miles in length, which cost £211,000, and was constructed by Mr. G. Phillips, C.E., on a principle new to Queensland, the sleepers being of mild steel, instead of wood, on account of the ravages of the white ants. The line between Croydon and Normanton passes through a perfectly level and very uninteresting country, a melancholy sandy waste of ti-tree flats, covered with the innumerable pinnacles and mounds made by white ants; the pasturage is as poor as the country looks. From Normanton a number of carriers are employed to carry goods to Cloncurry and the many stations trading therewith. Many teams are found carrying loading by the side of the railway line to Georgetown and the Etheridge past Croydon, ignoring the services of the railway. A punt service connects the town with the carrier's camp on the opposite side of the river, where loading starts for the Etheridge. The carrier's waggon is loaded fully up to its carrying capacity of from six to seven tons, and is drawn on to the punt by the team; on its arrival on the opposite side, the team draws the load on to the bank ready to depart on its journey. The country to Georgetown is generally of an inferior description. Towards the Cloncurry (southwards) for the first twenty miles, the road passes through timbered country, bloodwood and messmate of a poor class, then it opens out after passing Reaphook Range into open treeless plains and black soil, with excellent pasturage, and this extends for hundreds of miles to the interior, the whole of which is occupied by cattle and sheep stations that draw their supplies from Normanton up to a certain point, when the trade is induced by special arrangements of rebates on traffic rates, to diverge to Townsville, at the expense of the Gulf ports. * * * * * About the same time that Townsville was opened as a port in order to meet the requirements of the new movements in stock on the country surrounding the Gulf, Burketown commenced its rather chequered career as a commercial port in 1865. The first supplies were brought by the "Jacmel Packet," chartered and loaded by R. Towns and Co., from Sydney. She was the second vessel in the Albert River, the first being the brig "Firefly," in which Mr. Landsborough brought his horses, which were landed a mile below the site of the town. The old vessel afterwards went to pieces in the river. The manifest of the "Jacmel Packet" was perhaps the most varied and strangely assorted that a trading vessel ever carried; the general cargo included pigs, dogs, fowls, houses, building materials, outfits of every kind, drays, rations, rum, and other spirits. In such fashion was the mercantile trade of Carpentaria commenced. On the opening of the goods, a saturnalia ensued, and the times were lively. The overlanders having money to spend, and not having indulged in a "spree" for years, took advantage of the absence of all control, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves in bush fashion; a fight every half hour, horse racing on the plain, or in "the street" as it was called, and strong rum for everyone. Other vessels quickly followed the first venture with more supplies. One of them, the "Gazelle," from Sydney, made a very quick trip of sixteen days to the mouth of the river, where she broke her back on a sandbank; the hulk was towed up the river, and gradually mouldered away just opposite the town. In 1866 the first wool was shipped to Sydney from the Gulf; the first load of wool taken into Burketown being from Conobie station, shorn in November, 1865, on the Cloncurry, about 200 miles distant. The assistance the first settlers received from the Government amounted to little or nothing; the administration situated nearly two thousand miles away, had little care or thought for the struggling outsiders in the far-away Gulf country. The settlers had to protect themselves from blacks as well as from whites, and as it was some years before Burketown was made a port of entry, goods had to be cleared at Brisbane before sailing for Burketown. When the port was opened, the Customs Officer, Mr. Sandrock, was kept at Sweer's Island, where supplies had to be cleared before going on to the mainland. This meant a great loss of time to those who brought in teams for loading. All departmental work had to be done in Brisbane, and there also the first applications for runs and declarations of stocking had to be made. The tide of settlement had been too swift and too strong for the authorities to keep pace with, and although a Land Commissioner, in the person of Mr. J. P. Sharkey was sent out in 1866, and the Government were represented the same year by Mr. W. Landsborough in Burketown, the fact was evident that people were pretty well left to do as they liked. Burketown in 1866, and for the two or three following years, made some little progress, or appeared to do so. The drovers and shepherds, paid off after long trips with stock, had good cheques to spend, and their money was laid out in the lavish way peculiar to the old bush hand. Wages were high for all sorts of employment, 35s. to 45s. a week being the lowest. Everything was dear in the new town, but that made little difference to men who had not been in a town for years and had money to spare. One of the first vessels to arrive in the Albert River in 1866 was the "Margaret and Mary." She was said to have touched at some infected port in Java, and after arrival a fatal sickness broke out in Burketown that nearly carried off all the population. All hands that came in the ship died except the captain, his wife also falling a victim. A new crew had to be engaged to work the vessel before she could get away. There is little doubt but that the great mortality among the residents of Burketown during 1866 was traceable to the infection brought by this vessel. It was the wet season at the time, and this, in conjunction with the reckless life led by most of the people, and the want of medical assistance, increased the danger of the disease, and scores of strong men succumbed to its malign influence. * * * * * It would be difficult to say how many men fell victims to the epidemic, but there must have been at least a hundred, besides those who died on the surrounding stations. The disease, which ended in fever and delirium, was as fatal to the strong as to the weak, and the little cemetery soon looked like that of an old established town, so numerous were the graves. This outbreak gave Burketown an evil name. People began to leave it, and when Normanton was opened in 1867 with the prospect of becoming a more suitable port for the district, many removed there to carry on their business. Shortly after this, Burketown was absolutely deserted, not a living soul remained, and nothing was left to mark the spot except heaps of empty bottles and jam tins, and some large iron pots belonging to a boiling-down plant. A few stumps remained standing on the open plains where once had been buildings. The hulls of the "Gazelle" and "Firefly" lay falling to pieces in the river, and none were left to sigh over Burketown's fallen fortunes, or sing a dirge in memory of its history; its short and merry life was over, and none lamented. * * * * * In these early days, Sweer's Island was a kind of marine suburb belonging to Burketown, a sanatorium about thirty-five miles from the mouth of the Albert, where the fever-stricken people were taken to recover. Mr. W. Landsborough, the Police Magistrate, or Government resident, lived there with his family. Mr. J. P. Sharkey, the first Land Commissioner, and Mr. Ellis Read, in charge of R. Towns and Co.'s stores, also resided on the island. Life was much pleasanter there than on the dead plains surrounding Burketown, and the sea breezes were constant and refreshing. On Sweer's Island, which is only about nine miles long, and from half a mile to three miles in width, vegetables and watermelons grow in profusion. A township was surveyed called Carnarvon, after the Earl of Carnarvon, allotments were sold and buildings erected. The first Customs House in the Gulf was here, and Mr. Sandrock was the first officer. The soil on Sweer's Island is sandy, and the grass thick in places. The turtle ponds made there by Captain Norman of the "Victoria" in 1861-2, were still to be seen in 1866, as also was the well sunk by Flinders in 1803, from which fresh water was still obtainable. Opposite the island, towards the west, lay Bentinck Island, much larger than Sweer's, though unoccupied, except by the natives, whose fires could be seen every evening after dark. About forty miles north-east of Sweer's Island is Bountiful Island, noted for its oysters, and also for turtles, large numbers resorting there at certain seasons. Sweer's Island has been deserted for many years, and is no longer a health resort. The buildings are gone, and the people also. The only residents now (1897), are a family of the name of Creffield, who keep some cattle, goats and sheep on the island. To the south-west of Burketown is a fine run called Lawn Hill, comprising a lot of good country surrounded by mountains, and well watered. This property was taken up by Mr. Frank Hann and Mr. E. R. Edkins in 1875. The former bought up many of the brands of cattle left in the district by former occupiers, and also travelled stock from Lolsworth on the Burdekin, and by this means a large herd was soon raised. At the same time the Watson Brothers stocked Gregory Downs, which is only ninety miles from Burketown. Then Mr. F. H. Shadforth, who had come all the way from Victoria overland with his family, took up Lilydale, next to Lawn Hill. In those days the supplies had to be obtained from Normanton, so Hann, Watson, and Shadforth chartered a schooner, loaded her with station supplies and material for a store for Foulkes and Harris to start business. The schooner arrived, and the store was erected on the site of old Burketown, but disaster followed. Foulkes was drowned, and Harris was killed by his team of horses bolting and dragging the waggon over him. Then Watson Brothers ran the store for a time, Mr. P. S. Watson taking charge and enlarging it in every way. Shortly afterwards Mr. Michael Kelly opened a public house, and the town commenced its second term of existence. Mr. Jack Reid soon opened another public house, and Burns, Philp and Co. began another store under the management of Mr. Theodore C. Amsden. Then police protection under Senior-constable Synnott, arrived, as the people were becoming rather lawless. Mr. P. Macarthur was appointed Customs Officer, and in conjunction with this appointment held many other offices. Finally the Queensland National Bank opened a branch. The town now progressed quickly owing to the great number of cattle passing through to the northern territory and the reoccupation of all the deserted runs. A Divisional Board was formed in 1884, and the population of the town rose to three hundred and fifty. Burketown resumed her old activity in business matters, and the evil name died out with the memories of the old days. So mote it be! CHAPTER VIII. THE MINERAL WEALTH. An expedition under the leadership of William Hann, sent out by the Queensland Government left Fossilbrook station on June 26th, 1872, and on August 5th, reached the Palmer River, named after the then Premier of Queensland, Sir A. H. Palmer. They found traces of gold in the ravines, and on both sides of the river, so that it was Hann's party who first discovered the existence of gold on the Palmer. This expedition went right through to where Cooktown now stands, and on to the Bloomfield River. From the description of the country given in Hann's journal, one of the well-known old northern prospectors named James V. Mulligan, concluded that gold would be found in quantities, and with the restlessness proverbial among his class, formed a party to go out and prospect the Palmer country. His expedition consisted of himself, James Dowdal, Alexander Watson (these two miners leaving Charters Towers with him), David Robertson, Peter Brown, and Albert Brandt, who joined him at Georgetown. Mulligan and his party left the Etheridge on June 5th 1873, passed Mount Surprise and Fossilbrook, the farthest out station in those days, and went on to the Tate River, through poor, rough country, only obtaining colours. They proceeded northwards to the Walsh River, and saw one of W. Hann's camps on their way. After travelling down the Walsh a few days, they crossed Elizabeth Creek to the Mitchell River, where they had some trouble in finding a ford, the river being quite six hundred yards wide, with high and scrubby banks on either side, and a strong flowing stream. After effecting a crossing with their packs, rations, etc., they passed on to Mount Mulgrave, fifteen miles further north. This well-known landmark is a precipitous bare rock dominating the surrounding country, and visible for many miles. They soon reached the Palmer River, where they continued prospecting, and obtained a good show of gold in the river and tributary creeks. Blacks were very numerous along the main river, necessitating guard being continually kept; they caught abundance of fish while camped on the river, where they spent a month, finding gold almost everywhere, some of it coarse, and some very fine. The party started back for the Etheridge, following the same route by which they had come. The scene of their operations was a little above Palmerville, and they prospected thence to Maytown. They were absent from Georgetown three months, and procured one hundred and two ounces of gold, valued at £4 an ounce. It was a prosperous trip, and all the party returned in good health. In 1874, J. V. Mulligan went on another prospecting expedition from Cooktown. He named the St. George, a tributary of the Mitchell River, and the party did a lot of prospecting and exploring in the country on the Upper Mitchell, where some fine pastoral country was discovered. While on this trip they made the discovery of the hot boiling springs at the head of the Walsh, mistaking the steam of it for the smoke of a blackfellows' fire. Before the end of 1873, there were over five hundred diggers on the Palmer, and the escort left in December with 5,058 ounces of gold, leaving a balance of 3,000 ounces in the banks. The first warden on the Palmer was Howard St. George, and the field developed at a furious rate. In the course of two years there were over fifteen thousand white men and twenty thousand Chinese located in and about the Palmer. The discovery of the field came as salvation to the north after the stagnation following upon the low prices and depression ruling since 1867. The price of cattle went up enormously, and horses could be sold anywhere at good prices. The workings were along the creeks and rivers where water was plentiful, and the gold was obtained in quantities on the bars or ledges crossing the river. Rations were dear in the early days; carriage to Maytown was up to £120 a ton, beef was selling at 1s. per lb. A great deal of the loading was carried by pack horses from Cooktown, the diggings being situated among the highest tablelands in North Queensland, and scattered over a large extent of mountainous country. Byerstown, near the source of the Palmer is about fifty-five miles south-west from Cooktown. The situation is elevated, being near the culminating line of the Great Dividing Chain. Tin occurs in the low ranges to the south that separate the Mitchell from the Palmer, and also in the valley of the Bloomfield to the east. The blacks were dangerous, the wet seasons severe on the Palmer, and the first diggers had many and bitter trials. Early in 1874, the last of the flour was selling at 3s. 6d. per pannikinful, and even an old working bullock when killed was eagerly bought up at 1s. per pound; the last pairs of Blucher boots were sold at 38s. Horseshoe nails were exchanged for their weight in gold, and old horseshoes were eagerly sought after. As early as April, 1874, a riot occurred in Cooktown, when the dissatisfied diggers rushed the "Florence Irving," steamer, for free passages. It was said there were three thousand people waiting to get away, and the police and miners had a fierce fight for the upper hand. Then other rushes took place on the goldfield as new discoveries were made, and the "Palmer fever" became bad again. In 1871 the following party of prospectors had been in the vicinity of the country that afterwards became so famous for its golden produce, but they missed the rich deposits, and kept a lower course down in the level country towards the Gulf of Carpentaria, namely, Messrs. T. Leslie, J. Edwards, Charles Ross, T. Hackett, and J. Duff. Some of these men became wealthy afterwards through buying cattle and retailing them and by buying gold. Leslie, Duff, Edwards, and Callaghan joined in a company and fairly coined money on the Palmer goldfield; all were extremely popular men. Maytown was called Edwardstown for some time after it was opened, and the name was so printed on the bank's cheque forms. Another of these early prospectors was W. T. Baird, known as Bill Baird, who had led a most adventurous life and had amassed several small fortunes; the last one he made was at Mount Romeo tin mines; he led a rough knockabout life, doing bush work or cattle droving when hard up, etc.; he was killed by the natives of Batavia River while prospecting there; he was a general favourite for his good humour and kindheartedness. * * * * * Croydon, a reefing field on the waters of the Norman River was discovered about 1886 by W. C. Brown and Aldridge, who obtained the reward of £1,000. The field comprises several mining centres scattered about in the hill country, which commences here and extends away to the east. No alluvial gold has been discovered on this field; reefing has been the only way of working the gold, which is more or less connected with refractory ores. The future of this field is well assured, as the reefs maintain their character at all depths reached, and the place is decidedly businesslike and stirring. The absence of good timber adds to the cost of working the reefs, but the extension of the railway to Georgetown, which is contemplated, will add to the facilities for obtaining supplies, and will also increase the traffic in other ways. * * * * * Georgetown is on the left bank of the Etheridge River, so called after D. O. Etheridge, one of Mr. J. G. Macdonald's drovers who came out to the Gulf with the first lot of cattle through this country. It is about one hundred and sixty miles west, in a straight line from Cardwell. The surrounding country is gold-bearing, and known as the Etheridge goldfield; silver, copper, tin, and lead are also among its mineral products. This was one of the first reefing districts opened in the North of Queensland, but owing to the expense of carrying on the mines on account of the cost of carriage, labour, and mining appliances, none but the best mines have been worked. The formation is granite, and pyrites with the stone has helped to increase the cost of working. The field is very extensive, and embraces a large number of small mining centres covering an enormous area of gold-bearing country. In the first days, alluvial gold was sought for over large portions of the field. A specimen nugget found in June, 1896, at Mount Macdonald, weighing 151 ounces was dollied and smelted, yielding 85 ounces of gold, valued at £3 5s. per ounce. Other large specimens were found recently in the same locality. * * * * * Cloncurry is the commercial centre of a district rich in various minerals. It is situated on the right bank of the Cloncurry River, a tributary of the Flinders, and is about 430 miles west-south-west, in a straight line from Townsville, and about 240 miles south from Normanton. The copper deposits are very extensive, the whole surrounding mountainous district being more or less copper-bearing. Lodes of gray ore and blue carbonates are numerous, and virgin copper and malleable ore have also been found. The difficulty and expense of carriage has prevented the field from taking that position as a mining centre to which it is entitled; other metals found are gold, silver, lead, iron, and bismuth. The Cloncurry goldfield includes a large tract of country, extending eastwards to the Williams River, and southwards to an equal extent. Reefing has been carried on of late, but not to any great extent. In the early days of gold discovery, alluvial sinking attracted a large population, and some splendid nuggets were found (mostly on Sharkey's Flat), weighing from five to forty ounces, the gold being of the highest Mint value, £4 3s. 6d. per ounce. Gold is still produced at some of the outlying diggings, extending over to the Leichhardt River in the west, where the whole country is mineral-bearing. The Cloncurry Copper Company expended large sums of money in machinery and sinking shafts and prospecting in opening up some of the lodes of copper so abundant there, but owing to the depreciation in the value of the mineral and the great expense of mining and carriage to port, the operations had to be entirely suspended. The first to discover copper and make use of it was Mr. Ernest Henry, in 1865. Henry discovered lodes of copper on the Leichhardt and in several other places, and has distinguished himself not alone as an enterprising pioneer squatter and settler, but also as an early and most indefatigable prospector for minerals. In conjunction with Mr. R. K. Sheaffe, at one time member for the district, and subsequently Mayor of Sandgate, he helped to open much of the Gulf country, and has spent a fortune and a lifetime in pioneering in outside districts. The Black Mountain is on the opposite side from the town across the river, and is, as its name denotes, a real black mountain. It is a most extensive outcrop of nearly pure metallic iron ore, and it is calculated the amount in sight is over thirteen millions of tons: great masses of the ore are lying all round the base of this enormous outcrop. * * * * * Clermont is situated on a tributary of the Nogoa River, about two hundred and twenty-seven miles distant by railway from Rockhampton, and well known for its mineral resources. Since 1862 large quantities of copper have been obtained, and the surrounding country is also auriferous, alluvial mining having been carried on with more or less success. Four miles from Clermont are the ruins of old Copperfield, a township prosperous from 1864 to 1870, in the palmy days of the Peak Downs Copper Company, which paid dividends of eighty per cent., and in 1867 sold copper to the amount of £120,000. Owing to a great fall in the value of copper, the property was sold for £3,000, and this mining enterprise collapsed. CHAPTER IX. INCIDENTS OF THE EARLY DAYS. The early arrivals with stock in the Gulf country were obliged to obtain rations and supplies from Bowen, on the east coast, as that was the only port then opened in the North of Queensland. The distance was from five to seven hundred miles through the desert country and down the Flinders, and as the old-fashioned pole bullock-dray with only two wheels was then in vogue, no great quantity could be carried in one dray load. The opening of Burketown in 1865 as the second port after Bowen in North Queensland, enabled the early settlers to obtain supplies more easily, although the cost was still excessive. But the rations were fresher than those the overlanders had been used to. Some of the flour that had come out with the parties had been years on the road, and was very much the worse for the long journey. This flour could only be used after much sifting and airing; it was made into small thin cakes called Johnny cakes, which were cooked in the ashes and eaten hot; even then it was bitter and nearly brown in colour. The grubs and worms had long since left it, or died in it from old age. It was said that some flour from Bowen Downs that had left Sydney years before and come out to the Gulf stations just formed, being too strong to use, was thrown out, and the dingoes and crows were found lying dead round it. The sugar in those days was the dark, treacly kind, that left a stain on the floor like blood; it came in casks. However, people were not very particular as to the quality of the supplies, provided there was anything at all to eat. Pig weed (portulacca), boiled or roasted on a shovel was one of the changes open to travellers; tea was made from the marjoram bush; and very fair coffee was made from the scrapings of the burnt edges of dampers, and was called Scotch coffee. When Burketown was opened, the fresh supply of flour and stores was very welcome to the early settlers. * * * * * For the first year or two of Burketown's existence, a saturnalia of a most original and determined fashion set in. There were only two or three women in the town, and no police, and the crowd enjoyed themselves in their own breezy, sunshiny way. Burketown was the haven of refuge for all the outsiders and outlaws from the settled districts when they had made other places too warm to hold them any longer. "God forsaken, devil may care, Every one with his sins to bear; From East, from West, they are camping there; Where all the bad lots go." All kinds of characters made their way out to the Gulf in those early days. Men went there who had been wanted by the police for years. Horse stealing and forging cheques were very common pastimes among the fancy, and Burketown society, in its first efforts to establish itself, was of a kind peculiarly its own. An ex police officer (O'Connor), who started business in Burketown, and who hailed from the land of the shamrock, knew many of the "boys," as he called them. One noted character broke out of the lock-up, swam the Albert River, swarming with alligators, got a horse somewhere or somehow, and was followed by Mr. W. D'Arcy Uhr far into New South Wales, and brought back to Burketown, only to be discharged, whilst Mr. Uhr, who was one of the smartest officers of the police was asked for an explanation for leaving his district without permission. The following case of horse-stealing will serve to show the lawless state of things prevailing in the outside regions when the borders of civilisation were undefined, and no laws could be enforced. Three men were implicated, all notorious characters, even for those days. They were called Dublin Bob, Firearm Jack, and One-armed Scotty. They had spent some time mustering the horses and in building yards to hold them, on Bowen Downs run. As soon as the theft was discovered, they were followed by Mr. J. T. C. Ranken, the manager, Mr. J. Moffat, Junior, a blackfellow, Jacky, and another man. They overtook the horse-stealers on the range near Betts' Gorge, took possession of the horses, and arrested the thieves, as Mr. Ranken and the other white men had been sworn in as specials before starting. As they were riding along, Mr. Ranken saw a horse down a gorge that he thought he recognised, and leaving the prisoners in charge of the others, giving them strict instructions to guard them carefully, he went to look at the horse. On returning, he found the men had escaped, and no satisfactory explanation was ever given as to their departure. This was in the year 1866, when there was a great demand for horses in consequence of so much stock being driven to take up new country. In the previous year, 1865, the first sheep were brought on to Bowen Downs, and another mob of cattle was sent out to the Gulf country in charge of J. Neil, who stocked the country on the Alexandra, a tributary of the Leichhardt River, where there was a large waterhole ten or twelve miles long. The Mud Hut on the Thomson had to be abandoned owing to the scarcity of grass and the waterhole drying up before the end of the year. The year 1865 was a very dry one on the Thomson, the Barcoo, and the Flinders--waterholes went dry that year that have never gone dry in the thirty-five years that have followed. Law and order in those days was a "go-as-you-please" sort of arrangement. At a shanty about twenty-five miles from Burketown, a man was shot by the keeper of the shanty, and died. The man was prosecuted, but owing to his detention waiting trial, and his long sea voyage west about the Leeuwin, and other extenuating circumstances in the case, the man being compelled to keep order in a lonely place amongst a very disorderly crowd, he got off. During the year 1864, a man named G. Nicol, and his wife, both of whom had been employed at Bowen Downs, and had left with the intention of going to Rockhampton, were found dead between Bowen Downs and Stainbourne. They had been offered quiet horses for the journey, but they preferred to walk. As they did not turn up at Stainbourne, a search was instituted, and they were found on one of the branches of Bullock Creek, both dead. The woman had been dead much longer than the man, as portions of her corpse were missing, while the body of the man was whole; the woman had a hole in her skull; the man had a revolver with two chambers empty. She was the first white woman on the Thomson, and was a very kind decent little body. The story remains one of the mysteries of the bush that will never be solved. Another tragedy that marked this year was the murder of Mr. Meredith, of Tower Hill station, and his overseer by the blacks. Mr. Meredith had been away from his station on a visit, and when returning passed his teams loaded with rations on the road somewhere between Bully and Cornish Creeks. In passing them he promised either to meet them himself or to send someone else. When he got to Cornish Creek, he saw so many blacks that he decided to meet them himself; therefore, on arrival at the station, he obtained fresh horses, and started back, taking his overseer, Mr. Robert McNeely, with him. He intended to stay with the teams until they were past all danger, but he never reached them. Both men were killed on Cornish Creek, about fifty miles above Bowen Downs. The exact spot was unknown, nor were the bodies ever recovered; but their clothes, watches, etc., were found in the blacks' camp. The men with the teams were the first to find out that something was wrong, for on bringing up their horses one morning, they found some of the Tower Hill station horses among them, one in particular that Mr. Meredith always rode himself. Suspecting trouble, they went on to the Bowen Downs teams, a few miles ahead, and the teamsters went back with them to search, and in the blacks' camp articles were found which left no doubt that both Mr. Meredith and his overseer had been killed. No doubt there had been a night attack when the two pioneers were asleep in their camp, unaware of the approach of the observant enemy. Blacks seldom attacked during the day, but preferred to steal stealthily upon their victims and kill them in their sleep. Numerous cases of this description might be mentioned, and it was the rule among experienced bushmen to either keep watch at night, or else to shift camp after dark. In the early days, the blacks of North Queensland, and especially of the Peninsula, used to be troublesome to stock, and never failed to kill horses and cattle whenever a chance offered, cutting up and carrying away the carcase to the scrubs or ridgy country. Great numbers of stock were killed by them in the early days of settlement all over the Cook district. Even teamsters' horses have been known to be killed close to the road during the night, cut up, and carried away, or skinned of the flesh and the skeleton left entire. Not alone to stock did they confine their attacks, for many a white man and Chinaman, of whose death there is no record, fell before their spears, and it is maintained they ate their victims on many occasions. The usual war of reprisals went on between the intruders and the native race, and the latter soon went under, although the tribes inhabiting the country around the main rivers were numerous. In no district in Queensland have the blacks shown themselves more hostile to the settlers than in the Peninsula. The Jardine Brothers' journal of their trip to Cape York is a record of continued and unprovoked attacks by blacks on their little party. One of the early settlers, a Mr. Watson, was killed on his own verandah at his station on the Archer, and Gilbert, the naturalist belonging to Leichhardt's party, was killed in a night attack by blacks, not far from the Mitchell River. The lonely gullies about the Palmer hide the record of many a lost prospector done to death by the savages; while the sight of one of them was enough to cause a stampede among a camp of a hundred Chinese, for the poor Chinamen always fell easy victims to the blacks, as they would never show fight, and seldom carried firearms. It was a very common occurrence for the early settlers to bring in cattle to the yard for the purpose of drawing broken spears out of their sides. Horses were hunted down as readily as cattle, and this in a district noted for its native game. CHAPTER X. THE MEN OF THE NORTH. There were never lacking men ready for the enterprise and hardship of pioneering when there was such a field of profitable work open before them, work that was for those trained in bush experience, hardy and acclimatised as they were. The life, in spite of hardships, was not without attraction and satisfaction to many who took part in it. There was a kind of fascination to many bushmen in the idea of being the first to enter upon new and unknown scenes; to note the surprise of native game beholding for the first time the presence of the stranger, and to observe the terrified astonishment of the aborigines when first they saw the white intruders; all this tended to add to the romance and interest of helping to open a new district. But outside pioneer life in early days had a reverse side; there was little or nothing of comfort or relaxation; there was always hardship and exposure; there was no Sunday for rest, no holiday, no Eight Hour Day, nothing but constant movement and watching. The duties were shared by all alike; each had to take a turn at anything and everything, cooking one time, driving a team another, shepherding sheep occasionally, herding cattle sometimes, cutting timber, making bough-yards for sheep, lambing down a flock of ewes, shifting hurdles, and poisoning dingoes, killing and salting beef, ear-marking, washing and shearing sheep, looking for stragglers, yoking bullocks, building huts, tracking and hunting stock, all little duties that made up the routine life of the outside grazier. They all took their turn, and generally there was one dish and one table. Where the ways and customs consequent on the life brought all on a partial level, the man who could turn his hand to anything from shoeing a horse to weighing out a dose of quinine or driving a bullock team, was the most valuable. THE STOCKMAN, OR STOCKRIDER. He was native to the soil and bred, Merely a cowboy he; A nomad's life was what he led. And all he wished to be. He is a class of his own, and is a man of some importance in the daily life of a station. The term may mean to many any man who can climb into a saddle; but a good stockman is not so easily picked up, nor is he made out of any material to hand. A good and experienced stockman, one who knows his work thoroughly, is active, and can ride well, can command wages all the year round. His work is not by any means easy; there are long hours, in fact all hours, hard fare, and often no lodging but the bare ground; he must endure hunger and thirst, cold, heat, and wet, and often has to take a watch at night. When at work in the yard branding and drafting, he has either to endure tremendous dust, or else he is covered with mud. But the trained stockrider makes light of all these discomforts, in fact he looks on them as all in the bill of fare, and belonging to the day's work. He is hardy, wiry, as well as possessed of a good deal of endurance and pluck, and like all men who ride much, is nearly always lean in condition. He is generally the owner of a couple of horses and an outfit of saddle, swag, stock whip, and spurs, and takes an interest in all racing and sporting matters. As a rule, he is not a saving man, although some may lay up enough money to start a small store. The native youth makes the best all-round stockman; many follow horse-breaking at times, or take a turn at droving. To draft on horseback in the cattle yard, or in the yard on foot, to castrate and brand horses and calves, to ride a young horse, to make a leg or head rope out of green hide, or a pair of hobbles, to counterline a saddle, to cook a damper, all comes within the province of the stockman. Towns and townspeople are not much in his way, any more than the customs of the city are congenial to his free-and-easy style of associations. Moleskin trousers, Crimean shirt, cossack boots, and felt hat, are his rig out. The modern type is less pronounced than he of the ancient school, the flash, hard-riding, tearing, loud-swearing, rowdy stockman of olden days, with a stockwhip sixteen feet long, sporting breeches and leggings, and a loud red shirt. Stockmen have very little to do with unions, but are seldom without employment on stations or on the road. THE COOK. Bush cooks are of every shade of colour, complexion, and social standing, from the foreign count who has been expatriated for political leanings, to the squalid shuffling Chinee, or the wily, treacherous Cingalee. Hut keeper was the term employed in the olden days when two shepherds had each a flock of sheep folded for the night inside a yard made of movable hurdles, and a hut keeper was joined to them to do a bit of cooking, as well as to shift one set of hurdles each day. He was supposed also to watch at night against native dogs, strychnine not being so much in use then to reduce the numbers of these pests. They were men of dirty, lazy habits; their cooking was fearful, consisting simply of boiling a bit of beef or mutton, making a damper, and rinsing out a tin pannikin. Greasy-looking, growling, and drunken they were, with scarcely energy enough to fetch a little wood or water; to wash their clothes was an unheard-of thing. Those who cook for drovers on the road have to be more alert; a good man on the road is a great consideration, and it is no sinecure to cater for a party while travelling with stock. The cook is exempt from watching, as he has to be up during the night to get breakfast ready by daylight for the men to start on with their cattle. Some good cooks will provide hot suppers for the men in all weathers. The shearers' cook is quite another variety. He is often a boss man employs one or two others under him, and gets top wages, but he has to be up to the mark, for our shearer is a fine specimen of an inflated growler, and will have nothing but of the best, and up to time, tea and cake between meals, duff and all the luxuries for dinner; in any case he comes in for a full share of the shearer's arrogance and abuse. Station cooks comprise all sorts, good, bad, and indifferent, clean and unclean; but one who can make real good bread is a rarity, and all are self-taught. They frequently get good wages, but soon become lazy and dirty, and often a Chinaman has to be put on to do the kitchen cooking. About the towns it is notorious that European cooks cannot be relied on for any time on account of their drinking habits, and once again the Chinaman has to be resorted to. THE SHEARER. This class of labourer has been very much in evidence of late years in Queensland on account of the numerous strikes that have taken place, brought about by them or their leaders, although it is the best paid of all unskilled work in the colony. The Shearers' Union attempted to rule all labour and labour interests throughout the whole colony, and succeeded for a long time in keeping things in a very disorganised state. There is nothing in shearing that any man could not master in a few days, although the work may be laborious when long continued. The money earned is out of all proportion to what other classes of labour receive, nevertheless the shearer is the most discontented and turbulent of all classes, and very decidedly aggressive. He can earn in a few months enough to keep him for the rest of the year without work, he is gregarious in his habits, and travels about in mounted groups, generally armed. He may be said to be a flash man, given to gambling, dicing, and other sports, and a good deal of his money is spent at roadside shanties. When at work, however, he is sober and industrious, as most of them are desirous of making a good tally at the end of the shearing, and the rules of the shed forbid any latitude for loafing or mischief. Shearing by machine instead of by hand will tend to modify the aspects of the work, and allow more men to learn the art. Shearers travel from shed to shed during the season, and sometimes earn from four to six pounds a week. They live on the best that can be got. Instances are common of men shearing over two hundred sheep per day for days running. Amongst the shearers will be found many respectable men, who have homes or selections of their own on which their families reside, and who travel round a few large sheds to earn enough money to carry on with and support their homes. THE BULLOCK DRIVER. The man of strong body, and of stronger language, the old "bull-puncher," is going out. He was an institution of early days when the pole-dray was in vogue, a fearful kind of vehicle that tipped up going out of a steep creek with a load on, and going down would bear on the polers fit to break their necks. The four-wheeled waggon has for a long time superseded the old bullock-killing dray, but the driver remains much the same. Instead of driving ten bullocks in a pole-dray, he yokes up eighteen or twenty to a waggon and draws instead of three and a half tons, about seven or eight tons. His whip is a terrible long plaited thong with a strip of green hide attached, and a handle like a flail, with it he wakes the echoes and his oxen at the same time. The crack of the whip is accompanied by a voice as deep and hoarse as the bellow of one of his own long-suffering yoked-up slaves, and his lurid language makes even his bullocks shudder. To see the "bullocky" at his best is only given to those who travel with him for a whole trip, and observe his style of getting out of difficulties that would dishearten many another man. He is full of resource, and not lacking in energy, and when his team is bogged in a creek in a seemingly hopeless mess, and beyond all appearance of ever being extricated, after exhausting his ample stock of dire profanity, he proceeds in a methodical manner to dig under his wheels and corduroy the track with branches and limbs of trees, weeds out his jibbing bullocks, and with renewed energy and awful voice, he calls on his patient and weary team for a big effort, and out they walk with their load on to the bank. The "bullocky" was a great factor in the early days of settlement, where there were no roads and loading had to be dragged over mountains and through steep creeks and over all obstacles. His bodily strength, great experience, and energy, came in to help in no small degree to keep settlement alive. The arrival of the bullock teams was quite an event, perhaps after being months on the road, and when all supplies had run short--not that the fact of supplies being short on the station would induce them to hasten their progress, for no bullock driver was ever known to hurry or go out of his slow, crawling pace for any inducement whatever. The "bullocky" could drink rum in buckets, and was always given to use his fists. Take him all round, he was about as rough a specimen of a bush artist as could be found; but he was hospitable in his camp; it was always "Come and have a pot of tea, mate," to any traveller. The quicker-moving horse teams and the railways, are elbowing the bullock driver out into the never-never, where there are still opportunities for his special faculties, and it is not often that bullock teams, with their wood and iron yokes, and dusty, hairy drivers, are seen on any roads coming into railway stations. To ask a bullock driver where he got his beef from was not always a safe or prudent question; it was looked upon as a piece of wanton impertinence that would require suppression. After putting down so much on the debit side, something should be said to the credit of the carrier. He must have been hard-working and thrifty to have acquired the necessary capital to purchase his waggon and team. Physically, he must be exceptionally strong to stand the life he leads. Mentally, he must be full of resource to overcome the obstacles he meets with on unformed and often uncleared roads. Morally, he must be passing honest, for he often carries loads of great value, for the safety of which he alone is responsible for weeks and often months. These men take up the work of distributing goods where the railways end. Their duties are arduous and responsible, and they deserve more consideration than they generally receive. THE TRAMP. "My life is a failure, the weary one said, And the days of my youth are past; But I still tramp along, and am not afraid, While grub in the bush shall last. "My shirt is patched, and my trousers are torn, My hat is a sight to see, The nap of my blanket has long been worn, And is patched with an old soogee." The tramp is found everywhere in the world. The bush tramp is only another variety, and since the big strikes took place in Queensland some years ago, the tribe has multiplied, as it taught them to loaf on the stations for rations. Now they make a practice of getting all their supplies for the road from the station stores, pleading they have no money, and from policy rations are given them, and no questions asked. Many men carrying their swags on their backs are really looking for work, and deserve encouragement by the gratuity of a little rations to help them along, as stations are far apart in the outlying districts. As station owners are dependent on these same swagmen for the extra labour they require from time to time, it is policy to keep on good terms with a class that can work incalculable damage to station men that have miles of grass in sheep paddocks to burn, woolsheds to demolish, and gates on the main road to be left open, with no evidence forthcoming as to how fires were started, etc., and no police to supervise or control the actions of these irresponsible wanderers. But the tribe of "whalers," as they were called in New South Wales, men who tramped up one side of the Darling River, and tramped down on the other side, never betraying any desire to find work, these can be found in the Queensland bush too, but not far out, where there are long dry stages between the stations, and a shortness of water which terrifies these old "bummers." There are men who have tramped all over the colonies--every colony in Australia they have been through, and know all the tracks. They come up to a station and ask for work in a sort of a way, and then ask for rations to carry them on, even asking for a bit of tobacco; they say they have no money (and their appearance confirms all they say), and have done no work, for six months past, or longer, tramping all the way, and never a job. Their rags and swag betray dire poverty; their clothes patched in every colour, so that a blackfellow would hardly wear them, and they are dirty in the extreme. These men are not decrepid or weak, but are simply lazy, whilst the fine dry climate enables them to live without hard work. Occasionally, in order to procure some tobacco or a little money for a spree at a shanty, they will take a job for a time as rouseabout or wood-chopper, but they are soon off on the "wallaby track" again. It is a recognised custom now among stations in the west and north-west to ration the swagmen as they pass along, and the cost to some stations during the year is very considerable; they just bring up their ration bags and get them filled, and go to the creek to camp and cook the evening meal they have walked perhaps twenty miles to obtain, but which cost them nothing but the exercise. Poverty is the inheritance of some, but many of these wanderers are poor because as soon as they do earn a few pounds at odd jobs during shearing time, they march at once to the nearest bush shanty and drink what they have earned until turned away, and then tramp back to the stations, begging rations as they go along, and at the same time regarding the donors with a consuming and persistent malice. The professional tramp is not a nice character, there can be no mistaking him, with his swag done up in a long roll, and hung round his shoulder and down his side, a billycan and water-bag in his hand. He creeps along slowly with sore feet and shuffling steps, camping in the shade when he can to rest; he has no companions generally, and his life is a joyless and miserable one; but there he is, and there he will remain, for his tribe will not die out, because no one will refuse to give a little rations to a wayfarer because he is hard up, ragged, and penniless. THE DROVER. He knew of every drover's way, From Normanton to Bourke; From far Port Darwin's ample bay, Right through to Muswellbrook. The desert plains he knew full well, Where duststorms blind the eye; And oft he had come from Camooweal, Drivin' stock to Narrabri. The life of a drover, under the most favourable circumstances, is the reverse of a pleasant one, but like all nomadic occupations, it has a fascination for many bushmen. The drover would appear to be regarded as the common enemy of every owner or superintendent through whose run he passes, although in many cases it is a fact that roads are fenced off so that a drover cannot leave them without breaking down the fences. In many instances the only permanent water on the stock routes has been fenced in by the owner of the run. The principal wealth of Australia is stock, and these, both sheep and cattle, to be marketed need bringing down to some seaport or market, either as stores or fats. Sometimes long distances are travelled, from one end of Australia to the other, the journey occupying months. At starting, the stock are counted and handed over to the charge of a competent drover, who delivers them at the end of the journey, and is paid either by contract at so much per head, with an allowance for losses, or else by weekly wages, the owner finding the whole plant and money. Overlanding is a constant source of anxiety from start to finish of the journey. The varying items, such as floods, droughts, disease, incompetent hands, lost stock, and the surveillance from the owners of runs through which they pass, make up the daily routine of a drover's life. Stormy nights, when cattle become very restless, keep the drover awake and anxious. His duties are of a responsible nature, and he requires a good deal of tact and patience to manage his men properly, for he may have over a dozen employed with him on a droving job. With sheep the anxiety is not so great as with cattle or horses, as sheep are much easier to manage. The law provides that unless detained by flood, stock shall be driven not less than six miles every twenty-four hours. In most instances this distance is exceeded, but should the drover fail to travel the prescribed distance, through any accident, the owner or manager of the run turns up at the camp and gives the drover the option of either moving his stock on the proper distance, if it is only one mile ahead, or of appearing at the nearest police court, perhaps a hundred miles away, to answer an information for a breach of the Pastoral Leases Act or the Crown Lands Act. Although, perhaps only a nominal fine may be imposed, the vexatious delay, loss, and inconvenience of attending at the court, induce the drover to avoid any needless infringements of the Act. Some managers of runs are ever ready to pounce on any unfortunate drover who may deviate a few yards from the regulated half mile on each side of the road, and then it will be so arranged that the drover will not get a summons until he is a hundred miles away from where the offence was committed, when he has to leave his stock in the hands of the men, while he returns to answer the trivial charge; he is always fined, as he cannot well defend his case, and he is anxious to return to his duties. As a rule, the drovers in Queensland are a trustworthy and respectable class of men--of course there are exceptions, but these are soon found out. Cases have come to light where cattle sold on the road have been returned as knocked up lame, or dead from pleuro, and grog has been entered in the accounts as stores supplied. The owner is a good deal at the mercy of the drover after the latter has taken charge of the stock, as he has then very little control over them until they reach their destination. Some drovers have a plant of their own, twenty or thirty good horses, a dray or waggonette, and saddles, and make contracts to shift cattle or sheep at so much per head, paying their own men, and finding everything. The wages of drovers are always high, but not too high when the care and constant work are taken into consideration. Sundays and week days alike, rain or fine, grass or no grass, whatever turns up, it all means that the drover, or man in charge has to be on hand and see to things himself. The life is monotonous, wearying and fatiguing in the extreme. Man and boss alike have to rise before dawn, roll up blankets or swag, get breakfast, catch horses, and move the cattle off the night camp as soon as it is light, then ride all day with them, keep them moving slowly along feeding on any grass to be found, watering them when a chance offers, carrying a bit of lunch on the saddle, and a quart pot to boil some tea in. After the day's journey is over, the cattle have to be rounded up on the camp at sundown and then each takes his turn at watching during the night, which means three hours solitary riding round in the darkness, turning in any cattle inclined to stray out from the camp, and keeping up one's spirits by calculating how long the trip will last. When the weather is fine, the life is bearable, if monotonous, but when it rains, especially in cold rain and wind, the pleasures of droving are limited; with wet ground to lie on, wet clothes to ride in, and scarcely fire enough to cook at, with stock restless and troublesome at night, the drover will sometimes think longingly of the home and the comforts he once despised. Still, droving is a popular calling, and men have followed it constantly for years, procuring a long droving job during the season, and spelling their horses when work is scarce. More provision should be made for regular stock routes throughout the country, and the area of these should not be included in the runs on which lessees have to pay rent, as the case is now. The drover's calling is a necessary one, and he should have more protection and greater facilities for getting his stock to market, and not a continual fight for the rights of the road as he has now. "In my wild erratic fancy, visions come to me of Clancy, Gone a-droving down the Cooper, where the western drovers go; As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing, For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know." --"Banjo." A. S. N. CO. Not least among the forces that worked for the settlement of the north, may be reckoned the steamer services. In this respect, the old A. S. N. Co. held the premier position, as their steamers were the first in all the ports of Queensland, and the colony is much indebted to the energy and enterprise of that Company. From Brisbane to Cooktown, their steamers were the first to cast anchor in the new harbours and help to develope the trade of the coast. Although not always very popular, for the public complained often at the charges made for freight and passages, the Company gave a good helping hand towards the opening up of the young country. A few notes about the history of this pioneering Company, obtained through the agency of their secretary, Mr. F. Phillips, may be of interest to some. It was originally established under the name of the Hunter River Steam Navigation Company, in August, 1839, with a capital of £40,000, and premises at the foot of Margaret Street, Sydney. In April, 1841, the "Rose," steamer, arrived from England, 172 tons burden. In October of the same year, the "Shamrock" arrived from England, under Captain Gilmore, being 123 days out. The "Thistle" had previously arrived. In 1841, the Company advertised their intention of sending one of their steamers to Moreton Bay, and the "Shamrock" sailed thither in December of that year. The fares were £8, £6, and £4; freight, 20s. wool, 20s. per bale. After five months, the steamer was withdrawn, as the trade was not remunerative. In September, 1842, the "Tamar," and "Sovereign," steamers, were purchased by the Company from Mr. Grose for £12,000; they were then carrying on a trade with Twofold Bay, Melbourne, and Launceston. In July, 1844, two water frontage allotments in Brisbane were secured for £50, and Mr. James Paterson was appointed manager in October, 1845. The Company's engineering works were established at Pyrmont in February, 1846, the land being leased for that purpose. The "Eagle," steamer, a well-known old northerner, was built for the Company at their Pyrmont works. On March 11th, 1847, their steamer, the "Sovereign" was wrecked in the south passage in Moreton Bay, and forty-four lives lost. In March, 1851, the Company's name was changed to the Australian Steam Navigation Company, it was incorporated, and its scope enlarged. The capital of the Company was £320,000, divided into 16,000 shares of £20 each, and the opposition of the Melbourne Steamship Company, which had been carried on at a great loss to both, ceased. In May, 1858, the Company offered the colonies a mail service to Galle, and in September of the same year the rush to the Port Curtis diggings set in, and land was purchased by the Company at Rockhampton in 1860. Their steam service was extended to Bowen, a port which was just then opening a way to inland settlers to obtain their supplies from, and the Company obtained a contract for a mail service between Adelaide and King George's Sound. In February, 1863, a new opposition was started by the inauguration of the Queensland Steamship Company. The following year the A. S. N. Co. had extensive wharves and stores built for themselves both in Brisbane and Rockhampton. The "Leichhardt," steamer, was built at their works for the northern trade, and the Company's operations were extended to Townsville in 1865, Captain Trouton being appointed manager the next year. In January, 1868, the Queensland Steamship Company was wound up, and its steamers and wharves bought up by the A. S. N. Co. In 1870, the Californian mail service was opened by H. Hall, who chartered the company's steamers "Wonga" and the "City of Melbourne" for that purpose. Campbell's Wharf in Sydney was bought for a large sum in 1876, and the next year Captain O'Reilly leaving the Brisbane agency, Mr. W. Williams was appointed. * * * * * In 1878, three Chinese crews were obtained for the A. S. N. Co. steamers, a circumstance which caused a strike in November, 1879, lasting until the following January. The Company had been engaged in the trade between Newcastle and Sydney, but this was abandoned in September, 1880, when the plant and stores were sold to the Newcastle Steamship Co. * * * * * In January, 1887, the extensive intercolonial trade of the A. S. N. Co. ceased, and all their steam fleet was sold to a new company called the A. U. S. N. Co. The fleet stood at £481,000 in their books, and was sold for £200,000. The shareholders received £20 8s. 9d. per share, the par value being £20 per share; the shares when the fleet was sold were £9 10s. in the open market, but the increase in the value of the landed properties of the Company helped to this satisfactory result. BURNS, PHILP & CO. Throughout Australia, but above all in the northern parts of Queensland, the name of Burns, Philp and Co. ranks foremost among the many wealthy and large companies that have helped to develop trade in the northern parts, and a short account of the growth of this great business may prove interesting. Intimately associated with North Queensland, the business of the Company has grown and prospered with the growth and prosperity of the youngest colony of the group, and much of the rapid opening of new ports and harbours on the northern coast line, and also among the Pacific Islands, is due directly to the natural business capabilities of the founders of the Company. A number of shipping agencies are also held in North Queensland, Western Australia, and Sydney, and the Company itself owns a fleet of small vessels used in the coasting, lightering, and island trade. Altogether there are between sixty and seventy steamers, sailing vessels, and lighters owned and chartered which fly the flag of Burns, Philp and Co., and the red, white, and blue, with Scotch thistle in the centre, is a flag well known throughout the Pacific Islands and all round Australia. A mail service is run by the Company between Cooktown, New Guinea, and Thursday Island, also a three years' contract was in 1897 entered into with the Government of Western Australia to run weekly between Albany and Esperance. Considerable trade is done with the Solomon Islands, and steamers run regularly from Sydney in this trade. The Company have also steam and sailing services with the New Hebrides, Louisades, New Guinea, New Britain, Ellice, and Gilbert, and many other islands in the Pacific, having a ten years' contract with the Commonwealth Government for regular communication with all the islands which are practically under British control, while branch businesses have been established at Port Moresby and Samarai in British New Guinea, at Elila in the New Hebrides, Nukualofa in the Friendly Islands, and elsewhere. The first steam service down the Gulf of Carpentaria from Thursday Island was inaugurated by the senior partner of the Company, Mr. James Burns, in the year 1881, by means of the little steamship "Truganini," which used often to be overcrowded with passengers and freight for Normanton. The Company is the largest colonial shipper to the European and Eastern markets of Pacific Island produce, such as copra, beche de mer, sandalwood, ivory nuts, tortoise shell, and, above all, pearl shell, for which Torres Straits is so famous; add to this the amount of tallow, wool, and other Australian produce annually exported, and it will give some idea of the export business done. The Company has two fleets of pearl shelling luggers, comprising about forty pearlers in all. Burns, Philp and Co. is essentially a company of a co-operative character, and a glance at the share list will show that the great bulk of shareholders are managers, employees, and others actually working in the company. This tends to a live interest all round, and each branch vies with the other in good management and success. The business was originally established at Townsville, thirty years ago by the senior partner, Mr. James Burns, and the new offices lately completed there at a cost of £15,000 are the finest in North Queensland, while recently, premises costing £50,000 were erected in Sydney. Mr. Philp, now the Hon. Robert Philp, Premier of Queensland, joined Mr. Burns some twenty-five years ago. Both are Scotchmen, the one hailing from Edinburgh, and the other from Glasgow. The Company was formed into a limited liability company twenty-one years ago. Much could be written of the varied character of the business of Burns, Philp and Co., which embraces almost every colonial interest besides, while they are allied to a group of other colonial companies which act in accord with them, notably the North Queensland Insurance Company, and other concerns. For some years the Company engaged in the whaling enterprise with fairly successful results, but the detention of Captain Carpenter, and the seizure of the whaling barque "Costa Rica Packet" by the Dutch authorities in the Malay Archipelago, abruptly terminated what promised to be a most important colonial enterprise. It will be remembered that the Dutch Government had to pay a considerable sum to the captain, owners, and crew of the vessel for this wrongful seizure. The total turnover of this Company now exceeds two millions sterling, and it is one of the largest and most progressive of the purely Australian concerns. In the Sydney office a special telegraphic operator is always at work, and cable and telegraphic messages are sent to, and received from, all parts of the world direct. This is the only company in the colonies which has a Government operator established on the premises solely for its own business. CHAPTER XI. ABORIGINALS OF NORTH QUEENSLAND. Where did the natives come from? How long ago? Where did they land first? Where are their ancestors? Were they ever civilised? These and similar questions occur to those who regard the natives of Australia with interest. They live only in the past, there is no future for them, here at least. Their origin is involved in impenetrable obscurity. Scarcely on the earth is to be found a race similar to the aboriginals, whilst their antiquity is beyond doubt, and also the fact that they have a common origin. Their speech, habits, colour, customs, and superstitions, proclaim in the strongest terms that they all came from a common source; from the far north of Australia to the farthest south, a hundred proofs are forthcoming to show a common ancestry. Words that have a similar meaning are used on the Darling River and in places in the Gulf of Carpentaria; the weapons are similar all over the continent; their faces and figures are similar, allowing for the effects of varieties of food and climate. In the three hundred years since the first contact between Europeans and the New Hollanders, no change has occurred; they were then spread over Australia, the same in habits and life as they are now, and the only result of the contact of the two races of men, the civilised and the savage, is that the native is fading away before the white man like mist before the morning sun. Nothing can avert the doom that is written as plainly as was the writing on the wall at Belshazzar's feast. And to what purpose would we preserve them? What good could accrue from maintaining a remnant of a race that it is impossible to civilise. The buffalo of America, like the Red Indian himself (the hunter and the hunted), pass over the river in front of the advancing tide of civilisation. As a study, the native race of Australia is eminently interesting, for in them we have living representatives of the stone age; remarkable for their pureness of race, having had no admixture from any other nation through countless generations for their great antiquity, for before the pyramids of Egypt were built, they had occupied Australia and for the silence of all history and traditions concerning them and their destiny of doom; as a race problem they are full of interest. From Cape York to the Great Australian Bight, and from the Leeuwin to the Great Sandy Spit on Frazer's Island, there is no difference in the type of the native of Australia, although the quality and quantity of their food has caused some of the tribes to be more robust and better developed than others. In the north, where food is plentiful, there are many fine specimens of men over the average height of the European. Many of the northern aboriginals are tall, muscular men, of great activity and endurance, with keen sight and observation, and they often attain to a good old age. Nearly all are bearded, with hair that is wavy rather than straight or curly. They are not a cowardly race, as among themselves they conduct their fights with a certain degree of honour, and with great pluck, not taking advantage of an opponents' accident. They excel in throwing their spears with the wommera or throwing stick, and can hit a mark at a distance of seventy to eighty yards with great force; the boomerang is used for game, such as ducks or pigeons, as well as in warfare, and is really a formidable weapon. On the north-east coast, they use a wooden sword which is wielded with both hands, and seems to have been an improvement or an innovation on the boomerang, where the dense scrubs prohibited the use of the throwing weapon. They appear to have been from all time a race of hunters, ever living on the products of the chase, and from the scarcity of game, and difficulty in keeping it when killed, they seldom remain more than one or two nights in one camp, but move about in small parties. Although the tribes or families are always on the move--a nomad hunter race--their districts are well defined, and they seldom trespass on the hunting grounds of an adjoining tribe, unless with consent. This strict delimitation of districts and dislike of trespass, has led to a great diversity in their dialects, and every little tribe seems to have a different language; in a distance of one or two hundred miles, the names for the commonest things may be altered, although the same social system prevails substantially throughout all tribes, with little or no variation. In their original state they could not have been an unhappy people; when food was plentiful, they made weapons and shaped their stone tomahawks, which of itself was a work of slow progress; they wove nets for their game, and composed or sang their wild songs, or still wilder corroborrees, or dances. Obedient to the laws and customs handed down from their ancient forefathers, and following out the rites of their marriage laws with great strictness, they lived healthy lives to a good old age, while the increase of the race was checked by the amount of food each district could supply. With the advent of the white race, the social system that held them together for thousands of years, became disturbed and broken into, and their natural food supplies were destroyed. Thus, with the introduction of new diseases, this primitive race of mankind is fast disappearing, apparently without a thought or struggle or hope, and after a few years not a remnant of them, or any sign of their occupation of the country will remain. Some of their customs appear to be very general, such as knocking out the two front teeth among women, and sometimes among men; this is done by a sudden blow on the end of a stick which is placed on the tooth, and then knocked inwards. A very general custom is boring a hole through the septum of the nose, although it is not often that an ornament is put through it. Another manner of adornment is by raised cicatrices made on the chest and back and arms, by cutting the skin with a piece of sharp flint and putting in gum or clay. In their native state, they do not appear to have made any attempt at any kind of covering or dress, either male or female, except that young girls wore an apron round the loins made of fibre or grass hanging down a few inches. For camping at night they used ti-tree or other bark as a shelter when procurable, and always slept between two or three small fires, making a slight hollow in the ground so as to get the warmth of the fire above them, and generally choosing the sandy beds of rivers away from the wind. In the Gulf country, during the wet season, they made small sleeping benches raised on forks driven in the ground, about three feet high, with sheets of bark laid flat, and over them other sheets of bark bent in a half-circle, so as to throw off rain; beneath these structures or sleeping places they kept up a smoke to save them from the mosquitoes, which in the Northern Peninsula, were dreadfully annoying. It was the duty of the gins to keep the fire going during the night. In dry weather or windy nights, a breakwind made of boughs or branches was used as a protection, behind which they made their small fires for sleeping by. The cooking was generally done away from their camp fires, mostly during the daytime. In the Gulf country also, the coast blacks make small gunyahs of bent twigs thatched with grass. These are only used during the wet season as a protection, chiefly from mosquitoes. The treatment of the native races has always been a difficult question. Whenever new districts were settled, the blacks had to move on to make room; the result was war between the races. The white race were the aggressors, as they were the invaders of the blacks' hunting territory. The pioneers cannot be condemned for taking the law into their own hands and defending themselves in the only way open to them, for the blacks own no law themselves but the law of might. The protection of outside districts by the Native Police, was the only course open, although the system cannot very well be defended any more than what was done under it can be. The white pioneers were harder on the blacks in the way of reprisals when they were forced to deal with them for spearing their men or their cattle or horses even than the Native Police. But how were property and the lives of stockmen, shepherds, and prospectors in the north to be protected unless by some summary system of retribution by Native Police or bands of pioneers? The vices and diseases of the white race have been far more fatal to the blacks than the rifles of the pioneers, more particularly when they were allowed about the towns, where they always exhibit the worst traits of their character, becoming miserable creatures, useless for any purpose, and an eyesore to everyone. Those employed on stations as stockriders and horse-hunters become very useful and clever at the business, having a special aptitude for working among stock, and they are, as a rule, well treated, clothed, and fed. The Northern Peninsula up to Cape York is the only territory in Queensland where the natives may still be found in their original state, and on some of the rivers flowing into the Gulf they are still numerous. Their cave drawings show their taste for drawing or sketching to have been of the rudest; just a few marks on their boomerangs, line drawings on water koolimans, and some attempts at drawing figures on rocks in caves are all that have been discovered. The drawings are found wherever sandstone caves are found, and many of these are to be met with on the range about the Normanby River, near Cooktown, where the steep cliffs have been eaten into by the weather or by landslips, leaving hollows or caves in which the blacks have camped and ornamented with figures rudely drawn and coloured with red ochre or pipeclay; many of these drawings represent nothing at all; in some a hand is drawn, occasionally an attempt at some bird, or animal, or tree. Sir George Grey describes some elaborate drawings on the north-west coast of Australia found in caves of a similar nature, and large numbers are found on the coast near the Roper River in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and at Limmen's Bight, in the hollows of rocks, where, sheltered from the weather, the face of the stone is entirely covered with their rude attempts. All the lands in the southern seas are supposed to have been populated by castaways, driven by gales out of their reckoning, and landing haphazard at the first land or shore. The first visitor to the unknown and uninhabited land, arriving by accident, would have a struggle for existence, and a hard one too; he would have to improvise his weapons for the chase, and to learn to adapt himself to his new surroundings. His only chance of existence would be to become a nomad, a hunter; and all his spare time would be taken up in finding food and making weapons for the chase; for which Nature provided in a rude way the materials such as flints that break with a cutting or conchoidal edge that would answer very well for carving flesh, fashioning spears, or hollowing vessels for carrying water, though large shells could be used for this; the gum that exudes from many trees would serve to fasten handles to these flint knives. Hard rocks, such as diorite, would be used for axes. These stones require a vast amount of patience in chipping and grinding into shape. To make canoes out of sheets of bark would become a necessity for fishing and visiting the islands, and they would have to be sewn together with twine made from the inner bark of a tree. Wonderfully well made some of those canoes on the coast are; three sheets of thin bark tapered to a point; one sheet for the bottom and one each to form the sides; the fire is laid on some mud on the bottom, with a shell to bail out. Using a single paddle on each side alternately, the natives will make long voyages among the islands on the coast. Primitive Nature would be the castaway's granary or storehouse; the herbs and fruits as they grew naturally, and the wild animals and fish would form the only means of subsistence. Arriving in the country with such surroundings and difficulties to contend with, no wonder the castaways remained in a state of savagery. Without any means to better their condition, or even to know that it could be bettered, they remained as they landed, simple savages or children of Nature, quite satisfied with their surroundings, and happy enough if left alone to follow their own mode of life. What spare time they had would be passed singing songs or composing them. The women would assist in all the work of life and perform all the drudgery, collecting roots, nuts, and fibre; grinding the seeds, making the fire, and carrying wood and water to the camp. It is well known that savage women are possessed of uncommon endurance and vitality. In the course of ages, as their numbers increased, they would gradually spread abroad, carrying with them the customs and habits of their forefathers, but not improving or adding to the knowledge of the tribe. The natural instincts of the aboriginals are sharpened by exercise, and their skill in tracking is marvellous; they can follow the trail of another black over bare rocks or on the driest earth; they can recognise an acquaintance by the track of his foot. As bushmen they excel, having the faculty of being able to steer a course to any place they may wish, even in the dark, although, from superstitious ideas, they do not travel about much at night. Most of their quarrels are over their women; one man appropriating the wife of another. It is allowable by their laws for a man to have several wives, and marriage by arrangement is the general course. They are betrothed at a very early age, and the girl remains with her parents till the man comes to claim her. The brother-in-law has the right to marry the widow, and is expected to do so. The mother-in-law never looks on the face of her son-in-law, avoiding him on every occasion, even if in the same camp; this is a custom peculiar to all parts of Australia, and even to other savage peoples outside the continent. They are all compelled to marry within their class, and all tribes come under the same system, an equal rule prevailing all over Australia. The system of their marriage laws is puzzling to white people, but it is well understood by every black, male or female, old or young, and will be referred to further on, under the class system, the writer having collected information of several class systems for Mr. A. W. Howitt, of Victoria. The blackfellow generally wears his hair long, and usually caked into thick matted rope-like coils, with a band of red above the forehead, or else a native dog's tail. When dressed for a dance or corroborree, the hair is sometimes tied in a tuft with cockatoo feathers on the top. The married women wear their hair shorter, but the unmarried women generally wear it long. When mourning for the dead, the hair is plastered all over with mud, and the eyes and forehead are painted round with pipeclay. The natives are fond of singing, and their voices are melodious, while they keep excellent time by beating two boomerangs together; they sing a sort of monotonous chant, and keep it up in camp to a late hour. Their songs of mourning are always pitched in a minor key, and convey a dreadfully sorrowful expression; they are sung by both male and female, but the chant is soon varied, as their natural inclination is to be merry, and they look on most things in a ludicrous light. Their sense of humour is very keen and to mimic everything is their chief delight. The clear ringing laugh that they indulge in, and their merry chatter, are an indication of the cheerful nature and freedom from care, that help to make them so contented and easily pleased. They believe that the spirits of the dead, which are good and bad, go about at night and hold communication with some members of the tribe, particularly with the medicine men, or doctors. The medicine men claim to have power to talk with the spirits, and the blacks firmly believe that they have such power of communication. These old men are also supposed to preserve the traditions and superstitions of the tribe, and they alone can perform with efficacy the various ceremonies attendant on the healing of the sick; they also instruct the young men in the beliefs of the tribe and as to the proper conduct of their lives, and this they do at special meetings known as bora meetings. It is the special privilege of the old men to hold communication with the spirits of the departed, by which they become possessed of much knowledge which they impart to their tribe. They believe they have the power of making rain and healing the sick. The blacks live in continual dread of death, which they attribute to some spirit agency or to witchcraft. Scarcely any death is put down to natural causes, except those killed in fight; sickness and death are always regarded by them as the works of an enemy at a distance. This belief is universal among Australian blacks. They have various ideas as to how this evil influence is brought about; one of them is by pointing a bone at the victim, and for this a piece of a human leg bone sharpened to a point and several inches long is used. They live in dread of this bone (Thimmool) being pointed at them, and have a great aversion at any time to touch or even look at any bones of deceased members of the tribe. It is supposed that the pointing of the bone causes a gradual wasting away of the victim until death takes place. Another process is to take the pinion of a bird, the two bones fastened together with wax, including some hair of the person whose injury is intended; this is stuck in the ground and surrounded with fire, then it is set in the sun, and again returned to the fire, varying the performance according as to the extent of the harm to be caused; when sufficient sickness has been caused, they place the bone in water, thus dispelling the charm. This process is called "Marro." There is a superstition about abstracting the kidney fat of a blackfellow for promoting luck in fishing, and this is said to be done in various ways. The blacks are very good to the aged and infirm, and carry them from camp to camp; they are also good to the blind, whom they feed and care for, and when death ensues, they will mourn and chant their death song nightly. The aborigines believe that the spirit survives after death, and that it walks about on earth for a time, and then departs for another country which is supposed to be among the stars, the road to which is by the milky way, and the ascent by the Southern Cross, as by a ladder. The life supposed to be led there is similar to that on earth, but the food is abundant and shade trees and water are everywhere. They have names for all the constellations, and understand their times and movements. The Pleiades they call "Munkine," the name for a virgin or unmarried girl. Orion's Belt is called "Marbarungal," they believe him to have been a great hunter who formerly dwelt among them. The moon is a male, who, they say, was once a blackfellow, who killed a lot of their people. The latter burnt him in the struggle, and they point to the shadows on its surface as marks of the scars. A paper was read before the Royal Society of Brisbane by E. Palmer on October 2nd, 1885, "Concerning some superstitions of North Queensland aborigines." Cannibalism is practised among the blacks everywhere, but more from custom following certain traditions than for the sake of food; certain blacks are eaten, while others are not; those killed in a fight are generally eaten. In some places they skin the dead blackfellow, and twist the skin round a bundle of spears with the hair sticking up on top, and they carry this to different camps, sticking it in the ground by the points of the spears; children are sometimes eaten when they die. They are expert at all game hunting, and in snaring wildfowl; the plain turkey can be caught with a long reed on the end of a spear with a running noose made of twine and quills; with this in one hand, and a bush in the other, a man with patience will creep up close enough to catch a turkey round the neck. They make strong nets of cordage, having a large mesh to catch emus, kangaroos, or wallabies. These nets they stretch in certain places, and drive the game into them; small hand nets are used to catch fish with; pigeons and ducks are snared in nets which are stretched across creeks. The habits of birds and animals are closely studied, and their instincts are overmatched by the cunning of the savage, who wants them for food. All their food is cooked before being eaten, generally on stones made red-hot. It is wrapped in green leaves, and then covered over with hot ashes to steam. In the north they eat the alligator when they can manage to kill one, and the small fresh-water crocodile, found in most of the Gulf rivers, is also an article of food. Seeds of various grasses are ground into a paste with water and poured into the ashes to cook, while some fruits and nuts require great preparation before using, as they are extremely poisonous without such treatment. In preserving game, the blacks are very cruel, they twist the legs out of joint to prevent them getting away, and keep them alive in this way until they are wanted for cooking. They eat the dingo, and everything else that lives; and are very clever at discovering the nests of the native bees; honey, or "sugar-bag," as they call it, is a favourite food of theirs. It is only by constant moving about from camp to camp that a supply of food can be kept up, the women doing their share of providing by digging up yams and roots, fishing for crayfish and mussels, and grinding seeds between two stones. Their life is a constant worry for food from day to day, and nothing passes them that can be eaten. A favourite food of theirs is the tuber of the water-lily growing in lagoons, of this they even eat the stalks or stems of the seed stalk. The dugong, a large marine grass-feeding mammal is netted and speared; the flesh, when dried, is similar to bacon, and in the Wide Bay dialect is called "Koggar," the same name they give to the pig. White ants are esteemed a treat, and their nests are broken into, and the young ones, with the eggs winnowed from the dirt are eaten raw, as well as the grubs, which are the larva; of some locusts or beetles, and which are cut out of the trees. THE CLASS SYSTEM. All natives acknowledge the same system of class divisions, and these correspond all over Australia. The blacks are born into these divisions, and the idea is instilled into them from the beginning that they are to observe them as sacred. Though differing in name or in totem, the classes and divisions prevail everywhere, and a blackfellow knows at once which of the divisions corresponds to his own in a distant tribe. All things in Nature are divided into the same classes, and are said to be male and female; the sun, moon, and stars are believed to be men and women, and to belong to classes similar to the blacks themselves. The following is an instance of the system of class divisions belonging to a tribe on the Upper Flinders River, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, calling themselves "Yerrunthully." They had four class divisions, namely:-- Male marries Female. Children are Bunbury ... Woonco ... Coobaroo Coobaroo ... Koorgielah ... Bunbury Koorgielah ... Coobaroo ... Woonco Woonco ... Bunbury ... Koorgielah Each boy and girl in the tribe is born under one of these divisions, and is subjected to the laws, connected with tribal marriages. These classes are represented by totems, which are different in other tribes lower down the river:-- Bunbury Carpet Snake Tharoona Coobaroo { Brown Snake Warrineyah { Emu Gooburry Koorgielah { Plain Turkey Bergamo { Native Dog Cubburah Woonco Whistling Duck Chewelah Many other instances could be given, but they all partake of the same divisions and classes. A blackfellow can only marry into one class, namely that opposite to his name, the other three are forbidden to him strictly. The descent seems to be reckoned through the mother, for the child takes its name, not from its mother's class, but from the grandmother's class. The class name always goes back to that of the grandmother on the female side, the father's class name having no influence in the matter. Woonco's daughter is always Coobaroo, and Coobaroo's daughter is always Woonco, and so on through succeeding generations. The father might possibly be of a name representing the proper class, but from a far away tribe, for they correspond in class though not always in name; still the children take their name through the mother in this tribe. The blacks understand these relationships well, and exemplify them with two sticks crossed. CHAPTER XII. PHYSICAL FEATURES. The annual reports issued by the Water Supply Department of Queensland give detailed accounts of the annual and average rainfall over the whole of the colony, with the results of boring for artesian water, both privately and by Government. It is one of the most valuable and interesting reports issued, and with the rain maps accompanying it, conveys in a moment an accurate estimate of the average rainfall both on the coast and in the far interior. Beginning at Mackay, where the tropical rains commence, and following the coast line to Cape York, the record is higher than anywhere else in the colony, owing to the near approach of the high ranges to the coast. The maximum rainfall recorded in one year is reported at Geraldton, where 211.24 inches fell in 1894; Cairns can boast of 174.56 inches as its highest rainfall; this occurred in 1886. At Cape York, the average is 60.87; and at Mackay, 72.73 inches; these numbers give a general indication of the humidity of the climate on the east coast of North Queensland. As we advance into the interior a far different climate prevails, and the farther west we go, the lighter becomes the rainfall, till it would almost appear as if it scarcely ever rained in some places in the interior, which are not much raised above the level of the sea. At Birdsville, low down on the Diamantina River, on the borders of South Australia, the rainfall taken for three years, amounted to only 5.72 inches, and on the Mulligan, where for six years an average was taken, it amounted to only 5.77 inches. At Boulia, on the Burke River, the average for nine years was 13.54 inches. Between these extremes of great dryness and excessive moisture, the intervening country shows a graduated increase or decrease as one approaches or recedes from the eastern coast. As very few water-ways exist to carry off surplus water, the drainage being often imperceptible to the eye, this seems a merciful dispensation of Nature, as under such conditions any great rainfall would place the whole country under a sea of water long enough for all animal life to become extinct. The water that flows down the usually dry channels of the western rivers southwards comes from the Gulf watershed, where the rainfall is much heavier, averaging at Cloncurry 20.80 inches. The amount of rainfall determines largely the nature of the fauna and flora of a country, and causes it to vary, even in the same latitudes. Between the high coastal districts and the vast rolling plains and downs of the interior these differences are so marked and distinct that they seem like two separate countries; climate, timber, herbage, and even animal life are so different in the two regions that it seems extraordinary such contrasts should exist in the same latitude in one country. All along the east coast, where the rainfall is heavy, we find forests of splendid hardwood and scrubs containing cedar and pine of gigantic growth. In the interior, the timber is as a rule dwarfed, hollow, and crooked; the principal timbers being the acacia family, such as the gidya, myall, brigalow, boree, etc. The grasses of the interior adapt themselves to the climate, and are of a far hardier growth than the coast grasses; one season without moisture does not impare their wonderful vitality; the salt bushes are the hardiest of all vegetation in the interior, and are of the greatest value to pastoralists. Birds are found on the coast that never visit the interior districts; while the galas and corellas are never found in a wild state near the coast. During the wet season in the summer months many seabirds migrate to the interior for a few weeks. Accompanying the report of the Hydraulic Engineer is a coloured map showing the sites of artesian bores and tanks and the supposed area of the lower cretaceous or water-bearing strata, as well as the underlying impermeable palæozoic rocks. The whole of Western Queensland may be said to belong to the lower cretaceous formation; here and there, where it has not been denuded by the action of the atmosphere, the desert sandstone may be found overlaying it. The whole of this vast area of water-bearing rocks has been proved by artesian bores, most of which are far below the level of the sea. The knowledge of the area of the water-bearing country in the interior is extending as additional bores are put down. Some of the bores within the known belt of the water area have been abandoned owing to causes that may be generally classified as accidents. The Government have sunk a number of wells, while hundreds of flowing bores that now stud the great western country have been put down by private enterprise. The policy of the Government has been to determine the area within which artesian water may be hopefully searched for, and to provide water in arid country or on stock routes, and excellent results have attended the carrying out of this policy. The Winton bore is down in the lower cretaceous beds 4,010 feet, it gives a flow of 720,000 gallons of water a day, at a temperature of 192 degs.; the surface level is 600 feet above the sea; it will take about £8,000 to cover the total cost of sinking, etc. The Charleville bore has the largest flow of any Government bore, giving 3,000,000 gallons in the twenty-four hours, but some bores on Tinenburra, on the Warrego River, give as much as 4,000,000 gallons. About 800 private bores have been sunk in search of artesian water in the western area of Queensland; of these 515 give a total output of 322 millions of gallons in the twenty-four hours, and the total cost of them amounted to nearly £2,000.000. This expenditure made within sixteen years, is creditable to the energy and forethought of the western settlers. Some of the bores are not overflowing, and the water is raised by pumping, though the supply is inexhaustible. By the flow of water thus brought to the surface, the devastating effects of the periodical droughts have been minimised, and large areas have become available to profitable occupation that previously were waste country. The flow of this artesian water from the private and public bores is worth more to Queensland than a river of gold. They have completely changed the face of the country, and removed the anxiety of the stock owners towards the end of the season, when all surface water (except the most permanent lagoons) has dried up and formed mud traps to catch all weak stock that venture near them. These tiny perforations of the earth's surface have helped to solve the difficulty of settlement on the western lands, where we find the rainfall diminishing as we go further west. As these little threads of water find their way across the plains and form into small ponds in the hollows, the wildfowl resort to them as if they were natural waters, while the bulrushes (typha angustifolia), soon follow and grow in masses, although these are only to be found round springs, and never in permanent lagoons or rivers. Some curious features are connected with the artesian water supply; sometimes the temperature is very high, that of the Dagworth bore reaching 196 degrees, while the pressure of the Thargomindah bore is over 230 lbs. to the square inch. The water supply tapped is perhaps beyond calculation, and up to the present time there is no indication of exhaustion. The source of this enormous pressure of water that is capable of sending a jet over a hundred feet above the surface, is still unexplained, and many theories are afloat as to its origin; some of these go far afield for reasons for the great supply and strong pressure. The enormous rainfall on the coast ranges, where the intake probably occurs, and where the impermeable rocks approach the surface, carrying the water under the lower cretaceous, or more recent formation (which is shown to be the most extensive in Western Queensland), seems to be the most reasonable to adopt at the present time. These water-bearing strata must cover very large areas in Australia, for a bore at Tarcanina, near the south coast on the Great Australian Bight, is down over 1,000 feet below the level of the sea, and throws the water to a great height above the surface. Mr. R. L. Jack, the Government Geologist, in a paper on artesian water in the western interior of Queensland read before the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science, in Brisbane, January, 1895, argues in a most convincing manner as to the source of artesian supplies of water, giving the intake or gathering ground at about 55,000 square miles, over a region where the mean average rainfall taken at thirteen meteorological stations along the line of outcrop, amounts to 27 inches annually, which is considerably greater than that of the interior of the downs country. The greater part of the rainfall is not carried away by the channels of the rivers, neither is it evaporated, but sinks through porous strata into the earth, and does not return except through springs or submarine leakage. The fact of all this great supply of water finding its way to the sea at great depths, shows what little effect a few bores can have on the enormous annual supply. It is an encouragement to extend the number of bores, which are so necessary to successfully settle the arid plains of the distant interior, in order to anticipate the waste of water. The fact of an artesian bore diminishing its flow may be due to many causes other than shortage of supply, faults in the tubing or caving in of the strata may account for it. We have here the secret of successful settlement in inland Australia--an inexhaustible supply of water fit for all the wants of man. The Normanton bore, practically on the edge of the Gulf, and sunk from a level of about 30 feet above the sea, struck artesian water at a depth of 1,983 feet, or 1,950 feet below sea level. This bore and the one at Burketown, both of which were successful in reaching artesian water, were put down by the Government during the time Mr. G. Phillips represented Carpentaria in the Legislative Assembly, 1893-5. THE GRASSES AND FODDER PLANTS. An enumeration of all the fodder plants and herbage common to North Queensland would require a long catalogue, as variety is Nature's law in this case, and the western soil teems after the wet season with flowers, herbs, grasses, and fruits all more or less adapted for use as fodder. The prospect on the wide spreading plains after the early thunder showers in November and December is very refreshing to the eye that has been for months staring on the dry stalks of the Mitchell grass, or else on the brown bare earth. Trailing vines of the melon and cucumber family spread themselves in profusion, the fruit of which is eagerly sought after by stock. Convolvolus flowers and vines grow among the young green grasses, and many varieties of the compositæ show in bright yellow their gleaming flowers, mingled with hibiscus of every hue. The growth of plant life is marvellous after the fall of soft rain on the warm rich soil. Portulaca, known as pigweed, is among the first of the plants to spring up, and grows in great masses; the seeds form a principal article of food for the birds that frequent the plains, the young plants are also used by stock, and are not despised by man in an emergency. All life, vegetable and animal, revives suddenly after the surface of the earth has been saturated with the life-giving element; frogs and locusts sing their songs of joy day and night; flies increase beyond conception, and mosquitoes and sandflies torment to distraction both man and beast. On the plains, the first vegetation to spring up is the sensitive plant, spreading its delicate foliage over the surface, the leaves closing during the heat of the day, and opening in the evening. The small creeping plant said to be poisonous to stock (Euphorbia Drummondi), appears immediately after rain. The climbing vine (Capparis lucida), which bears a sub-acid fruit not unlike passion fruit, at this time of year gives out its white flowers and fruit at the same time. The scent of the innumerable flowers on the plains, the tender herbage, the young grasses sending their seed stalks several feet high, and all the soil covered densely with vegetation and herbage suitable for stock present a picture to the eye, so utterly opposed to that which prevailed but a few weeks before the advent of the rains, that the spectator can scarcely believe it to be the same country. The seeds of some plants will remain dormant for years, and then suddenly spring up in profusion; for instance, the plant commonly known as peabush, a leguminous annual (botanically Sesbania aegyptica), has only a periodical growth, and at such times, varying for many years, it covers the plains in such rank masses that the stockriders get quite bewildered when searching for stock through its scrublike density; for several years after this abundant growth, the plant will scarcely be noticeable; it is said that every three years is a peabush year, but the writer cannot support the theory, as he can only call to mind four or five really bad peabush seasons in a period of thirty years. The seeds which fall to the ground in great quantities form the sustenance for flocks of pigeons and other birds, but much seed must also fall down the cracks of the earth and bide their time for a chance of springing into life. The flowers of this plant grow in lilac and yellow on the same stalk. Cattle are fond of it when young, and mustering stock in a peabush year has many extra difficulties on account of the prolific growth of this intermittent annual. It will sometimes grow to a height of fifteen feet, and in swampy places is so dense that it is difficult to keep even a few horses in sight when driving through it; after it dries and the seeds fall to the ground, the stalks break off, and the sweep of the water over the plains during the succeeding year gathers these dry stems against the trees in enormous masses like small haystacks, and there they remain until a bushfire reduces them to ashes. The masses of peabush carried down creeks and watercourses at certain seasons will yet prove a source of danger to railway and road bridges when such structures come to be built on the western plains comprising the watersheds of rivers flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria. Though peabush grows strongly on flooded ground, it can be found of a sturdy growth on ridges or high plains or downs during a favourable year, especially where water lodges between ridges. It is an ancient and historical plant, for the flowers that composed the wreath found on an Egyptian mummy of ancient date, when softened and opened with warm water, were found to be identical with the flowers of the peabush of the Flinders River and western plains of North Queensland. The native pastures have not been improved by the introduction of stock; the evils of overstocking and the want of bushfires to keep down the under-growth, have in some districts deteriorated or exterminated some of the best of the fodder grasses. The best of all indigenous grasses is known as Mitchell grass, a perennial of strong growth, and capable of resisting the driest weather; there are many varieties of this grass, which is found only on the plains and downs of the interior. It possesses the faculty of shooting green from the old stalks at the joints, and taking up moisture, renewing its youth again. The Mitchell grass grows in isolated strong bunches, and its presence is a sure sign of a fattening country. The following are the best known varieties:-- "Astrebla pectinata," common Mitchell grass, growing in erect tussocks of two or three feet high. "A. triticoides," wheat-eared Mitchell grass; this plant is taller and coarser than the last, attaining a height of four or five feet. "A curvifolia," or curly Mitchell grass; plant forming erect tufts one or two feet high, the leaves narrow and much curved. "A. elymoides," weeping Mitchell grass; plant decumbent, the stems several feet long. The blue grass (Andropogon sericeus), is an annual of soft rapid growth, with a branching seed-stalk that breaks off and is blown by the wind in masses into waterholes; the blacks use the fine seeds of this grass for food. "Anthistiria membranacea," called the Flinders or Barcoo grass, is an annual of a reddish colour, found all over the western plains. It is soft and brittle, breaking easily off to fall on the ground, when stock will pick it up; it makes excellent hay, keeping sweet for years, and is one of the most fattening grasses. The varieties of the indigenous grasses that cover the great western plains are innumerable; all are more or less eaten by stock, even the triodia or spinifex that is looked on as a desert grass, and of a formidable and forbidding nature. Spinifex is a very drought-resisting plant, and in times of great scarcity and extreme drought, when all other grasses have dried out and been blown away, the spinifex is there with its erect spiney leaves, possibly bitter to the taste, but still life sustaining to stock, as has been proved in many a severe drought. It grows on sandy sterile ridges, and seems to adhere to the latest geological formation, the sandstone or cainozoic period; it is found on ridges adjacent to alluvial flats where the richest herbage and grasses are found in abundance. Kangaroo grass (Anthistiria ciliata), is found mostly in coastal districts, and although a good pasture grass when green, it soon dries and requires burning. There are two prominent varieties of spear grass in the north, the worst being the black spear grass (Andropogon contortus), which grows in sandy spots along the banks of creeks, or on sandy ridges; it is not of much use as a fodder grass, but becomes a terrible scourge to sheep when ripe and seeding. The seeds are barbed, and as sharp as needles, and having once entered the skin they work into the bone, causing intense annoyance and irritation, and ultimately death. The other spear grass (Andropogon Kennedeyii), not so dangerous, but of little use to stock, is a coarse-growing, strong grass, seven or eight feet high, with a reddish bloom, and strong seeds that penetrate saddlecloths and clothes in countless hundreds. Herbage fills the spaces between the tufts of grasses soon after the rains, and the plains develop a dense growth of pasturage; but after continued dry seasons, all herbage disappears, and the grasses follow in time, until very little is left except the roots, and a few of the more hardy salsolaceous plants. These form a striking feature in the economy of Nature in the plain country, the salt bushes are ever present in one variety or another, and help to keep stock in health and condition. The various species of "Atriplex" abound, and being very drought-resisting, they are reckoned amongst the most valuable fodder plants. Sir Thomas Mitchell was the first to make salt bush known after his first expedition over sixty years ago. "A. Nummularia," passing under the curious vernacular of "Old Man Salt Bush," is truly grey enough. Some of these plants have been propagated in north-west America with great success, turning the barren alkali lands that were never known to grow anything, into valuable pastures. Tons of seeds are raised annually for Utah, Arizona, and other States. In Africa the salt bushes are cultivated from seeds and even cuttings, and their value is acknowledged everywhere. They endure scorching heat, live without rains, are eaten by all kinds of stock, proving nutritious and wholesome to them, are easily raised from seed, and can, with a little care, be propagated from cuttings. The blue bush (Chenopodium), is common all over the Gulf of Carpentaria watershed, growing in swampy spots where water lies; it is a great favourite with all kinds of stock, and is getting scarce owing to its being eaten out so much. Wild rice (Oryza sativa), grows in swampy places throughout the Gulf country; the grain is well-defined, but small; all stock are fond of it, when green; it grows to a height of three or four feet. The rice of commerce is the produce of cultivated varieties of this grass. Edible shrubs are extremely plentiful, and are of great value when grass becomes too dry to be nutritive. A peculiar feature in the vegetation of the western plains is the "roley-poley," which is called in America the "tumble weed." This is an annual of quick growth after rains, growing in a spherical form from a common root; when the stem dries, it breaks off close to the ground, and the ball of dried vegetation is driven by the winds over the plains at a furious rate, topping the fences, and piling up against them in masses. It causes the greatest consternation to horses as it is driven across the downs. It possesses no virtue as a fodder plant. FOSSILS OF ANCIENT AUSTRALIA. The Australian continent has undergone great changes during the past geological ages, and most probably has been connected in remote times with part of Asia, and not unlikely with South America by some now submerged land. But whatever the connection may have been in the very distant past, it has been shut off from the larger northern land masses at so remote a period that the higher forms of mammals have not found their way to it, as in Africa and South America. Great changes have taken place in the continent itself. It is supposed that, at one time, in what is called the cretaceous or chalk age, a great sea spread from the north right across from what is now the Gulf of Carpentaria, covering immense tracts of level plain country in the interior of Australia, including Western Queensland, and part of New South Wales, so that the western half of the continent was separated from the eastern at least in the northern parts. Gradually the land rose and great lakes were formed in the interior, especially in the region of Lake Eyre, and a growth of vegetation sprang up of a more luxuriant type than is to be found now in those western parts, otherwise the enormous animals, such as the giant diprotodon, huge extinct kangaroos, birds larger than the moa, as well as crocodiles and turtles, could never have found sustenance to multiply in such numbers as their fossil remains testify they did in nearly every part of central Australia, and in the interior of North Queensland. In this sea, which washed the base of the mountains on the west, was deposited the sandy formation which has become the level inland plains. From some cause so far unknown, the land became desiccated, the lakes lost their freshness, and became great salt pans, the vegetation and the animals dependent on it became extinct, until a dry and arid region was produced, with a river system that fails to reach the sea, but becomes absorbed in the great sandy interior. The smaller types of marsupials of a hardier nature and capable of removing to greater distances for food, maintained their existence, while the giants of a similar race have left only their bones embedded in the drift to testify to the mighty changes that Nature has wrought out in the past ages. Fossil diprotodons of gigantic size and struthious birds rivalling in stature the New Zealand moa, are found in Central Australia. At Lake Callabonna in the great salt Lake Eyre basin, there are hundreds of fossil skeletons of these animals, many of which have been removed to the Adelaide Museum. In that locality they are found most frequently on the surface of the dry salt lake, and have been preserved by a natural coating of carbonate of lime; the bones are found at various depths. Nearly the whole of interior Australia, including Western Queensland, is one vast cemetery of extinct and fossilised species, scattered along the surface, or buried deep in cement or drifts, and in clays hidden beneath the present surface formation. The open plains of the Upper Flinders disclose great deposits of marine fossil shells, belemnites and ammonites, and also remains of extinct animals. On the Lower Leichhardt River, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, forty or fifty feet beneath the alluvial deposits forming the banks of the river, and firmly embedded in the hard cement, which is an ancient drift formed of water-worn stones in an ironstone clay, are found the bones of innumerable extinct gigantic species of animals that found sustenance and multiplied in enormous numbers over the Gulf country in some far back pre-historic age. On the Walsh River are found large numbers of fossils, mostly shells of the ammonite species. The bones that have been buried for countless ages in these ancient drifts are well preserved, and are not very dissimilar in appearance to the bones of animals dying recently on the surrounding plains, although they are completely fossilised and changed into the appearance of stone. The utter extinction of these gigantic species, comprising diprotodon, nototherium, and zygomaturus, and other species, grasseaters and flesheaters alike, can only be accounted for by a great change of climate, and great and long-continued droughts, reducing the herbage and causing the remaining living animals to crowd into the drying-up lagoons and lakes, there to become bogged in thousands, and die as the stock die in the waterholes after a long drought. Some of the fossils are those of animals of a gigantic size, much larger than any existing native animals; the teeth found are twice the size of an ordinary bullock's, and the jaws carrying them are of enormous size and strength. There are remains of alligators over thirty feet long, and turtles of much greater dimensions than any existing in the present day. The vegetation in the marshes and territory forming North Queensland must have been of a luxuriant and tropical description in those days to have supported such large types of marsupials--animals that would require a more abundant moisture, larger rainfall, and heavier foliage, than are now to be found on the western slopes of the ranges. Deeply interesting is the study of the ancient forms of life that roamed over the densely-wooded marshes of the interior, when the flora represented a type found now only along the rich alluvial banks of the rivers on the east coast. GEOLOGY OF QUEENSLAND. The following facts are summarised from the geology of Queensland written by Mr. Daintree, as the result of his investigations, whilst prosecuting the search for new goldfields on behalf of the Queensland Government in the northern portion of their territory, as also from the official reports of the Geologist of Southern Queensland, and other sources. The consideration and history of the different formations will be taken in their sequence of time, as far as the stratified or sedimentary rocks are concerned. The igneous rocks will be described under the various groups of Granitic, Trappean, and Volcanic. _Aqueous_:-- Alluvial (recent). Alluvial, containing extinct faunas. Desert sandstone, Cainozoic. Cretaceous } Oolitic } Mesozoic Carbonaceous } Carboniferous } Palæozoic Devonian } Silurian } _Metamorphic._ Alluvial.--Fresh-water deposits skirt all the present watercourses, but the accumulations are insignificant on the eastern watershed, except near the embouchures of large rivers, such as the Burdekin, Fitzroy, etc. On the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, however, and in the south-western portions of the colony, where the watercourses have scarcely any fall, and where in seasons of excessive rain the country is nearly all inundated, fluviatile deposits are very extensive. Though the dense lavas of the Upper Burdekin (volcanic outbursts of a late Tertiary epoch) are traversed by valleys of erosion, in some cases 200 feet deep, and five miles broad, yet very narrow and shallow alluvial deposits skirt the immediate margin of the watercourses draining such valleys. It is only near the mouths of the larger rivers that any extent of alluvium has been deposited, and even these areas are at the present time in seasons of excessive rain, liable to inundation, showing that little upheaval of this portion of Australia has taken place since the last volcanic disturbances terminated. The meteorological or climatic conditions during this period were nearly identical with those of the present time, heavy rains during the summer months causing violent floods, removing seaward the aërial decompositions and denuded materials from year to year. What lapse of time is represented during this period of erosion is a matter of speculation, but it seems certain that the mollusca of the present creeks were also the inhabitants of the waters during the whole period of denudation since the last volcanic eruption. From the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, to Darling Downs in the south, however, the fossil remains of extinct mammalia have been found in breccias and indurated muds, which are the representatives of the beds of old watercourses through which the present creeks cut their channels. At Maryvale Creek, in latitude 19 deg. 30 sec. S., good sections of these old brecciated alluvia occur. The fossils from this section, as determined by Professor Owen, are "Diprotodon Australis, Macropus titan, Thylacoles, Phascolomys, Nototherium," crocodile teeth, etc. Imbedded in the same matrix occur several genera of mollusca undistinguishable from those inhabiting Maryvale Creek. The fact of these older alluvia forming both the bed and the banks of the present watercourse, goes to prove that Diprotodon and its allies inhabited the Queensland valleys when they presented little difference in physical aspect or elevation from that of the present time. The crocodile (Crocodilus Australis), however, had then a greater range inland than it has now. A study of these Diprotodon breccias leads to the conclusion that the remains are chiefly entombed in what were the most permanent waterholes in seasons of excessive drought, and that the animals came there in a weak and exhausted state to drink and die, just as bullocks do under similar conditions at the present time. No human bones, flint flakes, or any kind of native weapons have yet been discovered with the extinct mammalia of Queensland. CAINOZOIC. Desert Sandstone.--On the eastern branches of the Upper Flinders and elsewhere, fine sections are exposed of lava resting on horizontal beds of coarse grit and conglomerate, which lie in turn unconformably on olive-coloured and gray shales with interstratified bands and nodules of argillaceous limestone containing fossils of cretaceous affinities. I have called this upper conglomerate series "Desert Sandstone," from the sandy barren character of its disintegrated soil, which makes the term particularly applicable. Without doubt, it is the most recent widely-spread stratified deposit developed in Queensland. The denudation of the "Desert Sandstone" since it became dry land has been excessive, but there still remains a large tract "in situ," and all the available evidence tends to show that this "Desert Sandstone" did at one time cover nearly, if not quite, the whole of Australia. The journals of the two Gregory's description of the new settlement of Port Darwin, all bear evidence to the continuity of this so-called "Desert Sandstone" over all the extended areas investigated by them. Augustus Gregory's description of the sandstones of the Victoria River agrees with those of the "Desert Sandstone" of Queensland, the specimens from either locality being undistinguishable the one from the other, while the same barren soil, the same hostile spinifex, the same fatal poison plant, mark its presence from Perth to Cape York. In Queensland, the upper beds are ferruginous, white and mottled sandy clays, the lower being coarse alternating grits and conglomerates; the extreme observed thickness has not exceeded 400 feet. A characteristic view of the upper "Desert Sandstone" beds is shown in Betts' Creek, on the Upper Flinders. Whether these are marine, lacustrine, or estuarine deposits, there is hardly sufficient evidence to show. What may be the value of this "Desert Sandstone" for free gold, is at present unsolved; but the very nature of its deposition seems to preclude the idea that that metal will be found in paying quantities, except where direct local abrasion of a rich auriferous veinstone has furnished the supply. MESOZOIC. Cretaceous.--As early as 1866 a suite of fossils was collected by Messrs. Sutherland and Carson, of Marathon station, Flinders River, and forwarded for determination to Professor McCoy, in Melbourne. They were never figured, but his manuscript names are as follows:-- _Reptilia._ Ichthyosaurus Australis. "M'Coy." Plesiosaurus Sutherlandi. Plesiosaurus macrospondylus. "M'Coy." _Cephalopoda._ Ammonites Sutherlandi. "M'Coy." Ammonites Flindersi. "M'Coy." Belemnitella diptycha. "M'Coy." Ancyloceras Flindersi. _Lamellibranchiata._ Inoceramus Carsoni. "M'Coy." Inoceramus Sutherlandi. "M'Coy" (identical with the English species I. Cuvieri). In company with Mr. Sutherland, who supplied McCoy with the before-mentioned materials, Mr. R. Daintree visited the Upper Flinders, and carefully collected the fossils from three localities, viz., Marathon station, Hughenden station, and Hughenden cattle station. At Marathon, which is some forty miles further down the Flinders than Hughenden, there is, close to the homestead, an outcrop of fine-grained yellow sandstone, which has been quarried for building purposes, and below this, to the edge of the waterhole supplying the house, is a series of sandstones and argillaceous limestones, containing numerous organic remains. These were submitted to Mr. Etheridge for examination and correlation, the result of which appears in the appendix to his work. The Hughenden cattle station is twenty miles further up the Flinders than the Hughenden head station. Here hundreds of Belemnites are strewn over the surface of the two ridges which front the cattle station huts, but they are rarely found in the soft shales which crop out from under an escarpment of "Desert Sandstone." The lithological character of these cretaceous strata is such that decomposition is rapid; the resulting physical aspect being that of vast plains, which form the principal feature of Queensland scenery west of the Main Dividing Range; but that the "Desert Sandstone" has extended over all this country is evidenced by its existence either in the form of outliers, or as a marked feature "in situ" in all main watersheds, or by its pebbles of quartz and conglomerate, which are strewn everywhere over the surface of the plains. The height of the watershed between the Thomson and Flinders Rivers is locally not more than 1,400 feet above sea level, and as the former river has to travel as many miles before reaching the sea, it is easy to understand why, in a country subject to heavy tropical rains at one period of the year, followed by a long dry season, the river channels are ill-defined, and vast tracts of country covered by alluvial deposits. Down the Thomson and its tributaries, these mesozoic rocks are known to extend, though much obscured by flood drifts. That this portion of the mesozoic system extends throughout the whole of Western Queensland to Western Australia is also more than probable, hidden, however, over large areas by "Desert Sandstone." * * * * * Mineral Springs.--There is one other subject of practical interest connected with the great mesozoic western plains, and that is the occurrence of hot alkaline springs, which suggest the possibility of obtaining supplies of water on the artesian principle over some portion at least of this area. At Gibson's cattle station, Taldora, on the Saxby River, a tributary of the Flinders, a spring of hot water rises above the surface of the plain, and its overflow deposits a white encrustation, which on analysis by Dr. Flight, under the direction of Professor Maskelyne, afforded:-- Water 27.793 Silica 0.600 Chlorine 3.369 Sodium 2.183 Carbonic Acid 33.735 Soda 31.690 ------ 99.370 Apart, therefore, from the 5.552 per cent. of chloride of sodium, the deposit consists of sequi carbonate of soda or native "Trona," and as such is used by the settlers for culinary purposes, etc. PALÆOZOIC. "Carboniferous."--Whilst the affinities of the southern coalfield of Queensland are mesozoic, a northern field, of even larger extent, has a distinct fauna more resembling the Palæozoic Carboniferous areas of Europe. The Dawson, Comet, Mackenzie, Isaacs, and Bowen Rivers drain this carboniferous area; and numerous outcrops of coal have been observed on these streams. No commercial use, however, has yet been made of any of these deposits, as the measures generally are too far inland to be made available until the railway system of the country is extended in that direction. "Devonian."--From the southern boundary of Queensland up to latitude 18 deg. S., a series of slates, sandstones, coral limestones, and conglomerates extend to a distance 200 miles inland; these are sometimes overlain by coal measures, sometimes by volcanic rocks, and consequently do not crop out on the surface over such districts. North of latitude 18 deg. S., however, over the Cape York Peninsula, this series (so far as we have any evidence), is absent, granites and porphyries capped by "Desert Sandstone" forming the ranges on the eastern, and their abraded ingredients the sandy ti-tree flats, those on the western side of that inhospitable tract of country, a never-ending flat of poor desert-looking sandy ti-tree country, stretching away to the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria. In the limestone bands, which form the lower portion of the series, corals are very numerous; in fact, the limestones, where little alteration has taken place, are a mass of aggregated corals; and as this class of rock has resisted aerial destruction better than the associated slates and sandstones, the barriers thus formed mark the trend of the rock system to which they belong, in a very picturesque and decided manner; their bold, massive, and varied outline chiselled into the most delicate fretwork by Nature's hand, is relieved by a wealth of richly-tinted foliage, unknown in the surrounding bush; and the eye jaded with the monotony of the eternal gum tree turns with delight to the changing tints and varied scenery presented by these barrier-like records of the past. This class of country is very much in evidence at Chillagoe. On the track from the Broken River to the Gilbert diggings, Devonian rocks several thousand feet thick may be observed, as they are continuous in dip, without being repeated, for at least five miles across the strike, with an average inclination of 60 deg. Although on the Broken River and its tributaries a breadth of thirty miles with a length of sixty miles, is occupied by a persistent outcrop of Devonian strata, gold has only been discovered in remunerative quantities in a small gully, where a trapdyke has penetrated the Palæozoic rocks of the district. The following districts, however, where Devonian rocks prevail, have been the centres of gold mining enterprise:--Lucky Valley, Talgai, Gympie, Calliope, Boyne, Morinish, Rosewood, Mount Wyatt, Broken River, portion of Gilbert. In every case here cited, the country is traversed by trap rocks of a peculiar character, either diorite, diabase, or porphyrite; and tufaceous representatives of these are also found interstratified in the upper portion of the same formation, and occasionally throughout the other beds. At Gympie, the auriferous area is confined to veins traversing a crystalline diorite, or within a certain limit of its boundary, marked by the presence of fossiliferous diabase tufas. Whatever may have been the solvent and precipitant of the nobler metals in the auriferous veinstones associated with trap intrusions, all other but hydrothermal action may safely be eliminated, the very nature of the reefs, composed as they are of alternating layers of a promiscuous mixture of quartz, calcspar, pyrites, etc., affording unmistakable evidence on this point. The gold also contained in the trap dykes themselves is always accompanied by pyrites, both (according to Daintree), hydrothermal products separating out during the cooling down of the trap intrusions. Auriferous lodes, occurring in areas where hydrothermal action has attended trap disturbances of a special character in Queensland, are generally thin--to be estimated by inches rather than feet; but taken as a whole they are far richer in gold than those enclosed by sedimentary rocks. GRANITIC. Outcrops of granite extend along the eastern coast of Queensland from Broad Sound to Cape York, and inland as far as the heads of streams running direct from the inner coast range to the sea. Very little rock of this character is met with west and south of the Dividing Range which separates rivers flowing to the eastern and northern coast, and those trending south to the Murray or Cooper's Creek. The granites of Queensland vary very much in their crystalline texture, passing from true granites into porphyry and quartz porphyry. TRAPPEAN. Much stress has been laid on the value of certain intrusive trap rocks as specially influencing the production of auriferous veinstones in Queensland. The petrology of these may be divided into four type classes:--1. Pyritous porphyrites and porphyries. 2. Pyritous diroites and diabases. 3. Chrome iron serpentines. 4. Pyritous felsites. VOLCANIC. Whilst the older trappean rocks have apparently had so much influence on the disturbance and fracture of the sedimentary strata older than the Carboniferous, and by a secondary process have evidently been centres of mineralising action, the volcanic seem to have played the most important part in determining the elevation and present physical outline of north-eastern Queensland. The main outbursts of lava have taken place along the Dividing Range which separates the eastern and western waters, and therefore on the line of the highest elevation of the country. The more northern volcanic areas, are probably contemporaneous with the upper volcanic series of Victorian geologists, so extensively developed in the western districts of that colony. These have issued from well-defined craters still in existence, and are probably of Pliocene Tertiary age. The southern areas, viz., Peak and Darling Downs, etc., are older, agreeing with the lower volcanic of Victoria, which have been ejected through fissures, and have in no case a very extensive flow beyond the lines of fracture through which they issued. These may be referred to the Miocene Tertiary epoch. The rock masses forming both the upper and lower volcanic are basic in character, and may be all termed or grouped under the general term "dolorites." The volcanic soils of Queensland are those best adapted for the grazier and agriculturist. To epitomise:--With the exception of the McKinlay Ranges, a line drawn parallel to the eastern coast, at a distance of 250 miles, would include all the palæozoic, metamorphic, granitic, trappean, and volcanic rocks represented in the colony, both coal groups lying within the same area. The mesozoic and cainozoic systems occupy the surface area to the westward. The volcanic rocks follow the line of greatest elevation on the main watershed at altitudes from 1,500 to 2,000 feet above sea level. The chief granitic mass extends from Broad Sound to Cape York, with an occasional capping of "Desert Sandstone." Westward from the Dividing Range, "Desert Sandstone" and the cretaceous and oolitic groups alternate one with the other to the extreme limit of the colony. AREA OF FORMATIONS. Estimating the entire extent of the colony at 600,000 square miles, a rough approximation to the areas occupied by the different geological formations is as follows:-- Square Miles. Valueless land, "Desert Sandstone" 150,000 Scrubby and thickly timbered inferior pastoral, { Carbonaceous } but valuable as containing { Mesozoic and } 24,000 coal, iron ore, &c. { Palæozoic } Fair pastoral, and valuable { Devonian } for its associated minerals { Silurian } 60,000 and metals { Metamorphic } Fair pastoral Granitic 114,000 Good pastoral { Cretaceous } { and Oolitic } 200,000 First-class pastoral and { Alluvial } agricultural { Volcanic } 52,000 { Trappean } ------- 600,000 Looking at the matter from an economical point of view, we find that one-fourth of the Colony of Queensland is valueless, whereas three-fourths furnish good pastoral land. Of this latter 60,000 square miles contain extensive and very valuable mines of gold, with numerous outcrops of copper and lead ores, to which may be added rich deposits of tin ore; 24,000 square miles are capable of producing illimitable supplies of coal and iron; 52,000 square miles are, as far as soil is concerned, best adapted for the agriculturist and squatter. In conclusion, it may be asserted that there is here a wealth of material resource which compares favourably with that of any other Australian colony. THE GREAT BARRIER REEF. North Queensland owes one of its chief claims to distinction to its numerous ports and harbours. In fact, the whole coast from Lady Elliott Island northwards to Cape York is one large harbour; protected as it is from the ocean swell by the Great Barrier Reef, a natural breakwater, extending for nearly a thousand miles, with a depth from ten to twenty fathoms, and a distance from the main land which varies from twenty to fifty miles. The sea outside is profoundly deep, and a few islets are found on the line of reef, also a few ship canals through the Barrier Reef. "The Great Barrier Reef of Australia; its products and potentialities," by W. Saville Kent, F.L.S., is a splendid work, and beautifully illustrated. This work shows the reef to be full of marine wonders and is intensely interesting; its various forms of life and marine vegetation would fill volumes. The Great Barrier Coral Reef of Australia, the marvellous extent of which was first made known by Captain Cook, is one of the wonders of the universe. Its linear measurement is no less than 1,250 miles, extending from 9-1/2 deg. of south latitude to Lady Elliott's Island, the most southern true coral islet in the chain or system. Its whole area lies within the territorial jurisdiction of Queensland, and the greater portion in North Queensland of which it forms one of the most valuable possessions. Raw material to the value of over £100,000 annually is obtained from the reefs and waters for exportation. The distance from the main land to the outer edge or boundary of this gigantic reef varies from ten or twelve miles to thirty. It is mostly formed of a chain of detached reefs and coral islets, many submerged or partially exposed at low water, with several openings, a few of which offer secure passage for large vessels. CHAPTER XIII. SOME LITERARY REMAINS. The late Mr. Palmer had some skill as a versifier, although the exigencies of his arduous life in the pioneering days would not permit of his adding the extra finish to the lines which, more often than not, were as he himself phrased it, "strung together as the result of sleepless hours passed during the nights while camping out on a large cattle run in the west." A few of his efforts are here preserved:-- THE GIDYA TREE. (Acacia Homoeophylla.) Where roll the great plains to the west, Near a homestead pleasant to see, With far-stretching limbs and spreading crest, Grows a grand old acacia tree. Nor winter winds, nor sun's fierce heat Can change its staunch solidity, For many a century's storms have beat On this great, grey, gidya tree. At early morn, their joyous lay, The butcher-birds sing in melody. And merrily pass the hours away, All under the gidya tree. The grey doves in its shade rejoice, From eyes of kites they're free, And call their loves in plaintive voice, From under the gidya tree. In scarlet bloom, the mistletoe swings, From its branches droopingly; And all around its odour flings, Right under the gidya tree. The milk-plant twines its length along, As if 'twould hidden be; Creeping its way 'mong the leaves so strong, Of this ancient gidya tree. The panting cattle gladly come, And sheltered fain would be, From burning heat of noonday sun, Camped under the gidya tree. Like the shade from a great rock cast O'er the land so soothing lay; All Nature seeks some rest at last, Far under the gidya tree. When life is o'er and troubles past, How sweet that rest will be, For weary ones who come at last, Safe under the gidya tree. "Nunc dimittis," my work is done, And soon from care set free; That peace I wish will soon be won, Deep under the gidya tree. MY OLD STOCK HORSE. (Norman.) "Norman," a large bay horse, bred on Conobie about 1870, broken in three or four years after, and worked on till twenty-four or twenty-five years old as a stock horse, and then nearly as good and safe to ride as ever. A surer, better stock horse was never ridden, and always ridden by the writer. I have a friend--I've proved him so By many a task and token; I've ridden him long and found him true, Since first that he was broken. For twenty years we both have been In storm and sunny weather, And many a thousand miles we've seen, Just he and I together. From Cooktown's breezy seaborn site, By Palmer's golden river; Where Mitchell's waters clear and bright, Roll on their course for ever. Across the Lynd and Gilbert's sands, And many a rocky river; Through trackless desert, forest lands, We've journeyed oft together. Then on the great grey plains so vast, Where the sun's rays dance and quiver, Through scorching heat and south-east blast, We've toiled on Flinders River. Through tangled scrubs and broken ground, We have often had to scramble; To wheel the cunning brumbie's round, From where they love to ramble. Old Norman ne'er was known to fail, Or in the camp to falter, And just as sound to-day and hale, As when he first wore halter. Good horse, you well have earned your rest, Your mustering days are over; For all your time you'll have the best, And pass your life in clover. The Indian's simple faith is plain, That in the land of shadows, He'll have his faithful dog again To hunt in misty meadows. And should a steed a soul attain, This surely then will follow-- I'll meet that grand old horse again, And hail him "Good old fellow!" Conobie, October 8th, 1894. THE WATCHER. The night wind keen and chill is creeping Across the plains with moaning sound; A rider there his watch is keeping, Where cattle camp in peace around. The Southern Cross shines clear and bright, And marks the hour that speeds; While Nature's sounds, borne on the night, Accustomed to, he little heeds. The hooting of the mopoke owl Floats on the midnight air; The prowling dingoe's dismal howl Is chorused wide and far. The curlew's cry, so wild and shrill, Pierces the air with startling sound; While o'er the waters calm and still, The wild fowl chase each other round. He cares not for the keen wind cold, Nor for the hour that's past; For thoughts of other days still hold His memory to the last. He minds him of his youth time ever, And the farm where he was born; The meadows green, and the flowing river, And the fields of tasselled corn. The sweet perfume of the apple's bloom, The sight of the mountain's blue, The drooping willows and yellow broom, And waving wheatfields too. He sees the cows from the pasture land, As down the lane they come, And sister Nell, with pail in hand, To wait their coming home. He sees again his father ploughing, In the old-fashioned sturdy way, He hears again the cock's shrill crowing, That waked him oft at break of day. His memory takes him back apace, To early manhood's prime, When a gentle voice and pleasant face Impressed him for all time. For loving lass and wandering lad, Since ever the world began, Though parted in grief, the love they had, Will come to each again. His wayward life he ponders on With anguish deep and keen, And as the past he looks upon, Sadly thinks--it might have been. But vain regrets will help him not. Nor vanished hopes renew; He only knows his present lot Has duties stern to do. He cares not now whate'er befalls, His faith he still will keep; The next on watch in turn he calls, And folds himself in sleep. Conobie, June 21st, 1894. * * * * * LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY ANGUS & ROBERTSON 89 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY 205 SWANSTON STREET, MELBOURNE SOLD IN ENGLAND BY THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK COMPANY 38 WEST SMITHFIELD, LONDON, E.C. THE COMMONWEALTH SERIES Crown 8vo., 1s. each (_post free 1s. 3d. each_). =ON THE TRACK: New Stories.= _By HENRY LAWSON_ =OVER THE SLIPRAILS: New Stories.= _By H. LAWSON_ =POPULAR VERSES.= _By HENRY LAWSON_ _Now first published in book form._ =HUMOROUS VERSES.= _By HENRY LAWSON_ _Now first published in book form._ =WHILE THE BILLY BOILS: Australian Stories.= =First Series.= _By HENRY LAWSON_ =WHILE THE BILLY BOILS: Australian Stories.= =Second Series.= _By HENRY LAWSON_ =MY CHINEE COOK AND OTHER HUMOROUS VERSES.= _By BRUNTON STEPHENS_ =HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA: From the Earliest Times to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth. _By A. W. JOSE_ =HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN BUSHRANGING.= _By CHARLES WHITE_ Part I.--THE EARLY DAYS. Part II.--1850 to 1862. Part III.--1863 to 1869. Part IV.--1869 to 1878. [Symbol: asterism] For press notices of these books see the cloth-bound editions on pages 4, 5, 6, 9 and 13 of this catalogue. JOE WILSON AND HIS MATES. By HENRY LAWSON, Author of "While the Billy Boils;" "When the World was Wide and Other Verses;" "Verses, Popular and Humorous;" "On the Track and Over the Sliprails." Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 4s._) in paper covers, 2s. 6d. (_post free 3s._) =The Athenæum= (London): "This is a long way the best work Mr. Lawson has yet given us. These stories are so good that (from the literary point of view, of course) one hopes they are not autobiographical. As autobiography they would be good; as pure fiction they are more of an attainment." =Pall Mall Gazette:= "We can see in these rough diamonds the men who have of late so distinguished themselves at Eland's River and elsewhere." =The Argus:= "More tales of the Joe Wilson series are promised, and this will be gratifying to Mr. Lawson's admirers, for on the whole the sketches are the best work the writer has so far accomplished." =The Academy:=--"I have never read anything in modern English literature that is so absolutely democratic in tone, so much the real thing, as _Joe Wilson's Courtship_. And so with all Lawson's tales and sketches. Tolstoy and Howells, and Whitman and Kipling, and Zola and Hauptmann and Gorky have all written descriptions of 'democratic' life; but none of these celebrated authors, not even Maupassant himself, has so absolutely taken us inside the life as do the tales _Joe Wilson's Courtship_ and _A Double Buggy at Lahey's Creek_, and it is this rare convincing tone of this Australian writer that gives him a great value. The most casual 'newspapery' and apparently artless art of this Australian writer carries with it a truer, finer, more delicate commentary on life than all the idealistic works of any of our genteel school of writers." VERSES: POPULAR AND HUMOROUS. By HENRY LAWSON, Author of "When the World was Wide, and Other Verses," "Joe Wilson and His Mates," "On the Track and Over the Sliprails," and "While the Billy Boils." Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 4s._). _For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2._ FRANCIS THOMPSON, in =The Daily Chronicle=: "He is a writer of strong and ringing ballad verse, who gets his blows straight in, and at his best makes them all tell. He can vignette the life he knows in a few touches, and in this book shows an increased power of selection." =Academy=: "Mr. Lawson's work should be well known to our readers; for we have urged them often enough to make acquaintance with it. He has the gift of movement, and he rarely offers a loose rhyme. Technically, short of anxious lapidary work, these verses are excellent. He varies sentiment and humour very agreeably." =New York Evening Journal:= "Such pride as a man feels when he has true greatness as his guest, this newspaper feels in introducing to a million readers a man of ability hitherto unknown to them. Henry Lawson is his name." =The Book Lover:= "Any book of Lawson's should be bought and treasured by all who care for the real beginnings of Australian literature. As a matter of fact, he is the one Australian literary product, in any distinctive sense." ON THE TRACK AND OVER THE SLIPRAILS. Stories by HENRY LAWSON, Author of "While the Billy Boils," "Joe Wilson and his Mates," "When the World Was Wide and Other Verses," and "Verses, Popular and Humorous." Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 4s._). _For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2._ =Daily Chronicle:= "Will well sustain the reputation its author has already won as the best writer of Australian short stories and sketches the literary world knows. Henry Lawson has the art, possessed in such eminent degree by Mr. J. M. Barrie, of sketching in a character and suggesting a whole life-story in a single sentence." =Pall Mall Gazette:= "The volume now received will do much to enhance the author's reputation. There is all the quiet irresistible humour of Dickens in the description of 'The Darling River,' and the creator of 'Truthful James' never did anything better in the way of character sketches than Steelman and Mitchell. Mr. Lawson has a master's sense of what is dramatic, and he can bring out strong effects in a few touches. Humour and pathos, comedy and tragedy, are equally at his command." =Glasgow Herald:= "Mr. Lawson must now be regarded as facile princeps in the production of the short tale. Some of these brief and even slight sketches are veritable gems that would be spoiled by an added word, and without a word that can be looked upon as superfluous." =Melbourne Punch:= "Often the little stories are wedges cut clean out of life, and presented with artistic truth and vivid colour." WHILE THE BILLY BOILS. Stories by HENRY LAWSON, Author of "When the World Was Wide and Other Verses," "Joe Wilson and his Mates," "On the Track and Over the Sliprails," and "Verses, Popular and Humorous." Twenty-third Thousand. With eight plates and vignette title, by F. P. Mahony. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 4s._). _For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2._ =The Academy:= "A book of honest, direct, sympathetic, humorous writing about Australia from within is worth a library of travellers' tales.... The result is a real book--a book in a hundred. His language is terse, supple, and richly idiomatic. He can tell a yarn with the best." =Literature:= "A book which Mrs. Campbell Praed assured me made her feel that all she had written of bush life was pale and ineffective." =The Spectator:= "It is strange that one we would venture to call the greatest Australian writer should be practically unknown in England. Mr. Lawson is a less experienced writer than Mr. Kipling, and more unequal, but there are two or three sketches in this volume which for vigour and truth can hold their own with even so great a rival." =The Times:= "A collection of short and vigorous studies and stories of Australian life and character. A little in Bret Harte's manner, crossed, perhaps, with that of Guy de Maupassant." =The Scotsman:= "There is no lack of dramatic imagination in the construction of the tales; and the best of them contrive to construct a strong sensational situation in a couple of pages." WHEN THE WORLD WAS WIDE AND OTHER VERSES. By HENRY LAWSON, Author of "While the Billy Boils;" "Joe Wilson and his Mates," "On the Track and Over the Sliprails," and "Verses, Popular and Humorous." Eleventh Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (_post free 5s. 5d._). _Presentation edition, French Morocco, gilt edges, 9s._ =The Speaker= (LONDON): "There are poems in 'In the Days when the World was Wide' which are of a higher mood than any yet heard in distinctively Australian poetry." =The Academy:= "These ballads (for such they mostly are) abound in spirit and manhood, in the colour and smell of Australian soil. They deserve the popularity which they have won in Australia, and which, we trust, this edition will now give them in England." =Newcastle Weekly Chronicle:= "Swinging, rhythmic verse." =Sydney Morning Herald:= "The verses have natural vigour, the writer has a rough, true faculty of characterisation, and the book is racy of the soil from cover to cover." =Bulletin:= "How graphic he is, how natural, how true, how strong." =Otago Witness:= "It were well to have such books upon our shelves.... They are true history." THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER AND OTHER VERSES. By A. B. PATERSON. Twenty-Seventh Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (_post free 5s. 5d._). _Presentation edition, French Morocco, gilt edges, 9s._ =The Literary Year Book:= "The immediate success of this book of bush ballads is without parallel in Colonial literary annals, nor can any living English or American poet boast so wide a public, always excepting Mr. Rudyard Kipling." =The Times:= "At his best he compares not unfavourably with the author of 'Barrack Room Ballads.'" =Spectator:= "These lines have the true lyrical cry in them. Eloquent and ardent verses." =Athenæum:= "Swinging, rattling ballads of ready humour, ready pathos, and crowding adventure.... Stirring and entertaining ballads about great rides, in which the lines gallop like the very hoofs of the horses." Mr. A. PATCHETT MARTIN, in =Literature= (London): "In my opinion it is the absolutely un-English, thoroughly Australian style and character of these new bush bards which has given them such immediate popularity, such wide vogue, among all classes of the rising native generation." _London: Macmillan & Co., Limited._ THE POETICAL WORKS OF BRUNTON STEPHENS. New edition, with photogravure portrait. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. _See also Commonwealth Series, page 2._ =Sydney Morning Herald (N.S.W.):= "'The Poetical Works of Brunton Stephens' is a book which every Australian should have on his bookshelves, whether these bookshelves cover walls or are merely the small collection which the man of taste, however shrunken his purse, is bound to make. Brunton Stephens deserves his place in even the smallest of collections. The chief of Australian poets he has contributed to English literature work of distinguished merit. He is many-sided, embracing all sorts and conditions of men and things." =The Melbourne Argus:= "Mr. Brunton Stephens has for some years enjoyed an established reputation as one of the best among the small and select cluster of Australian poets.... Mr. Stephens is specially favoured, in that he not only has at command a vein of true pathos, but he has moments of real humour. In more than one poem, too, he has made good his right to be regarded as the poet of brotherhood and the prophet of federation." =The Melbourne Age:= "It is certainly one of the happiest of his efforts, and exhibits alike his copious vocabulary and his mastery of a most attractive form of metre.... A poet, both in thought and feeling." =Newcastle (N.S.W.) Morning Herald:= "Of the rapidly lengthening roll of Australian writers, none deserves a higher place than Brunton Stephens. For more than a generation he has charmed his countrymen with his exquisite verse." RHYMES FROM THE MINES AND OTHER LINES. By EDWARD DYSON, Author of "A Golden Shanty." Second Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 5s. (_post free, 5s. 5d._). _Presentation edition, French Morocco, gilt edges, 9s._ FOR THE TERM OF HIS NATURAL LIFE. By MARCUS CLARKE. With a Memoir of the Author, by A. B. PATERSON, Portrait of the Author, Map of Eagle Hawk Neck and the vicinity, and 14 full-page views of places mentioned in the book. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 3s. 6d. (_post free, 4s._) RIO GRANDE'S LAST RACE AND OTHER VERSES. By A. B. PATERSON. This is issued uniform with the Snowy River Series at 5s. The contents are quite up to the standard of "The Man from Snowy River," and as the demand is certain to be very large we would ask the Trade to place their orders at once. FLOOD-TIDE. By SARAH P. McL. GREENE, Author of "Vesty of the Basins," &c. Cloth, 3s. 6d.; paper, 2s. 6d. =The Argus= (ALBANY, N.Y.): "'Flood-Tide' is a strong dramatic story of primitive life in a hamlet coast town in Maine. It is a study of human nature set in primitive surroundings, and is full of the pathos and humour of life's little comedies. 'Flood-Tide' is full of 'characters.' There is Johnny Dinsmore, whose wayward humours and mischievous pranks keep his mother and the whole neighbourhood on thorns, and who is one of the most delightful young imps ever turned loose in fiction, not even excepting Sentimental Tommy. Captain Shale, with his scraps of rustic philosophy, is a quaint original, worthy of David Harum's companionship. His reflections on the subject of clothes are of a piece with those of Teufelsdrochk: 'The world's a-dyin' of clo's. So fur as I can see, the sons o' men is pretty much all a-strugglin' for one kind and another o' clo's; that's what it amounts to...." THE SPIRIT OF THE BUSH FIRE AND OTHER AUSTRALIAN FAIRY TALES. BY J. M. WHITFELD. Second Thousand. With 32 illustrations by G. W. Lambert. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. (_post free, 3s._). TEENS. A Story of Australian Schoolgirls. BY LOUISE MACK. Fourth Thousand. With 14 full-page illustrations by F. P. Mahony. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. =Sydney Morning Herald:= "Ought to be welcome to all who feel the responsibility of choosing the reading books of the young ... its gaiety, impulsiveness, and youthfulness will charm them." =Sydney Daily Telegraph:= "Nothing could be more natural, more sympathetic." =The Australasian:= "'Teens' is a pleasantly-written story, very suitable for a present or a school prize." =Bulletin:= "It is written so well that it could not be written better." GIRLS TOGETHER. A Sequel to "Teens." BY LOUISE MACK. Third Thousand. Illustrated by G. W. Lambert. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. =Sydney Morning Herald:= "'Girls Together' should be in the library of every girl who likes a pleasant story of real life.... Older people will read it for its bright touches of human nature." =Queenslander:= "A story told in a dainty style that makes it attractive to all. It is fresh, bright, and cheery, and well worth a place on any Australian bookshelf." THE ANNOTATED CONSTITUTION OF THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH. By Sir JOHN QUICK AND R. R. GARRAN, C.M.G. Royal 8vo, cloth gilt, 21s. =The Times:= "The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth is a monument of industry.... Dr. Quick and Mr. Garran have collected, with patience and enthusiasm, every sort of information, legal and historical, which can throw light on the new measure. The book has evidently been a labour of love." HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN BUSHRANGING. BY CHARLES WHITE. To be completed in two vols. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. each. [_Vol. I. now ready. Vol. II. now ready_ _For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2._ Press Notices of Volume I. =Year Book of Australia:= "There is 'romance' enough about it to make it of permanent interest as a peculiar and most remarkable stage in our social history." =Queenslander:= "Mr. White has supplied material enough for twenty such novels as 'Robbery Under Arms.'" THE GROWTH OF THE EMPIRE. A Handbook to the History of Greater Britain. BY ARTHUR W. JOSE, Author of "A Short History of Australasia." Second Edition. With 14 Maps. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 5s. (_post free, 5s. 6d._). =Morning Post:= "This book is published in Sydney, but it deserves to be circulated throughout the United Kingdom. The picture of the fashion in which British enterprise made its way from settlement to settlement has never been drawn more vividly than in these pages. Mr. Jose's style is crisp and pleasant, now and then even rising to eloquence on his grand theme. His book deserves wide popularity, and it has the rare merit of being so written as to be attractive alike to the young student and to the mature man of letters." =Literature:= "He has studied thoroughly, and writes vigorously.... Admirably done.... We commend it to Britons the world over." =Saturday Review:= "He writes Imperially; he also often writes sympathetically.... We cannot close Mr. Jose's creditable account of our misdoings without a glow of national pride." =Yorkshire Post:= "A brighter short history we do not know, and this book deserves for the matter and the manner of it to be as well known as Mr. McCarthy's 'History of Our Own Times.'" =The Scotsman:= "This admirable work is a solid octavo of more than 400 pages. It is a thoughtful, well written, and well-arranged history. There are fourteen excellent maps to illustrate the text." HISTORY OF AUSTRALASIA. From the Earliest Times to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth. BY ARTHUR W. JOSE, Author of "The Growth of the Empire." The chapter on Federation revised by R. R. Garran, C.M.G. With 6 maps and 64 portraits and illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, 1s. 6d. (_post free 1s. 10d._). _For Cheaper Edition see Commonwealth Series, page 2._ =The Book Lover:= "The ignorance of the average Australian youth about the brief history of his native land is often deplorable.... 'A Short History of Australasia,' by Arthur W. Jose, just provides the thing wanted. Mr. Jose's previous historical work was most favourably received in England, and this story of our land is capitally done. It is not too long, and it is brightly written. Its value is considerably enhanced by the useful maps and interesting illustrations. A very good book to give to a boy." =Victorian Education Gazette:= "The language is graphic and simple, and there is much evidence of careful work and acquaintance with original documents, which give the reader confidence in the accuracy of the details. The low price of the book leaves young Australia no excuse for remaining in ignorance of the history of their native land." =Town and Country Journal:= "His language is graphic and simple, and he has maintained the unity and continuity of the story of events despite the necessity of following the subject along the seven branches corresponding with the seven separate colonies." THE GEOLOGY OF SYDNEY AND THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. A Popular Introduction to the Study of Australian Geology. BY REV. J. MILNE CURRAN, Lecturer in Chemistry and Geology, Technical College, Sydney. Second Edition. With a Glossary of Scientific terms, a Reference List of commonly-occurring Fossils, 2 coloured maps, and 83 illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s. (_post free, 6s. 6d._) =Nature:= "This is, strictly speaking, an elementary manual of geology. The general plan of the work is good; the book is well printed and illustrated with maps, photographic pictures of rock structure and scenery, and figures of fossils and rock sections." =Saturday Review:= "His style is animated and inspiring, or clear and precise, as occasion demands. The people of Sydney are to be congratulated on the existence of such a guide to their beautiful country." =Literary World:= "We can heartily recommend the book as a very interesting one, written in a much more readable style than is usual in works of this kind." =South Australian Register:= "Mr. Curran has extracted a charming narrative of the earth's history out of the prosaic stone. Though he has selected Sydney rocks for his text, his discourse is interestingly Australian." SIMPLE TESTS FOR MINERALS; Or, Every Man his Own Analyst. BY JOSEPH CAMPBELL, M.A., F.G.S., M.I.M.E. Fourth Edition, revised and enlarged (completing the ninth thousand). With illustrations. Cloth, round corners, 3s. 6d. (_post free 3s. 9d._). THE KINGSWOOD COOKERY BOOK. BY MRS. WICKEN, M.C.A., Late Teacher of Cookery, Technical College, Sydney. Fifth edition, revised, completing the Nineteenth Thousand. 382 pages, crown 8vo, paper cover, 1s; cloth, 1s. 6d. (_postage 4d._). ANSWERS TO TAYLOR'S METRIC SYSTEM. 6d. (_post free 7d._). PRESBYTERIAN WOMEN'S MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION COOKERY BOOK. Seventh Edition, enlarged, completing the 45th Thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth, 1s. (_post free 1s. 2d._). THE METRIC SYSTEM OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES, AND DECIMAL COINAGE. BY J. M. TAYLOR, M.A., LL.B. With Introductory Notes on the nature of Decimals, and contracted methods for the Multiplication and Division of Decimals. Crown 8vo, 6d. (_post free 7d._). =N.S.W. Educational Gazette:= "A masterly and elaborate treatise for the use of schools on a subject of world-wide interest and importance.... In commercial life a knowledge of the metric system has been for some years essential, and it is, therefore, fitting that its underlying principles should be taught in our schools concurrently with reduction, and practised systematically in the more advanced grades. For this purpose the book is unquestionably the best we have seen." A NEW BOOK OF SONGS FOR SCHOOLS AND SINGING CLASSES. BY HUGO ALPEN, Superintendent of Music Department of Public Instruction, New South Wales. 8vo, paper cover. 1s. (_post free 1s. 2d._). THE ELEMENTS OF EUCLID. With Historical Introduction, Notes, Appendices and Miscellaneous Examples. BY J. D. ST. CLAIR MACLARDY, M.A., Lecturer at the Training Colleges and Examiner for the New South Wales Department of Public Instruction. Books I.-IV. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. (_post free 3s. 10d._). Book I., separately, cloth, 1s. 6d. (_post free 1s. 9d._). Books V.-VI. Cloth, 1s. 6d. (_post free 1s. 9d._). =N.S.W. Educational Gazette:= "The most complete and logical discussion of this part of the works of the great geometer that we have seen. An unusual amount of care has been bestowed on the initiatory stages, the definitions, axioms, and postulates being treated with commendable fulness.... The brevity, simplicity, and perspicuity of his methods will appeal forcibly to students.... Mr. Maclardy adheres to the plan of simplifying the proofs and reducing the verbiage to a minimum, and has added a contribution to mathematical literature which we regard as indispensable." =Victorian Educational Gazette:= "Among the legion of editions of Euclid, Mr. Maclardy's takes an honourable place. There are many features that are the result of the author's long experience as a lecturer and examiner in mathematics. He has evidently taken a pride in making his work as perfect as possible." ENGLISH GRAMMAR, COMPOSITION, AND PRÉCIS WRITING. For Use by Candidates for University and Public Service Exams. BY JAMES CONWAY, Headmaster at Cleveland-street Superior Public School, Sydney. Prescribed by the Department of Public Instruction, N.S.W., for First and Second Class Teachers' Certificate Examinations. New edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 3s. 10d._). =Sydney Morning Herald:= "To its concise and admirable arrangement of rules and definitions, which holds good wherever the English language is spoken or written, is added special treatment of special difficulties. Mr. Conway adopts the excellent plan of taking certain papers, and of answering the questions in detail.... Should be in the hands of every teacher." =Victorian Educational News:= "A book which we can heartily recommend as the most suitable we have yet met with to place in the hands of students for our intermediate examinations, and also for matriculation, pupil teachers' and certificate of competency examinations. We should be glad to see the work set down in the syllabus of the Department so that it would reach the hands of all the students and teachers engaged in studying the subject in our State schools." A SMALLER ENGLISH GRAMMAR, COMPOSITION, AND PRÉCIS WRITING. BY JAMES CONWAY. Prescribed by the Department of Public Instruction, N.S.W., for Third Class and Pupil Teachers' Examinations. New edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth, 1s. 6d. (_post free 1s. 9d._). =N.S.W. Educational Gazette:= "The abridgment is very well done. One recognises the hand of a man who has had long experience of the difficulties of this subject." GEOGRAPHY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. BY J. M. TAYLOR, M.A., LL.B. New Edition, revised. With 37 illustrations and 6 folding maps. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free 3s. 10d._). =Sydney Morning Herald:= "Something more than a school book; it is an approach to an ideal geography." =Review of Reviews:= "It makes a very attractive handbook. Its geography is up to date; it is not overburdened with details, and it is richly illustrated with geological diagrams and photographs of scenery reproduced with happy skill." CAUSERIES FAMILIÈRES; OR, FRIENDLY CHATS. A Simple and Deductive French Course. BY MRS. S. C. BOYD. Prescribed for use in schools by the Department of Public Instruction, New South Wales. Pupils' Edition, containing all that need be in the hands of the learner. Crown 8vo, cloth, limp, 1s. 6d. (_post free 1s. 8d._). Teachers' Edition, containing grammatical summaries, exercises, a full treatise on pronunciation, French-English and English-French Vocabulary, and other matter for the use of the teacher or of a student without a master. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. (_post free, 3s. 10d._). =The London Spectator:= "A most excellent and practical little volume, evidently the work of a trained teacher. It combines admirably and in an entertaining form the advantages of the conversational with those of the grammatical method of learning a language." THE AUSTRALIAN OBJECT LESSON BOOK. Part I.--For Infant and Junior Classes. With 43 illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.; paper cover, 2s. 6d. (_postage, 4d._). =N.S.W. Educational Gazette:= "Mr. Wiley has wisely adopted the plan of utilising the services of specialists. The series is remarkably complete, and includes almost everything with which the little learners ought to be made familiar. Throughout the whole series the lessons have been selected with judgment and with a due appreciation of the capacity of the pupils for whose use they are intended." AUSTRALIAN SONGS FOR AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN. BY MRS. MAYBANKE ANDERSON. All the songs are set to music, while to some of them appropriate calisthenic exercises are given. Demy 4to, picture cover, 1s. =Sydney Morning Herald:= "This is a prettily got up little book, in which the music of old songs or old melodies has been set to verses having reference to this country. The verses are in every case simple and good, suited to children and to the illustration by action for which directions are given in a foot note. 'Australia Fair,' to a melody by Gluck, is the tune which the late Carl Formes and Signor Foli made popular as 'The Mill Wheel.' 'The Gum Tree,' to the tune of 'Banker's Wallet,' is a capital song for little children, and 'The Bonnie Orange Tree,' to the tune of 'Come, Landlord, Fill your Flowing Bowl,' has really charming verses. 'The Little Grey Bandicoot,' again, has first-rate verse. The publication as a whole should prove popular." THE AUSTRALIAN LETTERING BOOK. Containing the Alphabets most useful in Mapping, Exercise Headings, &c., with practical applications, Easy Scrolls, Flourishes, Borders, Corners, Rulings, &c. Second Edition. New Edition, revised and enlarged, cloth limp, 6d. (_post free 7d._). THE AUSTRALIAN OBJECT LESSON BOOK. Part II.--For advanced classes. With 113 illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.; paper cover, 2s. 6d. (_postage 4d._). =Victorian Education Gazette:= "Mr. Wiley and his colleagues have provided a storehouse of useful information on a great number of topics that can be taken up in any Australian school." =N.S.W. Educational Gazette:= "The Australian Object Lesson Book is evidently the result of infinite patience and deep research on the part of its compiler, who is also to be commended for the admirable arrangement of his matter." THE AUSTRALIAN PROGRESSIVE SONGSTER. By S. MCBURNEY, Mus. Doc., Fellow T.S.F. College. Containing graded Songs, Rounds and Exercises in Staff Notation, Tonic Sol-fa and Numerals, with Musical Theory. Price, 6d. each part; combined, 1s. (_postage 1d. each part_). =No. 1.=--For Junior Classes. =No. 2.=--For Senior Classes. GEOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. With Definitions of Geographical Terms. Second Edition, with 8 maps and 19 illustrations. 64 pages. 6d. (_post free 7d._). GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE, ASIA AND AMERICA. Second Edition, with 14 relief and other maps, and 18 illustrations of transcontinental views, distribution of animals, &c. 84 pages. 6d. (_post free 7d._). GEOGRAPHY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. With five folding maps. 48 pages. 6d. (_post free 7d._). GEOGRAPHY OF AFRICA. With five maps in relief, &c. 64 pages. 6d. (_post free 7d._). AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL SERIES. =Grammar and Derivation Book.= 64 pages. 2d. =Test Exercises in Grammar for 3rd Class, 1st Year.= 64 pages. 2d. =Test Exercises in Grammar for 3rd Class, 2nd Year.= 64 pages. 2d. =Table Book and Mental Arithmetic.= 48 pages. 1d. =Chief Events and Dates in English History.= Part I. From 55 B.C. to 1485 A.D. 50 pages. 2d. =Chief Events and Dates in English History.= Part II. From Henry VII. (1486) to Victoria (1900). 64 pages. 2d. =History of Australia.= 80 pages. 4d. Illustrated. =Geography.= Part I. Australasia and Polynesia. 64 pages. 2d. =Geography.= Part II. Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. 66 pages. 2d. =Euclid.= Book I. With Definitions, Postulates, Axioms, &c. 64 pages. 2d. =Euclid.= Book II. With Definitions and Exercises on Books I. and II. 32 pages. 2d. =Euclid.= Book III. With University "Junior" Papers 1891-1897. 60 pages. 2d. =Arithmetic--Exercises for Class II.= 49 pages. 2d. Answers, 2d. =Arithmetic--Exercises for Class III.= 66 pages. 2d. Answers, 2d. =Arithmetic--Exercises for Class IV.= 65 pages. 2d. Answers, 2d. =Arithmetic and Mensuration--Exercises for Class V.= With the Arithmetic Papers set at the Sydney University Junior, the Public Service, the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, and the Bankers' Institute Examinations to 1900, &c. 112 pages. 4d. Answers, 4d. =Algebra.= Part I. 49 pages. 2d. Answers, 2d. =Algebra.= Part II. To Quadratic Equations. Contains over twelve hundred Exercises, including the University Junior, the Public Service, the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, and the Bankers' Institute Examination Papers to 1900, &c. 112 pages. 4d. Answers, 4d. =Full Solutions of all Algebra Papers= set at 1st and 2nd Class Teachers' Examinations from 1894 to 1901 (inclusive), by W. L. Atkins, B.A. (_Post free 5s._). =Full Solution of all Arithmetic Papers= set at 1st, 2nd and 3rd Class Teachers' Examinations from 1894 to 1901 (inclusive), by J. M. Taylor, M.A., LL.B. (_Post free 2s. 6d._) =N.S.W. Educational Gazette:= "Messrs. Angus and Robertson forward us 'Solutions of the First, Second and Third Class Teachers' Arithmetic Papers,' and 'Solutions of the First and Second Class Teachers' Algebra Papers.' Both may be at once pronounced indispensable to teachers preparing for any of these grades. The solutions throughout are neat, clear, and concise, and will show intending candidates not only how to obtain the desired results, but how to do so in a manner calculated to secure full marks from the examiners." THE AUSTRALASIAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL SERIES. =History of Australia and New Zealand for Catholic Schools=, 128 pages. 4d. =Pupil's Companion to the Australian Catholic First Reader=, 32 pages. 1d. =Pupil's Companion to the Australian Catholic Second Reader=, 64 pages. 2d. =Pupil's Companion to the Australian Catholic Third Reader=, 112 pages. 3d. =Pupil's Companion to the Australian Catholic Fourth Reader=, 160 pages. 4d. THE AUSTRALIAN DRAWING BOOK. By F. W. WOODHOUSE, Superintendent of Drawing, Department of Public Instruction, New South Wales. Approved by the Department of Public Instruction for use in the Public Schools of New South Wales. Price, 3d. each. No. 1A--Elementary, Straight Lines, Curves and Simple Figures. Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4--Graduated Elementary Freehand, Regular Forms, Simple Designs, &c. Nos. 5 and 6--Foliage, Flowers, Ornaments, Vase Forms, &c. No. 7--Book of Blank Pages. =N.S.W. Educational Gazette:= "This series of drawing books has been arranged by the Superintendent of Drawing for the purpose of enabling teachers and pupils to meet fully the requirements of the Public School Syllabus of 1899. It consists of seven numbers, designed for the third, fourth and fifth classes respectively, and there is also a book of blank pages (No. 7). Nos. 1 to 4 treat of elementary freehand, simple designs, pattern drawing, &c.; Nos. 5 and 6 of foliage, flowers and ornaments. The copies are excellently designed and executed, and carefully graduated, and the books are printed on superior drawing paper. 'The Australian Drawing Books' should be used in every public school in the colony, first on account of their intrinsic merit, and secondly because they are the only books that accurately fit our standard." THE AUSTRALIAN COPY BOOK. Approved by the Departments of Public Instruction in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania, by the Public Service Board of New South Wales, and by the Chief Inspector of Catholic Schools. Price, 2d. each. No. 1, Initiatory, Short Letters, Short Words; 2, Initiatory, Long Letters, Words; 3, Text, Capitals, Longer Words; 4, Half-Text, Short Sentences; 5, Intermediate, Australian and Geographical Sentences; 6, Small Hand, Double Ruling, Australian and Geographical Sentences, Prefixes and Examples; 6A, Text. Half-Text, Intermediate, Small Hand; 7, Small Hand, Single Ruling, Maxims, Quotations, Proverbs; 8, Advanced Small Hand, Abbreviations and Contractions commonly met with; 9, Commercial Terms and Forms, Addresses; 10, Commercial Forms, Correspondence, Addresses; 11, Plain and Ornamental Lettering, Mapping, Flourishes, &c. _Numerals are given in each number._ THE AUSTRALIAN PUPIL TEACHERS' COPY BOOK. A selection of pages from the Australian Copy Book, arranged for use of Pupil Teachers. 48 pages. Price, 6d. ANGUS AND ROBERTSON'S PENCIL COPY BOOK. Approved by the N.S.W. Department of Public Instruction. In nine numbers. 1d. each. No. 1, Initiatory lines, curves, letters, figures; 2 and 3, Short letters, easy combinations, figures; 4, Long letters, short words, figures; 5, Long letters, words, figures; 6, 7, and 8, Capitals, words, figures; 9, Short sentences, figures. GUIDES TO THE NEW SOUTH WALES PUBLIC SERVICE EXAMINATIONS. No. I.--Containing the Papers set in March, 1899 and Keys thereto, together with the Regulations and Hints on suitable Text-books. Cheaper edition. 8vo., paper cover, 1s. (_post free 1s. 1d._). No. II.--Containing the Papers set in August, 1900 and Keys thereto, together with the revised Regulations and Hints on suitable Text-books, and the Papers set at the examination held in December, 1899. Cheaper edition. 8vo, paper cover, 1s. (_post free 1s. 1d._). CHAMBERS'S GOVERNMENT HAND COPY BOOKS. Approved by Department of Public Instruction. The Letters are continuously joined to each other, so that the pupil need not lift the pen from the beginning to the end of each word. The Spaces between the letters are wide, each letter thus standing out boldly and distinctly by itself. The Slope is gentle, but sufficient to prevent the pupil from acquiring a back hand. The Curves are well rounded, checking the tendency to too great angularity. The Writing is not cramped and confined, plenty of space being allowed for each word. The Words are spaced by perpendicular lines, and the lengths of the letters are indicated by horizontal lines in the early numbers of the series. These books are now printed in N.S.W. on paper which has been specially manufactured for the series, and is of unusually good quality. Price, 2d. each. No. 1, Large Hand, Elements, Letters, and Short Words; 2, Half-Text, Short Words without Capitals; 3, Half-Text, Sentences with Capitals, Figures; 4, Half-Text, Proper Names with Capitals; 5, Half-Text, Sentences with Capitals, Figures; 6, Small Round--Double Ruling, Figures; 7, Small, Double Ruling with Intermediate Lines; 8, Small, Double Ruling without Intermediate Lines; 9, Small, Single Ruling--Historical; 10, Small, Single Ruling--Geographical; 11, Small, with Partial Ruling--Poetical; 12, Small, Commercial--Business Forms, &c.; 13, For Pupil Teachers. 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5113	----	The Confessions of a Beachcomber by E J Banfield "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears." THOREAU To the Honourable Robert Philp, M.L.A. "Exact in his life, Extensive in his charity, Exemplary in everything he does," THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY ONE WHO OWES TO HIM MUCH OF HIS LOVE FOR TROPICAL QUEENSLAND. CONTENTS PART I INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I THE BEACHCOMBER'S DOMAIN OFFICIAL LANDING OUR ISLAND EARLY HISTORY SATELLITES AND NEIGHBOURS PLANS AND PERFORMANCES CHAPTER II BEACHCOMBING TROPICAL INDUSTRIES SOME DIFFRENCES ISLAND FAUNA CHAPTER III BIRDS AND THEIR RIGHTS A CENSUS THE DAYBREAK FUGUE THE MEGAPODE SWAMP PHEASANT "GO-BIDGER-ROO" BULLY, SWAGGERER, SWASHBUCKLER EYES AFLAME THE NESTFUL TREE "STATELY FACE AND MAGNANIMOUS MINDE" WHITE NUTMEG PIGEON FRUIT EATERS AUSTRALIA'S HUMMING BIRD "MOOR-GOODY" THE FLAME-TREE'S VISITORS RED LETTER BIRDS CASUAL AND UNPRECISE CHAPTER IV GARDEN OF CORAL QUEER FISH THE WARTY GHOUL "BURRA-REE" FOUR THOUSAND LIKE ONE THE BAILER SHELL A RIVAL TO THE OYSTER SHARKS AND SKIPPERS GORGEOUS AND CURIOUS TURTLE GENERALLY THE MERMAID OF TO-DAY BECHE-DE-MER CHAPTER V THE TYRANNY OF CLOTHES SINGLE-HANDEDNESS A BUTTERFLY REVERIE THE SERPENT BEGUILED ADVENTURE WITH A CROCODILE THE ARAB'S PRECEPT CHAPTER VI IN PRAISE OF THE PAPAW THE CONQUERING TREE THE UMBRELLA-TREE THE GENUINE UPAS-TREE THE CREEPING PALM MAUVE, GREEN AND GREY STEALTHY MURDERERS TREE GROG CHAPTER VII "THE LORD AND MASTER OF FLIES" A TRAGEDY IN YELLOW COLOUR EFFECTS MUSICAL FROGS ACTS WELL ITS PART GREEN ANT CORDIAL WOOING WITH WINGS THE GREED OF THE SNAKE A SWALLOWING FEAT PART II STONE AGE FOLKS CHAPTER I PASSING AWAY TURTLE AND SUCKERS A "KUMMAORIE" WEATHER DISTURBERS A DINNER-PARTY BLACK ART A POISONOUS FOOD MESSAGE STICKS HOOKS OF PEARL "WILD" DYNAMITE A CAVERN AND ITS LEGEND A SOULFUL DANCE A SONG WITHOUT WORDS ORIGIN OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS CROCODILE CATCHING SUICIDE BY CROCODILE DISAPPEARANCE OF BLACKS CHAPTER II GRORGE: A MIXED CHARACTER YAB-OO-RAGOO: OTHERWISE "MICKIE" TOM: HIS WIVES: HIS BATTLES "LITTLE JINNY": IN LIFE AND IN DEATH THE LANGUAGE TEST LAST OF THE LINE CHAPTER III ATTRIBUTES AND ANECDOTES COMMON AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS THE "DEBIL-DEBIL" CLOTHING SUPERFLUOUS BROTHER AND SISTER THE RAINBOW SWIMMING FEATS SMOKE SIGNALS THUNDER FACTORY THE ORACLE A REAL LETTER A BLACK DEGENERATE JUMPED AT A CONCLUSION PRIDE OF RACE "YANKEE CHARLEY" MYALL'S BAKING EVERYTHING FOR A NAME THE KNIGHTLY GROWTH HONOUR AND GLORY FIRE JUMP UP SLOP TEETH A FASCINATED BOY AWKWARD CROSS-EXAMINATION THE ONLY ROCK SAW THE JOKE ZEBRA'S VANITY LAURA'S TRAITS ROYAL BLANKETS HIS DAILY BREAD HUMAN NATURE AN APT RETORT MISSIS'S TROUSERS DULL-WITTED STRATEGY LITERAL TRUTH MAGIC THAT DID NOT WORK ANTI-CLIMAX LITTLE FELLA CREEK SAILOR A FATEFUL BARGAIN EXCUSABLE BIAS THE TRIAL SCENE A REFLECTION ON THE HORSE TRIUMPH OF MATTER OVER MIND THE RUSE THAT FAILED THE BIG WORD MICKIE'S VERSION HONOURABLE JOHNNY THE TRANSFORMATION MONEY-MAKING TRICK HONOURABLE CHASTISEMENT "AND YOU TOO" PARADISE CHAPTER IV AND THIS OUR LIFE * * * * * PART I THE CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER INTRODUCTION Does the fact that a weak mortal sought an unprofaned sanctuary--an island removed from the haunts of men--and there dwelt in tranquillity, happiness and security, represent any just occasion for the relation of his experiences--experiences necessarily out of the common? To this proposition it will be for these pages to find answer. Few men of their own free will seek seclusion, for does not man belong to the social vertebrates, and do not the instincts of the many rule? And when an individual is fain to acknowledge himself a variant from the type, and his characteristics or idiosyncrasies (as you will) to be so marked as to impel him to deem them sound and reasonable; when, after sedate and temperate ponderings upon all the aspects of voluntary exile as affecting his lifetime partner as well as himself, he deliberately puts himself out of communion with his fellows, does the experiment constitute him a messenger? Can there be aught of entertainment or instruction in the message he may fancy himself called upon to deliver? or, is the fancy merely another phase of the tyranny of temperament? We cannot always trust in ourselves and in the boldest of our illusions. There must be trial. Then, if success be achieved and the illusion becomes real and transcendental, and other things and conditions merely "innutritious phantoms," were it not wise, indeed essential, to tell of it all, so that mayhap the illusions of others may be put to the test? Not that it is good or becoming that many should attempt the part of the Beachcomber. All cannot play it who would. Few can be indifferent to that which men commonly prize. All are not free to test touchy problems with the acid of experience. Besides, there are not enough thoughtful islands to go round. Only for the few are there ideal or even convenient scenes for those who, while perceiving some of the charms of solitude, are at the same time compelled by circumstances ever and anon to administer to their favourite theories resounding smacks, making them jump to the practical necessities of the case. Here then I come to a point at which frankness is necessary. In these pages there will be an endeavour to refrain from egotism, and yet how may one who lives a lonesome life on an island and who presumes to write its history evade that duty? My chief desire is to set down in plain language the sobrieties of everyday occurrences--the unpretentious homilies of an unpretentious man--one whose mental bent enabled him to take but a superficial view of most of the large, heavy and important aspects of life, but who has found light in things and subjects homely, slight and casual; who perhaps has queer views on the pursuit of happiness, and who above all has an inordinate passion for freedom and fresh air. Moreover, these chronicles really have to do with the lives of two people--not youthful enthusiasts, but beings who had arrived at an age when many of the minor romances are of the past. Whosoever looks for the relation of sensational adventures, exciting situations, or even humorous predicaments, will assuredly be disappointed. Possibly there may be something to interest those who wish to learn a few of the details of the foundation of a home in tropical Australia; and to understand the conditions of life here, not as they affect the man of independence who seeks to enlarge his fortune, nor the settler who in the sweat of his face has to eat bread, but as they affect one to whom has been given neither poverty nor riches, and who has proved (to his own satisfaction at least) the wisdom of the sage who wrote--"If you wish to increase a man's happiness seek not to increase his possessions, but to decrease his desires." Success will have been achieved if these pages reveal candour and truthfulness, and if thereby proof is given that in North Queensland one "can draw nearer to nature, and though the advantages of civilisation remain unforfeited, to the happy condition of the simple, uncomplicated man!" In furtherance of the desire that light may shine upon certain phases of the character of the Australian aboriginal, space is allotted in this book to selected anecdotes. Some are original; a few have been previously honoured by print. Others have wandered, unlettered vagrants, so far and wide as to have lost all record of legitimacy. To these houseless strangers I gladly offer hospitality, and acknowledge with thankfulness their cheerful presence. Grateful acknowledgments are due to Mr F. Manson Bailey, F.L.S., the official botanist of Queensland, for the scientific nomenclature of trees and plants referred to in a general way. E. J. BANFIELD. BRAMMO BAY, DUNK ISLAND, November, 1906. CHAPTER I THE BEACHCOMBER'S DOMAIN Two and a half miles off the north-eastern coast of Australia--midway, roughly speaking, between the southern and the northern limits of the Great Barrier Reef, that low rampart of coral which is one of the wonders of the world--is an island bearing the old English name of Dunk. Other islands and islets are in close proximity, a dozen or so within a radius of as many miles, but this Dunk Island is the chief of its group, the largest in area, the highest in altitude, the nearest the mainland, the fairest, the best. It possesses a well-sheltered haven (herein to be known as Brammo Bay), and three perennially running creeks mark a further splendid distinction. It has a superficial area of over three square miles. Its topography is diversified--hill and valley, forest and jungle, grassy combes and bare rocky shoulders, gloomy pockets and hollows, cliffs and precipices, bold promontories and bluffs, sandy beaches, quiet coves and mangrove flats. A long V-shaped valley opens to the south-east between steep spurs of a double-peaked range. Four satellites stand in attendance, enhancing charms superior to their own. This island is our home. He who would see the most picturesque portions of the whole of the 2000 miles of the east coast of Australia must pass within a few yards of our domain. In years gone by, Dunk Island, "Coonanglebah" of the blacks, had an evil repute. Fertile and fruitful, set in the shining sea abounding with dugong, turtle and all manner of fish; girt with rocks rough-cast with oysters; teeming with bird life, and but little more than half an hour's canoe trip from the mainland, the dusky denizens were fat, proud, high-spirited, resentful and treacherous, far from friendly or polite to strangers. One sea-captain was maimed for life in our quiet little bay during a misunderstanding with a hasty black possessed of a new bright tomahawk, a rare prize in those days. This was the most trivial of the many incidents by which the natives expressed their character. Inhospitable acts were common when the white folks first began to pay the island visits, for they found the blacks hostile and daring. Why invoke those long-silent spectres, white as well as black, when all active boorishness is of the past? Civilisation has almost fulfilled its inexorable law; but four out of a considerable population remain, and they remember naught of the bad old times when the humanising processes, or rather the results of them, began to be felt. They must have been a fine race, fine for Australian aboriginals at least, judging by the stamp of two of those who survive; and perhaps that is why they resented interference, and consequently soon began to give way before the irresistible pressure of the whites. Possibly, had they been more docile and placid, the remnants would have been more numerous though less flattering representatives of the race. You shall judge of the type by what is related of some of the habits and customs of the semi-civilised survivors. Dunk Island is well within the tropical zone, its true bearings being 146 deg. 11 min. 20 sec. E. long., and 17 deg. 55 min. 25 sec. S. lat. It is but 30 miles south of the port of Geraldton, the wettest place in Australia, as well as the centre of the chief sugar-producing district of the State of Queensland. There the rainfall averages about 140 inches per annum. Geraldton has in its immediate background two of the highest mountains in Australia (5,400 feet), and on these the monsoons buffet and break their moisture-laden clouds, affording the district much meteorological fame. Again, 20 miles to the south lies Hinchinbrook Island, 28 miles long, 12 miles broad, and mountainous from end to end: there also the rain-clouds revel. The long and picturesque channel which divides Hinchinbrook from the mainland, and the complicated ranges of mountains away to the west, participate in phenomenal rain. Opposite Dunk Island the coastal range recedes and is of much lower elevation, and to these facts perhaps is to be attributed our modified rainfall compared with the plethora of the immediate North; but we get our share, and when people deplore the droughts which devastate Australia, let it be remembered that Australia is huge, and the most rigorous of Australian droughts merely partial. This country has never known drought. During the partial drought which ended with 1905, and which occasioned great losses throughout the pastoral tracts of Queensland, grass and herbage here were perennially green and succulent--the creeks never ceased running. Within the tropics heat is inevitable, but our island enjoys several climatic advantages. The temperature is equable. Blow the wind whithersoever it listeth, and it comes to us cooled by contact with the sea. Here may we drink oft and deep at the never-failing font of pure, soft, beneficent air. We have all the advantages which residence at the happy mean from the Equator bestows, and few of the drawbacks. By its fruits ye shall know the fertility of the soil. Birds are numerous, from the "scrub fowl" which dwells in the dim jungle and constructs of decaying leaves and wood and light loam the most trustworthy of incubators, and wastes no valuable time in the dead-and-alive duty of sitting, to the tiny sun-bird of yellow and purple, which flits all day among scarlet hibiscus blooms, sips nectar from the flame-tree, and rifles the dull red studs of the umbrella tree of their sweetness. The stalled ox is not here, nor the fatted calf, nor any of the mere advantages of the table; but there is the varied harvest of the sea, and all the freshness of an isle clean and green. The heat, the clatter, the stuffy odours, the toilsomeness, the fatigue of town life are abandoned; the careless quiet, the calm, the refreshment of the whole air, the tonic of the wide sea are gained. From the moment the sun illumines our hills and isles with glowing yellow until it drops in fiery splendour suddenly out of sight leaving a band of gleaming red above the purple western range, and a rippling red path across to Australia, the whole realm of nature seems ours to command. OFFICIAL LANDING Dunk Island was not selected haphazard as an abiding place. By camping-out expeditions and the cautious gleaning of facts from those who had the repute of knowing the country, useful information had been acquired unobtrusively. We were determined to have the best obtainable isle. More than one locality was favourably considered ere good fortune decided to send us hither to spy out the land. A camp-out on the shore of then unnamed Brammo Bay--a holiday-making party--and the result of the first day's exploration decided a revolutionary change in the lives of two seriously-minded persons. A year after, a lease of the best portion of the island having been obtained in the meanwhile, we came for good. Wholly uninhabited, entirely free from traces of the mauling paws of humanity, lovely in its mantle of varied foliage, what better sphere for the exercise of benign autocracy could be desired? Here was virgin country, 20 miles from the nearest port--sad and neglected Cardwell cut off from the mainland by more than 2 miles of estranging ocean, and yet lying in the track of small coastal steamers--here all our pet theories might serenely develop. But it was an inauspicious landing. With September begin the north-east winds, and we had an average experience that afternoon. Was it not a farce--a great deal more than a farce: a saucy, flippant imposition on the tender mercies of Providence--for an individual who could not endure a few hours of tossing on the bosom of the ocean without becoming deadly sick, to imagine that he possessed the hardihood to establish a home even in this lovely wilderness? We had tents and equipment and a boat of our own, a workman to help us at the start, and two faithful black servants. The year before, we had made the acquaintance of one of the few survivors of the native population of the island--stalwart Tom. Although our project and preparations had been kept fairly secret, he had overheard a casual reference to them; had made a canoe, and paddling from island to island with his gin, an infant and mother-in-law, had preceded our advent by a week. His duties began with the discharging of the first boatload of portable property. He comes and goes now after the lapse of years. They spread out tents and rugs for the weak mortal who had greatly dared, but who, thus early, was ready to faint from weariness and sickness. They made comforting and soothing drinks, and spoke of cheery things in cheery tones; but the sick man refused to be comforted. He wished himself back, a participator in the conflicts of civilisation, and was fain to cover his face--there was no wall to which to turn--and fancy that the most dismal sound in the universe was the surly monotone the north-easter harped on the beach. We reposed that night among the camp equipment, the sick man caring for naught in his physical collapse and disconsolation. But the first morning of the new life! A perfect combination of invigorating elements. The cloudless sky, the clear air, the shining sea, the green folded slopes of Tam o' Shanter Point opposite, the cleanliness of the sand, the sweet odours from the eucalypts and the dew-laden grass, the luminous purple of the islands to the south-east; the range of mountains to the west and north-west, and our own fair tract-awaiting and inviting, and all the mystery of petted illusions about to be solved! Physic was never so eagerly swallowed nor wrought a speedier or surer cure. Feebleness and dismay vanished with the first plunge into the still sleepy sea, and alertness and vigour returned, as the incense of the first morning's sacrifice went straight as a column to the sky. Over half a century before, Edmund B. Kennedy, the explorer, landed on the opposite shore, on his ill-fated expedition up Cape York, to find the country inland from Tam o' Shanter Point altogether different from any previously-examined part of Australia. We gave no thought to the gallant explorer, near as we were to the scenes of his desperate struggle in the entanglements of the jungle. The island was all before us, where to choose our place of rest, and the bustle of the transport of goods and chattels to the site in the thick forest invisible from the sea began at once. Before sunset, tents were pitched among the trees, and a few yards of bush surrounding then cleared, and we were at home. Prior to departing from civilisation we had arranged for the construction of a hut of cedar, so contrived with nicely adjusting parts and bolts, and all its members numbered, that a mere amateur could put it together. If at the end of six months' trial the life was found to be unendurable, or serious objection not dreamt of in our salad philosophy became apparent, then our dwelling could be packed up again. All would not be lost. The clearing of a sufficient space for the accommodation of the hut was no light task for unaccustomed hands, for the bloodwood trees were mighty and tough, and the dubious work of burning up the trunks and branches while yet green, in our eagerness for free air and tidiness, was undertaken. It was also accomplished. For several weeks there was little done save to build a kitchen and shed and widen the clearing in the forest. Inspection of the details of our domain was reserved as a sort of reward for present task and toil. According to the formula neatly printed in official journals, the building of a slab hut is absurdly easy--quite a pastime for the settler eager to get a roof of bark or thatch over his head. The frame, of course, goes up without assistance, and then the principal item is the slabs for walls. When you have fallen your tree and sawn off a block of the required length, you have only to split off the slab. Ah! but suppose the timber does not split freely, and your heavy maul does; and the wedges instead of entering have the habit of bouncing out as if they were fitted with internal springs, and your maul wants renewal several times, until you find that the timber prescribed is of no account for such tools; and at best your slabs run off to nothing at half length, and several trees have to be cut down before you get a single decent slab, and everybody is peevish with weariness and disappointment, the rudest house in the bush will be a long time in the building. "Experience is a hard mistress, yet she teacheth as none other." We came to be more indebted to the hard mistress--she gave us blistering palms and aching muscles--than to all the directions and prescriptions of men who claim to have climbed to the top of the tree in the profession of the "bush." A "bush" carpenter is a very admirable person, when he is not also a bush lawyer. Mere amateurs would be wise if they held their enthusiasm in check when they read the recipe--pat as the recipe for the making of a rice-pudding--for the construction of even a bark hut. It is so very easy to write it all down; but if you have had no actual experience in bark-cutting, and your trees are not in the right condition, you will put your elation to a shockingly severe test, harden the epidermis of your hands, and the whole of your heart, and go to bed many nights sadly ere you get one decent sheet for your roof. We do not all belong to the ancient and honourable family of the Swiss Robinsons, who performed a series of unassuming miracles on their island. There was no practical dispensation of providential favours on our behalf. Trees that had the reputation of providing splendid splitting timber defiantly slandered themselves, and others that should have almost flayed themselves at the first tap of the tomahawk had not the slightest regard for the reputation vouched for in serious publications. But why "burden our remembrance with a heaviness that's gone?" Why recall the memory of those acheful days, when all the pleasant and restful features of the island are uncatalogued? Before the rains began we had comfortable if circumscribed shelter. Does not that suffice? Our dwelling consisted of one room and a kitchen. Perforce the greater part of our time was spent out of doors. Isolation kept us moderately free from visitors. Those who did violate our seclusion had to put up with the consequences. We had purchased liberty. Large liberties are the birthright of the English. We had acquired most of the small liberties, and the ransom paid was the abandonment of many things hitherto deemed to form an integral part of existence. Had we not cast aside all traditions, revolting from the uniformity of life, from the rules of the bush as well as from the conventionalities of society? Here we were to indulge our caprices, work out our own salvation, live in accordance with our own primitive notions, and, if possible, find pleasure in haunts which it is not popularly supposed to frequent. Others may point to higher ideals and tell of exciting experiences, of success achieved, and glory and honour won. Ours not to envy superior qualifications and victories which call for strife and struggle, but to submit ourselves joyfully to the charms of the "simple life." OUR ISLAND "Awake, O North Wind, and come, thou South, Blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out." Our Island! What was it when we came into possession? From the sea, merely a range displaying the varied leafage of jungle and forest. A steep headland springing from a ledge of rock on the north, and a broad, embayed-based flat converging into an obtruding sand-spit to the west, enclose a bay scarcely half a mile from one horn to the other, the sheet of water almost a perfect crescent, with the rocky islet of Purtaboi, plumed with trees, to indicate the circumference of a circle. Trees come to the water's edge from the abutment of the bold eminence. Dome-shaped shrubs of glossy green (native cabbage--SCAEVOLA KOENIGII), with groups of pandanus palms bearing massive orange-coloured fruits; and here and there graceful umbrella trees, with deep-red decorations, hibiscus bushes hung with yellow funnells, and a thin line of ever-sighing beech oaks (CASUARINA) fringe the clean untrodden sand. Behind is the vistaless forest of the flat. Run the boat on the sand at high-water, and the first step is planted in primitive bush--fragrant, clean and undefiled. An empty jam tin or a broken bottle, spoors of the rude hoofs of civilisation, you might search for in vain. As difficult would it be to find either as a fellow to the nugget of gold which legend tells was used by a naked black as a sinker when he fished with hook of pearl shell out there on the edge of the coral reef, One superficial feature of our domain is distinct and peculiar, giving to it an admirable character. From the landing-place--rather more up towards the north-east cusp than the exact middle of the crescent bay--extends a flat of black sand on which grows a dense bush of wattles, cockatoo apple-trees, pandanus palms, Moreton Bay ash and other eucalypts, and the shapely melaleuca. This flat, here about 150 yards in breadth, ends abruptly at a steep bank which gives access to a plateau 60 feet above sea-level. The regularity of the outline of this bank is remarkable. Running in a more or less correct curve for a mile and a half, it indicates a clear-cut difference between the flat and the plateau. The toe of the bank rests upon sand, while the plateau is of chocolate-coloured soil intermixed on the surface with flakes of slate; and from this sure foundation springs the backbone of the island. On the flat, the plateau, and the hillsides, the forest consists of similar trees--alike in age and character for all the difference in soil--the one tree that does not leave the flat being the tea or melaleuca. In some places the jungle comes down to the water's edge, the long antennae of the lawyer vine toying with the rod-like aerial roots of the mangrove. The plateau is the park of the island, half a mile broad, and a mile and more long. Upon it grows the best of the bloodwoods (EUCALYPTUS CORYNBOSA), the red stringy bark (E. ROBUSTA), Moreton Bay ash (E. TESSALARIS), various wattles, the gin-gee of the blacks (DIPLANTHERA TETRAPHYLLA). PANDANUS AQUATICUS marks the courses and curves of some of the gullies. A creek, hidden in a broad ribbon of jungle and running from a ravine in the range to the sea, divides our park in fairly equal portions. Most part of the range is heavily draped with jungle--that is, on the western aspect. Just above the splash of the Pacific surges on the weather or eastern side, low-growing scrub and restricted areas of forest, with expansive patches of jungle, plentifully intermixed with palms and bananas, creep up the precipitous ascent to the summit of the range--870 feet above the sea. So steep is the Pacific slope that, standing on the top of the ridge and looking down, you catch mosaic gleams of the sea among the brown and grey tree-trunks. But for the prodigality of the vegetation, one slide might take you from the cool mountain-top to the cooler sea. The highest peak, which presents a buttressed face to the north, and overlooks our peaceful bay, is crowned with a forest of bloodwoods, upon which the jungle steadily encroaches. The swaying fronds of aspiring palms, adorned in due season with masses of straw-coloured inflorescence, to be succeeded by loose bunches of red, bead-like berries, shoot out from the pall of leafage. In the gloomy gullies are slender-shafted palms and tree-ferns, while ferns and mosses cover the soil with living tapestry, and strange, snake-like epiphytes cling in sinuous curves to the larger trees. The trail of the lawyer vine (CALAMUS OBSTRUENS), with its leaf sheath and long tentacles bristling with incurved hooks, is over it all. Huge cables of vines trail from tree to tree, hanging in loops and knots and festoons, the largest (ENTADA SCANDENS) bearing pods 4 feet long and 4 inches broad, containing a dozen or so brown hard beans used for match-boxes. Along the edge of the jungle, the climbing fern (LYNGODIUM) grows in tangled masses sending its slender wire-like lengths up among the trees--the most attractive of all the ferns, and glorified by some with the title of "the Fern of God," so surpassing its grace and beauty. September is the prime month of the year in tropical Queensland. Many of the trees are then in blossom and most of the orchids. Nocturnal showers occur fairly regularly in normal seasons, and every sort of vegetable is rampant with the lust of life. It was September when our isolation began. And what a plenteous realisation it all was that the artificial emotions of the town had been, haply, abandoned! The blood tingled with keen appreciation of the crispness, the cleanliness of the air. We had won disregard of all the bother and contradictions, the vanities and absurdities of the toilful, wayward, human world, and had acquired a glorious sense of irresponsibleness and independence. This--this was our life we were beginning to live--our very own life; not life hampered and restricted by the wills, wishes and whims of others; unencumbered by the domineering wisdom, unembarrassed by the formal courtesies of the crowd. September and the gin-gee, the quaint, grey-barked, soft-wooded tree with broad, rough, sage-green leaves, and florets massed in clumps to resemble sunflowers, was in all its pride, attracting relays of honey-imbibing birds during the day, and at night dozens of squeaking flying-foxes. Within a few yards of high-water stands a flame-tree (ERYTHRINA INDICA) the "bingum" of the blacks. Devoid of leaves in this leafy month, the bingum arrays itself in a robe of royal red. All birds and manner of birds, and butterflies and bees and beetles, which have regard for colour and sweetness come hither to feast. Sulphur-crested cockatoos sail down upon the red raiment of the tree, and tear from it shreds until all the grass is ruddy with refuse, and their snowy breasts stained as though their feast was of blood instead of colourless nectar. For many days here is a scene of a perpetual banquet--a noisy, cheerful, frolicsome revel. Cockatoos scream with excitement and gladness; honey-eaters whistle and call; drongos chatter and scold the rest of the banqueters; the tiny sun-bird twitters feeble protests; bees and beetles maintain a murmurous soothful sound, a drowsy blending of hum and buzz from the rising of the sun until the going down thereof. The dark compactness of the jungle, the steadfast but disorderly array of the forest, the blotches of verdant grass, the fringe of yellow-flowered hibiscus and the sapful native cabbage, give way in turn to the greys and yellows of the sand in alternate bands. The slowly-heaving sea trailing the narrowest flounce of lace on the beach, the dainty form of Purtaboi, and the varying tones of great Australia beyond combine to complete the scene, and to confirm the thought that here is the ideal spot, the freest spot, the spot where dreams may harden into realities, where unvexed peace may smile. There is naught to remind of the foetidness, the blare and glare of the streets. None of "The weariness, the fever and the fret, There, where men sit and hear each other groan." You may follow up the creeks until they become miniature ravines, or broaden out into pockets with precipitous sides, where twilight reigns perpetually, and where sweet soft gases are generated by innumerable plants, and distilled from the warm moist soil. How grateful and revivifying! Among the half-lit crowded groves might not another Medea gather enchanted herbs such as "did renew old Aeson." Past the rocky horn of Brammo Bay, another crescent indents the base of the hill. Exposed to the north-east breeze, the turmoil of innumerable gales has torn tons upon tons of coral from the out-lying reef, and cast up the debris, with tinkling chips and fragments of shells, on the sand for the sun and the tepid rains to bleach into dazzling whiteness. The coral drift has swept up among the dull grey rocks and made a ridge beneath the pendant branches of the trees, as if to establish a contrast between the sombre tints of the jungle and the blueness of the sea. Midway along the curve of vegetation a bingum flaunts its mantle--a single daub of demonstrative colouring. Away to the north stand out the Barnard Islands, and the island-like headland of Double-Point. Rocky walls and ledges intersected by narrow clefts in which the sea boils, gigantic masses of detached granite split and weathered into strange shapes and corniced and bridged at high water-mark by oysters, bold escarpments and medleys of huge boulders, extend along the weather side. No landing, except in the calmest weather, is possible. To gain a sandy beach, the south-east end of the island, passing through a deep channel separating the rocky islet of Wooln-garin, must be turned. Although there are no great cliffs, no awesome precipices on the weather side, the bluff rocks present many grotesque features, and the foliage is for the most part wildly luxuriant. From what has been already said, it may be gleaned that in the opinion of the most interested person the island is gilt-edged. So indeed it is, in fact, when certain natural conditions consequent on the presence of coral are fulfilled. A phenomenally high tide deposited upon the rocks a slimy, fragile organism of the sea, in incomprehensible myriads which, drying, adhered smoothly in true alignment. With the sun at the proper angle there appeared, as far as the irregularity of the coast line permitted, a shining band, broken only where the face of the rock was uneven and detached--a zone of gold bestowed upon the island by the amorous sea. But on the beach the slime which transformed the grey and brown rocks was nothing but an inconsistent, dirty, grey-green, crisp, ill-smelling streak, that haply vanished in a couple of days. As I see less of the weather side than I do of the beach, I argue to myself that it is nearer perfection to be minus a streak of dirt than plus a golden edge. At no season of the year is the island fragrantless. The prevailing perception may be of lush grasses mingled with the soft odour of their frail flowers; or the resin and honey of blossoming bloodwoods; or the essence from myriads of other eucalyptus leaves massaged by the winds. The incomparable beach-loving calophyllums yield a profuse but tender fragrance reminiscent of English meadow-sweet, and the flowers of a vigorous trailer (CANAVILA OBTUSIFOLIA), for ever exploring the bare sand at high-water mark, resembles the sweet-pea in form and perfume. The white cedar (MELIA COMPOSITA) is a welcome and not unworthy substitute in appearance and perfume for English lilac. The aromatic pandanus and many varieties of acacia, each has its appointed time and season; while at odd intervals the air is saturated with the rich and far-spreading incense of the melaleuca, and for many weeks together with the honeyed excellence of the swamp mahogany (TRISTANIA SUAVOSLENS) and the over-rich cloyness of the cockatoo apple (CAREYA AUSTRALIS). Strong and spicy are the odours of the plants and trees that gather on the edge of and crowd in the jungle, the so-called native ginger, nutmeg, quandong, milkwood, bean-tree, the kirri-cue of the blacks (EUPOMATIA LAURINA), koie-yan (FARADAYA SPLENDIDA), with its great white flowers and snowy fruit, and many others. Hoya, heavy and indolent, trails across and dangles from the rocks; the river mangrove dispenses its sweetness in an unexpected locality; and from the heart of the jungle come wafts of warm breath, which, mingling with exhalation from foliage and flower, is diffused broadcast. The odour of the jungle is definite--earthy somewhat, but of earth clean, wholesome and moist--the smell of moss, fern and fungus blended with balsam, spice and sweetness. Many a time, home-returning at night--when the black contours of the island loomed up in the distance against the pure tropic sky tremulous with myriads of unsullied stars--has its tepid fragrance drifted across the water as a salutation and a greeting. It has long been a fancy of mine that the island has a distinctive odour, soft and pliant, rich and vigorous. Other mixtures of forest and jungle may smell as strong, but none has the rare blend which I recognise and gloat over whensoever, after infrequent absences for a day or two, I return to accept of it in grateful sniffs. In such a fervid and encouraging clime distillation is continuous and prodigious. Heat and moisture and a plethora of raw material, leaves, flowers, soft, sappy and fragrant woods, growing grass and moist earth, these are the essential elements for the manufacture of ethereal and soul-soothing odours suggestive of tangible flavours. I know of but one particular plant that is absolutely repellent. Its large flowers are of vivid gold, pure and refined; the unmixed odour is obscene. A creeper of the jungle bears small yellow flowers (slightly resembling those of the mango, save that they are produced in frail loose cymes instead of on vigorous panicles), the excessive sweetness of which approaches nauseousness. But its essence mingles with the rest, and the compound is singularly rich and acceptable. On sandy stretches and along the deltas of the creeks are fragrant, gigantic "spider lilies" (CRINIUM). I do not pretend to catalogue botanically all the plants that contribute to the specific odour of the island. I cannot address them individually in scientific phraseology, though with all I am on terms of easy familiarity, the outcome of seasoned admiration. They please by the form and colour of their blossoms, and ring ever-recurring and timeful changes, so that month by month we enjoy the progress of the perfumes, the blending of some, the individual excellence of others. In endeavouring to convey to the unelect an impression of their variety and acceptableness, am I not but discharging a debt of gratitude? As far as I am aware, but four or five epiphytal orchids add to the scents of the island; and as they have not Christian names, their pagan titles must suffice--CYMBIDIUM SUAVE, ERIA FITZALANI, BULBOPHYLLUM BAILEYI, DENDROBIUM TERETIFOLIUM and D. UNDULATUM. The latter is not commonly credited with perfume; but when it grows in great unmolested masses its contribution is pleasant, if not very decided. The pretty terrestrial orchid (CYRTOSTYLIS RENIFORMIS) is delicately fragrant, but the great showy PHAIUS GRANDIFOLIUS (the tropical foxglove) and the meek GEODORUM PICTUM (Queensland's lily of the valley) are denied the gift. The forest, the jungle, the grassy spots, the hot rocks (with hoya and orchids), and even the sands, with the native sweet-pea, are fragrant. A lowly creeping plant (VITEX TRIFOLIA), with small spikes of lavender-coloured flowers, and grey-green silvery leaves, mingles with the coarse grasses of the sandy flats, and usurping broad areas forms an aromatic carpet from which every footstep expresses a homely pungency as of marjoram and sage. The odour of the island may be specific, and therefore to be prized, yet it gladdens also because it awakens happy and all too fleeting reminiscences. English fields and hedges cannot be forgotten when one of our trees diffuses the scent of meadow-sweet, and one of the orchids that of hawthorn. "Scent and silence" is the phrase which expresses the individuality of our island, and better "scented silence" than all the noisy odours of the town. However showy the flora of the island, the existence of kindly fruits must be deplored. Immense quantities, alluring in colour and form, are produced; but not a single variety of real excellence. The raspberries (two kinds) have but little flavour; the native "Cape gooseberry" (PHYSALIS MIMIS), which appears like magic when the jungle is felled and burnt off, is regarded with hostility, though unworthily, even by the blacks; the" wild" grapes are sour and fiery, and among the many figs only two or three are pleasant, and but one good. "Bedyewrie" (XIMENIA AMERICANA) has a sweetish flavour, with a speedy after-taste of bitter almonds, and generally refreshing and thirst-allaying qualities; the shiny blue quandong (ELAEOCARPUS GRANDIS), misleading and insipid; the Herbert River cherry (ANTIDESMA DALLACHYANUM), agreeable certainly, but not high class; the finger cherry "Pool-boo-nong" of the blacks (RHODOMYRTUS MACROCARPA), possesses the flavour of the cherry guava, but has a most evil reputation. Some assert that this fruit is subject to a certain disease (a kind of vegetable smallpox), and that if eaten when so affected is liable to induce paralysis of the optic nerves and cause blindness and even death. Blacks, however, partake of the fruit unrestrictedly and declare it good, on the authority of tradition as well as by present appreciation. They do not pay the slightest respect to the injurious repute current among some white folks. Perhaps some trick of constitution or some singularity of the nervous system renders them immune to the poison, as the orange pigment said to reside in their epidermis protects them from the actinic rays of the sun. Does not Darwin assert that while white sheep and pigs are upset by certain plants dark-coloured individuals escape. At any rate blacks are not affected by the fruit, though large consumers of it, and many whites also eat of it raw and preserved, without fear and without untoward effects. Some of the Eugenias produce passable fruits, and one of the palms (CARYOTA) bears huge bunches of yellow dates, the attractiveness of which lies solely in appearance. Quite a long list of pretty fruits might be compiled, and yet not more than half a dozen are edible, and only half that number nice. The majority are bitter and acrid, some merely insipid, and of the various nuts not one is satisfactory. Why all this profuse vegetation and the anomaly of tempting fruits and nuts cram-full of meat and yet no real food--that is, food for man? Is it that man was an after-thought of Nature, or did Nature fulfil herself in his splendid purpose and capacities? She supplies abundantly food convenient for birds and other animals lower in the scale of life, but man is left to master his fate. Even when uncivilised he is called upon to exercise more or less wit before he may eat, and the higher his grade the more stress upon his intelligence. When one contemplates the unpromising origin of the apple of today, and the rich assortment of fruits here higher in the scale of progression than it, imagination delights to dwell upon the wonders which await the skill of a horticultural genius. The crude beginnings of scores of pomological novelties are flaunted on every side. The patient man has to come. EARLY HISTORY To that grand old mariner, Captain Cook, belongs the honour of the discovery of the island. The names that he bestowed--judicious and expressive--are among the most precious historic possessions of Australia. They remind us that Cook formed the official bond between Britain and this great Southern land, and bear witness to the splendid feats of quiet heroism that he performed, the privations that he and his ship's company endured, and the patience and perseverance with which difficulties were faced and overcome. In his journal, on 8th June 1770, Cook writes--"At noon we were by observation in the lat. of 17 degrees 59 minutes and abreast of the N. point of Rockingham Bay which bore from us N. 2 miles. This boundary of the Bay is formed by a tolerable high island known in the chart by the name of Dunk Isle; it lay so near the shore as not to be distinguished from it unless you are well in with the land... At this time we were in the long. of 213 degrees 57 minutes, Cape Sandwich bore S. by E. 1/2 E. distant 19 miles, and the northernmost land in sight N. 1/2 W. Our depth of water in the course of this one day's sail was not more than 16 nor less than 17 fathoms." In those history-making days the First Lord of the Admiralty was George Montagu Dunk, First Earl of Sandwich, Second Baron and First Earl of Halifax, and Captain Cook took several opportunities of preserving his patron's name. Halifax Bay (immediately to the north of Cleveland Bay) perpetuates the title; "Mount" Hinchinbrook (from his course Cook could not see the channel and did not realise that he was bestowing a name upon an island) commemorates the family seat of the Montagus; Cape Sandwich (the north-east point of Hinchinbrook) the older title, and Dunk Isle the family name of the distinguished friend of the great discoverer of lands. From this remote and unheard of spot may, accordingly, be traced association with a contemporary of Robert Walpole, of Pitt and Fox, of Edmund Burke, of John Wilkes (of the NORTH BRITON), of the author of THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS and of JOHN GILPIN, and many others of credit and renown. The First Earl Sandwich of Hinchinbrook was the "my lord" of the gossiping Pepys. Through him Dunk Island possesses another strand in the bond with the immortals, and is ensured connection with remote posterity. He gambled so passionately that he invented as a means of hasty refreshment the immemorial "sandwich," that the fascination of basset, ombre or quadrille should not be dispelled by the intrusion of a meal. He, too, was the owner of Montagu House, behind which "every morning saw steel glitter and blood flow," for the age was that of the duellist as well as the gambler. Rockingham Bay was so named in honour of the marquis of that title, the wise Whig premier who held that while the British Parliament had an undoubted right to tax the American colonies, the notorious Stamp Act was unjust and impolitic, "sterile of revenue, and fertile of discontent!" Cook and his day and generation passed, and then for many years history is silent respecting Dunk Island. The original inhabitants remained in undisturbed possession; nor do they seem to have had more than one passing visitor until Lieutenant Jeffereys, of the armed transport Kangaroo, on his passage from Sydney to Ceylon in 1815, communicated with the natives on then unnamed Goold Island. Captain Philip P. King, afterwards Rear-Admiral, who made in the cutter MERMAID a running survey of these coasts between the year 1818 and 1822, and who was the first to indicate that "Mount" Hinchinbrook was probably separated from the mainland, arrived in Rockingham Bay on the 19th June 1818. He named and landed on Goold Island, and sailing north on the 21st, anchored off Timana, where he went ashore. "Dunk Island," he writes, "a little to the northward, is larger and higher, and remarkable for its double-peaked summit." Those natives who are versed in the ancient history of the island, tell of the time when all were amazed by the appearance of bags of flour, boxes of tobacco, and cases of goods drifting ashore. None at the time knew what flour was; only one boy had previously smoked, and the goods were too mysterious to be tested. Many tried to eat flour direct from the bag. The individual who had acquired the reputation of a smoker made himself so sick that none other had the courage to imitate him, and the tobacco and goods were thrown about playfully. In after years the inhabitants were fond of relating how they had humbugged themselves. The next ensuing official reference of particular interest is contained in the narrative of the voyage of H.M.S. RATTLESNAKE, by John Macgillivray, F.R.G.S., naturalist of the expedition. The date is 26th May 1848, and an extract reads--"During the forenoon the ship was moved over to an anchorage under the lee (north-west side) of Dunk Island, where we remained for ten days. The summit of a very small rocky island, near the anchorage, named, by Captain Owen Stanley, Mound Islet (Purtaboi), formed the first station. Dunk Island, eight or nine miles in circumference, is well wooded; it has two conspicuous peaks, one of which (the north-west one) is 857 feet in height. Our excursions were confined to the vicinity of the watering-place and the bay in which it is situated. The shores are rocky on one side and sandy on the other, where a low point runs out to the westward. At their junction, and under the sloping hill with large patches of bush, a small stream of fresh water, running out over the beach, furnished a supply for the ship, although the boats could approach the place closely only at high-water. Among the most interesting objects of natural history are two birds, one a new and handsome fly-catcher (MONARCHA LEUCOTIS), the other a swallow, which Mr Goold informs me is also an Indian species. Great numbers of butterflies frequent the neighbourhood of the watering-place; one of these (PAPILIO URVILLIANUS) is of great size, and splendour, with dark purple wings, broadly margined with ultramarine, but from its habit of flying high among the trees I did not succeed in catching one. An enormous spider, beautifully variegated with black and gold, is plentiful in the woods, watching for its prey in the centre of a large net stretched horizontally between the trees. The seine was frequently hauled upon the beach with great success. One evening through its means, in addition to plenty of fish, no less than five kinds of star-fishes and twelve of crustacea, several of which are quite new, were brought ashore. Among the plants of the island the most important is a wild species of plantain or banana, afterwards found to range along the north-east coast and its islands, as far as Cape York. Here I saw for the first time a species of Sciadophyllum (BRASSAIA ACTINOPHYLLA, the umbrella-tree) one of the most singular trees of the eastern coast-line of tropical Australia; a slender stem, about thirty feet in height, gives off a few branches with immense digitate dark and glossy leaves, and long spike-like racemes of small scarlet flowers, a great resort for insects and insect-feeding birds. Soon after the ship had come to an anchor, some of the natives came off in their canoes and paid us a visit, bringing with them a quantity of shell-fish (SANGUINOLARIA RUGOSA), which they eagerly exchanged for biscuit. For a few days afterwards we occasionally met them on the beach, but at length they disappeared altogether, in consequence of having been fired at with shot by one of two 'young gentlemen' of the BRAMBLE on a shooting excursion, whom they wished to prevent approaching too closely a small village where they had their wives and children. Immediate steps were taken in consequence to prevent the recurrence of such collisions when thoughtless curiosity on one side is apt to be promptly resented on the other if numerically superior in force... The men had large cicatrices on the shoulders and across the breast and belly, the septum of the nose was perforated, and none of the teeth had been removed. I saw no weapons, and some rude armlets were their only ornaments." Tam o' Shanter Point derives its title from the barque of that name, in which the members of the Kennedy Exploring Expedition voyaged from Sydney, whence they disembarked on 24th and 25th May 1848. H.M.S. RATTLESNAKE had been commissioned to lend Kennedy assistance, and Macgillivray relates that everything belonging to the party (with the exception of one horse drowned while swimming ashore) was safely landed. The first camp was formed on some open forest-land behind the beach at a small fresh-water creek. On the 27th Mr Carson, the botanist of the party, commenced digging a piece of ground, in which he sowed seeds of cabbages, turnips, leek, pumpkin, rock and water melons, pomegranate, peach-stones and apple-pips. No trace of this first venture in gardening in North Queensland is now discernible. No doubt, inquisitive and curious blacks would rummage the freshly turned soil as soon as the back of the good-natured gardener was turned. It occurred to me that possibly the pomegranate seeds might have germinated, and the plants become established and acclimatised, but search proved resultless. Carson makes no reference to the coco-nut palm which once flourished at the mouth of the creek. The inference is that the nut whence it sprang drifted ashore after his attempt to civilise the vicinity by the planting of seeds. Dalrymple refers to the tree which, at the date of his visit (September 1873), was "about fourteen feet in height, but without fruit!" It grew to a great tree, and blacks found in the fruit a refreshing, nutritious food; but an evil thing came along one day in the shape of a thirsty Chinaman, and as he could not climb the tree he cut it down, and blacks, even to this day, hate the name of Chinaman. Opposite the Point is the Island of Timana, known to some as "the Island on which the Chinaman was killed!" Whether "the Chinaman" was the person who cut down the coco-nut palm is not known, but somehow his fate and that of the palm have become associated. The only traces of the expedition of half a century ago are marks upon trees at the mouth of the Hull River--2 miles to the south, at the spot which it appears to have crossed. The object of Kennedy's expedition was to explore the country to the eastward of the dividing range running along the north-east coast of Australia. Difficulties assailed them at the outset, as many weeks passed before they got clear of Rockingham Bay, its rivers, swamps, and dense scrubs fenced in by a mountain chain. The cart was abandoned on July 18th and the horses were packed. An axle and other ironwork of a cart was found many years ago in the neighbourhood of the upper Murray River. As the axle was slotted for the old style of linchpins, no reasonable doubt exists as to its identity, and its discovery affords collateral proof of a statement published in Mr Dalrymple's official report--"It is noteworthy that several gins of the Rockingham Bay tribe now in service in private families, and with the native police are unanimous in their statements that an elderly white man is still resident amongst them, and they associate his capture with 'white fellow leave him wheel-barrow along a scrub.' Kennedy abandoned his horse-cart in the scrub of the Rockingham Bay Range before these gins were born!" Kennedy's expedition was a disastrous failure. The brave leader was killed by the blacks far up Cape York Peninsula while he was heroically pushing on to obtain succour for his famishing and weary followers. Three only were subsequently rescued. All this has, perhaps, little to do with Dunk Island: but the scene is so close at hand that the temptation to include a slight reference to one of the most sensational and romantic episodes in the exploration of Australia could not be resisted. Twenty-five years lapsed, and then another official landing took place. In the meantime the island had been frequently visited, but there are no records, until the 29th September 1873, when the "Queensland North-East Coast Expedition," under the leadership of Mr G. Elphinstone Dalrymple, F.R.G.S., landed. Three members of the party have left pleasing testimonies of their first impressions, and I turn to the remarks of the leader for geological definitions. He says--"The formation of Dunk Island is clay slates and micaceous schist. A level stratum of a soft, greasy, and very red decomposing granitic clay was exposed along the southwest tide-flats, and quartz veins and blue slates were found on the same side of the island further in!" The huge granite boulders on the south-east aspect and the granite escarpments on the shoulders of the hills above did not apparently attract attention. One feature then existent has also disappeared. The explorers referred to the belt of magnificent calophyllum trees along the margin of the south-west beach, and Mr Dalrymple thus describes a vegetable wonder-- "Some large fig-trees sent out great lateral roots, large as their own trunks, fifty feet into salt water; an anchor-root extending perpendicularly at the extremity to support them. Thence they have sent up another tree as large as the parent stem, at high-water presenting the peculiarity of twin-trees, on shore and in the sea, connected by a rustic root bridge." These trees have no place or part now. My chronicles are fated to be tinged with the ashen hue of the commonplace, though the scenes they attempt to depict are all of the sun-blessed tropics. SATELLITES AND NEIGHBOURS Consultation of the map will show that Dunk Island has four satellites and seven near relations. Though not formally included in the Family Group it stands as sponsor to all its members, and overlords the islets within a few yards of its superior shores. The official chart has been revised, Only a few examples of current titles are given, as the crowding in of the full list would have obscured the map in a maze of words. Many of the geographical titles of the blacks are without meaning, being used merely to indicate a locality. Others were bestowed because of the presence of a particular tree or plant or a remarkable rock. Some few commemorate incidents. Two places on Dunk Island perpetuate the names of females. The coast-line is so varied that specific names for localities a few hundred yards apart hardly seem necessary; but the original inhabitants, frugal of their speech, found it less trouble to strew names thickly than to enter into explanations one to another when relating the direction and extent which the adventures and the sport of the day led them. Few names for any part of the island away from the beach seem to have existed, although the site of camps along the edge of the jungle, and even in gullies as remote as may be from the sea, are even now apparent. Camps were not honoured by titles, but all the creeks and watercourses and other places where water was obtainable were so invariably, and camps were generally, though not always, made near water. Brief reference to each of the satellites and neighbours of Dunk Island may not be out of place; if only to preserve distinctions which were current long before the advent of white folks, and to make clear remarks in future pages upon the different features of the domain over which the Beachcomber exercises jurisdiction. Not to many men is permitted the privilege of choosing for his day's excursion from among so many beautiful spots, certain in the knowledge that to whichsoever he may elect to flutter his handkerchief is reserved for his delight; certain that the sands will be free from the traces of any other human being; certain that no sound save those of nature will break in upon his musings and meditations. Purtaboi, the first and the nearest of the satellites, lies three-quarters of a mile from the middle of the sweep of Brammo Bay--always in view through the tracery of the melaleuca trees. Mung-um-gnackum and Kumboola, to the south-west, are linked at low-water spring tides to Dunk Island and to each other; and Wooln-garin, to the south-east, is separated from the rocky cliffs and ledges of the island by 300 yards of deep and swiftly-flowing water. Purtaboi--dainty and unique--its hill crowned with low-growing trees and shrubs, a ruddy precipice, groups of pandanus palms, beach lined with casuarinas, banks of snow-white coral debris, ridge of sharped-edged rocks jutting out to the north-western cove and out-lying reef of coral, tangle of orchids and scrub all in miniature--save the orchids--gigantic and gross and profuse of old-gold bloom. In October and November hosts of sea-birds come hither to nest, and so also do nutmeg or Torres Straits pigeons, blue doves, peaceful doves, honey-eaters, wood-swallows, the blue reef heron, and occasionally the little black cormorant. The large-billed shore plover (ESACUS MAGNIROSTRIS) deposits her single egg on the sand, merely carelessly whisking aside the casuarina needles for its reception. Hundreds of terns (six species) lay their eggs among the tinkling coral chips, and discarding all attempts at concealment, practise artistic deception. So perfect is the artifice that the eggs are frequently the least conspicuous of the elements of the banks of drift, broken coral and bleached shells. Not until each square yard is steadfastly inspected can they be detected, though there may be dozens around one's feet, the colours--creamy white with grey and brown and purple spots, and blotches and scribblings--blending perfectly with their environment. The eggs, by the way, are a great delicacy, sweet, nutty, and absolutely devoid of fishy flavour. When the downy young are hatched they, too, are almost invisible. They cunningly lie motionless, though within a few inches of your hand, and remain perfectly passive when lifted. Snoodling beside lumps of coral or beneath weather-beaten drift-wood, they afford startling proof of the effect of sympathetic coloration. When one stoops to pick up a piece of wood, whitened and roughened by the salt of the sea, and finds that more than half its apparent bulk is made up of several infants in soft swaddles, crowded together into a homogeneous mass, the result is pleasing astonishment. Only when individuals of the group move do they become visible to their natural enemies. These tender young birds enjoy no protection nor any of the comfort of a nest; and if they were not endowed from the moment of birth with rare consciousness of their helplessness, the species, no doubt, would speedily become exterminated, for keen-sighted hawks hover about, picking up those which, failing to obey the first law of nature, reveal themselves by movement. If the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, what is the provision of Nature which enables so tender a thing as a young bird, a mere helpless ball of creamy fluff, to withstand the frizzling heat with which the sun bleaches the broken coral? Many do avail themselves of the meagre shadow of shells and lumps of coral, but the majority are exposed to the direct rays of the sun, which brings the coral to such a heat that even the hardened beachcomber walks thereon with "uneasy steps," reminding him of another outcast who used that oft-quoted staff as a support over the "burning marl." Gilbert White relates that a pair of fly-catchers which inadvertently placed their nests in an intolerably hot situation hovered over it "all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded and mouths gaping for breath, they screened the heat from their suffering young." Parental duty of the like nature does not appear to be practised for the benefit of the young tern; but they are well fed with what may be considered thirst-provoking food. Thirst does occasionally overcome the instinct which the young birds obey by absolute stillness, and a proportion of those which give way to the ever-present temptation of the sea falls to the lot of the hawks. Mere fluffy toddlers, with mouths gaping with thirst, slide and scramble down the coral banks, waddle with uncertain steps across the strip of smooth sand to be rolled over and over in their helplessness by the gentle break of the sea. They cool their panting bodies by a series of queer, sprawling marine gymnastics, swim about buoyantly for a few minutes, are tumbled on to the sand, and waddle with contented cheeps each back to its own birthplace among hundreds of highly-decorated eggs, and hundreds of infants like unto themselves. The parents of the white-shafted ternlet (STERNA SINENSIS), the most sylph-like of birds, with others of the family, ever on the look-out, follow in circling, screaming mobs the disturbance on the surface of the sea caused by small fish vainly endeavouring to elude the crafty bonito and porpoise, and take ample supplies to the ever-hungry young. How is it that the hundreds of pairs recognise among the hundreds of fluffy young, identical in size and colour, each their particular care? The picture "where terns lay" testifies to the solicitude of Nature for the preservation of types. The apparent primary carelessness of the terns in depositing their eggs is shown, when the chicks are hatched, to have been artfulness of a high order. At least a dozen, if not more, young birds were sharply focused by the camera, but so perfectly do their neutral tints blend with the groundwork of coral, shells and sand that only three or four are actually discernible, and these are perplexingly inconspicuous. A microscopic examination of the photograph is necessary to differentiate the helpless birds from their surroundings. On another island within the Barrier Reef several species of sea-birds spontaneously adapted themselves to altered circumstances. They, in consonance with the general habits of the species, were wont to lay their eggs carelessly on the sand or shingle, without pretence of nests. A meat-loving pioneer introduced goats to the island, the continual parading about of which so disturbed the birds, and deprived them of their hope of posterity, that they took to the building of nests on dwarf trees, out of the way of the goats. That birds unaccustomed to the building of nests should acquire the habit, illustrates the depths of Nature's promptings for the preservation of species; or is it that the faculty existed as an hereditary trait, was abandoned only when its exercise was unnecessary, and resumed when there was conspicuous occasion for it? On a neighbouring island of the same group unstocked with goats, no change in the habits of the birds has taken place. Among the rocks of Purtaboi, in cool dark grottoes, the brown-winged tern rears her young. She often permits herself to be trapped rather than indicate her presence by voluntary flight. One of the most graceful of the sea-swallows this. Brown of back and greenish-white under surface; noisy, too, for it "yaps" as a terrier whensoever intruders approach the island during the brooding season; and its puff-ball chicken, crouching in dim recesses, takes the bluish-grey hue of the rock. The Blue Reef heron builds a rough nest of twigs on the ledges of the rocks, sometimes at the roots of the bronze orchid (DENDROBIUM UNDULATUM), and endeavours to scare away intruders by harsh squawks, stupidly betraying the presence of pale blue eggs or helpless brood. When the blue heron flies with his long neck stiffly tucked between his shoulders, he is anything but graceful; but under other circumstances he is not an ungainly bird. Occasionally my casual observations are made afar off, with the medium of a telescope. Then the birds are seen behaving naturally, and without fear or self-consciousness. The other day the cute attitudes of a beach curlew interested me, as he stood upon a stone just awash, and ever and anon picked up a crab. A blue heron flapped down beside him, and the curlew skipped off to another rock. In a minute the heron straightened his neck, poised its long beak for striking, and brought up a wriggling fish, which with a jerk of its head it turned end for end and swallowed. Another actor came within the field of the glass--the mate of the heron, alighting on the stone beside her lord and master. He was in a peckish humour, and instantly the tufts on his shoulders, the long feathers on the neck, and the rudimentary crest were angrily erected, and he made a peevish snap at her. You can imagine his reproof--"Get away from this. Don't crowd a fellow. Go to a rock of your own. This is my place. You spoil my sport!" Then, remembering that domestic tiffs were not edifying to strangers--and there was the sober brown curlew looking on--the bird let his angry feathers subside, and made way for his spouse on the best point of the rock. Each on one leg, they stood shoulder to shoulder, the very embodiment of connubial bliss. I noticed, too, that the mistress was allowed to fish to her heart's content, the master never raising a feather in remonstrance, though she gobbled up all that came along. Low-lying Mung-um-gnackum, the abode of the varied honey-eater, the tranquil dove, and the brooding-place of the night-jar (CAPRIMULGUS) and lovely Kumboola, lie to the south-west, a bare half-mile away. Kumboola's sheltered aspect is thickly clad with jungle; a steep grassy ridge springs from the blue-grey rocks to the south-east; and on the precipitous weather side grow low and open scrub and dwarf casuarina. Here is a natural aviary. Pigeons and doves coo; honey-eaters whistle; sun-birds whisper quaint, quick notes; wood swallows soar and twitter. Metallic starlings seek safe sleeping-places among the mangroves, ere they repair last year's villages, and join excitedly in the chorus; while the great osprey wheels overhead, and the grey falcon sits on a bare branch, still as a sentinel, each waiting for an opportunity to take toll of the nutmeg pigeons. The channel-billed cuckoo shrieks her discordant warning of the approaching wet season; and the scrub fowl utters those far-off imitations of the exclamation of civilised hens. Sundown at Kumboola towards the end of September, when the sea laps and murmurs among the rocks, and great white pigeons gather in thousands on the dark foliage, or "coo-hooing" and flapping, disappear beneath the thick leafy canopy, and all the other birds are saying their good-nights, or asserting their rights, or protesting against crowding or intrusion, is an ever-to-be-remembered experience. Added to the cheerful presence of the noisy birds, are the pleasant odours which spring from the jungle as coolness prevails, and the flaming west gives a weird tint of red to the outlines of the trees, and of purple to the drowsy sea. Of entirely different character is the last of the satellites to be mentioned, Wooln-garin. Lying 300 yards off the south-western end of Dunk Island, across a swift and deep channel, it is naught but a confused mass of weather-beaten rocks, the loftiest not being more than 50 feet above high-water. A few pandanus palms, hardy shrubs and trailers, and mangroves, spring from sheltered crevices, but for the most part the rocks are bare. The incessant assaults of the sea have cut deep but narrow clefts in the granite, worn out sounding hollows, and smoothed away angularities. Here a few terns rear their young, and succeeding generations of the sooty oyster-catcher lay their eggs just out of the reach of high-tide. A never-ending procession of fish passes up and down the channel, according as the tide flows and ebbs, though they do not at all times take serious heed of bait. To one who generally fishes for a definite purpose, it is tantalising to peep down into the clear depths and watch the lazy fish come and go, ignoring the presence of that which at other times is greedily snapped at. Turtle, and occasionally dugong, favour the vicinity of Wooln-garin which on account of its distinctive character is one of the most frequented of the satellites. The neighbouring islands include Timana, 2 1/2 miles from the sand-spit of Dunk Island and 1 1/2 mile from Kumboola. Bedarra lies a little to the southward; Tool-ghar three-quarters of a mile from Bedarra; Coomboo half a mile from Tool-ghar; and the group of three--Bud-joo, Kurrambah and Coolah--still further to the south-east. These comprise the Family Islands of the chart. On Timana are gigantic milkwood trees (ALSTONIA SCHOLARIS) which need great flying buttresses to support their immense height, their roots being mainly superficial. For many generations two ospreys have had their eyrie in one of these giant trees, fit nursery for imperial birds! With annual additions, the nest has attained immense proportions, and as years pass it will still further increase, for blacks capable of climbing such a tree and disturbing the occupants are few and far between. Great distinction and pride, however, are the lot of the athlete who secures the snowy down of the young birds to stick in tufts on his dirty head with fat, gum or beeswax, for he will be the admired of all admirers at the CORROBBOREE. Vanity impels human beings to extraordinary exertions, trials and risks, and the black who desires to outshine his fellows, and who has the essential of strength and length of limb, will make a loop of lawyer vine round the tree, and with his body within the loop begin the ascent. Having cut a notch for the left great toe, he inclines his weight against the tree, while he shifts the loop three feet or so upwards. Then he leans backward against the loop, cuts a notch for his right great toe, and so on until the nest is reached. There has been but one ascent of this tree in modern times, and the name of the black, "Spider," is still treasured. A heavy, slovenly-patched mantle of leafage, impervious to sunlight, covers the Isle of Timana, creating a region of perpetual dimness from western beach to eastern precipice, where orchids cling and palms peer on rocks below. All the vegetation is matted and interwoven, only the topmost branches of the milkwood escaping from the clinging, aspiring vines. Tradition asserts that not many years since Timana was much favoured by nutmeg pigeons, now sparsely represented; but the varied honey-eater and a friar bird possessing a most mellow and fluty note, cockatoos and metallic starlings are plentiful. Although there is no permanent fresh water, the pencil-tailed rat leaves numerous tracks on the sand, and scrub fowls keep the whole surface perpetually raked. From a mound adjacent to the beach a black boy brought fifteen eggs as we picnicked on the beach, and though some of them were nigh upon hatching, not one was covered with white ants--which, an authority asserts, particularly like crawling over the eggshells, so as to be ready when wanted by the chicks. Nor have I ever seen an instance of this alleged exhibition of self-sacrifice on the part of the white ant. Another boy had eaten his very substantial lunch, but the eggs were tempting and he baked two. One, and that new-laid, is ample for an ordinary mortal. The condition of the first resembled that which the embarrassed curate described as "good in parts"; but "Mickie" was not nice over a half-hatched egg. Indeed, was it not rather more piquant than otherwise? The second proved to contain a fully developed chicken. Now the chick emerges from the shell feathered, and this, but for the unfortunate accident of discovery, would have begun to scratch for its living in a day or so. Mickie flicked away the fragments of shell from the steaming dainty and laid it snugly on a leaf. "That's for Paddy"--an Irish terrier, always of the party. It was an affecting act of renunciation. Presently "Paddy" came along; but "Paddy," who, too, had lunched, bestowed merely a sniff and a "No, thank you" wag of the tail. "What, you no want 'em? All right." No second offer was risked, and in a moment, in one mouthful, the chick was being crunched by Mickie, feathers and all. The menu of the Chinese--with its ducks' eggs salted, sharks' fins and tails, stewed pups, fowls' and ducks' tongues, fricasseed cat, rat soup, silkworm grubs, and odds and ends generally despised and rejected--is pitifully unromantic when set against the generous omnivority of Australian blacks. A mile beyond Timana is Bedarra, with its lovely little bays and coves and fantastically weathered rocks, its forest and jungle and scrub, and its rocky satellite Pee-rahm-ah. Several of the most conspicuous landmarks are associated in the minds of blacks with legends, generally of the simplest and most prosaic nature. About this rough rock Pee-rahm-ah is a story which in the minds of the natives satisfactorily accounts for its presence. In the far-away past two nice young gins, they say, were left by themselves on Dunk Island, while the others of the tribe went away in canoes to Hinchinbrook. Tiring of their lonesomeness, they made up their minds to regain the company of their relatives by swimming from island to island. Kumboola was easily reached; to Timana it is but a mile and a half, and a mile thence to Bedarra. Leaving the most easterly point of Bedarra, they were quickly caught in the swirl of a strong current and spun about until both became dazed and exhausted. As they disappeared beneath the water they were changed to stone, and the stone rose in fantastic shape, and from that day Pee-rahm-ah has weathered all the storms of the Pacific and formed a feature in the loveliest scene these isles reveal. The largest of the neighbouring isles, Bedarra, has less than a square mile of superficial area; the smallest but 4 or 5 acres. The smaller are made up of confused masses of granite, for the most part so overgrown with fig trees, plumy palms, milkwoods, umbrella-trees, quandongs, eugenias, hibiscus bushes, bananas and lawyer vines, as to be unexplorable without a scrub-knife; for the soil among the rocks is soft and spongy, the purest of vegetable mould, and encourages luxurious growth. The jungle droops over the grey rocks on the sheltered side. Twisted Moreton Bay ash and wind-crippled scrub spring up among the clefts and crevices on the weather frontage--the south-east--while a narrow strip of sand, the only landing-place, is a general characteristic of the north-west aspect. Birds nest in numbers in peace and security, for the islets are off the general track. Seldom is there any disturbance of the primeval quietude, and in the encompassing sea, if the fish and turtle suffer any excitement, rarely is the cause attributable to man. The islands immediately to the south-east form the Family Group--triplets, twins and two singles. I like to think approving things of them; to note individual excellences; to familiarise myself with their distinguishing traits; to listen to them in their petulance and anger, and in that sobbing subsidence to even temper; to their complacent gurglings and sleepy murmurs. One--and the most Infantile of all--not of the Family, has a distinctive note, a copyright tone which none imitates, and which becomes at times a sonorous swelling boom, a lofty recitative, for even an island has its temper and its moods. PLANS AND PERFORMANCES "The folly of this island! They say there's but five upon this isle; we are two of them; if the other three be brained like us the State totters!" The scheme for the establishment of our island home comprehended several minor industries. This isle of dreams, of quietude and happiness; this fretless scene; this plot of the Garden of Eden, was not to be left entirely in its primitive state. It was firmly resolved that our interference should be considerate and slight; that there should be no rude and violent upsetting of the old order of things; but just a gentle restraint upon an extravagant expression here and there, a little orderliness, and ever so light a touch of practicability. A certain acreage of land was to be cleared for the cultivation of tropical fruits; of vegetables for everyday use, and of maize and millet for poultry, which we proposed to breed for home consumption. Bees were to be an ultimate source of profit. There are millions of living proofs of direct but vagrant descent from the Italian stock, with which we started, humming all over this and the adjacent islands to-day. How we went about the practical accomplishment of our plans; in what particulars they failed; what proportion of success was achieved, and the process of education in rural enterprises generally, it were idle to account. Rather, an attempt must be made to give particulars of the project as a whole as it stands after a period of nine years. Be it understood that we depended almost solely on the aid of the blacks. Means at command did not permit the employment of even a single white workman, save for a brief experimental period. Indeed, there is yet to be found in Australia the phase of tropical agriculture which affords payment of the ruling rate of wages. The proximity of countries in which cheap labour predominates counterbalances the minimum demand of white men in these parts. Those who have had experience of aboriginals as labourers, understand their erratic disposition; yet with considerate treatment, the exact and prompt fulfilment of obligations and promises, the display of some little sympathy with their foibles, interest in their doings, and ready response to any desire expressed to "walk about," they are not wholly to be set at naught as labourers. Some are intelligent and honest to a degree, and when in the humour will work steadily and consistently. When not in humour, it is well to accept the fact cheerfully. Here I must have leave to be candid, so that the reader may be under no misapprehension as to the exact circumstances under which the undertaking progressed. Income from the land as the result of agricultural operations was not absolutely necessary. This acknowledgment does not imply the possession of, or any disrespect for, "the cumbersome luggage of riches," nor any affectation; but rather an accommodating and frugal disposition--the capacity to turn to account the excellent moral that poor Mr Micawber lamented his inability to obey. Profit from the sale of produce and poultry would have supplied additional comforts which would have been cordially appreciated; but if no returns came, then there was that state of mind which enabled us to endure the deprivation as the Psalmist suffered fools. And shall not this be accounted unto us for righteousness? Shall we not enjoy the warm comfort of virtue? We were at liberty to reflect with the Vicar of Wakefield--"We have still enough left for happiness, if we are wise; and let us draw upon content for the deficiencies of fortune." Certainly, we were not inclined to risk that which thriftily employed provided for all absolute necessaries on the chance of securing that which might, after all, prove to be superfluous. At least, there remains the consciousness of having lived, and of having wrought no evil (not having interfered in recent Federal Legislation), and being able to enjoy the sleep which is said to be that of the just. Occasionally there are as many as four blacks about the place. They come and go from the mainland, some influenced by the wish for the diet of oysters for a time. "Me want sit down now; me want eat oyster." At rare intervals we are entirely alone for months together, and then cultural operations stand still. Twice, a considerable portion of the plantation was silently overrun by the scouts of the jungle, and had to be re-surveyed in order to locate smothered-up orange-trees. Our staff, domestic and otherwise, usually consists of one boy and his gin, and save for the housework, affairs are not conducted on a serious or systematic plan. The spur necessity not being applied, there is no persistent or sustained effort to make a profit, and, of course, none is earned. In a few months from the felling of the first strip of jungle and the burning off of the timber and rubbish, however, we grew produce that went towards the maintenance of the establishment. That pious old man who lived to the majestic age of 105, and during the last ninety years existed wholly upon bread and water, was not the only one who had "a certain lusting after salad." Until we grew fruit, the papaw, the quickest and amongst the best, vegetables were more necessary. Our plantation, all carved out of the jungle, has an area of 4 1/2 acres. We have orange-trees (two varieties), just coming into bearing, and from which profits are expected; pineapples (two varieties), papaws, coffee (ARABICA), custard apples, sour sop, jack fruit, pomegranate, the litchee, and mangoes in plenty. Sweet potatoes are always in successive cultivation, also pumpkins and melons, and an occasional crop of maize. Bananas represent a staple food. We have had fair crops of English potatoes, and have grown strawberries of fine flavour, though of deficient size, among the banana plants. Parsley, mint, and all "the vulgar herbs" grow freely. Readers in less favoured climes may hardly credit the statement that pineapples are so plentiful in the season in North Queensland that they are fed to pigs as well as horses. Twenty good pines for sixpence!--who would cultivate the fruit and market it for such remuneration? Hundreds of tons of mangoes go absolutely to waste every year. The taste for this wholesome and most delicious fruit has not yet become established in the large centres of population of Australia. At one time the same could he said of bananas; but now the trade has become prodigious. The era of the mango has yet to come. The original cedar hut now forms an annexe to a bungalow designed, in so far as means permitted, as a concession to the dominating characteristics of the clime. Around the house is an acre or so given over to an attempt to keep up appearances. Poultry are comfortably housed; a small flock of goats provides milk and occasionally fresh meat. There are two horses (one a native of the island) to perform casual heavy work; the boat has a shed into which she is reluctantly hauled by means of a windlass to spend the rowdy months; there is a buoy in the bay to which she is greatly attached when she is not sulking in the shed or coyly submitting to the caresses of the waves. It may have been anticipated that I would, Thoreau-like, set down in details and in figures the exact character and cost of every designed alteration to this scene; but the idea, as soon as it occurred, was sternly suppressed, for however cheerful a disciple I am of that philosopher, far be it from me to belittle him by parody. A good portion of the house represents the work of my own unaccustomed hands. I have found how laborious an occupation fencing is, and how very exasperating if barbed wire is used; that the keeping in order of even a small plantation in which ill-bred and riotous plants grow with the rapidity of the prophet's gourd, and which if unattended would lapse in a very brief space of time into the primitive condition of tangled jungle, involves incessant labour of the most sweatful kind. A work on structural botany tells me that "the average rate of perspiration in plants has been estimated as equal to that of seventeen times that of man." Only dwellers in the tropics are capable of realising the profundity of those pregnant words. Nowhere does plant life so thrive and so squander itself. And to toil among all this seething, sweating vegetation! No wonder that the trashing of sugar-cane is not a popular pastime among Britishers. Given a quiet and contented mind, a banana-grove, a patch of sweet potatoes, orange and mango and papaw trees, a few coffee plants; the sea for fish, the rocks for oysters; the mangrove flats for crabs, and is it not possible to become fat with a minimum of labour? Fewer statements have found wider publicity than that the banana contains more nutriment than meat. I have good reason to have faith--faith in it. In Queensland every man has to find money for direct and indirect taxation; but apart from the imposts upon living, moving and having being, what ready money does a man want beyond a few shillings for tea, sugar and other luxuries, and some few articles of essential clothing? But I am attempting to describe a special set of circumstances, and would not have it on my conscience that I indirectly offered encouragement even to a forlorn and shipwrecked brother to abandon hope of becoming the prime minister of the Commonwealth, and to enter upon a life of reckless irresponsibility such as mine. As soon as test and trial proved in this special case that life on the periphery of the whirl of civilisation was not only endurable but "so would we have it," arrangements were made with the Government of the State for a change in the tenure upon which the right of possession was upheld. In obedience to those altruistic tendencies which, with due recognition of the law of self-preservation, comprehend the duty of man, it is necessary that the terms and conditions upon which others may acquire freehold estates in tropical Queensland--the most fruitful and the most desirable part of Australia--should be briefly detailed. As insurance against intrusion, a small area of the island had been secured from the Government under special lease for a term of thirty years, at the rental of 2 shillings 6 pence per acre per annum. This lease was maintained only for the period during which our verdant sentiments were put to the test. That phase having passed without the destruction of a single illusion, no restraint was imposed upon the passion to possess the land. Negotiations resulted in a certain acreage being proclaimed open to selection, and in such case the original applicant has the prior right. What is termed under the exceedingly liberal land laws of Queensland an agricultural homestead may comprise 160 acres, 320 acres, or 640 acres, in accordance with the classification of the land as of first, second, or third quality. The selector must pay 2 shillings 6 pence per acre at the rate Of 3 pence per acre for ten years, and must reside continuously on the land. Five years are allowed for the completion of improvements--house, clearing, fencing, cultivation, etc., which in valuation must equal 10 shillings, 5 shillings, or 2 shillings 6 pence per acre respectively, according to the classification of the land. At the end of the five years the selector may pay in a lump sum the second moiety of rent, making the total 2 shillings 6 pence per acre, and he is thereupon entitled to the issue of a deed of grant of the land in fee-simple. Otherwise payments may extend over the term of ten years, when the land becomes freehold. Briefly, for the sum Of 2 shillings 6 pence per acre distributed over ten years, in addition to a trifle for survey fees (also payable in easy instalments) and the construction of improvements equal in value to 2 shillings 6 pence per acre, the freehold of land unsurpassed in fertility in the whole world may be acquired. The selector may build his own hut and erect his fences of timber from his clearing, and the officials assess improvements on a liberal scale. Who would not be a landed proprietor under such terms? Other clauses of the Land Act are far more encouraging. Not only are payments held in abeyance until the selector is able to meet them out of his earnings from the land, but in special cases monetary assistance is afforded him. Literally the meekest of men may inherit the choicest part of the earth. What has been said of the natural features of Dunk Island is applicable to the coastal tract extending, say, 300 miles, than which no land is more fertile. A very notable advantage is enjoyed here. Brammo Bay is but three or four minutes' steam from the track of vessels which make weekly trips up and down the coast, and by arrangements with the proprietary of one of the lines we have the boon of a regular weekly mail and of cheap carriage of supplies. Without this connecting link, life on the island would have been very different. The Companies running parallel lines of steamers, one skirting the coast and the other outside the islands in deep water, have done much to open up the wealth of the agricultural land of North Queensland. Trade follows the flag. Here the flag of the mercantile marine has frequently been first planted to demonstrate the certainty of trade. Without apology, a few facts are submitted which utterly condemn the practicability of one department of island enterprise, and which possibly (without protest) may provide a reason for the placing of other branches of industry beyond the pale of recognition by those who devote every moment of time to, and make never-ending sacrifices of ease and health and comfort on behalf of, what folks term the main chance. When after some expenditure in the purchase of plant and material, and no little labour, the couple of beehives that formed the original stock of a project for the harvesting of the nectar which had hitherto gone to waste or been disposed of by unreflecting birds, had increased to a dozen, and honey of pleasant and varying flavour flowed from the separator at frequent intervals, hopes ran high of the earning of a modest profit from one of the cleanest, nicest, most entertaining and innoxious of pursuits. No one who takes up bees and who studies their manners and methods can allow his admiration to remain dormant. It is not the fault of the bees if he does not become ashamed of himself in some respects; nor are they to blame if the wisest men fail quite to comprehend some of the wonders they perform. Only by those "who list with care extreme," are their gentle tones heard aright; and even from such are some secrets hidden. How is it that an egg deposited by the queen-mother in a more than ordinarily capacious compartment hatches a grub, "just like any other," which grub, feasting upon the concentrated food stored within its cell, expands and lengthens and emerges an amber queen in all her glory? Bee-keepers learn that the queen and the drones are the only perfect insects in the hive, the hoard of willing, bustling slaves being females in a state of arrested development. Each worker might have been a queen but for the fact that environment and a special food were not vouchsafed in the embryonic stage. By making artificial queen-cells, which the workers provide for, men bring about the birth of queens at will. Not yet has the secret of the manufacture of royal jelly been revealed. But is it not the common belief that the spacious compartment and the special food work the transformation of what otherwise would have been a brief-lifed toiler to an insect of majestic proportions, regal adornment and imperial instinct, whose wants are anticipated and who has no duty to perform save that of increasing and multiplying her faithful subjects? Man controls the development of an insect. May not those who complain of the disparity between the births of females and males still listen to hope's "flattering tale"? Such is one of the homilies of the hive. Interest in bee-culture grows; and some of the habits of the insect came to be understood and, inevitably, admired, the while all convenient vessels available, even to the never-to-be-despised kerosene tins, were utilised to store the nectar garnered from myriads of blossoms. But as time passed the fair prospects faded. Less and less quantities of honey were stored. The separator seldom buzzed with soothing melody as the honey, whirled from the dripping frames of combs, pattered against its resonant sides. Bees seemed less and less numerous. An air of idleness, almost dissoluteness and despair, brooded over some of the hives. The strong robbed the weak; and the weak contented themselves with gathering in listless groups, murmuring plaintively. If the hives were inquiringly tapped, instead of a furious and instant alarm and angry outpouring of excited and wrathful citizens, eager to sacrifice themselves in the defence of the rights of the commonwealth, there was merely a buzzing remonstrance, indicative of decreased population, weakness and disconsolation. The cause of so great a change in the character and demeanour of citizens who erstwhile worked as honey carriers all day, and who during the hot, still nights did duty as animated ventilating fans to maintain a free circulation of air through the hive, had to be investigated. Soon it was revealed in the presence of two species of birds, the Australian bee-eater (MEROPS ORNATUS) and the white-rumped wood-swallow (ARTAMUS LEUCOGASTA). The former is one of the handsomest of the smaller birds of Australia, its chief colouring being varying shades of green with bronze-brown and black head and blue back; and to add to its appearance and pride two graceful feather-shafts of black protrude from the green and yellow of the tail. It travels in small companies of, say, from four and five to a couple of dozen, and in its flight occasionally seems to pause with wings and tail outspread, revealing all its charms. Fond it is, too, of perching on bare twigs commanding a wide survey, whence It darts with unerring precision to catch bees and other insects on the wing. If its prey takes unkindly to its fate, the bird batters it to death on its perch ere swallowing it with a twitter of satisfaction. The wood-swallow wears a becoming suit of soft pearly grey and white, to contrast with its black head and throat. It has a graceful, soaring flight and a cheerful chirrup. At certain seasons scores congregate on a branch, perching in a row, so closely compact that their breasts show as a continuous band of white. When one leaves his place to catch an insect, the others close up the ranks and dress the line, and on returning, wrangle and scold as he may, he needs must take an outside place. Let a bush fire be started, and flocks of wood-swallows whirl and circle along the flanks of the circling smoke, taking flying insects on the wing, or deftly pick "thin, high-elbowed creatures," scuttling up tree-trunks out of the way of the flames. Those were the marauders who confounded anticipations of a comfortable livelihood in the decent calling of an apiarist. They devoured bees by the hundred every day. Every hive paid dreadful toll to them, for they found food so plentiful, and with so little exertion, that they made the vicinity of the hives a permanent abiding place. For a brief season I found myself confronted by a problem. I had to apply my own favourite theories and arguments to myself and weigh against them practical advantages. Honey was plentiful and, given that the bees were protected against voracious enemies, might have been stored in marketable quantities. But was I not bound by honour as well as sentiment to protect the birds? Was not my coming hither due to a certain extent to a wish for the preservation of bird-life? Was there not in my presence an implied warranty to that effect? Had not the island since my occupancy become a sanctuary, a city of refuge, a safe abiding place, a kingdom where all the birds of the air--save tyrants and cannibals were welcomed with gladness and enthusiasm? Had I not warned others of the dreadful consequences that would befall any disturbance of the sacred air by so much as the unauthorised report of a gun? How then was I to deal out justice to the defenceless bees that I had hurried hither, willy-nilly, without consideration of their likes and dislikes and their multitudinous descendants? How protect my investment in apiarist plant? How maintain the stock of honey, white, golden and tawny brown, excellent, wholesome delicious food, and still preserve the natural rights, the privileges of the birds? Had not the birds the right of prior occupancy and other legitimate claims, in addition to sentimental demands upon my conscience? Not only, too were the birds beautiful to look upon and of engaging habits; not only had they become companionable and trustful; not only were they among the primeval features of the island that I was so eager to leave unspotted from the world; but they were eminently useful in the work of keeping within bounds the rampant host of insects to which mankind is in the habit of applying the term injurious. It took no long time to make up my mind. Gladly came the determination to abandon the enterprise rather than do violence to the birds. Fortunately a kindly friend took the entire plant and the hives off my hands. We are the worse off in respect of honey; but we have the birds, and the thought comes that there are now hundreds of colonies of bees from the original stock, here and on the mainland, working out their own destinies. Had the enterprise been allowed to flourish, it would have been at the cost of the lives of hundreds of graceful birds; and hundreds of others that now merrily make so free would have been scared away. The money that would have been spent in cartridges is applied to the purchase of honey from foreign parts. No one is much the worse off. Indeed, my friend who purchased the stock is the richer by my abandonment of the calling, and am not I conscious of consistency? So, these my vocations drift into the gentle and devious stream of inconsequence. It would be vain-glorious, no doubt, to assert that there is placid indifference to vain-glory, which Carlyle declares to be, with neediness and greediness, one of the besetting sins of mankind; but am I not free from the cares that obtrude on those of tougher texture of mind who find joy in the opposite to this peace and unconcern for the rewards and honours of the world? Better this isolation and moderation in all things than, racked with worries, to moan and fret because of non-success in the ceaseless struggle for riches, or the increase thereof; better than to bow down to and worship in the "soiled temple of Commercialism" that haughty and supercilious old idol Mammon; better than to offer continual sacrifices of rest, health, and the immediate good of life to appease the exacting and silly deities of fashion and society. There may be some who, in a disparaging tone, will at this stage of my confessions enter an accusation of impracticableness. To such a charge I would plead guilty; but to those who proffer it, I neither appeal, nor do I fear their judgment. These writings are for those who see something in life beyond the mere "getting on in world," or making a din in it. CHAPTER II BEACHCOMBING "For the Beachcomber, when not a mere ruffian, is the poor relation of the artist." In justification of the assumption of the title of "Beachcomber," it must be said that, having made good and sufficient provision against the advent of the wet season (which begins, as a rule, during the Christmas holidays), the major portion of each week was spent in first formal and official calls, and then friendly and familiar visits to the neighbouring islands and the mainland. Duty and inclination constrained me to find out what were the states and moods of all the bays and coves of all the isles; the location and form of rocks and reefs; the character of shrubs and trees; the nature of the jungle-covered hilltops; the features of bluffs and precipices; to understand the style and manner and the conversation of unfamiliar birds; to discover where the turtle most do congregate; the favourite haunts of fishes. I was in a hurry to partake freely of the novel, and yearned for pleasure of the absolute freedom of isles uninhabited, shores untrodden; eager to know how Nature, not under the microscope, behaved; what were her maiden fancies, what the art with which she allures. But there was an excuse, rather an imperious command, for all the apparent waste of time. Before the rains came thundering on the iron roof of our little hut, the washed-out and enfeebled town dweller who gave way to bitter reflections on the first evening of his new career, could hardly have been recognised, thanks to the robustious, wholesome effects of the free and vitalising life. Fourteen, frequently sixteen, hours of the twenty-four were spent in the open air, ashore and afloat. What a glowing and absolutely authentic testimonial could be written as to the tonic influence of the misrepresented climate of the rainy belt of North Queensland on constitutions that have run down? According to popular opinion, malaria ought to have discovered an exceptionally easy prey. Ague, if the expected had happened, should have gripped and shaken me until my teeth rattled; and after alternations of raging fever and arctic cold, I ought to have gone to my long home with the fearful shapes of delirium yelling in my ears. But there are places other than Judee where they do not know everything. At the fraction of the fee of a fashionable doctor, and of the cost of following his fashionable and pleasing advice--a change to one of the Southern States--in three months one of the compelling causes for the desertion of town life had been disposed of by agreeable processes. None of the bitter, after-taste of physic remained. I knew my island, and was on terms of friendly admiration--born of knowledge of beauty spots--with all the others. I had become a citizen of the universe. During this period of utter abandonment of all serious claims upon time and exertion came the conviction that the career of the Beachcomber, the closest possible "return to Nature" now popularly advocated, has charms none other possesses. Then it was that the lotus-blossom was first eaten. Unfettered by the laws of society, with the means at hand of acquiring the few necessaries of life that Nature in this generous part of her domain fails to provide readymade, a Beachcomber of virtuous instinct, and a due perception of the decency of things, may enjoy a happy life. Should, however, he be of the type that demands a wreck or so every month to maintain his supplies of rum or gin, and other articles of his true religion, and is prepared if wrecks do not come with regularity, to assist tardy Nature by means of false lights on the shore, he will find no scope whatever among these orderly isles. The Beachcomber of tradition parades his coral islet barefooted, bullying guileless natives out of their copra, coco-nut oil and pearl-shell; his chief diet, turtle and turtle eggs and fish; his drink, rum and coco-nut milk--the latter only when the former is impossible. When a wreck happens he becomes a potentate in pyjamas, and with his dusky wives, dressed in bright vestiture, fares sumptuously. And though the ships from the isles do not meet to "pour the wealth of ocean in tribute at his feet," he can still "rush out of his lodgings and eat oysters in regular desperation." A whack on his hardened head from the club of a jealous native is the time-honoured fate of the typical Beachcomber. Flotsam and jetsam make another class of Beachcomber by stimulating the gaming instincts. Is there a human being, taking part in the rough and tumble of the world, who can honestly make confession and say that he has completely suffocated those inherent instincts of savagedom--joy and patience in the chase, the longing for excitement and surprise, the crude selfishness, the delight in getting something for nothing? Society journals have informed me that titled dames have been known to sit out long and wearisome evenings that they may obtain some paltry favour in a cotillon. And when the sea casts up its gifts on these radiant shores, I boldly and with glee give way to my beachcombing instincts and pick and choose. Never ever up to the present have I found anything of real value; but am I not buoyed up by pious hopes and sanguine expectations? Is not the game as diverting and as innocent as many others that are played to greater profit? It is a game, too, that cannot be forced, and therefore cannot become demoralising; and having no nice feelings nor fine shades, I rejoice and am glad in it. And then what strange and varied things one sees! Once a "harness-cask," hostile to every sense, came trundled by waves eager to expel it from the vicinity of these oxless but scented isles. It overcame us as we sailed by, 20 yards off, and the general necessity for temperate diet and restricted dishes came as a sweet and a comforting reflection. No marvel if the ship whence it was ejected was in bad odour among the sailors. Leaving, as it lurched along, a greasy, foul stain on the sea, it may have poisoned multitudes of uncomplaining fishes during its evil course. Occasionally a case of fruit, washed from the decks of a labouring steamer, drifts ashore. One was the means of introducing a valuable addition to the products of the island. It gave demonstration of how man may unwittingly, and even in opposition to his wit, assist in scattering and multiplying blessings on a smiling land--blessings to last for all time, and perhaps to amend or ameliorate the environment of a budding nation. Many years ago--in 1878, to speak precisely--a ship laden with fragrant cedar logs from the valley of the Daintree River--140 miles to the north-- touched on Kennedy Shoal, 20 miles to the south-east of Dunk Island. Crippled though she was she managed to make Cardwell, where she was temporarily patched up, and whence she set sail for Melbourne. It was the critical month of March, and the MERCHANT--clumsy and cumbersome, but a good and safe ship given ample sea-room--before sailing many miles on her course, was caught in the coils of a cyclone, the violence of which is well remembered by old residents on the coast to this day, and was lost with all hands. She is supposed to have struck on a reef to the southward of the Palm Islands, as the bulk of her cargo was cast ashore in Ramsay Bay, Hinchinbrook Island. Portions of the wreckage were found on the Brook Islands; her figurehead--the spread eagle of the United States--and a seaman's chest were picked up on the beach here. Her windlass, with a child's pinafore entangled with it--for the skipper had taken his wife and two children to bear him company--drifted on the South Franklands, 40 miles to the north, and a large portion of the shattered hulk on a reef eastward of Fitzroy Island, 25 miles still farther up the coast. Fate did her worst for the poor MERCHANT, and not yet content, relentlessly pursued two (if not more) of the vessels which sought to recover her cedar, strewn on the treacherous sands of Ramsay Bay. Some of the logs, however, drifted to our quiet coves, and portions remain sound to this day. One more promising and accessible we beachcombed. It provided planks for a punt, besides various articles of furniture, and gave me some most practical homilies on contentment. Having found and duly salvaged that log, it was necessary to cut it up; and then I began to be thankful that pit-sawing was not forced upon me as a profession in the days of inexperienced youth. Pit-sawing is deceptive. It has the appearance of being easy, though not genteel, when others are the toilers, and in the red dust, torn by the polished steel teeth from out the heart of the dull log, do you not "inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia which the musky wings of the zephyrs scatter through the cedared groves of the Hesperides?" Is not that fragrance sufficient compensation for your toil, with the clean red planks profit over and above legitimate earnings? Yet that long saw tugs at our very heart-strings, and you know that to get a real, not merely sentimental, liking for the craft of the sawyer, you must take to it very young, before the possibilities of other occupations and pastimes have distorted your genius. This worthy lesson comes from the gentle art of Beachcombing. Again, a German barque, driven out of its course, found unexpectedly a detached portion of the Great Barrier Reef 200 miles away to the south. When the south-easters came, they pounded away so vigorously with the heavy runs of the sea that in a brief space nothing was left of the big ship save some distorted fragments of iron jammed in among the nigger-heads of coral and the crevices of the rocks. A few weeks after, portions of the wreck were deposited on Dunk Island, and the beach of the mainland for miles was strewn with timber. That wreck was the greatest favour bestowed me in my profession of Beachcomber. Long and heavy pieces of angle-iron came bolted to raft-like sections of the deck; various kinds of timber proved useful in a variety of ways. What? was I to leave it all, unclaimed and unregarded--in excess of morality and modesty--on the beach, to be honey-combed by white ants or to rot? or to honestly own up to that sentiment which is the most human of all? Without affectation or apology, I confess that I was overjoyed--that my instincts, pregnant with original sin, received a most delightful fillip. I wallowed for the time being in the luxury of beachcombing. Upon sober reflection, I cannot say that I am of one mind with the pastor of the Shetland Isles who never omitted this petition from his long prayer--"Lord, if it be Thy holy will to send shipwrecks, do not forget our island"; nor yet with the Breton fishermen, who to this day are of opinion that wreckage is the gift of God, and who therefore take everything that comes in a reverential spirit, as a Divine favour, whether casks of wine or bales of merchandise. But, after all, who am I that I should claim a finer shade of morality than those, with their sturdy widespread hands and perpetual blessing? My inherent powers of resistance to such temptations as the winds and tides of Providence put in their way have never been subject to proof. Does virtue go by default where there is no opportunity to be otherwise than virtuous? The very first pipe of port, or aum of Rhenish, or bale of silk, which comes rolling along may wrestle with my morality and so wrench and twist it as to incapacitate it for ordinary usage for months, or may even permanently disable it. And must not I, venturing to regard myself as a truthful historian, frankly admit a sense allied to disappointment when the white blazing beaches are destitute of the most trivial of temptations? No, the grating of the battered barque, upon which many a wet and weary steersman had stood, now fulfils placid duty as a front gate. No more to be trampled and stamped upon with shifty, sloppy feet--no more to be scrubbed and scored with sand and holystone; painted white, it creaks gratefully every time it swings--the symbol of security, the first outward and visible sign of home, the guardian of the sacred rights of private property, the embodiment of the exclusive. Better so than lying inert under foot on the deck of the barque thrashing through the cold grey seas of the Baltic, or scudding before the unscrupulous billows of Biscay. Moreover, what notable and precise information this derelict timber gave as to the strength and direction of ocean currents. The wreck took place on the 26th October 1900 in 18 deg. 43 min. S. lat., 147 deg. 57 min. E. long., 72 1/2 miles in a direct line from the port of Townsville, and about 200 miles from Dunk Island. She broke up, after a11 the cargo had been salvaged, early in January 1901, and on Tuesday, 5th February, at 10 a.m., the seas landed the first of the broken planks in Brammo Bay. Then for a few days the arrivals were continuous. For over 50 miles along the coast the wreckage was scattered, very little going farther north. Nothing goes south on this part of the coast. Yes, there is one exception during my experience. A veritable cataclysm coincided with a stiff north-easterly breeze, and hundreds of bunches of bananas from plantations on the banks of the Johnstone River--25 miles away--landing-stages and steps, and the beacons from the mouth of the river, drifted south. Most of the more buoyant debris, however, took the next tide back in the direction whence came. When there are eight or ten islands and islets within an afternoon's sail, and miles of mainland beach to police, variety lends her charms to the pursuit of the Beachcomber. Landing in one of the unfrequented coves, he knows not what the winds and the tides may have spread out for inspection and acceptance. Perhaps only an odd coco-nut from the Solomon Islands, its husk riddled by cobra and zoned with barnacles. The germ of life may yet be there. To plant the nut above high-water mark is an obvious duty. Perhaps there is a paddle, with rude tracery on the handle, from the New Hebrides, part of a Fijian canoe that has been bundled over the Barrier, a wooden spoon such as Kanakas use, or the dusky globe of an incandescent lamp that has glowed out its life in the state-room of some ocean liner, or a broom of Japanese make, a coal-basket, a "fender," a tiger nautilus shell, an oar or a rudder, a tiller, a bottle cast away fat out from land to determine the strength and direction of ocean currents, the spinnaker boom of a yacht, the jib-boom of a staunch cutter. Once there was a goodly hammer cemented by the head fast upright on a flat rock, and again the stand of a grindstone, and a trestle, high and elaborately stayed. Cases, invariably and disappointingly empty, come and go, planks of strange timber, blocks from some tall ship. A huge black beacon waddled along, dragging a reluctant mass of iron at the end of its chain cable, followed by a roughly-built "flatty" and a huge log of silkwood. A jolly red buoy, weary of the formality of bowing to the swell, broke loose from a sandbank's apron-strings, bounced off in the ecstasies of liberty, romped in the surf, rolled on the beach, worked a cosy bed in the soft warm sand, and has slumbered ever since to the soothing hum of the wind, indifferent to the perplexities of mariners and the fate of ships. The gilded masthead truck of a smart yacht, with one of her cabin racks, bespoke of recent disaster, unknown and unaccounted, and a brand new oar, finished and fitted with the nattiness of a man-o'-war's man, told of some wave-swept deck. That which at the time was the most eloquent message from the sea came close to our door, cast up on the snowy-white coral drift of a little cove, where it immediately attracted notice. Nothing but an untrimmed bamboo staff nearly 30 feet long, carrying an oblong strip of soiled white calico between two such strips of red turkey twill. Tattered and frayed, the flags seemed to tell of the desperate appeal for help of some forlorn castaway; of a human being, marooned on a lonely sandbank on the Barrier, without shelter, food or water, but not altogether bereft of hope. BECHE-DE-MER fishers have in times past been marooned on the Reef by mutinous blacks, and left to die by slow degrees, or to be drowned by the implacable yet merciful tide. A makeshift rudder well worn bespoke strenuous efforts to steer a troubled boat to shelter, but this crude signal staff, deftly arranged, told of present agony and stress. It might have been the emblem of a tragic event that the Beachcomber single-handed was not able to investigate. As a matter of fact, it was only a temporary datum of one of His Majesty's surveying ships engaged in attempting to set the bounds of the Barrier. Rarely do we sail about without enjoying the zest of the chance of getting something for nothing. Not yet has the seaman's chest, brass-bound, with its secret compartments full of "fair rose-nobles and bright moidores," been lighted upon; but who can say? Perhaps it has come ashore but now, after leagues of aimless wanderings, and awaits in some cosy cove the next Beachcombing expedition. That from the ill-fated MERCHANT came hither years before my time, and was, in any case, pathetically unromantic. Peradventure there are many who deem this solitary existence dull? Why, it is brimful of interest and sensation. There are the tragedies of the bush to observe and elucidate; all cannot be foreseen and prevented, or even avenged. A bold falcon the other day swooped down upon a wood-swallow that was imitating the falcon's flight just above my head, and bore it bleeding to a tree-top, while I stood shocked at the audacity of the cannibal. A bullet dropped the murderous bird with its dead victim fast in the talons. There are comedies, too, and you have the wit to see them, and in these Beachcombing expeditions expectation, fairly effervesces. One lucky individual--a mere amateur--casually picked up a black-lip mother-of-pearl shell on an island some little distance away. It contained a blue pearl, the price of which gave him such a start in life, that he is now an owner of ships. May not other tides cast up on other shores other oysters whose lives have been rendered miserable by the presence of pearls? Byron says--"Even an oyster may be crossed in love." Science, more precise and frank than the frankest of poets, tells us that oysters are afflicted with tapeworms, and to kill the germ of these indecent pests, enclose them in untimely tombs, which from the human standpoint are among the most lovely and precious of gems. The assertions of the scientific are often the reverse of poetical. We are constrained to believe them, but like our poetical delusions better, and for the origin of the pearl prefer the quaint fable of the Persians to the unpleasant fact of the zoologist. A drop of water of ineffable purity falls from heaven to the sea, an oyster gapes and swallows it, the drop hardens and ripens, and becomes a pearl; and who is so devoid of the perception of purity, beauty and worth as to despise a pearl? Here about, pearls were found. We delight in them, though they prove the previous existence of a filthy ailment. Any oyster may contain a pearl, a pearl of great price--a thing of beauty, a joy for ever. Every gold-lip, every black-lip oyster, is a chance in a lottery. Was there ever a Beachcomber so pure and elevated of soul as to refuse the chances that Nature proffers gratuitously? My meagre horde includes pearls of several tints, black, pink, and white. They represent the paltriest prizes. in the lottery that no Government, however paternal, may prohibit, being mere "baroque," fit only to be pounded up as medicine for some Chinaman luxuriously sick. Yet there is a chance. Some day the great prize may be drawn. And then, "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?" The Beachcomber may be perverted into--well, the next best on the list. Yet they say in pitiful tones, those who rake among the muck of the streets, "What a dull life! What a hopeless existence! He is out of it all!" Yes, with a gladsome mind, and all its sounds, if not forgotten, at least muffled by music, soft as dawn, profound as the very sea. Kennedy Shoal has been mentioned incidentally. Some miles further north are two bare sandbanks. Prior to the year 1890 they were occupied by a BECHE-DE-MER fisherman, whose headquarters were on the chief of the South Barnard Islands--some 12 or 14 miles to the north. In fateful March of that year a cyclone swooped down on this part of the coast with the pent up fury of a century's restraint. The enormous bloodwood-trees torn out by the roots on Dunk Island testified to the force and ferocity of the storm. The sandbanks, are isolated, dreary spots, the highest portion but 2 or 3 feet above the level reached by spring tides. A cutter--THE DOLPHIN--with a crew of aboriginals, in charge of a couple of Kanakas, was anchored at the shoal, and as the cyclone worked up, the Kanakas decided that the one and only bid for life was to run before it to the mainland. It was a forlorn hope--so forlorn that four or five of the aboriginals declined to take part in it, deeming it safer to trust to the sandbank, which they imagined could never be entirely swept by the besoms of the sea. The cutter fled before the storm, only to capsize in the breakers off the mouth of the Johnstone River. Clinging to the wreck until it drifted a few miles south, the Kanakas and crew battled through the waves and eventually reached the shore. Of those who placed their faith on the sandbank not one was spared. The seas raced over it, pounded and flattened it. The men upon it were unconsidered trifles. The tall and handsome Scandinavian whose fortune thus assailed was at his home with his wife and children and brother. His yacht--THE MAUD--in the height of the storm, began to drag her anchor. He and his brother went out in a dinghy to secure her. At dusk the wife, young, petite and pretty, with strained anxiety watched the efforts of the men to beat back to shelter. Darkness came, blotting out the scene and its climax. Never after was anything seen or heard of the brothers or the yacht. And for nearly a fortnight the disconsolate wife and her little ones were alone on the island. Ten years later, on one of the two bare patches of sand, another BECHE-DE-MER smoke-house was built. While the owner a swarthy Arabian, was out on the reef miles away, a phenomenally high tide occurred. His wife--a comely girl of British descent--was alone on the shoal. She watched the rising water apprehensively, until all the sand was covered save the few feet on which the frail shelter stood. One more ripple and the floor was swamped. Then, wading and swimming, she managed to reach a punt, and so saved her life. Since then these patches of sand have not been regarded as a safe outpost even by those most venturesome of people--BECHE-DE-MER fishers. This is not an apology, but a confession; not a plea of defence, but a justification--a fair and free chronicle, a frank acknowledgment of the tributes of impartial Neptune--Neptune who gives and who takes away--who stealthily filches with tireless fingers, and who, when in the mood, robs so remorselessly, and with such awful, such majestic violence, that it were impious to whimper. Who beachcombed my three rudders, the one toilfully adzed out in one piece from the beautiful heart of a bean-tree log, another cunningly fitted with a sliding fin, and that of red cedar with famous brass mountings? Who owns the pair of ballast tanks once mine? Who the buoy deemed securely moored? Who the paddles and the rowlocks and the signal halyards, lost because of Neptune's whims and violence? Beachcombing is a nicely adjusted, if not quite an exact art. Not once but several times has the libertine Neptune scandalously seduced punts and dinghies from the respectable precincts of Brammo Bay, and having philandered with them for a while, cynically abandoned them with a bump on the mainland beach, and only once has he sent a punt in return--a poor, soiled, tar-besmirched, disorderly waif that was reported to the police and reluctantly claimed. A mind inclined to casuistry, could it not defend Beachcombing? Does not the law recognise it under the definition of trover? Why bother about the law and the moralities when it is all so pleasing, so engrossing, and so fair? The Beachcomber wants no extensive establishment. His possessions need never be mortgaged. The cost of living is measurable by a standard adjustable to individual taste, wants and perceptions. The expenditure of a little manual labour supplies the omissions of and compensates for the undirected impulses which prevail, and the pursuit--not the profession--leads one to ever-varying scenes, to the contemplation of many of the moods of unaffected, unadvertised Nature. Ashore, one dallies luxuriously with time, free from all the restrictions of streets, every precious moment his very own; afloat in these calm and shallow waters there is a never-ending panorama of entertainment. Coral gardens--gardens of the sea nymphs, wherein fancy feigns cool, shy, chaste faces and pliant forms half-revealed among gently swaying robes; a company of porpoise, a herd of dugong; turtle, queer and familiar fish, occasionally the spouting of a great whale, and always the company of swift and graceful birds. Sometimes the whole expansive ocean is as calm as it can only be in the tropics and bordered by the Barrier Reef--a shield of shimmering silver from which the islands stand out as turquoise bosses. Again, it is of cobalt blue, with changing bands of purple and gleaming pink, or of grey blue--the reflection of a sky pallid and tremulous with excess of light. Or myriad hosts of microscopic creatures--the Red Sea owes to the tribe its name--the multitudinous sea dully incarnadine; or the boat rides buoyantly on the shoulders of Neptune's white horses, while funnel-shaped water spouts sway this way and that. Land is always near, and the flotsam and jetsam, do they not supply that smack of excitement--if not the boisterous hope--bereft of which life might seem "always afternoon?" These chronicles are toned from first to last by perceptions which came to the Beachcomber--perceptions which lead, mayhap, to a subdued and sober estimate of the purpose and bearing of the pilgrimage of life. Doubts become exalted and glorified, hopes all rapture, when long serene days are spent alone in the contemplation of the splendours of sky and sea, and the enchantment of tropic shores. TROPICAL INDUSTRIES Was there not an explicit contract that some of the experiences and events of a settler's life should be duly described and recorded? How to fulfil that obligation and at the same time avoid what is ordinarily regarded as the dull and prosaic, the stale, the flat, the unprofitable, is the trouble. I would gladly shirk even this small responsibility, even as greater ones have been outmanoeuvred, but a written promise unfulfilled may be troublesome to a conscience, which, when reminiscent of ante-beachcombing days, is not altogether unimpressionable. Well, the life of a settler--the man who drags his sustenance, all and every part of it, from the soil in tropical Queensland, as a mere settler very closely resembles that of others who cultivate. If an abstract of the universal experience were obtainable, it would very likely be found to go towards the establishment of a standard from which many would cheerfully desire many cheerful changes. After all, that represents a condition not altogether monopolised by settlers. Yet, when once the life is begun, how few there are who attempt to withdraw from it? It grows on the senses and faculties. It appeals to the emotional as well as to the stolid humours. The cares of this world as expounded in town life, and the sinfulness of never-to-be-acquired riches are foreign to the free, bland air which has filtered through the myriad leaves of the mountain, and which smacks so strongly of freedom. Sometimes the settler takes up studies and relieves the sameness of his duties by pastimes. One never went to his maize field, along narrow gloomy aisles through the jungle, without a net for the capture of butterflies. His humble home was as resplendent as the show-cases of a natural history museum. But he was singularly favoured. A lovely waterfall was the jewel on his estate. That was the shape of beauty that moved away the pall from his dark spirit and gave colour to his life and actions. Another took to collecting birds' eggs; another to the study of botany; another to photography. Each wreathed, according to his predilections, a flowery band to bind him to the earth, finding that even the life of a settler may be filled with "sweet dreams, and health and quiet." But the great majority seem to have taken to the scrap heap of Federal politics with such ardour that they clutch but the fag ends of the poetry of life. Many become great readers and are knowing and knowledgeable. Those who drift away from country life are for the most part men who hustle after the coy damsel fortune by searching for minerals, and just as many who have succeeded in that arduous passion settle quietly on the land. Each may and does desire amendments to and amelioration in his lot. There is still left to all the healthy impulse of achievement, the desire for something better, the noble and inspiriting virtue of discontent. Rare is a deserted home. Even the first rough dwelling of a settler possessing the slenderest resources is invested with tender sentiments. There is his home--a poor one, perhaps, but his own, and to it he clings with desperation, sees in and about it attractions and beauty where others perceive nothing but untoned dreariness, unrelieved hopelessness. His little bit of country may be remote and isolated, but Nature is warm and encouraging, and profuse of her stimulants here. She responds off-hand without pausing to reflect, but with an outburst of goodwill and purpose to appeals for sustenance. She has no despondent moods. She never lapses in prolific purposes. She may be wayward in accepting the interferences of man, but all her vigorous impulses are expended in productiveness. She cannot sulk or idle. Kill, burn and destroy her primeval jungle, and she does not give way to sadness and despair, nor are any of her infinite forces abated. Spontaneously she begins the work of restoration, and as if by magic the scar is covered with as rich and riotous a profusion of vegetation as ever. Nature needs only to be restrained and schooled and her response is an abundance of various sorts of food for man. The routine that cultivators of the soil have to obey is diverse, but the life of the dweller in the country in tropical Queensland can be asserted with perfect safety to be more comfortable than that of the average settler in any other part of Australia. There are no phases of agricultural enterprise devoid of toil, save perhaps the growing of vanilla, the very poetry of the oldest of pursuits, in which one has to aid and abet in the loves and in the marriage of flowers. But vanilla production is not one of the profitable branches of agriculture here yet. We have to deal only with things that are at present practicable. Whether the settler grows maize, or fruit or coffee, or as a collateral exercise of industry gets log timber, or raises pigs or poultry, the life has no great variations. If he farms sugar-cane, being resident within the zone of influence of a mill, he belongs to a different order--an order with which it is not intended to deal. My purpose refers only to men who do not employ labour, who have to depend almost solely upon their own hard hands. The conditions upon which the land is acquired demand personal residence during a period of five years and the erection of permanent improvements, such as fencing, thereon, and there are not many who take up a selection who are in the position to pay wages. The selector must do the clearing, and the preparation of the soil for whatever crop in his experience or the experience of others is considered the most remunerative. During this period his love for the particular piece of land by-and-by to become his own begins. More realistically than anyone else he knows the quantity of his energy and enthusiasm, his very life, the land has absorbed. It becomes part of himself even in the early days of toil, and though when in the fulness of time and the completion of conditions he may lease the land to Chinese cultivators, and become a resident landlord, he cannot leave the place even for the attraction of town life, for possibly the rent he receives does not make him independent quite. At any rate he lives on the land. The alien race does the hard work, and takes the greater portion of profit; but he enjoys the luxury of possession, and must make sacrifices accordingly. I am fearful of entering upon a description of the cultivation of maize, or bananas, or citrus fruits, or pineapples, or mangoes, or coffee, or even sweet potatoes, because experience teaches me that others know of all the details in a far more practical sense. Would it not be presumptuous for a mere idler, an individual whose enterprise and industry have been sapped by the insidious nonchalance of the Beachcomber, to tell of practical details of cultural pursuits--the enthusiasm, the disappointments, the glowing anticipations, the realisation of inflexible facts, the plain emphatic truths which others have reason to know ever so much more keenly? But it may be forgiven if I generalise and say that the minor departments of rural enterprise in North Queensland are in a peculiar stage--a stage of transition and uncertainty. Coloured labour has been depended upon to a large extent. Even the poorest settler has had the aid of aboriginals. But with the passing of that race, and prohibition against the employment of any sort of coloured labour, the question is to be asked, Can tropical products be grown profitably unless consumers are willing to pay a largely increased price--a price equivalent to the difference between the earnings of those who toil in other tropical countries and the living wage of a white man in Australia? Fruit of many acceptable varieties can be grown to perfection with little labour in immense quantities. Coffee is one of the most prolific of crops. Timber is obtainable in magnificent assortment and unrealisable quantities. Poultry and pigs multiply extraordinarily. Apart from bananas the fruit trade is shifty and treacherous. The markets are far away and inconstant, the means of transport not yet perfect. Many assert that not half the pine-apples and oranges, and not one-hundredth part of the mangoes produced in North Queensland are consumed. That the quantity grown is trivial in comparison with what would be, were the demand regular and consistent, is self-evident. We want population to eat our produce, and then there will be no complaint. In the case of coffee a plentiful supply of cheap labour is essential to success. Those who by judicious treatment of the aboriginals command their services have so far made profit. A coffee plantation suggests pleasant, picturesque and spicy things. The orderly lines of the plants, in glossy green adorned for a brief space with white, frail, fugitive flowers distilling a deliciously sweet and grateful odour, the branches crowded with gleaming berries, green, pink and red, present pleasing aspect. As a change to the scenery of the jungle, a coffee estate has a garden-like relief. But picking berry by berry is slow and monotonous work, vexatious, too, to those mortals whose skin is sensitive to the attacks of green ants. Then comes the various processes of the removal of the pulp, first by machinery, finally by the fermentation of the still adhering slimy residuum; then the drying and saving by exposure to the sun on trays or on tarpaulins until all moisture is expelled; and the hulling which disintegrates the parchment from the twin berries; then winnowing, and finally the polishing. Do drinkers of the fragrant and exhilarating beverage realise the amount of labour and care involved before the crop is taken off and preserved from deterioration and decay? A few berries that may have become mildewed during the slow, tedious and anxious process of drying in the sun, may violate the delicate flavour and aroma which the grower has been at pains to secure and fix. In coffee it is as with many other features of rural life in Australia. The men who undertake the production are for the most part those who have gained their knowledge by personal experience on the spot. Reading and the advice of experts who have graduated in countries where climatic conditions are diverse and where the labour is cheap, yet skilled by reason of generation after generation of occupation in it, do not complete necessary knowledge. Problems have to be faced that have no theoretical nor official solution, and blunders paid for, until by the process of the elimination of mistakes the right way is discovered. Losses mount up until either patience and means are exhausted, or success crowns the application of intelligent enterprise. Then, when the coffee planter, self-taught, in each and all of the departments of culture and preparation, glories in the assurance of his capabilities to offer to the world an article of indubitable character, he discovers that the vulgar world, for the most part, prefers its coffee duly adulterated; indeed has become so warped and perverted in perception that the pure and undefiled article is looked upon with suspicion and distaste. Its flavour and aroma are quite foreign to the ordinary coffee drinker. The contaminated beverage is regarded as pure, and the genuine article is soundly condemned as an imposition, and the seller of it is liable to be accused of fraud. It is in a similar position to the good grape brandy which Victorians produce, and which drinkers of some imported stuff (described as one part cognac and three parts silent spirit) fail to recognise as real brandy. If coffee is not muddy and thick and does not possess a mawkish twang of liquorice, it is suspected. The delicate aromatic flavour, the fragrant odour, the genial and stimulant effects are now almost unknown, except in limited circles. North Queensland is capable of growing far more than sufficient coffee for the Commonwealth, but coffee is not a popular Australian beverage, and as it entirely loses its specific balsam and identity under the manipulation of manufacturers, it cannot get the chance of becoming popular. Australian wines, Australian spirits and Australian coffee might well be the popular beverages of Australians. But preference is given to foreign importations, of the genuineness of some of which there are strong grounds for suspicion; or in the case of coffee its elements are so disguised by adulteration that a revolution in public taste must take place before it can possibly find general favour. But there are other branches of tropical agriculture to which the settler may devote himself. Rubber offers belated fortune. Cotton, rice, tobacco and fibre--plants flourish exceedingly, and in the production of ginger and some sort of spices and medicinal gums, profit may be possible. The manufacture of manilla rope from the fibre of the easily cultivated MUSA TEXTILIS may be a remunerative industry. It is amply demonstrated that butter quite up to the standard of exportation is to be manufactured in tropical Queensland. No one need starve or pine for lack of wholesome appetising and nutritious food while the banana grows as it does in North Queensland, and common as it is, the banana is one of the curiosities of the vegetable world. One writer says: "It is not a tree, a palm, a bush, a vegetable, nor a herb; it is simply a herbaceous plant with the stature of tree, and is perennial." He adds that the fruit contains no seed, though he qualifies the latter statement by remarking that he has heard of fully developed seeds occasionally appearing in the cultivated fruit "when left to ripen on the tree," and further that wild varieties of the banana which propagate themselves by seed are reported to be found in some parts of Eastern Asia. A high botanical authority includes in his description of the species indigenous to Queensland, "Fruit oblong, succulent, indehiscent; seed numerous; tree-like herbs. Herbs with perennial rhizome." There are three if not more species of bananas native to Queensland, and they form a conspicuous feature of the jungle. With remarkable rapidity one of the species shoots up a ruddy symmetrical, slightly tapering stem--smooth and polished where the old leaf-sheaths have been shed--to a height of 20 and 30 feet, producing leaves 15 feet long and 2 feet broad, small and crude flowers, and bunches of dwarf fruit containing little but shot-like seeds. The energy of these plants seems to be concentrated in the production of an elegant and proud form, the fruit being a mere afterthought. But the effect of the broad pale green leaves, even when frayed and ragged at the edges in and among the dark entanglement of the jungle is so fine that the absence of edible fruit may be almost forgiven. In the most popular of the cultivated varieties, the far famed MUSA CAVENDISHII, there is little of graceful form, save the broad leaves mottled with brown. All the vitality of the plant is expended in astonishing results. A comparatively lowly plant, its productions in suitable soil are prodigious. In nine or ten months after the planting of the rhizome, it bears under favourable conditions a bunch weighing as much as 120 lb. to 160 lb. and comprising as many as forty-eight dozen individual bananas. So great is the weight that to prevent the downfall of the plant a stake sharpened at each end--one to stick in the ground and the other into the soft stem--is needed to buttress it. Before the fruit has fully developed, other shoots have appeared; but each plant bears but one bunch, and when that is removed the plant is decapitated and slowly decays, and the second and third and fourth shoots from the rhizome successively arrive at the bearing stage and are permitted to mature each its bunch and then fated to suffer immediate decapitation. And so the process goes on for five or seven years, by which time the vigour of the soil has been exhausted, and moreover the rhizomes, originally planted about a foot deep, have grown up to the surface, and are no longer capable of supporting a plant upright. Then a fresh planting of rhizomes elsewhere takes place. It must not be thought that the banana defertilises the soil. Phenomenal crops of sugar cane are produced on a "banana-sick" land. A traveller relating his tropical experiences glorifies the banana, stating that he has eaten it "ripe and luscious from the tree!" In North Queensland bananas ripening on the plant frequently split, and seldom attain perfect flavour. The ripening process takes place after the fully developed bunch is removed and hung up in a cool, shady, well-aired locality. Then the fruit acquires its true lusciousness and aroma. Other climes, other results, perhaps; but a banana, "ripe and luscious from the tree," is not generally expected in North Queensland. The fruit may mature until it falls to the ground, yellow and soft, yet lack that delicate finish, that benign essential, the craft of man bestows. It would seem that the plant has been cultivated for so long a period that it has become dependent upon man not only for its existence but for the excellence of its crowning effort. An abandoned banana grove soon disappears, for although seeds are undoubtedly produced, the occasions are so rare that the reproduction of the cultivated varieties depends solely upon the rhizome, and these very speedily deteriorate if neglected. Another feature of the banana, of which man takes full advantage, is that though the bunch be removed before the fruit is matured as to size, the ripening process proceeds, just as though there had been no untimely interference. The bananas may be small, but will, as a rule, be almost as sweetly flavoured as those allowed to develop on the plant. Yet the superfine aesthetic essence is not for the delight of those to whom the fruit is tendered after it has undergone a sea voyage. Let there be no misunderstanding with respect to the desirableness of the coastal tract of North Queensland as a territory capable of supporting a large, prosperous and healthful population. It is no part of the present purpose to extol the mineral or the pastoral districts. They lie apart. But in North Queensland agriculture is almost solely confined to the coast and is essentially tropical. The tropics represent that portion of the earth's surface wherein man may live with the minimum of exertion, where actual wants are few, and wherein ample comforts may be enjoyed by those who seek them with a quiet mind and easy understanding. Although the question may be perhaps beyond proof, it might be safely asserted that a larger proportion of men of the yeomen class, represented by those who have succeeded in tropical agriculture in North Queensland, are independent to-day, than of the men in Victoria and New South Wales, who devoted their energies to sheep-farming, wheat-growing and dairying. Out of the comparatively few sugar-cane farmers in North Queensland, a considerable percentage have acquired independence, and many wealth. Few have failed. Fortunes have been made and are being made out of sugar lands; immense profits have been earned and are being earned in the production of bananas, and from other easily grown tropical fruits, good incomes are realised. When private enterprise invests many thousands of pounds in the building of jetties and tram-lines to facilitate the shipment of fruit, evidence in support of these statements is unnecessary. The prosperity of the farmer and fruit-grower in North Queensland does not unhaply depend upon himself, but upon the existence of large populations within reasonable range. Land of unsurpassed fertility and meteorological conditions which represent perfection for the growth of all fruits, ranging from the tomato to the mango, and, with few exceptions, all the commoner as well as all the more delicate, but none the less desirable vegetables are the heritage of the people. If the coast of North Queensland does not in a few years support a large, well-to-do, lusty, and therefore contented population, it will not be because of the lack of any of the essentials, but because the population has failed elsewhere, and that consequently there is no demand for the easily grown fruits of the earth. Each and all of the branches of cultured industry mentioned (with the exception of the growth of sugar-cane) were at disposal for trial here. Soil, climate and aspect are extremely favourable when not approaching absolute perfection, while the advantages of direct communication with the markets are unique. But my disposition, "that rash humour which my mother gave," impelled me to disregard all the encouraging prospects of fortune, and to easily tolerate circumstances and conditions under which few would remain content. True it is that some few acres of jungle have been cleared and various sorts of fruit-trees planted, that corn and potatoes are grown, and that there are evidences of work; but no one is better qualified than I to realise the insignificance of the results of my labours in comparison with what they might have been, had the accomplishment of them been undertaken with harder hands and more determined purpose. SOME DIFFERENCES "The weather may be extremely fine; but not without such varieties as shall hinder it from being tiresome." What higher or better reward could be desired than the reflection that one had attempted to assist in the dispersion of the mists of ignorance which obscure some of the aspects of the land of his adoption? Australia is vast and of infinite variety. The efforts of an individual isolated by remoteness and the sea, must necessarily be circumscribed. No Australian is able to affirm that his knowledge of the country is entirely satisfactory to himself. There are some points upon which the best informed stand to the correction of others whose general knowledge may be admittedly inadequate. We who are scattered about in odd and out-of-the-way corners, pick up in the school of experience scraps of local knowledge, and may without presumption present them to others to confirm and to conjure with. The term "Australia" as generally used ignores most of the continent out of sight of Melbourne and Sydney, though both Victoria and New South Wales could be stowed away in little more than half the area of Queensland. Do we reflect that Australia includes some of the driest tracts in the world, as well as areas in which the rainfall approaches the phenomenal--that not very much more than half of the territory of the Commonwealth lies within the temperate zone--that there are as marked differences between Tasmania and North Queensland as between the South of England and Ceylon? That the one is the land of the potato, apple, apricot, cherry, strawberry and blackberry, and the other the land of sugar-cane, coffee, the pine-apple, mango, vanilla and cocoa; that though there exist no imposing geographical boundaries, such as chains of lofty mountains or great rivers to emphasise climatic distinctions, these distinctions nevertheless exist, and that they imply special policies on the parts of Government and Administrations. Do we realise that the voice of the tropic half of Australia is drowned in the torrent of the temperate? It may be possible to misrepresent opinions and to obscure the fair view of things, to defeat aspirations; but are we to be denied the right of being heard and of explaining ourselves. Politicians to whose loud and profane voices electors listen, have declared that North Queensland shall become a desolate and silent wilderness, rather than that their views shall be gainsaid. Do such as these reflect that North Queensland is a fruitful country, capable of producing food and immense wealth, and giving employment to millions, and that other nations will not stand idly by and see the worth of so much land wasted because of the vanity of men who do not, and who apparently will not, endeavour to comprehend the magnificence of its extent and the width of its capabilities. The world is not so vast that any part of it--still less a part so situated and so highly favoured as this--can be left unpeopled. If not peopled by Australians or those of British blood, it will assuredly be by people for whom the average Australian entertains but scant respect. Australians cannot with justice complain when the good old folks at home blunder in their geography and perceptions, the while that so much local misapprehension prevails. Error was ingrained in the youthful days of middle-aged Australians. Their school-books told them in swinging rhyme that they lived in a world of undiscovered souls, that 'twas Heaven's decree to have these lost souls brought forth; that man should assert his dignity and not allow "brutes" to look upon him. Discoveries are still being made. Heaven's decree is replaced by the decree of wild talkers, the dignity of man is found to be the vanity of a paid politician, and but few of the "brutes" of Australia are left to look down upon anything. But there are some of saving grace who frankly acknowledge shame upon finding how little they really know of their native country. Young Australians were once taught that Australian trees cast no shade--that the edges of the leaves were presented to the sun to avoid the heat of the cruel luminary; that Australian flowers had no scent, and Australian birds no song; that the stones of Australian cherries grew on the outside of the fruit, that the bees had no sting, and that the dogs did not bark. In those days a gentleman with a military title improved upon the then popular list of contradictions by asserting that in Australia the compass points to the south, the valleys are cold, the mountain-tops warm, the eagles are white, and so on. Many accordingly took their natural science as "Tomlinson" did his God--from a printed book--and that compiled in England. Until they began to investigate they were puzzled by contradictions. The first prompt bee-bite--there are many varieties of Australian bees, some pugnacious and pungent--diverted attention from the school-book romances. It was discovered that thousands of square miles of Australian soil never catch glimpses of the sun in consequence of the impenetrableness of the shade of Australian trees; that the scent of the wattles, the eucalypts, the boronias, the hoyas, the gardenias, the lotus, etc., etc., are among the sweetest and cleanest, most powerful and most varied in the world; that many of the birds of Australia have songs full of melody; that the so-called Australian cherry is no more a cherry than an acorn; that the Australian dog (though "the only true wild dog in the world") is deemed to be a comparatively recent introduction--a new chum of Asiatic origin who entered the glorious constellation of the State something before the era of exclusive legislation--so naturally he does not bark, for barking is an evidence of civilisation; but he soon learns the universal language of the dog. Many years ago most of this gross and superficial ignorance was brushed away here, though now and again evidence crops up that a good deal yet adheres in the old country. Australian school-books of the present day contain so much that is grossly false and misleading of the natural conditions of certain portions of the Commonwealth as to leave no room to doubt the present duty. We are continually making mutually beneficial discoveries, and may it be granted these efforts be blessed with happy purpose. All is not known yet even in Australia. The number of "observers" who believe that snakes swallow their young in time of danger, and allow them to emerge when it is past, and that the end of the death adder to avoid is the tail, which is fitted with a slightly curved spur, become fewer every year; but we are still sincere in many of the honourable points of ignorance. Some discredit such facts as climbing fish, oysters "growing" on living trees, birds hatching eggs without sitting on them, egg-laying mammals and mammals producing young from eggs within their bodies, plants that sow the seed of continents to be--yet these facts are of everyday occurrence here. As to climate, will general credence be given to the statement that Dunk Island is more "temperate" than Melbourne? We experience neither the extreme heat nor the extreme cold of the metropolis of Victoria--nearly 2000 miles to the south; we have four or five times the volume of rain, yet a greater number of fine days--days without rain. The general principle that where the rainy days are fewest the amount of rain is greatest, is apt to be forgotten. During 1903 the rainfall of Dunk Island amounted to 153 inches. What is meant (to follow the phrase of Huxley) when one says in technical language that the rainfall of a place was 153 inches for a certain year? Such a statement means simply that if all the rain which fell on any level piece of ground in that place could be collected--none being lost by drying up, none running off the soil and none soaking into it--then at the end of the year it would form a layer covering that piece of ground to the uniform depth of 12 feet 9 inches! An inch of rain signifies 114 tons, or 27,000 gallons per acre! Let me repeat that in 1903 the rainfall here totalled 153 inches. During the same period the mean rainfall of the State of Victoria was 27.36 inches. In one locality, reputed to be the wettest, 42.11 inches were registered, and occasioned no little surprise. In another Australian state, among the natural advantages of land offered for close settlement, was catalogued an annual rainfall of 18 inches; in another an official inducement of an average rainfall of 27 inches was offered, in yet another 24 inches, with a not too shrewd note that 15 inches of rain was ample. Some of the denizens of a dry area in Victoria find it hard to credit the simple facts recorded by my rain-gauge. The rainfall for the month of January 1903, on Dunk Island was 26.60 inches, only 0.76 inches short of the mean for the whole year in Victoria, and more than twice the quantity that blessed the thirsty soil in some parts of Queensland. The total rainfall of the wettest locality in Victoria was 42.11 inches. Here the month of March alone gave 44.90 inches. At Thargomindah (South-Western Queensland) 11.37 inches were registered for 1903, and 9.82 inches for 1904. The two driest months of Dunk Island fell short by a trifle more than 2 inches of the total fall for 1904 for that parched area. At Eulolo (Mid-Western Queensland) 13.68 inches represented the sum of the blessing for 1903, while during 24 hours in December that year the Dunk Island gauge registered just 11 inches, and that quantity was 3 inches more than could he spared for Eulolo for the whole of 1904. During 1904 Cape Otway Forest (Victoria), registered 40.92 inches, Townsville (North Queensland) 26.32 inches, and Dunk Island--only 110 miles from Townsville--94.14 inches. That was a dry year with us. What is known in this neighbourhood as "the drought year" gave just 60 inches. Plants unaccustomed to such hardship, and therefore devoid of inherent powers of resistance, then gave way with pitiful lack of resource, and as speedily recovered on the return of normal conditions. Yet the 60 inches of "the drought year" represented more than twice the average rainfall of London. The average annual rainfall for the State of Victoria during the last thirty years has been 26.68 inches. Townsville (considered to be one of the driest places on the coast of North Queensland) averaged 45.54 inches during the period of thirty-four years. Twenty-five miles further north the rainfall for 1904 exceeded that of Dunk Island by 6 inches more than the average rainfall of the upper basin of the Thames Valley, which is given as 28 inches. Australia is big--there is bigness in our differences. Here in the tropics we have the finer weather--no excess of either heat or cold, no sudden, constitution-shattering changes. At Wood's Point (Victoria) rain fell on 185 days in 1903, and on 166 days in 1904. At Dunk Island rain occurred on 107 days in 1903 and On 92 days in 1904. We had many more days of picnic weather, notwithstanding our overwhelming superiority in quantity of rain. Moreover, in the tropics the bulk of the rain falls after sundown. After a really fine day in the wet season the hours of darkness may account for several inches of rain. Here over 12 inches have been collected between sundown and nine o'clock the following morning. Particular references are confined to seasons three or four years past because recent official data, necessary for enlightening comparisons are not available, but in confirmation of statements concerning the meteorological conditions of the coast of tropical Queensland, the record of rainfall at Dunk Island since 1903 may be quoted: 1904 94.41 inches. 1905 89.06 " First nine months of 1906 134.70 " Of the latter total, 56 inches occurred in February, two days (6th and 18th), accounting for 22.95 inches--more than half the average rainfall of the State of Queensland. An illustration--homely but graphic--of climatic differences may be given. During the first five months of 1904 the rainfall of Dunk Island amounted to 75.15 inches, the lowest monthly record being May (5.30 inches) and the highest March (29.05 inches). At the end of May on the Burdekin Delta--150 miles to the south--the sugarcane was beginning to be affected by the hot, dry weather, and irrigation was about to be resorted to. Here in January it became necessary to repair the roof of the boat-shed, and to keep the ridge covering of paper-bark in position, two long saplings were tied parallel with the ridge pole. At the end of May these saplings were taken down in order that the whole of the thatch might be renovated, when it was found that both had started to grow, several of the shoots being 8 and 10 inches long. While sugarcane was languishing for lack of moisture, 150 miles away down the coast, a roughly-cut sapling exposed on the roof of a building found the conditions for the beginning of a new existence so favourable and stimulative that it had budded as freely as Aaron's rod. "Through the scent of water it had budded and brought forth boughs like a plant." Nearly as much misapprehension prevails in the Southern States of the Commonwealth as to the characteristics of North Queensland as seems to prevail among the good old folks "at home" as to Australia generally. If the few facts presented excite even mild surprise, they will not be altogether out of place in these pages. Dunk Island has a mean temperature of about 69 deg.; January is the hottest month with a mean of 87 deg, and July the coolest, mean 57 deg. Taking the official readings of Cardwell (20 miles to the south), I find the greatest extremes on record occurred in one year, when the highest temperature was 103.3 deg. and the lowest 36.2 deg. At Geraldton (25 miles to the north) the extremes were 96 deg. and 43.4 deg. Rainfall and temperature, the proportion of clear to cloudy skies, calms, the direction, strength and the duration of winds, do not wholly comprehend distinctive climatic features. There are other conditions of more or less character and note, some hard to define, yet ever present. Here the air is warm and soothing, seldom is it crisp and never really bracing. Hot dry winds are unknown, but in the height of the wet season--which coincides with the dry season of the Southern States--the moisture-laden air may be likened to the vapour of a steam bath. While the rain thunders on the roof at the rate of an inch per hour, inside the house it may be perspiringly hot. After a fortnight's rain the damp saturates everything. Neglected boots and shoes grow a rich crop of mould, guns demand constant attention to prevent rust, and clothes packed tight in chests of drawers smell and feel damp. But the atmosphere is so wholesome that ordinary precautions for the prevention of sickness are generally neglected without any fear of ill consequence. However sharply defined by reason of the personal discomfort it inflicts, this steamy feature of the wet season is no more a general characteristic than the hot winds are of Victoria. Warm as the rains are, they bring to the air coolness and refreshment. Clear, calm, bright days, days of even and not high temperature, and of pure delight, dovetail with the hot and steamy ones. The prolifigacy of vegetation is a perpetual marvel; the loveliness of the land, the ineffable purity of the sky, the glorious tints of the sea--green and gold at sunrise, silvery blue at noon, purple pink and lilac during the all too brief twilight, a perpetual feast. For six months it may be said the prevailing wind is the south-east, followed by gentle breezes from the east and north-east. North-easters begin in September and are intermittent until the beginning of the wet season. The south-east monsoons are regular and consistent; the north-east, which precede the rainy monsoon, fitful and wayward, never continuing long in one stay, and lasting but four out of the twelve months. Rare is the wind from the west, rarer from the south-west. North-easters are a pronounced feature. They work up by diurnal and easy grades from gentleness to strength, thunder coming as a climax. After a succession of calm days and days of gentle breezes from the east-south-east and east, the north-easter begins softly, and daily gathers courage and assumption, to find in the course of a week or two its haughty spirit subdued by thunder and rain showers. Calms prevail for a few days. Easterly breezes come, to give way to the north-east again, and so the programme is repeated with variations which none may foresee, and which set at naught the lengthiest experience. At last, at Christmas or the New Year, the rains come with a boisterous beginning. A north-easter accompanied by thunder lasted a whole July afternoon. It was as strange as a crop of mangoes would have been at that time of year. During the cool season--a generous half of the year--dews are common--not the trivial barely perceptible moisture called dew in some parts, but most ungentle dew, which saturates everything and drips from the under sides of verandahs as the sun warms the air; dew which bows the grass with its weight, soaks through your dungarees to the hips, and soddens your thick bluchers, until you feel and appear as though you had waded through a swamp; dew which releases the prisoned odour of flowers irresponsive to the heat of the sun, which keeps the night cool and sweet, which with the first gleam of the sun makes the air soft and spicy and buoyant, and inspires thankfulness for the joy of life. Are we not all apt to fall into the error of estimating the character of a country by its extravagances rather than its average and general qualities? North Queensland has the reputation of being the home of malaria and the special sport of any cyclone that may have mischief in view. Being tropical, we have malaria, but it is of no more serious consequence than any one of the ills to which human flesh is heir in temperate climes. It does not exact such a toll of suffering and death as influenza, nor as typhoid used to do in crowded cities; nor is it as common as rheumatism in damp and blustering New Zealand, where the thermometer ranges from 100 deg. in the shade to 24 deg. of frost. Malaria touches us lightly, and it is chosen as a bugbear with which to scare people away. A southern critic, honestly pitiful of our ill state, urges that the experiment of destroying those mosquitoes which disseminate the germ of malaria, by sealing up lagoons and swamps with kerosene, is worthy the attention of town and country residents in tropical Queensland, "where attacks of malaria are felt every summer." Mere idle words of pernicious consequence. Many a wretch who has done less mischief than "these utterers of forged tales, coiners of scandal and clippers of reputation," has had his liberty restricted. But a small and an annually lessening proportion of our population suffers from malaria, and yet all have the renown of an annual attack! In that case the writer ought to have had twenty-five attacks, and thousands of others, lusty and toneful fellows, forty and forty-five attacks. With as much claim upon reason might one say that because of the sudden jerks of their climate (40 deg. of difference within twelve hours) all Victorians have to make three changes of raiment every day in order to avoid ill consequences; or that every man, woman and child in merry England has had instead of expects or dreads or hopes to have appendicitis, since King Edward the Peacemaker suffered, and renown came upon that disorder. Malaria is fleeing before civilisation. It cannot--at any rate in North Queensland--long endure the presence of the white man. Unfeigned pity is bestowed upon the denizens of North Queensland on account of the pains and penalties and discomforts alleged to be the sentence of all who dare select it as home. We who know can but smile and wait; and ever call call to mind pleasant and happy experiences, everlasting truths and "the falsehood of extremes." Even in the matter of cyclones--often quoted as one of its detriments--North Queensland has nothing to hide. At intervals Nature does indulge in a reckless and violent outburst, but not more frequently here than in other parts of the world. Year after year the seasons are passive and pleasant, and in every respect considerate of humanity and encouraging to humanity's undertakings. Then, abandoning for a few hours her orderly and kindly ways, Nature runs amok, raving and shrieking. Her transient irresponsibleness and mischievousness are then cited as everyday, persistent vices. Not so. Nature is rational even in her most passionate moments. Vegetation, rank and gross as in an unweeded garden, requires vigorous lopping and pruning. These twenty-year-interval storms comb out superfluous leaves and branches, cut out dead wood, send to the ground decayed and weakly shoots, and scrub and cleanse trunks and branches of parasitic growths. All is done boldly, yet with such skill that in a few weeks losses are hidden under masses of clean, insectless, healthy, bright foliage. The soil has received a luxurious top-dressing. Trees and plants respond to the stimulus with magical vigour, for lazy, slumbering forces have been roused into efforts so splendid that the realism of tropical vegetation is to be appreciated only after Nature has swept and sweetened her garden. A more vivid and more idealised medium than the poor one which with diffidence I employ were essential if entertainment alone were sought in these pages; but even faint and imperfect etching of one Australian scene, little known even to Australians, may in some degree tend to enlightenment. Many have told of the thin forests of Queensland, the open plains, and the interminable downs whereon the mirage plays with the fancies of wayfarers; and of the dust, heat and sweat of cattle stations. Has not the "Never Never Country" inspired many a traveller and more than one poet? It is well to realise that we have such bountiful land, and to be proud of the men capable of investing its vastness, monotony and prosaic wealth with poetic imagery. Is it not also wise to remember now aagain that Queensland possesses two types of tropical climate, accentuated by boundaries having far great significance than those which divide tropical from temperate Australia, and worlds apart in their distinctions? Is not the land of the banana, the palm and the cedar, entitled to recognition, as well as the land of the gidyea, the boree, and the bottle-tree? Who has yet said or sung of the mystery of the half-lit jungles of our coast, in contrast to the vivid boldness of the sun-sought, shadeless western plains; of our green, moist mountains, seamed with gloomy ravines, the sources of perennial streams; of the vast fertile lowlands in which the republic of vegetation is as an unruly, ungoverned mob, clamouring for topmost places in unrestrained excess of energy; of still lagoons, where the sacred pink lotus and the blue and white water-lily are rivals in grace of form, in tint and in perfume? If I am successful in convincing that North Queensland is neither a burning fiery furnace nor yet a sweltering steamy swamp; that the country is not completely saturated with malaria; that there are vast areas which no drought can tinge with grey or brown, where there are never-failing streams, where cool fresh water trickles among the shale and shattered coral on the beaches, where sweet-voiced birds sport and resplendent butterflies flicker, then these writings will have been to some purpose. ISLAND FAUNA While the bird life of our island is plentiful and varied, mammalian is insignificant in number. The echidna, two species of rats, a flying fox (PTEROPUS FUNEREUS) and two bats, comprise the list. Although across a narrow channel marsupials are plentiful, there is no representative of that typical Australian order here, and the Dunk Island blacks have no legends of the existence of either kangaroos, wallabies, kangaroo rats or bandicoots in times past. But there are circumstantial details extant, that the island of Timana was an outpost of the wallaby until quite a recent date. A gin (the last female native of Dunk Island) who died in 1900 was wont to tell of the final battue at Timana, and the feast that followed, in which she took part as a child. This island, which has an area of about 20 acres, bears a resemblance to a jockey's cap--the sand spit towards the setting sun forming the peak, a precipice covered with scrub and jungle, the back. Here, long ago, a great gathering from the neighbouring islands and the mainland took place. Early in the morning all formed up in line on the sand spit. Diverging, but maintaining order, men, gins, piccaninnies, shouting, yelling, and screaming, and clashing nulla-nullas (throwing-sticks), supported by barking and yelping dogs swept the timid wallabies up through the tangle of jungle, until like the Gaderene swine they ran, or rather hopped, down a steep place into the sea, or fell on fatal rocks laid bare by the ebb-tide. Those who partook of the last of the wallabies have gone the way of all flesh, and the incident is instructive only as an illustration of the manner in which animals may suddenly disappear from confined localities, leaving no relic of previous existence. Considering the bulk of Dunk Island (3 1/2 square miles), and recognising the rule that islands are necessarily poorer in species than continents, it is yet remarkable that no evidence of marsupials is to be found, and that the oldest blacks maintain that none of the type ever existed here. Though the drawings in caves depict lizards, echidna, turtle and men, there is no representation of kangaroo or wallaby. It is highly probable that if such had been common, the black artists would have chosen them as subjects, since nearly all their studies are from Nature. The largest and heaviest four-footed creature now existent on Dunk Island is the so-called porcupine (spiny ant-eater or echidna). An animal which possesses some of the features of the hedgehog of old England, and resembles in others that distinctly Australian paradox, the platypus, which has a mouth which it cannot open--a mere tube through which the tongue is thrust, which in the production of its young combines the hatching of an egg as of a bird, with the suckling of a mammal, and which also has some of the characteristics of a reptile, cannot fail to be an interesting object to every student of the marvels of Nature. When disturbed, the echidna resolves itself into a ball, tucking its long snout between its forelegs, and packing its barely perceptible tail close between the hind ones, presenting an array of menacing prickles whencesoever attacked. While in this ball-like posture, the animal, as chance affords, digs with its short strong legs and steel-like claws, tearing asunder roots, and casting aside stones, and the ease and rapidity with which it disappears in soft soil are astonishing. The horrific array of prickles presented as it digs an undignified retreat, and the tenacity with which it holds the ground, have given rise to the fiction that no dog is capable of killing an echidna. No ordinary dog is. He must be cunning, daring, brave, insensible to pain, and resourceful. Then the feat is quite ordinary. Indeed, once the trick is learned, the trouble is to keep the dog from attacking its innocent, useful and most retiring enemy. The echidna has the ill-luck to possess certain subtle qualities, which excite terrific enthusiasm for its destruction on the part of the dog. Either there is an hereditary feud between the dog and the echidna, which the former is bound in honour to push to the last extremity, or else the dog regards the prickly creature as a perpetual affront, or specially created to provide opportunities for displaying fanatic hatred and hostility. No dog of healthy instinct is able to pass an echidna without some sort of an attempt upon its life. The long tubular nose of the echidna is the vital spot. This is guarded with such shrewdness and determination as to be impregnable. But the dog which pursues the proper tactics, and is wily and patient, sooner or later-regardless of the alleged poisonous spur--seizes one of the hind legs, and the conflict quickly comes to an end. By the blacks the echidna, which is known as "Coombee-yan," is placed on the very top of the list of those dainties which the crafty old men reserve for themselves under awe-inspiring penalties. Next in size to the echidna is the white-tipped rat (UROMYS HIRSUTIS?), water-loving, nocturnal in its habits, fierce and destructive. A collateral circumstance revealed absolute proof of its existence, which had previously depended upon vague statements of the blacks. Cutting firewood in the forest one morning, I came across a carpet snake, 12 feet long, laid out and asleep in a series of easy curves, with the sun revealing unexpected beauty in the tints and in the patterns of the skin. Midway of its length was a tell-tale bulge, and before the axe shortened it by a head, I was convinced that here was a serpent that had waylaid and surprised or beguiled a fowl. Post-mortem examination, however, proved once more the unreliability of uncorroborated circumstantial evidence. The snake had done good and friendly service instead of ill, for it had swallowed a white-tailed rat--the only specimen that I have seen on the island. Next comes the little frugivorous rat of russet brown, with a glint of gold on its fur tips. A delicate, graceful creature, nice in its habits, with a plaintive call like the cheep of a chicken; preferring ripe bananas and pine-apple, but consenting to nibble at other fruits, as well as grain. The mother carries her young crouched on her haunches, clinging to her fur apparently with teeth as well as claws, and she manages to scuttle along fairly fast, in spite of her encumbrances. The first that I saw bearing away her family to a place of refuge was deemed to be troubled with some hideous deformity aft, but inspection at close quarters showed how she had converted herself into a novel perambulator. I am told that no other rodent has been observed to carry its young in this fashion. Perhaps the habit has been acquired as a result of insular peculiarities, the animal, unconscious of the way of its kind on the mainland, having invented a style of its own, "ages ahead of the fashion." Mr C. W. de Vis, M.A., of the Queensland Museum, who has considerately examined specimens of this rat, pronounces it to be extraordinary, in that it combines types of three genera--the teeth of the mus, the mammae of the mastacomys and the scales on the tail of the genus UROMYS. In the bestowal of a name he has favoured the latter genus. The animal has been introduced to the scientific world under the title UROMYS BANFIELDI, by Mr de Vis, who, referring to it as "eccentric," says, "The female first sent to us as an example of the species had no young with her, nor were her mammae much in evidence; consequently, the advent of a specimen caught in the act of carrying young was awaited with interest. Fortune at length favoured our correspondent with an opportunity of placing the correctness of his observation beyond question. (A mother with a pair of infants attached to the teats was chloroformed and sent to Brisbane). On arrival, the young were found detached. The conical corrugated nipples are, compared with the size of the animal, very long; one, especially, 20 mm. in length, calls to mind a marsupial teat." By the examination of adult specimens the age at which the young disassociate themselves from the mother has been ascertained. Long after the time of life at which other species of rats are nibbling an independent way through the world, U. BANFIELDI clings resolutely to its parent, obtaining from her its sole sustenance. Not until the "infant" is nearly half the size of the mother does it begin to earn its living and trust to its own means of locomotion. The presence of the echidna in three colours--black, grey, and straw--and two species of rats emphasises the absence of marsupials, unaccountable unless on the theory of extermination by the original inhabitants in the remote past. CHAPTER III BIRDS AND THEIR RIGHTS "As the sweet voice of a bird, Heard by the lander in a lonely isle Moves him to think what kind of bird it is, That sings so delicately clear, and make Conjecture of the plumage and the form." Frankly it must be admitted that the idea of retiring to an island was not spontaneous. It was evolved from a sentimental regard for the welfare of bird and plant life. Having pondered upon the destructive instinct which prevails in mankind, having seen that, though the offences which man commits against the laws of Nature are promptly detected and assuredly punished, they are yet repeated over and over again, and having more pity for the victims of man's heartlessness and folly than regard for the consequences which man suffers in the blows that Nature inflicts as she recoils, the inevitable conclusion was that moral suasion was of little purpose--that there must be more of example than precept. In this particular case how speedy and effective has been the result will be seen later on. Man destroys birds for sport, or in mere wantonness, and the increasing myriads of insect hosts lay such toll upon his crops and the fruit of the earth which by the exercise of high intelligence and noble perseverance he has improved and made plentiful, that the national loss is to be counted by hundreds of thousands. In this, as in all other interferences with natural laws, we blunder unless we reckon "With that Fixed arithmic of the universe, Which meteth good for good, ill for ill, Measure for measure." There may be a sort of satisfaction in the reflection, that for, perhaps, every insectivorous bird wantonly killed, some proportion of its weight in silver has to be paid indirectly by the country. But the satisfaction is of no avail to the dead bird nor to the species, unless the taxpayer feels the smart and becomes indignant. We want to save the lives of the birds, and the silver, then to moralise; not kill the bird and be compelled to spend the silver in destroying insects that the bird would have delighted to consume, and moralise upon the destructiveness of some hitherto insignificant bug or beetle, which has suddenly developed into a national calamity. So it was resolved, as other phases of island life matured, that one of the first ordinances to be proclaimed would be that forbidding interference with birds. That ordinance prevails. Our sea-girt hermitage is a sanctuary for all manner of birds, save those of murderous and cannibalistic instincts. We give all a hearty welcome and make friends of them if possible. During the eight years of our occupancy many shy creatures have become quite bold and familiar; though I am fain to admit, with disappointment, that but slight increases in the species represented have been noticed. Four strange species of terns, which are wont to lay on the bare reef patches of the Barrier, now visit Purtaboi regularly every season, depositing their eggs among those of two other species, which in spite of disturbance by the blacks, year after year refused to abandon the spot. Possibly the fact that a haven of refuge has been established has not been widely promulgated among our friends. Those who are with us or visit us have peace and security, and are for the most part friendly and trustful. Man--the late-comer, the last work, the perfect form--is not always kindly disposed towards the lower orders, though the dominion he exercises over them is absolute. Were not the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the very fish of the sea, given over to his arbitrary authority? Here the interest in birds is mainly protective. The printed law of the land says in ponderous paragraphs all duly numbered and subdivided, that it is unlawful to kill many Queensland birds; and the pains and penalties for disregard thereof, are they not set out in terrifying array? But who cares? Take, for an example, the lovely Gouldian finch. The law makes it an offence to kill the birds, or to take their eggs, or to have them in possession dead or alive. Yet trappers go out into the habitation of the bird and snare them by the thousand. Fifty thousand pairs have been sent away in a single season. Not one tenth of those which twitter so faintly and yet so sweetly to their tiny loves of their own land and their erstwhile freedom, ever live to be gloated over, because of their fatal gift of beauty, in London or on the Continent. A CENSUS While this census ignores several birds of the island as to the identity of which doubt exists in the mind of the compiler, it acknowledges the presence of all permanent residents familiar to him, as well as casual visitors, and those which stay for a few hours or days, as the case may be, for rest or refreshment during migratory flights. Chastened by the half-averted face of irresponsive science, the glowing desire to inflate the list gave way to the crisper sort of satisfaction which is like the joy that cometh in the morning. BIRDS OF PREY White Goshawk ASTUR (LEUCOSPIZA) NOVAE HOLLANDIAE. Goshawk ASTUR APPROXIMANS. Sparrow-Hawk ACCIPITER CIRRHOCEPHALUS. Wedge-tailed Eagle UROAETUS (AQUILA) AUDAX. White-bellied Sea-Eagle HALIAETUS LEUCOGASTER. White-headed Sea-Eagle HALIASTUS GIRRENERA. Kite MILVUS AFFINIS. Black-shouldered Kite ELANUS AXILLARIS. Black-cheeked Falcon FALCO MELANOGENYS. Grey Falcon FALCO HYPOLEUCUS. Black Falcon FALCO SUBNIGER. Kestrel CERCHNEIS (TINNUNCULUS) CENCHROIDES. Fish Hawk or Osprey PANDION LEUCOCEPHALUS. Boobook Owl NINOX BOOBOOK. Rufous Owl NINOX HUMERALIS. Lurid Owl (De Vis) NINOX LURIDA. PERCHING BIRDS Pied Crow-Shrike STREPERA GRACULINA. White-winged Chough CORCORAX MELANORHAMPHUS. Manucode PHONYGAMA (MANUCODIA) GOULDI. Yellow Oriole ORIOLUS FLAVICINCTUS. Yellow-bellied Fig-bird SPHECOTHERES FLAVIVENTRIS. Drongo CHIBIA BRACTEATA. Magpie Lark GRALLINA PICATA. Brown Shrike-Thrush COLLYRIOCINCLA BRUNNEA. White-bellied Cuckoo-Shrike GRAUCALUS HYPOLEUCUS. Little Cuckoo-Shrike GRAUCALUS MENTALIS. Barred Cuckoo-Shrike GRAUCALUS LINEATUS. Caterpillar-cater EDOLIISOMA TENUIROSTRE (JARDINII). Pied Caterpillar-eater LALAGE LEUCOMELAENA. Northern Fantail RHIPIDURA SETOSA (ISURA). Ruffis-fronted Fantail RHIFIDURA RUFIFRONS. Black and White Fantail RHIPIDURA (SAULOPROCTA) TRICOLOR (MOTACILLOIDES). Leaden Fly-catcher MYIAGRA RUBECULA (PLUMBEA). Blue Fly-catcher MYIAGRA CONCINNA. Pied Fly-catcher ARSES KAUPI. Shining Fly-catcher PIEZORHYNCHUS NITIDUS. White-eared Fly-catcher PIEZORHYNCHUS LEUCOTIS. Spectacled Fly-catcher PIEZORHYNCHUS GOULDI. Black-faced Fly-catcher MONARCHA MELANOPSIS (CARINATA). Tawny Grass-Bird MEGALURUS GALACTOTES. Rufous-breasted Thickhead PACHYCEPHALA RUFIVENTRIS. Sun-bird CINNYRIS (NECTARINIA) FRENATA. Dusky Honey-eater MYZOMELA OBSCURA. Yellow White-eye ZOSTEROPS LUTEA. Varied Honey-cater PTILOTIS VERSICOLOR. Fasciated Honey-eater PTILOTIS FASCIOGULARIS. Yellow-tinted Honey-eater PLILOTIS FLAVA. Friar Bird PHILEMON CORNICULATUS. Helmeted Friar Bird PHILEMON BUCEROIDES. Flower-Pecker or Mistletoe Bird DICAEUM HIRUNDINACEUM. Black-headed Diamond Bird PARDALOTUS MELANOCEPHALUS. Eastern Swallow HIRUNDO JAVANICA. Swallow HIRUNDO NEOXENA (FRONTALIS). White-rumped Wood-Swallow ARTAMUS LEUCOGASTER. Shining Starling CALORNIS METALLICA. Noisy Pitta PITTA STREPITANS. PICARIAN BIRDS Large-tailed Nightjar CAPRIMULGUS MACROURUS. Roller or Dollar-Bird EURYSTOMUS AUSTRALIS. Bee-eater MEROPS ORNATUS. Blue Kingfisher ALCYONE AZUREA. Little Kingfisher ALCYONE PUSILLA. Leach Kingfisher DACELO LEACHII. Sacred Kingfisher HALCYON SANCTUS. Mangrove Kingfisher HALYON SORDIDUS. Bronze Cuckoo CHALCOCOCCYX PLAGOSUS. Koel EUDYNAMIS CYANOCEPHALA. Channel-bill SCYTHROPS NOVAE HOLLANDIE. Coucal CENTROPUS PHASIANUS. PARROTS Red-collared Lorikeet TRICHOGLOSSUS RUBRITORQUIS. Glossy Cockatoo CALYPTORHYNCHUS VIRIDIS (LEACHIT). White Cockatoo CACATUA GALERITA. Red-winged Lory PTISTES ERYTHROPTERUS. PIGEONS AND DOVES Rose-crowned Fruit Pigeon PTILOPUS EWINGI. Purple-crowned Fruit Pigeon PTILOPUS SUPERBUS. Purple-breasted Fruit Pigeon MEGALOPREPIA MAGNIFICA. Allied Fruit Pigeon MEGALOPREPIA ASSIMILIS. Nutmeg Pigeon MYRISTICIVORA SPILORRHOA. White-headed Fruit Pigeon COLUMBA LEUCOMELA. Pheasant-tailed Pigeon MACROPYGIA PHASIANELLA. Barred-shouldered Dove GEOPELIA HUMERALIS. Ground Dove GEOPELIA TRANQUILA. Little Dove GEOPELIA CUNEATA. Little Green Pigeon CHALCOPHAPS CHRYSOCHLORA. GAME BIRDS Brown Quail SYNAECUS AUSTRALIS. Scrub Fowl MEGAPODIUS DUPERREYI (TUMULUS). Bald Coot PORPHYRIO MELANONOTUS. Little Quail TURNIX VELOX. RAIL Pectoral Rail HYPOTAENIDIA PHILIPPINENSIS. CRANE Crane or Native Companion ANTIGONE AUSTRALASIANA. PLOVERS, ETC. Stone Plover BURHINUS (OEDICNEMUS) GRALLARIUS. Long-billed Stone Plover ORTHORHAMPHUS (ESACUS) MAGNIROSTRIS. Turnstone ARENARIA (STREPSILAS) INTERPRES. Pied Oyster-catcher HAEMATOPUS LONGIROSTRIS. Black Oyster-catcher HAEMATOPUS UNICOLOR. Masked Plover LOBIVANELLUS MILES. Red-capped Dottrel AEGIALITIS RUFICAPILLA. Black-fronted Dottrel AEGIALITIS (MELANOPS) NIGRIFRONS. Red-necked Avocet RECURVIROSTRA NOVAE-HOLLANDIAE. Curlew NUMENIUS CYANOPUS. Whimbrel NUMENIUS VARIEGATUS. Barred-rumped Godwit LIMOSA NOVAE-SEALANDIAE Common Sandpiper TRINGOIDES HYPOLEUCUS. Greenshank GLOTTIS NEBULARIUS (GLOTTOIDES). Snipe GALLINAGO AUSTRALIS. SEA BIRDS Crested Tern STERNA BERGII. Brown-winged Tern STERNA ANAESTHETA. Sooty Tern STERNA FULIGINOSA. White-shafted Ternlet STERNA SINENSIS. Black-naped Tern STERNA MELANAUCHEN. Noddy ANOUS STOLIDUS. White-capped Noddy MICRANOUS LEUCOCAPILLUS. IBISES White Ibis IBIS MOLUCCA. Straw-necked Ibis CARPHIBIS SPINICOLLIS. HERONS Plumed Egret MESOPHOYX PLUMIFERA. White Egret HERODIAS TIMORIENSIS. White-fronted Heron NOTOPHOYX NOVAE-HOLLANDIAE. Reef Heron DEMIEGRETTA SACRA. Little Mangrove Bittem BUTORIDES STAGNATILIS. Yellow-necked Mangrove Bittem DUPETOR GOULDI. POUCHERS Little Cormorant PHALACROCORAX MELANOLEUCUS. Darter PTOLUS NOVAE-HOLLANDIAE. Masked Gannet SULA CYANOPS. Red-legged Gannet SULA PISCATOR. Brown Gannet (Booby) SULA SULA (FIBER). Lesser Frigate Bird FREGATA ARIEL Pelican PELICANUS CONSPICILLATUS. DIVER Black-throated Grebe PODICIPES NOVAE-HOLLANDIAE. DUCKS Black Duck ANAS SUPERCILIOSA. Grey Teal NETTION (ANAS) GIBBERIFRONS. Why have we no residential parrot, though cockatoos are plentiful; no scrub turkey though the megapode scampers in all directions in the jungle; no common black crow, nor butcher bird, though other shrikes (the magpie for instance) come and go; no wren, no finch, no lark? Scrub turkeys (TALLEGALLA LATHAMI), mound builders like the megapode, are plentiful all along the coast, at certain seasons visiting the scrub which margins the opposite beach, but they are not found on these islands. The blue mountain parrot (red-collared lorikeet), the red-winged lory, the black cockatoo (Leach's), and other well-known species, fleet and venturesome, to whom two miles and a half of "salt, estranging sea" cannot be any check, certainly do not use the island for nesting as birds of "innocent and quiet minds" might. Gauze-winged butterflies flit across the channel, occasionally in great numbers. What law restrains virile birds from the venture? The absence among the residents of swimming birds, save the beach frequenters, is due to the lack of open fresh water, though there are indications of the past existence of at least one swamp, and also that it was drained naturally by the fretting away of a sand ridge by the sea. How is it, that though we have echidna in three different colours--black, grey and straw--there is no typical marsupial, large or small, no iguana (rather, monitor lizard), though a fair variety of other reptiles, from white, house-haunting geckoes to carpet snakes? Though the CYCAS MEDIA is plentiful on the seaward slopes of the adjacent mainland, no trace of that interesting old-world plant has been discovered here. and but one casual representative has been found of the graceful fan palm (LICUALA MUELLERI), another relic of the far beginning of Australia. No doubt the seed whence the single fan palm sprung would be brought hither by a nutmeg pigeon; but there is no bird-carrier for the CYCAD, and the set of the current is opposed to its transport by the sea. In birds and in mammals and in plants, wide-spread Australian groups are unrepresented. THE DAYBREAK FUGUE Before there is any visible sign of the break of day, some keener and finer perception than man possesses reveals it to the noisy pitta, or dragoon bird, which in duty bound makes prompt proclamation. Man trusts to mechanism to check off the watches of the night; birds to a self-contained grace more sensitive if not so viciously exact. The noisy pitta bustles along the edge of the jungle rousing all the sleepy heads with sharp interrogative whistles before there is the least paling of the Eastern sky. He scents the sun as the ghost of Hamlet's father the morning air. His version of "Sleepers, wake," echoes in the silence in sharp, staccato notes. Seldom heard during the heat of the day, they are oft repeated at dusk and late in the evening. Of all the birds of the day his voice is the last as well as the first, and from that the natives derive his name, "Wung-go-bah." As the dawn hastens a subdued fugue of chirps and whistles, soft, continuous and quite distinct from the cheerful individual notes and calls with which the glare is greeted, completes a circle of sounds. Wheresoever he stands the listener is in the centre of ripples of melody which blend with the silence almost as speedily as the half lights flee before the pompous rays of the imperial sun. This charming melody is but a general exclamation of pleasure on the recovery of the day from the apprehension of the night, a mutual recognition, an interchange of matutinal compliments. Those who take part in it may be jealous rivals in a few minutes, but the first impulse of each new day is a universal paean, not loud and vaunting, but mellow, sweet and unselfish. THE MEGAPODE The cackle and call of the scrub fowl (MEGAPODIUS DUPERREYS) are nocturnal as well as sounds of the day, being repeated at intervals all through the night. Rarely venturing out of the shades of the jungle, the eyesight of this bird is, no doubt, specially adjusted to darkness and subdued lights, and is thus enabled to detect and prey upon insects which during the day lurk under leaves and decayed wood, or bury themselves in the surface of the ever moist soil. Astonishment is excited that there can by any possibility be any grubs or beetles, centipedes and worms, scorpions and spiders left to perpetuate their species, when the floor of the jungle is raked over with such assiduity by this powerful and active bird. During the day the megapode is sometimes silent, but ever and anon it gives way to what may in charity be presumed to be a crow---an uncouth, discordant effort to imitate the boastful, tuneful challenge of the civilised rooster. In common with "Elia" (and others) the megapode has no ear for music. It seems to have been practising "cock-a-doodle-doo" all its life in the solitary corners and undergrowth, and to have not yet arrived within quavers of it. It "abhors the measured malice of music." The inclusion among the birds of the air of such an inveterate land lover, a bird which seldom takes flight of its own motive, is permissible on general principles, while its practical exercise of rare domestic economy entitles it to special and complimentary notice. Reference is made elsewhere to the surpassing intelligence of the megapode in taking advantage of the heat caused by the fermentation of decaying vegetation to hatch out huge eggs. Long before the astute Chinese practised the artificial incubation of hens' and ducks' eggs, these sage birds of ours had mastered it. Several birds seem to co-operate in the building of a mound, which may contain many cartloads of material, but each bird appears to have a particular area in which to deposit her eggs. The chicks apparently earn their own living immediately they emerge fully fledged from the mound, and are so far independent of maternal care that they are sometimes found long distances from the nearest possible birthplace, scratching away vigorously and flying when frightened with remarkable vigour and speed, though but a few hours old. I come gladly to the conclusion that the megapode is a sagacious bird, not only in the avoidance of the dismal duty of incubation, but in respect of the making of those great mounds of decaying vegetable matter and earth which perform the function so effectively. In a particularly rugged part of the island is a mound almost completely walled in by immense boulders. In such a situation the birds could hardly have found it possible to accumulate by kicking and scratching so great a quantity of debris. The material was not available on the site, and as the makers do not carry their rubbish, it was puzzling to account for it all, until it was noticed that the junction of two boulders with an inclination towards each other formed a natural flume or shoot down which most of the material of the mound had been sent. As the rains and use flatten the apex fresh stuff is deposited with a trifling amount of labour, to afford an illustration of "purposive conscious action." The megapode seems to delight in flying in the face of laws to which ordinary fowls are obedient. While making a law unto herself for the incubation of eggs, she scandalously violates that which provides that the size of the egg shall be in proportion to the size of the bird. Though much less in weight than an average domestic fowl, the egg that she lays equals nearly three of the fowl's. Comparisons between the egg of the cassowary (one of the giants among birds) and of the common fowl with that of the megapode, are highly complimentary to the latter. A fair weight for a full-grown cassowary is 150 lb., and the egg weighs 1 lb. 6 oz. A good-conditioned megapode weighs 3 lb., the egg 5 1/4 oz.; ordinary domestic fowl, 4 lb., egg 2 oz. The egg of the cassowary represents 1 per cent. of the weight of the bird, the domestic fowl's 3 1/8 per cent., and that of megapode no less than 11 1/2 per cent of its weight. When these facts are considered, we realise why the homey head of the great cassowary, the layer of the largest of Australian eggs, is carried so low as she bursts through the jungle; why the pair converse in such humble tones and why, on the other hand, the megapode exults so loudly so coarsely and in such shocking intervals, careless of the sentiments and of the sense of melody of every other bird. Though the powers of the flight of this bird are feeble it inhabits islands 3 and 4 miles further out to sea than their most adjacent neighbours. The laboured way in which a startled bird flies across the narrow expanse of my plantation proves that a long journey would never be undertaken voluntarily. Not many months ago some blacks walking on the beach on the mainland had their attention attracted by a bird flying low on the water from the direction of Dunk Island, 2 1/2 miles away. It was labouring heavily, and some little distance from land fell exhausted into the sea. When it drifted ashore--a godsend to the boys--it was found to be a megapode--and the feat was camp talk. None could credit that a "kee-rowan" could fly so far. SWAMP PHEASANT The swamp pheasant, or pheasant coucal (CENTROPUS PHASIANUS) is also an early bird, and a bird of varied linguistic capabilities. Folks are apt to associate with him but one note, and that resembling the mellow gurgle of cream from a bottle, "Glooc! glooc! glooc! glooc!" An intimate knowledge of his conversational powers leads one to conclude that there are few birds more widely accomplished in that direction. He does use the fluid phrase mentioned, but his notes and those of his consort cover quite a range of exclamations and calls. Just as I write a pair appeal for a just recognition of their accomplishments. That which I assume to be the lord and master utters a loud resonant "Toom! toom! toom! toom" a smooth trombonic sound, "hollow to the reverberate hills," which his consort answers with a series of "Tum! tum tum! tum!" on a higher but still harmonious key, and in accelerated tempo. This, I fancy, is the lover's serenade, and the soft assenting answer; almost invariably the loud hollow sound is the opening phrase of the duet. "Sole or responsive to each other's note," the birds make the forest resound again during the day, especially in the prime months, and even these notes find varied and pleasing expression. Free and joyous as a rule, occasionally they seem to indicate sadness and gloom. During and after a bush fire the birds give to the notes a mournful cadence like the memories of joy that are past, a lament for the destruction of the grass among which last year's dome-shaped nests were hidden. The swamp pheasant also utters a contented, self-complacent chuckle, that resembles the "Goo! goo! goo!" of a happy infant, and occasionally a succession of grating, discordant, mocking sounds, "Tcharn! tcharn! tcharn!" The chuckle may be an expression as if gloating over the detection and assimilation of some favourite dainty, and the harsh notes a demonstration of rivalry, anger and hostility. The more familiar and more frequent note is the "Toom," repeated about fourteen or sixteen times, and the thinner, softer response. The bird resembles in plumage a pheasant. Cumbersome and slow of flight, clumsy in alighting, he frequently loses his equilibrium, and is compelled to use his long tail as a counter-balance, as he jumps from branch to branch ascending a tree, in order to gain elevation, whence to swoop and flop across the intervening space to the next. When compelled to take wing from a low elevation, the flight is slow and laboured in the extreme. He is a handsome fellow, the ruling colours being glossy black, brown and reddish chestnut. One writer describes the bird as half hawk, half pheasant, another as a non-parasitic cuckoo; another "really a cuckoo"; another a swamp or tree parrot with the foot of a lark. Without daring to attempt to dispute any of these descriptions, I may say that the bird is a decided character and possesses the charm of originality. He has become so confiding that he will perch on the gatepost as one enters, assuming a fierce and resentful aspect, and he will play "hawk" to the startled fowls. He eats the eggs of other birds and kills chicks; but his murderous instincts are rarely exhibited, and then only, perhaps, when his passions are aroused. He does not (as far as my observation goes) kill for food, but merely because Nature gives him at certain times and seasons a fiery, jealous disposition, and a truculent determination to protect his family. "GO-BIDGER-ROO!" As the sun shines over the range, the plaintive cooing of the little blue dove, such as picked the rice grains from the bowl beside rapt Buddha's hands, comes up from among the scented wattles on the flat, the gentlest and meekest of all the converse of the birds. The nervous yet fluty tones are as an emphatic a contrast to the vehement interjections and commands of the varied honey-cater (PTILOTIS VERSICOLOR)--now at the first outburst--as is the swiftly foreshortening profile of the range to the glare in which all the foreground quivers. Once aroused, the varied honey-eater is wide awake. His restlessness is equalled only by his impertinent exclamations. He shouts his own aboriginal title, "Go-bidger-roo!" "Put on your boots!" "Which--which-which way-which way-which way you go!" "Get your whip!" "Get your whip!" "You go!" "You go!" "None of your cheek!" "None of your cheek!" "Here-here!" And darts out with a fluster from among the hibiscus bushes on the beach away up to the top of the melaleuca tree; pauses to sample the honey from the yellow flowers of the gin-gee, and down to the scarlet blooms of the flame tree, across the pandanus palms and to the shady creek for his morning bath and drink, shouting without ceasing his orders and observations. He is always with us, though not always as noisy as in the prime of the year--a cheerful, prying, frisky creature, always going somewhere or doing something in a red-hot hurry, and always making a song of it--a veritable babbler. His love-making is passionate and impulsive, joyous almost to rowdyism. BULLY, SWAGGERER, SWASHBUCKLER The drongo shrike is another permanent resident; glossy black, with a metallic shimmer on the shoulders, long-tailed, sharp of bill and masterful. He has a scolding tongue, and if a hawk hovers over the bloodwoods he tells without hesitation of the evil presence. He is the bully of the wilderness of leaves, bouncing birds vastly his superior in fighting weight and alertness of wing, and clattering his jurisdiction to everything that flies. When the nest on the nethermost branch of the Moreton Bay ash is packed with hungry brood, his industry is exhilarating. Ordinarily he gets all the food he wants by merely a superficial inspection; but with a family to provide for, he is compelled to fly around, shrewdly examining every likely looking locality. Clinging to the bark of the bloodwood, with tail spread out fan-wise as additional support, he searches every interstice, and ever and anon flies to the Moreton Bay ash, and tears off the curling fragments of crisp bark which afford concealment to the smaller beetles, grubs and spiders. With the loose end of bark in his bill, tugging and fluttering, using his tail as a lever with the tree as a fulcrum, and objurgating in unseemly tones, as the bark resists his efforts, the drongo assists the Moreton Bay ash in discarding worn-out epidermis, and the tree reciprocates by offering safe nesting-place on its most brittle branches. The drongo is a bird of many moods. Silent and inert for months together, during the nesting season he is noisy and alert, not only the first to give warning of the presence of a falcon, but the boldest in chiveying from tree to tree this universal enemy. He is then particularly partial to an aerial acrobatic performance, unsurpassed for gracefulness and skill, and significant of the joy of life and liberty and the delirious passion of the moment. With a mighty effort, a chattering scream and a preliminary downward cast, he impels himself with the ardour of flight--almost vertically--up above the level of the tree-tops. Then, after a momentary, thrilling pause, with a gush of twittering commotion and stiffened wings preternaturally extended over the back and flattened together into a single rigid fin, drops--a feathered black bolt from the blue--almost to the ground, swoops up to a resting-place, and with bowing head and jerking tail gloats over his splendid feat. Though denied fluency of utterance, the spangled drongo has no rival in the peculiar character of the notes and calls over which he has secure copyright. The shrill stuttering shriek which accompanies his aerial acrobatic performances, the subdued tinkling tones of pleasure, the jangle as of cracked china, the high-pitched tirade of jarring abuse and scolding at the presence of an enemy, the meek cheeps, the tremulous, coaxing whistles when the young first venture from the nest--each and every sound, unique and totally unlike that of any other bird, indicates the oddity of this sportful member of the crow family. EYES AFLAME Perhaps the most interesting and entertaining of all the birds of the island is that commonly known as the weaver or friendly bird, otherwise the metallic starling, the shining calornis of the ornithologist, the "Tee-algon" of the blacks. Throughout the coastal tract of North Queensland this bird is fairly familiar. In these days it could not escape notice and comment, for it is an avowed socialist establishing colonies every few miles. There are four on Dunk Island, and though not permanent residents, spending but little more than half the year with us, they are among the few birds who have permanent homes. In some lofty tree they build perhaps two hundred nests in groups of from two to six. With all these nests weighting its thinner branches the tree may look wearied and afflicted, but it obtains direct benefit from the presence of the birds. The nests, deftly built of tendrils and slender creepers and grass are domed, the entrance being at the side, and so hidden and overhung as almost to escape notice. Each August the birds appear, coming from the north. and until the middle of March, when they take their departure, they do not indulge in many leisure moments. There are the old nests to renovate and new ones to build in accordance with the demand of the increasing population, and loads of fruits and seeds and berries to be conveyed from the jungle to the colony. The shining calornis is a handsome fellow, gleaming black, with purple and green sheen. The live bird differs so greatly from the dull, stuffed specimen of the museum that one is tempted to endeavour to convey by similitude its wonderful radiance. A soap bubble, black yet retaining all its changing lights and flashing reflections, is the nearest approach to a just description, and then there are to specify the rich, red eyes, eyes gleaming like polished gems. Until after the first year of their existence the young are brown-backed, and mottled white and bluish-grey of breast, and would hardly be recognised as members of the colony, but for the shrill notes and restless activity and those flaming eyes--living gems of wondrous radiance, and the eyes epitomise the life of the bird which is all flame and fever. Twenty or thirty may be peering about in a bloodwood, and with a unanimous impulse and a call in unison they slip through the forest, and shoot into the jungle, flashing sun-glints. Eager, alert, always under high pressure, the business of the moment brooks of no delay. The flocks come and go between the home and the feeding-ground with noisy exclamations and impetuous haste. With whirr of wings and jeering notes they swoop close overhead, wheeling into the wilderness of leaves with the rapidity of thought, and with such graceful precision that the sunlight flashes from their shoulders as an arc of light. Work, hasty work, is a necessity, for their wastefulness is extreme, or, rather, do they not unconsciously perform a double duty, being chief among the distributing agents--industrious and trustworthy though unchartered carders for many helpless trees. When the company darts again out of the jungle, each with a berry in its bill and each shrilly exulting, many a load is dropped by the way, and many another falls to mother earth in the act of feeding the clamorous young. Berries and seeds having no means of self-transportation are thus borne far from parent trees to vegetate in sweet unencumbered soil. Other birds take part in this generous dispersal, but none engage in it so systematically or so openly. Beneath the tree which is the head centre of the colony is a carpet of debris several inches thick. Old and discarded nests, fragments of unused building materials, the nutmeg with its lacing of coral-red mace, the blue quandong, the remains of various species of figs, hard berries, chillies, degenerated tomatoes, the harsh seed-vessels of the umbrella-tree, samples of every fruit and berry of attractive appearance, however hot and acrid, all go to form a mulching of vegetable matter such as no other tree of forest or jungle gets. Prodigal and profuse as she may be, Nature is the rarest of economists. Out here in the forest is springing up an oasis of jungle, every plant of which owes its origin to the shining calornis. It must not be thought that all the notes of these most engaging birds, symbolic of light in plumage and in flight, are shrill and strident. When they feed--and they seem always to be feeding or carrying food--their chatter is perpetual and varied in tone. Occasionally a male bird sets himself to beguile the time with song. Then his flame-red eyes flash with ardour, his head is thrown back, a sparkling ruffle appears on his otherwise satiny smooth neck, and the tune resembles that of a well-taught canary--more fluty but briefer. But the song is only for the ears of those who know how to overcome timidity and shyness. Birds naturally so impetuous are restless and uneasy under observation. One must pose in silence until his presence is forgotten or ignored. Then the delicious melody, the approving comments of the songster's companions, and the efforts of ambitious youngsters to imitate and excel, are all part of a quaint entertainment. THE NESTFUL TREE All the forest brood do not plot mutual slaughter. Some live in strict amity. Here in the Moreton Bay ash, taken advantage of by the shining calornis, a white-headed, rufous-backed sea-eagle nests, and the graceful, fierce-looking pair come and go among the glittering noisy throng without exciting any special comment. Of course it would be impossible to detect any certain note of remonstrance, for the smaller birds are generally commenting on something or other in acidulous tones. Another occupant of this nestful tree is the sulphur-crested cockatoo, whose eggs are laid deep down in a hollow. Two or three hundred of the shining colonists, a brood of sea-eagles, white-headed, snowy-breasted and red-backed, and a couple, perhaps, three, screeching white cockatoos, represent the annual output of this single tree, in addition, of course, to its own crop of sweet savoured flowers (on which birds, bees, beetles and butterflies, and flying-foxes feast) and seeds in thousands in cunning cups. "STATELY FACE AND MAGNANIMOUS MINDE" How feeble and ludicrous are the voices of the fierce hawks and eagles. The white-headed sea-eagle's puking discordant twang, the feeble cheep of the grey falcon--the cry of a sick and scared chicken--the harsh protest of the osprey, are sounds distinctive but frail, conveying no notion whatever of the demeanour and characteristics of the birds. Now the white-headed sea-eagle, with its sharp incurved beak, terrible talons, and armour-plated legs, is a friend to all the little birds. He has the "stately face and magnanimous minde" that old writers were wont to ascribe to the Basilisk, the King of Serpents. They know and respect, almost venerate him. A horde of them never seeks to scare him away with angry scolding and feeble assaults, as it does the cruel falcon and the daring goshawk. Domestic fowls learn of his ways, and are wise in their fearlessness of him. But I was not well assured of the reasons for the trustfulness and admiration of the smaller birds for the fierce-looking fellow who spends most of his time fishing, until direct and conclusive evidence was forthcoming. Two days of rough weather, and the blue bay had become discoloured with mud churned up by the sea, and the eagle found fishing poor and unremunerative sport. Even his keen eyesight could not distinguish in the murky water the coming and going of the fish. just below the house is a small area of partly cleared flat, and there we saw the brave fellow roaming and scooping about with more than usual interest in the affairs of dry land. At this time of year green snakes are fairly plentiful. Harmless and handsome, they prey upon small birds and frogs, and the eagle had abandoned his patrol of the sad-hued water to take toll of the snakes. After a graceful swoop down to the tips of a low-growing bush, he alighted on the dead branch of a bloodwood 150 yards or so away, and, with the help of a telescope, his occupation was revealed--he was greedily tearing to pieces a wriggling snake, gulping it in three-quarter-yard lengths. Here was the reason for the trustfulness and respect of the little birds. The eagle was destroying the chief bugbear of their existence--the sneaking greeny-yellowy murderer of their kind and eater of their eggs, whose colour and form so harmonises with leaves and thin branches that he constantly evades the sharpest-eyed of them all, and squeezes out their lives and swallows them whole. But the big red detective could see the vile thing 50 and even 100 yards away, and once seen--well, one enemy the less. Briskly stropping his beak on the branch of the tree on which he rested, and setting his breast plumage in order, much as one might shake a crumb from his waistcoat, the eagle adjusted his searchlights and sat motionless. In five minutes a slight jerk of the neck indicated a successful observation, and he soared out, wheeled like a flash, and half turning on his side, hustled down in the foliage of a tall wattle and back again to his perch. Another snake was crumpled up in his talons, and he devoured it in writhing, twirling pieces. The telescope gave unique advantage during this entertainment, one of the tragedies of Nature, or rather the lawful execution of a designing and crafty criminal. Within ten minutes the performance was repeated for the third time, and then either the supply of snakes ran out or the bird was satisfied. He shrewdly glanced this way and that, craning and twisting his neck, and seeming to adjust the lenses of his eyes for near and distant observation. No movement among the leaves seemed to escape him. Two yards and a half or perhaps three yards of live snakes constituted a repast. At any rate, after twenty minutes' passive watchfulness, he sailed up over the trees and away in the direction of his home in the socialistic community of the shining calornis. The white-headed sea-eagle is a deadly foe to the pugnacious sea-serpent also. On the beach just above high water-mark was the headless carcase of one that must have been fully 5 feet long, and while it was under inspection an eagle circled about anxiously. Soon after the intruders disappeared the bird swooped down and resumed his feast, and presently his mate came sailing along to join him. The snake must have weighed several pounds, and apparently was not as dainty to the taste as the green arboreal variety, for after two days' occasional feasting there was still some of the flesh left. Shrewd as is the observation of the white-headed sea-eagle he is not exempt from blunders. Though he pounces with authoritative certainty and precision, he does not discriminate until the capture is complete, between the acceptable and the unacceptable. Generally whatsoever is seized is carried off, apparently without inspection. Perhaps the balloon fish is the only one that is promptly discarded. The sea porcupine (DIODON), which shares with that repugnant creature the habit of exemplifying the extent to which the skin of a fish is capable of distention without bursting, is frequently picked up from the shallow water it favours. Short sharp needles stand out rigidly from its skin, forming a complete armament against most foes. The sea-eagle does not always devour the sea porcupine, which at the very best is nothing more than a picking. Amongst such a complex labyrinth of keen bones a hasty meal is not to be found, and the sea-eagle is not a leisurely eater. He likes to gulp; and so when he has indiscreetly blundered on a porcupine he frequently unlocks his talons and shakes himself free, while the fish, inflated to the last gulp, floats away high and light, bearing on its tense silvery-white side the crimson stigmata of the sea-eagle. When misguided fish have blundered into the trap in the corner of the bay, the sea-eagle demands a share of the easily-gotten spoil. Perched on the tallest stake, he faithfully indicates the presence of food that he cannot obtain unless by goodwill; yet who would deny the bird of his right? Having fulfilled his duty as sentinel, he soars to an adjacent tree, uttering that sneering twang which is his one paltry attribute, and when a fish is thrown into the shallow water he swoops down and is away with it to his eyrie. If the sand is bare, however, he cannot, owing to his length of wing, pick up the fish in his flight. Unbecoming as it may be to tantalise by trickery so regal a bird, a series of trials was undertaken to ascertain the height from the surface whence a fish could be gripped. Twelve successive swoops for a mullet flopping on the sand failed, though it was touched at least six times with the tips of the eagle's outstretched talons. Consenting to failure, the bird was compelled to alight undignifiedly a few yards away, to awkwardly jump to the fish and to eat it on the spot, for however imperious the sea-eagle is in the air, and dexterous in the seizure of a fish from the water, he cannot rise from an unimpressionable plane with his talons full. On another occasion a fish was raised 4 inches on a slender stake. The sea-eagle dislodged it several times, but could not grasp it. Raised a further 4 inches the fish was seized without fumbling. Eight inches or so, therefore, seems to be about the minimum height from which a bird with 6 feet of red wing and a nice determination not to bruise or soil the tips, may grip with certainty. WHITE NUTMEG PIGEON No birds of the air which frequent these parts attract more attention than the white nutmeg or Torres Straits pigeons (MYRISTICIVORA SPILORRHOA), which resort to the islands during the incubating season. White with part of each flight feather black, and with down of pale buff, it is a handsome bird, strong and firm of flesh, and possesses remarkable powers on the wing. Half of the year is spent with us. They come from the north in their thousands during the first week of September, and depart during March. While in this quarter they seek rest and recreation, and increase and multiply on the islands, resorting to the mainland during the day for food. Their flights to and from are made in companies varying from four to five to as many as a hundred--but the average is between thirty and forty. Purpose and instinct guide them to certain islands, and to these the companies set flight. Towards the end of the breeding season, when the multitude has almost doubled its strength by lusty young recruits, for an hour and more before sunset until a few minutes after, there is a never-ending procession from the mainland to the favoured islands--a great, almost uncountable host. Soon some of the tree-tops are swaying under the weight of the masses of white birds, the whirr and rush of flight, the clacking and slapping of wings, the domineering "coo-hoo-oo" of the male birds and the responsive notes of the hens; the tumult when in alarm all take wing simultaneously and wheel and circle and settle again with rustling and creaking branches, the sudden swoop with whistling wings of single birds close overhead, create a perpetual din. Then as darkness follows hard upon the down-sinking of the sun, the birds hustle among the thick foliage of the jungle, with querulous, inquiring notes and much ado. Gradually the sounds subside, and the subdued monotonous rhythm of the sea alone is heard. An endeavour, from the outset destined to be futile, has been made each season in succession, to estimate the number of nutmeg pigeons passing a given point per minute on their evening flight. With so methodical a bird, it was to be expected that the companies would have favoured points of departure from the mainland, and would fly along precise routes to a common destination. There are thousands of stragglers all along the coast, but the main bodies keep to particular routes. Most of those which rest on the islands in this neighbourhood quit the mainland between Clump Point and Tam o' Shanter, the trend of numbers being toward the latter point. Six miles separate these headlands, but the channel between Tam o' Shanter and Dunk Island is little more than 2 1/2 miles, so that the pigeons here become concentrated to a certain extent. Early in the season they pass Dunk Island at the rate of about 300 per minute, during the hour and a half preceding sunset. To speak more definitely, but well within the mark, those flying south, easily within range of sight from the sand spit here, may be calculated at something like 27,000. But in reality the procession of birds may cover a breadth of 2 miles, while only those flocks nearest to the observer are included in the estimate. No doubt, fully 100,000 come and go evening and morning. When the incubating season is at its height the number lessens; when all the young are hatched the unmarshalled procession trails along with but brief intervals between the companies--some flying low over the water, others high and wide. Great as the company of birds seems, it is small compared with the myriads that favoured the islands in years gone by. Pioneers tell of the days when blacks were wont to make regular expeditions, returning to the mainland with canoes ladened with fledglings and eggs, which in accordance with tradition were devoured by the older men and women. The youngsters of the tribes were nurtured in the belief that if they partook of such luxuries all the pigeons would fly away never to re-visit their haunts. Strange as it may seem, the vast quantities eaten by the blacks did not seem to decrease the numbers. But since the advent of the white man, with his nerve-shattering gun, a remarkable diminution has been observed in some localities. No doubt it could be successfully maintained that the gun is responsible for an insignificant toll compared with that taken by the blacks of the past. But the birds were then deprived of their nestlings and eggs quietly, if remorselessly, while the noise of the gun is more demoralising to the species as a whole than the numbers actually killed. Nutmeg pigeons are frequently shot by the hundred as they reach their nesting-place and mass themselves on the trees. Some of their nurseries lie far away from the usual tracks of the sportsman. Yet a single expedition during the breeding season to one of the islands may cause immense destruction and unprofitable loss of life. Though in lessening numbers they venture much further along the coast to the south, they keep well within the tropical zone. The most favoured resorts within many miles are the Barnard Islands, 14 miles to the north of Dunk Island. The whole of the tribes, therefore, though scattered for feeding over an immense area of the coast congregate on four or five islands--miles apart--to rest and breed. The assemblages are indeed prodigious; but they represent the gathering together of clans which have a very wide dispersal. Crowded together the host appears innumerable, but on the mainland during the day (when only the hen birds stay at home) the pigeons seem scarce. An occasional group may be met with, and they may be heard fluttering and flapping on the tree-tops (they are generally silent when feeding), but they are too thinly distributed to afford sport. Any other species of native bird which took to gregarious habits might seem as numerous as this. If all the sulphur-crested cockatoos, scrub turkeys, and scrub fowls scattered over an area of the mainland corresponding in extent with the feeding-ground of the nutmeg pigeons were massed each night in four or five communities, the numbers would seem startling; but because the poor pigeon, conspicuous and heedless, has the instinct or habit of association, it is argued that they outnumber all the other birds, that their legions are infinite, and that that fact is sufficient licence for the destruction of thousands during the breeding season. Compared with some species, nutmeg pigeons may be considered scarce, although their breeding establishments extend over hundreds of miles of the eastern coast of North Queensland. But it must be remembered that the birds breed only on the islands. To preserve them effectually certain islands should be proclaimed sanctuaries, and genuine sportsmen will never indulge their propensities when haunted by the thoughts of the consequent cruelty. There are many contradictory statements in popular natural history works with reference to the habits of this bird, and it may not be out of place to quote what one authority says:-- "This singularly shy bird has acquired its popular name from the well-remarked habit it has of exclusively frequenting the wild nutmeg tree (MYRISTICA), in the tops of which it may be said to pass its life, except during the brief pairing season. Then it commonly selects the denser scrub or the mangroves, most probably guided by their contiguity to fresh water. Here it makes its nest, a more than ordinarily careless structure, the few crossed sticks barely sufficing to prevent the single egg it is destined to receive, from falling through to the ground. The fruit of the nutmeg is undoubtedly swallowed whole by the bird, and to the powers of deglutition is left the separation of the nutritive portion which we know as mace, from the hard and indigestible nut which is voided in flight. Thus this elegant little creature becomes the useful means of disseminating the remarkable nutmeg-tree, and it is found that some chemical treatment corresponding to that which it undergoes during sojourn within the body of the bird, is actually necessary before the nut can be fertilised and induced to take root. So strictly arboreal is this pigeon in its habits that it is questionable if it ever alights upon the ground, and so timid that it is impossible to procure specimens unless stratagem is resorted to." Some years of repeated observation enable me to offer certain amendments to this narrative, evidently written by one who has been impressed by half the life-history of the bird--the half spent on the mainland. The food of the nutmeg pigeon is multifarious. All sorts of nuts and seeds, and even fruits are consumed--quandongs, various palm seeds (including those of the creeping palm or lawyer vine, CALAMUS), nutmeg (MYRISTICA INSIPIDA, not the nutmeg of commerce, though resembling it), the white hard seeds of the native cabbage (SCOEVOLA KOENIGII), the Burdekin plum (PLEIOGYNIUM SOLANDRI), and all sorts of unpromisingly tough and apparently indigestible, innutritious woodeny nuts and drupes. Moreover, it fattens on such diet, but still the wonder grows at the happy provision which enables nuts proportionately of such enormous size to be swallowed by the bird, and ejected with ease after the pulp or flesh has been assimilated. As the birds alight on the island after their flight from the mainland, a portion of the contents of the crop seems to be expelled. A shower of nuts and seeds comes pattering down through the leaves to the ground as each company finds resting-place. Perhaps those only who are suffering from uncomfortable distention so relieve themselves. The balance of the contents of the crops seem to go through the ordinary process of digestion. Thus, by the medium of the pigeons, there is a systematic traffic in and interchange of seeds between the mainland and the islands. The nutmeg pigeon resorts to islands where there is no fresh water, and builds a rude platform of twigs, and occasionally of leaves, on all sorts of trees, in all sorts of localities. Palms and mangroves, low bushes, rocky ledges, saplings, are all favoured, no particular preference being shown. It rears generally two, but sometimes three young, one at a time, during the long breeding season, which continues from the end of September until the end of January, and for each successive egg a fresh carpet of twig or leaves is spread. A rare nest was composed of fresh leaves of the Moreton Bay ash, with the petioles towards the centre, forming a complex green star. No doubt the arrangement of the leaves was accidental, but the white dumpy egg as a pearl-like focus completed a quaint device. Another egg reposed carelessly at the base of a vigorous plant of DENDOBRIUM UNDULATUM, the old-gold plumes of the orchid fantastically shading it. Those pigeons who elect to incubate on the ground discard even the rude platform of twigs, which generally represents the nest of those who prefer bushes and trees, but gradually encircle themselves with tiny mounds of ejected seeds, until the appearance of a nest is presented. At the termination of the breeding season these birthplaces of the young are indicated by circular ramparts, in the composition of which the aromatic nutmeg predominates. Personal experiments on the spot prove that these nutmegs germinate less readily than those taken direct from the tree. Planted with the red mace still adherent the nuts are quite reliable; others which have been swallowed by the pigeon and ejected, though submitted to like conditions, fail in considerable proportion. So that the oft-repeated theory that the Queensland nutmeg requires primarily to undergo some chemical process similar to that which takes place in the crop of the pigeon to ensure germination, has no foundation whatever in fact. The part the pigeon performs is to transport the nut to free, unstifled soil. No bird is more precise and punctual in its visits. It comes to its nesting-places and departs with almost almanac-like regularity. It is a large bird as pigeons go, and becomes wonderfully tame and trustful when undisturbed. Specimens may be procured in thousands. Blacks, understanding their habits, climb particular trees known to be well patronised, and as the birds swoop down to rest, kill them easily with a swoop of a long slender stick, or hurl nulla-nullas into the home-coming flocks, just as they alight. It is not a good table bird, the flesh being dark, tough, and of an earthy flavour--far inferior to the generality of pigeons, and not to be compared with ground or aquatic game. FRUIT-EATERS The tyrannical fig-tree of the species referred to elsewhere, in full fruit--pink in colouring until it attains purple ripeness--attracts birds from all parts, and for nearly a quarter of the year is as gay as a theatre. From sunset to sunrise birds feast and flirt with but brief interludes. A general dispersal of the assemblage occurs only in the tragic presence of a falcon, whose murderous deeds are transiently recorded by stray painted feathers. But the fright soon passes, and the magnificent fruit pigeon--green, golden-yellow, purplish-maroon, rich orange, bluish-grey, and greenish-yellow, are his predominant colours--resumes his love-plaint in bubbling bass. "Bub-loo, bub-loo maroo," he says over and over again in unbirdlike tone, without emphasis or lilt. "Bub-loo, bub-loo maroo," a grievance, a remonstrance and a threat in one doleful phrase; but to the flattered female it is all compliment and gallantry. That other, known as the allied--so like his cousin that his dissonant accents, "quok--quok--quoo," are more to be relied upon as ready means of identification than any striking difference in plumage; the white-headed, the pheasant-tail, the gorgeous "superb," the tranquil dove, Ewing's fruit pigeon--most timorous of the order--are regular patrons, and each of the family has the distinctive demeanour and note. All save the allied--which is too full of assurance and fruit to be disconcerted by the presence of man--may flutter into the jungle, and then, as the momentary disturbance subsides, a study, whimsical and rich, begins. With one exception the fruit pigeons, however gay the colouring of the throat and breast and under parts generally, are green of back, that passing falcons may be deceived by resemblance to leafy environment. Yet the "superb" and Ewing's and Swainson's have the richest of crowns--crowns pink, or shimmering rosy purple. Why this fanciful decoration if not to carry the delusion further by resemblance to a flower? These glorious pigeons are but a few of the many birds that come to the tree with its millions of pink figs, and enliven the scene with soft notes and eager whistles. Varied and fasciated honey-eaters, black and white, and Jardine's caterpillar-eaters, the tiny swallow dicaeum, in a tight-fitting costume of blue-black and red (who must bruise and batter the fruit to reduce it to gobbling dimensions), the yellow white-eye (who pecks it to pieces), the white-bellied and the varied graucalus, the drongo, the shining calornis--these and others have been included time after time in the one enumeration. Cockatoos do not visit the fig-trees as systematically as might be expected. When they come they waste almost as lavishly as the flying foxes at night, nipping off branchlets and dropping them after eating but two or three of the figs. When the grey falcon soars overhead the birds display varied forms of strategy. The inconspicuous pigeons crouch motionless but alert, their eyes fixedly following the circles of the enemy; the readily detected graucalus fly straight to a forest tree, whence there is a clear get-away; the companies of yellow white-eyes, with a unanimous note of alarm, dart into the jungle; the caterpillar-eaters and the honey-eaters, peering about, drop discreetly down among the lower branches, and silence prevails. No serious heed is taken of the white-headed sea-eagle. Though the fruit-eaters do not recognise the lordly fellow on the instant of his appearance, he may perch on the topmost branches of the tree to scrutinise the shallows, and they will resume their feasting and noise. But a falcon is as a death's-head, and alas! too often a sanguinary disturber of the peace, as the tufts of painted feathers tell. AUSTRALIA'S HUMMING-BIRD One of the most self-assertive of birds of the island is also one of the least--the sun-bird (CINNYRIS FRENATA). Garbed in rich olive green, royal blue, and bright yellow, and of a quick and lively disposition, small as he is, he is always before his public, never forgetful of his appearance, or regardless of his rights. Feeding on honey and on insects which frequent honey-supplying flowers, the sun-bird is generally seen amid surroundings quite in keeping with the splendour of his plumage. The best part of his life is passed among blossoms, and he seems to partake of their beauty and frailness. The gold of the gin-gee, the reds of the flame-tree, the umbrella-tree, and of the single and double hibiscus are reflected from his shining feathers, as he flutters and darts among the blooms, often sipping on the wing after the habit of the humming-bird--which he resembles even to the characteristic expansion of the tail feathers. When in September the flame-tree is a dome of red, sun-birds gather by the score--the gayest of all the revellers. Uncommon length of bill enables them to probe recesses of flowers forbidden others, and they seem proud of the superiority. The varied-honey-eater visits flower after flower with something of method. The sun-bird flashes from raceme to raceme, sampling a dozen blooms, while his noisy rival sips with the air of a connoisseur at one. There is a spell in the nectar of the flame-tree as irresistibly attractive to taste of birds as the colour is to the sight of man. Although the tree bursts into bloom with truly tropical ardour, they await the coming banquet with unaffected impatience. Then one of the prettiest frolics of the sun-bird is revealed. Time cannot lag with such gay, saucy creatures, so while they wait half a dozen or more congregate in a circle and with uplifted heads directed towards a common centre sing their song in unison. Whether the theme of the song is of protest against the tardiness of the tree, or of thanks in anticipation, or of exultation in race, or of rivalry, matters not; but one is inclined to the last theory, for none but males take part in it. The sun glints on their burnished breasts, their throats throb, their long bills quaver with enthusiastic effort, and the song still matters not, for it is but a thin twittering, so feeble and faint as to be inaudible a few yards off. Patience and stillness are the price of it. And with a squeak in chorus the choir disperses, to meet and sing again in a few minutes in another part of the reddening tree. "MOOR-GOODY" Aptly imitating its most frequent note, blacks have given the name of "Moor-goody," to a sedate little bird rarely seen away from the jungle, and then only in the shadiest of bushes. Many of the birds are distinguished and named in accordance with their notes. "Wung-go-bah" describes the noisy pitta; "Wee-loo" the stone plover; "Coo-roo" the tranquil dove; "Piln-piln" the large-billed shore plover; "Kim-bum-broo" the fasciated honey-eater; "Calloo-calloo" the manucode; "Go-bidger-roo" the varied honey-eater, and so on. "Moor-goody" (shrike thrush) has the most tuneful and mellow call of all, and in obedience to the general law which forbids beauty to sweet-voiced birds, is soberly clad in two shades of brown, cinnamon the breast, dust the back. But it is of graceful form, and soft of flight as a falling leaf; the eyes are large and singularly tender and expressive. Often terminating in a silvery chirrup, the note, varied with melodious chuckles and gurgles of lulling softness, is exceedingly pleasing, the expression of a bird of refinement, content and sweet temper. Coming at frequent intervals from the jungle or the heart of the mango trees or acalypha bushes, and wheresoever foliage is thickest, the sound is always welcome, as it tells of some of the most desirable features of the tropics--quiet, coolness, and the sweet security of shade. It tells, too, of the simple life spent in seclusion in contradistinction to the "envious court" of the roysterers in the glare of the leafless flame-tree. THE FLAME-TREE'S VISITORS A final note in reference to the flame-tree may be permitted. As it is the popular rendezvous during September, pleasure was taken in cataloguing the greatest variety and number of birds congregated there at one and the same time. Several lists were compiled, the most comprehensive being:-- Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Honey-eaters (varied, fasciated and obscure), Friar Bird (two species), Shining Calornis, Drongo Shrike, White-rumped Wood Swallow, Australian Bee-eater, Black-headed Diamond Bird, Sun-bird, Pied Caterpillar-eater. Honey-eaters were represented by a dozen or more; but were not so numerous as the sun-birds, which were difficult to accurately enumerate, owing to their sprightly behaviour. Next came the shining calornis (about ten), friar birds (about eight), wood swallows (six, all in a row--a band of white among the red flowers); bee-eaters (about the same number), and so on down the list in ever-shifting places and varying numbers. The birds were more numerous about eight a.m. This hour may seem late, in consideration of familiar habits, but the flame-tree is in the shadow of the highest peak of the island, and consequently does not receive the earliest of the benedictions of the sun. Birds come and go to it in irregular pulsations. Their presence is constant, but their number variable. Comparative silence may exist for an hour or so after the first joyful feast of the day, to be broken by quite a gush of the sounds of revelry, and then the tree becomes again for a space as noisy as a merry-go-round. RED-LETTER BIRDS To the manucode is ascribed practical interference with the laws of Nature. This handsome bird, of jet black glossy plumage, comes hither in September, adding to the pleasant sounds of the jungle a loud rich note, which closely resembles the frequent repetition of the name bestowed upon it by the blacks, "Calloo-calloo." As are its visits so are its notes--casual, coming in erratic bursts and sudden sallies of whirling spiral sound. Its advent is hailed with satisfaction, for the belief exists that it causes the bean-tree--the source of a much-esteemed food--togrow more quickly. This faith has a substantial origin, for shortly after the bird's first fluty notes are heard the bean tree blossoms, renewing the promise of plenty. While here, the "Calloo-calloo," is remarkably shy, very rarely venturing out of the seclusion of the thickest jungle, and warning off intruders with a curious note of alarm, half purr, half hiss. When the clattering corcorax puts in an appearance the blacks lift up their eyes unto the hills, firm in the faith that the birds cause in them an increase in height, or to put it in the vernacular--"Look out. Mountain jump up little bit!" When the flame-tree flowers, it is to tell of the coming of the nutmeg pigeon, when eggs and dainty young are to be obtained with little trouble. Yet another red-letter time on the calendar is the laying season of the terns. Then the fancies of the blacks lightly turn to thoughts of "Tan-goorah" (bonito) and other strong-flavoured fish. So that the young shall not lack, nor suffer hunger, the hatching is coincident with the appearance of immense shoals of young fish which the bonito perpetually harass, driving them to the surface for the terns, with sharp screams of satisfaction, to dart upon. What with the strong, far-leaping fish, and the agile, acrobatic birds, the existence of the small fry is one of perplexity and terror. Six species of tern take part in these gyrating, foraging campaigns. Three show almost purely white as they fly; the others, less numerous, as dark flakes in the living whirlwind. Ever changing in position and in poise--some on the swift seaward cast, some balancing for it with every fraction of brake power exerted in beating wings and expanded tail, some recovering equilibrium lost through a fluky start, some dashing deep, some hurrying away (after a spasmodic flutter of dripping feathers) with quivering slips of silver--the perpetual whirl keeps pace with the splashes of the bonito and the ripples of the worried small fry. Could they enjoy the satisfaction of the fact the little fish might snigger when the terns are called upon to exert all their agility and tricks, vainly endeavouring to elude the long slim-winged frigate bird. This tyrant of the upper air observes, as it glides in steady, stately circles, the noisy unreflecting terns, and with arrow-like swiftness pursues those which have been successful. Dodge and twist and double as it may--and no hare upon land is half so quick or resourceful as the wily tern in the air--the frigate bird follows with the audacity and certainty of fate, until flustered and frightened the little fish is abandoned, to be snapped up by the air-ranger before it reaches the sea. As an exhibition of fierce and relentless purpose, combined with sprightliness and activity, the pursuit of a tern by the fearless frigate bird, and the impetuous swoop after and seizure of the falling fish, cannot be matched in Nature. As the cries of the circling tern mark the movements of the distracted shoals, the blacks in canoes fit in to the scheme of destruction, taking a general toll. So preoccupied are the bonito, that they fall a comparatively easy prey to the skilled user of the harpoon. Sharks continue the chain of destruction by dashing forays on the bonito, and occasionally man harpoons a shark. With his frail bark canoe tugged hither and thither by the frightened but still vicious fish, the black, endowed with nerve, then enjoys real sport. Not the least in dread of the shark, his only fear being for the safety of his harpoon and line as the lithe fish leaps and snaps, the black plays with it until it submits to be towed ashore. The birds' eggs on the coral banks also make an item in the blacks' bill of fare; while the frantic little fish hustled towards the shore are captured by the million in coffer-dams made of loosely twisted grass and beach trailers. CASUAL AND UNPRECISE These observations of mine are admittedly casual and unprecise. Not the life of a single bird or insect has been sacrificed to prove "facts" for personal edification or entertainment. Cases in which points were inconclusive have been allowed to remain undecided. The face of the administrator of the law here is rigidly set against the enforcement of the death penalty, simply because the subject is beautiful, or rare, or "not understood." With the aid of a good telescope and a compact pair of field-glasses, birds may be studied and known far more pleasurably than as stark cabinet specimens, and, perhaps, with all the certainty that the ordinary observer needs. Patience and a magnifying glass put less constraint on insects than lethal bottles and pins. An observer who was prepared to satisfy doubts with the gun might, possibly with ease, bring up the Bird Census of the island to one hundred and fifty. Such a one may find pleasure in the future in demonstrating how much more than a seventh of the birds of Australia dwell upon or visit the spot. The present era of strict non-interference has resulted in an increase, however small, in the species represented. Whereas in years gone by but two species of sea-birds nested on Purtaboi, now at least six avail themselves of that refuge. Birds that were driven to remote reefs and banks of the Barrier now make themselves at home for three months of the year within hailing distance. Tidings of goodwill towards the race generally are beginning to spread. Gladness compels me to record a recent development of the protective laws. Space for the rearing of families at the headquarters of the terns--Purtaboi--having been gradually absorbed during recent years, the overflow--comprising perhaps a thousand amorous birds--has taken possession of the sand spit of Dunk Island. So calm are they in the presence of man, so sure of goodwill, that when temporarily disturbed, they merely wheel about close overhead, remonstrating against intrusion in thin tinny screams, and settle again on their eggs before the friendly visit is well over. Not for ten years at the least have sea-birds utilised this spot. Realising their privileges elsewhere in the immediate neighbourhood, they have thrust themselves under official protection. They crowd me off a favourite promenade, mine by right of ten years' usage. They scold every boat, affront passing steamers, and comport themselves generally as if on the assurance of counsel's opinion on the legality of their trespass. And so it has come to pass, that the example of the uninfluential Beachcomber, in the establishment of an informal and unofficial refuge for birds, has been warranted and confirmed by the laws of the country. A proclamation in those terms, those good set terms, which time and custom approve, forbids shooting on this and two neighbouring groups of islands. Is there not excuse in this flattery for just a little vainglory? CHAPTER IV GARDEN OF CORAL Brammo Bay has its garden of coral--a border of pretty, quaint and varied growth springing up along the verge of deep water. It is not as it used to be--no less lovely than a flower-garden of the land. Terrestrial storms work as much if not greater havoc in the shallow places of the sea as on the land. Pearl-shell divers assert that ordinary "rough weather" is imperceptible at a depth of two fathoms; while ten fathoms are generally accepted as the extreme limit of wave action, however violent the surface commotion. Yet in the shallow sea, within the Barrier Reef in times of storm and stress, not only are groves of marine plants torn and wrenched up, but huge lumps of coral rock are shattered or thrown bodily out of place and piled up on "uproarious beaches." A storm in March, 1903, which did scarcely any damage to vegetation ashore, destroyed most of the fantastic forms which made the coral garden enchanting. In its commotion, too, the sea lost its purity. The sediment and ooze of decades were churned up, and, as the agitation ceased, were precipitated--a brown furry, slimy mud, all over the garden--smothering the industrious polyps to whom all its prettiness was due. Order is being restored, fresh and vigorous shoots sprouting up from the fulvid basis; but it may be many years before the damage is wholly repaired and the original beauty of the garden restored, for the "growth" of coral--the skeletons of the polyps--is methodical and very slow. We speak of coral as if it were a plant, yet the reproduction is by means of eggs, and the polyp is as much an animal as a horse or an elephant. In times past the marine garden comprised several acres in which were plants of almost every conceivable shape and form, and more or less bright and delicate in colour. Fancy may feign shrubs, standard and clipped; elaborate bouquets, bunches of grapes, compact cauliflowers, frail red fans. Rounded, skull-like protuberances with the convolutions of the brain exposed, stag-horns, whip-thongs yards long, masses of pink and white resembling fanciful confectionery, intricate lace-work in the deepest indigo blue, have their appointed places. Some of the spreading plant-like growths are snow-white, tipped with mauve, lemon-coloured tipped with white, white tipped with lemon and pale blue. On the rocks rest stalkless mushrooms, gills uppermost, which blossom as pom-pom chrysanthemums; rough nodules, boat- and canoe-shaped dishes of coral. Adhering to the rocks are thin, flaky, brittle growths resembling vine-leaves, brown and golden-yellow; goblets and cups, tiered epergnes, distorted saucers, eccentric vases, crazily-shaped dishes. Clams and cowries and other molluscs people the cracks and crevices of coral blocks, and congregate beneath detached masses and loose stones. In these fervid and fecund waters life is real, life is earnest. Here, are elaborately armoured crayfish (PALINURUS ORNATUS), upon which the most gaudy colours are lavished; grotesque crabs, fish brilliant in hue as humming-birds. Life, darting and dashing, active and alert, crawling and slithering, slow and stationary, swarms in these marine groves. A coral reef is gorged with a population of varied elements viciously disposed towards each other. It is one of Nature's most cruel battlefields, for it is the brood of the sea that "plots mutual slaughter, hungering to live." Molluscs are murderers and the most shameless of cannibals. No creature at all conspicuous is safe, unless it is agile and alert, or of horrific aspect, or endowed with giant's strength, or is encased in armour. A perfectly inoffensive crab, incapable of inflicting injury to anything save creatures of almost microscopic dimensions, assumes the style and demeanour of a ferocious monster, ready at a moment's notice to cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war. Another hides itself as a rugged nodule of moss-covered stone; its limbs so artfully stowed away that detection would be impossible did it not occasionally betray itself by a stealthy movement. The pretty cowrie, lemon-coloured and grey and brown, throws over its shining shoulders a shawl of the hue of the rock on which it crawls about, grey or brown or tawny, with white specks and dots which make for invisibility--a thin filmy shawl of exquisite sensitiveness. Touch it ever so lightly, and the helpless creature, discerning that its disguise has been penetrated, withdraws it, folding it into its shell, and closes its door against expected attack. It may feebly fall off the rock, and simulating a dead and empty shell, lie motionless until danger is past. Then again it will drape itself in its garment of invisibility and slide cautiously along in search of its prey. Under the loose rocks and detached lumps of coral for one live there will be scores of dead shells. The whole field is strewn with the relics of perpetual conflict, resolving and being resolved into original elements. We talk of the strenuous life of men in cities. Go to a coral reef and see what the struggle for existence really means. The very bulwarks of limestone are honeycombed by tunnelling shells. A glossy black, torpedo-shaped creature cuts a tomb for itself in the hard lime. Though it may burrow inches deep with no readily visible inlet, cutting and grinding its cavity as it develops in size and strength, yet it is not safe. Fate follows in insignificant guise, drills a tiny hole through its shell, and the toilsomely excavated refuge becomes a sepulchre. Even in the fastness of the coral "that grim sergeant death is strict in his arrest." All is strife--war to the death. If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty among men, what quality shall avert destruction where insatiable cannibalism is the rule. There is but one creature that seems to make use of the debris of the battlefield--the hermit crab (CAENOBITA), which but half armoured must to avert extermination fit itself into an empty shell, discarding as it grows each narrow habitation for a size larger. Disconsolate is the condition of the hermit crab who has outgrown his quarters, or has been enticed from them or "drawn" by a cousin stronger than he, or who has had the fortune to be ejected without dismemberment. The full face of the red blue-spotted variety (PAGURUS PUNCTULATUS) is an effective menace to any ordinary foe, and that honourable part is presented at the front door when the tenant is at home. For safety's sake the flabby gelatinous, inert rear end must be tucked and hooked into the convolutions of the shell, deprived of which he is at the mercy of foes very much his inferior in fighting weight and truculent appearance. The disinterested spectator may smile at the vain, yet frantically serious efforts of the hermit to coax his flabby rear into a shell obviously a flattering misfit. But it is not a smiling matter to him. Not until he has exhausted a programme of ingenious attitudes and comic contortions is the attempt to stow away a No. 8 tail into a No. 5 shell abandoned. When a shell of respectable dimensions is presented, and the grateful hermit backs in, settles comfortably, arrays all his weapons against intruders, and peers out with an expression of ferocious content, smiles may come, and will be out of place only when the aches of still increasing bulk force him to hustle again for still more commodious lodgings. A frilled clam (TRIDACNA COMPRESSA) in its infancy seals or anchors itself in a tiny crack or crevice, and apparently by a continuous but imperceptible movement analogous to elbow-rooming, deepens and enlarges its cavity as it develops. Should it survive in defiance of all its foes, just taking from the sea the sustenance for which it craves with gaping valves, it may increase in bulk, but its apartment in the limestone never seems too large--just a neat fit In its abiding-place it presents an irregular strip of silk, green as polished malachite, or dark green and grey, or blue and slaty green, mottled and marbled, with crimped edges and graceful folds--an attractive ornament in the drab rock. Touch any part--there is a slow suspensory withdrawal, and then a snap and spurt of water as the last remnant of the living mantle disappears between the interlocking valves of porcelain white. Apart from the bulk and the fantastic shapes of coral structures, there is the beauty of the living polyps. That which when dry may have the superficial appearance of stone plentifully pitted--a heavy dull mass--blossoms with wondrous gaiety as the revivifying water covers it. The time to admire these frail marine flowers is on an absolutely calm day. All the sediment of the sea has been precipitated. The water is as transparent as rock crystal, but like that mineral slightly distorts the object unless the view is absolutely vertical. It is a lens perfect in its limpidity. Here is a buff-coloured block roughly in the shape of a mushroom with a flat top, irregular edges, and a bulbous stalk. Rich brown alga hangs from its edges in frills and flounces. Little cones stud its surface, each of which is the home of a living, star-like flower, a flower which has the power of displaying and withdrawing itself, and of waving its fringed rays. Each flower is self-coloured, and may represent a group of animals. There are blues of various depths and shades from cobalt to lavender, reds, orange and pinks, greens, browns and greys, each springing from a separate receptacle. All are alike in shape--viewed vertically, many-rayed stars; horizontally, fir-trees faultlessly symmetrical in form and proportion. These flowers all blossom, or trees, or stars, are shy and timorous. A splash and they shrink away. The hope of such wilderness--as barren-looking as desert sandstone--ever blossoming again seems forbidden. Quietude for a few moments, and one after another the flowers emerge, at first furtively but gathering courage in full vanity, until the buff rock becomes as radiant as a garden bed. Upon coral blocks, which represent the skeletons of polyps in orderly and systematic profusion, other creatures more highly organised appear, having in one feature a family likeness to the polyps, upon whose hospitality they impose, that is, if the setting up of an establishment on the remains of innumerable ancestors of its host may be said to be merely an imposition. One is a species of mollusc which resembles, in some respects, that to which has been given the name of SURPULA. In its babyhood it attaches itself to the coral, and forthwith begins to build a home, which is nothing more than a calcareous tube, superficially resembling a corpulent worm, instantaneously petrified while in the act of a more or less elaborate wriggle or fantastic contortion. In this complicated tunnel the creature resides, presenting a lovely circular disc of glowing pink as its front door. A few inches beneath the water this operculum or lid is not unlike a pearl, but as you gaze upon it, it slips on one side, and five animated red rays appear, waving like automatic flag signals. Though well housed, it is almost as timorous as the coral polyps. Upon the least alarm the rays disappear in a twinkle, and the pink pearl trap-door glows again. Break off the end of the shelly tunnel in an attempt to secure the pearl, and it is as elusive as a sunbeam. It recedes as piece by piece is broken away, until the edge of the cylinder is flush with the surface of the coral in which the shell is embedded. There the pearly operculum glows in safety. The living rays or flower-like face are the features in which this encased worm resembles the coral polyps on the one hand and the houseless beche-de-mer on the other. Some of the numerous inhabitants of the reef, struggling to keep in the fashion, make the very best of five simple points. Others flaunt with no apparent vanity or pride quite a plume, of complex rays more or less beautifully coloured. A worm which occasionally swims like a water snake, and again reposes inertly on the sand, as does the beche-de-mer, sets off its brown naked body with a red nimbus--a flexible living nimbus, ruby red. The visible part of the organism of the coral polyps is composed of rays, from the sides of which spring secondary rays, the combination producing complex stars of great beauty and which call to mind the frost flowers, and the flowers into which some inorganic substances bloom as they crystallise. The congested state of a coral reef, and the inevitable result thereof--perpetual war of species and shocking cannibalism--have been referred to. Another result of the overcrowding has yet to be mentioned. Possibly there may be those who are disinclined to credit the statement that some of the denizens take in lodgers. But the fact remains. Having ample room and to spare within their own walls, they offer hospitality to homeless and unprotected strangers, whom graceless Nature has not equipped to take part in the rough-and-tumble struggle for existence outside. A tender-hearted mollusc (PINNA) accepts the company of a beautiful form of mantis-shrimp--tender, delicate and affectionate--which dies quickly when removed from its asylum, as well as a singular creature which has no charm of character, and must be the dullest sort of lodger possible to imagine. It is a miniature eel, which looks as if it had been drawn out of rock crystal or perfectly clear glass. There is no apparent difference between the head and the tail, save that one end tapers more gradually than the other. Very limited power of motion has been bestowed upon it. It cannot wriggle. It merely squirms in the extremity of laziness or lassitude. These two keep the PINNA company--the lively shrimp, pinkish brown and green with pin-point black eyes, and the little eel as bright and as transparent yet as dull and insipid as glass. One of the oysters attracts the patronage of a rotund crab, which in some respects resembles a tick, and a great anemone a brilliant fish--scarlet and silver defined with purple hair lines--which on alarm retires within the ample folds of its host. The flowers of a coral reef live. A bouquet of lavender-coloured, tender, orderly spikes has a gentle rhythmical, swaying movement. A touch, and by magic the colour is gone--naught remains but a dingy brown lump on the rock, whence water oozes. Another form of plant-like life takes the colour of rich green--the green of parsley, and faints at the touch, as does the sensitive plant of the land. Another strange creature, roughly saucer-shaped, but deep grey mottled with white and brown, continuously waves its serrated edges and pulsates at the centre. It starts and stops, contracts and withdraws steadily into the sand upon interference. One of the shrimps (GONODACTYLUS CHIRAGRA) in my experience found only far out on the reef at dead low-water winter spring-tides, might be taken as a display collection in miniature of those gems of purest ray serene which the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear. The emerald-green tail is fringed with transparent golden lace; the malachite body has the sheen of gold; the chief legs are of emerald with ruby joints, and silvery claws; the minor as of amber, while over all is a general sheen of ornamentation of points and blotches of sapphire blue. Long white antennae, delicate and opaque, spring from the head. The decorative hues are not laid on flat, but are coarsely powdered and sprinkled as in the case of one of the rarest of Brazilian butterflies, and they live. Picture a moss-rose with the "moss" all the colours of the rainbow, on which the light plays and sparkles, and you have an idea of the effect of the jewellery of this lustrous crustacean. Yet it is not for human admiration. Its glints speedily dim in the air. To be gobbled up by some hungry fish is the ordinary fate of the species. Possibly splendour is bestowed upon the shrimp as a means by which certain fish distinguish a particularly choice dainty, and the fish show the very acme of admiration by "wolfing" it. Thus are the examples of high art in Nature remorselessly lavished. Quite distinct is the unconscious genius which now demands brief reference to its perfections. Though a brilliant example of the employment of unattractive deceptive features, it has no individual comeliness--not an atom of grace, no style of its own. Every feature, attitude and movement is subordinate to the part it plays. Death being the penalty, it may not blunder. Behold, among acres of similar growth, a trivial collection of rough, short weeds of the sea--grey, green and mud-coloured. This microcosm glides and stops. The movement is barely perceptible; the intervals of rest long and frequent. An untimely slide as the chance gaze of the observer is directed to the spot, betrays that here is the centre of independent life and motive. The dwarf, unkempt weeds cloak a meek, weak, shrinking crab, whose frail claws and tufted legs are breeched with muddy moss, and whose oddly-shaped body is obscured by parasitic vegetation and realistic counterfeits thereof. Inspection, however critical, makes no satisfactory definition between the real and the artificial algae, so perfectly do the details of the moving marine garden blend with the fringes and fur of the animal's rugged and misshapen figure and deformed limbs. As an artistic finish to a marvellous piece of mummery, in one of the crude green claws is carried a fragment of coral, green with the mould of the sea. It and the claw are indistinguishable until, in the faintest spasm of fright, the crab abandons the coral, and shrinking within itself becomes inanimate--as steadfast a patch of weeds as any other of the reef. Recovering slowly from its fright, and conscious of the necessity for each detail of its equipment and insignia, the lowly crustacean timidly re-grips the coral, and holding it aloft, glides discreetly on its way, invisible when stationary, most difficult to detect when it moves. To see the coral garden to advantage you must pass over it--not through it. Drifting idly in a boat in a calm clear day, when the tips of the tallest shrubs are submerged but a foot or so, and all the delicate filaments, which are invisible or lie flat and flaccid when the tide is out, are waving, twisting and twining, then the spectacle is at its best. Tiny fish, glowing like jewels, flash and dart among the intricate, interlacing branches, or quiveringly poise about some slender point--humming-birds of the sea, sipping their nectar. A pink translucent fish no greater than a lead-pencil wriggles in and out of the lemon-coloured coral. Another of the John Dory shape, but scarcely an inch long, blue as a sapphire with gold fins and gold-tipped tail, hovers over a miniature blue-black cave. A shoal darts out, some all old-gold, some green with yellow damascene tracery and long yellow filaments floating from the lower lip. A slender form, half coral pink, half grey, that might swim in a walnut shell, displays its transparent charms. Conspicuous, daring colours here are as common as on the lawn of a race course. Occasionally on the edge of a reef there comes the fish of frosted silver, with hair like purple streamers floating from the dorsal fin a foot and more behind. Some call it the "lady" fish, because of its beauty and grace, and others the diamond trevally (ALECTIS CILIARIS). More frequently is seen "the sleepy fish," salmon-shaped, of resplendent copper, with bright blue blotches and markings, which remains motionless in the water, and so often awakens not until the spear of the hungry black is fast in its shoulders. Another handsome creature of olive green with blue wavy stripes and spots (FISTULARIS SERRATUS) has the shape of a gar-fish, and to counterbalance a long tubular snout, a slender filament resembling the bare feather shaft of some bird of paradise extending from the tail. With all its fantastic beauty a coral reef is cruel. Nearer the shore the stony blocks are overspread by masses of that singular skeleton-less coral, known as alcyonaria--partaking of the nature of rubber and of leather--an ugly, repulsive, tyrannous growth, over-running and killing other and more delicate corals, as undesirable pests crowd out useful and becoming vegetation. It occurs in varying colours and forms--sickly green and grey, bronze and yellow, brown and pink. Loathsome, resembling offal in some aspects as the receding tide lays it bare, it becomes pretty and interesting when covered with calm, limpid water, and its dull life flourishes with star-like, living flowers. Before our coral garden was as familiar as it is, it was said that on one of the reefs of Dunk Island there reposed a colossal clam--one of the giants of the variety known to science as TRIDACNA GIGAS. So prodigious was the alleged specimen, that no one had been able to remove it, and it was dimly suggested that the occupant of the island would easily become possessed of a very marvel among molluscs. So far, its resting-place has not been discovered, though all the reefs have been explored many times, nor do any of the natives know of its existence. Very few reefs, if all reports are to be credited, are without monstrous clams, but they seem to acquire the habit of suddenly disappearing--quite foreign to their bulk and stay-at-home character--when the time of anticipated capture approaches. One up a little north was stated to be over 10 feet long, and to weigh at least a ton, and 14 feet was alleged to be the size of another. But all disappear like will-o'-the-wisps when the search-party arrives on the scene, and none but ordinary specimens, that have no reputation to maintain, are there to flout the ardour of the collector. Circumscribed as it is, the garden of coral in Brammo Bay, now slowly recovering its lost loveliness, supplies an excellent field for the observation of some of the most wonderful of the processes of Nature. In many respects it is a miniature, as most fringing reefs seem to be, of the Great Barrier. It would be an exhibition of hopeless vanity to attempt to describe the many varieties of coral and fish and crabs and strange grotesque creatures low in the scale of life which are unceasingly at work within "coo-ee." The complexity of the subject from a scientific aspect is sufficient justification for reluctance to set down anything beyond casual experiences and personal observation, and the record of ever-recurring pleasure obtained from the delights of the marine garden. Special attainments and varied lore must be at the command of the student who would attempt to classify the marvels of a coral reef of even limited scope. When it is remembered that the Great Barrier Reef of Queensland--"one of the most valuable possessions of the state"--has a length of 1,250 miles; that some of its outlying reefs extend as far from the coast as 150 miles; that some approach as close as 10 or 12 miles; that the average distance of the outer edge from the coast-line is 30 miles; that it embraces an area of 80,000 geographical square miles, and that its corals, continuous and detached and isolated, teem with life, it is impossible to repress feelings of astonishment, wonder, and admiration. Subdued before such a vast phenomenon, the commonplace man calms his aspirations for knowledge by the reflection that industrious and skilled observers have years of study before them ere they come to know all the secrets of the Great Barrier. QUEER FISH "A strange fish! Were I in England now (as once I was), and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool but would give a piece of silver." Of curious and pretty shells there are so many varieties in these warm waters, that one must be well versed in conchology before daring to attempt an enumeration even of the commonest. I frankly admit "a little learning is a dangerous thing" in this interesting branch of natural science, and therefore cannot pledge myself to give details, while eager to set forth a few of the objects of interest, which present themselves to the open-minded though uninformed observer of sea-beaten rocks, mud flats, coral reefs, and the open sea. Well may the dabbler despair when nine titles are necessary to catalogue the oysters alone--oysters which vary from the size and independence--and the toughness (be it said) of the clam, to delicate morsels, so crowded and cemented in communities together, that they form bridges between severed rocks and shelves and cornices broad and massive; oysters flatter than plates, oysters tubular as service gas-pipes; the gold-lipped mother of pearl, the black-lipped mother of pearl, the cockscomb, the coral rock oyster, the small but sweet rock oyster, two varieties of the common rock oyster, besides the trap-door, the hammer, and another of somewhat similar shape whose official and courtesy title are both alike unknown, but which furnished knives and sharp-edged tools of various shapes to the original inhabitants of the island. The gold-lipped mother of pearl is rarely found, favourable conditions for it--deep water and strong currents--not being general. An occasional stray shell is picked up, and so far none has betrayed the presence of a valuable pearl. The black-lip occurs on the reefs, but not in any great quantity, and the most plentiful variety of the edible oyster is bulky in size and somewhat coarse in flavour. Apart from the rarity and beauty of some of the denizens of the reefs, there are others that are singular and interesting, and some whose intimate acquaintance is quite undesirable, save from a scientific and safe standpoint. A miniature marine porcupine decorates its slender spines of white with lilac tips, sharp as needles, brittle as spun glass, and charged with an irritant which sets all the nerves tingling. On the reefs uncouth fish pass solitary, isolated lives, in hollows and crevices of the coral, sealed up as are the malodorous hermits in rocky cells at Lhassa, and dependent for doles upon the profuse and kindly sea. Their bodies seem to mould themselves roughly to the shape of the hollows to which each has grown accustomed as crude but almost inanimate castings. To obtain perfect specimens the mould must be shattered. If the body does not yet fill the hollow, the inhabitant clings desperately to it, wedging itself with wonderful plasticity into odd corners and against niches, resisting to the last efforts at eviction. Torn from its home the fish is a feeble, helpless creature, incapable of taking care of itself, quite unfit to be at large, though apparently belonging to the self-reliant shark family. More than one species of fish, it is said, inhabit these coral grottoes. A compact creature with prominent rodent teeth ejects a spurt of water when its retreat is approached at low tide, while about its front and only door are strewn (after the manner of the "bones, blood and ashes" of the two giants in the valley through which Christian of THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS passed) the shells of the crustaceans and molluscs it has devoured. Stones hide creatures of forbidding but varying shape and colour--diminutive bodies ovate and round--brown, grey, glossy black with brown edgings, pink with grey quarterings and grey fringe, whence radiate five sprawling slender "legs," a foot or so long. Though doubtful in appearance, more in consonance with the creepy imagery of a nightmare than a reality of the better day, these are merely the shy and innocent brittle stars. They are endowed with such exquisitive sensitiveness that to evade capture they sacrifice, apparently without a pang, their wriggling legs piece by piece, and each piece, large or small, squirms and wriggles. The poet says that when the legs of one of the heroes of "The Chevy Chase" were smitten off, "he fought upon their stumps!" The voluntary dismemberment of the brittle star may be even more pitiful--in fact almost complete, yet it still strives to pack away its forlorn body in some crevice or hollow of the coral rock. It has been asserted that no one has ever captured by hand a brittle star perfect in all its members. "One baffled collector," said a highly entertaining London journal recently, "who thought that he had succeeded in coaxing a specimen into a pail, had the mortification of seeing it dismember itself at the last moment, and asserts that the eye which is placed at the end of a limb gave a perceptible wink as he picked up the fragment!" Here too, most of the "brittle stars" are self-conscious to the point of self-obliteration. But some, though still quite worthy the specific title FRAGILISSMA, which science has bestowed upon the tribe, may, if taken up tenderly, be handled without the loss of a single limb, and a limb more or less can hardly be of consequence to a creature which, no greater than half a walnut shell, possesses five, each 12 or 14 inches long, and supplied with innumerable feet. Further, so far, none of the vestiges of those that have committed the form of hari-kari, fashionable among the species, has been observed to behave in any way unbecoming the shyest, most retiring and most sensitive of creatures. The brittle star discards its limbs, or the best part of them, in the meekest manner possible. To enumerate the smaller and lowlier of the many creatures that live on the coral reef would be a task utterly beyond ordinary capability. The reader must be content with reference to a few of the more conspicuous of the denizens. THE WARTY GHOUL Beware of the stone fish (SYNANCEIA HORRIDA), the death adder of the sea, called also the sea-devil, because of its malice; the warty ghoul because, perhaps, of its repulsiveness; the lion fish, because of its habit of lurking in secret places; the sea scorpion for its venom; and by the blacks "Mee-hee." Loathsome, secretive, inert, rough and jagged in outline, wearing tufts and sprays of seaweed on its back, scarcely to be distinguished from the rocks among which it lurks, it is armed with spines steeped in the cruelest venom. Many fish are capable of inflicting painful and even dangerous wounds, but none is to be more dreaded than the ugly and repulsive "stone fish." Haply, it is comparatively rare. Conceal itself as it may among the swaying seaweed as it lies in ambush ready to seize its prey, or partially bury itself in the mud, it seldom eludes the shrewd observation of the blacks. With a grunt of satisfaction it is impaled with a fish-spear and placed squirming on a rock to be battered to pulp with its prototype--a stone. Utter destruction is the invariable fate of any stone fish detected in these waters, the belief of the blacks being that in default fatal effects follow a wound. But a black who suffers the rare chance of contact fortifies his theoretical cure of pulverising the offending fish by immersing the injured foot or hand in running water for a whole day, the popular treatment for all venomous wounds. As to the effect of the wound they say, "Suppose that fella nail go along your foot, you sing out all a same bullocky all night. Leg belonga you swell up and jump about? Bingie (belly) belonga you, sore fella. Might you die." One boy described the detested creature--"That fella like stone. Head belonga him no good--all hole." A graphic way of detailing a rugged depression in the head, which conveys the idea that the bones have been staved in by a blow with a hammer. The stone fish resembles in character and habits the death adder. Its disposition is pacific, it has no forwardness of temper; is never willing to obtrude itself on notice, trusting to immobility and to its similitude to the grey rocks and mud and brown alga to escape detection. Unless it is actually handled or inadvertently trodden upon, it is as innocent and as harmless as a canary. Why then should it be furnished with such dreadful weapons of offence? A full dozen of the keenest of spines, all in a row, extend from the depression at the back of the head towards the tail, each spine hidden in a jagged and uneven fringe, which, when the fish is in its natural element, can scarcely be distinguished from seaweed. Not until the warty ghoul acquires the sagacity which accompanies ripe age and experience, does it encourage deceptive plumes of innocent algae to anchor themselves to its back. Then it is that detection is beyond ordinary skill, and its presence fraught with danger. In a specimen 8 inches long, the first spine, counting from the head, can be exposed half an inch, the second and chief fully three-quarters, and the remainder graduate from half to a quarter of an inch. Each spine--clear opal blue--is surrounded by a sac of colourless liquid (presumed to contain the poisonous element), which squirts out as the spine is unsheathed. On the sides, and in lesser numbers on the belly, are irregular rows of miniature craters which on being depressed eject, to a distance of a foot or more, a liquid resembling in colour milk with a tinge of lavender. Fast on the points of a spear the fish gives an occasional and violent spasmodic jerk, when the prettily tinted liquid is ejected from all the little cones. After a pause, during which it seems to concentrate its energies, there is another and another twitch, each the means of sprinkling broadcast what is said to be a corrosive liquid, almost as virulent as vitriol. From almost any part of the body this liquid exudes or can be expelled. With its upturned cavernous mouth (interiorly a forbidding sickly green), its spines, its cones, its eruptions, its ejecta, its great fan-shaped pectoral fins, and its deformities generally, the stone fish well deserves the specific title of HORRIDA. Moreover, has it not a gift which would have brought it to the stake a few score years ago, as a sinful, presumptuous and sacrilegious witch--that of living for an hour or two out of its natural element. It deserves the bad eminence to which it has been raised by the blacks on accounts of looks alone, and if the poisonous qualities are in line with its hideousness, one can but pause and ponder why and wherefore such a creature has existence in "this best of all possible worlds." But it is known that to the Chinese it is dainty. They pay for it with good grace as much as 2s. 6d. per lb., and the flavour is said to resemble crab. BURRA-REE Another inhabitant of the coral garden to be avoided is the balloon fish (TETRAODON OCELLATUS), which distends itself to the utmost capacity of its oval body when lifted from the water. The flesh is generally believed to be poisonous, though of tempting appearance. Authorities assert that the pernicious principle is confined to the liver and ovaries, and that if these are removed as soon as the fish is captured the flesh may be eaten with impunity. Let others careless of pain and tired of life, experiment. Middle-aged blacks tell that when a monstrous "Burra-ree" was speared here, notwithstanding its evil repute, some of the hungry ones cooked and ate of it. All who did so died or were sick unto death. Some years ago two Malays in the vicinity of Cairns partook of the flesh and died in consequence. No black will handle the fish, and a dog which may hunt one in shallow water and mouth it, partakes of a prompt and violent emetic. Blacks are very careful to avoid touching it with anything shorter than a fish-spear, being of opinion that the poison resides in or on the skin, and that the flesh becomes impregnated when the skin is broken. The balloon fish is toothless, the jaws resembling the beak of a turtle, and in some species both the upper and the lower jaws have medial sutures like those of a snake. Was there not a Roman statesman or warrior whose jaws were fitted with a consolidated and continuous structure of ivory instead of the ordinary separate teeth? The balloon fish depends upon its inconspicuousness and harmony with its environment in the struggle for existence, for, no doubt, there are in the sea fish so strong of stomach as to accept it without a spasm. It will allow a boat to be paddled over it as it floats--a brown balloon--almost motionless in the water without evincing alarm, but it makes a commotion enough for a dozen when a spear is fast in its back. FOUR THOUSAND LIKE ONE Among the more remarkable fish that people these waters is a species that does not come within the limits of my limited reading on the curious things of Nature. No doubt, it is well known to the initiated, but I take the opportunity of saying that these notes are not penned with the presumptuous notion of enlightening the learned and the wise, but for the edification, mayhap, of those who do not know, who have no means of acquiring information first hand, to whom text-books are unavailable, and who are not above sharing the pleasures of one whose observations are superficial, and to whom hosts of common things in Nature are rare and entertaining. In the clear water of Brammo Bay, a greenish black object, a yard across by about a yard and a half long, moved slowly along, swaying this way and that, but maintaining a fairly accurate course consistent with the shore. As the boat drifted, it seemed as if an unsophisticated sting-ray had lapsed into the blissfulness of ease, careless alike of mankind and of its enemies in the water. When within reach the boat-hook was used as a spear more to startle the indolent fish than in the vain hope of effecting its capture. The boat-hook passed through what appeared to be the middle of the creature with a splash, and four or five fish, about 8 inches long, and of narrow girth, floated away, stunned, killed by the shock. Then it was realised that the apparently solid fish was really a compact mass of little fish, moving along with common impulse and volition, each fish having a sinuous, wriggling motion. So closely were they packed that it was impossible without careful scrutiny to discern individual members of the group, and so intimate their association and so remarkable their mutual sympathy, that they seemed to possess minds with but a single thought, hearts that beat as one. Here were not forty, not four hundred, but more likely four thousand living, moving, and having their being as a single individual. Dispersed for an instant as the boat-hook or paddle was driven through it, the mass coalesced automatically and instantly as if controlled by mechanical force, or composed of some resilient substance, and swayed again on its course, while the dead and stunned drifted away. Examining the specimens procured, it was found that they resembled lampreys in shape, olive green in colour, with pale lemon-coloured streaks and marks. Each of the gill cases terminated in a two-edged spur, transparent as glass, and keen as only Nature knows how to make her weapons of defence. Presently in obedience to some instinct the shoal left the shallow water inshore, and we watched it glide among the brown waving seaweed to the line of dull red, which indicated the outer edge of the coral reef and saw it no more. This, my piscatorial pastor and master says, was no doubt a community of striped cat-fish, (PLOTOSUS ANGUILLARIS). THE BAILER SHELL Adhering to a rock by a short stumpy stalk, sometimes sealed firmly to a loose stone, you may find an object in form and structure resembling an elongated, coreless pineapple, composed of a leathery semi-gelatinous, semi-transparent substance, dirty yellow in colour. It is the spawn case or the receptacle of the ova (if that term be allowable), and the cradle of what is commonly known as the bailer shell (CYMBIUM AETHIOPICUM) the "Ping-ah" of the blacks, one of the most singular and interesting features that these reefs have for the sight-seer. In its composition there may be fifty, more or less cohering, conic sections, each containing an unborn shell in a distinct and separate stage of development. At the base, the shells are, perhaps, just emerging each from its special compartment, as a young bee emerges from its cell--each a thin frail shell, about half an inch long, white with pale yellow and light brown markings. In time, should it survive all the accidents and assaults to which on entering the world it is beset, the tiny shell will develop into an expansively-mouthed vessel. The next succeeding row will be in a less matured state, and so the development diminishes towards the apex. Some of the compartments are occupied by shells transparent, colourless and fragile in the extreme, some by shells having merely the rudiment of form, until at the apex the cells contain but a drop or so of sparkling, quivering jelly. The bailer shell alive is like an egg, in the fact that it is full of meat. Many marine shells have surprisingly diminutive fleshy occupants, however great their tenacity and strength. The animal inhabiting a large-sized bailer weighs several pounds, the flesh being tough, leathery and of unwholesome appearance. When it has decayed, the shell being thin, the cavity is phenomenally capacious. Large specimens contain a couple of gallons of water, and as the shape is most convenient, and there is neither rust nor moth to corrupt, their aptitude as effective and durable bailers for boats is apparent. Some name them the boxer shell, tracing resemblance to a boxing-glove, others the "boat," and again the melon shell. Blacks use them for a variety of purposes--bailers, buckets, saucepans, drinking vessels, baskets, and even wardrobes. They represent, perhaps, the only utensil in which a black can boil food, and it is an astonishing though not edifying spectacle when the fat-layered intestine of a turtle, sodden in salt water just brought to a boil in a bailer shell, is eagerly devoured by hungry blacks. A RIVAL TO THE OYSTER Down the caverns of the submerged rocks and blocks of coral are two or three species of ECHINUS (sea-urchins), with long and slender spines radiating from their spheroid bodies. One (DIADERNA SETOSA) is distinguished by what appears to be precious jewels of sparkling blue--believed to be visual organs--which lose their brilliancy immediately on removal from the water. Another has a centre of coral pink. The black spines, 10 inches or so long, are exquisitely sharp, and brittle in the extreme. Some believe that the animals are endowed with the power of thrusting these weapons forward to meet the intrusive hand, for unless approached with caution they prick the fingers while yet seemingly out of reach. Admitting that I have never yet attempted rudely to grasp this creature (which certainly is capable of presenting its array of spines whither it wills) while submerged, for the mere purpose of testing its ability to defend itself--my enthusiasm being tempered by the caution of the mere amateur--it may be said that some of the spines appear to be blunt. All could hardly be "sharper than needles," for being used as a means of locomotion among and over and in the crevices of the coral and rocks, some are necessarily worn at the points. With care they may be handled without injury, though at first glance it would seem impossible to avoid the numerous weapons. Imagine a brittle tennis ball stuck full of long slender needles, many tapering to microscopic keenness at the points, climbing stiffly along the edges of rocks by a few of the stilt-like needles, and a very fair figure of the ECHINUS is presented. As a curious and beautiful creature he is full of interest, and as an adjunct to one's diet he is, in due season, full of excellent meat. We take the ugly and forbidding oyster with words of gratitude and flattery on our lips, and why pass with disrespect the creature that is beautiful and wonderful as well as savoury? To enjoy it to perfection, extricate the creature from his lurking place far down in the blue crevice of the coral, with a fish-spear. Don't experiment with your fingers. On the gunwale of your boat divest it of its slender black spines, and with a knife fairly divide the spheroid body, and a somewhat nauseous-looking meat is disclosed; but no more objectionable in appearance than the substance of a fully ripe passion fruit. The flavour! Ah, the flavour! It surpasseth the delectable oyster. It hath more of the savour and piquancy of the ocean. It clingeth to the palate and purgeth it of grosser tastes. It recalleth the clean and marvellous creature, whose life has been spent in cool coral grottoes, among limestone and the salty essences of the pure and sparkling sea, and if you be wise and devout and grateful, you forthwith give praise for the enjoyment of a new and rare sensation. The ECHINUS is said to be essentially herbivorous, but my cursory observation leads me to the opinion (very humbly proffered) that it fulfils a definite purpose in the order of Nature, too, and depends for sustenance, or for the building up of its structure, upon certain constituents of the coral. Does it not break and grind down to powder the ramparts of coral? Clumsy and ill-shaped as it appears to be in other respects, it has jaws of wonderful design, and known to the ancients as "Aristotle's lantern." They are composed of five strips of bony substance, with enamel-like tips overlying each other in the centre of the disc-shaped mouth. With this splendid instrument the creature grips and breaks off or gnaws off, or bores out crumbs of coral which you find, apparently in process of digestion, as you render him an acceptable morsel. Scientific observers affirm that by means of an acid which the ECHINUS secretes, it disintegrates the rock, and that the jaws are used merely to clear away the softened rubbish. How is it then that the globular cavity is often well-ballasted with tiny crisp chunks of coral rock? Possibly to the assimilation of the lime is due, in some measure, the singularly sweet and expressive savour. So we see the coral-reef-building polyps toiling with but little rest, almost incessantly labouring to raise architectural devices of infinite design, and other creatures as industriously tearing them down to form the solid foundation of continents. Another species of ECHINUS eludes its enemies by the adoption of a cumbersome and forbidding mask. Ineffectively armed, the spines though numerous being short and frail, it holds empty bivalve shells on its uppermost part, The unstudied accumulation of debris--a fair sample of the surrounding ocean floor--would fail to fix notice, but that it moves bodily and without apparent cause. Inspection penetrates the disguise. Wheresoever the ECHINUS goes--its progress is infinitely slow--it carries a self-imposed burden--the refuse of dead and inanimate things--that it may, by imposition upon its foes, continue in the way of life. SHARKS AND SKIPPERS Local blacks have no fear of sharks. They take every care to avoid crocodiles, exercising great caution and circumspection when crossing inlets and tidal creeks. So shrewd are their observations that they will describe distinctive marks of particular crocodiles and indicate their favourite resorts. Their indifference to sharks is founded on the belief that those which inhabit shallow water among the islands never attack a living man. Blacks remain for hours together in the water on the reefs when beche-de-mer fishing, and the record of an attack is rare indeed. They are far more fearful of the monstrous groper (PROMICROPS ITAIARA), which lying inert among the coral blocks and boulders of the Barrier Reef, bolts anything and everything which comes its way, and which will follow a man in the water with dogged determination, foreign to the nervous, suspicious shark. Recently a vigorous young black boy was attacked by a groper while diving for beche-de-mer. The fish took the boy's head into its capacious mouth, mauling him severely about the head and shoulders, and but for his valiant and determined struggles would doubtless have succeeded in killing him. Such an incident as the following does not convince blacks that the sharks of the Barrier Reef are dangerous. The captain of a beche-de-mer cutter was paddling in a dinghy along the edge of a detached reef not many miles from Dunk Island, while several of his boys were swimming and diving. Suddenly one of them was seized and so terribly mutilated that he died in a few minutes. Although the captain was within 8 or 10 feet of the boy, and three of his mates not more than a few yards off, though all were wearing swimming goggles which enable them when diving to distinguish objects at a considerable range, though the sea was calm and clear and the water barely 10 feet deep, no one saw a shark or any other fish capable of inflicting such injuries as had caused the death of "Jimmy," nor was there any disturbance of the surface of the water. Years before a countryman of the unfortunate "Jimmy" was mauled by a small shark, but got away, though crippled for life. By some quaint process of reasoning the companions of the boy who was killed connected his death with the attack upon the other, the scene of which was 200 miles distant, and became convinced that he had been the victim of another kind altogether "--a sort of mysterious marine debil-debil," not known to entire satisfaction by the best-informed black boy, and quite beyond the comprehension of the dull-witted white man. Having thus conclusively to their minds set at naught the theory that a shark was responsible, it was absolutely unreasonable to fear sharks generally. Why should they blame a shark when it was established beyond doubt that nothing but a "debil-debil" could have killed "Jimmy"? Their opinion was founded on this invincible array of logic: If a shark had killed "Jimmy," it must have been seen. Nothing was seen, therefore it must have been a "debil-debil." And the incident was accepted as a further and most emphatic proof of the contention that sharks do not "fight" live black boys. The single instance at Princess Charlotte Bay was an exception. Our tame sharks seem to have no fear of animals larger even than man. A shallow stretch of water half a mile broad separates the islets of Mung-un-gnackum and Kumboola from Dunk Island. At low-water spring-tides two connecting bands are exposed--a sand-bank and a broad, flat coral reef, between which is a lagoon, in which the water may be 6 or 7 feet deep. The horses of the estate are in the habit of making excursions to Kumboola, the desire for change being manifested so strongly that occasionally they will swim across when the tide is full. One of the horses was returning from an outing when there was a depth of about 3 feet on the sand-bank. As it approached the beach a shark, apparently making out from the lagoon, was seen suddenly to change its course, and follow the horse at a discreet distance. When only 50 yards from the beach the shark made an impetuous rush, and snapped at one of the horse's forefeet. The horse swerved, plunged and lashed out vigorously and with such excellent precision that the shark was kicked like a football out of the water. It appeared to be 5 or 6 feet long, and to be quite satisfied that the horse, like a black, was not to be molested until it was past resistance. The horse bore the marks of the affray on the pastern for weeks. Again when a favourite dog jumped overboard from the boat in an eager but ridiculous venture after a "skipper," a shark detected the dog and shadowed it. As we went about to pick up the dog the dorsal fin of the shark indicated the wily, leisurely way in which it was keeping pace, reconnoitring and waiting until its prey was exhausted, while the dog did not appear to realise that a "frightful fiend" did close behind him swim. As the boat approached, the shark swerved off flippantly, but hovered in the vicinity, unsatisfied as to the identity of the new and strange animal that had so unaccountably appeared in its natural element and as suddenly disappeared. A rifle bullet, a little to the rear of the base of the dorsal fin, however, made it wobble and bustle away on a most eccentric route. The term "skipper," purely local, is intended to distinguish that singular fish, of the "long tom" (ZYLOSURUS, sp.) or alligator-pike, which shoots from the water and skips along by striking and flipping the surface with its tail, while keeping the rest of its pike-like body rigid and almost perpendicular. Each stroke is accomplished by a ludicrous wriggling movement. It would seem that by the impact of the tail upon the water the fish maintains its abnormal position and also sustains for a time its initial velocity. For a hundred yards or so its speed is considerable, equal to the flight of a bird, but the length of each successive skip rapidly diminishes, as the original impulse is exhausted, and then the fish disappears as suddenly as it shot into view. The "skipper" is an exceptionally supple fish. It is excellent eating, probably the sweetest fish of these waters, and it is much appreciated by blacks, who call it by the pretty name of "Curram-ill," and spear it whensoever chance affords. GORGEOUS AND CURIOUS The most gorgeous denizen of these waters is likewise one of the most curious--a fish resembling the surf parrot fish (PSEUDOSCARUS RIVULATUS), but seeming to surpass even that brilliant creature in colouring. It subsists on limpets and may be seen, a lustrous blue, at half tide feeding in favourite localities. The shape of the head and shoulders reveals something of the character of the fish, though the purpose of its resplendent appearance may not be obvious. Both head and jaws typify strength and leverage power. The mouth resembles the beak of a turtle or rather that of a balloon fish (TETRAODON). The under jaw protrudes slightly, and is fitted (in the case of the male) with two prominent canine teeth; the upper jaw has also a pair of projecting teeth of similar character. Each of the jaws consists of two loosely sutured segments, the articulation of the lower being much the freer. The gullet is horny and rasp-like, and in its exterior opening is an auxiliary set of teeth of most remarkable formation. The upper part of this interior set in some respect resembles the under jaws of a land animal, but there are marked distinctions. It consists of two bony structures, slightly curved outwards, lying parallel to each other and bound together by tough ligaments which not only permit a certain amount of independent lateral movement, but also independent action forwards and backwards. Each of the structures is fitted with a dozen to sixteen closely packed teeth, and at the rear of each is a magazine charged with five or six more, ready to move up and forward into position for active service as those ahead are worn away. The principle of modern magazine rifles is surprisingly exemplified by these reserve teeth. The lower jaw or rather dental plate resembles a flattened palate; the whole surface being studded with teeth, the edges of which overlap. It may be described as a piece of mosaic work in white and ivory. There are between sixty and seventy teeth resembling incisors on the dental plate. The whole seem to be in a state of perennial renewal to compensate for wear and tear. As those of the front row are broken or worn down, the next succeeding row occupies the frontal position. The teeth are deeply set in the bony base of the inverted palate, or rather obtrude but slightly above the surface, their office being to break down and grind to powder flinty food. The outward and visible teeth of the male are apparently given as weapons of defence, since they do not occur in the female, which has four back teeth. From their prominent position the teeth of the male must also be used for grasping and levering or pulling steadfast limpets from rocks. They needs must be hard and have strength as well as science at the back of them, for a limpet can resist a pulling force of nearly 2000 times its own weight. The sutures of the jaws of the fish enable it to accommodate its grip to the various sizes of limpets, and to take a fair and square hold, while the lower jaw seems to act as a fulcrum when the leverage is applied. But the exterior jaws and teeth are devoid of interest, compared with the interior set, which form an ideal pulverising apparatus. To those who are versed in ichthyology, these are known as pharyngeal teeth, because they are connected with the pharynx. Such teeth are present in some form or other in all true fish, but usually in a degraded form. In the rainbow and parrot fish they are highly specialised, otherwise the pulverisation of the hard shell of molluscs would be impossible. The interior of the mouth of certain species of the shark family, given specially to a diet of oysters, is thickly set with a series of uniformly diffused minute teeth, and another fish of these seas has a gizzard composed of an intensely tough material, lined with membrane resembling shark's skin. This fish swallows cockles and such like molluscs whole, and grinds them in its gizzard. And the colouring of this wonderful creature! The semi-transparent dorsal fin, which extends without a break from the back of the head to the tail, is broad and slightly scalloped. It displays an upper edging of radiant blue, a broad band of iridescent pink with greenish opal-like lights, and a narrow streak of the richest emerald green, close along the back. The body is covered with large scales, the colouring of which conveys a general appearance of an elaborate system of slightly elongated hexagons, generally blue outlined with pink, sometimes golden-yellow combined with green; and the colours flash and change with indescribable radiance. The head is decorated with bands of pink, orange and green; the pectoral fins are pale green with a bold medial stripe of puce, and the tail is a study of blue-green and puce. When the fish is drawn from the water the colours live, the play of lights being marvellously lovely. The colours differ, and they also vary in intensity in individuals. Though the prevailing tint may be radiant blue, it will be shot with gold in one and with pink in another. The flesh is edible, though (as is common with parrot fish) not particularly admirable with regard to flavour. It is wonderful and beautiful. Are not these qualities all-sufficient? Must everything be good to eat? To the natives of the island this jewel of the sea is known as "Oo-ril-ee," and to scientists as belonging to the scaroid family. TURTLE GENERALLY Three species of turtle frequent these waters--the loggerhead (THALASSOCHELYS CARETTA), the hawksbill (CHELONE IMBRICATA), and the green (CHELONE MYDAS). Both of the latter are herbivorous and edible; but the flesh of the first-named, a fish and mollusc eater, is rank and strong, and it is therefore not hunted, the shell being of little if any value. Loggerhead, however, is not disregarded by the blacks, though to the unaccustomed nose the flesh has a most repulsive smell. It is powerful and fierce when molested. One which was harpooned, on being hauled up to the boat seized the gunwale and left the marks of its beak deep in the wood. The creature seems also to be endowed with greater vitality than the other species, and this fact may excite the wonder of those who have seen the heart of a green turtle pulsate long after removal from the body, and the limbs an hour after separation shrink from the knife and quiver. The hawks-bill furnishes the tortoiseshell of commerce, and is much sought after. The flesh is highly tainted with the specific flavour of turtle, and therefore objectionable, though blacks relish it. Further north, in some localities, it is generally believed that the flesh of the hawks-bill may be imbued with a deadly poison. Great care is exercised in the killing and butchering, lest a certain gland, said to be located in the neck or shoulder, be opened, as flesh cut with a knife which has touched the critical part becomes impregnated. Here, though the blacks take precautions in the butchering a hawks-bill (being aware of its bad repute elsewhere), they have had no actual experience of the unwholesomeness of the flesh. One old seafarer acknowledges that he nearly "pegged out" as the result of a hearty meal of the liver of a hawks-bill. As is well known, fish edible in one region may be poisonous in another (Saville-Kent); the same principle may apply to the turtle. The flesh of the luth or leathery turtle (DERMOCHELYS CORIACEA) which diets on fish, crustacea, molluscs, radiates, and other animals, causes symptoms of poisoning; but the luth does not appear to be common in this part of the Pacific, though it occurs in Torres Straits. In a standard work on natural history it is asserted that the natives remove the overlapping plates of tortoiseshell from the hawks-bill by lighting a fire on the back of the creature, causing them to peel off easily. "After the plates have been removed, the turtle is permitted to go free, and after a time it is furnished with a second set of plates." Surely this might be classed among the fabulous stories of Munchausen. As the lungs of the turtle lie close to the anterior surface of the carapace, the degree of heat sufficient to cause the plates to come off would assuredly be fatal. Possibly there is explanation at hand. The turtle being killed, the carapace is removed and placed over a gentle fire, and then the plates are eased off with a knife. But that method is not generally approved. Professional tortoiseshell-getters either trust to the heat of the sun or bury the shell in clean sand, and when decomposition sets in, the valuable plates are detached freely. Exposure to fire deteriorates the quality of the product unless great care is exercised. The green turtle, with thin dovetailing plates, is the most plentiful and valued principally for food. But all green turtle are not acceptable. An old bull is so rank, that "there is no living near it--it would infect the North Star!" There are many Europeans who cannot relish even good green turtle, however tender, delicate, and sweet it may be. The worthy chaplain of Anson's fleet who "wrote up" the famous voyages, has some shrewd observations on the subject of green turtle, which he refers to as the most delicious of all flesh, "so very palatable and salubrious," though proscribed by the Spaniards as unwholesome and little less than poisonous. He suggests that the strange appearance of the animal may have been the foundation of "this ridiculous and superstitious aversion." Perhaps the poor Spaniards of those days happened in the first instance upon an ancient bull, or a hawks-bill, and tapped the poison gland, or a loggerhead or a luth, and came ever after to entertain, with right good cause, a holy terror of turtle, irrespective of species. An interesting phase in the life-history of the green turtle is the deception the female employs when about to lay eggs. Her "nests" are shallow pits in the sand. She may make several during a hasty visit to a favourite beach, while postponing the laying until the following day. Whether this is a conscious stratagem by which the turtle hopes to mislead and bewilder other animals partial to the eggs, or merely a caprice--one of those idle fancies which the feminine part of animated Nature frequently indulge in at a time when their faculties are at unusual tension--does not appear to be quite understood. When serious business is intended, the turtle scoops new pits, leaving some of them partially and others quite unfilled. These also appear to be intended to delude. That in which the eggs are deposited is filled in and the surface smoothed and flattened, and in cases where the nest is any distance beyond the limits of high-water, it is frequently carelessly covered with grass and dead leaves. The heat of the sun hatches the eggs. But the guile of the turtle is limited. However artfully the real nest may be concealed, the tracks to and fro as well as the tracks to and from the many counterfeits are as unmistakable, until the wind obliterates them, as the tracks of a treble-furrow plough. The chances against an unintellectual lover of turtle eggs discovering a fresh nest off-hand are in exact ratio to the number of deceptive appearances. In a few days all the tracks are blotted out, and then none but those skilled or possessed of keen perception may detect the nest. Blacks probe all the likely spots with spears, and soon fix on the right one. In a certain locality where the hawks-bill turtle congregate in untold numbers, a remarkable deviation from the general habit has been observed. Several of the islands are composed of a kind of conglomerate of coral debris, shells and sand. With strange perversity some turtle excavate in the rock cylindrical shafts about 18 inches deep by 6 inches diameter with smooth perpendicular sides. There is no adjunct to the flippers which appears to be of service in the digging, yet the holes are such that a man would find it impossible to make without the use of a chisel. Whether they are dug with the flippers, or bored, or bitten out with the bill, does not appear to be known. Eggs varying in numbers from 120 to 150 are deposited in each shaft, and covered loosely with the spoil from the excavation. When the young are hatched only those on top are able to clamber out. They represent but a very small percentage of the family. The majority die miserably, being unable to get out of what is their tomb as well as their birthplace. In the vicinity are sandy beaches on which other hawks-bill turtle deposit their eggs in accordance with time-honoured plans, and successfully rear large families. Why some individuals should be at such pains to defeat the universal instinct for the propagation and preservation of their species, is a puzzle. Moreover, hundreds of these anomalous nests are excavated some distance beyond high-water, in country where the growth of grass is so strong and dense as to form an almost impenetrable barrier to those infantile turtle which have the fortune to get out of the death-traps, and in obedience to instinct, endeavour to reach the sea. Is it that Nature, "so careful of the type" imposes Malthusian practices to avoid the danger of overcrowding the "never-surfeited sea?" Notwithstanding the positive check upon increase, the young are produced in myriads. "Sambo," a black boy, who had visited this isle, on his return to shores where turtle are less numerous, sought to impress his master with the substantial charms of the faraway North. "When," he said, "you come close up, you look out. Hello! You think about stone. No stone; altogether turtle!" There, to within a recent date, might be seen the bones of fourteen great green turtle side by side in a row. At first glance the scene seems a sanctified death-place for the species, until you are informed that a visitor to the isle, astonished at the number of turtle on the beach, and eager to secure an abundance of fresh meat, turned over fourteen, intending to call again for them. Circumstances prevented him from re-visiting the place, and the turtle, being unable to right themselves, perished. Personal observation and inquiries from many men whose lives may be said to be spent among turtle on the Barrier Reef convince me that blacks never venture to get astride a turtle in the water. One more daring and agile may seize a turtle, and by throwing his weight aft cause the head to tilt out of the water. The turtle then strikes out frantically with its flippers, but the boy so counterbalances it that the head is kept above the surface continuously, until the turtle becoming exhausted is guided into shallow water or alongside a boat, where it is secured with the help of others. Boys who accomplish this feat are few and far between, though it is by no means uncommon for a turtle to be seized while in the water and overturned, in which position it is helpless. A turtle detected in shallow water falls a comparatively easy prey, for on being hustled it soon loses heart and endeavours to hide its head, ostrich-like, when it is easily captured. None unacquainted with the skill with which the creature can spar with its flippers, and the effectiveness of these flippers, when used as weapons of defence, should venture to grip a turtle in its natural element. Another species, stated to have a circumscribed habitat, has a steep dome-shaped back, resembling at a casual glance a seamless metal casting, with the edges abruptly turned up. The head is large, the eyes deeply embedded in their sockets, and the animal has the power of protruding and withdrawing the head much more extensively developed than usual. The "death's head" staring from beneath the dome-shaped back gives to the animal a most gruesome aspect. These details are supplied by the master of a beche-de-mer schooner, to whom all the nooks and corners of the Great Barrier Reef and of the other Coral Sea beyond, from New Guinea to New Caledonia, are familiar. He says that the species, as far as his observation goes, is confined to the neighbourhood of one group of islands. To others this is known as the "bastard tortoiseshell." The back is not actually seamless, but age causes the plates to cohere so closely as to present that appearance. THE MERMAID OF TO-DAY Dugong (HALICORE AUSTRALIS) still frequent these waters. The rapacity of the blacks is a rapidly diminishing factor in their extermination, and the rushing to and fro of steamers, which it was thought would scare away those which remain, is becoming too familiar to be fearsome. Even in the narrow limits of Hinchinbrook Channel, through which the passing of steamers is of everyday occurrence, they still exist, though not in such numbers as in the early days. It would seem that the waters within the Great Barrier Reef may long continue one of the last resorts of this strange, uncouth, paradoxical mammal. Half hippopotamus, half seal, yet in no way related to either, something between a pachyderm and cetacean, the dugong is a herbivorous marine mammal, commonly known as "the sea cow," because of its resemblance in some particulars to that useful domesticated animal. It grazes on marine grass (POSIDONIA AUSTRALIS), parts of the flesh very closely resemble beef, and post-mortem examination reveals internal structure similar in most details to those of its namesake. But, unlike the cow, the dugong has two pectoral mammae instead of an abdominal udder, and like the whale is unable to turn its head, the vertebrae of the neck being, if not fused into one mass, at least compressed into a small space. In form it resembles a seal, the body tapering from the middle to the fish-like, bi-lobed tail. As with the whale, the flippers or arms do not contribute any considerable means of locomotion, but are used, in the case of the female at least, for grasping the young. When the mother is nursing her child, holding it to her breasts, she is careful as she rises to breathe, that it, too, may obtain a gulp of fresh air, and the two heads emerging together present a strangely human aspect. Traces of elementary hind legs are to be found in some small bones lying loosely in the flesh. The skull is singularly formed, the upper jaw being bent over the lower. The huge pendulous, rubber-like under lip, so studded with coarse, sharp bristles as to be known as the brush, seems a development of the under lip of the horse, and is a perfect implement for the gathering of slimy grass. To further detail the paradoxes of the dugong, it may be said that some of the teeth resemble those of an elephant; that the males have ivory tusks and of ivory their bones are made; that parts of the flesh may hardly be distinguished from veal and other parts from fine young pork. The freshly flayed hide is fully half an inch thick, and when cured and dried resembles horn in consistency. Reddish grey, sometimes almost olive green in colour, with white blotches and sparse, coarse bristles, the animal has no comeliness, and yet when a herd frolics in the water, rising in unison with graceful undulatory movements for air, and the sunlight flashes in helioscopic rays from wet backs, the spectacle is rare and fine. Rolling and lurching along, gambolling like good-humoured, contented children, the herd moves leisurely to and from favourite feeding-grounds, occasionally splashing mightily with powerful tails to make fountains of illuminated spray--great, unreflecting, sportful water-babes. Admiration is enhanced as one learns of the affection of the dugong for its young and its love for the companionship of its fellows. When one of a pair is killed, the other haunts the locality for days. Its suspirations seem sighs, and its presence melancholy proof of the reality of its bereavement. For some time after birth the young is carried under one or other of the flippers, the dam hugging it affectionately to her side. As the calf grows, it leaves its mother's embrace, but swims close beside, following with automatic precision every twist and lurch of her body, its own helplessness and its implicit faith in the wisdom and protective influence of its parent being exemplified in every movement. Blacks harpoon dugong as they do turtle, but the sport demands greater patience and dexterity, for the dugong is a wary animal and shy, to be approached only with the exercise of artful caution. An inadvertent splash of the paddle or a miss with the harpoon, and the game is away with a torpedo-like swirl. To be successful in the sport the black must be familiar with the life-history of the creature to a certain extent--understanding its peregrinations and the reason for them--the strength and trend of currents and the locality of favourite feeding-grounds. Fragments of floating grass sometimes tell where the animal is feeding. An oily appearance on the surface of the sea shows its course, and if the wind sits in the right quarter the keen-scented black detects its presence when the animal has risen to breathe at a point invisible to him. He must know also of the affection of the female for her calf, and be prepared to play upon it implacably. In some localities the blacks were wont to manufacture nets for the capture of dugong, and nets are still employed by them under the direction of white men; for the flesh of the dugong is worthily esteemed, and oil from the blubber--sweet, and limpid as distilled water--is said to possess qualities far superior to that obtained from the decaying livers of cod fish in the restoration of health and vigour to constitutions enfeebled and wasted by disease, Using a barbless point attached to a long and strong line, and fitted into a socket in the heavy end of the harpoon shaft, the black waits and watches. With the utmost caution and in absolute silence he follows in his canoe the dugong as it feeds, and strikes as it rises to breathe. A mad splash, a wild rush! The canoe bounces over the water as the line tightens. Its occupant sits back and steers with flippers of bark, until as the game weakens he is able to approach and plunge another harpoon into it. Sometimes the end of the line is made fast to a buoy of light wood which the creature tows until exhausted. So contractible and tough is the skin, that once the point of the harpoon is embedded in it, nothing but a strong and direct tug will release it. Some blacks substitute for the barbless point four pieces of thin fencing wire--each about 4 inches long, bound tightly together at one end, the loose ends being sharpened and slightly diverged. This is fastened to the line and inserted in the socket of the haft, and when it hits it holds to the death, though the animal may weigh three-quarters of a ton. It is stated that the blacks towards Cape York having secured the animal with a line attached to a dart insufficient in length to penetrate the hide and the true skin, seize it by the nose, and plug the nostrils with their fingers until it drowns. Here, too, the natives have discovered that the nose is the vulnerable part of the dugong, and having first harpooned it in any part of the body, await an opportunity of spearing it there, with almost invariably speedy fatal effects. The flesh of a young dugong is sweet and tender, and the blubber, dry-cured after the manner of bacon with equal quantities of salt and sugar and finally smoked, quite a delicacy. Not long since an opportunity was given of examining the effects of a bullet on a dugong. We had harpooned a calf perhaps a year and a half old, and as it rose to the surface in the first struggle for freedom, I shot it, using a Winchester repeating carbine, 25-35, carrying a metal patched bullet. There was no apparent wound, and on the second time of rising another bullet was lodged in the head, causing instantaneous death. When the animal came to be skinned, it was found that the first bullet had completely penetrated the body, the tough, rubber-like hide so contracting over the wounds of entry and exit as to entirely prevent external bleeding. The fatal bullet had almost completely pulverised the skull, the bones of which were ivory-like in texture. The appearance of the skull might have led to the conclusion that an explosive instead of a nickel-plated bullet had been used, while if the first bullet had not penetrated several folds of the intestines, no doubt it would have caused the animal very little inconvenience. The dugong rises to the surface at frequent intervals for air, and the ancients in the rounded heads of the mother and her offspring fancied a resemblance to human beings, who sought to lure the unwary to their mansions beneath the waves. Hence the scientific title "Sirenia" for the family to which the dugong belongs. Unpoetical people as the coastal blacks of Queensland are, yet they were among the few who had for neighbours the shy creatures upon whose existence was founded the quaint and engaging legends of the mermaid. But now we make prosaic bacon from the mermaid's blubbery sides. And those long tresses which she was wont to comb as she gloated over her comeliness in her oval mirror and sang those alluring strains, so soothing, so sweet, yet so deceiving--those wet and tangled locks, where are they? Is the whole realm of Nature becoming bald? The hair of the mermaid of to-day is coarse, short and spiky, with inches between each sprout. For a comb she uses a jagged rock, or cruel coral; for her vanity there is no semblance of pardon; and for her seductive plaint, has it not degenerated into a gulping unmelodious sigh, as she fills her capacious lungs with atmospheric air? BECHE-DE-MERE Anticipating the possibility of readers away from the Coral Sea, and to whom no reference to the subject is available, wondering as to the form and character of beche-de-mer, let it be said that the commonest kind in these waters is an enormous slug, varying from 6 inches long by an inch and a half in diameter, to 3 feet 6 inches by 4 inches. Rough and repulsive in appearance, and sluggish in habit, it has great power of contractibility. It may assume a dumpy oval shape, and again drag out its slow length until it resembles an attenuated German sausage, black in colour. Its "face" may be obtruded and withdrawn at pleasure, or rather will, for what creature could have pleasure in a face like a ravelled mop. Termed also trepang, sea cucumber, sea slug, cotton spinner, and known scientifically as Holothuridae, no less than twenty varieties have been described and are identified by popular and technical titles. The "fish" are collected by black boys on the coral reefs--dived for, picked up with spears from punts, or by hand in shallow water. Some prefer to fish at high-water, for then the beche-de-mere are less shy, and emerge from nooks in the rocks and coral, and in the limpid water on the Barrier are readily seen at considerable depths. Then the boys dive or dexterously secure the fish with their slender but tough spears, 4 fathoms long. At the curing station (frequently on board the owner's schooner or lugger) they are boiled, the fish supplying nearly all the water for their own cooking. Then each is cut open lengthwise, with a sharp knife, and by a thin skewer of wood its interior surface is exposed. Placed on wire-netting trays in series the fish are smoked or desiccated in a furnace heated, preferably, with black or red mangrove wood, and finally exposed to the sun to eliminate dampness which may have been absorbed on removal from the smoke-house. When the fish leave the smoke-house they have shrunk to small dimensions, and resemble pieces of smoked buffalo hide, more or less curled and crumpled. In this condition they are sent away to China and elsewhere to be used in soup. Australian gourmands are beginning to appreciate this delicacy, which is said to be marvellously strengthening, though without elaborate cooking it is almost tasteless, and therefore unlike dugong soup, which surpasses turtle in flavour and delicacy, and would fatten up a skeleton. Beche-de-mer is merely a substantial foundation or stock for a more or less artistic culinary effort. Beche-de-mer realises as much as 160 pounds per ton. In former days "red prickly fish," was the most highly-prized on the Chinese markets, but several years ago a fisherman in the neighbourhood of Cooktown used a copper boiler. Several Chinese epicures died after partaking of soup made from a particular parcel, and "red prickly" was forthwith credited with poisonous qualities. The consignment was traced to its origin, and popular opinion at the time was that the boiler had, unknown to the proprietor of the station, induced verdigris. Investigation, however, gave ground for the belief that the fish in the boiling exuded juices of such corrosive qualities that the copper was chemically acted upon. Beche-de-mer, is now invariably cooked in iron vessels, the bottom half of a malt tank being a common boiler, and the "red prickly," after being absolutely worthless for many years--so quaint are Oriental prejudices--is now regaining favour in that market. Beche-de-mer, though called fish by tradesmen, neither swims nor floats; neither does it crawl, nor wriggle, nor hop, skip nor jump. It simply "moves" on the ocean floor, when not reposing in apparently absolute and unconscious idleness like its distant relative, the star-fish. Nor does the creature possess any means of self-protection. Some species are rough and prickly, and are said to irritate the hand that grasps them. Others either in nervousness, or a result of shock to the system, or to amaze and affright the beholder, shoot out interminable lengths of filmy, cottony threads, white and glutinous, until one is astonished that a small body should contain such a quantity of yarn ready spun, to eject at a moment's notice like the mazes of ribbon drawn from a conjurer's hat. While it would be idle to particularise the different varieties of beche-de-mer, that lead such lowly lives in the coral reef here, there is one more conspicuous than the others, which may be referred to without presuming to trespass on the preserves of scientific inquirers. Indeed, it is entitled to notice, for it seems to be most prominent among the few which afford examples of unconscious mimicry and sympathetic coloration to insure themselves from molestation. Beche-de-mer does not generally give the idea of capability of even the simplest form of deception. True, the "black fish," shrinking from observation, puts on a cloak of sand, and a cousin assumes a resemblance to an irregular piece of coral--rugged, sea-stained and rotten. But the variety under notice takes a higher place in the deceptive art, for it seems to pose as an understudy to one of the most nimble and vicious habitants of the sea--the banded snake. It lies coiled and folded among the stones and coral of the reef, or partially hidden by brown seaweed, which heightens its momentary effect upon the nerves of the barefooted Beachcomber. Its length is from 4 to 5 feet, girth about 3 inches, colour reddish brown, with darker bands and blotches. The deception is in appearance only. A touch reveals an innocent but shocking fraud--a poor despicable dummy, lacking the meanest characteristic of its alert original. Limp and impotent, it is little more than a skin full of water, a yard and a half of intestine with no superficial indication of difference between head and tail. Watch closely, and the "face,"--a much frayed mop--is shyly obtruded from one end, and there is justification for the opinion that the other end is the tail. Possibly, after all, this may not be a true variety of beche-de-mer. In that case an apology to the rest of the tribe is necessary; though the mop-like face betrays a strong family likeness. If this dolefully helpless creature be lifted by the middle on a stick, its liquid contents are instantly separated, forming distended, high-pressure blobs at each end of the empty, flabby shrunken skin. Though it suffers this experiment placidly, being incapable of the feeblest resistance, it has the primordial gift of care of itself. Twists purposely made to test its degree of intelligence are artfullystraightened out, and the eagerness and hurry with which water is forced throughout empty parts show that life is both sweet and precious. And what is the value of life to an animal of such homely organism and so few wants? And under what charter of rights does it slink among the coral and weed affrighting God-fearing man under the cloak of his first subtle enemy? CHAPTER V THE TYRANNY OF CLOTHES "Give the tinkers and cobblers their presents again and learn to live of yourself." Few enjoy a less sensational and more tranquil life than ours. Weeks pass, and but for the visits of the kindly steamer, and the passing of others at intervals, there is naught of the great world seen or experienced. A strange sail brings out the whole population, staring and curious. Rare is the luxury of living when life is unconstrained, unfettered by conventionalities and the comic parade of the fashions. The real significance of freedom here is realised. What matters it that London decrees a crease down the trouser legs if those garments are but of well-bleached blue dungaree? The spotless shirt, how paltry a detail when a light singlet is the only wear? Of what trifling worth dapper boots to feet made leathery by contact with the clean, crisp, oatmeal-coloured sand. Here is no fetish about clothes; little concern for what we shall eat or what we shall drink. The man who has to observe the least of the ordinances of style knows not liberty. He is a slave; his dress betrayeth him and proclaims him base. There may be degrees of baseness. I am abject myself; but whensoever I revisit the haunts of men clad in the few light incommoding clothes that rationalism ordains, I rejoice and gloat over the slavery of those who have failed to catch even glimpses of the loveliness of liberty, who are yet afeared of opinion--"that sour-breathed hag." How can a man with hoop-like collar, starched to board-like texture, cutting his jowl and sawing each side of his neck, be free? He may rejoice because he is a very lord among creation, and has trousers shortened by turning up the ninth part of a hair after London vogue, and may be proud of his laws and legislature, and even of his legislators, but to the tyrannous edge of his collar he is a slave. He can neither look this way nor that, nor up nor down, without being reminded that he has imposed upon himself an extra to the universal penalties of Adam. One who lives in London tells me of the load of clothes he is compelled to wear in winter to preserve animal heat. He fights for life thus arrayed--thick woollens next the skin, the decent shirt (badge of respectability), the waistcoat of heavy cloth, the cardigan jacket (which hides the respectable shirt), the coat of cloth, strong and heavy; the overcoat long and incommoding, the woollen comforter, the wool-lined gloves, the double-woollen socks, the half-inch soled boots, the leggings, the hat. To carry this burden of clothes all day, pursuing ordinary vocations, were surely the grossest of bondage. While my three-garment costume--is it not convenient and fashionable enough? A smart cutter appeared in Brammo Bay. A man, apparently in a pale red shirt, let down the sails and anchor, and by-and-by one in a black coat buttoned to the throat paddled himself ashore in a dinghy. Like a great many worn on state occasions in country parts here, the coat had seen better days. It was black with greenish lights; the stitches round the button-holes and along the seams brown and grey; it smelt fusty; the buttons were--well, various and assorted. An inch or two of tarry spun yarn, clove-hitched to a miniature toggel, neatly carved, was the hopeful beginning, a hasty splinter inserted pin-wise, the heedless ending of the row. Between these ranged a bleached cowrie shell, loosely looped with string; a fantastic ornament (green with verdigris) from some bygone millinery, and a cherished relic of a pair of trousers of the past in all the boldness of polished brass. But it was easy to detect that there was no shirt beneath the dingy coat; and that the coat itself was merely a concession to the evidence of civilisation which had been apparent from the boat. On board the man wore neither coat nor shirt. The cheerful note of colour, so conspicuous as he sailed to the anchorage, was his sunburnt skin. Some men burn brown, some red. He was of the red variety, and his bare skin looked a deal more respectable than his cockroach-nibbled coat. To him. clothing save for decency's sake had become superfluous. He felt that "to be naked is to be so much nearer the being man than to go in livery." He wore no hat, no boots. Pyjama trousers of cotton composed his entire workaday costume; dungaree trousers and a musty coat his Court dress. Yet he was clean and glowing with health and cheerfulness; self-reliant, splendidly independent. Had he allowed his mind to dwell on clothing his independence would have been less. He might have required the aid of a black boy to navigate his boat, and the continual presence of a black boy in a small boat does not make for sweetness and light. SINGLE-HANDEDNESS Another grandly free man sailed his cutter into the bay one fine morning. He knew the water and ran her on the sand, brought his anchor ashore and shoved her off, to swing lazily the while. When I paid him a ceremonious visit, I found that he had but one arm. The empty right sleeve was the more pathetic when I saw him mixing his flour for a damper, and in the cunning twists and wriggling by which the fingers freed each other of the sticky dough and other dextrous manipulations, I soon came to recognise that with his left hand he was as deft as many men with their right and left. He had sailed the boat ladened with wire netting and heavy goods from Bowen, 200 miles south, and was on his way to his selection, 100 miles further north. A wiry, slight man though a real "shellback," one who had been steeped in and saturated with every sea, was "giving the sea best," nerve-shaken, so he said--and yet sailing a cutter with but 3 or 4 inches of free board "single-handed." And he told the why and wherefore of his fear of the sea. With a mate he had been for many months, beche-de-mer fishing, their station or headquarters a lonely islet in Whitsunday Passage, which winds about that picturesque group of islands through which Captain Cook passed in the year 1770. The twain had been out on one of the spurs of the Great Barrier Reef, and had been caught in the toils of adverse weather. After beating about for days they managed to make their station--hungry, thirsty, their souls fainting within them. Shelter and comfort were theirs, and it was no surprise to my visitor when his mate slept the next morning beyond the accustomed time. "Let him rest," he said. "He is dog-tired;" and went about the work of the day. He had himself known what it was to sleep eighteen and twenty hours at a stretch, for he had many times been worn by toil and watching and nerve-tension to the limit of endurance. And so the day passed, and the man in the bunk slept on. Peace and rest were his, and the busy man envied the calm indifference to the day's doings that he could not find in his heart to disturb. "Won't he feel fresh when he does wake," he reflected. "He'll be a bit narked at having wasted a whole bloomin' day. I shouldn't be surprised if he was savage, because I didn't call him." When the evening meal was prepared and everything in the tiny hut made orderly, it would be a pleasure for him to wake up and discover that he had been allowed to have his sleep out. Ah! but his sleep was very sound and very silent--almost too stillful to be natural. A touch on his shoulders, saying--"Andrew. Wake up, old fellow!" No movement, or response. His feet--cold! cold! and his chest, too, cold! The mate had found his port after stormy seas. His heart--worn out with stress and strain--had failed within him, and all day long his companion thought tenderly of him, making but little noise, thinking that his sleep was the sleep of a day, not the sleep of eternity that no earthly din may disturb. The weather was still boisterous, but it was essential to take the body to Bowen, to render unto the authorities there conclusive evidence that death had been the result of natural causes. My visitor's nerves were then virile. But the time of stress and strain was at hand. He found himself alone on a remote Island. A grim responsibility forced upon him. Awful as the duty was, it had to be courageously faced, and performed as tenderly as might be. Instead of the enjoyment of comfort and rest, and days of busy companionship and revivifying hopes, there was the shock that sudden death inflicts, dramatic loneliness, dry-eyed grief, forced exertion, and the abandonment of brightening prospects. With pain and infinite labour he succeeded in dragging and rolling the corpse to the beach. Thence he pushed it up a plank on to the deck of the cutter, and leaving his possessions to chance and fate, he, the wearied and bereaved one-armed man, set sail in violent weather across the open sea to the nearest port. At midnight the "great cry" of a hurricane arose. Lightning flashed over the stricken yeasty sea. A lonesome and grim quest this--full of peril. Did not Nature in the trumpet tones of a furious and vengeful spirit decree the destruction of the little boat as she bounced and floundered among the crests of those awful waves? Here was booty belonging to the ocean--prey escaping from the talons of the fiercest and most remorseless of harpies. So they shrieked and swarmed about the boat, howling for what was theirs. The strife was great, but not too great for the lonely man's seamanship. All the fiends of the sea might do their worst, but until the actual finale came, he would sail the boat--lifting her on the swell, eluding the white hissing bulk of the following sea. When at last the boat ran into port, the sea had gained a moral victory, but the man gave to the authorities the mortal remains of his mate to be buried decently on land. He told me that he felt cowed--he could never face the sea again. Once before he had given up "sailorising," not then on account of his nerves, but because ambition to possess a sweet-potato patch, pumpkins and a few bananas, melons, mangoes, had got hold of him. He had taken up a piece of land, but having no money his flimsy fencing was no barrier to the wallabies, and he abandoned the enterprise to them. Now he had abandoned his beche-de-mer project, had bought wire netting to keep out the wallabies, and would make a second effort to settle down. A little net fishing would help to keep him going. "As for the sea," said he, "I have had enough--too much. It is all right while your pluck lasts, but once get a shake, and you had better give it up. And the little boat!--I broke that rail as I was getting poor Andrew's body on board. She is all right, but for that--and she's for sale!" In an hour, having concocted some stew and baked his damper, the single-handed nerve-shaken, old sailor set sail, and I knew him no more. Another of poor old "Yorky's" adventures is worth telling. While out on the Barrier Reef, the black crew of his beche-de-mer boat mutinied, and knocking him and his mate on the head, threw them overboard. The sudden souse into the water restored "Yorky" to consciousness, and he swam back to the cutter whence the blacks had hastily fled in the dingy. It was a desperate struggle for a one-armed man to cling to and clamber up the side of the boat, but "Yorky" has never yet failed when his life was at stake. He won the deck at last, but at the expense of a broken rib and the flesh on the best part of his side tom bare to the bones. Still dazed, he chanced to look over the side, where he saw his mate's head bobbing up and down in the water. Hard as it had been for him to save himself, it was more difficult still to rescue the body from the sharks. Frantically using rough-and-ready methods, he hauled it on board, and disposed it as decently as circumstances permitted. "Yorky," great of heart, is quite unused to the melting mood. He admits that he felt pretty bad mentally. But whatever his feelings towards his sodden mate lying there with watery blood oozing from wounds on his head, exhibiting the marks of the necessarily rough-and-ready means that had been taken for his rescue, they had to be suppressed. Wet, dizzy, and sadly battered, with little more apparent reason for the possession of the breath of life than his companion, he set sail, slipped the anchor, and steered for the nearest port. Some distance on the way, to use "Yorky's" own and sufficient words--"The dead man came to life!" Both had to submit to the restraint of hospital treatment for many weeks ere physical repairs were complete. How is it that a one-armed man, slight in physique, whose brains have been addled by blows with billets of firewood, whose side is raw and bleeding, and who has a broken rib hampering his movements, is able to achieve feats that would be surprising if performed by a whole and stalwart individual? "Yorky" has always been a wonder, and his life a series of adventures and arduous tasks, which seem to prove that the loss of a limb has been compensated for by hardihood and resourcefulness worth a great deal more. A BUTTERFLY REVERIE "And laugh At gilded butterflies, and bear poor rogues Talk of Court news." There were but three men and a dog in the boat, but the boat was overburdened. Not that the dog was big, or the men either. It was all on account of the day. It was a day in which you wanted the whole realm of Nature for yourself--so full of sunshine and flitting butterflies was it--so beaming with the advent of summer, and her fervent greetings, so wondrously calm and clear. You felt selfish at the pleasure of it all. It filled you well-nigh to surfeit, yet you would have more of it. It was too delicious to squander upon others, yet how could one mind comprehend the grandeur of it all? The white boat drifted on a blue and lustrous sea. The reef points tapped a monotonous scale as the white sails swang to the swaying of the gaff. Listlessly the boat drifted to the barely perceptible swell, regular as the breathings of a sleeping child. Sound and motion invited to slumber. The shining sea, the islands, green and purple, the soft sweet atmosphere, the full glory of a rare day, kept all the senses in tune. There, 4 miles away, lay the island, and close at hand the turtle were ever and anon rising, balloon-like, from coral gardens to gulp greedy draughts of air, which not even the salty essences of the ocean could rob of its perfume. Sometimes the boat did seem conscious of inconstancy, and anon with feminine frivolity she would coyly swing round to flirt with the islets close at hand. She would have her own way until the free breezes came, and somehow the wind still blows whereso'er it listeth, and will not be untimely wooed, though the sailor whistles with all the "lascivious pleasing of the lute." Some atmospheric phenomenon, altogether beyond idle concern, lifted the islands afar off out of the water, suspending them in the sky. The languorous breadths of the sea gradually changed to silver, and under the purple islands the silver band extended, bright and gleaming, until it seemed to merge again into the blue of the sky. That was so, for was it not all visible--the purple islands, with the silver bands separating them from the sea. Yet under ordinary conditions those very islands are blue studs set in the rim of the ocean. What magic is it that uplifts them to-day between the ocean and the sky? This was a day of gushing sunshine and myriads of butterflies. They flew from the mainland, not as spies but in battalions--a never-ending procession miles broad. You could fancy you heard in the throbbing stillness the movement of the fairy-like wings--a faint, unending hum. From the odorous jungle they came, flitting in gay inconsequence, steering a course of "slanting indeterminates," yet full of the power and the passion of the moment. They flitted between the idle boom and the deck, and up the gleaming sky in all the sizes that distance grades between nearness and infinity. There were Islands near at hand and some afar off. What instinct guided them--for butterflies are short-sighted creatures--I know not. If wind had come, as we who lolled lazily in the boat longed, the myriad host of resplendent creatures would have been scattered and millions beaten down into the sea, above which they flew with such airy levity. What instinct guided the frail, unreflective creatures across miles of ocean to the Islands of the Blest among butterflies. In their variety, too, they were entertaining. In great number was the pretty frailty, whose wings are compact of transparencies and purple blotches. In this full, fierce light the purple is black and the transparencies all steel-like glitter. They came across in shoals. There was neither beginning nor end. All the sky glittered with winged mosaics. Then came the great green and gold and black creature, accompanied sometimes by his less gaily decorated mate, ponderous of flight; and, anon, that insect of regal blue, that can flit as idly as any of the order, and yet dart in and out of the jungle and over the tree-tops, with swallow-like swiftness. Rarely in the throng came that scarlet and black, which makes the gaudy, flaunting hibiscus envious of its colour; but the little yellow "wanderers," ever busy and active, came low over the water, weary with the long journey, and sometimes ready to rest--shifty flecks of gold--on the white sail. There was no end to the flight. The air was too full. One wearied of the ceaseless panorama of the gay bejewelled insects. They were the possessors of the prime of that glorious morning. Beautiful and frail, and inconsequent as they were, you envied them. They flitted on without guide or leader, venturing the dangers of water and air, flying up in the full blaze of the sun--eager, joyous, unconcerned. In the boat we were compelled to loll about between heaven and the cool coral groves, and compare enforced inactivity with the blithesome freedom of the weakest butterfly. Occasionally a turtle would bob up from its pastures below, and catching sight of the sail, with a bubbling gulp, disappear, the white splash creating concentric rings of ripples. But the breeze came not, and the disorderly procession of butterflies, miles broad, passed on. "Some flew light as a laugh of glee; Some flew soft as a low, long sigh, All to the haven where each would be." I listened to the wooings of the black boys to the breeze. They liked not the prospect of sweeping the boat home. They implored for wind with cooings, with petulant whistlings, and with gentle but novel objurgations. But it came not, and so the afternoon passed and evening fell, and the butterflies, a faint, thin stratum, drifted on. Then as a final challenge to the breeze that we longed for, and which had resisted all appeals, "Come on big wind and kill little boat!" exclaimed an irresponsible boy, whose ears had long ached with the days dull silence, and who saw no prospect of hot turtle steak for supper. As if to take up the gauntlet, a faint zephyr flicked the listless cheek of the ocean, and slapped the sails. The boom swayed and swung over, the boat, without guidance, idly headed off, and we flopped home to the placid bay before the unenergetic breeze, which was all that Nature in her idle hour could spare. THE SERPENT BEGUILED Eve Avenged "You do yet taste Some subtleties o' the isle that will let not you Believe things certain." Once upon a time--not so very long ago either--an unpretentious poultry farm was started. The idea of making, if not a rapid and bulky fortune, at least "a comfortable living" (and that phrase embodies much) out of poultry farming has been conceived, possibly, many times and oft. There was nothing novel, therefore, in the hatching out of this particular scheme. But for a paltry detail it would never have attained notoriety. We never blazon our failures--why should we? The one spark of original thought that enlightened the prosaic plans of the undertaking was this: The promoters wanted quality in the eggs of their hens as well as quantity. Quantity rests with the hen, but quality--like the "sluttishness" of Touchstone's sweetheart--may come hereafter. In order that there might be no excuse for and no degeneracy on the part of the hens, shops were ransacked for nest eggs of proper proportions. These were placed in spots conspicuous to the hens, who, of course, understood that they were expected to lay up to them. In other words, these were patterns for the hens to lay by. No self-respecting, conscientious fowl likes to be beaten by a nest egg. She goes one, or, it may be, a dozen or two better; but the stony-hearted egg is never to be bluffed. It is there as a standard of size, and in accordance with its dimensions so will the credit of the fowl yard be. In this particular yard all went well for many months. Why, the hens beat the nest eggs with scarcely an effort, and then started making records. It was a fierce and clamorous competition, and the enterprise flourished. A good beginning had been made, and the high-minded hens chuckled with pride and satisfaction. In the course of two or three months, however, a gradual deterioration in the size of the eggs took place. There was just the same amount of fuss and feathers, showing the artfulness of the hens, but the eggs soon dwindled down below plans and specifications, and then an investigation took place. Not a single nest egg was to be found. Vainly was search made. The hens sniggered. They had fulfilled their duty, and finding it tiresome and wearing to produce abnormal eggs, had secreted those set apart for them to measure by, and had thereupon levelled their enterprise and skill down. Such sinfulness and such burglarious conduct on the part of respectable hens that had the most discreet upbringing, that had never been allowed to play in anybody else's yard, and that had never been permitted to wander from the paths of virtue, was a sore affliction. But one day a nest egg was found far away in the bush, and then another a quarter of mile from the yard in the creek. Again another was discovered underneath a hollow log. Being restored to accustomed places with due ceremony, and in sight of all the hens in convention assembled, a gratifying change in the size of eggs produced resulted in a few days, but again a slump set in. The nest eggs had disappeared, and the hens were fulfilling their contract anyhow. Other nest eggs of prescribed dimensions were taken out of stock; and a yet more wonderful thing happened! One morning about fowl-feeding time a great cry arose. "Sen-ake!" "Sen-ake!" Yes, there was a snake. About half--the latter half--its length was visible outside the back of a nesting place (a box open at the front), and a blow from a shovel disabled it. Further examination showed that the snake had squeezed through a knot hole in the box. A lusty man hauled on the snake violently. The box was heavy, and from the front the snake could be seen. It looked troubled and uncomfortable, but not inclined to back out, although the inducement in that direction was considerable. Eventually the snake parted; and in the latter half there was a bulge. Dissection revealed--What--marvellous! a nest egg. But why did the snake show such reluctance to leave the box? The first or forward half was hooked out from among the straw, and there was another oval distention--another nest egg! The snake had discovered elsewhere a china egg, had swallowed it, and then crawled in at the knot hole, and got outside another. Escape was impossible. until the problem was solved by halving. There are no more accusations of dishonourable motives on the part of the hens in doing away with the porcelain patterns to escape the arduous duty of laying. It was all the fault of the serpent. Now the serpent is not wise, for any nest egg beguiles him. It takes a long while to digest such hardware. Traps are now laid for him. An egg of china is put in a box, the open part of which is covered with small mesh-wire netting. The snake submits to the temptation of the egg coyly resting on a bunch of grass, and having made it its own, cannot let go. Then comes abhorred fate in the shape of a gleeful man with a long-handled shovel, and the end of the snake is piece--s. ADVENTURE WITH A CROCODILE "Cooling of the air with sighs, In an odd angle of the Isle." Now to proceed with the deliberate intention of dragging by the ears into these pages a crocodile yarn. We have not a single "alligator" in Australia, our crocodiles being wrongly so called, but this perversity of nomenclature does not affect the anecdote. To tell of the coast of Queensland, and to omit reference to an adventure with one of those wary beasts would be to court criticism likely to cast a shadow upon the veracity of more than one of the incidents and occurrences herein to be chronicled. I approach the duty to the readers as well as to myself with diffidence, for has it not been stated that these pages were fated to be unsensational and unromantic, and can any one imagine an unsensational adventure with a crocodile? Therein lie the virtue of and the apology for this story. If the reader will take the trouble to scan the revised chart of the Island, he will notice on the eastern coast an indentation entitled "Panjoo," which, in the language of the blacks, seems to indicate "nice place." A steep grassy slope comes down to the sea, separated therefrom by a line of pandanus palms. To the north is a jungle-covered spur, along the foot of which is a palm-tree gully; to the south a ridge with low-growing, wind-bent acacias. The gully enters the boulder-strewn inlet under the shade of much leafage. The great Pacific gurgles at the base of giant rocks, among which a ragged palm (CARYOTA) bears immense bunches of yellow insipid fruit, each containing two coffee-like berries. Panjoo is a favourite objective, for it may be approached from various directions, each pleasant, but as a resort for a crocodile it is about as unpromising a locality as could be imagined. Thither one bright November morning we ("Paddy," the most silent and alert of black boys, and myself) went. The tide was out, and we found a comparatively easy track close to the margin of the sea, having occasionally to wade through shallow pools and to clamber over rocks thickly studded with limpets. Years gone by a huge log of pencil cedar had been cast among the boulders at Panjoo, and as I looked at the log "Paddy" with a start indicated the presence of a novelty--a crocodile apparently in repose, with its head in the shadow of a boulder. I was carrying a pea rifle more for company than for anything else; for "Paddy," though of a most cheerful disposition, never made remarks. His conversation for the most part was compounded of eloquent looks and expressive gestures. A monosyllable to him was a laborious sentence; four or five words a speech. Once upon a time, it is said, a youthful German inadvertently blundered into a railway carriage reserved for Moltke. The glare of the great man brought three words of respectful apology for the intrusion. The great man exclaimed with an air of exasperated boredom--"Insufferable talker!"--of course, all in German. "Paddy," like Moltke, was, averse from speech, unless when speech was absolutely vital. The presence of a 10-foot crocodile of unknowledgeable ferocity was a vital occasion. We hastily discussed in staccato whispers our plan of campaign. It was arranged that we should assail the enemy at close quarters. The calibre of the rifle was 22; its velocity most humble, the bullet of soft lead. Unless it entered the eye of the crocodile, and thence by luck its small brain, there was no hope of fatal effects. Yet to take home such a rare trophy as a crocodile's skull, never before known or heard of on the island, was a hope sufficient to evoke and steady the instincts to be called upon as a necessary preliminary. "Paddy" armed himself with weighty stones, and so manoeuvring to cut off the creature's retreat to the sea, we silently and with the utmost caution advanced. Here let me advise readers to call to memory Nathaniel Parker Willis's poem, "The Declaration" beginning-- 'Twas late, and the gay company was gone, And light lay soft on the deserted room, and ending: She had been asleep. The crocodile moved not as we, thirsting for its blood, stealthily approached. Then as I raised the rifle "Paddy" tilted up his much-flattened nose, sniffed, and in tragic whisper said--"Dead!" At all times a crocodile has a characteristic odour, a combination of fish and very sour and stale musk, but Paddy smelt more than the familiar scent--the scent of carrion. Most unworthy of mortals, we had found the rarest of unprecious things--a crocodile that had died a natural death. Apparently a day, or at the most a day and a half, had elapsed since the creature had laid its head under the shadow of the boulder and died, far from accustomed haunts and kin. There was no sign of wound, bruise or putrefying sore. All the teeth were perfect. It seemed like a crocodile taking its rest, with its awful stench around it. With poles we levered the body out of the way of the tide. Months after, when Nature had done her part in the removal of all fleshy taint, we returned for the bones. The teeth are now scattered far and wide as trophies of the one and only crocodile ever acknowledged to have been discovered dead. To account for such a phenomenal occurrence a theory should be forthcoming. This ill-fated crocodile is assumed to have wandered from its proper quarters--the Tully or the Hull River, or one of the unnamed mangrove creeks of the mainland. Having lost its way, it emerged from the sea at pretty Panjoo. So different was the locality from that to which the poor forlorn creature had been accustomed, it was at once seized with a fatal attack of home-sickness. Shedding a few tears natural--to it ("'Tis so, and the tears of it are wet"), it died ("and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates"). Such is the theory, annotated by Mark Antony's immortal after-dinner gossip, on the emotions and natural history of the species. THE ARABS PRECEPT "A Pearl of Great Price" "Mister, I tell you, neber say anything. I hab bin reech once. I lorse my reechness for that I talk a little bit; but I talk too much. I poor man now. I lorse my chants. Suppose I no lorse my chants I am reech man of my country." So said Hassan, the Arab with the pearly teeth, as he sat on the edge of the verandah one steaming January evening. "Yes, Hassan. How did you lose your money?" "I hab no money, Mister. But I hab a pearl. My word, Mister, I tell you my yarn about that pearl. My beauty beeg pearl. White pearl--more white than snow-white! my pearl!" The thin-framed swarthy Arab, with the flashing eyes and glistening teeth, quivered with the intensity of his recollection. "My beauty pearl. My beeg white pearl. My pearl of snow-white," he murmured as in a dreamy reverie he subdued the light of his great black eyes. "But you never saw snow. How can you talk about a snow-white pearl?" "Mister, I bin steward boy on beeg steamer. I been eberywhere. I bin in London, I bin in Antwerp. I bin see snow all over. That how I talk about my snow pearl. I tell you my yarn." Hassan smoothed down his white jacket, lit a lean cigarette, rolled the incense--thrifty smoker that he was--as a sweet morsel under the tongue, permitted it to drift lazily from his lips, and gave his story. "I bin deck hand on pearling lugger. To be spell about with wind pump. Sometimes I work on dinghy. Two or three times I dibe--not much dibe. I carn stand that work. Not strong for that so heavy work. One morning Boss he set me on to clean out dinghy. Too much rotten fish. You see, when diber bring shell up, Boss he open ebery one--chuck meat along dinghy. That dinghy, I tell you my yarn proper--close up half full stinking meat. I chuck that stinking meat ober-board along my hand. Close up I bin finish I catchem stinking meat like this. Hello! I feel 'em something! My heart he stand--he carn go. He stop altogether. I carn look! feel 'em beeg. I look! Ha! Beeg, beeg pearl! Round like anything. White like snow. Pretty--lobley. My heart inside go ponch, quick like that, I hear 'em jump along my shirt. No one look out. My pearl! I whistle for nothing; put my pearl easy like I find nothing in my pucket. Go on my work, steady. Heart jump about all the time. Chuck em out those stinking meat. Ha! First time I feel something--one pearl! Beeg, but no all the same like nother one. One more time chuck stinking meat. Ha! one more pearl! White, long like small finger here. My heart easy now. I think my good luck come. I say my prayer to Allah! I work hard. I finish that boat. Chuck gem out stinking meat, wash her down. My three pearls inside my pucket. "For one week I neber say nothing. My good friend, my countryman from Aden, Ali. I tell 'em I find one pearl. Now, Mister, I tell you straight--neber tell nothing. You hab one good friend, one countryman. You lobe that man, your good friend. But you no tell 'em nothing. I made fool myself when I tell 'em. I big hoombug of myself. Two days, I am pulling dinghy up to lugger. Big Boss he on board schooner. I see him look me. Quick I think, 'Hassan, you make of yourself a fool. You lorse you white pearl!' He sing out 'Hassan!' I gammon I neber hear 'em. Sing out loud 'Hassan! You, boy! Come here!' I pull up to lugger. He sing out. 'Come here quick! I want talk you!' 'All right, Boss, I come, I go longa lugger first time!' He savage. Call out smart--'Come here, I tell you! Come quick!' "I am little fright he might shoot with revolver. I pull up to schooner; make fast line. Go on board. Boss he say quiet, nice, like gentlemen, 'Hello, Hassan! Good-day. Why you no come when I sing out first time.' I say 'I hab that water for lugger.' He say, 'Well, my boy, you come quick when I call out. No good hang back. How you getting on? You come down my cabin. I no see you long time. Come down below.' 'All up,' I say myself. Hello! Nother man. Bottle rum on table. Plenty biskeet on plate, glasses--eberything. Boss he say, 'Come, my boy; come, Hassan, make yourself happy. Gib yourself glass rum. Take good nip.' That very good rum, strong too. I gib myself one good rum. I eat biskeet. Boss he say, 'Come, my boy, gib yourself nother rum.' I gib myself nother good rum; eat plenty of that sweet biskeet. We three fellow very good friend. I feel happy. Boss shake hand, he say--'Hassan, very good boy.' I gib myself nother good rum. We talk. Just now Boss he look straight. He say quiet--'Hassan, my boy, you hab something belonga me.' He look sharp like a knife. 'No, Boss, I hab nothing of you.' He talk loud--'Hassan, you hab something belonga me. Gib it up quick!' That other white man he stand longside gangway. I look straight. I feel cold. I say, 'No, Boss, I hab nothing.' He talk more loud--GIB UP THAT PEARL!' I fright. I put my hand to my pucket. I pull out pearl. I am all fire now. I shove 'em longa table. I shout--'There you blurry pearl!' Boss catch 'em quick. He say 'Get out my cabin, you dirty Arab! You dam thief. Subpose you gib my pearl first time I gib you something. Now I gib you kick!' I go. "You see, Mister my good friend, my countryman, he tell Boss about my white pearl. I lorse him now." "But you got two more in your pocket" "Yes, very good pearl; but not good like my snow pearl. I am sick now. Boss he sack me. I land Thursday Island. I gamble fantan. I no care. Soon I hab no pearl at all. I hab no work. I am hard up. "Now, Mister, subpose I no say nothing to my good friend I am reech man of my country. I drink Mocha coffee. I am too poor. Suppose I go to my country, back from Aden, I carn drink coffee I am too poor, I drink coffee from outside. Inside coffee, we sell for reech people--you Inglesh, and Frinch, and Turkey men." "What do you mean by outside coffee?" "When you pick coffee, you Inglesh chuck away outside. We poor Arab dry that outside, smash 'em up like flour, boil 'em for coffee. All inside coffee we hab to sell, so poor that country. Mister, I bin tell true my yarn--neber tell you good friend nothing." CHAPTER VI IN PRAISE OF THE PAPAW Properties varied and approaching the magical have been ascribed to one of the commonest plants of North Queensland; and yet how trivial and prosaic are the honours bestowed upon it. That which makes women beautiful for ever; which renews the strength of man; which is a sweet and excellent food, and which provides medicine for various ills, cannot be said to lack many of the attributes of the elixir of life, and is surely entitled to a special paean in a land languishing for population. Distinctive and significant as the virtues possessed by the papaw are, yet because of its universality and because it yields its fruits with little labour, it gets but scant courtesy. It is tolerated merely; but if we had it not, if it were as far as that vast shore washed by the farthest sea, men would adventure for such merchandise--and adventure at the bidding of women. How few there are who recognise in the everyday papaw one of the most estimable gifts of kindly Nature? Some who dwell in temperate climes claim for the apple and the onion superlative qualities. In the papaw the excellences of both are blended and combined. The onion may induce to slumber, but the sleep it produces is it not a trifle too balmy? The moral life and high standard of statesmanship of an American Senator are cited as examples of the refining influences of apples. For every day for thirty years he has, to the exclusion of all other food, lunched on that fruit. Possibly the papaw may be decadent in respect to morals and politics. The grape, lemon, orange, pomelo, and the strawberry, each in the estimation of special enthusiasts, is proclaimed the panacea for many of the ills of life. One writer cites cases in which maniacs have been restored to reason by the exclusive use of cherries. The apple, they say, too, gives to the face of the fair ruddiness, but the tint is it not too bold, compared with maiden blush which bepaints the cheek of the beauty who rightly understands the use of the vital principle of the papaw? Those who have complexions to retain or restore let them understand and be fair. In North Queensland the plant grows everywhere. In the dry, buoyant climate west of the coast range, and in the steamy coastal tract, on cliff-like hill-sides, on sandy beaches a few feet above high-water mark, among rocks with but a few inches of soil, and where the decayed vegetation of generations has made fat mould many feet deep, the papaw flourishes. It asks foothold, heat, light and moisture, and given these conditions a plant within a few months of its first start in life will begin to provide food--entertaining, refreshing, salubrious--and will continue so to do for years. Its precociousness is so great and its productiveness so lavish, that by the time other trees flaunt their first blossoms, the papaw has worn itself out, and is dying of senile decay, leaving, however, numerous posterity. The fruit is delicate, too, and soon resolves itself into its original elements. Pears and peaches are said by the artistic to enjoy but a brief half hour of absolute perfection. The artist alone knows the interval between immaturity and deterioration. The refined and delicate perception of the exquisite and transient aroma and flavour of fruits deserves to be classed among the fine arts. Some people are endowed with nice discrimination. They are of the order of the genius. The higher the poetic instinct, generally the better qualified the individual to detect and enjoy the fugitive excellences which fruits possess. Can a gourmand ever properly appreciate rare and fragile flavours? Though he may be a great artist in edible discords--things rank and gross and startling--can he in the quantity of inconvenient food he consumes, be expected to pose as a critic of the most etherealised branch of epicureanism? The true eater of fruit is of a school apart, not to be classed with the individual who, because of the rites and observances of the table, accepts, in no exalted spirit, a portion of fruit at the nether end of a feast. He is one who has attained, or to whom has been vouchsafed, a poignant sense of all that does the least violence to the sense of taste and smell; but, moreover, who is capable of discovering edification in things as diverse as the loud jack fruit and the subtle mangosteen--who can appreciate each according to its special characteristics, just as a lover of music finds gratification of a varied nature in the grand harmonies of a Gregorian Chant and in the tender cadences of a song of Sullivan's. Are those who have sensitive and correct palates for fruit not to be credited with art and exactitude, as well as critics of music and painting and statuary, and connoisseurs of wine? As with many other fruits, so with the papaw. Only those who grow it themselves, who learn of the relative merits of the produce of different trees, and who can time their acceptance of it from the tree, so that it shall possess all its fleeting elements in the happy blending of full maturity, can know how good and great papaw really is. The fruit of some particular tree is of course not to be tolerated save as a vegetable, and then what a desirable vegetable it is? It has a precise and particular flavour, and texture most agreeable. And as a mere fruit there are many more rich and luscious, and highly-flavoured; many that provoke louder and more sincere acclamations of approval. But the papaw, delicate and grateful, is more than a mere fruit. If we give credence to all that scientific research has made known of it, we shall have to concede that the papaw possesses social influences more potent than many of the political devices of this socialistic age. But there may be some who do not know that the humble papaw (CARICA PAPYA) belongs to the passion-fruit family (PASSIFLORA) a technical title bestowed on account of a fancied resemblance in the parts of the flower to the instruments of Christ's sufferings and death. And it is said to have received its generic name on account of its foliage somewhat resembling that of the common fig. A great authority on the botany of India suggested that it was originally introduced from the district of Papaya, in Peru, and that "papaw" is merely a corruption of that name. The tree is, as a rule, unbranched, and somewhat palm-like in form. Its great leaves, often a foot and a half long, borne on smooth, cylindrical stalks, are curiously cut into seven lobes, and the stem is hollow and transversely partitioned with thin membranes. One of the most remarkable characteristics of the papaw is that it is polygamous--that is to say, there may be male and female and even hermaphrodite flowers on the same plant. Commonly the plants are classed as male and female. The males largely predominate. Many horticulturists have sought by the selection of seeds and by artificial fertilisation to control the sex of the plant so that the fruit-bearing females shall be the more numerous, but in vain. Some, on the theory that the female generally obtains a more vigorous initial start in life, and in very infancy presents a more robust appearance, heroically weed out weak and spindly seedlings with occasionally happy results. The mild Hindoo, however, who has cultivated the papaw (or papai to adopt the Anglo-Indian title) for centuries, and likewise wishes to avoid the cultivation of unprofitable male plants, seeks by ceremonies to counteract the bias of the plant in favour of masculine attributes. Without the instigation or knowledge of man or boy, a maiden, pure and undefiled, takes a ripe fruit from a tree at a certain phase of the moon, and plants the seed in accordance with more or less elaborate ritual. The belief prevails that these observances procure an overwhelming majority of the female element. The problem of sex, which bewilders the faithless European, is solved satisfactorily to the Hindoo by a virgin prayerful and pure. On plants which have hitherto displayed only masculine characteristics, small, pale yellow, sweetly-scented flowers on long, loosely-branched axillary panicles, may appear partially or fully developed female organs which result in fructification, and such fruit is ostentatiously displayed. The male produces its fruit not as does the female, clinging closely and compact to the stem, but dangling dangerously from the end of the panicles--an example of witless paternal pride. This fruit of monstrous birth does not as a rule develop to average dimensions, and it is generally woodeny of texture and bitter as to flavour, but fully developed as to seeds. The true fruit is round, or oval, or elongated, sometimes pear-shaped, and with flattened sides, due to mutual lateral pressure. As many as 250 individual fruits have been counted on a single tree at one and the same time. The heaviest fruit within the ken of the writer weighed 8 lb. 11 oz. They hug the stem closely in compact single rows in progressive stages, the lower tier ripe, the next uppermost nearly so, the development decreasing consistently to the rudiments of flower-buds in the crown of the tree. The leaves fall as the fruit grows, but there is always a crown or umbrella to ward off the rays of the sun. When ripe, the most approved variety is yellow. In the case of the female plant growing out of the way of a male, the fruit is smaller in size, and seedless or nearly so. Another curious, if not unique point about this estimable plant is that sometimes within the cavity of a perfect specimen will be found one or two infant naked fruits, likewise apparently perfect. Occasionally these abnormal productions are crude, unfashioned and deformed. Ripened in ample light, with abundance of water, and in high temperature, the fruit must not be torn from the tree "with forced fingers rude," lest the abbreviated stalk pulls out a jagged plug, leaving a hole for the untimely air to enter. The stalk must be carefully cut, and the spice-exhaling fruit borne reverently and immediately to the table. The rite is to be performed in the cool of the morning, for the papaw is essentially a breakfast fruit, and then when the knife slides into the buff-coloured flesh of a cheesy consistency, minute colourless globules exude from the facets of the slices. These glistening beads are emblems of perfection. Plentiful dark seeds adhere to the anterior surface. Some take their papaw with the merest sensation of salt, some with sugar and a drop or two of lime or lemon juice; some with a few of the seeds, which have the flavour of nasturtium. The wise eat it with silent praise. In certain obvious respects it has no equal. It is so clean; it conveys a delicate perception of musk--sweet, not florid; soft, soothing and singularly persuasive. It does not cloy the palate, but rather seductively stimulates the appetite. Its effect is immediately comforting, for to the stomach it is pleasant, wholesome, and helpful. When you have eaten of a papaw in its prime, one that has grown without check or hindrance, and has been removed from the tree without bruise or blemish, you have within you pure, good and chaste food, and you should be thankful and of a gladsome mind. Moreover, no untoward effects arise from excess of appetite. If you be of the fair sex your eyes may brighten on such diet, and your complexion become more radiant. If a mere man you will be the manlier. So much on account of the fruit. Sometimes the seeds are eaten as a relish, or macerated in vinegar as a condiment, when they resemble capers. The pale yellow male flowers, immersed in a solution of common salt, are also used to give zest to the soiled appetite, the combination of flavour being olive-like, piquant and grateful. The seeds used as a thirst-quencher form component parts of a drink welcome to fever patients. The papaw and the banana in conjunction form an absolutely perfect diet. What the one lacks in nutritive or assimilative qualities the other supplies. No other food, it is asserted is essential to maintain a man in perfect health and vigour. Our fictitious appetites may pine for wheaten bread, oatmeal, flesh, fish, eggs, and all manner of vegetables but given the papaw and the banana, the rest are superfluous. Where the banana grows the papaw flourishes. Each is singular from the fact that it represents wholesome food long before arrival at maturity. Then as a medicine plant the papaw is of great renown. The peculiar properties of the milky juice which exudes from every part of the plant were noticed two hundred years ago. The active principle of the juice known as papain, said to be capable of digesting two hundred times its weight of fibrine, is used for many disorders and ailments, from dyspepsia to ringworm and ichthyosis or fish-skin disease. By common repute the papaw tree has the power of rendering tough meat tender. Some say that it is but necessary to hang an old hen among the broad leaves to restore to it the youth and freshness of a chicken. In some parts of South America papaw juice is rubbed over meat, and is said to change "apparent leather to tender and juicy steak." Other folks envelop the meat in the leaves and obtain a similar effect. Science, to ascertain the verity or otherwise of the popular belief applied certain tests, the results of which demonstrated that all the favourable allegations were founded on truth and fact. A commonplace experiment was tried. A small piece of beef wrapped up in a papaw leaf during twenty-four hours, after a short boiling became perfectly tender; a similar piece wrapped in paper submitted to exactly similar conditions and processes remained hard. Few facts are more firmly established than that the milky juice softens--in other words hastens the decomposition of--flesh. Further, the fruit in some countries is cooked as a vegetable with meat, and in soups; it forms an ingredient in a popular sauce, and is preserved in a variety of ways as a sweetmeat. Syrups and wines and cordials made from the ripe fruit are expectorant, sedative and tonic. Ropes are made from the bark of the tree. By its power of dissolving stains the papaw has acquired the name of the melon bleach; the leaves, and a portion of the fruit are steeped in water, and the treated water is used in washing coloured clothing, especially black, the colours being cleaned and held fast. In the country in which it is supposed to be endemic it is believed that if male animals graze under the papaw tree they become BLASE; but science alleges that the roots and extracted juice possess aphrodisiac properties, and who among us would not rather place credence upon this particular fairy tale of science than the fairy tales of swarthy and illiterate and possibly biassed gentlemen. And as to its beauty-bestowing attributes, an admirer's word might be quoted as a final note of praise-- "The strange and beautiful races of the Antilles astonish the eyes of the traveller who sees them for the first time. It has been said that they have taken their black, brown, and olive and yellow skin tints from the satiny and bright-hued rinds of the fruit which surround them. If they are to be believed, the mystery of their clean, clear complexion and exquisite pulp-like flesh arises from the use of the papaw fruit as a cosmetic. A slice of ripe fruit is rubbed over the skin, and is said to dissolve spare flesh and remove every blemish. It is a toilet requisite in use by the young and old, producing the most beautiful specimens of the human race." THE CONQUERING TREE Inconsequent as Nature appears to be at times and given to whims, fancies and contradictions, only those who study with attention her moods may estimate how truthful and how sober she really is. She is honest in all her purposes, and though changeful and gay in apparel never cheap nor meretricious. A slim-shafted palm shooting through the leafy mantle, and swaying airily a profuse mass of fiery red seeds, distinctive in shape, may be the prototype of a flirt, but the flirtation which arrests attention and bewitches the beholder is also innoxious. There is nothing of the artificial about the display. The colours flaunted are true, perfect and pure, however cunningly, however boldly by their means admiration is challenged. The true lover knows too that in her least conspicuous moods, Nature is as consistent and as wonderful as when in her exuberance she carpets a continent with flowers, and when all the forests of a country, at her bidding, don a mantle of yellow. To exaggerate any of her methods were needless. She is never ugly, for in her seemingly forbidding moods she wears a smiling face. The smiles may not be apparent to all, but they are there for those who expect and look for them. Let a mangrove swamp be taken as an illustration of an untoward aspect of Nature, and see whether among the apparent confusion, and the mud and slime and the unpleasant odours, there are not many proofs of good humour, kindly disposition, real prettiness, and orderly and systematic purpose. On the deltas and banks of all the rivers and creeks of North Queensland and on many of the more sheltered beaches, the mangrove flourishes, that ambitious tree which performs an important function in the scheme of Nature. Its botanical title reveals its special character--Rhizaphora. Very diverse indeed are the means by which plants are distributed. While some are borne, some fly and others float. The mangrove is maritime. While still pendant from the pear-shaped fruit of the parent tree, the seed, a spindle-shaped radicle, varying in length from a foot to 4 feet, germinates--ready to form a plant immediately upon arrival at a suitable locality. A sharp spike at the apex represents the embryo leaves ready to unfold, while the roots spring from the opposite and slightly heavier end. The weight is so nicely adjusted that the spindle floats perpendicularly or nearly so, when owning a separate existence from the parent tree, it drops into the water, and begins its remarkable career. It has been suggested that the viviparity of the mangrove is a survival of a very remote period in the development of the earth--that a mangrove swamp represents an age when the earth was enveloped in clouds and mist; and that with the gradual decrease in tepid aqueous vapour the viviparous habit, then almost universal, was lost, except in the case of this plant. Other plants, however, exhibit the characteristic. Notably one of the handsomest of the local ferns (ASPLENIUM BULBIFERUM) which, with motherly solicitude, detains its offspring until they are not only fully developed but are strong and lusty. As the fronds die they incline earthwards, each weary with the burden of a new and virile generation--some of which float down stream to foreign parts, some create a colony round the parent. This fern demands conditions similar to the mangrove--water, heat and humidity--and might be quoted in support of the theory which gives unique interest to a mangrove swamp. Whole battalions of living mangrove radicles fall into the rivers during February and March. Out at sea miles from the land you may cross the sinuous ranks of the marine invaders--a disorderly, planless venture at the mercy of the wind and waves. Myriads perish, hopeless, waterlogged derelicts, never finding foothold nor resting-place. But thousands of these scouts of vegetation live to fulfil the glorious purpose of winning new lands, of increasing the area of continents. This arrogant plant not only says to the ocean, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed" but unostentatiously wrests from it unwilling territory. Plants like animals require "food convenient for them," certain constituents of the soil, certain characteristics of environment, that they may flourish and fulfil their purpose. This delights in conditions that few tolerate--saline mud, ooze and frequent flooding by the salt sea. Drifting into shallow water the sharp end of the spindly radicle bores into the mud. At once slender but tough roots emerge in radiating grapples, leaves unfold at the other extremity, and the plan of conquest has begun. During the early period of its life there is nothing singular in the growth of the plant In a few months, however, it sends out arching adventitious roots, which on reaching the mud grasp it with strong finger-like rootlets. These arching roots, too, send out from their arches other roots that arch, and the arches of these similarly repeat themselves, and so on, until the tree is underpinned and supported and stayed by an elaborate and complicated system, which while offering no resistance to the sweep of the seas, upholds the tree as no solid trunk or stem could. Then from the plan of arches spring offshoots, in time to become trees as great as the parent. Aerial roots start a downward career from the overhanging branches, anchoring themselves in the mud. Some young seedling drops and the pointed end sticks deep in the mud, and grows forthwith, to possess arching and aerial roots of its own, and to make confusion worse confounded. The identity of the original founder of the grove is lost in the bewildering labyrinth of its own arches, offshoots, and aerial roots, and of independent trees to which it has given the mystery of life. One floating radicle with its pent-up energy, having after weeks of drifting and swaying this way and that to the slightest current and ripple, grapples Mother Earth and makes a law to the ocean. Among the interlacing roots seaweed, sodden driftwood and leaves lodge, sand collects, and as the level of the floor of the ocean is raised the sea retires, contributing by the flotsam and jetsam of each spring-tide to its own inevitable conquest. Not to one plant alone is the victory to be ascribed. As in the army there are various and distinct branches of service, so in this ancient and incessant strife between land and water, the vegetable invaders are classified and have their appointed place and duties. Neither are all the constituents of a mangrove swamp mangroves. In the first rank will be found the hardiest and most highly specialised--RHIZOPHORA MURCRONATA, next, BRUGUIERA GYMNORRHIZA (a plant of slightly more lowly growth but prolific of arching and aerial roots); BRUGUIERA RHEEDI (red or orange mangrove.) Some of the roots of the latter spread over the surface and have vertical kinks. The roots and the accessories act as natural groynes, causing the waves to swirl and to precipitate mud and sand. BRUGUIERA PARVIFLORA and CERIOPS CANDOLLEANA assist in the general scheme, the former depending upon abutments for security instead of adventitious roots. Its radicles resemble pipe-stems, or as they lie stranded on the beach, slightly curved and with the brown tapering calyx tube attached, green snakes with pointed beads. Surprising features are possessed by the tree known as SONNERATIA ALBA. The roots send up a multitude of offshoots, resembling woodeny radishes, some being forked, growing wrong end up. All the base of each tree is set about with a confusion of points--a wonderful and perfect design for the arrest and retention of debris and mud. Some of these obtrusive roots are much developed, measuring 6 feet in height and about 4 in. diameter. No less remarkable is the help that the white mangrove (AVICENNA OFFICINALIS) affords in the conquest with its system of strainers. Though different in many respects from the SONNERATIA, it too has erect, obtrusive, respiratory shoots from the roots, slender in comparison, resembling asparagus shoots or rake tines (called by some cobbler's pegs) and which strain the sea, retaining light rubbish and assisting to hold and consolidate it all. Each of the plants mentioned is equipped in a more or less efficient manner for the special purpose of taking part in the reclamation of land. In some the roots descend from the branches to the mud where roots ought to grow; in others, roots ascend from the mud to the upper air, where, ordinarily, roots have no sort of business. Each possesses varying and distinct features well designed to aid and abet the general purpose. Other species of marine plants have their duty too. That which is known as the river mangrove (AEGICERAS MAJUS)--which does not confine itself to rivers--comes to sweeten the noisome exhalation of the mud, and with its profuse white, orange-scented flowers, to invite the cheerful presence of bees and butterflies. The looking-glass tree (HERITIERA LITTORALIS), with its large, oval, glossy, silver-backed leaves and boat-shaped fruit, stands with the river mangrove along the margin farthest from the sea, not as a rearguard, but to perform the function of making the locality the more acceptable to the presence of plants which luxuriate in sweetness and solid earth. Another denizen of the partially reclaimed area of the mangrove swamp is the "milky mangrove," or river poison tree, alias "blind-your-eyes" (EXCAECARIA AGALLOCHA). In India the sap of this tree is called tiger's milk. It issues from the slightest incision of the bark, and is so volatile that no one, however careful, can obtain even a small quantity without being affected by it. There is an acrid, burning sensation in the throat, inflamed eyes and headache, while a single drop falling into the eyes will, it is believed, cause loss of sight. Yet a good caoutchouc may be prepared from it, and it is applied with good effect to ulcerate sores, and by the blacks of Queensland and New South Wales for the relief of certain ulcerous and chronic diseases; while in Fiji the patient is fumigated with the smoke of the burning wood. Several of the plants produce more or less valuable woods. BRUGUIERA RHEEDI frequently grows slender shafts, favoured by blacks for harpoon handles on account of their weight and toughness. White mangrove provides a light, white tough wood eminently adapted for the knees of boats. The seeds resemble broad beans, and after long immersion in the sea will germinate lying naked and uncovered on the scorching sand, stretching out rootlets in every direction in search of suitable food, and expanding their leathery primary leaves--even growing to the extent of several inches--while yet owing no attachment to the soil. If it were not capable of surviving and flourishing under conditions fatal to most plants it could not contribute its quota to the formation of humus favourable to the progress of the advancing hosts of tropical vegetation. A weird and stealthy process is this invasion of the ocean, which leads to the alteration and amendment of the surface of the globe. Here, may be watched the very growth of land--land creeping silently, irresistibly upon the sea, yet with a movement which may be calculated and registered with exactitude. Having fulfilled its purpose, the mangrove suffers the fate of the primitive and aboriginal. Tyrannous trees of over-topping growth, which at first hesitatingly accepted its hospitality, crowd and shove, compelling the hardy and courageous plant to further efforts to win dominion from the ocean. So the pioneer advances, ever reclaiming extended areas as the usurping jungle presses on its rear. Nor must it be imagined that mangrove swamps are unproductive. Fish traverse the intricacies of the arching roots, edible crabs burrow holes in the mud, and in them await your coming, and more often than not baffle your ingenuity to extricate them. Among other stalked-eyed crustaceans is that with one red, shielding claw, absurdly large, and which scuttles among the roots, making a defiant clicking noise--the fiddle or soldier crab (GELASIMUS VOCANS). Oysters seal themselves to the roots, and various sorts of shell-fish gather together--two or three varieties appear to browse upon the leaves and bark of the mangroves; some excavate galleries in the living trunks. The insidious cobra does not wear any calcareous covering beyond the frail tiny bivalves which guard the head--a scandalously small proportion of its naked length--but lines its tunnels with the materials whence shell is made, smooth and white as porcelain. How this delicate creature with less of substance than an oyster--a mere worm of semi-transparent, stiff slime--bores in hard wood along and across the grain, housing itself as it proceeds, and never by any chance breaking in upon its neighbours, though the whole of the trunk of the tree be honeycombed, savours of another wonder. Authorities consider the bivalve shell too delicate and frail to be employed in the capacity of a drill, and one investigator has come to the conclusion that the rough fleshy parts of the animal, probably the foot or mantle, acting as a rasp, forms the true boring instrument. Thus, the skill of a worm in excavating tunnels in wood puzzles scientists; and the cobra is certainly among the least conspicuous of the denizens of a mangrove swamp, and perhaps far from the most wonderful. The most remarkable if not the strangest denizens of the spot are two species of the big-eyed walking and climbing fish (PERIOPHTHALMUS KOELREUTERI and P. AUSTRALIS) which ascend the roots of the mangrove by the use of ventral and pectoral fins, jump and skip on the mud and over the surface of the water and into their burrows with rabbit-like alertness. They delight, too, in watery recesses under stones and hollows in sodden wood. Inquisitive and most observant they might be likened to Lilliputian seals, as they cling, a row of them, to a partially submerged root, and peer at you, ready to whisk away at the least sign of interference. They climb along the arching roots, the better to reconnoitre your movements and to outwit attempts at capture. Their eyes--in life, reflecting gems--are so placed that they command a complete radius, and if you think to sneak upon them they dive from their vantage points and skip with hasty flips and flops to another arching root, which they ascend, and resume their observation. It must not be assumed that the climbing fish--which seems to be more at home on the surface of the water than below--climbs up among the branches. A foot or so is about the limit of its upper wanderings. Then, too, in what is generally regarded as a noisome, dismal, mangrove swamp, birds of cheerful and pleasing character congregate. Several honey-eaters, the little blue turtle dove, the barred-shouldered dove, the tranquil dove, the nutmeg pigeon, the little bittern, the grey sandpiper, the sordid kingfisher, the spotless egret, the blue heron, the ibis--all and others frequent such places, and in their season, butterflies come and go. In most of its aspects a mangrove swamp is not only the scene of one of Natures most vigorous and determined processes, but to those who look aright, a theatre of many wonders, a museum teeming with objects of interest, a natural aviary of gladsome birds. THE UMBRELLA-TREE Having paid, in passing, respects to the most gorgeous tree of the island, it would be sheer gracelessness to withhold a tribute to one of the commonest, though ever novel and remarkable--the umbrella-tree. Less conspicuous in its blooming than the flame-tree, it flourishes everywhere--on the beaches with its roots awash at high tide; on the rearguard of the mangroves, leaning on the white-flowered CALOPHYLLUMS; on the steep hill-sides; on the borders of the jungle, and gripping scorched rocks with naked roots. While the flame-tree--few and confined to the beaches--flashes into bloom--an improvident blaze of colour, without a single atoning green leaf--the umbrella-tree charms for several months with a combination of graceful foliage and a unique corollary of singular flowers. From the centre of whorls of shapely glossy leaves radiate simple racemes, 2 feet long, as thickly set with studs of dense heads of red flowers as Aaron's rod with its magical buds. Crowned with several crowns of varying numbers of rays, rarely as few as four, frequently seven and nine and occasionally as many as twelve, each tree is a distillery of nectar of crystal purity and inviting flavour. On every ray there may be eighty red studs, each composed of twelve compact flowers, and every flower drips limpid sweetness. For months this unexcised distillation never ceases. For all the birds and dainty butterflies and sober bees there is free abundance, and every puff of wind scatters the surplusage with spendthrift profusion. Sparkling in the sunbeams, dazzling white, red, orange, green, violet, the swelling drops tremble from the red studs and fall in fragrant splashes as the wanton wind brushes past or eager birds hastily alight on the swaying rays. A rare baptism to stand beneath the tree for the cool sweet spray to fall upon the upturned face, a baptism as pure as it is unceremonious. Red-collared lorikeets revel in the nectar, hustling the noisy honey-eaters and the querulous sun-birds. The radiant blue butterfly sips and is gone, or if it be his intent to pause, tightly folds his wings on the instant of settling, and is transformed from a piece of living jewellery to a brown mottled leaf caught edgeways among the red flowers. The green and gold butterflies are for ever fluttering and quivering. The complaining lorikeets peevishly nudge them off with red, nectar-dripping bills, the honey-eaters disperse them with inconsiderate wing sweeps; but the butterflies are not to be denied their share. After a moment's airy flight they return to the feast, quivering with eagerness. And so the weeks pass, the patient tree generating food far beyond the daily needs of all who choose to take. By a very moderate computation--such an orderly plan of bloom lends itself to simple statistics--the average production of a fairly crowned tree is over a gallon of nectar per day. Hundreds of trees so crowned brighten all parts of the island with their red rays. And where the nectar is, there will the sun-birds be gathered together--a sweeter notion, truly, than carcases and eagles. And this nectar, clear as dew-drops, sweet with an aftertaste of some scented spice--a fragile pungency--was ever liqueur so purely compounded? Drawn from untainted soil; filtered and purified; passed from one delicate process to another, warmed during the day, cooled by night airs, chastened by breezes which have all the virtue of whole Pacific breadths; sublimated by the sun--all to what end, to be proffered to birds and butterflies in ruddy goblets full to the brim. THE GENUINE UPAS-TREE Powerful as nutmeg pigeons are on the wing, some suffer lingering deaths in consequence of a singular characteristic of one of the trees of the jungle. Tall and graceful, with luxuriant glossy leaves, there is nothing uncanny about the tree. In style and appearance it is the very antithesis of "the upas-tree," upon which legendary lore cast unmerited responsibility. Yet in certain respects it would be vain to enter upon its defence. It is no myth. There is no exaggeration in the statement that the character of the Queensland tree is actually murderous, and that it counts its victims by the thousand every season. Of the great host it destroys, all save a few may be very small and very feeble, and from the human standpoint some of its death-dealing is perfectly justifiable if not laudable. Not often, locally, is a bird destroyed, but the fact that occasionally one has the ill-luck to fall foul of it and to perish miserably in consequence, places the tree in the catalogue of the remarkable. Neither spike nor poison is used nor any sensational means of destruction but nevertheless the tree is sure and implacable in its methods. The seed-vessels of the Queensland Upas-tree, "Ahm-moo" of the blacks (PISONIA BRUNONIANA), which are produced on spreading leafless panicles, exude a remarkably viscid substance, approaching bird-lime in consistency and evil effect. Sad is the fate of any bird which, blundering in its flight, happens to strike against any of the many traps which the tree in unconscious malignity hangs out on every side. In such event the seed clings to the feathers, the wings become fixed to the sides, the hapless bird falls to the ground, and as it struggles heedlessly gathers more of the seeds, to which leaves and twigs adhere, until by aggregation it is enclosed in a mass of vegetable debris as firmly as a mummy in its cloths. Small birds as well as lusty pigeons, spiders and all manner of insects; flies, bees, beetles, moths and mosquitoes, as well as the seeds of other trees are ensnared. Spiders are frequently seen sharing the fate of the flies, fast to seeds in the humiliating posture in which Br'er Fox found Br'er Rabbit on the occasion of the interview with the Tar Baby. Insectivorous plants am common enough in Australia; but the "Ahm-moo," tree does not appear to make use of the carcases of its victims, though it kills on an exceptionally extensive scale. On some of the islands where the tree is plentiful numbers of pigeons meet a dreary fate every season. The maturity of the seeds coincides with the hatching out of the young, and inexperienced birds pay dearly for their inexperience. The natural glutin is produced while the slim, fluted, inch-long seeds are green, but its virtue remains even after the whole panicle has withered and has fallen. So tenacious is it and prompt, that should a panicle as it whirls downward touch the leaves of lower branches of the parent, or of any neighbouring tree, it sticks and becomes a pendant swaying trap in a new position. At first glance it is not easy to identify the tree to which the obnoxious feature belongs. The seeds occasion even dogs considerable distress, and might easily be the cause of death to them. As the dog endeavours to remove them from his feet and sides with his teeth, his muzzle is fouled, and he very soon exhibits confusion and alarm, and rolling about in frenzied attempts to free himself, gathers more and more of the seeds and accumulated rubbish. One is led to ponder upon the purpose of this provision--to endeavour, if possible, to find its justification. Insects lured by the sweetness of the exudation are callously entrapped, and why so? Do the seeds require the presence of animal matter to ensure germination? In that case the tree is indirectly carnivorous, and therefore decidedly entitled to recognition among the curiosities of the island. Is the glutin secreted to secure the wide dispersal of the seeds? If so, the object is largely self-defeated, for seeds by the hundred cling as they fall to the branches of the parent tree, and to those of its lowly neighbours. Certainly some proportion of the seeds which reach the ground must be borne hither and thither by the agency of that eternal scratcher, the scrub fowl. But even a bird of such immensely proportionate strength may be seriously troubled by them. A case in point may be cited. A dog retrieving a scrub fowl, which had fallen in the vicinity of an "Ahm-moo" tree, emerged with it entirely enveloped with the seeds and adhering rubbish, and itself almost helpless from a similar cause. In this happy chance the seeds were eventually widely distributed. If the glutin is provided to prevent birds consuming the kernels, then the object is perfectly served; otherwise no very satisfactory reason is apparent why the tree should be invested with the means of destroying even humble forms of life. Is this one of the "lost chords" in the harmony of nature? THE CREEPING PALM Perhaps the most impressive feature of the jungle--that which takes fast hold, clings most tenaciously, and leaves the most irritating remembrances--is what is known as the lawyer cane or vine (CALAMUS). It is a vegetable of tortuous ambitions, that defies you, that embarrasses with attention, arrests your progress, occasionally envelops you in a net work of bewildering, slender, and cruelly-armed tentacles, that everywhere bristles with points, that curves back on itself, and makes loops and wriggles; that springs from a thin, sprawling and helpless beginning, and develops into almost miraculous lengths, and ramifies and twists and turns in "verdurous glooms," ascends and descends, grovels in the moist earth and among mouldy leaves, clasps with aerial rootlets every possible support, and eventually clambers and climbs above the tallest tree, twirling its armed tentacles round airy nothings. It blossoms inconspicuously, and its fruit is as hard, tough and dry as an argument on torts. Ordinary mortals call it a vine. Botanists describe it as a prickly climbing palm, and no jungle is complete without it. There are several varieties of this interesting plant, all more or less of a grasping, clinging character, and each of vital importance in the republic of vegetation. Sometimes when it is severed with a sharp knife there flows from the cane a fluid bright and limpid as a judge's summing up; occasionally it is all as dry as dust and as sneezy, and its prickly leaf sheathes the abode of that vexing insect which causes the scrub itch. This plant produces lengths of cane similar in every respect to the schoolmaster's weapon--familiar but immortal--varying in diameter from a quarter of an inch to an inch and a half, and in length, as some assert, to no less than 500 and 600 feet. Certainly 300 feet is not uncommon, and one can readily concede an additional 100 feet, knowing the extravagance of the remarkable palm under ordinary circumstances. And the cane weaves and entangles the jungle, binds and links mighty trees together, and with the co-operation of other clinging, and creeping, and trailing plants--some massive as ship's cables, and some thin and fine as fishing-lines--forms compact masses of vegetation to penetrate which tracks must be cut yard by yard. When this disorderly conglomeration of trees and saplings, vines, creepers, trailers and crawlers, complicated and confused, has to be cleared, as civilisation demands the use of the soil, sometimes a considerable area will remain upright, although every connection with Mother Earth is severed, so interlaced and interwoven and anchored are the vines with those clinging to trees yet uncut. Then, in a moment, as some leading strand gives way, the whole mass falls--smothered, bruised, and crushed--to be left for a month and more before the fires destroy the faded relics of the erstwhile gloriously rampant jungle. In all this the lawyer cane is the most aggressive and hostile. Not only are there prickles on the 10-feet thongs, but the leaves and leaf-sheaths are thickly beset. In one species the 6-feet-long leaves bear upon the margins and upper surface long, thin, needle-like points, black and glossy, and attaining a length Of 3 inches; the main rib bears stout re-curved prickles, while the sheaths which envelop the cane are densely covered with dark brown or black points 1 inch and more long. One cannot cut jungle and escape bloodshed, for the long tentacles of the lawyer catch you unawares sooner or later, and then, for all are set with double rows of re-curved points, do not endeavour to escape by strife and resistance--it is no use pulling against those pricks--but by subtlety and diplomacy. The more you pull, the worse for your skin and clothes; but with tact you may become free, with naught but neat scratches and regular rows of splinters. The points of the hooks to which you have been attached anchor themselves deep in the skin, and tear their way out and rip and rend your clothes, and your condition of mind, body and estate, is all for the worse. But the uses of the lawyer cane are many and various. Blacks employ it as ropes, as stays for canoes, and, split into narrow threads and woven, for baskets and fish-traps; and white men find it handy for all sorts of purposes, from boat-painters and fenders to stock-whip and maul-handles. Suppose a tree that a black wishes to climb presents difficulties low down, he will procure a length of lawyer cane, partly biting and partly breaking it off, if he lacks a cutting implement. Then he will make a loop, so bruising and chewing the end that it becomes flexible and ties almost as readily and quite as securely as rope. Ascending a neighbouring tree, he will manoeuvre one end over a limb of that which he wishes to climb, and slip it through the loop, and run it up until it is fast. A cane 50 feet long, no thicker than one's little finger, fastened to the upper branch of a tree, has on trial borne the weight of three fairly-sized men. Thus tested, the black has no hesitation or difficulty in rapidly ascending, and in lowering down young birds, or eggs (wrapped in leaves), or whatsoever his quest. Another cane-producing plant (FLAGELLARIA), though innocent of the means of grappling, succeeds in overtopping tall trees and smothering them with a mass of interwoven leafage. Each of its narrow leaves ends in a spiral tendril, sensitive but tough, which entwines itself about other leaves and twigs. Feeling their respective ways, the tender tips of leaves of the one family touch and twist, and the grasp is for life. Though not of such extravagant character as the lawyer vine, the FLAGELLARIA seems to be endowed with perceptive faculty almost amounting to instinct in selecting the shortest way toward the support necessary for its plan of existence, which is to climb not to grovel. It spurns the ground. New shoots spring from old rhizomes in the clearings, and turn towards the nearest tree as though aware of its presence, as the tendrils of a grape vine instinctively grope for the artificial support provided for it. Progress along the ground is slow, but once within reach, the shoot rears its head, stretches out a delicate finger-tip, and clings with the grasp of desperation. A vigorous impulse thrills the whole plant. It has found its purpose in life. With the concentration of its energies, its development is rapid and merciless. Its host is rapidly enveloped in entangling embraces, smothered with innumerable clinging kisses. MAUVE, GREEN AND GREY An attempt to do justice by description to the rich and varied vegetation of Dunk Island in these unlearned pages would bespeak an idle, almost profane vanity. Yet the pleasure of revealing one or two of the more conspicuous features cannot be forgone. In the term conspicuous is included plants that attract general attention. Possibly the skilled botanist might disregard obvious and pleasing effects, and find classic joy in species and varieties unobtrusive if not obscure. About 600 feet above sea-level, looking across the Family Group to the great bulk of Hinchinbrook, there is an irregular precipice, half concealed by the trees and plants that decorate its seams and crevices and spring up about its cool and ever gloomy base. During the greater part of the year water trickles down the grey face of the rock in narrow gleaming bands, and wheresoever are the faintest footholds there is a flower--mauve in its modesty. It is not common enough to possess a familiar name, but botanists have called it BAEA HYGROSCOPICA, for it is always found near water, invariably pure, cool, fern-filtered mountain water. From the damp rock the roots of the plant, matted and interwoven, may be peeled off in a thin layer, for the plant is epiphytical, depending as much upon heat, moisture and light as on any constituents of the soil for sustenance. When the season is exceptionally dry, the thick, soft wrinkled leaves become parched and shrivelled; but a shower restores their vigour and lovely, tender green, and fresh flowers slightly resembling the violet, but borne on scapes 6 or 8 inches long, bloom within a few hours of the revivification of the plant. In moist seasons the plant, true to its hygrometic character, continuously blooms, and while it braves the hottest sun on the bare places of the burning rock as long as its roots find moist spots, it will also be found in the shade below, where the flowers are richer in colour, more of purple than mauve, and, rarely, pure white. Generally the plant depends upon others or cracks or crevices in rock for foothold. It shares the grasp the spongy moss may take on the slippery surface, or when the root, thin as whipcord, of a certain fig-tree has crept across the face of the grey rock forming a ridge or barricade against which decayed vegetation accumulates, there the BAEA flourishes, displaying an indeterminate line of mauve flowers above oval, crimpled leaves. Mauve, green and grey--the mauve of the Victorian age, the green of the cowslip, the grey of glistering, weathering granite. The whole of the rock face is a study. Grasping with greedy white talons a piece of decaying wood is one of the prettiest of the more common orchids, DENDROBIUM SMILIAE which produces short spikes of waxy flowers, pink tipped with green; the creeping, sweet-scented, BULBOPHYLLUM BAILEYI, with greenish-yellow flowers spotted with purple, and the commonest of the dendrobiums (UNDULATUM) revel here. The edge of the precipice looks over a tangle of jungle down upon the top of a giant milkwood tree (ALSTONIA SCHOLARIS), taken possession of by a colony of metallic starlings, whose hundreds of brown nests hang in clusters from the topmost branches. By the perpetual shrieks and calls of these most lively of birds a straight course may be steered through the gloomy jungle to the tree, and thence to the beach, as a ship gains her haven through a fog by the sound of unseen warning horns and bell-surmounted rocks. On the trunk of this great tree may still be seen the marks of stone tomahawks of the primitive inhabitants of the island. There is none now to disturb and plunder the hasty birds. STEALTHY MURDERERS The fig-tree which aids the BAEA in its object of beautifying the precipice is one of a very numerously represented species, which assumes great variety of form, and produces fruit of varying quality. This particular variety (FICUS CUNNINGHAMII) begins life as a parasite. A thin slender shoot, tremulously weak, leans lightly on the base of some tall tree, and finding agreeable conditions, clings and grows. A harmless, tender, thong-like shoot it is--a helpless plant, that could not stand alone or exist but for the hospitality of another of strength and substance. Soon a second shoot, slight and frail, emerges near the root, but at a different angle from its aspiring brother, and others as delicate as the first follow, until the trunk of the host is sprawled over by naked running shoots, grey-green in colour, crafty and insidious. As they increase in age the shoots flatten on the under surface and cross and recross. Wheresoever they touch they coalesce. The trunk becomes enveloped in living lace--in a network, rather, living, ever growing and irregular--the meshes of which gradually decrease in dimension. All the while squeezing and causing decay, the meshes close up. The trunk of the host is completely enclosed; it is the dying core of a living cylinder, for the first shoots have long since crept up among the branches, have expanded their leaves, and are busy sapping the life-blood of the tree at all points. A greedy intractable, implacable foe, it gives no quarter, but flourishes upon its dead or dying friend, upon which in its youth it leaned delicately for support. Finally it weaves its slender shoots among the topmost leaves of its victim, and having outgrown its growth, flourishes on its decay. This vegetable usurper produces immense crops of small purple figs, the favourite food of many birds. So bountiful are its crops, and so much are they appreciated, that one perceives, almost without reflection, its due and proper place in the harmony of nature. To complete the cycle, birds frequently, after eating the fruit, "strop" their beaks on the bark of a neighbouring tree. Now and again a seed thus finds favourable conditions for its germination, and then the parasite sends exploring roots to the ground, forming as they descend intricate lace-work, while shoots repeat a similar process as they climb further up the trunk and among the branches. Then the fate of the host seems less cruel, for the end is speedier. Delicious fruit is produced by a somewhat similar fig (VALIDINERVIS) growing in the locality and displaying, though not in such a cruel manner, parasitical tendencies. Passing from green to orange with deep red spots to rich purple, the fruit--about the size of an average grape--indicates arrival at maturity by the exudation of a drop of nectar. Clear as crystal, the nectar partially solidifies. Fragrant and luscious, pendant from the polished fruit, this exuberant insignia of perfection, this glittering drop of vital essence, attracts birds of all degree. It is a liqueur that none can resist, and which seems, so noisy and demonstrative do they all become, to have a highly exhilarating effect on their nerves. Birds ordinarily mute are vociferous, and the rowdy ones--the varied honey-eater as an example--losing all control of their tongues, call and whistle in ecstasy. The best of the fig-tree's life is given for the intoxication of unreflecting birds. TREE GROG Few of the forest trees are more picturesque than the paper-bark or tea-tree (MELALEUCA LEUCADENDRON), the "Tee-doo" of the blacks. It is of free and stately growth, the bark white, compacted of numerous sheets as thin as tissue paper. When a great wind stripped the superficial layers, exposing the reddish-brown epidermis, the whole foreground was transfigured. All during the night alone in the house, I heard the great trees complaining against the molestation of the wind, groaning in strife and fright; but little had I thought that the violation they had endured had been so coarse and lawless. The chaste trees had been incontinently stripped of their decent white vestiture, leaving their limbs naked and bare. In the daylight they still moaned, throwing their almost leafless branches about despairingly, their flesh-tints--dingy red--giving to the scene a strangely unfamiliar glow. This outrage was one of the most uncivil of the wrong-doings of the storm wind "Leonta." But within a week or so the trees assumed whiter than ever robes; pure and stainless, the breeze had merely removed soiled linen. The picture had been restored by the most ideal of all artists. The blossoms of the melaleuca come in superabundance, pale yellow spikes, odorous to excess. When the trees thus adorn themselves--and they do so twice in the year in changeless fashion, in the fulness of the wet season--the air is saturated with the odour as of treacle slightly burnt. The island reeks of a vast sugar factory or distillery. Sips of the balsamic syrup are free to all, and birds and insects rejoice and are glad. A perpetual murmur and hum of satisfaction and industry haunt the neighbourhood of the trees as accompaniment to the varied notes of excitable birds. Chemists say that insects imprisoned in an atmosphere of melaleuca oil become intoxicated. Insects and birds certainly are boldly familiar and hilarious during the time that the trees offer their feast of spiced honey. Every tree is a fair, and all behave accordingly, chirping and whistling, humming and buzzing, flitting and fluttering, in the unrestrained gaiety of holiday and feast-day humour. Always an impertinent, interfering rascal, the spangled drongo, under the exhilarating influence of melaleuca nectar, degenerates into a blusterer. He could not under any circumstances be a larrikin; but the grateful stimulant affects his naturally high spirits, and he is more frolicsome and boisterous than ever. The path between the coco-nuts to the beach passes close to two of the biggest trees, and from each as I strolled along, one sublime morning when the whole world was drenched with whiffs, strong, sweet and spirity, a drongo, flushed with excitement, flew down, bidding me begone in language that I am fully persuaded was meant to provoke a breach of the peace. The saucy bullies, the half-tipsy roysterers, tired of domineering over every participator of the feast, dared to publicly flout me, defiantly sweeping with their tails the air, as an Irishman, "blue mouldy for want of a bateing," sweeps the floor with his coat, and chattered and scolded in every tone of elated bravado. The bibacious drongo can be as demure as any. When he comes to dart among the eddying insects, glorying in the first cool gleams of the sunshine, he will take his ease on a mango branch, make jerky bows and flick the fine feathers of his tail, and "cheep" in timorous accents. He is sober then, quite parsonified in demeanour; his speech "all in the set phrase of peace," and would be scandalised by the mere mention of melaleuca nectar. A professor of physiology asserts that rabbits are very curious when under the influence of liquor, and that a drunken kangaroo is brutally aggressive. The drongo is merely pugnacious and noisy. Having heard of the melancholy effects of over-indulgence in melaleuca nectar, I was not at all disposed to judge of the misbehaviour harshly or to take personal offence; for the drongo is a respectable bird, and the opportunities for excess come but twice a year. Are not the tenses of intoxication infinite? This is not a prohibition district, and if the happy, unreflective bird chooses to partake even to excess of the free offering of Nature, the quintessence of the flowers of the tree distilled by sunshine, why should not he? Am I the only one to be "recompensed by the sweetness and satisfaction of this retreat"? When the melaleuca blossoms, bees seem to work with quite feverish haste; but the honey gained is dark in colour and has a certain pungent, almost acid, flavour. Holding a frame of comb to the light, you see the clear gold of the bloodwood and the tawny tints of the melaleuca as erratically defined as geographical distinctions in a tinted map. Bees keep it apart to indulge in it, peradventure, at revolutionary epochs. Italian bees are docile, at least less pugnacious than other species. Does not the dark spirituous honey inspire them with that degree of courage which we English call Dutch? CHAPTER VII "THE LORD AND MASTER OF FLIES" Among the curious creatures native to the island is a fierce cannibalistic fly. Fully an inch in length and bulky in proportion, it somewhat resembles a house-fly on a gigantic scale, but is lustrous grey in colour, with blond eyes, fawn legs, and transparent, iridescent wings, with a brassy glint in them. The broad, comparatively short wings carry a body possessing a muscular system of the highest development, for the note flight produces indicates the extraordinary rapidity of the wing vibrations. Some swift-flying insects are said to make about eight hundred down strokes of the wing per second. This big fair fellow's machinery may not be equipped for such marvellous momentum, but the high key that he sounds under certain circumstances indicates rare force and speed. No library of reference is available. The specific scientific title of the insect cannot therefore be supplied. Possibly it does not yet possess one, but it is a true fly of the family ASILIDAE, and being a veritable monster to merely sportful and persistent if annoying flies of lesser growth, no doubt it will continue to perform its part even though without a formal distinction. Its presence is announced by an ominous, booming hum. It passes on one side with a flight so rapid as to render it almost invisible. You hear a boom which has something of a whistle, and see a yellowish glint; the rest is space and silence. In half a minute the creature returns; and thus he scoops about, booming and making innocent lightnings in the clear air. The tone is demonstrative, aggressive, triumphant; but the monster is only reconnoitring--seeing whether you have any flies about you. You may have boasted to yourself--there being no friends about to tolerate your egotistical confidences that there are no flies about you; but the big, booming creature has his suspicions. Apparently in his opinion you are just the sort of country to attract and encourage flies, and he does not immediately satisfy himself to the contrary. But should you witlessly happen to have attracted the companionship of ever so innocent a fly, the awful presence seizes it on the wing and is away with the twang of a bullet. It will pick a fly from your sunburnt arm--no occasion for coats here--with neatness and despatch and leave wondering comprehension far behind. And having seized its prey, it may, haply, seek as it booms along the nearest support on which to enjoy its meal. Then you see what a terrific creature it is. One favoured me with a minute's close observation. By a hook on one of the anterior legs (it possesses the regulation half-dozen) it had attached itself to a tiny splinter on the under-side of the verandah rail, and so hung, the body being at right angles to its support. Thus stretched, the leg appeared fully two inches long, and with the rest of its legs it clasped to its bosom the unfortunate little fly, shrunken with distress, the very embodiment of hopeless dismay. No sight which comes to memory's call equals for utter despair that of the little insect, which no doubt in its day had provoked a big lump of irritation and strong but ineffective language. Hugged by its great enemy, it seemed aware of its fate, yet unreconciled to it. Pendant by the one long, slender leg, as if hung by a thread, the blond monster seemed quite at ease over its repast. That was its customary pose and attitude at meal-times. As far as observation permitted, it was pumping out the blood of its prey, but before the operation was finished it forbade closer scrutiny by humming away with a note of savage resentment--a rumble, a grumble and a growl, ending in a swelling shriek. It would be interesting to know how many flies of the common vexing kind such a ferocious creature disposes of during the day. He preys upon the lustrous bluish-green fly, which draws blood almost on the moment of alighting, and also on the sluggish "march" fly, which goes about the business of blood-sucking in a lazy, dreamy, lackadaisical style; and I am inclined to acknowledge him as a friend and as a blessing to humanity generally. A TRAGEDY IN YELLOW Quite a distinct tragedy occurred the other day. The little yellow diurnal moth commonly known as "the wanderer" has a partiality for the nectar of the "bachelor's button," as yellow as itself. The morning was gay with butterflies. A "wanderer" poised over a yellow cushion fluttered spasmodically, and remained fixed and steadfast with tightly-closed wings. It allowed itself to be touched without showing uneasiness, and when a brisk movement was made to frighten it to flight it was still steady as a statue. Closer inspection revealed the cause. The body was tightly-gripped in the mandibles of a spider, a yellow rotund spider with long, slender, greeny-yellowy legs. Under cover of the yellow flower the yellow spider had seized the yellow moth. A general inspection showed that the tragedy was almost as universal as the flowers. There were few flowers which did not conceal a spider, and few spiders which had not murdered a moth. The conspiracy between the flower and the spider for the undoing of the moth (a conspiracy from which both profited) was repeated thousands of times this bright morning, and it illustrated the profundity of Nature's lesser tragedies, the sternness with which she adjusts her equilibriums. COLOUR EFFECTS A favourite food of the great green, gold and black butterfly (ORNITHOPTERA CASSANDRA) is the nectar of the hard, dull-red flowers of the umbrella-tree, and this fact assisted in an observation which seems to prove that plants play tricks on insects. Among the introduced plants of the island is one of the acalyphas. Butterflies which have feasted among the umbrella-trees on the beach and on the edge of the jungle flit about the garden and almost invariably visit the red but nectarless acalypha. One began at the end of the row, examined the topmost leaves, flitted to the next, and so on, lured by the colour and disappointed by the absence of nectar, twenty-five times, in succession, until it blundered on the red hibiscus bushes and began to feed. The gorgeous blue swallow-tail (PAPILIO ULYSSES) seems to have a fancy for yellow, for it pays frequent visits to the golden trumpets of the tecoma and the alamanda. The living gold of the flowers and the imperial blue of the insect form a sumptuous if everyday scene. MUSICAL FROGS A marked feature of the wet season is the varied chant of happy frogs. During the day silence is the rule. A low gurgle of content at the sounding rain is occasionally heard on the part of a flabby, moist creature unable to restrain its sentiments until the approach of evening. But as the sun sets, each of the countless host utters a song of thankfulness and pleasure. To the unappreciative it may appear merely an inharmonious vocal go-as-you-please, in which each frog is the embodiment of the idea that upon its jubilant efforts the honour and reputation of the race as vocalists depend. But to one class of listener the opera is decently if not scientifically constituted. There is the loud and cheerful, if not shrill, bleating of the soprano, the strenuous booming of the bass, the velvety softness and depth of the contralto and the thin high tenor. Hordes of the alert, sharp-featured, far-leaping grass frog represent the chorus, and they have a perfectly rehearsed theme. Down on the flat along the edge of the pandanus grove the preliminary chords are uttered--a merry, unreflective, chirrupy strain, gay as "the Fishermen's Chorus." The motive is taken up nearer among the coco-nuts, and is in full swing in the pools below the terrace. Thence the sound passes on through the wattles and bloodwoods to the narrow tea-tree swamp lined with dwarf bamboos and dies in echoes in the distance. A brief interlude, and the pandanus choir gives voice again, stronger and resonant; the companions of the coco-nuts join lustily, the strain reverberates from the wet lands below, resounds through the forest, and is lost in the mellow distance of the tea-trees. And so the sound rises and falls, swells and dwindles away in chords and harmonies, until presently every amphibian is alert and tremulous with emotion and emulation. If an attempt is made to analyse the music, you may discover sounds sharp as those of the fife, deep and hollow as drum-beats, sonorous and acrid, tinny and mellow. I have heard that those who are not disciples of Wagner find it necessary to undergo a process of education ere they acquire an unaffected taste for the composer's masterpieces. Possibly those who have not listened, wet season after wet season, to the light-hearted chant, may be inclined to suggest that there can be no such thing as music in the panting bellows of a North Queensland frog. But music "is of a relative nature, and what is harmony to one ear may be dissonance to another." The Chinese opera proves that "nations do not always express the same passions by the same sounds." If one obtains music from the clang and clamour of full-throated frogs, may it not be because his ears are more attuned to natural than to artificial harmonies, not because, of any defect in, or aberration of, hearing, or any lack of melody on the part of the frogs? ACTS WELL ITS PART "A living drollery! Now I will believe That there are unicorns; that in Arabia There is one tree, the phoenix throne; one phoenix At this hour reigning." Few insects repay observation better than the mantis and the stick insect, which generally, of most voracious habits themselves, resort to all manner of disguises and devices to elude their enemies and lure their prey. Nearly all furnish striking examples of colour protection. One variety of the mantis here is black and rugged, and is to be found only on charred wood. The wing-cases present the characteristic grain and glint of fresh charcoal, distinctly showing the influence of the condition of its environment. Another is grey, to match its groundwork of dead wood; another brown and slightly hairy, to coincide with the bark of the particular eucalyptus upon which it lurks. Another, and the most graceful, resembles two bright green leaves, the midrib and the nerve system being imitated perfectly. Among the most singular is one of the stick insects (PHASMA). A fair specimen may be a foot and more long. The body presents the general appearance of a dry stick; the posterior legs, held at different and erratic angles to the grey and brown body, are as sunburnt twigs; the intermediary pair seem to be used primarily as supports. The anterior are stretched out to their fullest extent parallel to each other, and so close together as to resemble one tapering termination, with the head closely packed between the thighs, in each of which is a complementary depression for its accommodation. When the insect is motionless it is difficult to detect. By its long posterior legs, stiffly held aloft, it proclaims to every bird--"Do not be so absurd as to imagine these dry twigs to be legs, belonging to a body good to eat." And if the bird does not take the resemblance for granted and is inquisitive and approaches too familiarly, it finds that instead of a dinner it has discovered a snake. The insect seems to say--"I am a stick! Look at the twigs. No, I am a snake! Long live the serpent!" The long, slender anterior legs--used more frequently as arms than as legs--form the tapering tail; the other end is the head with mouth open, ready for action--eyes and jaws and protruding tongue complete. This end sways as does the head of an excited snake, and curves round as if to strike, and the boldest of little birds fly off with a note of apprehension and alarm. I have had these strange creatures under observation many weeks, and invariably found that when one was interfered with in any way it used its snake-like aft end as a bogey, curving it round towards the molesting hand. A fowl that will attack an 8-inch centipede without hesitation, makes a sensational fuss and clatter when it detects a stick insect, especially when the stick insect feints, however ineffectually, with its perfectly harmless tail. If it is capable of imposing upon a sagacious fowl, the effect of its terrifying aspect upon an unsophisticated little bird can well be understood. Richard Kerr, the author of NATURE: CURIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL, describes a specimen of the stick insect from a cabinet specimen and a pen-and-ink drawing in the museum of the Hon. W. Rothschild, at Tring. This particular insect originally came from Malacca, and is jointed somewhat after the style of a Malacca cane, and of it the author says--"It is said that when the insect is attacked by its foe, or is in danger of attack, it has the power to protrude telescopically the tenth (terminal) segment, which has a mouth-like opening and a tongue-like organ which at once gives the creature the appearance of a snake. There is also a spot that answers to the appearance of an eye on the ninth segment." The Dunk Island representative of the family does not possess the power of protruding and withdrawing its terminal segment, but it certainly assumes a resemblance to a snake, and a pugnacious snake too. Further, the Tring insect does not appear to possess wings. My friend does--though she flies as the Scotchman admitted he joked--"wi' deefeeculty." She spreads her light, gauzy, grey, and shockingly inadequate, skirts, and romps and rollicks away, giving one a fleeting impression of a bold and most disorderly ballet girl. "She" is quite the proper mode of address, for there can be no mistake as to the sex. The male is a slim individual, not half the length, and about one-fourth of the circumference of the female. Though (unlike his consort) he is in his general demeanour sprightly and alert, taking to the wing at the slightest impulse, in his love-making he is most deliberate, courtly and formal, the consummation of it all continuing for several days. So we see that the character of the snake which the female plays with so much art is not disturbed during the most emotional period of her existence. Nature holds the mirror to herself with inimitable skill. While the male takes long flights, those of the female are short and uncertain and seldom voluntary. Immediately she alights the anterior legs are extended, the head is depressed between the thighs, and the legs which are at liberty become as rigid as twigs. Among the branches of a shrub her action is cautious and stealthy; but the stick insect is seldom to be caught napping. It is very wide awake when it plays the dual part of a sleepy snake and four crooked twigs. In youth, the colouring of the female is ashy green, almost exactly the tint of the most common of arboreal snakes, and at the time of life when it is less able to defend itself it seems to spend all its days in the snake-like posture. In some respects this insect resembles the MANTIS RELIGIOSA; but it does not seem to possess the voracious appetite of that insect, which assumes the supplicatory attitude that it may the more readily seize its prey. Indeed, although two specimens were under observation for three months, at morning, noon and eve, I only once saw one eating, and then it was partaking sparingly of orange leaves. The insect is well-known as a vegetarian, but the manner of its feeding is singular. The part that it takes of a motionless snake would be ineffective if the head moved while eating, and Nature provides against any blundering of that sort. The edge of a leaf is guided to the mouth, which appears to open vertically--not horizontally as mouths usually do--by a set of palpi or feelers, three on each side. The palpi move the leaf along, the while a crescent-shaped strip is rapidly nibbled away. Then they move the leaf back again to the original starting point, and another crescent is devoured, and so on, while the extended anterior legs, hooked on to a twig, pull the body forward with a gliding, almost imperceptible motion as the leaf is gradually consumed. Between meals, the palpi are folded flat close to the mouth, like the blades of a pocket-knife. Blacks classify most of the works of Nature under two headings--"Good to eat," "Not good to eat," and nearly everything is included under the former. The "Taloo" or "Yam-boo" is included in the larger class. Ruthlessly deprived of its limbs, the insect is placed squirming on hot embers until it becomes crisp, when it is eaten with great relish. GREEN-ANT CORDIAL White ants, black ants, red ants, brown ants, grey ants, green ants; ants large, ants small; ants slothful, ants brisk; meat-eating ants, grain-eating ants, fruit-eating ants, nectar-imbibing ants; ants that fight, ants that run away; ants that live under coldest stone, ants that dwell among the treetops; silent ants, ants that literally "kick up" a row; good ants, bad ants, ants that are merely so so--we have them all and would not part with any--not even the stinging green ants, which are among the most singular of the tribe, nor even the "white ant" (which is not an ant), that would literally eat us out of house and home if not rigorously excluded and warred against with poison, for they are the great scavengers of woodeny debris. Green ants do disfigure orange and mango trees with their "nests," and they have the temper of furies; but they wage war on many of the insects which bother plants, and clear away insect carrion, and carrion, in fact, of all sorts. This ant, to which has been given the official title of "emerald-coloured leaf dweller," constructs a pocket with leaves of living trees (and, very rarely, of the blades of living grass), and dwelling therein establishes populous colonies. The queen or mother ant sets up her separate establishment by curling a small leaf or the corner of a large one, joining the edges with a white cottony fabric, and forthwith begins to raise a family. She is a portly creature--unlike her slim, semi-transparent workers and warriors--and most prolific, and her family increases marvellously. As it multiplies, ingenious additions of living leaves are made to the pocket or purse, until it may assume the size of a football and be the home of millions of alert, pugnacious, inquisitive, foraging insects, whose bites are dreaded by individuals whose skin is extra sensitive. Is it not astonishing that insects, possessing even in combination such trivial muscular power as the green tree-ant, should be able to cause leaves 12 inches long by 8 inches wide to curl up so that the apex shall almost touch the base, or that the parallel borders shall be brought together with the nicest apposition? The astonishment increases when it is recognised that at the founding of a colony there are but few workers to co-operate in the undertaking. The minute caterpillar of a certain species of moth mines leaves, and eating away the cellular structures, causes them to twist irregularly, and eventually spins on the spot a cocoon of green silk in which it undergoes metamorphosis. A local caterpillar, too, converts the tough harsh leaves of a fig-tree (FICUS FASCICULATA) into a close and perfect scroll by an elaborate system of haulage, spinning silken strands as required, having primarily rendered the leaf the more easy to manipulate by nibbling away a portion of the midrib. In this scroll the insect dozes until in process of time it is transformed, and emerges a bright but short-lived butterfly. But, as far as my personal observation goes, the green tree-ants do not effect any alteration in the superficial appearance nor destroy the structure of leaves, nor employ any physical power at the first stages of the construction of a habitation. The process by which a leaf is curled extends over several days, and but few take part in it. Half a dozen ants may be seen perpetually engaged in, apparently, an unmethodical but extremely minute and critical inspection of the rhachis and the nerves or ribs of the leaf. Days pass. The ants are there all the time, examining the leaf and communicating with each other whensoever they meet. Imperceptibly the leaf begins to curl. The ants continue to make mesmeric passes over the nerves with ever-waving antennae. In accordance with the will and the design of the architects, who merely stand by and gesticulate, the opposite margins approach, or the apex curls towards the base, or towards one of the sides to form a miniature funnel. When the extremities are so close that the intervening space may be spanned, threads of white gossamer are laced across, and the slack being taken up by degrees, in a few days a cosy pocket with closely-fitting seams is completed. How is this folding of the leaf accomplished? A theory which presents itself is that the ants eject some active chemical principle into certain of the cells of the leaf tissue, and that the stimulus is transmitted by excitation from cell to cell, bringing about a general and uniform contraction without destroying the vitality of the leaf. Further, by the application of the injection to specific cells the ants convey impulses to specific nerves, causing the leaf to curl longitudinally or laterally, or at any angle they design. The poison that a single ant injects into the neck of a brawny man so affects his nervous system that he twists and writhes and stamps his feet with energy sufficient to destroy millions of the species. Maybe a slightly different compound is reserved for vegetable substances, which can offer only a flabby sort of remonstrance. If this theory be supported on investigation, surely the green tree-ant will deserve to be catalogued among creatures who have solved labour-saving problems--who employ consciousness, if not rational thought, to compensate for physical frailty. This theory is applicable to the manipulation of a single leaf only, and of a leaf of considerable size. Yet these feeble folk more frequently take up their quarters in trees bearing small leaves, of which scores are embodied in a mansion. Immense and concentrated exertion is necessary to draw far-flung branchlets and leaves together, and the feverish host accomplishes a seemingly impossible feat by an organised combination of engineering with co-operative labour. Spaces between leaves and twigs four and five inches wide are bridged by chains of ants--each individual clasping with its mandibles above the abdominal segment its immediate companion; occasionally the ant grips its fellow by the posterior legs, and is so held by the next in order. In the construction of these chains ants hastily mass at each side of the gulf to be spanned, and crawling, or rather running over each other, form pendant strands, each ant a living link. The chains sway until the terminal links engage, when they are immediately shortened up. Several of these chains are swung across parallel to each other with astonishing rapidity; and in addition to the constant strain of the hauling workers at each end they are used as bridges by innumerable other workers and fussy superintendents, the traffic on them being almost as voluminous and bustling as that of a Thames thoroughfare. Gradually the most obstinate branchlet with its spray of leaves is drawn into juxtaposition with the main part of the mansion. Then the living spans become more numerous, presenting the appearance of great stitches. As the edges of the leaves are brought together they are fastened with white gossamer while the tireless workers strain themselves, heroically holding the edges in apposition. The gossamer seems to be obtained in part from the pupuae, which, borne in the mandibles of workers, are passed to and fro as weavers' shuttles. As a rule, insects which house themselves in leaves are vegetarian, but the green ant is demonstratively carnivorous, using leaves solely for shelter. An aboriginal--to repeat perhaps a needless observation--regards the most of things of this earth from a dietetic standpoint. He does not so regard the green tree-ant in vain. He knows when the pocket is packed with white larvae and white helpless infant ants, or with helpless green ones big of abdomen, and consenting to the assaults of the adults, cuts away the supporting branch and shakes off the furious citizens, or expels them with the smoke and fire of paper-bark torches, or, maybe, casts the pocket into water so that the adult ants may swim ashore, abandoning those that cannot, on account of immaturity or incompetence, to their fate. Eaten raw, the larvae are pungent morsels, or macerated in water in company with relatives distended to the degree of helplessness, form a cordial that is sharp to the palate, scarifying to the throat, and consoling to the stomach replete with the cold and sodden foods with which blacks often have to be content. Tetchy and quarrelsome, staccato in action, the warriors of a colony bury their forceps in the skin and stand upon their heads to give all their weight to the attack; but each individual retains its grip until squashed and crumpled up, and the human being who has suffered the assault comments on it in language corresponding with the sensitiveness or otherwise of his skin. Consequently the green tree-ant is not as a rule regarded with any tenderness or consideration, and there never existed a green ant which hesitated to attack the greatest man. He is quite as heroic as a bee--though armed much less efficiently--and far more resentful. A brilliant black ant imitates its green cousin in the construction of a leafy dwelling somewhat similar in design but on a smaller scale, and having no apparent weapon of defence, save odour--and not very much of that--adopts a novel plan of protecting its refuge against assaults. However gently the leafy house is touched the denizens set up a violent agitation, the simultaneous efforts of hundreds making a sound quite loud enough to scare away intruders whose senses are attuned to the silence and rustlings of the jungle. The noise, which resembles that which results from the easy agitation of coarse sand in a crisp paper envelope, seems to be caused by the ants kicking or drumming on the sides and partitions of the house, the partitions being composed of a light brown fabric, tense, tough and resonant. WOOING WITH WINGS Among the many engaging scenes and frolics that are ever taking place along the flounces of the jungle, where the serrated leaves of the fern of God make living lacework up and among the tangle of foliage, none is prettier than the love flight of the green and gold butterfly (ORNITHOPTERA CASSANDRA). Human beings, who in their marriage ceremonies array themselves to the best advantage and assume their most charming traits, can hardly withhold attention from other and more ethereal creatures when they become subject to the divine passion. All have their moments of bliss, and the butterfly--"the embodiment of pure felicity --happy in what it has and happier still in searching for something else"--reveals its "love-sickness and pain" as the bloom of its gay and sportful existence. In the courtship of this particular species the male exercises a singular fascination, while the female gracefully and without hesitation submits to the spell. He has flitted airily in the sunshine, glorying in a livery of green and gold and black, has daintily sipped nectar from the scarlet hibiscus flowers, has soared over the highest bloodwood in wild but idle impulse, and in a flash, is fervently in love. Judged by appearance alone he has chosen quite an unworthy bride. She is much the larger, darker and heavier, and has little of the colouring of her passionate wooer on her wings, though her body is decorated with unexpected red. Her flight, ordinarily, is cumbersome and slow, and her demeanour pensive--almost prim. She seems to be of a steady, matronly disposition, whereas the shape of the wings of her mate alone denotes quite a different ideal of life. He is all alert, charged to the full with nervous energy--free, careless, inconsequent, but absolutely irresistible. When the pair meet, what time the fancies of butterflies lightly turn to thoughts of love, he swoops impetuously towards her and rises in a graceful curve, seeming to enchant her with the display of his colours. She forthwith amends her staid behaviour, and begins a quivering, fluttering flight, rising and falling with gentle, rhythmical grace. He, hovering about with rapid wing movements, harmoniously responds to her undulations. Still maintaining her coy contours she floats over the tree-tops, or descends among the ferns or bushes, past the blue berries of the native ginger, while with quaint courtliness he pays his compliments and bewilders by his audacity. As the amorous dalliance proceeds, he flits in brilliant spirals round and before her, and again resumes his tremulous flight, consonant with her emotional flutterings. However intricate, however long the dance she leads, he follows, blithesomeness and confidence in all his poses. Exhausting work this aerial flirtation. The bride alights among the red knobs of the umbrella-tree for refreshment. Her wings quiver as she sips, while her admirer poises a yard in the air above her, flashes hither and thither, briefly steadying his flight in positions whence all his loveliness may be advantageously revealed; poises again a yard above her; gyrates with the air of a dandy of over-weening assurance, vanity, and pride; swoops until his wings in their down-strokes salute her; and then the dainty pair dance into the sunless mazes of the jungle. It is all a vivid but soundless symphony--a concord of tender harmonies and sprightly trills and passionate phrases. THE GREED OF THE SNAKE In another place in these artless chronicles proof has been given of the fact that though serpents were long enough ago declared to be the most subtle of the beasts of the field, they may be imposed upon. I would like now to cite an instance of their greed and their grasping nature. Our chicken coops were made snake-proof, but a more than ordinarily, crafty individual burglariously broke into one, and the hen and chickens sounded the alarm. It was night, and the lantern revealed the snake. The affrighted chickens with their anxious parent issued forth as soon as the door was opened, all save two, one at each end of the snake. A gunshot through the open door divided the snake. When the coop was lifted away, each end retained tightly a dead chicken, one partially swallowed, the other throttled and held by three encircling coils of the tail. Apart from the gunshot there was a tragic element in this case. When once it has firmly seized with its teeth its prey, a snake must swallow it whole or burst in the attempt. Nature has denied some species the privilege of rejection. Now the chicks were several sizes too large for the snake, and consequently the sides of its mouth, its neck and body, for a length of about 4 inches, had been ripped in the vain endeavour to perform an impossibility. A SWALLOWING FEAT Everyone knows that small snakes are capable of swallowing comparatively large eggs. But is the way in which the feat is accomplished generally understood? That is the question. No doubt a big snake glides jauntily to a moderately-sized egg, grips it with its in-curved teeth, the jaws loosen and begin their alternating movement, and unhook themselves at the bases to permit of the eggs passing down the throat. That is easy. But how does a small snake, the neck of which is an inch and a half in circumference, swallow whole an egg 5 inches and more in circumference? Actual observation enables me to explain. If the snake were to begin the act straightforwardly, the egg, presenting but little resistance, would be continuously pushed away. The snake slides its head and neck over the egg, and pressing downward upon it with that part of its body which for the present purpose may be termed the bosom, prevents it moving. The head turns over as if the snake was preparing for a somersault; the jaws fit over the end of the egg, the upper below and the lower above, and begin to work. Presently the upper and lower jaws become entirely disassociated, the egg is encompassed and forced down into the throat. The process seems a most distressing one to the snake, for so great is the distension of the flesh tissues and the skin that they become semitransparent, revealing the colour of the egg. When the egg is safe in the stomach, the shell submits to the action of the gastric juices, and the meal is digested. That is if it is a hen's egg. A porcelain counterfeit, which the most subtle snake cannot distinguish from a natural egg, passes on its way unblemished, PART II STONE AGE FOLKS CHAPTER I PASSING AWAY Some investigators tell us that the aborigines of Australia came out of Egypt carrying with them their ancient signs and totemic ceremonies; others, that they are representatives of the Neolithic Age; others assert that Australia is the cradle of the human race, the primitive inhabitants the stock whence all sprung. Without pausing to hazard an opinion upon any of these theories, it may be said that stone axes, shell knives, and fish-hooks of pearl and tortoiseshell now in use are among the credentials of a people whose attributes and conditions are in line with those who, in other parts of the world, had their day and fulfilled their destiny ages upon ages ago, leaving as history etchings on ivory of the mammoth and the bone of the reindeer. Implements similar to those which are relics of a remote past elsewhere are here of everyday use and application. The Stone Age still exists. To speculate upon those phases of aboriginal life and character which go to establish the antiquity of the race and its profound unprogressiveness, is no part of the present purpose, which is merely to relate commonplace incidents and the humours of to-day. Much of that which follows is necessarily matter of common knowledge among those who have studied the blacks of the coast. There is nothing obscure, and but little that concerns even the immediate past, in the philosophy of those natives of North Queensland with whom I am in touch. With the black, to-day is--"to be, contents his natural desire!" The past is not worth thinking about, if not entirely forgotten; the future unembarrassed by problems. Crafts and artifices, common enough a few years ago, are fast passing away. New acquirements are generally saddening proofs of the unfitness of the aboriginal for the battle of life when once his primitive condition is disturbed by the wonder-working whites. Bent wire represents a cheap and effective substitute for fish-hooks of pearl-shell, which cost so much in skill and time, and ever so shabby and worn a blanket more comfortable and to the purpose than the finest beaten out of the bark of a fig-tree. Many of the wants of the race are supplied through the agency of the whites, and there are so many new tasks and occupations and novelties generally to occupy attention, that the decent and often ingenious handicrafts lapse and are lost. Our blacks still decorate rocks and the bark of trees with rude charcoal drawings; but the art of making stone axes is lost, though trees yet exhibit marks of those handled by the fathers of the present generation. In passing, an example of the difficulties that must inevitably be faced by inquirers a few years hence who may seek information first hand may be cited. The grandfathers of the blacks of Hinchinbrook Island and the islands of Rockingham Bay have been popularly credited with the art of making out-rigger canoes, such as were common a few miles to the north. One living representative of the race gave me a detailed description of this style of canoe, and pointed out with pride the particular tree whence it was invariably fashioned, by hollowing out a section of the trunk, leaving the ends solid and shaping them. A different and very buoyant timber, according to him, was used for the out-rigger. This boy had travelled. He had seen the canoes further north as well as those of New Guinea, and it was found on investigation that his description of the local craft was quite imaginary. Captain Philip P. King, who came hither from Sydney in 1818, anchoring at Goold Island, thus describes the canoe of the period--"Their canoes were not more than five feet long, and generally too small for two people; two small strips of bark five or six inches square serves the darkie's purpose of paddling and for baling the water out, which they are constantly obliged to do to prevent their canoes from sinking." These details are applicable to the canoes of the present day. As a matter of fact, out-rigger canoes were not known in this locality, though but 20 miles to the north hollowed logs with out-riggers of the stems of banana plants were common. This fact definitely fixes the point--geographical and also historical--at which the advanced ideas of the Papuan in the science of boat-building ceased to influence the tardy Australian. Ere knowledge of the counterbalance crept further south, the advent of the arbitrary white man brought its progress to a full and final stop. Fragile single canoes of bark were the only means of navigation here, and not many men in these degenerate days can successfully imitate the work of their fathers. Owing to disuse, the talent in that direction has almost been lost. Lost, too, are many of the legends which were wont to be handed down from one generation to another, and forgotten the very names of common objects. But these investigations do not pretend to depth, nor are they presented in any authoritative manner. No attempt is made to discuss the Australian aboriginal in general nor from any particular standpoint. A few side-shows and character sketches, are offered in the attempt to interest and entertain. In some respects our blacks, said to be among the finest physically in Queensland, and desperately deceitful, are cute and as independent of artificial aids as ever. TURTLE AND SUCKERS Generally unprogressive and uninventive, the aboriginals of the coast of North Queensland apply practically the result of the observation of a certain fact in the life-history of a fish in obtaining food. By them the sucker (REMORA) is not regarded as an interesting example of a fish which depends largely upon turtle, dugong, sharks and porpoises for locomotion, but as a ready means of effecting the capture of the two first-mentioned animals, always eagerly hunted for their flesh. In the days of hoary antiquity it was believed that this strange fish was wont to affix itself to the bottom of a ship, and was able of its malice to hold it stationary in a stiff breeze though all sails were set. According to the legend (a popular method by means of which the descendants of great men explained away their faults and blunders), at the famous sea-fight at Actium, Mark Antony's ship was held back by a remora in spite of the efforts of hundreds of willing galley-slaves. Shakespeare may say that Cleopatra's "fearful sails" were the cause of Antony's fatal indecision and flight, and a lesser poet may cast the blame upon her "timid tear"; but the tribute to the remora's interference with the fate of nations was accepted in good faith at the time, and was, moreover, supported and confirmed by the inglorious experience of other great men who hung back when they should have sailed boldly on to victory or noble disaster. Vulgarly known nowadays as "the sucker," and to science as the "ECHENEIS REMORA" and "ECHENEIS NAUCRATES," and to the blacks as "Cum-mai," the fish upon which such grave responsibility was thrown by the ancients monopolises the sub-order of ACANTHOPTAYGII (DISCOCEPHALI). Its distinguishing feature is a shield or disc extending from the tip of the upper jaw to a point behind the shoulders, and said to be a modification of the spurious dorsal fin. This structure consists of a midrib and a number of transverse flat ridges capable of being raised or depressed. The disc has a membranous continuous edge or margin. When the fish presses the soft edge of the disc against any smooth surface and depresses the ridges and the intervening spaces, a vacuum is formed, giving it enormous holding power. Other countries have sucker fish of different form; but it remained for the benighted Australian blacks, among a few other savage races, to make practical use of the creature, which, as a means of locomotion, forms strong attachments to the dugong, turtle, shark and porpoise. It can hardly be called domesticated, yet it is employed after the manner of the falcon in hawking, save that the sucker is fastened to a light line when the game is revealed. Some assert that the sucker swims on its back when not adhering to its host, but my observation denounces that theory. Becalmed among the islands, where the water is transparently clear, I have seen the sucker swim cautiously to the boat, apparently reconnoitring. Shy and easily startled, a wave of the hand over the gunwale is sufficient to scare it away; but it comes again, keeping pace as the boat drifts, and liking to remain in its shadow. Then it is easily seen that it swims with the sucker uppermost. Occasionally when the blacks harpoon a turtle or a dugong a sucker is secured. They declare that it stays in one locality until a suitable host happens along, and then forms a life-long attachment. If one is seen among the rocks the blacks are at pains to catch it, and as it is shark-like in its nervousness, the sport demands considerable skill and patience. "Feed 'em plenty" is the ruling principle. Delectable morsels of fresh fish are tendered abundantly until the sucker abandons his usual caution, and then when he is feeding freely a hook temptingly baited is let down casually among the other dainties, and if the fish has been liberally and yet not over fed, it will probably accept the line, and after protesting and holding back to the best of its ability, find itself flapping in the bark canoe. Should it get away--"Well! Plenty more alonga salt water. Catch 'em to-morrow." When determined to secure a sucker whose haunt they have discovered, the blacks will feed it at intervals for a day or two to overcome its nervous apprehension. In other localities along the coast the fish is plentiful and by no means shy, taking bait ravenously. Having secured the sucker, the blacks farm it in their haphazard fashion. They fasten a line above the forked tall so securely that it cannot slip, nor be likely to readily cut through the skin, and tether it in shallow water, when it usually attaches itself to the bottom of the canoe. When, as the result of frequent use and heavy strain, the tail of the sucker is so deeply cut by the line that it is in danger of being completely severed, a hole is callously bored right through the body beside the backbone, and the line passed through it for additional security. Turtle being wanted, the blacks voyage out each in a bark canoe, which weighs about 40 lbs., is 8 feet long, 2 feet beam and 1 foot deep midships, where the sides are much depressed, leaving little more than an inch of freeboard. There is a good sheer forward and a slight tilt at the stern, while the bottom is level. Occasionally two men fit themselves into a canoe of the dimensions given. The canoe is constructed of a single sheet of bark, preferably of "Gulgong" (EUCALYPTUS ROBUSTA) or "Carr-lee" (ACACIA AULACOCARPA), or "Wee-ree" (CALOPHYLLUM INOPHYLLUM) brought neatly together at the ends, which are sewn with strips of lawyer cane. Pieces of lawyer cane are sometimes also stitched in to represent stem and stern posts, and the chaffing pieces also are of cane, though occasionally thin pliant saplings are strapped and sewn on. Across the bow and the stern are stays of cane, with generally a stronger thwart midships. When new, and the stitches of yellow cane regular and bright, the canoe represents about the neatest and nattiest of the few constructive efforts of the blacks, and is as buoyant as a duck. The seams are caulked with a resinous gum, "Tambarang," of the jungle tree known as "Arral" (EVODIA ACCEDENS), and is prepared by being powdered on a flat stone previously moistened with water. The powdered resin is melted by heat, allowed to solidify, and pounded and melted again, and after being rolled and kneaded into a lump, is wrapped in a leaf until wanted. The finished article, which is also used as a cement, is known as "Toon-coo." Motor power for the canoe is a shovel-shaped piece of bark 5 inches by 3 1/2 inches, each man having a pair. Ever and anon the aft man ejects leakage by a rapid succession of dexterous back strokes of his paddle. Naked and unashamed, the blacks are well equipped for sport. They may have three or four harpoons of their own manufacture, besides a live fire-stick lying on a piece of bark sprinkled with sand, or they may carry a couple of dry sticks for raising a fire by friction. The haft of the harpoon is probably red or orange mangrove (BRUGUIERA RHEEDI), heavy and tough. It has been duly seasoned and straightened by immersion in running water and exposure to fire. At the heavy end it is hollowed out to a depth Of 4 inches. The point is preferably of one of the black palms (ARCHONTOPHOENIX JARDINEI), and a barb is strapped to it with the fibre of the "Man-djar" (HIBISCUS TILIACEOUS) and cemented with "Toon-coo." I have never known one of these barbs to break or come loose, so adept are the blacks in securing them. The point is about 6 inches long, and on the barbless end is tightly wound successive layers of fibrous bark, until its size is adjusted to the socket in the haft. Above the swathing of bark a strong line is made fast; the padded end is fitted into the socket, the line is made taut along the whole length of the haft, and secured by three or four half hitches about a foot from the thin end. A neat coil of perhaps 50 yards of line lies in the bottom of the canoe. Probably each of the blacks will have his fishing-line, for sometimes the turtle do not rise according to expectations. At high tide these feed among the rocks close to the shore, at low water out among the coral on the reef, and the hunters wait and watch and fish silently and with all passivity. Then, when maybe they have caught schnapper, red bream and parrot-fish, they drift among the turtle, and the sport begins. In sight of the game the sucker which has been adhering to the bottom of the canoe is tugged off and thrown in its direction. As a preliminary the disc and shoulders of the sucker are vigorously scrubbed with dry sand or the palm of the hand, to remove the slime and to excite the ruling passion of the fish. It makes a dash for a more congenial companionship than an insipid canoe. The line by which it is secured is made from the bark of the "Boo-bah" (FICUS FASCICULATA) and is of two strands, so light as not to seriously encumber the sucker, and yet strong enough to withstand a considerable strain. Two small loops are made in the line about an interval Of 2 fathoms from the sucker, to act as indicators. As soon as the sucker has attached itself to the turtle, a slight pull is given and the startled turtle makes a rush, the line being eased out smartly. Then sport of the kind that a salmon-fisher enjoys when he has hooked a 40-pounder begins. The turtle goes as he pleases; but when he begins to tire, he finds that there is a certain check upon him--slow, steady, never-ceasing. After ten minutes or so a critical phase of the sport occurs. The turtle bobs up to the surface for a gulp of air, and should he catch sight of the occupants of the canoe, his start and sudden descent may result in such a severe tug that the sucker is divorced. But the blacks watch, and in their experience judge to a nicety when and where the turtle may rise; telegrams along the line from the sucker give precise information. They crouch low on their knees in the canoe, as the game emerges, with half-shut eyes and dives again without having ascertained the cause of the trifling annoyance to which he is being subjected. The line is shortened up. Perhaps the turtle sulks among the rocks and coral, and endeavours to free himself from the sucker by rubbing against the boulders. Knowing all the wiles and manoeuvres, the blacks play the game accordingly, and hour after hour may pass, they giving and taking line with fine skill and the utmost patience. The turtle has become accustomed to the encumbrance, and visits the surface oftener for air. One of the harpoons is raised, and as the turtle gleams grey, a couple of fathoms or so under the water, the canoe is smartly paddled towards the spot whence it will emerge, and before it can get a mouthful of air the barbed point, with a strong line attached, is sticking a couple of inches deep in its shoulder. There is a mad splash--a little maelstrom of foam and ripples, the line runs out to its full length, and the canoe careers about, accurately steered by the aft man, in the erratic course of the wounded creature. As it tires, the heavy haft of the harpoon secured by the half hitches round the thin end being a considerable drag, the line is shortened up, but too much trust is not placed on a single line; some time may pass before the canoe is brought within striking distance again. When that moment arrives, a second harpoon is sent into the flesh below the edge of the carapace at the rear. Unable to break away, the turtle is hauled close alongside the canoe, secured by the flippers and towed ashore. I have known blacks, after harpooning a turtle, to be towed 6 miles out to sea before it came their turn to do the towing. How they accomplish the feat of securing a turtle that may weigh a couple of hundredweight from a frail bark canoe, in which a white man can scarcely sit and preserve his balance, is astonishing. In a lively sea the blacks sit back, tilting up the stem to meet the coming wave, and then put their weight forward to ease it down, paddling, manoeuvring with the line and baling all the time. The mere paddling about in the canoe is a feat beyond the dexterity of an ordinary man. It must not be concluded that these blacks invariably have the co-operation of a sucker in securing turtle. Its use is comparatively rare. Generally both turtle and dugong are harpooned as they rise to the surface to breathe, the sportsmen being very cunning and skilful. They descry the turtle on the bottom, and softly follow its movements as it feeds on the marine vegetation, and then as it rises harpoon it; or they follow one that has betrayed itself by rising, observation and experience enabling them to judge fairly accurately when and where it is likely to rise again. But patience, solemn silence, and the avoidance of anything like sudden movements, are among the principal rules to be observed. In passing, on the point of the turtle endeavouring to rid itself of the sucker, a European pearl-sheller told me of a unique experience that befell him in Torres Straits. Groping along the bottom, pushing his way against an impetuous current, he was almost knocked down by a move-on sort of shove. Instinctively his hand clutched the life-line, when he was again pushed disrespectfully, and in the greenish light saw that a monstrous turtle was using him as the afflicted Scotch were said to use the stones set up by the humane and sympathetic Duke of Argyle, and without so much as invoking a blessing. A "KUMMAORIE" Having caught their turtle and brought it ashore, and having seen the extent to which the tail of the sucker (which has been faithful to its host to the death) has been cut by the line, and having decided that it will do one time more and put it back in the water tethered, or "that fella no good now," and cast it callously on the sand, to writhe about until dead, the blacks proceed to the cooking. Possibly the camp decides upon a "Kummaorie." A big fire is made and a dozen or so smooth stones about the size of saucers put on the embers to get red hot. In the meantime the turtle is killed, the head, neck, and sometimes the two fore flippers, removed. The entrails and stomach are taken out, and after being roughly cleansed are put back into the cavity. A hole is scraped in the sand, and the turtle stuck tail-first into it, the sand being banked up so that it remains upright. Then the red-hot stones are lifted with sticks and dropped into the turtle, hissing and spluttering, and stirred about with a stout stick. Another hole has been scooped in the sand and paved with stones, upon which a roaring fire is made, When the stones are hot through, the fire is scraped away, and the steaming turtle eased down from its upright position, care being taken not to allow any of the gravy to waste, and carefully deposited on the hot stones--carapace down. Quickly, so that none of the "smell" escapes, the whole is covered with leaves--native banana, native ginger, palms, etc., and over all is raised a mound of sand. In the morning the flesh is thoroughly cooked. The plastron (lower shell) is lifted off, and in the carapace is a rich, thick soup. No blood or any of the juices of the meat have gone to waste--the finest of meat extracts, the very quintessence of turtle, remains. What would your gourmands give for a plate of this genuine article? Who may say he has tasted turtle soup--pure and unadulterated-- unless he has "Kummaoried" his turtle to obtain it? With balls of grass the blacks sop up the brown oily soup, loudly smacking and sucking their lips to emphasise appreciation. Then there are the white flesh and the glutin, the best of all fattening foods; and having eaten to repletion for a couple of days, the diet palls, and they begin to speak in shockingly disrespectful terms of turtle. WEATHER DISTURBERS In the arid parts of Australia, where rain rarely occurs, the blacks have acquired much out-of-the-way knowledge on the means of obtaining water. White men, unable to read the secret signs of its existence, have perished in all the agonies of thirst in country in which water, from a black fellow's point of view, was plentiful and comparatively easy to reach. Here there is never any anxiety on the subject. The minds of the blacks turn rather upon attempts to account for the rain, at times excessive and discomforting. Bad weather, in common with other untoward circumstances, is frequently ascribed to the machinations of evilly disposed boys. A boy may accept the credit or have the greatness thrust upon him of the manufacture of a gale which has brought about general discomfort, and to spite him, regardless of consequence to others, another boy will promise a still more destructive breeze next year. And so the game of wanton interference with the meteorological conditions of the continent proceeds, each successive infliction being arranged to serve out the author of the one preceding. It may be that the instigator of a gale lives far away, at the Palm Islands, or on Hinchinbrook, or at Mourilyan. Those who are terrified or inconvenienced agree to ascribe it to him, and having done so there is nothing of the mysterious to explain away. Usually the boy upon whom the responsibility is fixed is not available for cross-examination; but that renders the fact all the more conclusive. Here is the storm. Peter of the Palms must have made it. An old gin known as Kitty, and who lived on Hinchinbrook Island, was famed on account of her successful manipulation of the weather. She was a grim personage--held in respect, if not awe, because of the peculiar distinctions ascribed to her. She could command not only the wind and the rain, but the thunder and lightning also, and to offend her was to run the risk of bringing about a terrifying storm. Years after her death blacks had faith in her potency for ill. One of the few white men who have attempted to climb the highest peaks of the island mountain, informed me that when he reached a certain elevation, the boys who accompanied him never spoke above an awe-struck whisper, and solemnly reproved him whensoever he uttered an unguarded exclamation. They were afraid that the debil-debil might be aroused; that Kitty would resent the intrusion of her haunt. At last they refused to go higher, and the ascent up in the dreaded regions was continued alone, while they abandoned themselves to sinister prognostics. One lonely night was spent high up on the mountain, and when the adventurer came back on his tracks in the morning, the boys were surprised to find that no harm had befallen him. To go into the very stronghold of mischievous and vindictive spirits, and to come away again, was to them almost beyond comprehension, and because no hurricane swooped down upon them, as they hurried to the lower and safer levels, nothing short of the marvellous. However fantastic this supposition of human influence on the weather, there is an inclination to treat it with a semblance of respect when it is borne in mind that up to a comparatively recent date a similar belief prevailed even in enlightened England. Addison has a sarcastic reference to the superstition in one of his delightful essays. Detailing the news brought from his country seat by Sir Roger de Coverley, he says that the good knight informed him that Moll White was dead, and that about a month after her death, the wind was so very high that it blew down the end of one of his barns. "But for my own part," says Sir Roger, "I do not think that the old woman had any hand in it." In this particular, blacks are not so very far in the wake of races quite respectable in other points of civilisation. Among other causes to which bad weather is ascribed is the eating by the young men of the porcupine (ECHIDNA), a dainty reserved for the wise, conservative old men. If young men should eat of the forbidden flesh, a terrible calamity will befall--the clouds will "come down altogether!" One day Tom picked up a young porcupine before it had time to dig a refuge in the soil, and took it to his camp alive. That afternoon a south-east gale sprang up, masses of rain-clouds driving tumultuously to the mountains of the mainland, but Tom was still youthful, and we felt fairly safe in respect of the stability of the dull and heavy, and wind-swept firmament. As we watched, a cloud settled on the summit of Clump Point mountain, assuming shape as fancy pictures the Banshee--drooping head and shoulders, and arms with pendant drapery uplifted as in imprecation. The boys, in awe-struck attitude, pointed to the vapoury spectre, and prognosticated fearsome rain and wind. It all came during the night. Next morning one of the boys was eager to declare that the nocturnal tempest was due to Tom, who had eaten the porcupine. We had seen his weird mother-in-law, aged and decrepid, preparing it for supper. When Tom appeared, he was duly denounced, and challenged with the responsibility of the storm. "No!" he cried with scorn. "Me no eat 'em that fella porcupine; chuck 'em away!" He had intended to, but the thought of the apparition on Clump Point mountain, and of the awful responsibility of causing the collapse of the clouds had taken away his inclination. But the other boy was not to have his theories as to the weather brushed aside lightly. It was "that fella along a mountain," who caused the trouble, or else "another boy alonga Hinchinbrook!" Having thus completely and satisfactorily settled the point, his face assumed a slow, wise smile, and his agitated mind rested. Was it not all another palpable proof, a precedent to be cited, of the manner in which a no-good-boy wantonly brought about a big wind? Most of the dainties are forbidden the young members of the camp. Bony bream and bony herring will be passed on to the boys and girls, and, so too, the rough parts of turtle; but the sweet fish and flesh are retained by the old and lusty men, who proclaim that they alone may eat of such things with impunity. No youngster will dare to partake of ECHIDNA ("coom-be-yan") at the risk of the prescribed consequences; and to the old men the fiction stands in the place (as was recently pointed out) of an annuity or old age pension. A DINNER-PARTY To fare sumptuously every day was not the lot of the natives of Dunk Island. In excessively rainy weather they were often glad of the coarsest and hardest of foods. Certain sharks are eaten with avidity whenever they are secured; but some species are too rank and tough to be endurable under any but extraordinary circumstances. Oysters were always plentiful, but a diet restricted to the most delicate of molluscs palls on the palate even of a black fellow. Ordinarily, food was abundant. For the most part it had only to be picked up and cooked. Frequently it was eaten on the spot, fresh from bountiful Nature's hands; but blacks appreciate changes of diet--even when the change is retrogressive--from the well-cooked, clean food of a white household to that of the sodden and strong stuffs common to the camp. When, as sometimes happened, the desire for novelty came, the whole population would paddle away to the mainland or to one or other of the adjacent islands, voyages being undertaken as far away as distant Hinchinbrook. Turtle do not favour the beaches and sandbanks of Dunk Island generally as safe depositories for their innumerable eggs, and when the longing came for these delicacies the inhabitants would with one accord travel to those islands in the security of which turtle still exhibit faith. The drift of the population hither and thither was not due to the scarcity of food but to a wayward impulse. As a rule there was little for the population to do save to eat, drink, laze away the hotter hours of the day, and "corrobboree" at night. Astonishment can scarcely be withheld when an attempt is made to catalogue the available foods of the island, the variety and quantity. No effort was made at cultivation. Blacks took no heed of the morrow, but accepted the fruits of the earth without thought of inciting Nature to produce better or more abundantly, and yet how plenteous were her gifts! Permitting imagination to soar away into regions of romance, one might picture a dinner-party of the bygone days, the lap of Mother Earth furnished with edibles and dainties, and the hungry and expectant members of the camp squatted round in anticipation of the various courses. Such a scene would be worthy of being classed among the most improbable; but as it would not be absolutely impossible, may not an attempt be made to treat it as a reality? The repast might be initiated with a few oysters on the shells (with a choice of three or four varieties); a selection of many fish would be succeeded by real turtle ("padg-e-gal") soup (in the original shell), and made as before described; the joint, a huge piece of dugong ("pal-an-gul") kummaoried, rich and excellent, with ENTREES of turtle cutlets and baked grubs ("tam-boon"), ivory white with yellow heads, as neat and pretty a dish as could be seen, and rather rare and novel too. When the beetles (APPECTROGASTRA FLAVIPILIS) into which these stolid grubs and fidgetty nymphs develop, are chopped out of decayed wood, they have the odour of truffles, and emit two distinct squeaky notes from the throat and the abdominal segments respectively. Each maintains a duet with itself until the hot embers impose silence and convert them into dainty nutty morsels. Roast scrub fowl eggs would be no novelty, and baked crayfish ("too-lac"), bluey-white and leathery--"such stuff as dreams are made on"--might lend a decorative effect. Raw echinus ("kier-bang"), saline and tonic, would clear the palate for succeeding delicacies. The tough sweet yam ("pun-dinoo"), the heart of the Alexandra palm ("koobin-karra"), the hard rhizome of BOWENIA SPECTABILIS ("moo-nah") after being allowed weeks to decompose, the core of the tree fern ("kalo-joo"), the long root-stock of CURCULIGO ENSIFOLIA ("harpee") crisp and slightly bitter, the broad beans of the white mangrove ("kum-moo-roo"), would stand as vegetables. Sweets would be the weakest part of the menu. One pudding might certainly be included, VERMICELLI (shredded bean-tree nuts--"tinda-burra") with honey and orange-coloured balsamic custard, scraped from the outside of the drupes of the PANDANUS ODORATISSIMUS ("pim-nar"). Dessert, on the other hand, might be plentiful and varied. "Bed-yew-rie" (XIMENIA AMERICANA), thirst-allaying and palate-sharpening; "Top-kie" (Herbert River cherry, ANTEDISMA DALLACHYANUM), resembling red currants in flavour; "Pool-boo-nong" (finger cherry, RHODOMYRTUS MACROCARPA), sweet, soft and appeasing; "Panga-panga," raspberry (RUBUS ROSAEFOLIUS); "Koo-badg-aroo" (Leichhardt-tree, SARCOCEPHALUS CORDATUS), resembling a strawberry in shape, but brown, spicy and hot; "Murl-kue-kee" (snow-white berries of EUGENIA SUBORBICULARIS), vapid, and as insipid as an immature medlar; "Raroo" (CAREYA AUSTRALIS), mealy and biting. Various figs, ranging in size from a large red currant to a tennis-ball, and in colour from white through all the tints from pale yellow and green to red, purple and black, sweet and generally mawkish. The banana would be there in the MUSA BANKSIA ("boo-gar-oo"), although "close up all bone"; but the Davidsonian plum, plentiful on the mainland, would be absent. The scape of the ELETTARIA SCOTTIANA, oozing viscid nectar, might stand as a sweetmeat. Then, dallying with tomahawks and flat stones with the tough nuts of the "Moo-jee" (TERMINALIA MELANOCARPA), and the drupes of the "Can-kee" (PANDANUS AQUATICUS) to extract the narrow sweet kernels, and sipping the while cordial compounded of the larvae of green tree-ants ("book-gruin"), acidulous and nippy, the men might indulge in after-dinner stories and reminiscences, as the gins and piccaninnies drink heartily of water sweetened with sugar-bag (honey-comb), and chew the seeds contained in the china-blue pericarp of the native ginger--"Ool-pun" (ALPINIA CAERULA). Many vegetable foods would still be unenumerated, and there would be numerous shell-fish--periwinkles, cockles, mussels, scallops, dolphins, besides crabs. On rare occasions a scrub fowl (the blacks had no reliable means of capturing that wary bird, and when fortune favoured, it was an instance of bad luck on its part), with pigeons, carpet snakes, and sea-birds' eggs might make high tea. BLACK ART Time, and diligent search revealed the location on the island of two art galleries, or rather independent studios, where there are exhibited works of distinct character. Tradition points to the existence of a third, the discovery of which gives zest to each exploratory expedition. Possibly it may also display original exploits in the realms of fancy, and so confirm the opinion that the black artists were not mere copyists of each other, but belonged to different schools, each having his own method and allowing his talent free and untrammelled development. What may be designated the Lower Studio is on the eastern slope, and is only to be approached from the sea in calm weather, the alternative route being a tiresome climb, a long and tormenting struggle through the jungle, and a descent among a confusion of rocks and boulders. It is situated about a couple of hundred feet above sea-level, quite hidden in the leafy wilderness which covers that aspect of the island from high-water mark to the summit of the ridge. Unless the spot was indicated, one might search for it for years in vain, and though I had made frequent inquiries, its existence was made known only by chance, its importance being considered insignificant compared with the other studio, the glories of which had frequently been descanted upon. Taking the sea-route, there is a natural harbour available, just capacious enough for a small dingy, and up above the rocks, swept bare by the surges, a dense and tangled scrub "whereto the climber upwards turns his face," and taking advantage of such aids as aerial roots, slim saplings, and the reed-like growths of the so called native ginger, begins the steep ascent. Where the rock does not emerge from the surface, the black soil is loose and kept in perpetual cultivation by scrub fowl, the wonder being that earth reposes at such an angle. But for interlacing and matted roots all must slide down to the sea. A few minutes' exertion lands one at the portal of the studio, which is of the lean-to order of architecture, a granite boulder having one fairly vertical face being overshadowed by a much higher rock having a dip of about 60 degrees. Here originally there were five exhibits. Two have weathered away almost to nothingness, some faint streaks and blotches of red earth, in which medium all the pictures have been executed, alone remaining. Those subjects that are readily decipherable are mutilated after the style of certain much-prized antiques. Of those which have successfully withstood the ravages of time, two apparently represent lizards, and the third seems to portray a monstrosity--a human being with a rudimentary tail. A German philosopher might possibly build upon this embryonic tail a theory to prove that the Australian aboriginal is indeed and in fact the missing link, and thereby excel in ethnological venture those who merely recognise in him the relic from a prehistoric age of man. Could it not be argued that the picture reveals an act of unconscious cerebration--an instinctive knowledge of ancestors with tails? However that may be, the unconscious artist took further artless liberties with the human form divine. He had been at pains, too, to smooth down the face of the rock for the reception of the unshaded daubs of terra-cotta, using peradventure the flat stone upon which he was wont to bruise the hot and biting roots of the aroid (COLOCASIA MACRORRHIZA) which formed part of his diet. The utensil lies there at the entrance where he left it; the plants grow in profusion close by among the rocks; but of the artist there is no record, save the crude and grotesque figures in fading red on the grey granite. Most of the central figure is clearly discernible; but parts of the outline have become blurred and irregular. Tradition says that all the figures once had black heads--the only attempts at the introduction of a second colour--but no traces of the black heads are now visible. They must have succumbed to the tender but irresistible assaults of Time long ago. In one case, fact seems to belie tradition, for there exist faint suggestions of a red head--and a red-headed black is as rare as a black with a tail; but the traces are so extremely vague and indeterminate as to render any attempt at restoration hopeless. But does not this obscurity and partial dismemberment lend an air of antiquity, much prized elsewhere, to these savage frescoes? Of quite a different order are the works in the Upper Studio at the sign of the White Stripe. This lies close to the backbone of the island, in the heart of a bewildering jumble of immense rocks overgrown with jungle. Circumstantial accounts of the treasures there to be seen had determined me to persevere in attempts to discover it; but though the traditions of the blacks were strengthened by a mild sort of enthusiasm, and the exhibition of no little pride, they did but slight service towards revealing the precise locality. None of the living remnants of the race had seen the paintings. All trusted to the saying of "old men" and had faith. Experience had taught me to accept with caution and reserve legends founded on the unverified testimony of "old men" which had passed down to the present generation; but being much interested, and having become elated with the hope of discovering that which had not been seen by white folks, nor, indeed, by any living person, I also trusted and persevered. From ships that pass to the East may be seen a bold white streak on the face of a huge rock, so sharply defined and accurate in alignment that it might be mistaken for a guide to mariners, or rather a warning, for the floor of the ocean is strewn with patches of coral, and the rocks are singularly forbidding, save on calm days. Opinion current among the blacks asserted that the paintings were on a rock below the disjointed precipice on the top of the ridge made conspicuous by the broad white band. The sign was found to be due to the bleaching of the rock face by the drainage from a mass of stag's horn fern. Possessed of this information, which proved in the long run to be trustworthy, several exploratory trips were undertaken. To reach the locality from Brammo Bay, one must cross the middle of the backbone of the island, and descend some little distance on the Pacific slope. I scaled and scrambled over and crawled upon huge rocks, peered into gloomy crevices with daylight edges fringed with ferns and orchids, squeezed through narrow tunnels, and groped in dark recesses without finding any evidence of prehistoric art. Blacks do not care to venture into places where twilight always reigns, though they are curious to learn the experiences and sensations of other explorers of the gloom. At last, however, patience was rewarded, and beneath a great granite rock, which on three previous excursions had been overlooked, the paintings were discovered. In their execution the artist must have lain on his back, for the "cave" does not permit one to sit upright in it, except towards the wide and expansive front, and the subjects are on the ceiling, which is fairly flat. The floor, thick with a fine brown dust mingled with shining specks of decomposed granite, and dimpled with hundreds of pitfalls of the ant-lion, slopes upward. It is cool, and a dry, secure spot. Not even the torrential rains of many decades of wet seasons have damped the floor. One feels as though he were disturbing the dust of ages; when sitting back to admire the decorated ceiling, he necessarily imprints patterns which are the replicas of those made by flesh and bone long since numbered among the anonymous dead. The sea laves the hot rocks 600 feet below, and booms and gobbles in the cool crevices; but up here the outlook is obscured by rocks and giant trees, and an artistic soul, longing for some method of expression, might serenely gratify itself in accordance with its lights--crude though they were. Here, at the entrance, lie a couple of charred sticks, significant of the last fire of the artist, which smouldered out perhaps half a century ago. On the very doorstep is a disc of pearl-shell, the discarded beginning of a fish-hook. These relics give to the scene a pathetic interest. As I looked at them ponderingly, a frog far in the back of the cave gave a discordant, echoing croak, which started the sulky and suspicious black boy who attended me into an abrupt exclamation of semi-fright; while a scrub fowl, scratching for its living overhead, dislodged a chip of granite which went clicking down the rocks. "Tom," at the instant, felt that the spirit of the departed was manifesting, in the hollow tones of a frog and the activity of a bird, resentment at the intrusion of his haunts, and was warning us to begone. But we had come far on a toilsome errand, and were not to be scared away by trifles, though a transient feeling of reluctance to disturb the solemnity of the studio could not be withheld. Remembering the fervid praises of the treasures by those who had not seen them, a sense of disappointment when they came to be examined was inevitable. They are not to be classed in any standard beyond that displayed on early school-slates; but imperfect as they are, they possess a certain symmetry and proportion, and the facts that they are where they are, and that the artist--dead and forgotten--had no light or leading, and was in other respects probably one of the most rude, most uncouth of human beings, are sufficient to lend to the drawings an interest as absorbing (though of a nature quite apart) as that with which the average individual contemplates the stiff works of masters of Continental fame. One able critic of aboriginal art refers to similar rock paintings as frescoes, for lack of a significant title. Apparently the rock surface was slightly smoothed where inequalities existed--in one case the design follows the ridges and hollows--the subjects being worked in, in dry earth of a chalky nature, dull red in colour. Animated nature and still life have been studied and reproduced. The turtle is true, and the most conspicuous and sharply-defined study the least convincing. It resembles those fantastic interwoven shapes that some men in fits of abstraction or idleness sketch on their own blotting-pads, and which signify nothing. Comparing the works of the two studios, there is little doubt that there were at least two artists native of Dunk Island in times past, and in that respect the island was infinitely superior to its present state. Each appears to have effected a different kind of work--one devoting himself to realistic reptiles and the human form debased, and the other almost solely to the creation of conventional designs, and the representation of the animals and of weapons of his age. One illustrated man, and even gave to one of his reptiles a semi-human shape; the other exercised an exuberant fancy for ornamentation. Each bequeathed to the present day and generation works that are at least free from the subtleties of art. Most of us have had moments of rapture before the glowing embodiment of the inspiration of some great artist, whose gifts have been developed to maturity by enthusiastic and patient striving for perfection. Do not these clumsy drawings, too, reveal that which, considering their environment, is talent--original and unacademic. Here is the sheer beginning, the spontaneous germ of art, the labouring of a savage soul controlled by wilful aesthetic emotions. For these pictures are not figurative, not mere signs and symbols capable of elucidation, but the earliest and only efforts of an illiterate race, a race in intellectual infancy, towards the ideal--a forlorn but none the less sincere attempt to reach the "light that quickens dreams to deeds!" The last of the series of "Black Art" pictures is not local. It occurs on the reverse of a shield, the spear-punctured lower edge of which verifies its eventful history. The warrior-artist silhouetted a sweetheart's figure, where, at supreme moments, it came before his fancy and gave the battle to his hands. A POISONOUS FOOD One of the chief vegetable foods of the blacks is the fruit of "tinda-burra" (Moreton Bay chestnut--CASTANOSPERMUM AUSTRALE). The plentiful pea-shaped flowers range in colour from apple-green, pale yellow, orange to scarlet, and contain large quantities of nectar, which attracts multitudes of birds and insects. Blacks regard this tree with special favour and consideration. A casual remark, as I observed the industry of insects about the flowers, that the bean-tree was good for bees, elicited the scornful response, "Good for man!" The tree is of graceful shape, the bole often pillar-like in its symmetry, and the wood hard and durable and of pleasing colour, and so beautifully grained that it is fast becoming popular for furniture and cabinet-making. It bears a prolific crop of large beans, from two to five in each of its squat pods, but they are, as Mr Standfast found the waters of Jordan, "to the palate bitter, and to the stomach cold," and require special treatment in order to eliminate a poisonous principle. Many chemists analysed the beans (one finding that they may be converted into excellent starch) without discovering any noxious element; but as horses, cattle, and pigs die if they eat the raw bean, and a mere fragment is sufficient to give human beings great pain, followed by most unpleasant consequences, the research was continued, until within quite a recent date the presence of saponin was detected. Before science made its discovery, the blacks were very positive on the point of the poisonous qualities of the bean, and took measures to eliminate it. In some parts of the State the beans, after being steeped in water for several days, are dried in the sun, roasted in hot ashes, and pounded between stones into a coarse kind of meal, which may be kept for an indefinite period. When required for use the meal is mixed with water, made into a thin cake or damper, and baked in the ashes. Prepared in this way the cake resembles a coarse ship's biscuit. In other parts, the beans are scraped by means of mussel-shells into a vermicelli-like substance, prior to soaking in water. Our blacks have a more ingenious method of preparation, and employ a specially formed culinary implement, which is used for no other purpose. They take the commonest of the land shells--"kurra-dju" (XANTHOMELON PACHYSTYLA)--and breaking away the apex grind down the back on a stone until but little more than half its bulk remains. The upper edges being carefully worked to a fine edge, the only housewifery implement that the blacks possess is perfect. With the implement in the right hand, between the thumb and the second finger--the sharp edge resting on the thumb-nail--the beans are planed, the operator being able to regulate the thickness of the shaving to a nicety. It is women's work to collect the beans, make the shell-planes, and do the shredding. In the first place the beans are cooked, the oven consisting of hot stones covered with leaves. In three or four hours they are taken out and planed, a dilly-bag (basket made of narrow strips of lawyer cane or grass) full of the shavings is immersed in running water for two or three days, the food being then ready for consumption without further preparation. In appearance it resembles coarse tapioca, and it has no particular flavour. To give it zest, some have a shell containing sea-water beside them when they dine, into which each portion of the mess is dipped. As saponin is very soluble in water, by soaking the shredded beans for a few days the blacks resort to an absolutely perfect method of converting a poisonous substance into a valuable and sustaining, if tasteless, food. No doubt, made up into a pudding with eggs, milk, sugar and flavouring, shredded beans would pass without comment as a substitute for tapioca. MESSAGE-STICKS There came to our beach one afternoon some poor exiles from Princess Charlotte Bay--300 miles to the north. Exiled they felt themselves to be, and were longing to return to their own country although their engagement for a six months' cruise in quest of the passive beche-de-mer had but just begun. One boy stepped along with an air of pride and importance. His companions were deferential to a certain extent, but they, too, exhibited an unusual demeanour. Some of the glory and honour that shone in Mattie's face was reflected in theirs. With the assurance of an ambassador bearing high credentials he saluted me-- "Hello, Mister! Good day." "Good day," I responded. "You come from that cutter?" Mattie--"Yes, mister. Mickie sit down here, now? Me got 'em letter. Brother belonga gin, belonga Mickie; him gib it!" "No; Mickie sit down alonga Palm Islands. Come back, bi'mby." Mattie (with a downcast air)--"My word! Bo'sun (the brother-in-law) gib it letter belonga Mickie." "Where letter?" I asked. Mattie--"Me got 'em," and drawing out a very soiled little parcel, he proudly exposed a piece of greyish wood, about the size and shape of a lead pencil, on which had been cut two continuous intersecting grooves. "Me giv' 'em Mickie; Bo'sun alonga Cooktown. He want to come up this way now." The letter was a mere token of material expression of the fact that the sender was in the land of the living, and of his faith in the bearer, who was charged with all the personal messages and news. It was a sad rebuff to Mattie, elated with responsibility and eager to unburden himself of the latest domestic intelligence, to find that Mickie was not on the spot to receive it all. And, after fondling the wooden document for a while, he wrapped it up and carefully bestowed it within the bosom of his shirt. The disappointment was general. The gleam faded from the faces of the boys. For several days, first one and then another was entrusted with the honourable custody of the missive. Whoever possessed it for the time being was the most favoured individual. His worthiness for the office he acknowledged with an amusing air of self-consciousness and pride. The transmission of a letter is not an ordinary occurrence, and though there is an entire absence of form and ceremony in its delivery, the rarity of the event lends to it novelty and importance. Aboriginal letters are of great variety, and some there are who profess to interpret them. The despatches are, however, invariably, in my experience, transmitted from hand to hand, the news of the day being recapitulated at the same time. It is not essential that the unstudied cuts and scratches on wood should have any significance or be capable of intelligible rendering. Though blacks profess to be able to send messages by means of sticks alone, the pretension is not recognised by those who have crucially investigated it On a certain station a youthful son of the proprietor was accidentally drowned in a creek not far from the homestead. The grief of the parents was participated in by all engaged on the station, for the boy, full of promise, had been a general favourite. None seemed more sorrowful and gloomy than the blacks camped in the neighbourhood, and when the first shock of sorrow was of the past, they were eager to send the news to distant friends. A letter was laboriously composed. It was a short piece of wood, narrow and flat; an undulating groove ran from end to end on one side, midway was an intersecting notch. These were the principal characteristics, but there were other small marks and scratches. Bearing this as his credentials, a messenger departed, and in a week or so members of camps hundreds of miles away had seen the letter and were in possession of all the details of the sad event, the messenger in the meantime having returned. The letter was duly credited with having conveyed the particulars. Is it not obvious, however, that the news had been transmitted orally, and that the crude carvings on the stick merely indicated an attempt to give verisimilitude to the intelligence--the wavy line indicating the creek, and the notch the fatal waterhole. If not, then a black's message-stick is a model of literary condensation, their characters marvels of comprehensiveness and exactitude. Another letter is before me--one of the best specimens with regard to workmanship I have ever seen. Upon one edge of a piece of brown wood 6 inches long, 1 inch broad, flat and rounded off at the edges and ends, there are five notches, and on the opposite edge a single notch. Close to the end is a faint, crude representation of a broad arrow, below which is a confusion of small cuts, in a variety of angles, none quite vertical, some quite horizontal. On the reverse is a single--almost perpendicular--cut, and a bold X, and near the point, two shallow, indistinct diverging cuts. So far no one to whom the letter has been submitted has given a satisfactory reading. Blacks frankly admit that they do not understand it. They examine it curiously, and almost invariably remark--"Some fella mak' em." No attempt to decipher it is undertaken, because no doubt it was never intended to be read. Yet a plausible elucidation is at hand. The single notch, let it be said, represents a black who wishes to let five white fellows (who have made inquiries in that direction) know that a corrobboree is to begin before sundown, the setting sun being represented by the broad arrow, which seems to dip over the end of the stick. The guests are expected to bring rum to produce a bewildering, unsteady effect upon the whole camp--none, big or little, but will stagger about in all directions and finally lie down. On the other hand the guests are not to bring "one fella" policeman with handcuffs (the cross), otherwise all will decamp--the two last are seen vanishing into space. By a rare coincidence this very free interpretation could be made to apply to an actuality at the time the "letter" was received, but as a matter of fact it came from quite a different source to the black fellow who had engaged to let some students of the aboriginal character know when the next corrobboree would take place. It still remains undecipherable. My investigations do not support the theory that the blacks are capable of recording the simplest event by means of a system of so-called picture-writing, but rather that message-sticks have no meaning apart from verbal explanations. Blacks profess to be able to send messages which another may understand, but the tests applied locally invariably break down. Another message-stick was made on the premises by George, but not to order. A genuine, unprompted natural effort, it is merely a slip of pine, 4 inches long, a quarter of an inch broad and flat, upon which are cut spiral intersecting grooves. George's birthplace is Cooktown, and his message-stick resembles in design that brought by Mattie from Bo'sun of Cooktown for Mickie of the Palms. Now George professes to be able to write English, but he is so shy and diffident over the accomplishment that neither persuasion nor offer of reward induces him to practise it. When he produced the "letter," more than usual interest was taken in it, for it seemed to offer an exceptional opportunity for ascertaining the extent of his literary pretensions. I asked him--"Who this for, George?" George looked at the stick long and curiously with a puzzled, concentrated expression, as one might assume when examining a novel and interesting problem demanding prompt solution. With an enlightening smile he in time replied--"This for Charlie." "Charlie" is the name of a boy who recently visited the island, but who hitherto had not been known by George. "Well, what this letter talk about?" A very long pause ensued during which George appeared to be putting his imaginative powers to frightful over-exertion. His forehead wrinkled, his lips twitched, his head moved this way and that, once or twice a gleam of inspiration passed over his face, and then the expression of the deep and puzzled thinker came on again. Finally he said--"Y-e-e-s. Me tell 'em, sometimes me see Toby." Toby is the tallest of the survivors of Dunk Island, another acquaintance of George's, who refers to him as a hard case, for it is said Toby's affections are very fitful and uncertain. "Then that letter tell 'em something more?" The strenuous pause, the desperate plunge into thought again, and George continued--"This for Johnny Tritton, before alonga Cooktown; now walk about somewhere down here. Might be catch 'em alonga mainland!" This message-stick was freshly made, and its meaning, had it possessed any, might have been repeated pat. But it was evident that the boy was putting a devastating strain upon an unexuberant and tardy wit when he endeavoured to ascribe to it a literary rendering. His hesitancy and contradictions were at least amusingly ingenuous. Exceptional opportunities were available in this neighbourhood recently for the formation of an opinion upon the value of message-sticks for the transmission of intelligence. The bushman who on horseback carried His Majesty's mails inland among the settlers and to distant stations, was frequently also entrusted with the delivery of message-sticks by blacks along the route. Invariably the stick was accompanied by a verbal communication--a request for some article (a pipe, a knife, looking-glass, handkerchief) or an inquiry as to the whereabouts or welfare of some relative or friend. The mailman quickly found that the often elaborately graven stick was to no purpose whatever without the verbal message. Frequently the sticks would become far more hopelessly mixed up than the babes in PINAFORE; but as long as he recollected the message aright, not the slightest concern or dissatisfaction was manifested. HOOKS OF PEARL In this neighbourhood the making of pearl-shell fishhooks is one of the lost arts. The old men may tell how they used to be made, but are not able to afford any satisfactory practical demonstration. Therefore, to obtain absolutely authentic examples, it was necessary to indulge in the unwonted pastime of antiquarian research. During an unsystematic, unmethodical overhauling of the shell heap of an extensive kitchen midden--to apply a very dignified title to a long deserted camp-- interesting testimony to the diligence and patience of the deceased occupants was obtained. It was evident that the sea had been largely drawn upon for supplies, if only on account of the many abortive and abandoned attempts at fishhooks in more or less advanced stages of completion. The brittleness of the fabric and the crudeness of the tools employed had evidently put the patience of the makers to severe task, who for one satisfactory hook must have contemplated many disappointments. The art must be judged as critically by the exhibition of its failures as by its perfections, as Beau Nash did the tying of his cravats. "Those are our failures," the spirits of the departed, brooding over the site of the camp, might have sighed, as we sorted out crude and unfashioned fragments. Presently the discovery of a small specimen established the standard of perfection--a crescent of pearl, which alone was ample recompense for the afternoon's research. Smaller than the average hook, it represented an excellent object-lesson in patience and skill. Many other examples, some complete, have since been found, and have been arranged for illustration to exhibit the process of construction in several stages. Do they not confirm the opinion that the maker of shell fish-hooks suffered many mishaps and disappointments, and that he had high courage in discarding any that evidenced a fault? The method of manufacture was to reduce by chipping with a sharp-edged piece of quartz a portion of a black-lip mother-of-pearl shell to a disc. A central hole was then chipped--not bored or drilled--with another tool of quartz. The hole was gradually enlarged by the use of a terminal of one of the staghorn corals (MADEPORA LAXA) until a ring had been formed. Then a segment was cut away, leaving a rough crescent, which was ground down with coral files, and the ends sharpened by rubbing on smooth slate. Discs were also cut out of gold-lip mother-of-pearl shell, but by what means there is no evidence to tell. When such a prize as a gold-lip shell was found, it was used to the last possible fragment. Most frequently the black-lip mother-of-pearl was the material whence the hooks were fashioned, and, when none other was available, the hammer oyster. In one case an unsuccessful endeavour had been made to fashion a hook from a piece of plate-glass, obtained, no doubt, from the wreck of some long-forgotten ship. The fractured disc lying among other relics of the handicraft spoke for itself. Not only have many samples of partially-made hooks been found, but also the tools employed in the process. The sharp-edged fragment of quartz used to chip away the shell, the anvil of soft slate upon which the shell rested during the operation, the quartz chisel for chipping the central hole, the coral terminals, resembling rat-tail files, and the smooth stone upon which the rough edges of the hook were ground down and finished. Hooks without barbs and manufactured of such materials as pearl-shell and tortoiseshell may throw light upon the Homeric quotation "caught fish with the horn of the ox." In those far-off days, bronze wire rope, similar in design to the steel rope which is of common use in the present time, was employed. Ancient Greeks, though they anticipated one of the necessities of trade nowadays, depended upon fish-hooks resembling those just being abandoned by the Australian blacks. Fish are guileless creatures. They are captured today with hooks of the style upon which fishermen of the Homeric age depended. From the appearance of the camps, and the age of the islander who took part in the various searches, and who was ready to admit that though pearl-shell hooks were used when he was a piccaninny he had never seen one made, I judge the age of these relics of a prehistoric art to be between thirty and forty years. This boy has supplied samples of hooks made by himself with the aid of files, etc., in imitation of the old style, being careful to explain that the old men made them much better than any one could in these degenerate days of steel. Two of these modern hooks bound to bark lines are illustrated. What was the origin of the peculiar pattern of the pearl-shell fish-hooks? To this question, those who maintain that no handiwork of man exists which does not borrow from nature, or from something precedent to itself, may find a satisfactory answer offhand. As it weathers on the beach, the basal valve of the commonest of the oysters, of these waters occasionally assumes a crude crescent. Indeed, several of these fragments have at odd times attracted attention, for they have so closely resembled pearl-shell hooks in the rough that second glances have been necessary to dispose of the illusion that they were actually rejects from some old-time camp. Is it not reasonable to suppose that the original design was copied from this elemental model, as, in like manner the boomerang is traceable to a leaf? The pattern is so profoundly persistent in the minds of the blacks of to-day, that in fashioning a hook from a piece of straight wire they invariably form a crescent, though the superiority of the shape approved by civilisation must have been exemplified to them times out of number. In this particular the blacks seem unconsciously to follow the idea of their ancestors as birds obey instinct in the building of nests and in migratory flights. Piccaninnies at this date remind us of the genesis of the boomerang as they sport with the sickle-shaped leaves (or rather PHYLLODIA) of the ACACIA HOLOCARPA as with miniature boomerangs. The piccaninny of the remote past chuckled gleefully as the jerked leaf returned to it. As a boy he fashioned a larger and permanent toy, surreptitiously using his father's stone tomahawk and shell knife, while the old man was after wallaby with a waddy. As a young man, hunting or fighting, he found his boyish toy a very effective missile. Even for a straight shot it had a longer range and far higher velocity, with less strength expenditure, than the waddy or nulla-nulla; and its homing flight had practical if not frequent uses. In his childhood, adolescence and maturity the black of to-day so graphically summarises a chapter in the history of his race that he who runs may read. In the origin of the boomerang and the shell fish-hook we have instances, hardly to be doubted, of direct inspirations from Nature, proofs of the art and the infinite patience with which she sets her copies and expounds her texts. WILD DYNAMITE All the blacks of my acquaintance have had the rough edges of savagedom worn down. Consequently I lay no claim to original research or to the possession of any but common knowledge of the race at large. Learned societies and learned men have done and are doing all that is possible to acquire and accumulate information of the fast vanishing race. I merely record odd incidents, which may or may not prove useful and of interest, or which may bear repetition. An occasional gleam of satisfaction is vouchsafed even to casual and superficial students of human nature. The supply of bait run out one day when we were fishing off the rocks with throw-lines. Mickie said--"We catch 'em plenty little fella fish with wild dynamite!" I asked him what he knew about dynamite. "Not white fella's dynamite. Wild dynamite--I show you." Growing on the blistering rocks, with roots, down in the crevices, was a lowly vine, or rather a diffuse, creeping shrub with myrtle-like leaves and racemes of white flowers. "That fella wild dynamite," said Mickie, as he tore up several strands of the plant and bunched them, leaves and all, in his hand. He made a small bundle, and going to an isolated pool in the rocks in which were small fish he beat the leaves with a nulla-nulla, dipping the bruised mass frequently in the water. In a few minutes the fish were darting about erratically, apparently making frantic efforts to get out of the water. One by one they became stupefied and helpless, floating belly up. Mickie filled his hat with them, and as the soporific effects of the juice of the leaves passed off, the remaining fish recovered and were soon swimming about again as if nothing had happened. Mickie had seen dynamite used to kill fish wholesale, hence his adaptation of the name of the plant known to him as "Paggarra," and to botanists as DERRIS SCANDENS. Another method by which the blacks secure fish in pools left by the receding tide is to scrape off the inner bark of the "Koie-yan" (FARADAYA SPLENDIDA) with a shell and spread it evenly on the bottom of a shallow pit in the sand, and place thereon stones made hot in the fire, or they may rub the powdered bark on hot stones. While still warm the stones are thrown into the water, when the fish become helpless. They die if left in water so impregnated; while the effects of the DERRIS SCANDENS is merely temporarily soporific. How blacks became acquainted with this process of speedily extracting the toxic principle of the FARADAYA, and as speedily dissipating it, is unknown. One generation passes on the knowledge to the other without explanation, and it is accepted as a matter of course, without comment or inquiry. A CAVERN AND ITS LEGEND Caves and caverns in the rocks and the tops of the mountains are not favourite resorts of blacks. According to them nearly every mountain has its mysterious lagoon, which none but old men have visited, but which teems with fish and waterfowl. When direct inquiries are made as to the precise locality of any particular lagoon, invariably inconclusive evidence is tendered. "Old man, he bin see 'em;" and, the old man is never forthcoming for cross-examination. The origin of the romance, no doubt, is to be attributed to the desire of the blacks to account to themselves for the water which glitters on the face of the rocks far up the mountains. One boy gave an exceptionally graphic description of a lagoon on the top of one of the highest peaks of Hinchinbrook Island, in which all manner of sea fish revelled. When doubt was expressed as to the possibility of sea-water and sea-fish getting up so far "on top" and it was suggested--"What you think, that old man humbug you?" "Yes," was the ready response; "me think that old fella no tell true. Him humbug." Some blacks possess something wiser than knowledge. On the northern aspect of Dunk Island, where the sea swirls about the buttresses of the hills, there is a cavern only approachable by boat. The mouth is overhung by vines and ferns, and through the moss which covers the lintel water trickles and splashes with pleasant sound. When the bronze orchid lavishly decorates the rocks with its crinkled flowers of dull gold, the entrance has a specific character; and quite another when the glossy leaves of the umbrella-tree form the relief and its long radiating spikes of dull red, bead-like flowers attract the brilliant sun-bird, and big blue and green and red butterflies. Even when the sea is lustrous the cavern, with all the artfulness and grace of the decorations of its portals, is a black blotch--the entrance to something unknowable and unknown--at least to the blacks. None had ever ventured near it and they never will. They tell you how it came to be made. How a long, long time ago, a big man, "all a same debil-debil," took out with his mighty fingers a plug of rock and put it "on top alonga Hinchinbrook." Now the particular decapitated pinnacle of Hinchinbrook is 20 miles away, and out of all proportion. But these facts do not affect the legitimacy of the legend. There is the hole, and there on the top of the far-away mountain the prodigious plug demonstrative evidence too obvious to be set aside on any such plea as the eternal fitness of things. Is not the blue point of the mountain a defiantly triumphant fact? Is not the legend authenticated by tradition and confirmed by topography? Why, therefore, doubt it for a moment? And the hole--it goes a long, long way under the mountain. It is a bad place, a very bad place. No one has ever been there. Suppose any fella go inside, bi'mby that fella sick, bi'mby that fella die. Braving all the honest traditions, one fine day I took a lantern in the boat and induced the boys to row to the entrance of the cave. Neither would venture in; indeed, they did all they could to dissuade me, protesting that evil was sure to befall. A minute's exploration showed that the cave did not extend 30 feet, and that it was dry, and resonant with "the whispering sound of the cool colonnade," with no suggestion of unwholesomeness or weirdness. But the blacks still pass it by. The legend is as indestructible as the odour of attar of roses. Although the boys persist in their account of the origin of the cave, it is known to them as "Coo-bee co-tan-you," which signifies "that hole made by the meteor," or, literally, "falling-star hole." Romance, too, follows the Hinchinbrook pinnacle. Some local blacks regard it with awe, believing that it covers a deep hole in the mountain in which the winds and rain are pent up. When a malignant "debil-debil" lifts the peak away the elements escape, roaring and hissing with anger and mischief. When tired, they retire sulkily to the hole, which the "debil-debil" blocks with the monstrous rock. Fine weather then prevails, and the rock, which has been hidden away among the mists by the fiend, becomes visible once more. A SOULFUL DANCE Of the many corrobborees that I have witnessed, the most novel in conception was performed on Dunk Island by blacks who came from the neighbourhood of Princess Charlotte Bay, some 200 miles to the north. The imitation of the frolicsome skip and wing movements of the native companion is one of the typical dances of the aboriginals frequenting open plains where the great birds assemble. In its performance the men--decorated with streaks and daubs of white and pink clay, and wearing in their hair down and feathers--form a circle, and bowing their bodies towards the centre, chuckle in undertones to the pianissimo tapping of boomerangs and the beating of resonant logs. In strict time, to a crescendo accompaniment, the performers throw out their arms, extend their necks downward and upward, simultaneously utter squawks in imitation of the bird, and finally whirl about, flapping their arms, ceasing instantly by a common impulse. The ballet is modelled in accordance with a study of Nature. The corrobboree of the Princess Charlotte Bay boys also owes its origin to Nature, but Nature in one of her most unpoetical moods--a mood as typical of Constantinople as of their native shores, for its motive is nothing more than an everyday dogfight. Shall the uncultured blacks not have their own way when they seek entertainment, holding "as it were the mirror up to Nature," and finding that it reflects the commonest of all themes? They among all the nations of the world alone have discovered what to them is music and the poetry of motion in an occurrence that has no geographical limitations, is not restricted by language, nor to be withered by age. While the orchestra taps its boomerangs and claps its hands and grunts, two boys in mere nature progress towards the fire in a series of stiff, stilty jumps, the legs from the hips to the ankles being rigid; then the knees shake in a rapid succession of spasmodic jerks; the actors emit sounds resembling the preliminary growling and snarling of a couple of angry dogs. Action and utterance develop in speed and time as the fight begins in earnest, and the art of the performance consists in its duration--the powers of sustained effort, the accuracy of time maintained between the orchestra and the actors, and the fidelity to nature of the vocal effects. A singularly uncouth subject for an opera or even a ballet--the snarling, scuffling and snapping of quarrelsome dogs whose fury is working up to a climax, and it soon becomes as monotonous to unaccustomed ears as the masterpieces of some German composers to those whose musical education is below the required standard; but the boys will spend the best part of the long night in its unvarying repetition. Once a variation did take place. "Yellowbelly" (pronounced decently "Yellowby") danced first in the company of giggling "Peter;" and then fat "Charley" and big "Johnny," shy "Mammeroo" and little deaf "Antony," in turns, his body glistened with perspiration, and his eyes sparkled with the joy of a phenomenal accomplishment. All beholders were filled with wonder and gratification. It was Yellowby's night out. The spirit of Terpsichore was upon him. His enthusiasm amounted to exultation. He was astonishing not only the silent and subdued natives of Dunk Island, but even his own familiar friends. Never had any seen such a classic interpretation of the theme, such brilliant leg movement, nor heard such realistic growling and snapping and intermittent yelps, such muffled, sob-like inspirations. Yellowby danced as dances the artist, so graphically interpreting the subject that the bewildered orchestra forgot itself. All were borne away in spirit to the scene of some far-off, familiar camp, where the scents of decayed fish and turtle-bones, and of a multitude of uncleanly dogs commingled with the bitter smoke of mangrove wood fires, where amid the yells of gins and the screeches of piccaninnies and the walloping of men, two mangy curs noisily wrestled. It brought home sweet home to each of the exiles, so vividly that all sat still and transfixed, and as the last chord of the orchestra "I trembled away into silence," Yellowby, panting and sweating, gasped as he fell flat on the sand--"No good you fella corrobboree like that fella, belonga me fella." But for the collapse of the orchestra, due to his own inimitable art, he would have danced till dawn. A SONG WITHOUT WORDS Mickie is a famous vocalist, although his repertoire is limited. He sings lustily and with no little art, putting considerable expression into his phrases, and ever and anon taking a sharp but studied rest to increase his emphasis, when he will burst forth again with full-throated ease. His masterpiece is not original. Indeed he claims no title to the gifts of a composer. "Jacky," a Mackay boy, taught Mickie his favourite romance, and it came to Jacky in a dream. Mickie explains-- "Cousin alonga that fella die. Jacky go to sleep. That fella dead man all a same like debil-debil--come close up and tell 'em corrobboree close up ear belonga Jacky." "What that debil-debil say?" Mickie--"No talk--that fella. Just tell 'em corrobboree. No talk." It was just a song without words--the final phrases being three guttural gasps, diluendo, which Mickie says represent the wail of the "debil-debil" as he retires into the obscurity of spirit-land. Mickie sings this song of inspiration most vigorously, when Jinny, his portly spouse, comes to "wash 'em plate" in the evening, and she explains with a fat chuckle--"Mickie corrobboree loud fella. He fright. He think subpose he corrobboree blenty debil-debil no come up." ORIGIN OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS Blacks are students of natural events. The winds have their specific titles, and they catalogue all the brighter and more conspicuous stars and planets, while their astronomical legends are quaint and entertaining. According to Mickie, the Southern Cross is of earthly origin. He thus "repeats the story of its birth." "You see that fella. That one me call 'em dooey-dooey--all a same shubel-nose shark, like that fella you bin shoot longa lagoon. Two fella, more big, come close up behind dooey-dooey, two fella black boy. Black boys bin fishing alonga reef close up alonga where red mark, alonga Cape Marlow--you know. They bin sit down alonga canoe. Bi'mby spear 'em that dooey-dooey--beeg fella, my word! That dooey-dooey when catch 'em spear he go down quick, come up under canoe capsize 'em. Two fella boy swim about long time by that reef; no catch 'em that canoe. Swim; swim l-o-n-g way; no catch 'em beach; go outside; follow canoe all time. One fella say--'Brother, where we now?' 'Long way yet. Swim more far, brother.' Bi'mby two fella talk--'Where now, brother?' 'Long way outside. Magnetic close up now. We two fella swim more long way. Bi'mby catch 'em Barrier.' One fella catch 'em hand--'Come along, brother, youn-me go outside.' "Two fella boy swim-swim-swim. Go outside altogether; leave 'em Barrier behind. Swim; finish; good bye; no come back! Swim where cloud catch 'em sea. Swim up-up-long way up! You see now. Sit down up there altogether. Dooey-dooey first time; two fella boy come behind!" Does not this stand comparison with that referred to by the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN in answering the question, "Why do you refer to the Great Bear as feminine?" We must go back into the age of classical mythology for the reason. It was known to the Egyptians, who called it hippopotamus. The people of southern Europe saw in the same stars the more familiar figure of a bear, and the legends which grew up around it were finally given permanent shape by Ovid in his METAMORPHOSES. As he tells the story, Callisto, an Arcadian nymph, was beloved by Jupiter. Juno, in fierce anger, turned her into a bear, depriving her of speech that she might not appeal to Jupiter. Her son, Arcas, while hunting, came upon her, and failing to recognise her in her metamorphosed form, raised his bow to shoot. Jupiter, moved by pity, prevented the matricide by transforming the son into a bear, and took them both up to the heavens, where they were placed among the constellations. CROCODILE CATCHING Though they have a wholesome dread of crocodiles generally, the blacks of the Lower Tully River (some 5 miles down the coast) have, in a limited circle, the reputation of indulging in the sport of catching them for food. Natives of the locality tell me that the last occasion of the death of a crocodile in the manner to be described was very many years ago. Some would have you believe the practice is of common occurrence. The story goes (though for its truth I do not vouch), that having located a crocodile in a reach of the river when the tide has run out, the blacks form a cordon across, and harry it by splashing the water and maintaining a continuous commotion. The crocodile is poked out of secluded nooks beside the bank and from under submerged logs, never being allowed a moment's peace. When it is thoroughly cowed (and it is an undoubted fact that crocodiles may be frightened into passiveness), a rope of lawyer vine is passed round a convenient tree and held by half a dozen boys, while a running noose is made on the other end. A daring black dives into the water, and cautiously approaching the bewildered creature, slips the noose over its head and backs away. Should he turn his face, the blacks say the crocodile would immediately seize him. The party on the bank hauls on the line, and in spite of protests and struggling the game is landed, to be chopped and beaten to death with tomahawks and nulla-nullas. Then follows a feast, the inevitable surfeit, and the dire conclusion that crocodile as "tucker" is no good. The flesh is said to be "All a same turtle. Little more hard fella!" My investigations lead to the opinion that a crocodile was once caught in the manner described, and that upon a single instance the proud feat has been multiplied by the score. SUICIDE BY CROCODILE It has been said that Australian blacks never commit suicide. An instance which goes in proof of the contrary occurred not many months ago. All the creeks and rivers flowing from the coastal range to the sea are more or less infested with crocodiles. In crossing creeks, blacks take every precaution against surprise, rafts of buoyant logs strapped together with lawyer vine being used. These rafts are continually drifting across to the island, proving how general is their use. Maria Creek (about a dozen miles or so up the coast) is well known to be a popular resort of the crocodile, and at the mouth, where the blacks wade at low-water, an unusually big fellow had his headquarters. A member of the Clump Point tribe, painfully afflicted with a vexatious skin disease, was fishing at the mouth of the creek when his hook fouled. To a companion he said he would dive to get it clear. His friend endeavoured to dissuade him, reminding him of the crocodile which they had, seen but a short time before. But the boy, worn with pain and weary with never-ending irritation, said if he was taken--"No matter. Good job. Me finished then." He dived, and there was a commotion in the water. The boy appeared on the surface, making frantic appeals for help, while the crocodile worried him. He escaped for a moment, and his friend clutched his hand and drew him to the bank, only to have him torn from his grasp. The blacks believe the crocodile took the fish bait in the first instance and lured the boy to dive. The boy certainly knew the risk he ran when he did so. A new, if not altogether agreeable, sensation is added to the gentle art if it is realised that a cruel and stealthy beast is engaged in a similar pastime, with the fisherman as the object of its sport. DISAPPEARANCE OF BLACKS The rapid disappearance of blacks from localities which held a considerable population causes wonder. In the early days--less than a couple of decades past--they swarmed on the mainland opposite Dunk Island. Now the numbers are few. Within sight of Brammo Bay is the scene of an official "dispersal" of those alleged to have been responsible for the murder of some of the crew of a wrecked vessel, who had drifted ashore on a raft. One boy bears to this day the mark of a bullet on his cheek, received when his mother fled for her life, and vainly, with him an infant perched on her shoulders. In those days "troublesome" blacks were disposed of with scant ceremony. An incident has been repeated to me several times. A mob of "myalls" (wild blacks)--they were all myalls then--was employed by a selector to clear the jungle from his land. They worked, but did not get the anticipated recompense, and thereupon helped themselves, spearing and eating a bullock, and disappeared. After a time the selector professed forgiveness, and, the fears of the blacks of punishment having been allayed, set them to work again. One day a bucket of milk was brought to the camp at dinner-time and served out with pannikins. The milk had been poisoned. "One fella feel 'em here," said my informant, clasping his stomach. "Run away; tumbledown; finish. 'Nother boy runaway; finish. just now plenty dead everywhere. Some fella sing out all a same bullocky." Possibly this may be greeted as another version of the familiar story of poisoned flour or damper. It is mentioned here as an instance from the bad old days when both blacks and whites were offhand in their relations with each other. Such episodes are of the past. The present is the age of official protection, and perhaps just a trifle too much interference and meddlesomeness. Two blacks of the district confessed upon their trial that they had killed their master for so slight an offence as refusal to give them part of his own dinner of meat. On the other hand, an instance of the callousness of the white man may be cited. In a fit of the sulks one of the boys of the camp threw down some blankets he was carrying, and made off into the scrub. It was considered necessary to impress the others, and unhappy chance gave the opportunity. A strange and perfectly innocent boy appeared on the opposite bank of the creek. The "boss" was a noted shot, and as the boy sauntered along he deliberately fired at him. The body fell into the water and drifted down stream. One of the boys for whose discipline the wanton murder was committed related the incident to me. CHAPTER II GEORGE: A MIXED CHARACTER George, who considered himself as accomplished and as cultivated as a white man, was assisting his master in the building of a dinghy. Contemplating the work of his unaccustomed hands in a rueful frame of mind, the boss recited, "Thou fatal and perfidious barque, built in eclipse and rigged with curses dark!" "Ah," said he, "you bin hear that before, George?" "No," replied the boy; "I no bin hear 'em. What that? Irish talk?" A few days after, George peered into one of the rooms of the house, the walls of which were decorated with prints, among them some studies of the nude. He sniggered. "What you laugh at, George?" "Me laugh along that picture--naked. That French woman, I think, Boss!" He was evidently of opinion that all true and patriotic Irishmen talk in verse, and in throaty tones, and that the customary habit of French ladies is "the altogether." Proud of his personal appearance, George shaved regularly once a week, borrowing a mirror to assist in the operation. He was wont to apply the lather from pungent kerosene soap with a discarded tooth-brush which he had picked up. Long use had thinned the bristles woefully, but the brush was used faithfully and with grave deliberation. One morning he came and said--"Boss, you got any more brush belonga shaving? This fella close up lose 'em whisker altogether." The sensational episodes of his trooper days provided George with unending themes. He gave an account to a friend of the suppression of a black rogue, a faithful report of which is presented as an example of unbowdlerised pidgin English. George--"You bin hear about Mr Limsee have fight? My word, he fight proper; close up killed. We three fella ride about. Cap'n--big strong boy that--me and Mr Limsee. Wild boy--boy from outside; Myall--beggar that fella--longa gully. Hit Mr Limsee. He bin have long fella stick, like that one Tom take a longa fight--short handle. Heavy fella that--carn lif 'em easy, one hand. Mr Limsee tumbledown. Get up. That boy kill 'em one time more hard. My word, strong fella boy that. Catch 'em Mr Limsee-- tchuk longa ground, hard fella--like that. Me and Cap'n come. Mr Limsee alonga ground yet--'Hello! Mr Limsee, you bin hurt?' 'Yes, my boy I hurt plenty. Not much; only little bit. That fella boy hit me alonga sword. You catch that fella. Hold 'em.' Me and Cap'n say--'You no run away, you boy.' 'Me no fright.' He have 'em spear. Me tell 'em--'You no runaway. Me catch you.' He say--'Me no fright, you fella.' Me say --'You no runaway. I shoot you.' He say all a time--'Me no fright. Me fight you.' Me say--'You fool, you carn fight alonga this fella bullet. He catch you blurry quick.' That fella stop one place. We two fella go up alongside. Cap'n he say--'Hold up your hand. Le' me look your hand?' He hold up hand. Quick we put 'em han'cup. That fella no savee han'cup before. He bin sing out loud--loud like anything. We two fella laugh plenty. Mr Limsee tie 'em up hand longa tree, and belt him proper. Belt him plenty longa whip. My word, that fella sing out--sing out--sing out. Mr Limsee belt him more. All time he sing out. Bi'mby let 'em go. He bad fella boy that altogether. We fella--go home along camp. Mr Limsee feel 'em sore tchoulder. Nex' day that boy--very tchausey fella--come up along camp. He say--'Me want fight that fella Cap'n.' Cap'n come up. That fella catch 'em, Cap'n tchuk him hard alonga ground. Get up; tchuk him two time. Head go close up alonga stone. Two fella wrastle all about long time. Cap'n strong fella. That boy more strong. Knock 'em about like anything. Bi'mby come back he have spear--three wire spear--long handle. Tchuk 'em spear. Catch 'em Cap'n longa side--here. Wire come out nother side--here. He carn stay--tumble down. Good boy that; my mate long time. Some fella go alonga house tell 'em Mr Limsee--'That boy bin kill you, fight long a camp. Cap'n catch 'em spear longa inside.' Mr Limsee come down. He say--'Cap'n, my boy, I think you finish now; me very sorry for you.' Bad place for spear longa side. Hollow inside. Suppose spear go along a leg and arm, no matter. Suppose go inside, hollow place inside, you finish quick. Plenty times me bin see 'em man finish that way. Mr Limsee he very sorry. We catch that boy. Put han'cup behind, lika that way. My word he carn run away now. Chain alonga leg. Mr Limsee bi'mby send 'em down Cooktown. That fella no more come back. He go along Sen'eleena (St Helena penal establishment). Me bin think he bin get two years. Cap'n he carn stay. Two days that fella dead. He bin good mate, me sorry. Mr Limsee he very sorry. Good fella longa boy." Once George illuminated his conversation with an aphorism. Describing a battle between the Tully River blacks and those of Clump Point, in which his mate, Tom of Dunk Island (leader of the Clump Point party), had been severely wounded, he said--"'Nother fella boy from outside, come up behind Tom. He no look out that way. That boy tchuk 'em boomerang. Boomerang stick in leg belonga Tom. Tom no feel 'em first time. He stan' up yet. Bi'mby when want walk about, tumble down. Look out. Hello! see 'em boomerang alonga leg. He no more can walk about." The boss remarked--"Might be long time, Tom feel 'em leg sore." George--"Ah! me like see 'em kill alonga head. Finish 'em one time. Danger nebber dead." Whether George wished to enforce the opinion that in battle nothing short of death was glorious, or that Tom though wounded was still valorous and would live to fight again, was not clear, but "Danger nebber dead," probably represents the only aboriginal aphorism extant. George is not the least superstitious. He takes everything for granted. Rain, in his opinion, comes from a big tank up above somewhere. Asked as to his belief in the personal "debil-debil," of whom the mainland boys have such dread that few will stir out after dark, he said with a guffaw--"Me nebber bin see one yet. Suppose me see 'em, me run 'em!" George is, therefore, as yet unable to give a description of the fiend; but from hearsay authority declares that it possesses three eyes, two in the ordinary position, and one at the back of the head. It is believed that the third eye insures the "debil-debil" against all possible surprises, thus preserving the mystery of identity. Though he has not a shadow of respect for the "debil-debil," George has a firm faith in the existence in the neighbourhood of Cooktown of a camp of what he calls "groun' gins." His experience with these mysterious subterranean sirens he thus describes-- "Little bit outside Cooktown camp belonga groun' gins. Me and Sargen' go look big corrobboree; my word. Some gins come out alonga groun' from hole. When go down, groun' close up himself, like winda. My word, me fright. Me shake. One good fella nice gin come up. Sargen' say--'You go corrobboree dance along that fella.' Me say--'We go home now, me fright. We want go alonga town. This no good place.' Sargen' laugh little bit. He say--'No, my boy, you no fright. All right here. You dance alonga that fella gin--good nice gin.' Me go up. Me feel 'em fright. Feel 'em cold inside. Too much fright. My word; han' belonga that fella gin--cold like anything. That gin say--'Where you from?' Me say--'Me come from alonga town.' That gin say--'What you look out?' Me say--'Me look out bullocky, musser 'em cattle. Tail 'em up. Look out weaner alonga paddick. Plenty hard work.' Me dance little bit alonga that gin. Not much. Too fright. Bi'mby that gin go down below. Groun' shut 'em up. All day down below. Come up night time. Carn come up alonga sun. Soft fella that. Suppose come up alonga sun, sun kill 'em. Too sof' altogether." Cooktown blacks, according to George, use a much lighter sporting spear than that in vogue in these parts. Instead of a slender sapling (preferably of red mangrove), straightened and toughened patiently over the fire, he would provide himself with the scape of a grass tree (XANTHORRHEA ARBOREA), true and straight as a billiard cue, light, and 8 or 10 feet long. Into a socket in the thicker end he would insert a single 1/4-inch steel point, 18 inches long, or three pieces of No. 8 wire, with the sharpened points slightly spread. The merit of his weapon was the subject of frequent debate, the Dunk Island natives arguing in favour of a heavier spear, but George showed that his was effective as well as economic. During a discussion, George told the following story, which, it will be noticed, has in some details, its parallel in a tragic incident in the history of England. No attempt is made to refine George's language:-- "This fella spear kill plenty. Kangaroo, wallaby, fish--kill 'em all asame. He go ri' through longa kangaroo. One time me see 'em catch one fella boy. Brother belonga me--Billy--strong fella that. One time we go after kangaroo. Billy walk about close up, me sit down alonga rock; me plant me'self. 'Nother boy close up. He plant. We no see that fella. Bi'mby me see little fella wallaby feed about. Me bin whistle alonga my brother. 'Here wallaby. Come this way; quiet!' my brother come up. 'Tchuk spear, miss wallaby, catch 'em that other fella boy, here. He bin sing out--cry like anything. My brother fright. That boy sing out--'Billy, you; what for you spear me.' Billy run away, that boy sing out--'Billy. No, you run away. Come up; pull out spear, quick fella!' Billy run away. Me sit down quiet. No make noise. Me hear that fella cry, cry, sing out like anything. He carn walk about. Me go quiet along a grass long way. Come round 'nother side. That boy no bin see me. Bi'mby me see gins--big mob. Sing out--'One fella boy bin catch 'em spear. He very bad. Close up dead now.' Billy plant himself long way. Boys and gins come up, where boy sing out. 'Carry 'em alonga camp.' Me go long way, where auntie belonga me sit down. That spear cartn pull 'em out. He got hook. All a time that boy sing out, 'Pull out spear.' Bi'mby Billy come back. He very sorry. He say--'Me no wan' spear you. Me no look out you. Me wan' catch 'em wallaby.' That boy say, 'All ri, Billy. You good mate belonga me.' Three days that spear inside yet. Me come alonga camp. That boy look 'em all ri'. Me say--'Me very sorry. Me think you dead now.' He say--'Me no dead. Me feel all ri'. Me want pull out spear.' Old men pull out hard. Carn shift 'em. Old men say--'We cut 'em now.' Get knife, sharpen 'em, cut 'em, cut 'em, cut 'em. Three strong boys pull 'em spear. Pull 'em hard altogether. Pull out plenty beef longa that hook. That boy no sing out. My word. He carn stop. Two weeks dead. Gins no bin bury 'em. What you think? Cut 'em up beef from bone; put beef in bark, put white paint alonga bark, tie 'em up and hung up 'em a longa dilly-bag. My word, puff! Bi'mby you se-mell 'em stink." George was not pressed to display his accomplishments. He chose during many months to hold himself in reserve, and to live up to the reputation of being quite a scholar, as far as scholarship goes among blacks. But in accordance with expectations, his pride and enthusiasm got the better of him. He produced two scraps of paper, on each of which were a number of sinuous lines and scrawls, saying "You write all asame this kind?" "No," I said, "I no write like that." "This easy fella? All the time me write this kind." "Well, what you write?" George's attention at once became concentrated, and gazing steadfastly on the paper for a minute or so for the marshalling of his wits, said--"This fella say Coleman Riber, Coen Riber? Horse Dead Creek, Massac (Massacre) Riber, Big Morehead, Kennedy Riber, Laura Riber." These are the names of some of the streams north from Cooktown, George's country. On the other scrap of paper, according to him, the names of some of the islands in this neighbourhood were written. Though the papers were transposed and turned upside down, George could read them with equal facility. The list of rivers would be read for the islands, and the islands for the rivers, quite indifferently, and with entertaining naivete. But he treasured the papers, and continued to delude his fellows with the display of what they considered to be wonderful cleverness. YAB-OO-RAGOO, OTHERWISE "MICKIE" "Mislike me not for my complexion." He said that his name was Mickie, and that he was an Irishman, and a native of the great Palm Island--40 miles south. He hath no personal comeliness--his face is his great misfortune. Though he asserts with pride his nationality, he admits that his mother, now among the stars, "sat down alonga 'nother side," and his complexion, or rather what is seen of it through an artless layer of charcoal and grease, applied out of respect to the memory of his deceased brother-in-law, shows no Celtic trace. Yet he has a keen appreciation of fun, has ready wit, and, according to his own showing, is not averse to a shindy, so that, perhaps his given name is at least characteristic of his assumed race. A flat overhanging forehead, keen black eyes, a broad-rooted, unobtrusive nose, a most capacious mouth, beard and whiskers thin and unkempt, and a fierce-looking moustache, a head of hair which in boyhood days had probably been a mass of crisp curls, but now shaggy tufts, matted and uneven, altogether a shockingly repulsive physiognomy, and yet an "honest Injin" in every respect and one who would always look on the happy side of life, but for twinges of neuralgia--"monda" he calls it--which rack his head and face with pain. I saw only the peaceful side of Mickie's nature, and therefore this chronicle will be unsensational as well as imperfect. There is a tradition that the Palm Island blacks are of a milder, less bellicose disposition, than those of the mainland opposite. Many years ago when a party of bushmen, fresh from the excitement and weariness of the Gilbert rush, reposed for a few days on the soft grey sand of Challenger Bay, the spot was invaded by a band of mainland natives. In the early dawn the peace-loving Palm Islanders awoke the friendly whites with the news that a "big fella mob" was coming across in canoes. Under ordinary circumstances they would have fled to the jungle-covered hills until the invaders had retired, but the knowledge that the whites had a couple of guns, and a good supply of shot, inspired a high degree of temporary courage. Possibly the extraordinary courage of the islanders in thus awaiting the attack put the invaders on their guard, for they would not approach nearer than 50 yards. A closer range was desired, for there was a special barrel loaded with coarse salt, and the invaders were innocent of clothing. However, a round of duck-shot had some effect, though the blacks who escaped the pickling slapped themselves in a defiant and grossly-contemptuous manner. Each who did so, however, grieved, for another round was fired, and each hero must have depended upon the good offices of his brother in distress in picking out the pellets. This is said to be the last occasion on which the placid Palm Islanders saw an enemy land upon their shores. Mickie did not remember the invasion, or if he did so, he was not anxious to demonstrate that his ancestors were not cast in the heroic mould. Probably all recollection of the escapade is lost to the natives of the Palms, and I am driven to accept the white man's uncorroborated version of it. Mickie is very proud of his well-conditioned spouse, "Jinny"--"Missus Michael," as Mickie calls her when in the sportive vein--and Jinny, or "Penti-byer," her maiden name, reciprocates the regard, and sees that the dilly-bag, which does duty for the larder, is supplied with yams, nuts, roots and shell-fish, Mickie being responsible for the fish--speared in the lagoon at low tide--and the scrub-fowl eggs, and the ivory white grubs, etc., upon which they live when there is no "white fella" sitting down. When Providence sends a "white fella," they appreciate flour, tea, sugar, potatoes, meat, and all sorts of game, from cockatoos to flying-foxes. Once Mickie was asked how he managed to win the favour of such a fine gin. "Unkl belonga her giv'em me," he replied. There was no marriage ceremony. There was no knocking out of a tooth, or the administration of a stunning blow on the head with a nulla-nulla, no eating of maize-pudding from the same plate, no drinking brandy together, no "hand fasting," nor boring of the bride's ears by the bridegroom, no tying of hands, nor smearing with each other's blood, nor binding together with ropes of grass; simply, "Unkl belonga her giv 'em me!" Once in his possession, however, and Mickie proceeded to set his mark on his bride, so that should any dispute arise as to identity, he at least would have authentic brands. With an apparently studied array of cicatrices, each 3 inches long and half an inch wide, on her arms and shoulders, Mickie marked Jinny for his own. The couple have one girl--Mickie prefers to use the word "daw-tah"--and his child had been but lately received into the bosom of the family, after several years' exile among the whites. It is somewhat of a trouble that "Minnie" had almost forgotten her native tongue, and that her parents have to yabber to her in English. According to them it will be a year before Minnie regains lingual facility. In the meantime great pains are being taken with her education, and her accomplishments promise to be varied, though entirely unornamental. She will in time be able to recognise at a glance the particular kind of decayed timber in which the delicious white grub resides, will know that the nut of the cycad has to be immersed in a running stream before it is "good fella," and how to grind the kernel into flour, and how to mould the dough into a German sausage-shaped damper; she will be able to walk about the reef, picking up blacklip oysters and clams, without lacerating the soles of her feet, and to make a dilly-bag, and, finally, to enjoy a smoke. Mickie appreciates a joke. When Jinny complained that the scrub caught her brand new pipe and had broken it short off, Mickie with an extravagant grimace softly urged her to go along Townsville and buy another. He is also superstitious. After dark he will not move a yard from his camp without a flaring torch of paper bark, a fiery aspersorium for the scaring of the "debil-debil." His opinions on the supernatural are unsatisfactory. He does not know what the "debil-debil" is like, or what form the ill-will of that mystic being would take--nothing but "that fella sit down alonga scrub," and that he has "long fella needle alonga hand"; and so he carries and waves about his paper bark torch to scare this viewless and dreaded enemy. Mickie's views as to the future are not quite explicit. "Suppose me go bung, me go alonga sky. Bi'mby jump up 'nother fella." He is not at all certain whether the transformation would be into a white man or not; in fact he appears absolutely indifferent. Another time he will say--"Suppose me go bung. Good-bye, finish; no come back. Plenty fella alonga Palm Island go bung. He no come back." Daylight disperses all his fears. In point of fact he has nothing to fear. His foes are dead, and there is no poisonous snake or offensive animal on the Palms. Once he sprang suddenly and excitedly into the air as we tramped through the long grass on the edge of the sweetly-smelling jungle, with the exclamation, "Little fella snake!" Being reminded that he had boldly asserted that there was no bad snakes on the island, Mickie replied--"That fella no bad. Only make foot big." He never missed a chance of securing a hatful of grubs, which, together with the chrysalides and the full-grown beetle (brown and glossy) were devoured after being warmed through on the ashes. When the tomahawk in the process of cutting out damaged a grub, Mickie with a leer of satisfaction would eat the wriggling insect with a feigned apology--"Me bin cut that fella." Baked in the ashes the chrysalids have a wholesome, clean appearance, with a flavour of coco-nut, and the "white fella" always came in for his share. Mickie's bush craft, his knowledge of the habits of birds and insects and the ways of fish, is enviable. Signs and sounds quite indeterminate to "white fellas" are full of meaning to him. Of course, by failure to comprehend such things, no doubt he has many a time gone hungry, and the keenness of his appetite has so sharpened his perceptions that he is seldom at fault now. The scratching of a scrub fowl among decayed leaves is heard in the jungle at an extraordinary distance, and a splash or ripple far out on the edge of the reef tells him that a shark or kingfish is driving the mullet into the lagoon, where he may easily spear them. He can tell to a quarter of an hour when the fish will leave off biting; he hears the scamper of the iguana in the grass when the "white fella" fails to catch a sound, and knows when the giant crabs will be "walking about" in the mangroves. He is trustworthy and obliging, and ready to impart all the lore he possesses, an expert boomerang thrower, a dead shot with a nulla-nulla, and an eater of everything that comes in his way except "pigee-pigee." Having long had the pleasure of his acquaintance, I can cordially wish him a never-failing supply of "patter" and tobacco, and surcease of "monda"; and what more can the heart of a blackfellow desire--save rum? TOM: HIS WIVES--HIS BATTLES Tom has been thrice married--at least he has possessed three wives. For a few months he had two at a time, and placidly endured the consequences. Of the bride of his youth history has no word--for Tom is the only historian of that period, and he ever bears sorrows in silence. Nelly, whose country borders the beach of the mainland opposite, could not speak his language when he fought for her fairly and honourably, and won her from her first man. Though reared but a little over 2 miles apart, these twain have totally different words for the same objects. During married life each has added to the vocabulary of the other. When we took possession of the island, Nelly would glide into the jungle like a frightened snake and hide for days. She was wild, suspicious, uncleanly, uncouth--a combination of all the shortcomings of the savage. Now she lights the fire every morning, kneads the bread, makes the porridge and the coffee, feeds the fowls, washes plates and clothes, scrubs floors, and generally does the work of a domestic. She is cheerfully industrious, emphatic in her admiration of pictures, and smokes continuously, preferring a pipe ornamented with "lead," for she has all the woman's love of show. From the most quarrelsome and vixenish gin of the camp she has been transformed into a decent-minded peacemaker--always ready to atone for the misbehaviour of others, and to display without a trace of self-glorification the virtue of self-sacrifice. Nelly is never happier than when working about the house, except when she saunters off on a Sunday morning, in the glare of a new dress, and with the smoke curling from her ornamented pipe, beneath a hat which, in variety of tints, shames the sunset sky. Students of ethnology who may scan these lines may find food for reflection in the fact that Tom and Nelly offer exceptions to the rules that the totems of Australian blacks generally refer to food, and that those whose totems are alike do not marry. Tom's totemic title, "Kitalbarra," is derived from a splinter of a rock off an islet to the southeast of Dunk Island. "Oongle-bi," Nelly's affinity, is a rock on the summit of a hill on the mainland, not far from her birthplace. The plea of the rocks was not raised as any just cause or impediment to the match when Tom by force of arms espoused Nelly. "Jimmy," Tom and Nelly's son, born in civilisation, bears a second name, that of a deceased uncle, "Toola-un-guy," the totemic rendering of which is now unknown. Another "Jimmy," a native of Hinchinbrook, is differentiated by "Yaeki-muggie," the title of the sandspit of one of the Brook Islands. The confusion of tongues between Tom and Nelly may be briefly illustrated-- TOM ("Kitalbarra"). NELLY ("Oongle-bi"). Sun. Wee-yee. Car-rie. Moon. Yil-can. Car-cal-oon. Sky. Aln-pun. Moogah-car-boon. Mainland. Yungl-man. Mung-un. Island. Cul-qua-yah. Moan-mitte. Sea. Mutta. Yoo-moo. Fire. Wam-pui. Poon-nee. Water. Cam-moo. Pan-nahr. Rain. Yukan. Yukan. Man. Mah-al. Yer-rah. Woman. Rit-tee. Ee-bee. Baby. Eee-bee. Koo-jal. Head. Poo-you. Oom-poo. Foot. Pin-kin. Chin-nah. Leg. Waka. Too-joo. Hand. Man-dee. Mul-lah. Fish. Tar-boo. Kooyah. Bird. Poong-an. Toon-doo. The big-eyed walking fish of the mangroves, which the learned have named PERIOPHTHALMUS KOELREUTERI, Tom knows as "manning-tsang," and Nelly as "mourn!" During one of his bachelordom interludes a smart young gin known as "Dolly" attracted Tom's fancy. He had just "signed on" for a six months' cruise with the master of a beche-de-mer schooner. Dolly smiled so sweetly upon Tom that Charley, her boy, raged furiously. Tom--never demonstrative, always cool and deep--obtaining an advance from his captain, bought, among a few other attractive trifles, an extremely gaudy dress, and having artlessly displayed the finery, took it all on board the schooner, which was to sail the following morning at daylight. During the evening Dolly strolled casually from the camp and the society of the fuming Charley, and disappeared. Tom had quite a trousseau, new and bright, for his sweetheart, when she clambered on board, naked, wet, and with shining eyes. Next morning Charley tracked her along the beach. An old and soiled dress--his gift--on a little promontory of rocks about a mile from the anchorage of the schooner completed the love-story. This intrigue took place many years ago, but Charley was so deeply mortified that he hates Tom to this day, and Tom is an uncomfortable fellow for anyone disposed to resentfulness. We know, because he says so, that Tom fought for her, and that Nelly gladly accepted the protection of the staunchest man of the district. Tom, in his surly moments, is exquisitely cruel; but Nelly's devotion is unaffected. Her vanity led her to flaunt her gaudy hat in the hut. Tom reproved such flashness--he invariably selects the gayest shirts himself--by burning the hat and all the newly-acquired finery. Nelly struck back, and Tom, as her eyes were big and ablaze with fury, threw--at the cost of burnt fingers--a handful of hot sand and ashes into her face. From Tom's point of view it was a splendid feat--one of those bold and effective master-strokes that only a ready and determined sportsman could conceive and on the instant carry into effect. Nelly's eyes were closed for weeks--well-nigh for ever--and the skin peeled off her face; but she consented to the cruel punishment without a murmur after the first shriek of agony, and won Tom to good temper and tolerance of her vanity by all sorts of happy concessions. How many such tiffs--tough and smart--has poor Nelly borne? Her grief has been so sore that she has torn her hair out by the roots in frenzy and stamped upon it; but Tom, surly and impassive Tom, is her lord as well as her most exacting master, and in their own way they are devoted to one another. The roughest cross Nelly was called upon to bear was the presence of Tom's third wife--"Little Jinny"--the manner of whose wooing and home-coming is to be told. News came from Lucinda Point to Clump Point--passed from one to another--that Tom's half-brother (a purely fictional relationship) had died, leaving a young widow. According to Tom's rendering of the matrimonial laws, he was the rightful heir. The widow was all that his half-brother had left that was of the slightest consequence. Tom, telling the circumstances, asked for a holiday that he might personally lay claim to his inheritance. Reminded that he had one wife, he frankly declared in Nelly's presence, and she seemed to acquiesce, that she was no good; but that the other one was a "good fella" in every respect, even to washing plates and scrubbing floors. His holiday was granted. He went away with money in his pockets, blankets, several changes of raiment--among them Nelly's best dress and hat, dilly-bags brightly coloured, and weapons--boomerang, two black palm spears, a great wooden sword, a shield decorated with a complicated pattern in red and white earth, and a flashing new tomahawk. So he departed, with Nelly's best wishes, and full of hope and expectation, promising to return in two weeks. Two months slipped past, and one evening a forlorn, ragged, lean scarecrow of a black boy--without a hat, unshaven, without a blanket, and even destitute of a pipe, clambered over the side of the steamer, and dropped into the boat without a word. It was Tom! In shreds and patches the history of his experience was related. He had arrived at Lucinda, had charmed "Little Jinny" with his manly presence and spruceness and the amount of his personal property, supplemented by the display and free bestowal of Nelly's choicest finery, and had, as a matter of course, been compelled to fight for her. He had been beaten, terribly beaten. One ear had been viciously "marked," a triangular slice being missing (a subsequent combat removed all trace of this mark), and he showed the meritorious scar of a spear-wound on the arm. Having failed in the stand-up fight, he had resorted to stratagem, had been foiled, and forced to flee, abandoning everything, even to that last vestige of independence--his pipe. We knew that he had been hard pressed, for on going gaily away he had volunteered to bring a fat young pig from one of the wild herds of Hinchinbrook, and he came back empty-handed. He talks of the pig--how fat and very young it was--even to this day. He came with his life--that was all, and a threadbare sort of life it was at that. Several months went by--a black boy recovers condition in a day or two as does a starved dog--and Tom had saved money. He never forgets, never swerves from a purpose. He is as determined as a dung-beetle. Another leave of absence was granted. A second raid was made upon Nelly's wardrobe--two big bailer shells. Elated, freshly shaved and smiling, he was a different sort from the individual who had shamefacedly slipped over the side of the steamer, bereft of everything but life. He said he would be back in two weeks, and to the day he appeared. His youthful third wife he handed down into the boat, and the boat was full of their luggage. Ah, that desolated camp at Lucinda! The young lady's trousseau was complete even to lingerie. He had won the fight, and the bride and the spoils were his. Poor Nelly! She welcomed "Little Jinny" effusively, and "Little Jinny" gave her a dress and a second-best hat. Life for a couple of days at the camp was idyllic. Then they took back the gifts of clothing, and turned Nelly out of the hut. She built a separate establishment--a dome of dried grass on bent sticks, and in it she wept and upbraided, and fired up frequently under the torments of jealousy. Shrill squabbles were of daily occurrence, until the great Peacemaker removed Tom's favourite wife. And who more sorely grieved than Nelly! Will the title bear a few words as to Tom the hunter? Was ever a keener, a more patient, a more self-possessed, and consequently a more successful, sportsman? He it was who, from a cranky punt (no white man would venture out to sea in such a craft,) at three o'clock one windy afternoon, harpooned an immense bull-turtle, which towed him towards the Barrier Reef, into the track of the big steamers 4 miles to the east. He battled with the game all the afternoon and evening, overcame it at "the dead waste and middle of the night," and towed it back to the beach, landing after thirteen hours' continuous work. Tom accomplished the feat in a strong breeze and with a turtle diving and tugging, when he might have cut the line at any moment and paddled home comfortably. He is as much at home on the top of a bloodwood tree, hanging round a swaying limb while cutting out a "bee nest," as in a frail bark canoe among the sharks on the skirts of a shoal of bonito. As we neared the beach one day a big sea-mullet came into view. Without a moment's hesitation, and as it flashed past the boat, Tom, using the oar as a spear, hit the slippery fish with such precision and force as to impale it. He will harpoon a turtle as it rushes away from the boat, 5 feet beneath the surface, with the coolness of a billiard-player, and with unerring accuracy "taking off" for the speed of the boat and the refraction of the water. All the ways and habits of fish, and their favourite feeding-grounds, are to him as pages of an open book. A groper, more voracious and bolder than usual, followed a safely-hooked perch from the dim coral garden, worrying it like a bull-dog. As the struggling fish splashed on the surface the groper, abandoning its illegitimate prey, swerved swiftly downwards. The retreat was a second too late, for Tom had seized the, harpoon lying athwart the boat, and though the fish appeared through a fathom and a half of water, a vague, fleeting, contorted shadow, he reached it. The barbed point passed through it, carrying a foot or two of the line, and a 30-pounder was added to our catch at one stroke and without a tremor of excitement on Tom's part. He sailed his punt--12 feet long and 4 feet wide--6 miles, loaded with eight adults, eight piccaninnies, five dogs, a cat, blankets for the crowd, and all the frowsy miscellanea of a black's camp. It was not a boatload that landed on the beach: it was a procession. But Tom would go to sea on a chip. His skill as a sailor of small boats is largely a manifestation of characteristic caution, his precept being--"Subpose big seas come one, one--all right. Subpose come two, two--look out!" "LITTLE JINNY" In Life and In Death She was called "Little Jinny" to distinguish her from another of the blacks about the place--a great, good-natured, giggling creature who laughs perpetually and grows ever fatter. There was nothing in common between the two. Indeed they frequently had differences, for "Jinny" proper is industrious, obliging, cheerful, and full of fun, while she, "Little Jinny," was silent, sulky, and ever averse from toil. Tom, her man, alternately petted and beat her. She, no doubt, deserved both, for she was proud and haughty for a black gin, and as venomous at times as a scorpion. His hand is heavy, and when he lifted it in anger poor "Little Jinny" suffered--but suffered in silence. Her chastisements were not frequent, but they seemed to increase her loyalty towards her lord and master. From a European standpoint, "Little Jinny" had little of which to be vain. She had a fuzzy head of hair. Some, like fur, crept down across her brows, giving her face a singularly unbecoming cast. I did not notice this peculiar uncomeliness until she was dying, and I felt then more than ever that she was not to be judged in accordance with our standard of beauty--though she had many of our little weaknesses. Her ignorance of civilised ways was pathetic, yet she was vain and coquettish as the fairest of her sex. And her besetting vanity was endeavouring to be a "lady." Work was sordid, for she wore garments which made her the leader of fashion. She possessed a pair of--well, a bifurcated garment--and her whole life was spent in trying to live up to it--or them. She succeeded to a certain extent. Her ways were mincing and precise, and she lazed away her days quite artistically. A can of water was too heavy for her to carry, less than two hours "spell" at a time quite an offence to her ideal of the amount of repose that a lady wearing the bifurcated garment should permit herself. She was wont to sit in the shade of the mango-tree and pretend to do a little gardening. It was all pretence. What she really loved to do was to wander among the bloodwoods--with Tom, of course--with next to nothing on, the next to nothing being the drawers. There, you have them. Then you saw her at her best--or rather worst, for she was a thin sapling of a girl, of a dull coppery colour, and the garment was not always snowy-white. Hers, after all, was an ideal existence. She had plenty to eat, as much tobacco as was good for her, and outer raiment that in gaudiness outrivalled the flame-tree and the yellow hibiscus. She was the favourite of two consorts, and only when her pride and scorpion-like attributes got the better of her was she corrected. Now, just the other morning, Tom announced that "Little Jinny" was sick "along a bingey" (stomach), and suggested that salt medicine might do her good. It was quite a common occurrence for her to be sick. It was such an easy and excellent excuse for a day's holiday, when she would bask on the soft grey sand and smoke, gazing across the placid bay and waiting for meal-times. So no one took her sickness seriously. Subsequent inquiries, however, elicited the fact that "Little Jinny" had eaten little or no tucker the day prior to Tom's application for medicine on her behalf, and that she was really entitled to sympathy of the most practical kind. But no one had the least suspicion of the fact. Dinner-time came and she did not appear, though she was strolling about the flat below the house, apparently only a "little bit sick," as Tom reported when he came up to his work. "That one all right to-morrow," was the reply to an inquiry. But at five o'clock Tom visited his hut, and hurried back for medicine. "Little Jinny" was very bad. We went down with remedies that seemed fit from his diagnosis of the case and description of the symptoms, and there lay "Little Jinny," obviously dying. She had never complained nor whimpered when Tom's heavy hand had corrected her, though the dried trickle of blood had been seen on her forehead, and now that she lay a-dying, with her figure strangely swollen, she moaned only when Torn, with his heavy hand, sought to squeeze out the dead man, "all the same like debil-debil," who was, according to him, the cause of the trouble. But it was all too implacable and crafty a "debil-debil" for Tom to cast out. We did our best with brandy and steaming flannels; but it was all so useless, for none understood the sickness, or how to prescribe a remedy that might be effective. Our helplessness was grievous. We could only repeat the sips of brandy and water, and endeavour to warm the chilly little body with steamy flannels. All did something. Even Nelly, the second best wife, who had had to play a very subordinate part in the camp, and whom "Little Jinny" had slapped and had abused with all the volubility of spite and temper, crouched beside her dying rival, chafing her cold hands and warming her cheeks. And here was the most touching incident of the pathetic scene. We had brandy and blankets and flannels wherewith to endeavour to afford relief. Poor Nelly had nothing. Her poverty was grim, but she had some resource. She had no means of alleviating the suffering save those which spendthrift Nature provided--the smooth oily leaf of the "Raroo." She used these aromatic leaves, all that she had, with no little art and tenderness. Warming them over the fire until the oil exuded, she would apply them to the hairy jowl of the girl, and anon to her furry forehead and cheeks. While there is life there is hope is evidently Nelly's creed, and so she crunched and warmed the pungently odorous leaves, and rubbed the hands that had often smitten her in anger. Poor Nelly sighed piteously as she continued her work, while Tom massaged the body of the girl, hoping to expel the "debil-debil!" His theory was, and is, that some man whom "Little Jinny" had known down about Hinchinbrook had died, and his "debil-debil all the same like dead man," had "sat down" in "Little Jinny's bingey,"--hence her distended condition. His efforts to cast out this personal "debil" were futile, and as the poor creature lapsed into unconsciousness he would blow gusty breaths upon her big black eyes. It was his method of revivification. In my ignorance I knew none more to the purpose. But it was all in vain. The great eyes of this specimen of uncivilised humanity clouded over, and then brightened. She moaned in response to Tom's well-intended but too forcible massaging. Nelly applied without ceasing the one means of relief that she possessed, the heated "Raroo" leaf, to cheek and forehead, while we exhausted our woefully meagre stock of knowledge in endeavouring to ease the last moments of the dying. But poor "Little Jinny's" creditor was not to be denied. He was exacting, cruelly exacting, imperious, implacable. He would have the uttermost farthing's worth of her poor, crude life. Nelly might sigh and use the whole armful of "Raroo" leaves; Tom might massage, and the others do their best, which was pitiably poor, and their uttermost, which was ever so mean and little, the Conquering Worm would have its victim. And so with a few long-drawn, gulping sighs, each at a longer interval than the last, until the final one, "Little Jinny" passed away as the sun touched the dark blue barrier of mountains across the channel to the west. Then Nelly's sighs changed into a wail, in which the other members of the camp joined, a penetrating falsetto cry which continued for two days, mingled with the strong man's expression of woe, a low, weird yet not inharmonious hum. For two days they chanted the virtues of the dead, told of her likes and dislikes, and of their grief, crouching beside the blanket-covered form. Then they buried her in the smoky hut in which she lived, digging a shallow grave in the black sand, and there she rests with them. Tom has put on the mourning of his tribe, and will not for several years eat of a certain fish associated with "Little Jinny's" original name. Nor can he bear to be reminded of her. The day after she was buried he spent the hours between daylight and sunset wandering about wherever "Little Jinny" had been wont, obliterating the tracks made by her feet. With the keenest of sight, which is one of the superior qualifications of the race, he discerned the tracks on the sandy, forest-clad flat, and rubbed them out with his foot. Just as love-lorn Orlando ran about the forest of Arden carving on "Every tree The fair, the chaste, the unexpressive she," so this tough, rude savage, spent the, whole day smothering the marks that would "sad remembrance bring" of the poor creature for whom he had that kind of feeling that in the savage stands for love. Nature would have performed the office as effectually, and perhaps more tenderly, but Tom's hasty grief drove him remorselessly, until no outward and visible sign of the dead girl remained to challenge it. When I ponder upon Nelly's "Raroo" leaves and Tom's terrible and precise earnestness in blotting out the memory of the past, I am convinced that this race, despised and neglected of men, can be as devoted to one another as truly as we who are so superior to them in many attributes. THE LANGUAGE TEST Casual investigations confirm the opinion that the language of the natives of Dunk, Hinchinbrook and the intervening isles was mutually understood. Certainly there are more terms in common with Dunk Island and the southern end of Hinchinbrook--40 miles away--than with Dunk Island and the adjacent mainland. In pre-white folks days amicable intercourse between the natives of the islands and of the mainland was unknown though the islanders frequently visited one another. Hence no doubt their dominant character and higher order of intelligence generally. Literally the insular was a floating population, and derived the advantage of intercommunication. That of the mainland was stationary. It groped dimly in the jungle, each sept, isolated by bewildering differences in language, cramped, narrow, suspicious. Tribes whose country came within 2 or 3 miles of the sea never intruded on the beach, and the Beachcombers dared not venture beyond recognised limits. To this day Tom will not "walk about" inland unless he is in possession of real superiority in the matter of arms, or has a following in force. He professes fear of the primordial savagery of the "man alonga bush." LAST OF THE LINE The last King of Dunk Island--known to the whites as "Jimmy"--was a tall, lanky man, irreclaimably truculent, incapable of recognising the dominance of those who bestowed his Christian name. Long after most of his fellows had submitted in a more or less kindly spirit to the o'ermastering-race, "Jimmy" held aloof, and in his savage, self-reliant way, deemed himself a worthy foe of the best of them. Often he endeavoured to persuade his companions to join him in a policy of active resentment. Once, when remonstrated with on account of some offence against the rights of property, he assumed a hostile disposition, and calling upon others, took up a spear, determined if possible to rouse a revolt. Few in number, the whites could not permit their authority to be questioned, and a demonstration with a rifle silenced all show of opposition. "Jimmy," disgusted with the docility of his fellows, departed, uttering wrath and threatenings, and was no more seen in the vicinity. This incident took place nearly twenty years ago on the mainland. "King Jimmy, the Irreconcilable," died a natural death. He does not sleep with his fathers on his native soil, but at Tam o' Shanter Point, nor are any of his acts and deeds remembered, save that which illustrates his hatred of the whites, and his bold and truculent spirit. None of those who remain is equal to the last of the royal line in stature. Toby stands 5 feet 7 1/2 inches. Tom, 5 feet 7 inches. Brow, 5 feet 2 3/4 inches, and Willie, 5 feet 2 inches. Tom's expanded chest measures 36 1/2 inches, and Toby's, 36; Brow's, 34 1/2, Willie's, 34 inches. CHAPTER III ATTRIBUTES AND ANECDOTES Blacks possess acquirements which white people cannot successfully imitate, are industrious in fashioning weapons and in the invention and practice of primitive forms of amusement, and are in many respects entertaining subjects to those who apply themselves, though superficially, to the study of their habits and customs. On the impulse of the moment they are generous or cruel, erratic, purposeless, unstable as water. The cat's cradle of childhood's days, in the hands of a black who has practised the pastime, becomes most elaborate. He makes complicated designs never dreamt of by the whites--fish, palm-trees, turtles, snakes, birds flying, men and women, etc. etc., the variety being endless. Toy darts and toy boomerangs are common, and the system of signalling by gesture comprehensive and excellent. The Queensland Government has taken means for the preservation of knowledge of many of the sports and pastimes, as well as the language and habits of the blacks, being impressed with the urgency of so doing by the rapid decrease in their numbers. Many have been hastened from the world by a new and seductive vice. Chinese cultivators of bananas found the blacks useful, and rewarded them with the ashes from their opium-pipes. Mixed with water the dregs form a warm and comforting beverage, but its effects were terrible. The fiery liquors of mean whites, and diseases contracted from the depraved, killed off many of the original lords of the soil. Opium was supplying the finishing touches when the Australian Federal Government, by an act of conscious virtue, forbade its introduction to the Commonwealth, save for use as a drug. Indirectly the blacks have been saved from demoralisation which threatened to become precipitate--that is to say, in those localities where the smuggling of opium has been suppressed. The dwindling away of the race is, however, inevitable. A few anecdotes may perhaps throw unaccustomed light upon attributes not generally understood, and show that the Australian aboriginal, uncouth savage as he is, is not altogether devoid of smartness and good-humour. COMMON AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS Australian blacks have been referred to as socialists, and even communists. Certainly they repudiate thrift, and may therefore be said to side with some socialists, and their camp customs embody communistic principles. The cunningness and zeal with which they enforce individual rights in property may be cited in connection with a food tree. When a neighbouring estate was first settled, in the jungle on the site selected for the house were several magnificent bean-trees. One was about to be felled, when an old man, chief of the camp close by, made it known through an interpreter that food-bearing trees were not to be cut down. Eventually a bargain was struck, the whole of the trees on the spot being purchased from the old man, the pioneers being glad of the opportunity of establishing goodwill by a friendly understanding. The day following, another patriarch of the camp appeared and made it known that he, too, had property rights in the trees, and demanded payment. Without formally recognising his claim, but with the idea of strengthening the bond of good-fellowship, his price was also paid. Again a third old man made a similar demand, explaining that neither of the others had the right of disposing of his individual interests. He, too, was sent away content. In the course of a day or two a young man presented his claim, expounding the law of the country and the camp, which was to the purpose that no single person or any number of persons, individually or collectively, was or were entitled to barter the rights and property of another. The bean-trees especially were subject to the law of entail. The old men, the young soothsayer explained, could not legally deprive him of his rights to the fruit of the trees that had been the property of his as well as their ancestors, though he, disingenuously, was quite ready for a personal consideration to forego his privileges. He, too, was for peace sake made happy; and it was there and then explained by the settlers, definitely and determinedly, that no more payment for the particular trees about to be sacrificed on the altar of civilisation would be made. In future the laws of the camps were to be restricted to the hundreds of other bean-trees in the jungle, each of which, if wanted, would be the subject of special negotiation. THE "DEBIL-DEBIL" Blacks in their attempts to give verisimilitude to the "debil-debil" generally describe that personage as having hands fitted with hooks or sharp needles. An intelligent boy of the Cape York Peninsula added a few thrilling details on an occasion, when, to allay his fears, his Boss had promised to shoot the "debil-debil" should the boy be molested. "No more carn shoot that fella, Boss. All asame sum-moke." The boy said that the "debil-debil" had arms like the lawyer vine--long and set with spurs--and dwelt in the heart of the mountains, in the thickest jungle. "Subpose," said the terrified boy, "black fella might hear 'em, that debil-debil tching out, altogether no more yabber little bit (keep silence). Altogether tell 'um um-boi-ya (medicine man). That one trow'um wookoo (message-stick) alonga scrub. He trow'um pire stick, ung-kurra, eparra ung neera, arwonadeer (north, south, west, east). He sit down little bit. Bi'mby that one ah-anaburra (scrub turkey) he plenty 'tching out. Altogether black fella make 'um big fella fire. He no more sleep. He look out all time. Bi'mby, longa morning he altogether yan. He looked out 'nother fella yamber (camp). Ole man plenty time bin yabba me debil-debil before long time, bin catch 'em ole man ole woman. He no more see 'em. He find 'em little bit yetin (skin) longa yil-gil-gil (lawyer vine). Ole man bin yabba some time debil-debil 'tching out like it big fella oor-bung-ah (big wind) first time; bi'mby tching out all asame youn-me bin hear 'em. Black fella he no more see 'em nuthin. One time altogether been see 'em like it sum-moke. Heyan. Debil-debil come up. Me no bin see 'em. Me bin hear 'em one time. Me close up ar-tum-ena (baby)." Another boy gave quite a different personality to the "debil-debil!" "Big fella. All asame dead man. All bone, no more meat." Eyes of fire were added as finishing touches. CLOTHING SUPERFLUOUS The parents of our domesticated blacks not only never wore clothes, but hardly knew what clothes were. They needed none for warmth. At anyrate, blankets or cloaks beaten out of the inner bark of a particular fig-tree (FICUS EHRETIOIDS) were the only covering they had. Not every one possessed even a fig-tree blanket. During inclement weather they squatted in their humpies, or braved the elements "with honour clad." Thinking no evil, clothing for decency's sake was superfluous. Clothes are worn at the present day, partly as a concession to the fastidiousness of the whites, and largely from vanity. Our blacks are exceedingly fond of dress; the more glaring and clashing the colours the greater the joy of possession. The party go off in the shimmer of Sunday's finery, and just out of sight all will be discarded and "planted," for the favourite costume for the walk-about is that of the previous generation. Having spent the whole day in blissful innocence of clothes, they return in the evening in their gaudy attire, fresh as from a comic garden-party. BROTHER AND SISTER As they grow up, brothers assume towards their sisters an attitude of reserve almost amounting to repugnance. The boy will not eat anything the sister has cooked, nor knowingly touch anything she has handled. The more contemptuous and austere his bearing towards her the more proper it is. Nelly's brother paid a visit to the island, and she cooked a huge damper at the kitchen stove. When it was taken to the camp, hot and fragrant, "Billy" at once inquired who had cooked it. Nelly, wishing that her brother should not deprive himself of his share, told a white lie in the one word, "Missis!" Billy ate heartily and was none the worse, while Nelly, who is fond of Billy, notwithstanding his official detestation of her, chuckled at the successful deception. THE RAINBOW One of childhood's most fascinating fables was, that at the places where the rainbow touched the earth would be found a bag of gold and glittering gems. Among some North Queensland blacks almost exactly the same fairy tale is current. "Muhr-amalee," remarked a boy, pointing to a rainbow which seemed to spring from the Island of Bedarra. "That fella no good. Hot, burning. Alonga my country too many. Come out alonga ground, bend over, go down. Subpose me go close up kill 'em along spear, run away and plant. Bi'mby come back, find plenty red stone, yalla stone. Fill 'em up dilly-bag. Old man bin tell 'em. Me no go close up along Muhr-amalee. Too fright!" SWIMMING FEATS In their endurance as long-distance swimmers, and in the ease with which they perform various incompatible operations in the water, there are few to equal the coastal blacks of North Queensland. For a trifling consideration they will successfully undertake feats which prove that they are almost as much at home in deep water as upon land, and when put to the test their strength and hardihood are extraordinary. Boys employed on beche-de-mer boats become almost amphibious. Some, as they swim and dive, collect the fish into a heap on the bottom of the sea until they have a parcel worthy of being taken to the attendant dinghy, alongside which they will come with arms so full as to restrict movement to a singular wriggle of the shoulders. What would be an extremely awkward burden for a white man on shore, the expert black boy carries as he swims with case, in the course of his daily round and common task. During the Princess Charlotte Bay cyclone one of the survivors, after an absence of nearly twenty-four hours, came ashore. He explained that the boat of which he had been one of the crew was "drowned finish," and that the sea had taken him out towards the Barrier. He swam for a long time, and at last got tired and went to sleep, and for the best part of that frantic night he slept as he swam. Then the wind changed, and he came in with it, landing very little the worse. Others, on the same occasion, swam for fifteen and twenty hours; but "Dick" was the only one who went far out to sea, had a night's rest, landed fairly fresh, and seemed to accept the experience as a matter of course. Again, three boys and a gin--Charley, Belle Vue, Tom and Mary--were sailing out to a reef in a little dingy, when they sighted a turtle basking on the surface. Charley and Belle Vue jumped overboard and seized the turtle. It was a monster, and so strong that they called for help, and Tom plunged in to their assistance. Mary, frightened of being alone in the boat, also sprang overboard, taking her blanket with her, and the boat speedily sailed and drifted beyond reach. Charley and Belle Vue at once swam to a beacon marking a submerged reef about a mile away, but Tom and Mary, being caught in the current, were swept past the only available resting-place. They were 8 miles from shore. Tom soon began to flounder, but Mary, keeping her heart and her precious blanket, cheered him on, and, changing her course, took a "fair wind down," as she afterwards said, towards a distant point of the mainland. Lifting the giant despair from her boy's shoulders with encouraging words, holding him up occasionally when he got tired, and clinging all the time to the only piece of personal property she possessed, Mary eventually landed in a quiet bay. Tom was so exhausted that she had to drag him up on the sand, and having made him comfortable with her safe but sodden blanket, she hurried into town to report the circumstances to the police. A boat was sent to the rescue of Charley and Belle Vue, still clinging to the beacon, and the derelict dinghy was picked up. Nothing was lost but the turtle. SMOKE SIGNALS It is many years since a black boy at Port Darwin remarked casually to his master, a Government official there, "Steamer him come on; him sit down lame fella," and began to limp across the room. He said that the steamer was a long way away; but "blackfella he make 'em smoke; blackfella bin tell 'em." Four days after the steamer GUTHRIE slowly entered the port with her machinery badly disabled. THUNDER FACTORY A boy who had visited towns, listening intently to a reverberating peal of thunder asked--"How make 'em that row, Boss? He got big wheel?" Home keeping blacks have homely wits. Having no experience of the rumble and rattle of traffic they ascribe to thunder a mysterious origin, and indicate though with reserve, the very place where it is made. The swirl of a creek in the mainland has excavated a circular water hole in a soft rock, brick red in colour. This hole is the local thunder factory, and the blacks were wont to hang fish hooks across it from pieces of lawyer cane, with the idea of ensnaring the young thunder before it had the chance of becoming big and formidable. THE ORACLE Divination by means of the intestines of animals is practised by the blacks in some parts of North Queensland. A young gin died suddenly on the lower Johnstone River. Immediately after, the young men of the camp went out hunting, bringing back a wallaby. The entrails were removed, and an old woman--the Atropos of the camp--stretched them between her fingers in half-yard lengths, simultaneously pronouncing the title of a tribe in the district. The tribe, the name of which was being uttered as the gut parted, was denounced as the source of the witchcraft which had occasioned the untimely death of the gin. Vengeance followed as a matter of course. A REAL LETTER Sam, a boy living in the Russell River scrub, spoke thus to his master:-- "One fella boy, Dick, he come up fight along me four days." "How you know, Sam?" asked the boss. "Dick, he bin make 'em this one letter," replied Sam, picking up a palm leaf from which all the leaflets save seven, had been torn. Three of the seven had been turned down at the terminal point, and Sam continued his explanation. "He no come Monday, he no come Tuesday, he no come Wednesday, he come Thursday," indicating the first upright leaflet. Sam said that he had an outstanding quarrel with Dick and had expected the challenge conveyed by the letter he had picked up on the track that morning. When Thursday came Dick appeared well armed, and the two had an earnest, honourable and exhilarating combat and parted good friends. A BLACK DEGENERATE A remarkable case is in the early records of the Lower Murray (between New South Wales and Victoria), and was quoted long since. A number of blacks died in agonising convulsions. Some thirty had succumbed, before a dear old German doctor, who wandered up and down the river, a loved and welcome guest at every station, happened along when a gin was stricken. He diagnosed strychnine poisoning. The greatest mystery surrounded the affair, and some of the whites undertook to watch the camp. A clue was furnished by the old doctor, who, when attending to the dying gin, noticed that one of the men seemed to find her sufferings most diverting. He laughed, wandered away, and returned time after time, repeating to himself before each outburst--"My word, plenty kick it, that fella!" Somebody remembered that this black, who rejoiced in the name of Tommy Simpson, had been almost tickled to death when he saw a dog dying at the station from strychnine. He was watched, and some of the powder he had stolen from a bottle in the store discovered in a piece of opossum skin inside a very dilapidated old hat. Taxed with the crime, he made free admission of his guilt, but was apparently incapable of realising that he had done any wrong. It seemed that his chief reason for keeping his secret so long was that he wanted to have the fun all to himself. The other blacks were very differently impressed; they surrounded Tommy Simpson and speared him until he died. To the last, Tommy's ruling frame of mind was surprise, and he went to his death quite unable to understand why his fellows should have made such a fuss about his little joke. JUMPED AT A CONCLUSION Occasionally black boys have the misfortune to do exactly the wrong thing with the best intentions. A beche-de-mer schooner sadly in need of a coat of paint, ran into a northern port and brought up alongside a similar but tidy craft, which at the time was laid up. In obedience to natural curiosity the captain went on board the idle vessel and had a good look over her, paced off some of her dimensions and mentally approved her lines. In the morning he brought out a quantity of black paint with which a friend who had taken pity of the weather-beaten condition of his vessel had presented him, and ordered his boys to begin work. Then he went ashore, spending a most agreeable morning among his friends. just before dinner a chum asked him what his boys were doing. He replied, "Oh, before I left I set them to work to paint the ship." "Do you know what ship they are painting?" asked the friend. "Yes! I am jolly well sure it's mine." "Well, you had better go and see how they are getting on." He went, and found all hands merrily at work painting the strange vessel. They had in excess of industry covered one of her neat white sides completely, having jumped at the conclusion that the captain had bought her. It was an expensive blunder, and a practical lesson in the chemistry of colours. A large quantity of white paint had to be bought to smother the black coat, and another lot of black paint for his own woe-begone craft. PRIDE OF RACE "Harry" was a splendid specimen of humanity. Tall, lithesome, handsome, intelligent, proud of superior abilities, prouder of his style. In his time he played many parts. A stockrider, when he would appear in a gay shirt, tight white moleskins, cabbage-tree hat, flash riding-boots with glittering spurs. A bullock driver, when his costume would be more subdued, but when he would be fully equipped, even to the chirpy phrases in which working bullocks are accustomed to be addressed. Then as a vagrant black, when his attire would be nothing at all in camp, and little more than a frowsy blanket when visiting the town. But in all of his characters he had an unconstrained contempt for Chinese, and delighted in ridiculing and frightening them. In the part of a bullock-driver he drew up his team in front of a store. The manager shouted--"Don't want that load here, Harry! You tak 'em to back store. You savee?" The "savee" touched Harry's dignity. "What for you say savee? You take me for a blurry Chinaman?" Class distinction prevails even among the race. "Polly," in her own estimation, was highly civilised, and posed haughtily before her uncultured cousins. Looking across to the mainland beach one day, she said--"Whiteman walk about over there, longa beach." Then, gazing more fixedly, and with all possible disdain in her tones--"No; only nigger!" Nearly all civilised blacks have exalted opinions of themselves. It is told that Marsh, the aboriginal bowler, of Sydney, wanted to join the Australian Natives' Association, and on being black-balled said--"Those fellows, Australian natives! My people were leading people in Australia when their people were supping porridge in Scotland or digging potatoes in Ireland." When Marsh and Henry met as rival fast bowlers in a match between Queensland and New South Wales, it was proposed to the former that he should be introduced to the Queenslander. "What!" he ejaculated--"that myall? No, thank you. It's quite bad enough to meet him on the field. Why, the fellow would want to go in to tea with me. Give him a 'possum." These yarns may be too good to be true, but they at least illustrate a well-recognised phase of aboriginal character. "YANKEE CHARLEY" At rare intervals one finds a black who knows how to drive a bargain. "Yankee Charley" came, badly wanting a shirt. The only one available was valued at 2s. 6d., and Charley produced 2s., protesting that that represented his total capital, the extreme limit of his financial resources--his uttermost farthing, as it were. At that sum the Boss disposed of the shirt, for the need of the stranger within his gates threatened to become shocking, as "Yankee Charley" possessed few of the "artificial contrivances that hold society together!" Retiring to the scrub, Charley took off his ruined singlet, came back smiling in his new shirt, and with delightful candour tendered 6d. for a flash handkerchief. He got it for his smartness. MYALL'S BAKING When blacks are introduced to the ways of white men, singular, often grotesque episodes occur. A big, shy, clumsy fellow endeavouring to put on a shirt as a pair of "combinations" does cut an absurd figure, and the first efforts of many meddling and unskilled cooks to make a "damper" are often pathetic failures. Not long since a beche-de-mer fisherman engaged a crew from the tablelands at the back of Princess Charlotte Bay. Never having been on board a schooner before, and being absolutely innocent of the ways of the whites, they found "damper" unpalatable, and flour was given them that they might prepare it after their own methods. Some nuts ("koie-ie," CRYPTOCARIA PALMERSTONI, for example) blacks toast until the shell (impregnated with resin) starts into a blaze and the kernel falls out. The kernels are then chewed and ejected until sufficient dough is available for a cake, which is flattened out between green leaves and toasted. The dough "rises" as though leavened with yeast, but this lightness is considered a fault, for the dough is taken out, squeezed between hands moistened with spittle until it becomes sodden. Then it is bound again tightly in green leaves in long rolls, and buried in the hot ashes till cooked. Such cakes are said to be very nice. They must be nutritious for the blacks among whom Koi-ie is one of the principal foods are fat and agile fellows. These Princess Charlotte Bay boys cooked their flour in a somewhat similar way. The result was a sodden, tough, dirty damper, the sight of which roused the not usually tender susceptibilities of the owner of the boat. Taking pity on the untutored boys, he had a proper damper made with soda and acid and a due proportion of salt. It turned out a beauty, so spongy and light that it almost lifted the lid off the camp oven, in which it was baked. The boys accepted it, but not without manifestations of doubt and suspicion. They presently returned in a solid and unanimous deputation loudly proclaiming that the boss was a humbug, and had cheated them, the bread being full of holes containing no "ki-ki" whatever, while they made "ki-ki" as dense as the deck, which they tapped with their feet significantly and about which there was no palpably hollow fraud. At first the boss failed to understand, for the blacks had little even of pidgin English. When he did realise the true state of the case he wasted no breath in explanations. The blacks catered for themselves in the future, and got fat and saucy on the diet of plain flour and water, so cooked that sometimes it was like half-burnt deal, and as often a sticky, ropy mess. EVERYTHING FOR A NAME To the blacks of North Queensland there is a great deal in a name. When a piccaninny is born, the first request is--"You put 'em (or make 'em) name belonga that fella!" When a strange boy, a myall, "comes in" he wants a name, and until he gets it he is as forlorn as an ownerless dog. Anything does, from "Adam" to "Yellow-belly" or "Belle Vue." He seems as proud of the new possession as a white boy of his first pair of trousers, and soon forgets his original name. "What name belonga you, your country?" I asked an alert boy. "I bin lose 'em; I no find 'em. Boss, he catch 'em alonga paper!" THE KNIGHTLY GROWTH Wallace, in his MALAY ARCHIPELAGO, gives an amusing account of a native who was superbly vain of an isolated tuft of hair on the one side of his chin, the only semblance of beard he possessed. A black boy on one of the inland stations left with a mob of travelling cattle for the south. When he returned after many days, two hairs had sprouted from a mole on his cheek, and he was for ever fondling them with pride and pleasure. "Hello! Jacky!" exclaimed the manager of the station, noticing him on his return for the first time. "You catch gem plenty whisker now," and feinted to pluck out the twin hairs. Jacky started back in dismay. "You no broke 'em! You no broke 'em!" Another boy showed that the cruel edge of vanity which prompts others to dye their hair is felt by the race. White hairs began to mingle with the black of his moustache, and one by one he plucked them out. The moustache became thinner and thinner, until the lip was as bare as a baby's cheek, while the fraudulently youthful appearance gave obvious satisfaction. HONOUR AND GLORY As we sat enjoying the cool moonlight, Mickie announced that Jinny desired an interview. "All right, Mickie, tell her come along." "No, bi'mby. When finish wash 'em plate." That duty disposed of, Mickie--"Now Boss." "Well, come along, Jinny. What you want?" "No, Boss; I no want talk alonga you, Mickie humbug you. What for you humbug Boss, Mickie?" Jinny was bashful, for the subject was momentous, touched her pride, and had been depressing her gaiety for many weeks. Presently she came and with emphatic deliberation said--"Boss--No--good--Missis--call--out-- Jinny! Jinny! When want wash 'em plate. More better you hammer 'em that fella, all asame Essie!" Jinny did not wish that the missis should be chastised, but that she should be summoned to the plate washing with the pomp and ceremony of a dinner gong, as the maid used to do in a more civilised home. FIRE JUMP UP Mickie and Jinny once paid a visit to town, and Jinny, making an afternoon call, was invited to have a cup of tea. She said, "Never mind, Missis. Fire, he no burn." A gas stove was available, and Jinny jumped and exclaimed as the blue flame sprang from nowhere. Wherever the lady of the house pleased to apply a match the fire came. Next morning Mickie was brought round to witness the wonder, Jinny asking--"Missis. You show 'em Mickie fire jump up all about!" SLOP TEETH A lady up North was asked by her black maid, whose face had been terribly battered by her infuriated husband, to send to the shop for new teeth, in payment of which she tendered half-a-crown, promising "two bob more" as wages accumulated. This is a fact, and therefore comparable with the anecdote which tells that a military bandmaster demanded the return of a set of teeth supplied at the regiment's expense to a cornet player who had been granted his discharge. A FASCINATED BOY Seas swamped a small cutter as she was beating across the bar of a Northern river. Exerting themselves to the utmost, the owners, with two black boys, managed to save the boat, but all the food on board was ruined, and blankets and clothing saturated. Hungry and dejected the party prepared to put away the time until the weather calmed. In the afternoon, fortune smiled. Another cutter came in sight, and with the assistance of those on shore, managed to get into safety and shelter. All hands were liberally treated to needful refreshment. "Say when!" said the cheery Boss, as he poured a revivifying dose of whisky into a pannikin held by the expectant but shivering boy. The elixir gurgled and glittered before his fascinated eyes until the pannikin held enough for two stiff nobblers, without evoking any polite verbal restraint. "My word!" said the Boss, at last, "that boy can't say when." AWKWARD CROSS-EXAMINATION Mickie and Jinny being privileged became familiar, and spoke all sorts of confidences in the ears of their mistress. Visitors came, an old friend and her daughters, a blonde and a brunette. The contrast in the types of the girls puzzled Mickie. He took an early opportunity to cross-examine one from whom he thought he could obtain confidential information. "What Gwen sister belonga Glad?" he asked. "Yes, Mickie" "Same mother?" queried Mickie. "Yes, of course." Then came without hesitation or reserve the dumbfounding question: "Same father?" THE ONLY ROCK Some may sneer when absolute originality is claimed for the following little anecdote, for almost a facsimile of it happens to be among the most time-honoured of jests. Rounding Clump Point in a light centre-board cutter, the Boss, who was steering, asked Willie, whose local knowledge was being relied on: "Any stone here, Willie?" "Yes," was the response, "one fella." The words were yet on the lips of the boy when the centre-board jumped with a clang. "Why you no tell me before?" angrily remonstrated the Boss. Willie--"No more. Only one fella. You catch 'em!" SAW THE JOKE Our blacks saw "friends" on the mainland beach, and lit two signal fires. Mickie said, "Me tell 'em that fella bring basket." Cross-examined, he had to admit that the two fires merely signified a general invitation to his mainland friends to come across. Then--"That fella got 'em basket, me get 'em." A friend doubted the range of the black's vision, which was truly telescopic, as we frequently verified with a pair of powerful field glasses, but not to be thought inferior in this respect, he solemnly declared that he saw Jinny's cousin on the beach strike a light for his pipe. At first the irony of the remark was not appreciated, then Jinny (after vainly peering across the sea), saw the joke and gave a wild exhilarating exhibition of amusement. She sat down and rolled about shouting and screeching, hardly able to tell Mickie the fun, and when he was let into it the pantomime was the more extravagant. The outburst continued throughout the day at intervals, Jinny apologising for her boisterousness with reiterations--"Misser Johnssing say he been see 'em cousin belonga me light 'em pipe!" Jinny still rehearses the story at frequent intervals, and with hysterical outbursts. ZEBRA'S VANITY To half civilised blacks a racecourse is an earthly paradise; a jockey, a sort of demi-god. A lady shut up her house one race day, leaving "Zebra" in charge. Returning, she was amazed to find one of the big rooms open, and to hear the buzz of a sewing machine. Zebra, trouserless, scarcely took the trouble to look round as he informed her--"Me make 'em trouser all a same Yarraman (horse)." His desire for tight riding breeches was not restrained, and the consequence was in the nature of a disaster. LAURA'S TRAITS Laura was a bad girl. Like Topsy, she acknowledged her naughtiness, but never attempted to reform. A considerable quantity of milk had disappeared from a jug, and her mistress asked--"You been drink milk, Laura?" "No, missis, me no drink 'em." But the tell-tale moustache of cream still lingered on her lips. Laura lived in a quiet home, where there were no children, and few dishes to wash. The State Orphanage was not far away, and the children thereof paraded every day on their way to the State school. Gazing at the long procession marching two by two Laura, with a far away look in her eyes, said--"Missis. Me no like wash 'em plate belonga these fellas!" Laura was wont to be sent to Sunday school, where her ways were precise and demure, and where her natural smartness gained her credit, and many good conduct tickets. Once she was overheard at her devotions--"Please, Mr God, make missis strong woman, make missis good woman!" She was sick, and her mistress insisted upon administering castor oil, but Laura made a fuss. At last her mistress said--"All right, Laura, suppose you no take 'em medicine, I go for doctor." "No, no, missis. Me die meself!" A variety troupe visited the town, and Laura was taken to a performance. Among the "freaks" were General Mite and his consort. Laura came back with this proud boast--"I bin shake hands alonga piccaniny!" ROYAL BLANKETS Nelly was extravagantly fond of pictures; anything, from an illustrated advertisement up, pleased her, and when the subject was not very obvious to her she would indifferently gaze lovingly upon it upside down. A pair of fine photographs of King Edward and Queen Alexandra in all the sumptuousness of their coronation robes was shown her, and she was told that "fella King belonga whiteman. That fella Queen wife, you know." Putting her democratic forefinger on each alternately, Nelly said--"That fella man; that fella Missis! My word! Got 'nother kind blanket!" HIS DAILY BREAD The Government of Queensland is conscientiously performing the duty of smoothing the pillows of the dying race. On the coast several mission stations have been established where the blacks of the neighbourhood are gathered together and, under discipline tempered with a strong religious element, taught to take care of themselves. The system is under the supervision of an experienced official, entitled the "Chief Protector of Aboriginals," and he tells a story which throws rays of light in more than one direction. A plump boy, who several months before had been consigned to a mission station quite out of the neighbourhood, presented himself at the head office, and with a rather rueful countenance answered a few of the preliminary inquiries of the Protector. Confidence having been gained, particular questions were asked. "Yis," said the boy, "me bin stockrider belonga Yenda. Come down alonga town have spell." "But you belong to Fraser Island mission station!" "Yis, me bin alonga that place." "Why you no stop? That very good place." "Nahr! No blurry good." "You get plenty tucker--plenty everything that place!" This provoked a trailing exclamation of dissent and disgust. "N-a-hr! Blenty ask it--no get 'em. Ebery morning tell that big fella Boss (with an upward jerk of the head) gib it daily-bread. Dinner-time tell it gib it daily-bread. One time more alonga tea tell it that big fella Boss gib it daily-bread." "Well, you get plenty." "N-a-hr! No get 'em. Get 'em corn (with a spit) all asame horse." Hominy, with prayer, is the standing dish at that station. HUMAN NATURE Among the most cunning of civilised blacks was a gentleman, well up in years, known as Michael Edward. He had been everywhere and had seen everything, and was full of what we call worldly wisdom. His conceit in himself led him to eat abundantly, drink all he could and at anybody's expense, smoke continuously, do as little work as possible, though apparently with lavish expenditure of industry, dress flashily and talk big. In pursuit of these things he behaved as should a cute student of human nature. Sent by Mrs Jenkins, his then mistress, with a message, he arrived as some tempting pastry was taken from the oven. He eyed it all with such riotous admiration, that an invitation to taste a tart was felt compulsory. Michael Edward assented with a "Yus, please, Missis." The tart was but a trifle light as air in his capacious maw, and another went the same way with loud smacking of huge lips. Then, with a lively sense of the continuance of such favour, he said--"My word, Missis you mo' better cook than Missis Jenkin!" A police magistrate had a blackfellow in his employ very much addicted to beer. The black was brought before His Worship charged as a "drunk and disorderly." The magistrate lectured him severely, but paid his fine on condition that he would never drink again. A month later the culprit was again in the court, and the magistrate, who was rather in love with his own eloquence, proceeded to read the offender a severe lecture and to threaten him with awful punishment At the most impressive point the black broke in with--"Go on, Croker! Shut up and pay 'em money. Me want finish 'em fence!" AN APT RETORT A meeting between a steamer smartly captained and a sailing boat steered by a smart black boy familiar with the rules of the road at sea was taking place. The steamer having too much way on, the boat narrowly escaped being run down. "Why didn't you keep out of the road," yelled the captain, "Why do you let the nigger steer?" Tom in reply, "Why you no luff up? You got blurry steamer, I no got 'em!" MISSIS'S TROUSERS Lady Constance Mackenzie is not the only bold female who rides astride in befitting costume. On some North Queensland cattle stations, squatters' wives and daughters have adopted divided skirts, and black gins employed as stockriders wear shirts and trousers, which are returned to the store when not in active service. One bleak evening--and it can be bleak on the North-Western Downs--the tender heart of a new jackeroo storekeeper was touched by the sight of two black boys quaking with the cold, the attire of each being limited to a singlet tugged down to its extreme limit. "You no got trousers?" he asked. "Baal got 'em!" "All right. Me give you fella some," and the storeman produced two pairs well worn, which were thankfully accepted. Half an hour later one of the boys returned, bursting with indignant language. "What for, you blurry fool. You bin gib it my missis's trousers?" DULL-WITTED At a western station the manager, in order to save a fence newly erected, thought to satisfy the blacks by leaving a loose coil of wire here and there for spear heads. But instead of taking that generous hint, the natives invariably cut out from the fence what they wanted. On another station in the same district, when a fence was under construction small coils of loose wire were left every few hundred yards as a tribute or free will offering; but in this case they again overlooked the loose stuff and cut what they wanted from the strained wire. STRATEGY Incomprehensibly dull as blacks frequently are they occasionally exhibit shrewdness which is all the more remarkable because of its unexpectedness. As the station hands were busy erecting buildings in newly opened up country, the blacks sent an envoy to engage their attention while others of the tribe cut off the iron bracing from the paddock gates wherewith to make tomahawks. They succeeded in completely despoiling one gate before they were disturbed. LITERAL TRUTH A black boy of more than ordinary intelligence, who had been sent to fill a couple of tubs with water, sauntered back with a self-satisfied air and said--"Me finish 'em!" The master found that the boy, as a preliminary, had fitted one tub into the other. MAGIC THAT DID NOT WORK Under the spell of the first sensations of Christianity, Lucy found and took unauthorised possession of a gold cross. Retiring to a secluded spot on the bank of the river, she hung the cross to a string round her neck, imagining it to be a charm, by the magic of which she would become a white girl. Twenty-four hours of patient expectancy passed without any change in Lucy's complexion, so she lost faith in the golden symbol, and bartered it to a Malay pieman for cakes. Then good Christian folks charged her with the theft of the cross, and the pieman with receiving it, knowing it to have been stolen. Lucy was pardoned, but the pagan went to prison. ANTI-CLIMAX A boy was asked if he thought Jimmy Governor (a notorious desperado who had given the New South Wales police much trouble) ought to be hanged. "Baal. No fear hang 'em; too good." "What you do then?" "Me! me punch 'em nose!" LITTLE FELLA CREEK SAILOR Ponto, a boy well known in North Queensland, and one of the few aboriginals whose memory is honoured by tombstones, was once taken by his master to Sydney. He saw many wonders, being particularly impressed by the appearance of the men-of-war's-men. A month or so after his return he was away among the mountains with his master and a friend who was wearing a jersey. "You sailor, Bob?" asked Ponto. "Yes, Ponto. I'm sailor-man." "No. You no sailor," responded Ponto decisively. "Yes. I tell you true. I'm sailor." Ponto: "Ah! me think you no big salt-water sailor. You only little fella creek sailor. You no got jacket--flash collar, knife alonga string!" A FATEFUL BARGAIN A squatter, travelling on foot with his black boy, came to a river almost a "banker," and there was no recourse but to swim. After Charcoal had taken a couple of trips with the clothes, the Boss told the boy to swim alongside him, in case of emergency. Halfway across, just as the Boss was feeling that there was some risk in swimming a flooded river in which were many snags, Charcoal cheerily observed--"Suppose you drowned finish, Boss, you gib me you pipe?" Summing up all the possibilities in a second, the Boss gasped out--"No; you bin get pipe when I'm across!" The boy's aid was prompt and effective. EXCUSABLE BIAS Two of the beachcombing class resumed an oft-recurring discussion on the seaworthiness of their respective dinghies. Tom, the silent black boy, a more experienced boatman than either, listened as he watched his own frail bark canoe dancing like a feather in response to every ripple. "Tom!" shouted one of the disputants, "suppose you want to go out in big wind and big sea, which boat you take? This one belonga me, or that one belonga your Boss?" Tom glanced at the boats with the eye of an expert, paused in the exercise of his judgment, and said with emphasis--"Me take 'em my boat!" THE TRIAL SCENE "Boiling Down," a boy with a not very reputable past, had once stood his trial for a serious offence. On returning to his free hills, he was wont to describe with rare art the trial scene. Clearing a patch of ground, he would place one chip to represent the judge--"big fella master"; a small chip would be His Honour's associate; twelve chips were the jurymen; three were the lawyers; a big chip between two others was "Boiling Down" with attendant policemen, and many scattered about stood for the audience. Having arranged his properties, the boy would proceed. "Big fella master, he bin say--'Boinin' Down, you hear me? You guinty--you not guinty?' Me bin say 'Guinty!'" At this point "Boiling Down" invariably broke into such paroxsyms of laughter that further utterance was impossible. Often as he attempted it, his narrative of the proceedings ended in such violent mirth that his hearers could not restrain themselves from joining in. They were obliged to acknowledge that he looked upon the affair as the funniest incident of his life. A REFLECTION ON THE HORSE A boy accustomed to see his master--the owner of a station--jump his horse over the gate instead of stopping to open it, tried to follow. The horse cantered up grandly, seemed to gather himself for the jump, and baulked. The boy shot out of the saddle and over the gate. As he picked himself up and shook the dust from his clothes he glared back at the horse, saying--"You blurry liar!" TRIUMPH OF MATTER OVER MIND Out on a station in the Burketown district an athletic black boy was employed. Trained by some friends, Charley developed such fleetness of foot that it was decided to enter him in sports which took place at Normanton and Croydon. In order that the public might be properly surprised, it was planned that Charley should run into second place at Normanton, and that at Croydon all possible honours were to be his. Immediately before starting at Normanton, Charley was told that he was not to win, because his backers wanted to make big money at Croydon. Charley ran a good second most of the way, made a spurt, and breasted the tape yards to the good. Taken aside, his friends angrily remonstrated with him. "Look here, Charley, what's the matter? I bin tell you run second. You come first--you spoil everything!" "Carn help it, Dick. Carn help it. Me bin bolt." THE RUSE THAT FAILED Miners in isolated camps where writing paper is not always available, scribble their orders for rations upon hastily tom margins of newspapers. A cute old black fellow named Bill who had frequently been entrusted with such notes and had borne away goods presented a scrap of paper innocent of writing at the store. "What? This from Tom?" asked the storekeeper naming one of his customers while he ran his eye over the paper. "Yowi! Tom bin make 'em." "What this fella talk?" "That fella talk plour; sugar, tea; two stick Derby," and, as a brilliant after thought--"bottle rum!" "All right, by and bye," remarked the storekeeper. The old man waited, and when it at last dawned upon him that his dodge for the pledging of Tom's credit had failed, stole away, convinced no doubt that there was some magic in the making of letters that he did not quite comprehend. THE BIG WORD A tracker, known as Billy Williams--who had passed out of the police service after many years of duty during which he had added largely to his burden of original sin and knowledge of English--stole a valuable diamond ring from the landlord of an hotel. Detected, and promptly brought before two justices of the peace, Billy pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. While escorting him to the lockup, the officer in charge remarked-- "Well, Billy, you lucky fella. You only get three months. I been think you in for a sixer." Billy--"By golly, Jack, me bin think me be disqualified for life." MICKIE'S VERSION Mickie is apt at repeating the sayings of others. Often his rendering of a commonplace becomes humorous by reason of a slight verbal twist. As the boys toiled to supplant a glorious strip of primeval jungle by a few formal rows of bananas, the boss, glancing over the ruined vegetation, remarked in encouraging tones "Well, we are getting on fine! Getting on like a house on fire!" For half an hour or so the boys hacked and chopped away at the vines and trees, and then Mickie swept the scene with a comprehensive glance, saying--"We getting on good fella now. All a same burning down house." HONOURABLE JOHNNY Johnny was much averse from work. "Work, work, work, all asame bullocky," as he put it, rasped on his feelings. At midday he was taking his case, while others toiled packing stones on a breakwater. One of them called out--"Why you no work, Johnny? You sit down all the time." Johnny--"Me bin work close up daylight. You lazy black niggers only work when Boss look out." THE TRANSFORMATION The wife of a squatter was about to leave the station for a few years, that her daughters might have the opportunity of acquiring accomplishments unobtainable in the Bush. When the hour of departure arrived, the blacks about the place loudly expressed their sorrow. One softhearted creature exclaimed amid the tears--"Good-bye, Miss Madge--good-bye, Miss Yola; me no see little girls any more. Two fella going away, try learn be lady!" MONEY-MAKING TRICK A boy who had visited a town and had been taken to a circus, gathered the camp together on the night of his return, and having given an account of the wonders he had seen, announced that he could make money. Satisfaction at such gift being tempered by doubt, the boy took his stand before the expectant semicircle, and having admirably mimicked a conjuror's patter, shouted--"Money!" A half-crown flashed in the air-to be deftly caught and exhibited on the boy's palm. This trick was repeated nightly. Conscious of the independence that money gives, the whole camp became demoralised, until investigation showed that the boy had a trained confederate in the person of his gin, who, standing apart, on the word, flicked the half-crown in the air. The boy lost his reputation as a maker of money, and his sole coin that self-same night. HONOURABLE CHASTISEMENT At a camp of the Native Mounted Police the sergeant reported a trooper for beating his gin. "What you bin doing, Paddy?" asked the sub-inspector. "You bin hammer 'em Topsy?" Paddy, at the salute--"Yes, sir, please sir, me bin hammer 'em that fella. That fella too flash; me no bin hammer 'em all asame black-fella. Hammer 'em all asame white man, alonga strap." Considering the customary means a black adopts to correct the indiscretions of his spouse, Paddy's offence was judged far too trivial for punishment. Topsy, too, was quite vain that Paddy had chastised her with all dignity and indulgence of a white man. "AND YOU TOO" Two ladies, who were wont to meet at infrequent intervals, spent the delightful morning in the settlement of arrears of gossip, while two black gins sat in the shade of a mango-tree, smoked incessantly and did nothing placidly. At dinner-time the latter began to chatter volubly, and the mistress of the house, in an outburst of vicarious energy, called from the verandah--"Come, Topsy--come, Rosey. You do nothing all day. You two fella talk all the time." Rosey--"Yes; me fella yabber, yabber, plenty--all asame white woman." PARADISE The beliefs of blacks on the subject of "the otherwhere" seem to be varied and adjustable to individual likes and predilections. Some indeed have no faith whatever in statements as to existence following upon death. Others assert that a delightful country is reached after a long and pleasant journey, that there reunion with relatives and friends takes place, and happiness is in store for all, good and bad alike. An intelligent boy was asked if after death all went along the same road to the aboriginal paradise. He was reminded that he was a good fellow, and that one of the members of the camp was notoriously a rogue. "Mootee go along a you, all asame place? That fella no good. You good fella." "Yes," he answered. "All one track me fella go. Good track--blenty tchugar-bag, blenty hegg, blenty wallaby, close up. You no wan' run about. Catch 'em blenty close up. Bi'mby me go long way. Me come more better country--blenty everything. Father belonga me sit down. He got two good young fella gins. My word, good one gins. He say--'Hello! you come up? You sit down here altogether. Two fella good gins belonga you!'" This was paradise! CHAPTER IV AND THIS OUR LIFE "I would admonish the world that all persons, indifferently, are not fit for this sort of diversion." Whereas the average town-dweller could not endure the commonplaces of Nature which entertain me, rouse my wonder, enliven my imagination, and gratify my inmost thoughts, so his pursuits are to me devoid of purpose, insipid, dismally unsatisfactory. To one whose everyday admission (apology if you like) is that he is not as other men are--fond of society and of society's occupations, pastimes, refinements, and (pardon) illusions--the unsoiled jungle is more desirable than all the prim parks and clipped gardens; all this amplitude of time and space than the one "crowded hour." Here I came to my birthright a heritage of nothing save the most glorious of all possessions: freedom--freedom beyond the dreams of most men in its comprehensiveness and exactitude. These few haphazard notes refer to the exercise of rare independence. They cannot be otherwise than trivial and dull, but they at least fulfil the purpose to which I was pledged. They reveal my puny efforts to be none other than myself. So tranquil, so uniform are our days, that but for the diary--the civilised substitute for the notched stick--count of them might be lost. And this extorts yet another confession. One year, Good Friday passed, and Easter-time had progressed to the joyful Monday, ere cognisance of the season came. Speedy is the descent to the automaton. A mechanical mis-entry in the diary threw all the orderly days of the week into a whirling jumble. We knew not Wednesday from Thursday, nor Thursday from Friday, though we calculated and checked notes of the transactions and traits of successive days. To what purpose was the effort to memorise one day from another when all were precisely alike in colour and uneventfulness? Each day had been blue--radiantly blue--nothing more. And the entries in the diary set at naught dogmatic assertions of disproof. But the steamer cuts a deep weekly notch. We jolted into it and became harmonised once more with the rigid calendar of the workaday world. Thus we keep the noiseless tenor of our way, finding in life if not great and gaudy pleasures, at least content and relief from many of the vexations that gnaw away the lives of the multitude. Though it was acknowledged a long time ago to be--indecorous--an abominable thing for a man to commend his ways; though his mode of living may not commend itself to others; though it may seem blank and colourless, thin and watery, devoid of expectation, and the hope of fame, name, and that kind of success which comes of the acquirement of riches, yet--and in a spirit of thankfulness be it said--the obscure and minor part the writer plays in the tragic-comedy of life affords gratification. He does what he likes to do. He frankly confesses that he sought isolation because of the lack of those qualities which make for dutiful citizenship, because of indifference to the ordinary enchantments of the kaleidoscopic world, not because of any lack of appreciation of the wisdom of the majority. He has dared to be what he is, rather than submit to be pulled this way and that on the rack of fashion and custom. Remember that "the measure of choosing well is whether a man likes what he has chosen." Other men have other ranks to take, other fates to command. Do not politicians and publicists; professional men and princes of trade; those who toil for others, with brain or hands; the charitable and the miserly; those who pine if removed from the noise and breath of the crowd; those who spend their days in meditation and study; those who live conscientiously every moment in "the gateway of the life eternal"; those who are at enmity to law and order; the honest toiler and the impostor, the thief and the rogue, each and all respectively find pleasure in the particular walk of life he elects to take? "Each to the favourite happiness attends." When God gave manna to His people, every Israelite found in it what best pleased him. "The young tasted bread, the old honey, and the children oil." No doubt an expert burglar feels as keen a sense of joy in the planning and execution of a deed of darkness demanding originality, skill, daring and resourcefulness, as does the humane surgeon in the performance of an operation for the salvation of a valuable life, or as does his lordship the bishop in the delivery of a homily overflowing with persuasive eloquence. The burglar has his appreciation of pleasure, and the others theirs; and so long as the pleasures of the individual are not immoral and dishonourable, do not trespass upon the rights and liberties of others, let each pursue that which allures. In the long run he will find himself responsible to himself; and if his days have been ill spent, and his opportunities slighted, his the punishment and the remorse. But-- "If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal--that is your success." 
9943	----	Notes in the book are shown in square brackets at the point referenced. Maps and plates not shown in the text version of this ebook ======================================================================= Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia In Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848) by Lt. Col. Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell Kt. D.C.L. (1792-1855) Surveyor-General of New South Wales TO THE HONOURABLE THE SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF NEW SOUTH WALES, THIS JOURNAL OF AN EXPEDITION OF DISCOVERY, PETITIONED FOR BY THE COUNCIL, AND UNDERTAKEN AT THE EXPENSE OF THE COLONY, IS DEDICATED BY THEIR MOST OBEDIENT, HUMBLE SERVANT, T. L. MITCHELL PREFACE. "Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,"[* Burns.] it has ever been the most attractive of the author's duties to explore the interior of Australia. There the philosopher may look for facts; the painter and the poet for original studies and ideas; the naturalist for additional knowledge; and the historian might begin at a beginning. The traveller there seeks in vain for the remains of cities, temples, or towers; but he is amply compensated by objects that tell not of decay but of healthful progress and hope;--of a wonderful past, and of a promising future. Curiosity alone may attract us into the mysterious recesses of regions still unknown; but a still deeper interest attaches to those regions, now that the rapid increase of the most industrious and, may we add most deserving people on earth, suggests that the land there has been reserved by the Almighty for their use. In Australia, the great family of civilized man seems still at that early period between history and fable, upon which, even in "the world as known to the ancients," the Roman poet had to look very far back:-- "Communemque priùs, ceu lumina solis et auras, Cautus humum longo signavit limite mensor." [* Ovid, Met. lib. i.] The Journey narrated in this work was undertaken for the extension of arrangements depending on physical geography. It completes a series of internal surveys, radiating from Sydney towards the west, the south, and the north, which have occupied the author's chief attention during the last twenty years; and, as on former occasions, it has enabled him to bring under the notice of men of science some of the earth's productions hitherto unknown. He cannot sufficiently express his sense of obligation in this respect, to Mr. Bentham, Sir William Hooker, Dr. Lindley, and Professor De Vriese, for supplying the botanical matter and notes contained in this volume, and thus contributing to the general stock of human knowledge. It is also his pleasing duty to state, that during the long journey of upwards of a year, Captain P. P. King, R. N., kept a register of the state of the barometer at the sea side; and, in the midst of his important avocations, determined, by a very elaborate comparison of minute details, all the heights of localities herein mentioned. The new geographical matter is presented to the public with confidence in its accuracy, derived as it is from careful and frequent observations of latitude; trigonometrical surveying with the theodolite, whereever heights were available; and, by actual measurement of the line of route. This route was connected, at its commencement and termination, with the trigonometrical survey of the colony; and, in closing on Mount Riddell, a survey extending two degrees within the tropics, the near coincidence of his intersections with that summit, as fixed by his survey of 1830, could not but be very satisfactory to the author. The geological specimens collected during this journey have been deposited in the British Museum, and their original locality is shown on the maps by the numbers marked upon the specimens, so that they may be available to geologists; hence, in the progress of geological science, the fossils now brought from these remote regions will be accessible at any future time, and something known of the geology as well as of the geography of the interior. As Professor Forbes most readily undertook to describe the freshwater shells after the work had passed through the press, that portion of the collection also has thus been brought under the notice of geologists. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. GENERAL MAP Objects of the expedition.--Unexpected delay--by reference to Lord Stanley.--List of the Party.--Departure from Buree.--Sheep stations.-- Scattered population.--Passage through Hervey's Range.--Encroachment of sheep on cattle runs.--A tea-totaller.--Meet an old acquaintance.-- Sulphureous springs.--Currandong--Necessity for damming up the Bogan. Leave Bultje's country.--Ephemeral existence of Aborigines.--Line between the squatters and the wild natives.--Velocity of the Bogan.--Supply of young bullocks.--Richard Cunningham--Young cattle troublesome.--A night without water.--Distress from heat and thirst.--Excessive heat.--Reunion of the party.--Melancholy fate of the Bogan tribe.--Interesting plants discovered.--Encampment at Mudaà.--Carry water forward.--Arrive at Daròbal.--Nyingan.--Water at Canbelègo.--Discovery of a lagoon.--Encamp near Canbelègo. Explore the Bogan in search of water.--Long ride.--Quit the Bogan.--Party attacked with ophthalmia CHAPTER II. MAP OF THE RIVERS BOGAN AND MACQUARIE Move to the ponds of Cannonbà.--Set up our bivouac.--Hot wind.--Piper's intention to quit the party.--Piper sent to Bathurst.--Change of weather.--A day of rain.--Mr. Kennedy returns.--Salt made from the salt plant.--Reconnoitre Duck Creek.--Ophthalmia still troublesome.--Approach of a flood announced.--It arrives in clear moonlight.--(Frontispiece.)-- Marshes of the Macquarie.--Difficulty of watering cattle.--(Plate 2. p. 61.) A new guide.--Cattle astray.--Yulliyally.--Docility of the Aborigines.--Water insufficient for cattle.--Want of water.--Small ponds destroyed by cattle.--At last find abundance.--Aboriginal preferable to modern names.--Cattle again astray--and delay the journey.--Junction of the Macquarie and Bàrwan.--The Darling as at present, and formerly.-- Admirable distribution of water. The ford at Wyàbry.--The party crosses the Darling CHAPTER III. MAP OF THE RIVERS NARRAN, CULGOA, AND BALONNE TO ST. GEORGE'S BRIDGE,-- SHOWING ALSO THE ROUTE HOMEWARD, AS DESCRIBED IN CHAPTER X. Plains and low hills.--The Caràwy ponds.--Delayed by weak cattle.--The Narran.--Arrived at--encamp by:--Narran swamp.--A bridge required.-- During the delay of drays take a ride forward.--Rich pastures on the Narran.--New plants.--Arrival of drays.--Bridge laid down for their passage.--The party fords the Narran.--Advances but slowly.--Low hills examined.--Good grassy country.--Food of the natives.--Rising ground west of the river.--Ride up.--Abodes and food of natives.--Rich grass.--Parley with a native.--Gravelly ridges.--Two natives conduct us to the river.-- Approach the assembled natives.--Interview with the tribes.--Cordial reception.--Cross the Balonne.--Reach the Culgòa.--Cross that river.-- Route beyond.--The Upper Balonne.--Explore its course.--Numerals cut on trees.--A native scamp.--Fine country.--Splendid reaches of the river (Plate 3. page 119.)--Lagoons near it.--Lake Parachute.--Seek a position--for a depôt camp.--Ride to the north-west.--Character of the country.--Search for water. Uncommon birds.--Return to the camp.--New Acacia CHAPTER IV. MAP OF THE ADVANCE TO THE MARANÒA--SHOWING ALSO THE ROUTE BY WHICH THE PARTY RETURNED TO ST. GEORGE'S BRIDGE, AS DESCRIBED IN CHAPTER VII. Advance with a light party.--Fine river scenery.--Junction of rivers.-- Trace one up, then cross to the other.--Mr. Kennedy instructed to explore it.--Fine country for grazing.--Turanimga lagoon.--Trace up a small tributary.--Mountains discovered.--Camp visited by three natives.--"Cogoon" the name of tributary.--Charms of the Australian climate.--Mount Minute.--Extreme cold.--Traces of high floods in the Cnogoa.---Mount Inviting.--Mount Abundance.--Ascend that mountain.-- Fitzroy Downs.--The Bottle Tree, or DELABECHEA.--Frosty Creek.--Travel due north over open downs.--Advantages of mountains.--Ascend one.--Mount Bingo.--Thenod Tagando tribe.--The party advances to the Amby--followed by the tribe.--How we got rid of them.--Enter the country through the pass.--Find one pond.--A large river discovered.--Position taken up on its banks.--There await Mr. Kennedy's arrival.--Explore to the north- west.--Ascend a hill and tree to take angles from.--Interior country visited.--View of the western interior.--Its character.--Determine to trace the river upwards.--Ascend Mount Kennedy.--Extensive prospect.-- Native visit during my absence.--Arrival of Mr. Kennedy's party.--The Tagando tribe again.--Their visit to Mr. Kennedy.--Prepare to advance again with a light party.--Instructions left with Mr. Kennedy CHAPTER V. MAP OF THE COUNTRY AND THE ROUTES BETWEEN THE MARANOA AND MOUNT MUDGE, AND THOSE ALONG THE RIVER VICTORIA AS DESCRIBED IN CHAPTER VII. My departure.--A team of bullocks sent back for.--Good grassy country.-- Ride north-west during rain.--Hostile natives menace our camp.--The party crosses Possession Creek.--A small river found.--Another ride to the north-west.--Banks of the little river.--Mount Owen seen.--Travel towards it.--Flank movement to the Maranòa for water.--None found in its bed.-- View from Mount Owen.--Names of localities on the map.--Scarcity of water impedes our progress.--Water found in rocky gullies.--Excursion northward.--Mount Aquarius.--View from northern summit of Mount Owen.-- Progress through a broken country.--Night without water.--Another route explored amongst the gullies.--Plants found near Mount Owen.--Route for the advance of the carts.--View of mountains--from Mount P. P. King.-- View from western extremity of Table Land of Hope.--Mount Faraday.-- Strange Hakea.--A running stream discovered.--Return towards the camp.-- The party with the carts advances.--(Pyramids, Plate IV., page 222.)-- Course of the new found river.--New plants.--A large lake receives the river.--(Plate V., John Martin's Range, page 225.)--The outlet dry.-- Enter a scrub.--Return to the Salvator.--Discovery of the Claude.--Rich soil on the downs.--The party moves to the Claude.--Cross that river. Fossil wood.--Again shut up in a rocky country.--Slow progress in a gully.--Balmy Creek.--New plants.--Emerge from the ravines.--Tower Almond.--(Pl. 6. page 237.)--View from Mount Kilsyth.--View from Mount Mudge.--Two natives met.--Remarkable tree CHAPTER VI. MAP OF THE RIVER BELYANDO, Head of another river.--Water again scarce.--Abundance found.--Climate and country--under the Tropic Line.--Plants.--Peculiar character of the water-course.--One cause of open spaces in the woods.--New plants.-- Causes of the outspread of channel.--Plains of wild indigo.--Large river channel from the south.--Cross.--Novelties beyond.--The river much increased.--Long journey through scrub.--New plants.--Journey along the river bank.--Character of this river.--Distant prospect.--No water.-- Fatiguing journey through scrubs. Reach the river by moonlight.--Large lagoons.--New tributary--from the S. W.--Excursion to the N. W.--Night without water.--Interview with natives.--Camp visited by natives during my absence.--An affair at the camp.--The party crosses the river.-- Conclusions.--The party returns.--Tilled ground of the natives.--The shepherd astray.--Singular phenomenon.--Extraordinary vegetable production.--Heavy rain comes on.--Probability of finding a river.-- Singular meteor.--Intertropical temperature.--Effects of the rain.-- Recross the Tropic.--Regain the higher land.--Remarkable tree.--(Hakea?)--Dip of the strata.--Character of the Belyando.--How to explore a river in brigalow.--A more direct way homewards.--Successful passage with carts and drays.--Open downs.--Fossil wood.--Recross the Claude.--Mantuan downs.--Natives of the Salvator.--Position taken up for a depôt camp.--Interesting plants.--(View on the Salvator, Pl. 8.) CHAPTER VII. (Having reference to Map V., Page 189.) Preparations and departure.--Mount Pluto.--Route amongst the three volcanic hills.--Interview with a female native.--Cross a range beyond.-- The Nive and the Nivelle.--Burning of grass by the natives.--Water found, after a night of thirst.--Pastures green, and quiet waters at sunset.-- Morning view from a rock.--A new river followed down-over extensive open downs.--Brigalow scrubs away from the river.--River much increased.-- Security from natives--Thoughts in these solitudes.--The downs and the river.--An emu shot there.--A river joins from the east.--Structure of native's huts.--Two separate channels unite.--The river well filled.-- Packhorse unserviceable.--Rare pigeon--numerous.--A wild tribe-- surprised at a lagoon.--Recross the river--and return homewards.--The savage compared--with the civilized.--Hills in the S. W.--Short cut along the left bank of the river.--Name it the Victoria.--Privations in exploring.--Return to the Nive and Nivelle.--Gallant charge by a snake.-- Sources of the Salvator.--View from Mount Pluto.--Arrival at the camp of the pyramids.--Rare and new plants collected there.--(View of Lindley's Range, Pl. 9.) CHAPTER VIII. (Having reference to Map V., Page 189., and Map IV., Page 133.) Fossils and plants.--A new genus.--LINSCHOTENIA DISCOLOR.--Ascend Mount Faraday.--Valley of the Warregò.--Meet an old native.--Return to the camp over the gullies.--Encamp by the Maranòa.--The river found to be near our former track--with water in abundance.--Loss of a horse.--Cattle tracks.--Arrival at the camp of Mr. Kennedy.--Visits of the natives-- during our absence.--(Pl. 7. ABORIGINAL DANCE, page 358).--Plants gathered at the depôt camp.--New plants.--Fossils at Mount Sowerby.-- Ascent of Mount Kennedy.--The party leaves the depôt camp following the course of the Maranòa.--Discovery of a fine open country.--Numbered trees at camps.--The country on the Maranòa.--Singular habits of a fish.--Name of river obtained from good authority.--(Pl. 10. VIEW ON THE MARANÒA, page 372).--The Acacia varians.--Water scarce again.--Some at length discovered by a dog.--Country between the two routes.--Plants.--Arrive at the Balonne.--Return to St. George's Bridge CHAPTER IX. (Having reference to Map III., Page 81.) (VIEW OF ST. GEORGE'S BRIDGE, Pl. 11)--Despatches sent forward.-- Acquisitions during the delay.--Mr. Kennedy's return and report.--The party crosses the Balonne.--Arrives at the Mooni.--A white woman.--Cattle stations.--Heavy rain.--The country impassable.--Camp removed to a hill.--Dam thrown up.--The waters subside.--The party proceeds.--Arrival at the Barwan.--A flood.--(Pl. 12. LAST USE OF THE BOATS, page 395).-- Cross the Màal, also in boats.--Country between the rivers.--Mount Riddell recognised.--The Gwydir crossed.--Termination of the journey.--A stockman.--Night on the open plain.--The Nammoy.--First news CHAPTER X. Instructions to Mr. Kennedy for the survey of the river Victoria.--Of the Aborigines.--Simple conditions of human existence.--Grass, fire, kangaroos, and men.--Case of the aboriginal natives.--My native guides.-- Experiment worth trying.--Of the Convicts.--Character of the men of the party.--Of convicts generally.--Of the Colony of New South Wales,-- capabilities of soil and climate.--Progress of colonization,--Division and appropriation of the territory.--Capricornia and Austral-india MAP OF EASTERN AUSTRALIA Page 430 APPENDIX. The Colonial Secretary to the Surveyor General of New South Wales.-- Letter, dated 28th October, 1830 Systematical List of Plants ILLUSTRATIONS. [Not included in the text-file version of this eBook] Flood coming down the Macquarie (pl. 1. p. 58) Map I. The Indian Archipelago Portrait of Bultje Remnant of the Bogan tribe Map II. The Rivers Bogan and Macquarie First use of the boats (pl. 2) Map III. The Rivers Narran, Culgoa, and Balonne to St. George's Bridge, shewing also the route thence homeward to Snodgrass Lagoon Separation of the Balonne into the Culgoa, Narran, &c. The River Balonne, 7th April (pl. 3) Map IV. Advance to the Maranòa, and route returning to St. George's Bridge The Bottle tree, DELABECHEA The black awaiting the white Map V. The country and the routes between the Maranòa and Mount Mudge, and those along the River Victoria Tree without branches The Pyramids (pl. 4) Martin's Range (pl. 5) Tower Almond (pl. 6) Map VI. The River Belyando Missile club of natives of Central Australia Remarkable tree (HAKEA ?) The River Salvator, 5th Sept. (pl. 8) Lindley's Range (pl. 9) Old native female Aboriginal dance (pl. 7) View on the River Maranòa (pl. 10) Acacia VARIANS St. Georgia's Bridge (pl. 11) Last use of the boats (pl. 12) Map VII. Eastern Australia, with recent discoveries * * * * * JOURNEY INTO TROPICAL AUSTRALIA, ETC. Chapter I. OBJECTS OF THE EXPEDITION.--IT IS DELAYED BY A REFERENCE TO LORD STANLEY.--LIST OF THE PARTY.--DEPARTURE FROM BUREE.--SCATTERED POPULATION.--IRISH AMONGST THE SQUATTERS.--A TEA-TOTALLER FROM SYDNEY.--A SHEPHERDESS IN AUSTRALIA. SHEEP WALK WHERE CATTLE RUN.--MEET AN OLD ABORIGINAL ACQUAINTANCE.--CATTLE STATIONS ABANDONED.--THE BOGAN RIVER.-- YOUNG BULLOCKS TROUBLESOME.--EXCESSIVE HEAT.--GREAT SCARCITY OF WATER.-- THE PARTY MUCH DISTRESSED BY HEAT AND DROUGHT.--MELANCHOLY FATE OF THE BOGAN TRIBE.--INTERESTING PLANTS DISCOVERED.--CARRY WATER FORWARD.-- DESPERATE RIDE DOWN THE BOGAN.--FIND ITS CHANNEL DRY.--DOGS DIE FROM THIRST.--THE PARTY ATTACKED WITH OPHTHALMIA.--QUIT THE BOGAN, BY MOVING TO THE PONDS OF CANNONBÀ.--ENCAMP THERE TO REST AND REFRESH THE PARTY. The exploration of Northern Australia, which formed the object of my first journey in 1831, has, consistently with the views I have always entertained on the subject [* See London Geographical Journal, vol. vii. part 2, p. 282.], been found equally essential in 1846 to the full development of the geographical resources of New South Wales. The same direction indicated on Mr. Arrowsmith's map, published by the Royal Geographical Society in 1837, was, in 1846, considered, by a committee of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, the most desirable to pursue at a time when every plan likely to relieve the colony from distress found favour with the public. At no great distance lay India and China, and still nearer, the rich islands of the Indian Archipelago; all well-peopled countries, while the industrious and enterprising colonists of the South were unable to avail themselves of the exuberance of the soil and its productions, "Which mock'd their scant manurings, and requir'd MORE HANDS THAN THEIRS to prune their wanton growth." The same attraction which drew the greatest of discoverers westward, "al nacimiento de la especeria [* To the region where spices grew.]," seemed to invite the Australian explorer northward; impelled by the wayward fortunes of the Anglo-Saxon race already rooted at the southern extremity of the land whose name had previously been "Terra Australis incognita." The character of the interior of that country still remained unknown, the largest portion of earth as yet unexplored. For the mere exploration, the colonists of New South Wales might not have been very anxious just at that time, but when the object of acquiring geographical knowledge could be combined with that of exploring a route towards the nearest part of the Indian Ocean, westward of a dangerous strait, it was easy to awaken the attention of the Australian public to the importance of such an enterprise. A trade in horses required to remount the Indian cavalry had commenced, and the disadvantageous navigation of Torres Straits had been injurious to it: that drawback was to be avoided by any overland route from Sydney to the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria. But other considerations, not less important to the colonists of New South Wales, made it very desirable that a way should be opened to the shores of the Indian Ocean. That sea was already connected with England by steam navigation, and to render it accessible to Sydney by land, was an object in itself worthy of an exploratory expedition. In short, the commencement of such a journey seemed the first step in the direct road home to England, for it was not to be doubted that on the discovery of a good overland route between Sydney and the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, a line of steam communication would thereupon be introduced from that point to meet the English line at Singapore. In this view of the subject, it seemed more desirable to open a way to the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, the nearest part of the sea, than to the settlement at Port Essington, on a presque-île forming the furthest point of the land; and, that the journey would terminate at the Gulf was therefore most probable. The map of Australia, when compared with that of the world, suggested reasonable grounds for believing that a considerable river would be found to lead to the Gulf of Carpentaria. My department having been reduced to a state of inactivity in 1843, I submitted a plan of exploration to Sir George Gipps, the Governor, when His Excellency promised, that if the Legislative Council made such reductions as they seemed disposed to make in the public expenditure, he should be able to spare money for such an expedition. The Legislative Council not only made reductions in the estimates to save much more money than His Excellency had named, but even voted 1000L. towards the expense of the journey, and petitioned the Governor to sanction it. His Excellency, however, then thought it necessary to refer the subject to the Secretary for the Colonies. Much time was thus lost, and, what was still worse, the naturalist to whom I had explained my plan, and invited to join my party, Dr. Leichardt. This gentleman, tempted by the general interest taken by the colonists at the time in a journey of discovery, which afforded a cheering prospect amid the general gloom and despondency, raised and equipped a small party by public subscription, and proceeded by water to Moreton Bay. Dr. Leichardt, and the six persons who finally accompanied him thence to the northward, had not been heard of, and were supposed to have either perished or been destroyed by natives. [* Dr. Leichhardt returned afterwards to Sydney from Port Essington by sea; and the journal of his journey, recently published, shows what difficulties may be surmounted by energy and perseverance.] The reply of Lord Stanley was, as might have been anticipated, favourable to the undertaking; but the Governor of the colony still declined to allow the journey to be undertaken, without assigning any reason for keeping it back. This was the more regretted by me, when it became known in New South Wales that Captain Sturt was employed, with the express sanction of Lord Stanley, to lead an exploring expedition from Adelaide into the northern interior of Australia, and that he was actually then in New South Wales. Sir George Gipps had expressed, in one of his early despatches to the British Government, his readiness to encourage such an undertaking as that, and stated that "no one came forward to claim the honour of such an enterprise;" yet now that Lord Stanley had sanctioned the plan of the Surveyor General, whose duty it was to survey the country, he refused to allow this officer to proceed. The Legislative Council, however, renewed the petition for this undertaking, to which the Governor at length assented, in 1845; and the sum of 2000L. was unanimously voted for the outfit of the party, but with the clear understanding on the part of the Council, that the plan of the Surveyor General should be adopted. The idea of a river flowing to the northward, was not, however, new. The journey in 1831 was undertaken chiefly in consequence of a report that a large river had been followed down to the coast by a bushranger, accompanied by the natives: and the ultimate course of the Condamine, still a question, was a subject of controversy in some of the first papers published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. My suggestions on the subject are detailed at length in the London Geographical Journal, Vol. VII., Part 2., page 282., and accompanied by a map showing the line of exploration then recommended. In making preparations for this expedition, the means of conveyance by land and water required the earliest consideration. These were strong bullock-drays and portable boats. Horses and light carts had been preferred by me: but the longer column of march, and necessity for a greater number of men, were considered objections; while many experienced persons suggested that the bullocks, though slow, were more enduring than horses. [* The results of this journey proved quite the reverse.] Eight drays were therefore ordered to be made of the best seasoned wood: four of these by the best maker in the colony, and four by the prisoners in Cockatoo Island. Two iron boats were made by Mr. Struth, each in two parts, on a plan of my own, and on the 17th of November the whole party moved off from Paramatta on their way to the proposed camp at Buree. I joined the party encamped at Buree on the 13th of December, having rode there from Sydney in four and a half days, and on the following Monday, 15th of December, 1845, I put it in motion towards the interior. The Exploring party now consisted of the following persons:-- SIR T. L. MITCHELL, Kt., Surveyor General, Chief of the Expedition. EDMUND B. KENNEDY, Esq. Assistant Surveyor, Second in command. W. STEPHENSON, M.R.C.S.L. Surgeon and Collector of objects of Natural History. PETER M'AVOY, Mounted Videttes. Charles Niblett, William Graham, ANTHONY BROWN, Tent-keeper. WILLIAM BALDOCK, In charge of the horses. John Waugh Drysdale, Store-keeper. Allan Bond, Bullock-drivers. Edward Taylor, William Bond, William Mortimer, George Allcot, John Slater, Richard Horton, Felix Maguire, James Stephens, Carpenters. Job Stanley, Edward Wilson, Blacksmith. George Fowkes, Shoemaker. John Douglas, Barometer carrier. Isaac Reid, Sailor and Chainman. Andrew Higgs, Chainman. William Hunter, With the horses. Thomas Smith, Patrick Travers, Carter and Pioneer. Douglas Arnott, Shepherd and Butcher. Arthur Bristol, Sailmaker and Sailor. 8 drays, drawn by 80 bullocks; 2 boats; 13 horses; 4 private do.; and 3 light carts, comprised the means of conveyance; and the party was provided with provisions for a year:--250 sheep (to travel with the party), constituting the chief part of the animal food. The rest consisted of gelatine, and a small quantity of pork. With the exception of a few whose names are printed in italics, the party consisted of prisoners of the Crown in different stages of probation, with whom the prospect of additional liberty was an incentive so powerful, that no money payment was asked by them or expected, while, from experience, I knew that for such an enterprise as this I could rely on their zealous services. The patience and resolution of such men in the face of difficulties, I had already witnessed; and I had hired three of the old hands, in order the more readily to introduce my accustomed camp arrangements. Volunteers of all classes had certainly come eagerly forward, offering their gratuitous services on this expedition of discovery; but discipline and implicit obedience were necessary in such a party to ensure the objects in view, as well as its own preservation; and it was not judged expedient, where some prisoners were indispensable as mechanics, to mix with them men of a different class, over whom the same kind of authority could not be exercised. Following the same road by which I quitted Buree, in 1835, my former line of route across Hervey's Range lay to the left. The party thus arrived at Bramadura, a sheep station occupied by Mr. Boyd. It was on the same chain of ponds crossed by me on the journey of 1835, and then named Dochendoras Creek, but now known as the Mundadgery chain of ponds. These ponds had been filled by heavy rains which fell on Tuesday the 9th December--the day on which I left Sydney, where the weather had been clear and sultry. A tornado or hurricane had, on the same day, levelled part of the forest near this place, laying prostrate the largest trees, one side of which was completely barked by the hailstones. Many branches of trees along the line of route, showed that the wind had been very violent to a considerable distance. 16TH DECEMBER.--Some of the bullocks missing: the party could not, therefore, quit the camp until 11 o'clock. The passage of the bed of the chain of ponds (which we travelled up) was frequently necessary, and difficult for heavily laden drays, which I found ours were, owing, chiefly to a superabundance of flour, above the quantity I intended to have taken, but supplied to my party, and brought forty miles by my drays before my arrival at the camp. We halted at another sheep station of Mr. Boyd's. Here I perceived that Horehound grew abundantly; and I was assured by Mr. Parkinson, a gentleman in charge of these stations, that this plant springs up at all sheep and cattle stations throughout the colony, a remarkable fact, which may assist to explain another, namely, the appearance of the Couchgrass, or Dog's-tooth-grass, wherever the white man sets his foot, although previously unknown in these regions. 17TH DECEMBER.--Set off about 7 A.M. and travelled along a good road, for about 6 miles. Then, at a sheep station, we crossed the chain of ponds, following a road leading to Dr. Ramsay's head station, called Balderudgery. Leaving that road, and, at 7 miles, taking to the left, we finally encamped on Spring Creek, after a journey of about 9 miles. We had passed over what I should have called a poor sort of country, but everywhere it was taken up for sheep; and these looked fat; yet not a blade of grass could be seen; and, but for the late timely supply of rain, it had been in contemplation to withdraw these flocks to the Macquarie. Calling at a shepherd's hut to ask the way, an Irish woman appeared with a child at her breast and another by her side: she was hut-keeper. She had been there two years, and only complained that they had never been able to get any potatoes to plant. She and her husband were about to leave the place next day, and they seemed uncertain as to where they should go. Two miles further on, a shoemaker came to the door of a hut, and accompanied me to set me on the right road. I inquired how he found work in these wild parts. He said, he could get plenty of work, but very little money; that it was chiefly contract work he lived by: he supplied sheep-owners with shoes for their men, at so much per pair. His conversation was about the difficulty a poor man had in providing for his family. He had once possessed about forty cows, which he had been obliged to entrust to the care of another man, at 5S. per head. This man neglected them: they were impounded and sold as unlicensed cattle under the new regulations. "So you saw no more of them?" "Oh, yes, your honour, I saw some of them AFTER THEY HAD BEEN SOLD AT THE POUND!--I wanted to have had something provided for a small family of children, and if I had only had a few acres of ground, I could have kept my cows." This was merely a passing remark made with a laugh as we walked along, for he was one of the race-- "Who march to death with military glee." But the fate of a poor man's family was a serious subject: such was the hopeless condition of a useful mechanic ready for work even in the desolate forests skirting the haunts of the savage. So fares it with the DISJECTA MEMBRA of towns and villages, when such arrangements are left to the people themselves in a new colony. 18TH DECEMBER.--The party moved off about 7 A.M., and continued along a tolerable road, crossing what shepherds called Seven Mile Creek, in which there was some water; and a little further on we quitted the good beaten road leading to Balderudgery, and followed one to the left, which brought us to another sheep station on the same chain of ponds, three miles higher up than Balderudgery. Having directed the party to encamp here, I pursued the road south-westward along the chain of ponds, anxious to ascertain whether I could in that direction pass easily to the westward of Hervey's Range, and so fall into my former line of route to the Bogan. At about five miles I found an excellent opening through which the road passed on ground almost level. Having ascended a small eminence on the right, I fell in with some natives with spears, who seemed to recognise me, by pointing to my old line of route, and saying, "Majy Majy" (Major Mitchell). I little thought then that this was already an outlying picquet of the Bogan Blacks, sent forward to observe my party. The day was hot, therm. 97° in the shade. The chain of ponds, there called "the Little River," contained water in abundance, and was said to flow into the Macquarie, in which case the Bogan can have but few sources in Hervey's Range. The station beside which we had encamped, comprised a stock yard, and had been formerly a cattle station belonging to Mr. Kite. It was now a sheep station of Dr. Ramsay's, and there was another sheep station a mile and a half from it, along the road I had examined. Thus the country suitable for either kind of stock is taken up by the gradual encroachment of sheep on cattle runs, not properly such. This easily takes place--as where sheep feed, cattle will not remain, and sheep will fatten where cattle would lose flesh. Fortunately, however, for the holders of the latter description of stock, there are limits to this kind of encroachment. The plains to the westward of these ranges afford the most nutritive pasturage in the world for cattle, and they are too flat and subject to inundations to be desirable for sheep. A zone of country of this description lies on the interior side of the ranges, as far as I have examined them. It is watered by the sources of the rivers Goulburn, Ovens, Murray, Murrumbidgee, Lachlan, Bogan, Macquarie, Castlereagh, Nammoy, Peel, Gwydir, and Darling; on which rivers the runs will always make cattle fat. There are two shrubs palpably salt, and, perhaps, there is something salsolaceous in the herbage also on which cattle thrive so well; and the open plains and muddy waterholes are their delight. Excessive drought, however, may occasionally reduce the owners of such stock to great extremities, and subject them to serious loss. The Acacia pendula, a tree whose HABITAT is limited and remarkable, is much relished by the cattle. It is found only in clay soils, on the borders of plains, which are occasionally so saturated with water as to be quite impassable; never on higher ground nor on any lower than that limited sort of locality, in the neighbourhood of rivers which at some seasons overflow. In such situations, even where grass seems very scarce, cattle get fat; and it is a practice of stockmen to cut down the Acacia pendula (or Myall trees, as they call them) for the cattle to feed on. At this sheep station where we had encamped, I met with an individual who had seen better days, and had lost his property amid the wreck of colonial bankruptcies--a tea-totaller, with Pope's Essay on Man for his consolation, in a bark hut. This "melancholy Jaques" lamented the state of depravity to which the colony was reduced, and assured me that there were shepherdesses in the bush! This startling fact should not be startling, but for the disproportion of sexes, and the squatting system which checks the spread of families. If pastoralisation were not one thing, and colonisation another, the occupation of tending sheep should be as fit and proper for women as for men. The pastoral life, so favourable to love and the enjoyment of nature, has ever been a favourite theme of the poet. Here it appears to be the antidote of all poetry and propriety, only because man's better half is wanting. Under this unfavourable aspect the white man first comes before the aboriginal native; were the intruders accompanied by women and children, they could not be half so unwelcome. One of the most striking differences between squatting and settling in Australia consists in this. Indeed if it were an object to uncivilise the human race, I know of no method more likely to effect it than to isolate a man from the gentler sex and children; remove afar off all courts of justice and means of redress of grievances, all churches and schools, all shops where he can make use of money, then place him in close contact with savages. "What better off am I than a black native?" was the exclamation of a shepherd to me just before I penned these remarks. 19TH DECEMBER.--The party moved along the road I had previously examined. On passing through to the western side, I recognised the trees, plants, and birds of the interior regions. Granitic hills appeared on each side, and the sweet-scented Callitris grew around, with many a curious shrub never seen to the eastward of these ranges. On descending, grassy valleys, with gullies containing little or no water, reminded me of former difficulties in the same vicinity, and it was not until we had travelled upwards of sixteen miles that I could encamp near water. This consisted of some very muddy holes of the Goobang Creek, on which I had formerly been pleasantly encamped with Mr. Cunningham. [* See Vol. I. of Three Expeditions, etc., page 171.] Two or three natives soon made their appearance, one of whom I immediately recognised to be my old friend Bultje, who had guided me from thence to the Bené Rocks, on my former journey along the Bogan. He brought an offering of honey. Ten years had elapsed since I formerly met the same native in the same valley, and time had made no alteration in his appearance. With the same readiness to forward my views that he formerly evinced, he informed me where the water was to be found; and how I should travel so as to fall in with my former route, by the least possible DÉTOUR. Mount Laidley bore 23° E. of N. 20TH DECEMBER.--This day I gave the cattle a rest, as the grass seemed good, while I rode to look at my old line of marked trees. A cattle station (of Mr. Kite) was within a mile and a half of our camp, and at about three miles below it, I fell in with the former line. Where it crossed the Goobang, a track still continued by them, but finally diverged, leaving the line of marked trees, without the slightest trace of the wheels or hoofs that had formerly passed by it. Reaching a hill laid down on my former survey, and from which I recognised Mount Laidley, I returned directly to the camp. We had encamped near those very springs mentioned as seen on my former journey, but instead of being limpid and surrounded by verdant grass, as they had been then, they were now trodden by cattle into muddy holes, where the poor natives had been endeavouring to protect a small portion from the cattle's feet, and keep it pure, by laying over it trees they had cut down for the purpose. The change produced in the aspect of this formerly happy secluded valley, by the intrusion of cattle and the white man, was by no means favourable, and I could easily conceive how I, had I been an aboriginal native, should have felt and regretted that change. The springs which issue from the level plains of clay, while the bed of the water-course some twenty feet lower continues dry and dusty, are numerous. One had a strong taste of sulphur, and might probably be as salubrious as other springs more celebrated. They show that, in this country at least, the water-courses are not supplied by springs, but depend wholly on heavy torrents of rain descending from the mountains. Some holes in the bed of the Goobang Creek did however retain some water which had fallen during the last rain. The thermometer stood at 107° in the tent. 21ST DECEMBER.--Guided by my old friend Bultje, we pursued a straight line of route through the forest to Currandong, which was half way to the Bogan. We passed over a very open, gently undulating country, just heading a gully called Brotherba--showing how well our guide knew the country--and we reached Currandong at 2 o'clock. Here also were two flocks belonging to Dr. Ramsay; Balderudgery, the head station, being fifteen miles distant, by a mountain road through a gap. While travelling this day, Corporal Graham overtook me with letters from Buree, and a cart had also been sent after us by Mr. Barton with a small supply of corn. That country is considered excellent as a fattening run for sheep; the shepherd told me they there find a salt plant, which keeps them in excellent condition and heart for feeding. The scarcity of water at some seasons occasions a conversion here of cattle runs into sheep runs, and VICE VERSÂ, a contingency which seems to render these lands of Hervey's range of temporary and uncertain value. 22D DECEMBER.--Guided by Bultje we continued to follow down the little chain of ponds which, as he said, led to the Bogan. The road was good-- the Currandong ponds running in a general direction about N. N. W. It was the first of the sources of the Bogan we had reached. Crossing at length to its left bank, near an old lambing station of Dr. Ramsay's, we further on came to a large plain with the Yarra trees of the Bogan upon its western skirts. Some large lagoons on the eastern side of the plains had been filled by the late rains, and cattle lay beside them. We at length arrived in sight of a cattle station of Mr. Templar's, called Ganànaguy, and encamped on the margin of a plain opposite to it. The cattle here looked very fat, and although the herd comprised about 2000 head, there was abundance of grass. The Bogan thus first appeared on our left hand, and must have its sources in the comparatively low hills, about the country crossed by my former line of route, rather than in Hervey's or Croker's ranges, as formerly supposed. The water in the ponds of the Bogan seemed low. This fine grazing country had been abandoned more than once from the failure of the water, and yet these ponds seemed capable of holding an almost inexhaustible supply. A single dam would have retained the water for miles, the Bogan always flowing through clay in a bed of uniform width and depth like a canal. No doubt a little art and labour would be sufficient to render the land permanently habitable: but on an uncertain tenure this remedy was not likely to be applied, and therefore the sovereignty of art's dominion remained unasserted there. The incursions of the savage, who is learning to "bide his time" on the Darling, are greatly encouraged by the hardships of the colonists when water is scarce; and I was shown where no less than 800 head of fat bullocks had been run together by them when water was too abundant. Then horses cannot travel, and cattle stick fast in the soft earth and are thus at the mercy of the natives. The stone ovens, such as they prepare for cooking kangaroos, had been used for the consumption of about twenty head of cattle a day, by the wild tribes who had assembled from the Darling and lower Bogan on that occasion. Thermometer in tent 109° at noon, wind W.N.W. 23D DECEMBER.--We crossed the Bogan (flowing eastward) at Mr. Templar's station at Ganànaguy, and the overseer most hospitably stood by the party as it passed with a bucket of milk, of which he gave a drink to each of the men. Bultje put us on the right road to the next nearest water-holes (Mr. Gilmore's station), and having rendered me the service he promised, I gave him the tomahawk, pipe, and two figs of tobacco promised him, and also took a sketch of his singularly Socratic face. This native got a bad name from various stockmen, as having been implicated in the murder of Mr. Cunningham. Nothing could be more unfounded; and it must indeed require in a man so situated the wisdom of a Socrates to maintain his footing, or indeed his life, between the ignorant stockmen or shepherds on one hand, and the savage tribes on the other. These latter savages naturally regard those who are half civilised, in the same light as we should look on deserters to the enemy, and are extremely hostile to them, while perhaps even his very usefulness to our party had most unjustly connected this native's name with the murder of one of our number. His laconic manner and want of language would not admit of any clear explanation of how much he had done to serve our race--and the difficulties he had to encounter with his own; while the circumstance of his having been met with at an interval of ten years in the same valley in a domesticated state, if it did not establish any claim to the soil, at least proved his strong attachment to it, and a settled disposition. Much tact must be necessary on his part to avoid those savages coming by stealth to carry off his gins; and to escape the wrath of white men, when aroused by the aggressions of wild tribes to get up a sort of foray to save or recover their own. How Bultje has survived through all this, without having nine lives like a cat, still to gather honey in his own valley, "surpasseth me to know." We encamped at two large water-holes of the Bogan near Mr. Gilmore's station, and the overseer sent to the men two buckets of milk. At the station a well had been made to the depth of eighty feet, but a flood had come, and risen so high as to wash in the sides and so fill up the well. The workmen had passed through yellow clay chiefly, and the clay was wet and soft when the further sinking was interrupted. Thermometer in my tent 109°, wind W. N. W. 24TH DECEMBER. A lurid haze hung among the trees as the earliest sunbeams shot down amongst them. The party were ready to move off early, but the progress was slow from various impediments. A hot wind blew like a blast furnace. A bullock dropt down dead at the yoke. We encamped on the Currandong, or Back Creek, near a small plain, after travelling about ten miles. Thermometer in tent, 103.° Hot wind from the west. 25TH DECEMBER. Halted to rest the cattle. The wind blew this day more from the northward, and was cooler. Thermometer in tent, 107°. 26TH DECEMBER.--Proceeded to Graddle, a cattle station belonging to Mr. Coss, 2½ miles. Thermometer, 109°. 27TH DECEMBER.--The bullock-drivers having allowed twenty-two of the bullocks to stray, it was impossible to proceed. At early morning the sky was overcast, the weather calm, a slight wind from the west carried off these clouds, and at about eleven a very hot wind set in. The thermometer in my tent stood at 117°, and when exposed to the wind rose rapidly to 129°, when I feared the thermometer would break as it only reached to 132°. 28TH DECEMBER.--All the cattle having been recovered, we set off early, accompanied by a stockman from Graddle, Mr. Coss's station. The day was excessively warm, a hot wind blowing from the west. We finally encamped on the Bogan, at a very muddy water-hole, after travelling eleven miles. Thermometer in tent, 115°. At half past five, the sky became overcast, and the hot wind increased to a violent gust, and suddenly fell. I found that tartaric acid would precipitate the mud, leaving a jug of the water tolerably clear, but then the acid remained. Towards evening the sky was overcast, and a few drops of rain fell. The night was uncommonly hot. At ten the thermometer stood at 102°, and at day-break at 90°. 29TH DECEMBER.--The remaining water was so muddy that the cattle would no longer drink it. The sky was overcast, with the wind from south. Finding a cart road near our camp, I lost no time in conducting the lighter portion of our equipment to Mr. Kerr's station at Derribong. In the hollows I saw, for the first time on this journey, the POLYGONUM JUNCEUM, reminding me of the river Darling, and on the plains a SOLANUM in flower, of which I had only seen the apple formerly. At length, greener grass indicated that the late rains had fallen more heavily there, and at about twelve miles I reached the station situated on a rather clear and elevated part of the right bank of the Bogan. Here the stock of water had been augmented by a small dam, and a channel cut from a hollow part of the clay surface conducted any rain water into the principal pool, where the water was very good. We had now arrived at the lowest station on the Bogan. The line of demarcation between the squatter and the savage had been once much lower down, at Mudà, and even at Nyingan (see INFRA), but the incursions of the blacks had rendered these lower stations untenable, without more support than the Colonial government was able to afford. There, at least, the squatter is not only not the real discoverer of the country, but not even the occupier of what had been discovered. The map will illustrate how it happens that the colonists cannot keep their ground here from the marauding disposition of the savage tribes. [* See map of Eastern Australia--INFRA.] The Darling is peopled more permanently by these natives, than perhaps any other part of Australia: affording as it does a more certain supply of food. It is only in seasons of very high flood that this food, the fish, cannot be got at, and that they are obliged to resort to the higher country at such seasons, between the Darling, the Lachlan, and the Bogan. It also happens that the cattle of the squatter are most accessible from the soft state of the ground; the stockmen cannot even ride to protect them. The tribes from the Lachlan and Macquarie meet on these higher lands, and when tribes assemble they are generally ready for any mischief. The Bogan is particularly within their reach, and when wet seasons do occur the cattle of squatters must be very much at the mercy of the savages. The tribes from the Darling are extremely hostile, even to the more peaceably disposed hilltribes near the colony, and several stations have already been abandoned in consequence of the outrages of the aborigines from the Darling and Lachlan. Nothing is so likely to increase these evils as the precarious or temporary occupation of such a country. The supply of water must continue uncertain so long as there is no inducement from actual possession to form dams, and by means of art to secure the full benefit of the natural supply. Hence it is that half a million of acres, covered with the finest grass, have been abandoned, and even savages smile at the want of generalship by which they have been allowed to burn the white man's dairy station and stockyards on the banks of the Bogan. The establishment of a police station near the junction of the Bogan with the Darling, or the formation of an inland township about Fort Bourke, had been sufficient to have secured the stations along the Bogan and Macquarie, and to have protected the Bogan natives as well as our own countrymen from frequent robbery, murder, and insult. Such are the results where SQUATTING has been permitted to supersede settling. With possession, deficiency of water in dry seasons had been remedied, and no such debateable land had remained on the borders of a British colony. The part of the Bogan where least water can be found, has always been that between our present camp and Mudà, a very large lagoon about 50 miles lower down. I found by the barometer that there is a fall of 206 feet in that distance of 50 miles; whereas the fall in the bed of the Bogan is only 50 feet between Mudà and New Year's Range, in a distance of upwards of 100 miles. The general course of the Bogan changes at Mudà from N.W. to north, the former being nearly in the direction of the general declination of the country, the latter rather across it, of which the overflowings of the parallel river Macquarie into Duck Creek, and other channels to the westward, seemed to afford sufficient proofs. Where the declination is least, the water is most likely to remain in ponds in the channel of the river after floods, the water of which can neither flow with so much velocity, nor bear down any of the obstructions by which ponds are formed. Mr. Dixon found the velocity of the Bogan at this part, during a flood in 1833, to be four miles in an hour; which is about double the average rate of the larger rivers of Australia. I had an order from Mr. Kerr, the proprietor of this station of Derribong, to his superintendant, for such fat cattle as I might require to take with me as live stock. Finding that the sheep answered very well, having lost none, and that they rather improved in travelling, whereas the working oxen had been much jaded and impoverished by the long journey, heavy loads, and warm weather; I determined to take as many young bullocks as might suffice to relieve and assist the others, and break them in as we proceeded. 30TH DECEMBER.--The wind changed to S.E., and brought a cool morning. Thermometer, 68°. This day we selected from the herds of Mr. Kerr 32 young bullocks, and they were immediately yoked up in the stockyard. Received letters from Sydney, by Corporal Graham. 31ST DECEMBER, 1845.--Thermometer at 5 A. M., 62°: at noon, 109°. Wind S.E. At noon a whirlwind passed over the camp, fortunately avoiding the tents in its course; but it carried a heavy tarpaulin into the air, also some of the men's hats, and broke a half-hour sand-glass, much wanted for the men on watch at night. The sky overcast from the west in the evening. 1ST JANUARY, 1846.--A strong wind from N.E. blew during the day, and was very high at 11 A. M. The party were chiefly employed breaking in the young bullocks. At noon, nimbus, and some rain, tantalised us with the hope of a change; but the sky drew up into clouds of cumulus by the evening. The vegetation of the Bogan now recalled former labours: the ATRIPLEX SEMIBACCATA of Brown was a common straggling plant. 2D JANUARY.--The young cattle still occasioned delay. The morning was cloudy and promised rain; but a N.W. wind broke through the clouds, which resolved themselves into cirrostratus, and we had heat again. Besides the SALSOLA AUSTRALIS, we found a HALGANIA with lilac flowers, probably distinct from the species hitherto described, which are natives of the south-west coast. 3D JANUARY.--This morning the young cattle were yoked up with the old; and, after considerable delay, the party proceeded to some ponds in the Bogan about five miles lower down. We were now nearly opposite to the scene of Mr. Cunningham's disasters: I had recognised, amongst the first hills I saw when on the Goobang Creek, the hill which I had named Mount Juson, at his request, after the maiden name of his mother. The little pyramid of bushes was no longer there, but the name of Cunningham was so identified with the botanical history of almost all the shrubs in the very peculiar scenery of that part of the country, that no other monument seemed necessary. Other recollections recalled Cunningham to my mind; his barbarous murder, and the uncertainty which still hung over the actual circumstances attending it. The shrubs told indeed of Cunningham; of both brothers, both now dead; but neither the shrubs named by the one, nor the gloomy CASUARINOE trees that had witnessed the bloody deed, could tell more. There the ACACIA PENDULA, first discovered and described by Allan, could only "Like a weeping mourner stooping stand, For ever silent, and for ever sad." 4TH JANUARY.--The early cooler part of the morning was taken up with the young cattle. It was now but too obvious that this means of conveyance was likely to retard the journey to an extent that no pecuniary saving would compensate, as compared with light carts and horses. I proceeded forward in search of a deserted stockyard, called Tabbaratong, where some water was said still to remain. We found some mud and water only; although some that was excellent was found about two miles lower down the Bogan, late in the evening. We had crossed the neutral ground between the savage and the squatter. The advanced posts of an army are not better kept, and humiliating proofs that the white man had given way, were visible in the remains of dairies burnt down, stockyards in ruins, untrodden roads. We hoped to find within the territory of the native, ponds of clear water, unsoiled by cattle, and a surface on which we might track our own stray animals, without their being confused by the traces of others. 5TH JANUARY.--Three of the young cattle having escaped during the night, retarded us in the morning until 8 o'clock, at which hour they were brought into the camp, having been tracked by Yuranigh, a most useful native who had come with us from Buree. I proceeded with the light carts, guided by a very young native boy, not more than ten years old, who had come with the party from Kerr's station, and who, being a native of the lower Bogan, could tell us where water was likely to be found. Our route was rather circuitous, chiefly to avoid a thick scrub of CALLITRIS and other trees, which, having been recently burnt, presented spikes so thickly set together, that any way round them seemed preferable to going through. We reached plains, and came upon an old track of the squatters. The grass in parts was green and rich. I could see no traces of my former route, but we arrived at length at an open spot which Dicky, the young native, said was "Cadduldury." Leaving Dr. Stephenson with the people driving the light carts there, I proceeded towards the bed of the Bogan, which was near, to see what water was there, and following the channel downwards, I met with none. Still I rode on, accompanied by Piper (also on horseback), and the dryness of the bed had forbidden further search, but that I remembered the large ponds we had formerly seen at Bugabadà and Mudà, which could not be far distant. But it was only after threading the windings of the Bogan, in a ride of at least twelve miles, that we arrived at the most eastern of the Bugabadà ponds. The water was however excellent, purer indeed than any we had seen for many days, and we hastened back to the party at Cadduldury, which place we only arrived at as darkness came on, so that Piper had nearly lost his way. The drays with Mr. Kennedy had not come up, and I sent William Baldock and Yuranigh back in haste to inform him that I was encamped without water, and that I wished him, if still EN ROUTE, immediately to unyoke the cattle, encamp on a grassy spot, and have them watched in their yokes during the night, and to come forward at earliest dawn to the water-holes I had found near Bugabadà. We passed a miserable night without water at Cadduldury. 6TH JANUARY.--William Baldock returned at daybreak, bringing a message from Mr. Kennedy, saying he should do as I had requested. I went forward with the light party, and reached the water-holes by 8 A. M.. The morning happened to be extremely hot, which, under the want of water and food the preceding evening, made Drysdale very ill, and John Douglas and Isaac Reid were scarcely able to walk when we arrived at the first water-hole. But how the jaded bullocks were to draw the heavy loads thus far in the extreme heat, was a subject of anxious thought to me. William Baldock again returned to Mr. Kennedy with two barrels of water on a horse, a horn full of tea, etc. On his way he met six of the drays, the drivers of which were almost frantic and unable to do their work from thirst. He brought me back intelligence that Mr. Kennedy still remained at his encampment, with the two remaining drays, whereof the drivers (Mortimer and Bond) had allowed their teams, with bows, yokes, and chains, to escape, although each driver had been expressly ordered to watch his own team during the night. This was a most serious misfortune to the whole party. The rest of the drays could not be brought as far as my camp, but I ordered the cattle to be released and driven forward to the water, which they reached by the evening, sufficient guards being left with the drays. The shepherd with the sheep could not get so far as the water, and the poor fellow had almost lost his senses, when Mr. Stephenson, who had hastened back with several bottles, relieved his thirst, and, as the man said, "saved his life." Our position might indeed have been critical, had the natives been hostile, or as numerous as I had formerly seen them at that very part of the Bogan. Separated into three parties, and exhausted with thirst and heat, the men and the drays might have been easily assailed. No natives, however, molested us; and I subsequently found that the tribe, with which I was on very friendly terms there formerly, were still amicably disposed towards us. 7TH JANUARY.--Early this morning, M'Avoy brought in the spare bullocks, having been sent forward by Mr. Kennedy to travel on during the night. The shoemaker also brought in one of the lost teams and part of the other. I sent back, by Baldock, this morning, water for the men in charge of the drays, and some tea and bread for Mr. Kennedy. He would also have gone in search of the four bullocks still missing, but Mr. Kennedy sent him again to me to procure something to eat. The drays carrying the provisions had not come up, and my party too was short. The day surpassed in heat any I had ever seen: the thermometer at noon in the shade stood at 109°, a gentle hot wind blowing. The camp of Mr. Kennedy was distant at least 16 miles from mine near Bugabadà. The six drays came in about 4 P. M.; the sheep not until long after dark. Bread, gelatine, and ten gallons of water were sent back to Mr. Kennedy, and a memorandum from me apprising him of my arrangement for drawing forward the two drays, which he had taken such good care of, and which was as follows: Two teams to leave my camp on the evening of next day, to be attached on their arrival to the two drays with which they were to come forward, travelling by moonlight during the rest of the night, until they should be met by two other fresh teams, destined to meet them early next morning. Also I informed Mr. Kennedy that it was not my intention to send after the four stray bullocks until the drays came in, and the party could be again united. Thermometer again 109° in the shade all day. The CALOTIS CUNEIFOLIA was conspicuous amongst the grass. This was the common BURR, so detrimental to the Australian wool. Small as are the capitula of this flower, its seeds or achenia are armed with awns having reflexed hooks scarcely visible to the naked eye; it is these that are found so troublesome among the wool. 8TH JANUARY.--The messenger returned from Mr. Kennedy saying he had found him and the men with him, in a state of great distress from want of water, having given great part of what had formerly been sent to a young dying bullock, in hopes thereby to save its life. He also stated that a tribe of natives were on their track about three miles behind. Baldock had seen several bullocks dead on the way. In the evening the two first teams were sent off as arranged. This day had also been very sultry, especially towards evening. 9TH JANUARY.--Early this morning, the two relieving teams were despatched as arranged, and at noon Mr. Kennedy and the whole entered the camp. We had been very fortunate, under such trying circumstances, to suffer so little loss, and I determined never to move the party again, until I could ascertain where the water was at which it should encamp. I had been previously assured by the young native that water was still to be found at Cadduldury, and the disappointment had nearly proved fatal to the whole party. On the banks of the Bogan, the ATRIPLEX HAGNOIDES formed a round white- looking bush. I rode forward to Mudà, accompanied by Dr. Stephenson and by Piper, and had an interview with some of the heads of the old tribe, who remembered my former visit, and very civilly accompanied me to show me my old track and marked trees, which I found passed a little to the northward of my present encampment. The chief, my old friend, had been killed in a fight with the natives of the Macquarie, not long before. Two old grey-haired men sitting silent in a gunya behind, were pointed out to me as his brothers, one of whom so very much resembled him, that I had at first imagined he was the man himself. These sat doubled up on their hams opposite to each other, under the withered bushes, naked, and grey, and melancholy--sad and hopeless types of their fading race! The chief who formerly guided us so kindly had fallen in a hopeless struggle for the existence of his tribe with the natives of the river Macquarie, allied with the border police, on one side; and the wild natives of the Darling on the other. All I could learn about the rest of the tribe was, that the men were almost all dead, and that their wives were chiefly servants at stock stations along the Macquarie. The natives of Mudà assured me there was no water nearer than Nyingan, a large pond which I knew was 22 1/3 miles distant, in a direct line lower down the Bogan. The ponds of Mudà, their great store of water, and known to white men as the largest on the Bogan, were alarmingly low, and it became evident that our progress under such a scarcity of water would be attended with difficulty. These natives gave us also a friendly hint that "GENTLEMEN" should be careful of the spears of the natives of Nyingan, as many natives of Nyingan had been shot lately by white men from Wellington Valley. Among the woods we observed the white-flowered TEUCRIUM RACEMOSUM, the JUSTICIA MEDIA, a small herbaceous plant with deep pink flowers; also a STENOCHILUS and FUSANUS (the Quandang), although not in fruit; a new species of STIPA, remarkable for its fine silky ears and coarse rough herbage.[*] This place produced also a fine new species of Chloris in the way of C. TRUNCATA, but with upright ears, and hard three-ribbed pales,[**] and we here observed, for the first time, a fine new EREMOPHILA with white flowers, forming a tree fifteen feet high.[***] The beautiful DAMASONIUM OVALIFOLIUM, with white flowers red in the centre, still existed in the water. [* S. SCABRA (Lindl. MS.), aristis nudis, paleis pubescentibus basi villosis, glumis setaceo-acuminatis glabris, foliis scabropilosis involutis culmis brevioribus, geniculis pubescentibus, ligulâ oblongâ subciliatâ.] [** C. SCLERANTHA (Lindl. MS.), culmo stricto, foliis planis glabris tactu scabris, spicis 4--7-strictis, spiculis bifloris, flore utroque breviaristato cartilagineo truncato 3-nervi glabro supremo sterili vacuo.] [*** E. MITCHELLI (Benth. MS.), glabra viscidula, foliis alternis linearibus planis, corolla alba extus glabra fauce amplo laciniis 4 superioribus subaequalibus infima majore retusa, staminibus inclusis.] In the evening it was discovered that no one had seen the shepherd and the sheep since the morning, and Piper and Yuranigh went in search. It was night ere they returned with the intelligence that they had found his track ten miles off to the S. W. when darkness prevented them from following it further. I ascertained, by observations of the stars Aldebaran and Orionis, that out present camp near Bugabadà was in latitude 31° 56', and thus very near the place where Mr. Dixon's journey down the Bogan in 1833 had terminated. Thermometer at noon, 90°; at 9 P. M., 70°; with wet bulb, 63°. 10TH JANUARY.--Early this morning Mr. Kennedy and Piper went to the S. W. in search of the shepherd and sheep, while at the same time I sent William Baldock and Yaranigh back along our track in search of the stray bullocks. Meanwhile I conducted the party along my former track to Mudà, where we met Mr. Kennedy and Piper with the shepherd and sheep, already arrived there. The shepherd stated that the fatigue of having been on watch the previous night had overcome him; that he fell asleep, and that the sheep went astray; that he followed and found them, but lost himself. He had met one or two natives who offered him honey, etc. which he declined. We encamped beside the old stock-yard and the ruins of a dairy, only visible in the remaining excavation. But a paddock was still in such a state of preservation, that in one day we completed the enclosure. We had passed near Bugabadà similar remains of a cattle station. This position of Mudà was a fine place for such an establishment; a high bank nearly clear of timber, overlooking a noble reach of great capacity, and surrounded by an open forest country, covered with luxuriant grass. The last crop stood up yellow, like a neglected field of oats, in the way of a young crop shooting up amongst it. 11TH JANUARY, 1846.--Sunday. Prayers were read to the men, and the cattle and party rested. The day was cool and cloudy. 12TH JANUARY.--Still I halted at Mudà for the lost bullocks. To-day I noticed the KOCHIA BREVIFOLIA, a little salt-bush, with greenish yellow fruit, edged with pink. 13TH JANUARY.--Baldock and Yuranigh arrived early in the morning (by moonlight) with five of the stray bullocks. Two others (young ones) could not be driven along, and one old bullock was still astray at Mr. Kerr's station (to which they had returned) and could not even then be found. We had now in all 106 bullocks, and, considering the great scarcity of water, heat, and consequent drought, I was most thankful that our loss had been so slight. I proceeded to reconnoitre the country in a straight line towards Nyingan, which bore 353°--and having found a tolerably open country for about six miles, I returned and took the party on so far, and encamped, sending back all the cattle and horses to the water at Mudà. Enough had been carried forward for the men who were to remain at the camp. To ensure the early return of the cattle, I had repaired, as already stated, the paddock at Mudà, in which during this night, they could be secured, having also sufficient grass,--likewise the horses. In my ride I found a new grass of the genus CHLORIS[*], something like CHL. TRUNCATA in habit, some starved specimens of TRICHINIUM LANATUM; amongst the grasses I also found the ARISTIDA CALYCINA of Brown, the curious NEURACHNE MITCHELLIANA Nees, discovered originally by me in 1836, and also a new PAPPOPHORUM with the aspect of our European Anthoxanthum.[**] A smart shower fell during the evening. [* C. ACICULARIS (Lindl. MS.); culmo stricto, foliis involutis glabris tactu scabris, spicis 8--9 subacutis, spiculis bifloris, flore utroque setaceo aristato, supremo sterili angustissimo, paleis dorso scabris.] [** P. FLAVESCENS (Lindl. MS.); aristis 9 rigidis pallidis plumosis, spicâ compositâ densissimâ oblongâ, paleis lanatis, glumis ovatis pilosis, foliis vaginisque pubescentibus tactu scabris, geniculis villosis.] 14TH JANUARY.--The cattle arrived early from Mudà, and were immediately yoked to the drays. I proceeded with the light carts, still on the same bearing, until arriving near Dar, where I had formerly been encamped, I turned to the left to ascertain if there really was no water there. I found two excellent ponds, and encamped beside them after a journey of about ten miles. The drays arrived early and I subsequently found I had encamped near my old ground of 9th May, 1835, when I was guided by the friendly chief of the Bogan tribe to the best water holes his country afforded. By the route I had selected from my former surveys, I had cut off the great bend described by the Bogan in changing from a north- westerly to a northerly course, and the track now left by our wheels will probably continue to be used as a road, when the banks of the Bogan may be again occupied by the colonists. At Darwere still most substantial stock-yards, and, as usual, the deep dug foundations of a dairy that had been burnt down. 15TH JANUARY.--Eight bullocks were missing, and although the day was fine, not too hot, I could not think of moving until these cattle were found. Accordingly, at earliest dawn, I despatched William Baldock and the native to look for them. In the course of the day six were found by Baldock in one direction, and the remaining two, afterwards, in another. An inconspicuous blue-flowered Erigeron grew here, also the JASMINUM LINEARE, with its sweet-scented white flowers--and, near the water, I saw the ALTERNANTHERA NODIFLORA. 16TH JANUARY.--At a good early hour the party moved from Dar, crossing the Bogan and falling into my former track and line of marked trees. We lost these, however, on crossing the Bogan at Murgabà, and made a slight détour to the eastward before we found Nyingan, where we encamped, and were joined by the drays by twelve o'clock. During this day's journey Piper and Yuranigh discovered fresh traces of horsemen with those of the feet of a native guide, come from the East to my old track, and returning, apparently, as our natives thought, looking for traces of our party. At Nyingan we found many recent huts and other indications of the natives, but saw none. Large stock-yards and a paddock remained, but a house and garden fences had been burnt down. The great ponds were sunken very low and covered with aquatic weeds. As soon as the camp had been established with the usual attention to defence, I set out to look for the next water, and after riding twelve miles nearly in the direction of my former route, I reached the dry channel of the Bogan, and tracing it thence upwards, I sought in every hollow at all its turnings for water, but in vain, and I reached the camp only at dusk, without having seen, during the day, any other ponds than those of Nyingan. 17TH JANUARY.--Early this morning, I sent Mr. Kennedy with the native Yuranigh, also on horseback, to run back my track of yesterday to the Bogan where I had commenced its examination upwards, and from that point to examine the channel downwards to the nearest water, provided this did not take Mr. Kennedy too far to admit of his return by sunset. Two old women came to the ponds of Nyingan for water, by whom Piper was told that the nearest permanent water was "NIMINÉ," where white men had attempted to form a cattle-station, and been prevented by natives from the Darling, many of whom had since been shot by the white men. They said the place was far beyond Canbelego, the next stage of my former journey, and where these women also said little or no water remained. Mr. Kennedy returned at eleven A.M., having found water at Canbelego. Yuranigh brought with him a large green specimen of the fruit of the CAPPARIS MITCHELLII, which he called an apple, being new to him, but which Dicky, the younger native from the Lower Bogan, knew, and said was called "MOGUILE;" he also said that it was eaten by the natives. 18TH JANUARY.--The party moved to Canbelego where one or two small ponds remained, but on the plains adjacent there was better grass than we had hitherto found near those places where, for the sake of water, we had been obliged to encamp. I sent Mr. Kennedy again forward looking for water, but he returned sooner than I expected, and after following the river down twelve miles, without finding any. I was now within the same distance of Duck Creek, in which Mr. Larmer had found abundance of water when I sent him to survey it upwards during my last return journey up the Bogan. It also seemed, from the direction in which Piper pointed, that the old gins referred to Duck Creek, as containing water; and as the course of that creek, so far as shown on maps, led even more directly to the Darling than did the Bogan, I was willing in such a season of extreme drought, to avail myself of its waters. My eye had been much injured by straining at stars while at the camp near Walwadyer, and I was obliged to send Mr. Kennedy on one of my own horses, followed by Graham, to examine the water in Duck Creek. I instructed him to proceed on a bearing of 35° E. of North, until he should reach the creek, and if he found water in it to return direct to the camp, but that if water was not found on first making the creek, then he was to follow Duck Creek up to its junction with an eastern branch, surveyed also by Mr. Larmer, and to return thence to the camp on a bearing of 240°. I also sent Corporal Macavoy with Yuranigh down the Bogan, to ascertain if the channel contained any pond between our camp and the part previously examined by Mr. Kennedy. This officer returned from Duck Creek after an absence of twelve hours, and reported that he had found no water in Duck Creek after examining its bed twelve miles; but that he had found a fine lagoon on the plains near the head of the eastern branch, but around which there was no grass, all having been recently burnt. 20TH JANUARY.--Macavoy returned at seven A.M., saying he had been twenty- four miles down the Bogan without finding any water. About the same time Sergeant Niblett, in charge of the bullocks, came to inform me that these animals were looking very ill, and could not drink the mud remaining in the pond. At the same time intelligence was brought me that four of the horses had broken their tether ropes during the night, and that William Baldock had been absent in search of them on foot, from an early hour in the morning. I immediately sent back the whole of the bullocks to Nyingan, with a dray containing the empty harness casks, also the horses, and a cart carrying all our other empty casks; and the whole of the cattle and horses returned in the evening with all the casks filled. 21ST JANUARY.--Having again despatched the bullocks back to Nyingan, I conducted the light carts forward along my old track (of 1835), having on two of these carts two of the half-boats, and in the carts under them all the water-kegs that had been filled. My object was to use the iron boat as a tank, at which we might water the bullocks at one stage forward; that by so gaining that point and proceeding onwards towards the water I hoped to find next day, we might encamp at least at such a convenient distance from it, as would admit of the cattle being driven forward to return next day and draw the drays to it. This I considered possible, even if it might be found necessary to go as far for water as the fine reach described in my journal as the place of my encampment on the 14th May, 1835, beyond Mount Hopeless, and which I concluded from the gin's description, must have been what she called Nimine, or the disputed station of Lee. I encamped this party on a plain about twelve miles from Canbelego, where I had left Mr. Kennedy, with instructions to bring the drays on with the spare cattle and horses early next morning. I had sent thence Corporal Macavoy and Yuranigh to follow the track of Baldock and the horses; but it was obvious that we could remain no longer at Canbelego. As soon as we could set up one of the half-boats, the contents of the water-kegs were emptied into it, and the cart was immediately sent back with the empty kegs to Canbelego, where fresh horses had been left, to continue with the same cart and empty kegs to Nyingan during the night, so as to arrive in time to admit of the dray--already there with the harness casks--bringing an additional supply back in the kegs, when the bullocks returned next day. It was now necessary that I should ascertain as soon as possible the state of the ponds lower down the Bogan, and thereupon determine at once, whether to follow that dry channel further in such a season, or to cross to the pond in Duck Creek, and await more favourable weather. I accordingly set out at 3 P.M., from where the water had been placed in the half-boat, accompanied by Dr. Stephenson, and followed by Corporal Graham and Dicky the native boy. By the advice of the latter, I rode from the camp in the direction of 30° E. of N., and, crossing the Bogan, we reached at about 3½ miles beyond it, a channel like it, which I supposed was Duck Creek; and in it, just where we made it, there was a small pond of water. Having refreshed our horses, we followed this channel downwards, without meeting with more water. To my surprise, I found the general direction was westward, until it JOINED THE BOGAN. We next followed the course of the Bogan as long as daylight allowed us to do so, without discovering any indication that water had recently lodged in any of the hollows, and we finally tied up our horses and lay down to sleep, in hopes that next day might enable us to be more successful. 22D JANUARY.--Having proceeded some miles along the western bends of the Bogan, hastily--being desirous to see that day the great pond beyond Mount Hopeless--I observed that the clay was very shining and compact in a hollow sloping into an angle of the river-bed, that the grass was green as from recent rain, and that there was more chirping of birds; I was tempted once more by these indications, to look for water in the Bogan's almost hopeless channel, and there we found a pond, at sight of which poor Dicky shouted for joy; then drank, and fell asleep almost in the water. It was small, but being sufficient for our immediate wants, we thankfully refreshed our horses and ourselves, and proceeded on our eventful journey. Almost immediately after leaving this pond I discovered my old track, which we continued to follow across those large plains, whence I had formerly discovered Mount Hopeless. These plains I soon again recognized from the old tracks of my draywheels, distinctly visible in many places after a lapse of nearly eleven years. Arriving at length near the debateable land of Lee's old station, we resumed our examination of the Bogan. There we perceived old cattle tracks; the ovens in which the natives had roasted whole bullocks, and about their old encampments many heaps of bones; but in none of the deep beds of former ponds or lagoons could we discover any water. The grass was nevertheless excellent and abundant; and its waste, added to the distress the want of water occasioned us, made us doubly lament the absence of civilised inhabitants, by whose industry that rich pasture and fine soil could have been turned to good account. We saw no natives; nor were even kangaroos or emus to be seen, as formerly, any longer inhabitants of these parts. I turned at length, reluctantly, convinced that it would have been unsafe to venture with cattle and drays into these regions before rain fell. In returning, we at first found it difficult to find our old track, by which alone we could hope that night to reach the small pond of the morning; but Dr. Stephenson very fortunately found it, and we had also the good fortune, for so we considered it, to arrive at the pond before sunset. There we tied up our horses and lay down, glad indeed to have even that water before our eyes. Dicky, the native boy, had repeatedly thrown himself from his horse during the afternoon, quite ill from thirst. 23D JANUARY.--After our horses had drank, we left no water in the pond; but they had fed on good grass, and we were well refreshed, although with water only, for our ride back to the camp. Setting off from an old marked tree of mine near the Bogan, on a bearing of 160°, I several times during our ride fell in with the old track, and finally reached the camp after a rapid ride of four hours. I found the whole party had arrived the previous evening with the water, as arranged; but that Mr. Kennedy was absent, having set off that morning in search of water to the N. E. with Corporal Macavoy, on two government horses, leaving word that he should return by twelve o'clock. He did not return at that hour, however, and at two I moved the party across the Bogan, and proceeded along open plains towards the ponds at Duck Creek, with the intention of there refreshing the cattle and horses, and awaiting more favourable weather. I previously watered out of the half-boat, 106 bullocks, and gave a quart to each of the horses. On the way, the heat was so intense that our three best and strongest kangaroo dogs died, and it was not until 10 P. M. that the drays reached the ponds where I had proposed to encamp. About an hour and a half before, Mr. Kennedy also came in, having galloped the two horses 66 miles, and hurt both their backs, Macavoy being a heavy man. At 9 P. M., therm. 80°, wet bulb, 68°. 24TH JANUARY.--This morning I awoke completely blind, from ophthalmia, and was obliged to have poultices laid on my eyes; several of the men were also affected in the same manner. The exciting cause of this malady in an organ presenting a moist surface was, obviously, the warm air wholly devoid of moisture, and likely to produce the same effect until the weather changed. At 9 P. M., therm. 84°, with wet bulb, 68°. Chapter II. SEND TO NYINGAN FOR LEECHES.--BETTER PONDS FOUND TO THE NORTHEAST.--MOVE TO THE PONDS OF CANNONBÀ AND SET UP OUR BIVOUAC.--HOT WIND.--HEAT GREATER THAN MY TABLE FOR EXPANSION OF MERCURY WAS CALCULATED FOR.--PIPER'S INTENTION TO QUIT THE PARTY.--HIS SENT TO BATHURST.--WEATHER CHANGES.-- RAIN.--MR. KENNEDY RETURNS FROM THE MACQUARIE.--SALT MADE FROM THE SALT PLANT.--RECONNOITRE "DUCK CREEK."--THE PARTY QUITS CANNONBÀ--CROSSES PLAINS TO MARRA CREEK--AND THENCE TO THE RIVER MACQUARIE.--OPHTHALMIA STILL TROUBLESOME.--APPROACH OF A FLOOD ANNOUNCED.--ITS ARRIVAL IN CLEAR MOONLIGHT.--MR. KINGHORNE GUIDES THE PARTY ALONG THE REEDY BANKS.--NO WATER FOUND IN "DUCK CREEK."--DIFFICULTY OF WATERING THE CATTLE FROM SOFTNESS OF THE BANKS OF PONDS AMONGST THE REEDS.--"YULLIYALLY," A NATIVE, GUIDES THE PARTY.--NEW PLANTS DISCOVERED.--DESCRIPTION OF OUR NATIVE GUIDE.--CONDITION OF HIS COUNTRYMEN.--HOW AFFECTED BY THE INTRUSION OF THE WHITE RACE.--AT LENGTH EMERGE FROM THE REEDS.--WATER SCARCE.--NECESSITY FOR PRESERVING ABORIGINAL NAMES OF RIVERS.--DELAYED BY STRAY BULLOCKS SEVERAL DAYS.--AT LENGTH ARRIVE AT THE JUNCTION OF THE RIVER WITH THE DARLING.--CROSS THE MACQUARIE NEAR ITS JUNCTION--AND FORD THE DARLING AT WYÀBRY. 25TH JANUARY.--Dr. Stephenson having recommended the application of leeches, and having observed them in the ponds at Nyingan, I sent William Baldock and Yuranigh there in search of some, and they brought back enough. Fourteen were applied to my eyes the same afternoon. The ground here was quite naked; it was, in fact, the blue clay of the Darling, with the same sterile looking plants; and no time was to be lost in seeking some ponds where there might be also good grass for the cattle. Therm. at sunrise, 97°; at noon, 100°; at 9 P.M. 90°; with wet bulb, 71°. 26TH JANUARY.--I sent Corporal Graham with Piper, in a N. E. direction to where we had observed the light of burning woods reflected from a cloudy sky last evening; considering that a sure indication that water was near, as natives are seldom found where there is none. He returned early with the welcome tidings that he had found abundance of water in a creek about five miles off, and excellent grass upon its banks. My eyes were so far recovered that I could observe the altitude of a star, thus ascertaining the latitude of this camp to be 31° 20' 20" S. Therm. at sunrise, 85°; at noon, 112°; at 9 P.M. 84°; with wet bulb, 70°. 27TH JANUARY.--The whole party moved to the ponds called "Cannonbà" by the natives. There we found greater abundance of water and better grass than we had seen near water during the whole journey, and I determined to halt for at least two weeks, as part of the time I had previously intended to devote to the repose and refreshment of the cattle, when we should have reached the Darling. The cattle and their drivers had been much harassed, and both needed and deserved rest. The horses had got out of condition, and I considered that when we arrived at the Darling their services would be more required. I was also to try the experiment here, whether I might prosecute the journey without danger of losing my eyesight; to have abandoned the undertaking at that point, had been almost as painful to me as the other alternative. There were no hostile natives here, the fire having been set up by some solitary gins; rain was daily to be expected, at least cooler weather would certainly come in a short time; the wheels of the drays had been long represented to me as needing a thorough repair, from the effect of the heat on the wheels;-- and, upon the whole, I considered it very fortunate that we could encamp under such circumstances on so favourable a spot. We placed our tents amongst shady bushes--set up the blacksmith's forge, and soon all hands were at work in their various avocations, whilst the cattle and horses enjoyed the fresh grass, leisure to eat it, and abundance of water. Amongst the bushes here, a HAKEA, with simple filiform mucronulate leaves without flower, occurred, loaded with oblong hard galls resembling dry plums. Also the SENECIO CUNNINGHAMI (D.C.), found by Allan Cunningham on the shores of Lake George. Mr. Stephenson discovered here a very pretty new TRICHINIUM, with heads of hoary pink flowers. [* T. SEMILANATUM (Lindl. MS.); ramosa, pubescens, ramulis, angulatis, foliis linearibus acutis noveillis villosis, capitulis paucifloris hemisphericis, rachi densè bracteis uninerviis acutis scpalisque angustis plumosis parcè lanatis.] I learnt from the natives that this creek also joined the Bogan, consequently that the real Duck Creek must either be still to the N. E. of us, or be a branch out of this. At all events, the creek surveyed by Larmer is thus proved to have been a discovery of his, and a most useful one it has thus proved to us on this emergency. That chain of ponds (whence we had just come) was called Bellaringa; this "Cannonbà;" and to what I suppose must be Duck Creek, water to which the natives point northward, they give the name of "Marra." Therm. at sunrise, 78°; at noon, 115°; at 4 P.M. 96°; at 9, 88°; with wet bulb, 73°. 28TH JANUARY.--Several kettles, a good spade, a Roman balance with large chain complete, barrels, and other articles, were found at the bottom of one of the ponds; and old tracks of cattle were numerous about the banks. Thus it was clear that this favourable spot for a cattle station had not been unheeded by the white man. It was vaguely asserted by some old gins seen by Piper, that three men had been killed here when the place was abandoned. We were about twelve or fourteen miles to the W.N.W. of Mount Harris; and certainly the general bed of this watercourse was broader than that of the Bogan, and moreover contained much granitic sand, all but identifying its sources with those of the Macquarie. This day was very hot; a thunder cloud passed over us, and a shower fell about 3 P.M. Thermometer at sunrise, 78°; at noon, 115°; at 4 P.M. 108°; at 9, 84°; with wet bulb, 63°. 29TH JANUARY.--A more than usually hot wind raised the thermometer to 115° in the shade; but distant thunder was soon heard, and the horizon became clouded. The day was very sultry, and although no rain fell near us, it was evident that other parts to the north-east were receiving a heavy shower. Thermometer at sunset, 102°. 30TH JANUARY.--An easterly wind brought a refreshing air from the quarter where the thunder-cloud had exhausted itself last evening. This day the doctor found the tree mentioned as bearing a nondescript fruit in my former journal, Vol. I. page 82., but this tree bore neither flower nor fruit. Thermometer at sunrise, 80°; at noon, 103°; at 4 P.M., 108°; at 9, 100 ½°; with wet bulb, 79°. 31ST JANUARY.--The weather still very sultry. I commenced a series of observations with a syphon barometer (made by Bunten of Paris). The table for expansion of mercury and mean dilatation of glass, sent me by my friend Captain P. P. King, came but to 88° of Fahrenheit, whereas at 4 P.M., the centigrade thermometer stood at 44½°, which is equal to 112° of Fahrenheit. This day I was apprised of Piper's intention to leave the party, taking with him the two younger and more useful natives. He had recently made some very unreasonable demands. It was now obvious from various sayings and doings thus brought to my recollection, that he had never any serious intention of accompanying this expedition throughout its progress. The services of other more intelligent natives might easily have been obtained, having been proffered by many in the settled districts, but Piper from having been with me before, was preferred as a matter of course. He had not improved in speech or manners during the long interval of ten years that had elapsed since our former acquaintance, although during that time he had visited Adelaide, Sydney, Moreton Bay, the river Hunter, etc., etc. From the day on which he had joined the party on this last occasion, he had been allowed a horse, saddle, doublebarrelled gun, clothing, and the same rations as the other men, blankets, place in a tent with the men, etc. Unlike most other natives, he was a very bad shot, and very awkward about a horse; it was impossible to obtain any clear intelligence from his countrymen through him as interpreter; he went very unwillingly about doing anything. He had drawn his rations and those of the two young natives separately from the men's mess the week before this, on the plea that they did not obtain their fair share; he was thus premeditately preparing for his clandestine departure, foreseeing that on the Saturday, when rations were issued, he could thus obtain a week's provisions in advance, without suspicion. He also had it in his power, like a true savage, to take the lion's share from the other two, in thus drawing rations apart from the men's mess. He had heard of the gins who had made the conflagration having retired towards the cattle-stations on the Macquarie. Here, then, while other men were actively at their work,--blacksmiths, carpenters, bullock-drivers,--this man, who was as well fed and clothed as they, carried on a horse to boot, and doing no work, was the only dissatisfied person. Me, whom he called his "old master," he would heartlessly leave, without a native guide, just at the time when such guides were most required. The only difficulty I felt on this occasion was how to secure the services of the two others, and yet dismiss him. He had just received a week's ration in advance, and he was baking the whole of the flour into bread. I sent to have him instantly seized, and brought with the dough and the other native, Yuranigh, before Mr. Kennedy and myself, as magistrates. He denied the intention to decamp. The other declared he had proposed to him to leave the party and go in search of gins, and that he could not understand him; that he was afraid to accompany Piper in a country so far from his own home (Buree). On this I ordered Piper to be sent to Bathurst, and the rations he was about to carry off, to be given to the other two, and that he should be kept apart from them during the night. Thermometer at sunrise, 85°; at noon, 111°; at 4 P.M., 112°; at 9, 101°;--with wet bulb, 78°. 1ST FEBRUARY.--This morning Piper was sent off with Corporal Graham. Mr. Kennedy rode on also in order to find out the nearest police station, and make arrangements, if possible, there, for forwarding Piper to Bathurst, his own district, which would put it out of his power to molest the party by endeavouring to induce the other natives to leave it. On them this measure appeared to have a salutary effect, Yuranigh calmly observing that Piper had only himself to blame for what had befallen him, and that he had acted like a fool. Mr. Kennedy undertook also to obtain, if he could, some more kangaroo dogs to replace those which had died from excessive heat. By that loss our party was left almost without dogs; and dogs were useful not only to kill kangaroos and emus, but to afford protection from, or to give notice of, nightly attacks by the natives, in which attacks those on that part of the Darling we were approaching, had been rather too successful against various armed parties of whites. Thermometer at sunrise, 88°; at noon, 104°; at 4 P.M., 106°; at 9 P.M., 88°;--with wet bulb, 76°. 2ND FEBRUARY.--The setting sun descended on a blue stratus cloud which appeared along the edge of all other parts of the horizon, and eagerly watching any indication of a change, I drew even from this a presage of rain. Thermometer at sunrise, 88°; at noon, 104°; at 4 P.M., 106; at 9, 88°;--with wet bulb, 72°. 3RD FEBRUARY.--High winds whistled among the trees this morning, and dark clouds of stratus appeared in the sky. A substantial shower fell about 9 A.M., and the horizon was gradually shut in by clouds of nimbus. The high wind had blown steadily from north both yesterday and this morning, and in the same quarter a thunder cloud seemed busy. But when the rain began to fall, the wind shifted to the S.W., from which quarter the rain seemed to come. With it came a very peculiar smell, which I had noticed near Mount Arapiles in 1836, about the time of the commencement of the rainy weather there; and nothing could have been more welcome to us now, than the prospect of rain, and the decided change in the temperature from 115° to 73°. This was almost the first day during a month in which the air had not been warmer than our blood; often had it been greater than fever heat, so that 73° felt to us as cool as 50° would have been to a resident of Sydney. Much rain did not fall at our camp, but it seemed that rain was falling about the sources of the Bogan and other places at which a supply of water was indispensable to enable us to proceed. At sunset, glimpses of a clear sky appeared about the horizon, and during the night the moon and stars came forth, and destroyed all hopes of more rain. We were thankful, however, for the relief afforded by what had fallen, which had lowered the temperature about 40 degrees, and enabled us to enjoy a night of refreshing rest. Thermometer at sunrise, 85°; at noon, 80°; at 4 P.M., 73°; at 9, 68°;--with wet bulb, 67°. 4TH FEBRUARY.--The morning dawned in a most serene sky, with refreshing breezes from the south, and the thermometer at 61°. This day we had completed the repair of the wheels of half the drays. Many of the tire- rings had been cut, rewelded, and again fixed and bolted on the wheels; the wood of these having contracted so much in the intense heat, as to have rendered these repairs indispensable. The same repairs were required by the wheels of the remaining drays and those of the light carts, and the smith and wheelwright continued their work with activity and zeal. Meanwhile the cattle were daily regaining strength and vigour for another effort. Thermometer at sunrise, 61°; at noon, 89°; at 4 P.M., 89°; at 9, 72°;--with wet bulb, 62°. 5TH FEBRUARY.--This morning the mercurial column stood higher than I had yet observed it here, and clouds of cirrus lay in long streaks across the sky, ranging from east to west, but these were most abundant towards the northern horizon. The day was comparatively cool and pleasant, the thermometer never having risen above 96°. By 6 P.M., the barometer had fallen nearly four millimetres, and even upon this apparently trivial circumstance, I could build some hope of rain; such was my anxiety for a change of weather at that time, when the earth was so parched as not only to preclude our travelling, but almost to deprive us of sight. Thermometer at sunrise, 60°; at noon, 94°; at 4 P.M., 96°; at 9, 73°; with wet bulb, 64°. 6TH FEBRUARY.--Dark stratus-shaped clouds wholly covered the sky, and shut out the sun, to my unspeakable delight. A most decided change seemed to have taken place; still the barometer remained as low as on the previous evening. A slight breeze from south-east changed to north, and at about 7 A.M. the rain began to fall. Clouds of nimbus closed on the woody horizon, and we had a day of rain. In the evening the barometer had fallen still lower, and it was probable that the rain might continue through the night. Range of thermometer from 74° to 72°. 7TH FEBRUARY.--Some heavy showers fell during the night, and the mercurial column stood exactly at the same point as on the last evening. About 10 A.M. a very heavy shower fell, after which the sun broke through, and the mass of vapour separated into vast clouds of nimbus. Much rain seemed to be still falling in the east, where the Macquarie, Bogan, and other rivers had their sources. At noon, the barometer had risen one millimetre. The rain had penetrated the clay soil of the plains about five inches. Mr. Kennedy returned in the afternoon, having duly provided for Piper's conveyance by the mounted police to Bathurst, and brought back a good bull-dog, and also some useful information respecting the various water- courses, and the river Macquarie, which he had gathered from the natives about the stations along the banks of that river. Thermometer at sunrise, 74°; at noon, 86°; at 4 P.M., 90°; at 9, 80°;--with wet bulb, 75°. 8TH FEBRUARY.--The moisture recently imbibed by the earth and air made us much more sensible of the high temperature in which we had been living, although it had been reduced by the late rains. The night air, especially, breathed no refreshing coolness as heretofore during the dry heat. The drier earth below seemed to be steaming the wet soil above it (as Brown, our cook, justly observed). Thermometer at sunrise, 80°; at noon, 96°; at 4 P.M., 95°; at 9, 80°;--with wet bulb, 75°. 9TH FEBRUARY.--The leisure we enjoyed at this camp, enabled us to bestow more attention on the vegetable and animal productions of these remarkable plains, than had been given during my former journey. It appeared that the saltwort plants, which were numerous, were not only efficacious in keeping the cattle that fed on them in the best possible condition; but as wholly preventing cattle and sheep from licking clay, a vicious habit to which they are so prone, that grassy runs in the higher country nearer Sydney are sometimes abandoned only on account of the "licking holes" they contain. It is chiefly to take off that taste for licking the saline clay, that rock-salt is in such request for sheep, lumps of it being laid in their pens for this purpose. At all events, it is certain that by this licking of clay both sheep and cattle are much injured in health and condition, losing their appetite for grass, and finally passing clay only, as may be seen near such places. In the salt plants on these plains, nature has amply provided for this taste of these large herbivora for salt. Our sheep nibbled at the mesembryanthemum, and the cattle ate greedily of various bushes whereof the leaf was sensibly salt to the taste. The colour of the leaves of such bushes is usually a very light bluish green, and there are many species. That with the largest leaves, called salt-bush by stockmen, and by Dr. Brown RHAGODIA PARABOLICA, was very useful as a vegetable after extracting the salt sufficiently from it. This we accidentally discovered from some experiments made by Mr. Stephenson, for the purpose of ascertaining the proportion of salt contained in the leaves. The leaves contained as much as a twentieth part of salt, nearly two ounces having been obtained from two pounds of the leaves.[*] We also found that after twice boiling the leaves a few minutes in water to extract the salt, and then an hour in a third water, the leaves formed a tender and palatable vegetable, somewhat resembling spinach. As the superior excellence of these runs for fattening cattle is admitted on all hands, as compared with others more abundant in grass on the eastern side of the great range, would it not be advisable for the colonists to cultivate this salt-supplying bush, and thereby to produce a vegetable substitute for the rock salt, which is not only expensive, but only a very imperfect remedy for the clay-licking propensities of sheep and cattle on many runs? Thermometer at sunrise, 70°; at noon, 94°; at 4 P.M., 98°; at 9, 86°;--with wet bulb, 75°. [* The process of Mr. Stephenson was as follows:--"Two pounds of the green leaf were boiled in eight quarts of water for half an hour, then strained and evaporated nearly to dryness. The mass was then submitted to a red heat for half an hour. The residuum was next digested in one pint of water, filtered, and again evaporated to six ounces. It was then exposed to the sun's rays, which completed the desiccation; crystals of a cubic shape having previously been formed."] 10TH FEBRUARY.--This morning the natives caught, in a hollow tree, an animal apparently of the same genus as the DIPUS MITCHELLII, and which seemed to live solely on vegetables. The barometer had fallen three millimetres last evening, and by noon this day it had declined three more. A fresh breeze blew from N. N. E., and at 2 P.M. a dark thunder cloud came from the S. S. W. and passed over the camp. The thunder was very loud, the lightning close and vivid; the wind for some time high, and rain heavy. The sky was, however, clear by 4 P.M., except in the N. E. where the thunder continued. Thermometer at sunrise, 75°. 11TH FEBRUARY.--The real "Duck Creek" was still to the northeastward of our camp, as Mr. Kennedy had ascertained when on the Macquarie. I hoped to find in it water sufficient at least to serve the party halting on it one night, on its way to the Macquarie, by which line alone I was now convinced water enough might be obtained to supply the party until it could arrive at the Darling; I therefore rode this day to examine it, with the elder native. I followed the bearing of N. N. E. from our camp, a direction in which it was likely to be met with, so as equally to divide the journey of the drays to the Macquarie, into two days. I crossed plains covered with luxuriant crops of very rich grass, and at length obtained a sight of Mount Foster bearing east. I reached Duck Creek (that of Sturt), or the "Marra" of the natives, ascertained by the bearing of Mount Foster, the native name of which is Narrab. I examined the bed of the Marra downwards for about two miles, without seeing therein the least indication of water, and returned to the camp fully resolved to proceed next day to the Macquarie, so as to reach it a little way below Mount Foster, a distance in that direction rather too great for the cattle to travel over in one day. Thermometer at sunrise, 59°; at noon, 73°; at 4 P.M., 76°; at 9, 61°;--with wet bulb, 57°. From an average of twenty-five observations of the mercurial column, the height of this station has been determined to be 566 English feet above the level of the sea. 12TH FEBRUARY.--We broke up our encampment on Cannonbà ponds, where we had greatly recruited ourselves, both men and cattle, and crossing the channel of the water-course near our camping ground, we travelled over open grassy plains towards the river Macquarie. At thirteen miles we reached the western branch of Duck Creek, or "Marra," a name by which it is universally known to natives and stockmen. Of this we crossed several branches, from which it would appear as if the name was derived from that of the hand, which is the same, especially as natives sometimes hold up the hand and extend the fingers, when they would express that a river has various branches or sources. I went on with an advanced party towards the Macquarie, and encamped on the bank of that river at 5 P. M. The thick grass, low forests of yarra trees, and finally the majestic blue gum trees along the river margin, reminded me of the northern rivers seen during my journey of 1831. Still even the bed of this was dry, and I found only two water holes on examining the channel for two miles. One of these was, however, deep, and we encamped near it, surrounded by excellent grass in great abundance. The Macquarie, like other Australian rivers, has a peculiar character, and this was soon apparent in the reeds and lofty yarra trees growing on reedy plats, and not, as usual in other rivers, on the edge of water-worn banks. The channel was here deep and dry. We found this day, in the scrubs by Marra Creek, the ACACIA SALICINA, whereof the wood has a strong perfume resembling violets, also a new small-leaved KOCHIA with intricate branches.[*] Thermometer at sunrise, 47°; at 4 P. M., 77°; at 9, 57°;--with wet bulb, 56°. [* K. THYMIFOLIA (Lindl. MS.); fruticosa, ramosissima, ramulis intricatis pubescentibus, foliis carnosis obtusis teretibus fructibusque glabris.] 13TH FEBRUARY.--I was again laid up with the MALADIE DU PAYS--sore eyes. Mr. Stephenson took a ride for me to the summit of Mount Foster, and to various cattle stations about its base, with some questions to which I required answers, about the river and stations on it lower down. But no one could tell what the western side of the marshes was like, as no person had passed that way; the country being more open on the eastern side, where only the stations were situated; Mr. Kinghorne's at Gràway, about five miles from our camp, being the lowest down on the west bank. Mr. Stephenson returned early, having met two of the mounted police. To my most important question--what water was to be found lower down in the river--the reply was very satisfactory; namely, "plenty, and a FLOOD COMING DOWN from the Turmountains." The two policemen said they had travelled twenty miles with it, on the day previous, and that it would still take some time to arrive near our camp. About noon the drays arrived in good order, having been encamped where there was no water about six miles short of our camp, the whole distance travelled, from Cannonbà to the Macquarie, having been about nineteen miles. In the afternoon two of the men taking a walk up the river, reported on their return, that the flood poured in upon them when in the river bed, so suddenly, that they narrowly escaped it. Still the bed of the Macquarie before our camp continued so dry and silent, that I could scarcely believe the flood coming to be real, and so near to us, who had been put to so many shifts for want of water. Towards evening, I stationed a man with a gun a little way up the river, with orders to fire on the flood's appearance, that I might have time to run to the part of the channel nearest to our camp, and witness what I had so much wished to see, as well from curiosity as urgent need. The shades of evening came, however, but no flood, and the man on the look-out returned to the camp. Some hours later, and after the moon had risen, a murmuring sound like that of a distant waterfall, mingled with occasional cracks as of breaking timber, drew our attention, and I hastened to the river bank. By very slow degrees the sound grew louder, and at length, so audible as to draw various persons besides from the camp to the river-side. Still no flood appeared, although its approach was indicated by the occasional rending of trees with a loud noise. Such a phenomenon in a most serene moonlight night was quite new to us all. At length, the rushing sound of waters and loud cracking of timber, announced that the flood was in the next bend. It rushed into our sight, glittering in the moonbeams, a moving cataract, tossing before it ancient trees, and snapping them against its banks. It was preceded by a point of meandering water, picking its way, like a thing of life, through the deepest parts of the dark, dry, and shady bed, of what thus again became a flowing river. By my party, situated as we were at that time, beating about the country, and impeded in our journey, solely by the almost total absence of water--suffering excessively from thirst and extreme heat,--I am convinced the scene never can be forgotten. Here came at once abundance, the product of storms in the far off mountains, that overlooked our homes. My first impulse was to have welcomed this flood on our knees, for the scene was sublime in itself, while the subject--an abundance of water sent to us in a desert--greatly heightened the effect to our eyes. Suffice it to say, I had witnessed nothing of such interest in all my Australian travels. Even the heavens presented something new, at least uncommon, and therefore in harmony with this scene; the variable star ARGUS had increased to the first magnitude, just above the beautiful constellation of the southern cross, which slightly inclined over the river, in the only portion of sky seen through the trees. That very red star, thus rapidly increasing in magnitude, might, as characteristic of her rivers, be recognized as the star of Australia, when Europeans cross the Line. The river gradually filled up the channel nearly bank high, while the living cataract travelled onward, much slower than I had expected to see it; so slowly, indeed, that more than an hour after its first arrival, the sweet music of the head of the flood was distinctly audible from my tent, as the murmur of waters, and the diapason crash of logs, travelled slowly through the tortuous windings of the river bed. I was finally lulled to sleep by that melody of living waters, so grateful to my ear, and evidently so unwonted in the dry bed of the thirsty Macquarie. Thermometer, at sunrise, 47°; at noon, 79°; at 4 P. M., 88°; at 9, 63°;--with wet bulb, 57°. 14TH FEBRUARY.--The river had risen to within six feet of the top of the banks, and poured its turbid waters along in fulness and strength, but no longer with noise. All night that body of water had been in motion downwards, and seemed to me enough to deluge the whole country to the Darling, and correct at least any saltness in its waters, if stagnant; a probability which had greatly reconciled me to the necessity for changing the line of my intended route, as the waters above the junction of the Castlereagh had never been known to become salt. We proceeded, falling soon into a cart track which led us to Gràway, Mr. Kinghorne's cattlestation, and we encamped about five miles beyond it, near a bend of the river. We were already in the midst of reeds, but these had been so generally burnt, that we had little difficulty in crossing those parts of the marshes. The IMPERATA ARUNDINACEA, with its long head of white silky flowers, was common, and a straggling naked branched species of dock, on the parts unburnt. Thermometer at sunrise, 54°; at noon, 91°; at 4 P. M., 82°; at 9, 72°;--with wet bulb, 60°. Height above the level of the sea, 475 feet. 15TH FEBRUARY.--Mr. Kinghorne obligingly accompanied me this day, and guided us across arms of the marshy ground. I was very glad to have his assistance, for I saw no line of trees as on other rivers, nor other objects by which I could pursue its course or keep near its waters; trees of the aquatic sort and reeds grew together. At one time nothing was visible to the eastward but a vast sea of reeds extending to the horizon. Where the long reeds remained unburnt, they presented a most formidable impediment, especially to men on foot and sheep, and twenty of these got astray as the party passed through. We encamped on a bank of rather firm ground, in lat. 30° 53' 55" S. The grass was very rich on some parts of open plains near the marshes, and the best was the PANICUM LOEVINODE of Dr. Lindley, mentioned in my former journals[*] as having been found pulled, and laid up in heaps for some purpose we could not then discover. Mr. Kinghorne now informed me that it was called by the natives "coolly," and that the gins gather it in great quantities, and pound the seeds between stones with water, forming a kind of paste or bread; thus was clearly explained the object of those heaps of this grass which we had formerly seen on the banks of the Darling. There they had formed the native's harvest field. There also I observed a brome grass, probably not distinct from the BROODS AUSTRALIS of Brown; it called to mind the squarrose brome grass of Europe. Thermometer at sunrise, 59°; at noon, 87°; at 4, 89°; at 9, 73°;--with wet bulb, 66°. [* Vol. i. p. 237.] 16TH FEBRUARY.--Mr. Kinghorne set out with a man of our party to examine Duck Creek, a native boy having told him that water was to be found in it lower down. I sent back early this morning, our native, with the store- keeper, some of the men, and the shepherd, to look for the lost sheep in the reeds, and Yuranigh fortunately found them out, still not very far from the spot where they had been separated from the rest of the flock. Our greatest difficulty in these marshes was the watering of the cattle. We had still the Macquarie at hand--deep, muddy, and stagnant--not above thirty feet wide, the banks so very soft that men could scarcely approach the water without sinking to the knees. We could water the horses with buckets, but not the bullocks. The great labour of filling one of the half-boats, and giving the cattle water by that means, was inevitable, and this operation took up three hours of the morning; a wheel required repair, the box having been broken yesterday. I for these reasons found it advisable to halt this day, which I did very reluctantly. At sunset, Mr. Kinghorne returned, having found no water in the "Marra," (Duck Creek). Among the grasses growing among the reeds, we perceived the ANDROPOGON SERICEUS and an ERIANTHUS, which appeared to differ from E. FULVUS in having no hair upon the knees. The smooth variety of the European LYTHRUM SALICARIA, raised its crimson spikes of flowers among the reeds of the Macquarie, as it does in England on the banks of the Thames. We saw also MORGANIA FLORIBUNDA, SENECIO BRACHYLOENUS (D. C.), a variety with toothed leaves, also a BRACHYCOME resembling B. HETERODONTA, only the leaves were entire. A new species of LOTUS appeared among the reeds, very near the narrow-leaved form of L. AUSTRALIS on the one hand, and the South European narrow-leaved form of L. CORNICULATUS on the other; the flowers were pink, and smaller than in L. AUSTRALIS.[*] Also an ETHULIA [**], which may, on further examination, constitute a new genus; it was found by Allan Cunningham on the Lachlan. Thermometer at sunrise, 54°; at noon, 86°; at 4 P.M., 84°; at 9, 61°;--with wet bulb, 54°. [* L. LAEVIGATUS (Benth. MS.); subglaber glaucescens, foliolis linearibus v. lineari-cuneatis vix acutatis, pedunculis folio longioribus 3--6- floris, calycis subsessilis appresse pubescentis dentibus setaceo- acuminatis tubo suo paullo longioribus, legumine recto tereti glabro.] [** ETHULIA CUNNINGHAMI (Hooker MS.); glaberrima, caule dichotomo, foliis oblongis sessilibus dentato-serratis, capitulis paucis corymbosis globosis, involucri squamis oblongis imbricatis viridibus, pappo e setis paucis brevibus.] 17TH FEBRUARY.--The party moved off early, and Mr. Kinghorne having shown me a few miles more of the best ground between the scrubs and reeds, went towards a cattle station beyond the Macquarie, where a belt of open forest separated the reeds and enabled him to pass. He prevailed on a native whom he met with there to come with him to me, and to guide me to water until I reached the Bàrwan. This native at first seemed rather afraid of our numerous party, but our own native, Yuranigh, endeavoured by every means to make him at ease, and to induce him to remain with us. He guided us this day by fine open ground westward of the marshes, to a part of the Macquarie where the banks were solid enough to admit of the cattle drinking. The name was Bilgawàngara; I reached the spot early, but at sunset no drays had come up. At length I was informed that such was the softness of the soil, that the drays had sank frequently, that two were fast in one place, four in another, and that two of the bullocks were astray. The marshes were said to be just then occupied by some angry tribes, of whom Mr. Kinghorne had warned me to be on my guard. The patience necessary to any traveller depending on bullocks and bullock drivers, I then thought ought to exceed that of Job. Our native guide was very shy, and Yuranigh feared he meant to "bolt." We depended on him for finding water--on our own native for finding bullocks; but it would not have done then to have sent him away. The weather might change, and these marshes become impassable; indeed, we were as much at the mercy of Providence in this respect as the Israelites were in the bed of the Red Sea. It depended on the weather whether we should deserve to be considered Jews or Egyptians. The teams came in about midnight, after the moon had risen, by which the drivers were enabled to see my track. Lat. 30° 45' 55" S. Thermometer at sunrise, 48°; at noon, 85°; at 4 P.M., 88°; at 9, 60°;--with wet bulb, 54°. 18TH FEBRUARY.--Two bullocks were still astray some miles behind, and the iron axle of one of the drays having got bent, required repair. The cattle, I was told, were so jaded, as to be unable to make a day's journey without more rest, and I was again obliged to halt. One only of the two lost bullocks was found, and for this one we were indebted to little Dicky, a native only ten years of age, whom the big fool who had lost them was at some trouble to coax to go and assist him in the search, as Yuranigh could not be spared from the more important duty of entertaining our less civilised guide, and preventing him from making his escape. It must, indeed, appear strange to these people of the soil, that the white man who brought such large animals as oxen with them into the country, should be unable to find them without the assistance of a mere child of their own race. Dicky had soon found both, but one of them being young and wild, escaped again amongst the tall reeds. In the rich soil near the river bed, we saw the yellowish flowers of the native tobacco, NICOTIANA SUAVEOLEUS, the MINURIA HETEROPHYLLA (D.C.), found by Allan Cunningham near the Lachlan, and a FUGOSIA near F. DIGITATA of Senegambia. In the scrub we found a fine new silvery ATRIPLEX with broad rounded leaves and strings of circular toothed fruits.[*] Thermometer at sunrise, 53°; at noon, 93°; at 4 P.M., 96°; at 9, 67°;-- with wet bulb 59°. [* A. NUMMULARIA (Lindl. MS.); caule suffruticoso glabro ramoso, foliis alternis ovato-subrotundis integerrimis petiolatis basi cuneatis utrinque argenteis, floribus monoïcis, spicis longis pendulis, bracteis subrotundis dentatis basi connatis.] 19TH FEBRUARY.--We set off early, guided by our native friend. He was a very perfect specimen of the GENUS HOMO, and such as never is to be seen, except in the precincts of savage life, undegraded by any scale of graduated classes, and the countless bars these present to the free enjoyment of existence. His motions in walking were more graceful than can be imagined by any who have only seen those of the draped and shod animal. The deeply set yet flexible spine; the taper form of the limbs; the fulness yet perfect elasticity of the GLUTEI muscles. The hollowness of the back, and symmetrical balance of the upper part of the torso, ornamented as it was, like a piece of fine carving, with raised scarifications most tastefully placed; such were some of the characteristics of this perfect "piece of work." Compared with it, the civilised animal, when considered merely in the light of a specimen in natural history, how inferior! In vain might we look amongst thousands of that class, for such teeth; such digestive powers; for such organs of sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling; for such powers of running, climbing, or walking; for such full enjoyment of the limpid water, and of all that nature provides for her children of the woods. Such health and exemption from disease; such intensity of existence, in short, must be far beyond the enjoyments of civilised men, with all that art can do for them; and the proof of this is to be found in the failure of all attempts to persuade these free denizens of uncultivated earth to forsake it for the tilled ground. They prefer the land unbroken and free from the earliest curse pronounced against the first banished and first created man. The only kindness we could do for them, would be to let them and their wide range of territory alone; to act otherwise and profess good- will is but hypocrisy. We cannot occupy the land without producing a change, fully as great to the aborigines, as that which took place on man's fall and expulsion from Eden. They have hitherto lived utterly ignorant of the necessity for wearing fig leaves, or the utility of ploughs; and in this blissful state of ignorance they would, no doubt, prefer to remain. We bring upon them the punishments due to original sin, even before they know the shame of nakedness. Such were the reflections suggested to my mind by the young savage as he tripped on lightly before me by the side of his two half-civilised brethren of our party, who, muffled up in clothes, presented a contrast by no means in favour of our pretensions to improve and benefit their race. Yet our faithful Yuranigh was all that could be wished. He was assiduously making to the stranger such explanations of our wants and purposes, as induced him to conduct us in the direction these required. He led us, thus admonished, over those parts of the country most favourable for the passage of wheels. The rosewood acacia was abundant, but many parts were covered with most luxuriant grass. We encamped on the edge of a salt-bush plain, where there was a small pond of water left by the last rains on a clay surface. There was certainly enough for ourselves and horses, but it appeared that our guide had greatly underrated the capacity for water, of our hundred bullocks. For these, however, there was superb grass to the westward, and a little dew fell on it during the night. Thermometer at sunrise, 59°; at noon, 102°; at 4 P. M., 104°; at 9, 77°;--with wet bulb, 65°. 20TH FEBRUARY.--From the necessity for obtaining water as soon as possible for the bullocks, we travelled over ground which was rather soft, otherwise our guide would have pursued a course more to the westward, and over a firmer surface. We, at length, crossed two narrow belts of reeds not more than twenty feet across, and had the great satisfaction to learn from him that these were the last of the reeds. A shallow creek appeared soon thereafter on our right, in which our guide had expected to find water, but was disappointed; cattle having recently drank up there, what had been a large pond when he was there formerly. He showed us the recent prints of numerous cloven feet, and thus we were made to feel, in common with the aborigines, those privations to which they are exposed by the white man's access to their country. On proceeding some miles further, our guide following down the channel, he at length appeared at a distance making the motions of stooping to bathe, on which Yuranigh immediately said "He has found plenty of water;" and there, in fact, our guide had found two large ponds. They were still in the attenuated channel of the Macquarie, here called by them Wámmerawá, the course of which river is continuous throughout the marshes; and marked by some high reeds greener than the rest, even when the reeds may have been generally burnt. These reeds are distinctly different from the "balyan," growing on the marshy parts of the rivers Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, and Millewà; the former being a cane or bamboo, the latter a bulrush, affording, in its root, much nutritious gluten. We found good grass for the cattle on both sides of the water-course, which was fringed with a few tall reeds, near which the pretty little KOCHIA BREVIFOLIA observed at Mudá on the Bogan, again occurred. The native name of the spot was "Warranb." The soft earth had again impeded the drays; the teams of two came in at twilight, an axle of one dray having been damaged; the six others were brought up in the course of the evening. Thermometer at sunrise, 60°; at 4 P. M., 103°; at 9, 78°;--with wet bulb, 68°. 21ST FEBRUARY.--The first thing done this morning was to send back cattle to draw forward the dray with a bent axle, to the camp, that it might be repaired. This was done so as to enable the party to continue the journey by 1 P. M. The barometer was going down at a rate which was alarming enough, considering what our position must have been there in a flood, or even after a heavy fall of rain. I therefore pressed forward with the light carts, and guided by the native. He brought us at 5 P. M. to "Willery," the place where he had expected to find water; but here again, he had been anticipated by cattle, which had drunk up all, and trodden the ponds as dry as a market-place. He gave us no hopes of finding water that night, nor until we could reach the Bàrwan, then distant, I was quite sure, at least twenty-four miles, according to the latitude observed (30° 19' 54" South). We encamped here, and I sent back directions that the drays should at once halt, taking their places beside the leading dray, and that the cattle should be driven back in the morning to be watered at the last camp (Warranb), and then to return and follow in my track. Mr. Drysdale, the storekeeper, had also to go back to serve out a week's rations to the party with the drays, and he returned to my camp by 2 A. M., in the moonlight, bringing, on the horse of the former messenger, rations for my party. Here we found the KERAUDRENIA INTEGRIFOLIA. Thermometer at sunrise, 70°; at noon, 105°; at 9, 83°;-- with wet bulb, 57°. 22D FEBRUARY.--My guide was now desirous that I should cross the Macquarie, to open plains which he represented to be much more favourable for wheel carriages; but I endeavoured to explain to him, by drawing lines in the clay surface, how the various rivers beyond would cross and impede my journey to the Bàrwan. There were the Castlereagh, Morissett's Ponds, and the Nammoy.[* If Arrowsmith's map had been correct, which it was not, for the Nammoy joins the Darling separately, at least fifty miles higher than the junction of the Castlereagh.] An instance occurred here of the uselessness of new names, and the necessity for preserving the native names of Rivers. I could refer, in communicating with our guide, to the Nammoy only, and to the hills which partly supplied the Castlereagh, whereof the native name was Wallambangle. I wanted to make them understand the probability that some flood had come down the channel of the Castlereagh, and that we might therefore hope to find water below its junction with the Macquarie. This, with the aid of Yuranigh, our own native, was at length made intelligible to our Bàrwan guide, and he shaped his course accordingly. He took us through scrubs, having in the centre those holes where water usually lodges for some time after rain, where some substratum of clay happens to be retentive enough to impede the common absorption. But the water in these holes had been recently drunk, and the mud trampled into hard clay by the hoofs of cattle. Thus it is, that the aborigines first become sensible of the approach of the white man. These retired spots, where nature was wont to supply enough for their own little wants, are well known to the denizens of the bush. Each locality has a name, and such places are frequented by helpless females with their children, or by the most peaceably disposed natives with their families. There they can exist apart from belligerent tribes, such as assemble on large rivers. Cattle find these places and come from stations often many miles distant, attracted by the rich verdure usually growing about them, and by thus treading the water into mud, or by drinking it up, they literally destroy the whole country for the aborigines, and thereby also banish from it the kangaroos, emus, and other animals on which they live. I felt much more disgusted than the poor natives, while they were thus exploring in vain every hollow in search of water for our use, that our "cloven foot" should appear everywhere. The day was extremely hot, which usually happened to be the case whenever we were obliged to experience the want of water. The thermometer under a tree stood at 110°. The store-keeper was taken ill with vertigo. Our bull-dog perished in the heat, and the fate of the cattle, still a day's journey behind us, and of the sheep, which had not drunk for two days, were subjects of much anxiety to me at that time. It may, therefore, be imagined with what pleasure I at length saw before me large basins of water in the channel of the Macquarie, when I next approached the banks, after a journey at a good pace for six hours and a half. We had made it below the junction of Morissett's Ponds, and found that a recent flood had filled its channel with water. The natives dived into it to cure their headaches, as they said, and seemed to go completely under water, in order to take a cool drink. We had reached the united channel of the Macquarie and Morissett's Ponds, and were at an easy day's journey only distant from the junction with the BÀRWAN or "Darling." The use of the aboriginal name of this river is indispensable amongst the squatters along its banks, who do not appear to know it to be the "Darling." It is most desirable to restore to such rivers their proper names as early as possible after they have been ascertained, were it only to enable strangers thereby to avail themselves of the intelligence and assistance of the natives, in identifying the country by means of the published maps. The river Castlereagh is known to the natives as the Barr; Morissett's Ponds, as the Wàwill; and the lower part of the Macquarie, as the Wammerawà. The squatting system of occupation requires still more that the native names of rivers should be known to commissioners empowered to parcel out unsurveyed regions of vast extent, whereof the western limits would be, indeed, beyond their reach or control, but for the line of an angry savage population, which line the squatter dares not to cross unsupported by an armed mounted police. Thermometer at sunrise, 59°; at noon, 110°; at 4 P. M., 107°; at 9, 89°; --with wet bulb 72°. 23RD FEBRUARY.--The drays did not come up, nor was any intelligence of them received at our camp until late in the afternoon, when a man I had sent back in the morning to tell the drivers to halt in good time to send forward the cattle by daylight along my track to the water, brought me word that he left them on the way ten miles off about eleven in the morning. This man (Smith) also brought forward the sheep with him. They had not drank for two nights, and ran skipping and baaing to the water, as soon as they saw it. The heat of this day and yesterday was excessive, a hot wind blowing hard all the time. Among the scrub on the banks of the Macquarie, a salt plant belonging to the genus SCLEROLOENA was remarked; it was perhaps not distinct from S. UNIFLORA. The GOODENIA GENICULATA overran the ground, with its strawberry-like runners, and yellow flowers. Latitude, 30° 12' 56" S. Thermometer at sunrise, 75°; at noon, 105°; at 4 P.M., 94°; at 9, 73°;--with wet bulb, 62°. 24TH FEBRUARY.--Some of the teams came up, having been out all night. The drivers brought me word that they had been detached at twilight to come six miles; the night was very dark; of course they could not see my track, and as a matter equally of course, the spare bullocks had strayed from them. Such were the almost daily recurring causes of delay by the bullock drivers on this journey. Here, within a day's journey (thirteen miles) of the Bàrwan, I was compelled to halt thus several days, and really the prospect of performing so long a journey with such drivers seemed almost hopeless. Thermometer at sunrise, 59°; at noon, 80°; at 4 P.M., 85°; at 9, 64°;--with wet bulb, 59°. 25TH FEBRUARY.--In the evening, the carpenter brought in ten of the stray bullocks; four were still wanting, and I dispatched Mortimer, a bullock driver, and the carpenter to show him where he had last left the track of the animals still astray; both were mounted. Thermometer at sunrise, 53°; at noon, 90°; at 4 P.M., 94°; at 9, 79°;--with wet bulb, 62°. 26TH FEBRUARY.--Mortimer came in early, saying he had found only one of the bullocks, that the others had gone back to the last wateringplace twenty-two miles distant. His companion did not arrive during the day; he said he had left him bringing on the animal they had fallen in with. I blamed him for leaving him, and ordered him to find him forthwith on foot. I could not afford to lose horses. Here, it seemed, we were doomed to remain. I endeavoured to make the most of the time by carrying on the mapping of our survey, in order to make good our longitude at crossing the Bàrwan. Thermometer at sunrise, 60°; at noon, 94°; at 4 P.M., 101°; at 9, 72°;--with wet bulb, 62.° 27TH FEBRUARY.--When the teams were about to be put to the drays this morning, I was informed that five bullocks were astray. This delayed the party until 10 A.M., and then we left one lame bullock still missing. I reduced the men's rations by one pound per week, and declared that a proportional reduction should be regularly made to correspond with such unlooked-for delays in the journey. We proceeded over firmer ground, having the river almost always in sight, until, after travelling about six miles, our guide showed me the river, much increased in width, and said they called that the "Bàrwan." As it was still a mere chain of ponds, though these were large, I was sure this was not the main channel; he also said this joined the main channel a good way lower down. I was convinced that it was only the Castlereagh that had thus augmented the channel of the Macquarie, which I found afterwards to be the case, the junction taking place two miles higher. I willingly encamped on it, however, to afford more time for the lost man, and the man sent after him, to rejoin the party. I this day gave "Yulliyàlly," our guide, the promised tomahawk, a pipe, tobacco; and, in addition, a shirt; also a few lines to Mr. Kinghorne, certifying that this native had done what he had engaged to do. Thermometer at sunrise, 62°; at noon, 94°; at 4 P.M., 97°; at 9, 70°;-- with wet bulb, 57°. 28TH FEBRUARY.--The wheelwright and Mortimer came into the camp at 6 A.M., bringing back the horse of the former, and one of the lost bullocks. We set out early, and after travelling about six miles I came upon a cart-track, which I followed to the westward until overtaken by a stockman, who informed me that the Wammerawà, on which I had been encamped, joined the Bàrwan, then on my right, within two miles of the spot on which we stood; that he belonged to the cattle station of Mr. Parnell, Jun., which was distant from my last camp about five miles, and on the main river; also that the track I was following led to Mohanna, Mr. Lawson's station, seventy-five miles lower down the Bàrwan. I turned with him towards the junction of the Macquarie and Bàrwan, and encamped thereby, right glad to reach at length, the river beyond which our exploratory tour was to commence. The river looked well, with a good current of muddy water in it, of considerable width, and really like a river. I understood from my guide to this point, that there was a good ford across the river at his station; also that Commissioner Mitchell had been down the river a short time back, making a map to show all the cattle stations on both banks. We had neither seen nor heard anything of Mr. Wright, the commissioner of the Macquarie district through which we had just passed, except that he "might visit the district when the hot weather was over." Here we found a new species of CALOTIS.[*] Thermometer at sunrise, 61°; at noon, 101°; at 4 P.M., 100°; at 9, with wet bulb, 62°. [* Calotis SCAPIGERA (Hook. MSS.); stolonifera glaberrima, foliis omnibus radicalibus lineari-spathulatis, scapo nudo monocephalo, achenii aristis robustis subulatis retrorsum pilosis apice rectis vel uncinatis.--A very distinct species. Habit of BRACHYSTEPHIUM SCAPIGERUM D. C.: but that ought to have no aristae to the achenium: here the awns are very stout in proportion to the size of the capitulum.] 1ST MARCH.--When, fifteen years before, I visited this river at a higher point where it was called the Karaula [*], no trace of hoofs of horses or bullocks had been previously imprinted on the clayey banks. Now, we found it to be the last resource of numerous herds in a dry and very hot season, and so thickly studded were the banks of this river with cattle stations, that we felt comparatively at home. The ordinary precautionary arrangements of my camp against surprise by savage natives seemed quite unnecessary, and, to stockmen, almost ridiculous. We had at length arrived at the lowest drain of that vast basin of clay absorbing many rivers, so that they lose themselves as in the ocean. Here the final outlet or channel of the waters of the Macquarie, was but a muddy ditch one might step across, which the magnificent flood we had seen in the same river above the marshes was not at all likely to reach. That flood had gone to fill thousands of lagoons, without which supply, those vast regions had been unfit for animal existence. Here we discover another instance of that wonderful wisdom which becomes more and more apparent to man, when he either looks as far as he can into space, or attentively examines the arrangement of any matter more accessible to him. The very slight inclination of the surface of these extensive plains seems finely adapted to the extremely dry and warm climate over this part of the earth. If the interior slope of the land from the eastern coastranges were as great as that in other countries supplying rivers of sustained current, it is obvious that no water would remain in such inclined channels here; but the slope is so gentle that the waters spread into a net-work of reservoirs, that serve to irrigate vast plains, and fill lagoons with those floods that, when confined in any one continuous channel, would at once run off into the ocean. [* We then understood the natives very imperfectly and might have been wrong about the name, which is the more likely, as CARÀWY, which the name resembles, means any deep water-hole.] In a wet season, the country through which we had traced out a route with our wheels had been impassable. The direction I should have preferred, and in which I had endeavoured to proceed, was along the known limits of this basin, and formed a curved line, or an arc, to which the route necessity had obliged us to follow was the chord; thus we had not lost time; but had, in fact, shortened the distance to be travelled over very considerably. A permanent route had, however, seemed to me more desirable to any country we might discover, than one liable to be interrupted by flooded rivers and soft impassable ground. The track of our drays, along the western side of the Macquarie marshes opened a new and direct route from Sydney to the banks of the river Darling, by way of Bathurst; and afforded access to a vast extent of excellent pasturage on the Macquarie, along the western margin of the marshes, which land would, no doubt, be soon taken up by squatters. In so dry a climate, and where water is so frequently scarce, it may, indeed, be found that the shortest line of route with such advantages would be more frequented than any longer line, possessing only the remote advantage of security from interruption by too much water. Thermometer at sunrise, 64°; at noon, 100°; at 4 P.M., 101°; at 9, 81°; with wet bulb, 61°. 2ND MARCH--MONDAY. I took a ride to examine the ford at Wyàbry, (Mr. Parnell, Jun.'s station,) which I found practicable for our drays, although, for their descent and ascent, it was necessary to cut better approaches on each side. The Macquarie, although the channel was so attenuated and ditch-like, was likely to prove also an obstacle without some work of the same kind. Accordingly, on my return to the camp, I sent some men to the last-mentioned work. I learnt from natives whom I met at Mr. Parnell's station, that the rivers Bolloon, Culgoa, and Biree were then flowing, some abundant rains having fallen about their sources. Also, from the stockman, that the Narran was thirty-five miles distant, but that a native could be found to guide me to water only ten miles off. Water was also to be obtained at a distance of only seven miles beyond the Bàrwan there at the "Morella Ridges," to which the natives were in the habit of resorting at certain seasons, by a path of their own, to gather a fruit of which they were very fond, named by them "Moguile," and which I had previously ascertained to be that formerly discovered by me, and named by Dr. Lindley CAPPARIS MITCHELLII.[*] We found back from this camp the RUTIDOSIS HELYCHRYSOIDES of De Candolle. Thermometer at sunrise, 72°; at noon, 101°; at 4 P.M.; 100°; at 9, 78°; and with wet bulb, 62°. [* See "Three Expeditions," etc., vol. i. page 315.] 3D MARCH.--Early this morning a party of men were sent to cut better approaches to the ford across the Bàrwan at Mr. Parnell's station. Ascertained the longitude of the junction of the rivers Macquarie and Darling at our present camp to be 147° 33' 45" E., by actual measurements connected with my former surveys of the colony. Mr. Kennedy had chained the whole of the route from Bellaringa, and I had connected his work with latitudes observed at almost every encampment, and after determining at various points the magnetic variation, which appeared to be very steady, I made the latitude of this camp 30° 6' 11" south. Thermometer at sunrise, 72°; at noon, 99°; at 4 P.M., 97°; at 9, 72°; and with wet bulb, 65°. The height above the sea level of the bed of the river here, the average result of eight observations, as calculated by Capt. King, was 415 feet. 4TH MARCH.--The party moved off towards the ford over the Bàrwan at Wyàbry, crossing the bed of the Macquarie about half a mile above its junction with the Bàrwan; there, although the approaches had been well enough cut, we found the bottom too soft for our heavy vehicles, one of which dipped its wheel to near the axle. We were obliged to pave the soft and muddy bed with logs, and to cover these with branches, on which earth was thrown, ere the rest could be got across. The party arrived about noon at Wyàbry, and by 2 P.M. the whole was safely encamped on the right bank of the Bàrwan. I had received this morning a dispatch from my son, commissioner of this district, in which he gave me a most favourable account of several rivers he had explored in the direction of my proposed route. These dispatches came to me at the last camp by the hands of a native, in forty-four hours after the superintendent of Mr. Lawson, being then on his way down the river, had promised to send them to me, from a station forty-five miles off, towards Fort Bourke, where it had been supposed my party would pass. Lat. of this camp, 30° 5' 41" S. On this northern bank of the Darling we looked for novelty in botany, and found some interesting plants, such as a toothed variety of SENERIO BRACHYLOENUS D. C., a kind of groundsel; MORGANIA FLORIBUNDA, loaded with purple blossoms, and a variety of HELICHRYSUM BRACTEATUM, somewhat different in the leaves from the usual state of the species. Thermometer at sunrise, 70°; at 4 P.M., 98°; at 9, 72°;--with wet bulb, 61°. Chapter III. THE PARTY ADVANCES INTO THE UNKNOWN REGION BEYOND THE DARLING,--GUIDED BY TWO ABORIGINAL NATIVES.--PLAINS AND LOW HILLS.--ARRIVE AT PONDS OR SPRINGS CALLED "CARÀWY."--DELAYED BY THE WEAKNESS OF THE CATTLE.--REACH THE NARRAN SWAMP SOONER THAN EXPECTED.--BRIDGE MADE TO CROSS SOFT PART OF SWAMP,--WHILE AWAITING THE ARRIVAL OF TIRED BULLOCKS.--SWAMP VERY EXTENSIVE TO THE EASTWARD.--NEW PLANTS.--RIDE ACROSS THE SWAMP AND RECONNOITRE THE RIVER NARRAN THIRTY MILES UPWARDS.--THE SWAMP THE LAST RECEPTACLE OF THE RIVER.--BRIDGE LAID DOWN BY MOONLIGHT.--THE WHOLE PARTY CROSSES IT, AND AFTERWARDS FORD THE NARRAN,--CROSSING TO THE LEFT BANK.-- ADVANCE BY VERY SHORT STAGES FROM WEAKNESS OF THE CATTLE.--RICH GRASS ON THE NARRAN.--ELEVATED STONY GROUND TO THE WESTWARD.--AGAIN RECONNOITRE THE RIVER IN ADVANCE WHILE THE CATTLE REST.--PARLEY WITH A NATIVE.--TWO NATIVES OF THE BALONNE GUIDE ME TO THAT RIVER.--APPROACH THE ASSEMBLED POPULATION OF ITS BANKS.--INTERVIEW WITH THE TRIBES.--CORDIAL RECEPTION.--CROSS THE BALONNE,--AND REACH THE CULG.--CIVILITY OF THE NATIVES.--CROSS THE CULG.--TRAVEL UP ALONG THE RIGHT BANK OF THE BALONNE.--GRASSY PLAINS ALONG ITS BANKS.--THE OLD DELAY, CATTLE MISSING.--A NATIVE SCAMP.--SPLENDID REACHES OF THE RIVER.--DÉPÔT CAMP AT A NATURAL BRIDGE.--RIDE TO THE NORTHWEST.--RECEIVE DISPATCHES FROM SYDNEY.--RETURN TO THE CAMP AT ST. GEORGE'S BRIDGE. 5TH MARCH.--Early this morning the stockman brought over two natives, brothers, who were to guide us to water ten miles on towards the Narran, which was said to be thirty-five miles off. In the first two miles we passed over some soft ground. Further on, hills were visible to the left, which our native guides called Goodeingora. Fragments of conglomerate rocks appeared in the soil of the plains, pebbles and grains of quartz cemented by felspar. These plains appeared to become undulating ground as we proceeded northward, and the surface became firmer. At length the country opened into slight undulations, well clothed with grass, and good for travelling over, the soil being full of the same hard rock found on the rising grounds nearest to the Darling, in the lowest parts of that river explored formerly by me. The red earth seemed to be but the decomposed matrix of that rock, as the water-worn pebbles of quartz so thickly set therein, here covered the ground in some places so thickly as to resemble snow. Much Anthistiria and other good grasses grew on those plains. I was, indeed, most agreeably surprised at the firm undulating stony surface and open character of the country, where I had expected to see soft clay, and holes and scrubs. At six miles, other slight elevations appeared to the N. E. which the natives called Toolowly, a name well calculated to fix in white men's memory elevations TOO LOW to be called hills. They were quite high enough, however, along a line of route for such heavy drays as those following us. There appeared much novelty in the trees on this side the Darling. The ANGOPHORA LANCEOLATA was every where; Callitris grew about the base of the hills, and some very singular acacias, a long-leaved grey kind of wattle, the ACACIA STENOPHYLLA of Cunningham. On one tree large pods hung in such profusion as to bend the branches to the ground. From this abundance I supposed it was not good to be eaten; nevertheless, I found in another place many of the same pods roasted at some fires of the natives, and learnt from our guides that they eat the pea. The pod somewhat resembled that of the Cachou nut of the Brazils,--Mùnumulà is the native name. The grasses comprised a great variety, and amongst the plants a beautiful little BRUNONIA, not more than four inches high, with smaller flower-heads than those of BR. SERICEA, quite simple or scarcely at all lobed, and a hairy indusium.[*] The tree, still a nondescript, although the fruit had been gathered by me in 1831, and then sent to Mr. Brown, was also here; and I saw one or two trees of a species of CAPPARIS. Mr. Stephenson found a great variety of new insects also. [* B. SIMPLEX (Lindl. MSS.); pumila, foliis undique scapisque longitudinaliter sericeis, villis appressis, capitulis subsimplicibus, bracteis majoribus oblongis, indusio extus piloso.] Our guides brought us at length to some waterholes, amongst some verdant grass on a plain, where no stranger would have looked for water; and here we encamped fifteen good miles from the Barwan. The ponds were called "Caràwy," and were vitally important to us, enabling us to pass on towards the Narran, which was still, as we had been informed, twenty-five miles off. As we approached these springs, I saw some natives running off, and I sent one of the guides after them to say we should do them no harm, and beg them to stop, but he could not overtake them. The undulations crossed by us this day seemed to extend east and west in their elongations, and were probably parallel to the general course of the main channel of drainage. The same felspathic rock seen in other parts of this great basin, seems the basis of the clay, although the fragments imbedded are very hard. The earth is reddish, and much resembles in this respect the matrix of the conglomerate. Near these springs we found a new HELICHRYSUM.[*] Thermometer at sunrise, 61°; at noon, 100°; at 4 P. M., 102°; at 9, 79°;--with wet bulb, 65°. [* HELICHRYSUM RAMOSISSIMUM (Hook. MSS.); suffruticosum valde ramosum arachnoideo-tomentosum, foliis lineari-spathulatis subflaccidis acutis, capitulis in racemis terminalibus parvis globosis flavis, involucri squamis lineari-subulatis undulatis fimbriato-ciliatis.] 6TH MARCH.--The drays not having come up, in consequence of the excessive length of yesterday's journey, and very hot weather--(16½ miles by latitude alone)--we were obliged to remain inactive here on a beautiful cool morning. I found near the ponds, several huts made of fresh branches of trees and the remains of fires, doubtless the deserted home of the fugitives of yesterday. At these fires I found the roasted pods of the acacia already mentioned (Mùnumulà). The water was surrounded by fresh herbage, and such was the simple fare of those aborigines, such the home whence they fled. As I looked at it in the presence of my sable guides, I could not but reflect that the white man's cattle would soon trample these holes into a quagmire of mud, and destroy the surrounding verdure and pleasant freshness for ever. I feared that my good-natured but acute guides thought as much, and I blushed inwardly [*] for our pallid race. [* The author of Waverley maintains that one may LAUGH inwardly-- conscience may, I suppose, make us also blush inwardly sometimes.] All day we sat still in anxious suspense about the non-arrival of our drays--the ground having been so good. With a country so interesting before us, this delay was doubly irksome, and as the cattle could only be watered by coming forward, why they did not come was the question; and this was not solved until evening, when a messenger came forward to ask if they might come, and to inform me that they were nearly exhausted. The fatal alternative of endeavouring to make them work in the morning, after passing a night without water, had been adopted, and as, on the day before, they had been worked until dusk in expectation of reaching my camp, they could not draw on the morning after; I instantly directed them to be brought forward; but the consequence of this derangement was the death of one, and much injury to many others. This contretemps arose wholly from the guides not having been understood at the Barwan as to the real distance, and this we had calculated too surely upon. Latitude 29° 52' 26" south. Thermometer at sunrise, 68°; at noon, 96°; at 4 P. M., 102°; at 9, 83°;--with wet bulb, 68°. 7TH MARCH, 1846.--The bullocks having been sent back after they had been watered last evening, the drays came up about 9 A. M. I left them in Mr. Kennedy's charge, and proceeded with the light carts followed by all the bullocks yoked up. They had trodden into mud the little water that had been left at that camp, and could not live much longer without more. The guides assured us the Narran was not far off, although we had understood when at the Barwan that the distance was twenty-five miles from these springs. We passed over very good ground, and found the country to improve as we advanced. We were conducted through the most open parts of scrubs by our guides, who were made to comprehend clearly how desirable that was for our "wheelbarrows;" and after travelling about seven miles, they pointed to a line of trees as the "Narran," beyond an extensive open country, which had a singular appearance from being higher than that we were upon. We crossed one or two slight elevations wholly composed of compact felspar in blocks--forming ridges resembling an outcrop of strata, whereof the strike always pointed N. W. and S. E. Various curious new plants and fruits appeared; amongst others a solanum, the berry of which was a very pleasant-tasted fruit. The plant was a runner and spread over several yards from one root. There was also a fruit shaped like an elongated egg; it appeared to be some Asclepiad, and was called by the natives "Doobàh." They ate it, seeds and all, but said it was best roasted. As we approached the elevated country between us and the distant line of trees, we perceived that the vast level was covered with POLYGONUM JUNCEUM in a verdant state. The colour was dark green, such as I had never seen elsewhere in this "leafless bramble," as Sturt called it, which looks ever quite dry and withered along the margins of the Darling. We had good reason to love and admire its verdure now, when we found amongst it pure water in great abundance, into which all our native companions immediately plunged, and rolled about like porpoises. This, they said, was the "Narran," but to the vast swampy plain they gave the name of Keegur, a name quite useless for white men's memories or maps. They seemed to say it was wholly an emanation from the Narran, and pointed to the nearest part of the trees beyond, saying the river Narran was there. I still endeavoured to proceed, as they wished, towards the nearest trees beyond, until a winding narrow pond of water, in very soft mud, precluded all hopes of crossing with our drays, without some sort of bridge; I therefore immediately counter-marched the party with me, now far advanced in that sea of dark green polygonum, and conducted it into a position on open stony ground to the westward of our route, with the intention to await there the arrival of the drays, and to prepare materials for a bridge to be laid across the muddy pond, as I had seen a small clump of pines (Callitris) at no great distance back. My guides did not encourage a hope I entertained, that this swamp might be turned by the westward, in which direction the open country extended to the horizon. The man who travels with bullocks must expect to be impeded by wet ground, as well as by the scarcity of water, in many situations where horses could pass without difficulty. I directed the bullocks, that had been driven forward with me, to be allowed to graze beside the water until sunset, and then to be taken slowly back by moonlight to Mr. Kennedy. Five had dropped down on the way, and had not come forward to the water. Those sent back were also ordered to be allowed to feed all the next day at Mr. Kennedy's camp, and only to start with the drays there next evening, to come on by moonlight, thus avoiding the intense heat, so oppressive under extreme thirst. The thermometer during the day, rose to 103° in the shade. Latitude of the camp on Narran swamp, 29° 45' 51" S. Thermometer at sunrise, 47°; at noon, 97°; at 4 P. M., 97°; at 9, 69°; ditto with wet bulb, 57°. The height of this camp above the sea, the average of five registered observations, is 442 feet. 8TH MARCH.--The view northward from our present camp was most extensive. Far in the northeast a yellow slope presented the unusual appearance there, of a cultivated country. It was doubtless ripe grass, yet still the earth there had not even been imprinted with any hoof. Between that slope and our camp, lay the element, in abundance, which had been so scarce on the other side of the Darling. To the northward, at no great distance, was the river, where, as our guides informed us, we should no longer be ill off for water in pursuing our journey along its banks. I set the carpenter to cut sleepers and slabbing to enable us to bridge the muddy creek, for I had examined it early in the morning, and had crossed it with my horse; although I found several watercourses almost as soft, beyond. The natives maintained that the water in this extensive swamp came neither from the east nor west, but from the river directly before us, which came from the northward. Just behind our camp, to the southward, was a gentle elevation, almost a hill, consisting of the usual rock, felspar; and it seemed to me that this stony ground alone impeded the further progress of the water towards the Barwan. The ridge trended north-west, as most others did in this extensive basin; and this direction being nearly parallel to that of the coast ranges further northward, seemed to afford additional reason for expecting to find anticlinal and synclinal lines, and, consequently, rivers, much in the same direction. D'Urban's group, distant 150 miles lower down the Darling, consisted of a quartzose rock, exactly similar to this, exhibiting a tendency, like it, to break into irregular polygons, some of the faces being curved. This rock is most extensively distributed in the interior of New South Wales. It was not until the evening of this day that the approach of the drays was announced, and then prematurely, the teams only having been brought forward to the water without them. So weak were the unfortunate animals, that not even by night, nor by doubling the numbers, could they be made to draw the drays forward, for the short distance of eight miles; a distance which we had been given to understand was so much greater. Forward, all was most promising, and it may be imagined how bitterly I regretted the alteration of my original plan of equipment, which had reference to horses and light carts alone. A new species of ANTHISTIRIA occurred here, perfectly distinct from the kangaroo grass of the colony, very like APLUDA MUTICA, and remarkable for the smooth shining appearance of the thin involucral leaves.[*] The TRICHINIUM ALOPECUROIDEUM, in great abundance, was conspicuous, with its long silky ears of green flowers. On the stony ground occurred a very curious new woolly KOCHIA [**], also a species of CYPERUS; the TRICHINIUM LANATUM in great perfection; a grass resembling the close reed (CALAMAGROSTIS of England), and which proved to be the little-known TRIRAPHIS MOLLIS. On the margin of the morass the DACTYLOCTENIUM RADULANS, spreading over the interstices, reminded the traveller of the grasses of Egypt; and, in stony ground near the morass, we observed the JUSTICIA MEDIA of Brown. Thermometer at sunrise, 66°; at noon, 98°; at 4 P. M. 102°; at 9, 81°; ditto with wet bulb, 74°. [* A. MEMBRANACEA (Lindl. MSS); involucris carinatis margine membranaceis foliis vaginisque glaberrimis, floribus verticillatis pedicellatis (masculis?), glumis omnibus scabris, aristâ glaberrimâ glumâ 3plo longiore.] [** K. LANOSA (Lindl. MSS); ramis strictis foliisque linearibus acutis cinereis tomentosis, fructibus lanatis, calycis laciniis elongatis.] 9TH MARCH.--My native guides, tired of the delay, were anxious to return, and as the assistance they could afford me was likely to be extremely useful, and the arrival of the drays was most uncertain, I went forward this morning with one of them, two men, and Youranigh, our interpreter, all mounted. Amongst the trees, beyond the swamp, fine reaches of water appeared in a river channel, apparently continuous to the northward, but which, in the other direction, or towards the swamp, abruptly terminated like a cul-de-sac. On my asking the natives where it went to, they pointed to the various narrow water courses and the swamp as the final depositories of the water. Admirable distribution of the contents of a river in a country where water is so scarce, and the climate so hot and dry! We proceeded along the margin of the "Narran," which led us nearly due north, until we forded it, at the desire of our guides, on a good gravelly bottom, the water reaching to our saddle-flaps. Crossing a slight elevation where the soil was gravelly, and in which grew the shrubs of the ordinary scrubs with several interesting novelties, we again came upon an angle of the Narran, and continued along its banks for about thirty miles, until near sunset, when we tethered our horses, and lay down for the night. The Narran was full of water every where, and with this abundance of water there was also plenty of most excellent grass. The PANICUM LOEVINODE of Dr. Lindley seemed to predominate, a grass whereof the seed ("Cooly") is made by the natives into a kind of paste or bread. Dry heaps of this grass, that had been pulled expressly for the purpose of gathering the seed, lay along our path for many miles. I counted nine miles along the river, in which we rode through this grass only, reaching to our saddle-girths, and the same grass seemed to grow back from the river, at least as far as the eye could reach through a very open forest. I had never seen such rich natural pasturage in any other part of New South Wales. Still it was what supplied the bread of the natives; and these children of the soil were doing every thing in their power to assist me, whose wheel tracks would probably bring the white man's cattle into it. We had followed well-beaten paths of natives during the whole of this day's ride, and most anxious were my guides and I to see them; but they avoided us. Our guide was of that country, and not at all unwilling or timid; but evidently very desirous to introduce us to the inhabitants, and procure amongst them other guides to lead us further. The night was very hot, and flies and mosquitos did their utmost to prevent us from sleeping. Thermometer at sunrise, 75°; at noon, 99°; at 4 P. M., 105°; at 9, 83°; ditto with wet bulb, 75°. 10TH MARCH.--Anxious for an interview with some of the natives, I continued the pursuit of the Narran's course about five miles higher, but with no better success. I then turned, after obtaining from our guide, through Youranigh, what information could be gathered thus, as to the river's further course, the best bank for the passage of our drays, etc. We were still, he said, a long way from the "Culgoa." There was no perceptible change in the aspect of the "Narran" as far as we had examined it, except that where we turned, there were flood-marks, and the dead logs and river wreck, deposited on the upper side of trees and banks, showing a current and high floods. The last of these, our guide said, had occurred about five moons before. In riding back to the camp we kept the castern bank, that the track might be available for our drays. This ride along a river where we could, when we pleased, either water our horses, or take a drink ourselves, was quite new and delightful to us, under a temperature of 105° in the shade. Our guide, aged apparently about fifty, walked frequently into the river, while in a state of perspiration; dipped quite under water, or drank a little with his lip on the level of its surface, and then walked on again. He was at last very tired, however, and pointed to the large muscles of the RECTUS FEMORIS as if they pained him. We found at the camp, on our return, five of the drays that had come up, the other three being still behind, and requiring double teams of exhausted cattle to bring them forward. In the vicinity of our camp we found the TRICHINIUM ALOPECUROIDEUM, with heads of flowers nearly five inches long; an eucalyptus near E. PULVERULENTA, but having more slender peduncles; a sort of Iron-bark. We found also a tall glaucous new HALORAGIS [*], and a curious new shaggy KOCHIA was intermingled with the grass.[**] Thermometer at sunrise, 77°; at noon, 102°; at 4, 107°; at 9, 76°;--with wet bulb, 71°. [* H. GLAUCA (Lindl. MSS.); annua, stricta, glaberrima, glauca, foliis oppositis lineari-oblongis obtusis petiolatis grossè serratis, racemis apice aphyllis, fructu globoso tuberculato laevi.] [** K. VILLOSA (Lindl. MSS.); ramis erectis foliisque linearibus villosissimis, fructibus glabris.] 11TH MARCH.--All the drays came in early. I gave to the two natives, the tomahawks, tobacco, and pipes, as promised; also a note to the stockman on the Barwan, who had provided me with them, saying that they had been very useful. I this morning examined the country to the westward of the swamp, and found a narrow place at which we could pass, and so avoid much soft heavy ground. The ramifications of the watery Narran penetrated into the hollows of the stony ridge, presenting there little hollows full of rich verdure and pools of water, a sight so unwonted amongst rocks characteristic of D'Urban's arid group. In one little hollow, to the westward of our camp, it seemed possible for two men with a pickaxe and shovel to have continued it through, and so to have opened a new channel for the passage of the waters of the Narran swamp, into the dry country between it and the Barwan. Thermometer at sunrise, 55°; at noon, 105°; at 4 P. M., 102°; at 9, 75°;--with wet bulb, 59°. 12TH MARCH.--I found it necessary to sit still here and refresh the jaded bullocks; thus days and months passed away, in which with horses I might have continued the journey. The very extensive country before us, which appeared to absorb these waters, was quite clear of timber, and irrigated by little canals winding amongst POLYGONUM JUNCEUM. This open country appeared to extend north-eastward about eight miles, thence to turn eastward, as if these waters found some outlet that way to the Barwan. I regretted that this swamp led too far out of our way, to admit of our tracing its limits to the eastward. This day I received letters from Commissioner Mitchell, in which he strongly recommended to my attention the rivers Biree, Bokhara, and Narran, as waters emanating from, and leading to, the Balonne, a river which he said might supply our party with water, in this very dry season, almost to the tropic. I was able to inform him in reply, that I was already on the Narran, and that I had already availed myself of his account of the rivers formerly sent me, on which I must have been obliged to depend, even if the party had passed by Fort Bourke. This evening, by moonlight, I conducted a dray, carrying two platforms, to the place where the narrow channel, feeding the swamp, could be passed without our meeting beyond any other impediment to the drays. The sleepers used for this purpose were made of pine (CALLITRIS PYRAMIDALIS), found half a mile back from our camp. They were fourteen feet long, two feet wide, being composed of cross-pieces, two feet long, fixed at each end between two sleepers, so that they somewhat resembled a wooden railway. These, when laid at the proper distance apart to carry both wheels, were bedded on the soft earth, and the interval between was filled to a level with them, by layers of polygonum and long grass, alternate with earth, forming together a mass of sufficient resistance to support the feet of the draught oxen. The whole formed a compact bridge or gangway. Thermometer at sunrise, 51°; at noon, 95°; at 4 P. M., 107°; at 9, 70°;--with wet bulb, 61°. 13TH MARCH.--The party once more moved onward, and the drays trundled across the swampy arm by means of our bridge, which, even in the event of an accession of water there, might have proved serviceable on our return. Three miles beyond it we had to ford the Narran, passing over a gravelly bottom to the eastern bank, and encamping there. The drays were slow in arriving at this ford and camp, as the ground was soft and hollow, but by sunset all had crossed, and our camp established on the Narran. Thermometer at sunrise, 71°; at noon, 100°; at 4 P. M., 100°; at 9, 71°;--with wet bulb, 65°. The height of this camp above the sea, according to ten registered observations, is 487 feet. 14TH MARCH.--We now had before us water and grass in abundance, to a distance as unlimited and indefinite, as our hopes of discovery. I intended to set out early each morning, and travel only four or five miles, that the jaded animals, exhausted by want of water and hard work, might have time to feed and refresh. One old cause of delay, however, again occurred to impede us,--three bullocks were reported missing. Now it was nearly full moon, and two men had been on watch all night. It really seemed that delay and disappointment must attend all who depend on bullocks and bullock-drivers. The stray cattle were not brought up until 9 A. M., when we proceeded, and encamped on an angle of the Narran, after travelling about five miles. In the scrubs passed through, we found the fragrant JASMINUM LINEARE in fruit, the flowers being nearly past; a bulb which proved to be the ANTHERICUM BULBOSUM of Brown; a shrub ten feet high, in fruit, the CANTHIUM OLEIFOLIUM of Sir William Hooker; a fine new CHENOPODIUM, with long naked spikes of woolly yellow flowers [*]; and a hoary variety of ACACIA LEPTOCLADA, or perhaps a distinct species, having a good deal of the aspect of A. DEALBATA, but the leaves and glands nearer those of A. LEPTOCLADA, according to Mr. Bentham. Thermometer at sunrise, 70°; at noon, 103°; at 4 P. M., 102°; at 9, 81°;--with wet bulb, 75°. [* C. AURICOMUM (Lindl. MSS.); totum glaucum farinosum, caule stricto, foliis petiolatis oblongis subhastatis lobisque posticis obtusis supremis lanceolatis, spicis compositis nudis aphyllis glomeratis multifloris tomentosis.] 15TH MARCH.--The sand amongst the scrubs was so soft and yielding, that the draught animals could not draw the drays through it without great difficulty; indeed, it was only possible by double-backing, as the drivers termed their practice of alternately assisting one another, a process to which all had had recourse with one exception. It was not until 1 A. M. of this morning, therefore, that the last dray was brought to the camp. Another bullock died on the way, and thus I felt, when the field of discovery lay open before me, that my means of conveyance were unsuited to the task. Overloading at Boree, unskilful driving, excessive heat, and want of water, had contributed to render the bullocks unserviceable, and I already contemplated the organization of a lighter party and fewer men, with which I might go forward at a better rate, leaving the heavy articles of equipment and tired cattle in a depôt, on some good grassy spot. The latitude of this camp was 29° 38' 21" south. Thermometer at sunrise, 73°; at noon, 84°; at 4 P. M., 86°; at 9, 65°;-- with wet bulb, 60°. 16TH MARCH.--I proceeded six miles, and chose a camp beside a bend of the Narran, full of deep water, and in the midst of most luxuriant grass. The drays arrived by 11 A. M. in such good order, that I was induced to try whether, by early starting, good feeding, and short journeys, the party could not be got forward to the Balonne, where I could leave the whole in one depôt, to rest and refresh, while I took my intended ride forward. Latitude, 29° 34' 11" S. Thermometer at sunrise, 43°; at noon, 86°; at 4 P. M., 87°; at 9, 62°;--with wet bulb, 55°. 17TH MARCH.--I proceeded seven miles, and the drays came forward as well as they did yesterday, so that I again entertained hopes of the progress of the united party, which was very desirable, as these plains were evidently sometimes so saturated with water as to be rendered wholly impassable for wheel-carriages or even horses. Latitude, 29° 29' 11" S. Thermometer at sunrise, 47°; at noon, 87°; at 4 P. M., 91°; at 9, 62°;-- with wet bulb, 52°. 18TH MARCH.--Again we made out a short journey over rather soft ground; all the drays coming in, although slowly. I rode to a gently rising ground, a great novelty, which appeared bearing E. N. E. from our camp, at a distance of 2½ miles. I found it consisted of gravel of the usual conglomerate decomposed--of rounded fragments of about a cubic inch in bulk. The grass was good there, and I perceived that the same gravelly ridge extended back from the river in a north and south direction. Graceful groups of trees grew about this stony ground, which looked, upon the whole, better than the red sandy soil of the scrubs and callitris forest. This seemed the dividing ridge between the Narran and Barwan. From this elevation, I saw that the course of the former ran still in a good direction for us, to a great distance northward. On that stony ground I found a new PITTOSPORUM five feet high, with long narrow leaves, in the way of P. ROEANUM and ANGUSTIFOLIUM, but distinct from both in the form of its fruit.[*] Latitude of camp 29° 25' 21". Thermometer at sunrise, 53°; at noon, 90°; at 4 P. M., 96°; at 9, 69°;--with wet bulb, 61°. [* P. SALICINUM (Lindl. MS.); foliis lineari-lanceolatis coriaccis acutissimis aveniis, pedunculis unifloris aggregatis axillaribus, fructibus subglobosis vix compressis.] 19TH MARCH.--Pursuing the Narran, keeping its eastern or left bank, our course this day was more to the northward. I encamped after travelling six miles, not only because the ground was soft and heavy for the drays, but because I saw that the Narran turned much to the eastward, and I contemplated the passage across it, intending to look for it again, by travelling northward. Accordingly, as soon as our ground had been marked out, I crossed to reconnoitre the country in that direction. I found a fine, open, grassy country, but no signs of the river at the end of five miles, nor even until I had ridden as far eastward. There, recrossing it, I returned to the camp through some fine open forest country. Latitude observed, 29° 21' 51", S. Thermometer at sunrise, 57°; at 4 P. M., 96°; at 9, 71°;--with wet bulb, 62°. 20TH MARCH.--Retracing my homeward tracks of yesterday, we proceeded in a nearly E. N. E. direction, along much firmer ground than we had recently traversed. The great eastern bend of the river was found amongst much excellent grass and amidst much fine timber. A species of Anthistiria appeared here, which seemed different from the ordinary sort, although this was no stranger to me, when exploring the waterless plains westward of the Lachlan, where it looked as if stunted for want of moisture. Here, however, this variety presented the same knotty head, where other grasses grew luxuriantly. After getting round the extreme eastern turn of the Narran we encamped. Near the spot large rocks appeared in the bed, as if the river was passing through the stock of the gravelly ridge I had visited on the 18th. The rock consisted of that found about the basin of the Darling; a quartzose conglomerate with much felspar, and having pebbles of quartz imbedded. The large fragments of the conglomerate in the river bed were angular, and not at all rounded at the edges. Here the poor natives had been very industrious, as was evident from heaps of the grass PANICUM LOEVINODE, and of the same redstalked coral-like plant, also mentioned as having been observed in similar heaps, on the banks of the Darling, during my journey of 1835 (vol. i. p. 238). I now ascertained that the seed of the latter is also collected by the natives and made into a paste. This seed was black and small, resembling fine gunpowder when shaken out. Nevertheless it was sweet and pleasant to the taste, possessing a nutty flavour. The human inhabitants were few, and as invisible as other animals in these forests--the prints of whose feet were also plain in the soft smooth surface. As faithless as the snows of the North [*], this soil bore the impressions of all animals obliged to go to the water, and amongst them those of the naked feet of men, women, and children, with the prints likewise of other BIPEDS, such as emus and kangaroos, and also those of the native dog. Here still was our own race amongst other animals all new and strange to Europeans. The prints of the foot of man alone were familiar to us. But here he was living in common with other animals, simply on the bounty of nature; artless, and apparently as much afraid of us, and as shy, as other animals of the forest. It seemed strange, that in a climate the most resembling that of Milton's paradise, the circumstances of man's existence should be the most degrading. Latitude of our camp, 29° 19' 26" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 55°; at noon, 100°; at 4 P. M., 101°; at 9, 70°;--with wet bulb, 65°. The mean elevation above the sea of our camps thus far on the Narran, seven in number, was 477 feet; the bed of the river being about 15 feet lower. [* "And hungry Maukin's ta'en her way To kailyards green, While faithless snaws ilk step betray Whar she has been." BURNS.] 21ST MARCH.--Proceeded as usual through fine grass, the river coming favourably round towards the north. At about two miles I found some traces of horses, and I looked at the river bank for Commissioner Mitchell's initials, supposing this might be "Congo," where he had forded the Narran. But we had not reached the latitude of Congo according to his map. Nevertheless we found here such an excellent dry ford, with gently sloping banks to a stony bottom, that the two circumstances induced me to cross the Narran with the party. I travelled west-ward, until meeting with a dense scrub, I turned towards the friendly Narran, where we encamped in latitude 29° 15' 31" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 56°; at noon, 97°; at 4 P. M., 101°; at 9, 72°; ditto with wet bulb, 66°. 22D MARCH.--Gave the party a day's rest, prayers being read by the surgeon, as was usual whenever circumstances admitted of our halting on Sunday. The bed of the Narran presented in several places the denuded rock, which seems the basis of all the soil and gravel of the country. At one place irregular concretions of milk-white quartz, cemented by a ferruginous basis, was predominant; at another, the rough surface of compact felspar weathering white presented merely the cavities in which large rounded pebbles had been imbedded, until the partial decomposition of the felspar, under the river floods, had exposed them once more to the action of water. The force of those waters, however, had not been sufficient to cut a channel through very soft rocks extending right across their course--a circumstance rather characteristic, perhaps, of a river like the Narran, watering a nearly level country, and terminating in a swamp. Thermometer at sunrise, 53°; at noon, 95°; at 4 P. M., 98°; at 9, 72°;--with wet bulb, 66°. Height above the sea, 515 feet, from eight observations. 23RD MARCH.--All hands were bent on an early start this morning, and, soon after seven, the party moved off. We crossed much grassy land, almost approaching to the character of scrub as to bushes; but we pursued a tolerably straight course to the N.W., until we again made the Narran at 8½ miles. Various new plants attracted my attention this day, especially a beautiful Loranthus on the rosewood Acacia, and a small bush bearing a green pod resembling a small capsicum in shape. Among the sedges by the river we found the KYLLINGA MONOCEPHALA; and, on the rich black clayed soil near it, a species of bindweed out of flower, with large sagittate leaves: in the scrubs back from the river, grew a small bush, about four feet high, which has been considered either a variety of Brown's SANTALUM OBLONGATUM, or a new species distinguished by its narrow sharp-pointed leaves. The LORANTHUS LINEARI. FOLIUS was growing on the rosewood Acacia, and the branches of Eucalypti were inhabited by the parasitical ORANGE LORANTH.[*] Lat., 29°1 0' 6" S. Therm. at sunrise, 51°; at noon, 95°; at 4 P. M., 99°; at 9, 70°;--wet bulb, 63°. [* L. AURANTIACUS (All. Cunn. MS.); ramis elongatis laxis gracilibus, foliis oppositis longe petiolatis oblongis obtusis lanceolatisve acuminatis glabris 3-5-nerviis tenui-marginatis, paniculis folio brevioribus ditrichotomis, floribus erectis, calycibus subcylindraceis superne latioribus truncatis, petalis linearibus 6, stylo infra apicem geniculato, stigmate dilatato truncato.--W. J. H.] 24TH MARCH.--We set off still earlier this morning. I hoped to reach the Bokhara, on the West, a river shown on the map sent me by the Commissioner of the district, but after travelling about seven miles to the northward, I saw rising ground before me, which induced me to turn towards our own friendly river the Narran; but it proved to be very far from us, while in my search for it, to my surprise, I found it necessary to descend several considerable declivities, covered with waterworn pebbles. At length a slight opening in the dense scrubs through which we had forced our way, afforded a view towards the south-east of the low range we were upon, which trended very continuously to the north-west, covered thickly with the "Malga" tree of the natives; to the traveller the most formidable of scrubs. After several other descents, we reached the Narran, but only at half-past three in the afternoon, when we had travelled nearly twenty miles. How the teams were to accomplish this, it was painful to consider. I sent back a messenger to desire that the cattle should be detached and brought forward to the water; content to lose one day, if that indeed would suffice to recover the jaded animals. Casuarinae now grew amongst the river trees, and reminded me of the banks of the Karaula in 1831. We had also noticed another novelty in the woods we passed through this day; a small clump of trees of iron-bark with a different kind of leaf from that of the tree known by that name in the colony. On the higher stony land, a bush was common, and proved to be a broad-leaved variety of EREMOPHILA MITCHELLII, if not a distinct species. We there met with a new species of the rare and little-known genus, GEIJERA; forming a strong-scented shrub, about ten feet high, and having long, narrow, drooping leaves. Its fruit had a weak, peppery taste.[*] The rare ENCHYLOENA TOMENTOSA formed a shrub a foot high, loaded with yellow berries: all the specimens were digynous, in which it differed from the description of Brown. The CAPPARIS LASIANTHA was observed amongst the climbing shrubs still in fruit; and a beautiful new LORANTH, with red flowers tipped with green, was parasitical on trees.[**] On the bank of the Narran we found the AMARANTHUS UNDULATUS of Brown. [* G. PARVIFLORA (Lindl. MS.); ramis erectis, foliis longis linearibus pendulis in petiolum sensim angustatis 4 unc. longis.] [** Loranthus LINEARIFOLIUS (Hook. MS.); foliis lineari-filiformibus acutis carnosis glabris teretibus, pedunculis axillaribus brevibus bifloris, calycibus cylindraceis truncatis contractis, petalis 6 linearibus supra basin coalitis.] The cattle arrived in the dark, and were watered in the muddy-banked Narran, by the light of burning boughs; then set to feed. Lat. 29° 6' 33" S.; therm. at sunrise, 48°; at 4 P. M., 101°; at 9, 74°; ditto with wet bulb, 62°. 25TH MARCH.--The cattle had now to return to bring forward the drays. Meanwhile I took a ride up the river, in order to ensure a moderate journey for these exhausted animals. Proceeding along the right bank, I found gravelly slopes almost closing upon the river. The direction of its course for four miles, was nearly southward. Then I saw gravelly ridges on the left, and a line of wood before me, while the river evidently came from the East round the margin of an extensive plain. I continued northward; found a rosewood scrub: then saw the Malga tree; passed through scrubs thereof; found myself on stony ridges, whence descending in a N. E. direction, again passed through rosewood scrubs, and only reached the river after riding 2½ miles in that direction. I saw a continuous ridge, bare and distant, beyond what I considered the river bed, and a similar ridge to the westward. I crossed a native camp where the newly deserted fires still smoked. We saw one man at a distance, who did not mind us much; I could not have obtained any information from him, and therefore did not seek a parley. Crossing the Narran there, by a beaten track, beside a native fishing fence, I returned to the camp, on the bearing of S. S. W., and found a grassy plain the whole way back, until within sight of the tents, and a good rocky ford for the passage of the party next day. On the stony ridge I found a remarkable shrub, a species of Sida (ABUTILON), allied to S. GRAVEOLENS, Roxb., but distinct. The teams brought the drays in, about 5 P. M.; one animal of all being missing. Therm. at sunrise, 72°; at noon, 89°; at 4 P. M., 91°; at 9, 60°;--with wet bulb, 53°. 26TH MARCH.--Early this morning, William Baldock was sent back in search of the stray bullock, while the party crossed the Narran, and proceeded along my horse's track of yesterday. Baldock over took the party, having found the bullock on the river, four miles below our late encampment. The natives seen yesterday had disappeared, having previously set fire to the grass. We proceeded two miles beyond their fires, and encamped on the river bank in lat. 29° 1' 57" S. A small path along the river margin; marks on trees, where hollow portions of bark had been taken off; some ancient, some recent, huts of withered boughs and dry grass; freshwater muscle shells, beside the ashes of small fires; and, in some places, a small heap of pulled grass (PANICUM LOEVINODE), or of the coral plant; such were the slight but constant indications of the existence of man on the Narran. Such was the only home of our fellow-beings in these parts, and from it they retired on our approach. Ducks, which were rather numerous, and emus (coming to drink), probably constituted their chief food, as nets to ensnare both these kinds of birds, were found about their huts. Youranigh brought me one of their chisels, a small bit of iron fastened to a stick with gum, and tied with a piece of striped shirting. I directed him to place it carefully where he had found it. Thermometer at sunrise, 47°; at noon, 90°; at 4 P. M., 95°; at 9, 69°;--with wet bulb, 60°. The mean height above the sea of the camps of 23d, 24th, and 26th March, was 461 feet. 27TH MARCH.--Pursuing, as well as we could, the course of the Narran, which came more from the northward, we again encamped on its banks after a journey of seven miles, without recognising any indication of the vicinity of the larger stream, which, according to our latitude, we ought by this to have reached. The current here had evidently been more decided, and dry trunks and other FLUVIATILE DEBRIS lay more in masses against whatever had lain in the water's way. Excellent grass clothed the plains over which we had passed during the two last days, and grew abundantly also about the banks of the river; but, in general, a belt of the POLYGONUM JUNCEUM, about 400 or 500 yards wide, grew between the immediate margin and the grassy plains. This shrub was found an infallible guide to the vicinity of the river, when, as sometimes happened, other lines of trees, resembling those on its banks, had led me to a distance from it. The day was cool and rather cloudy, a great novelty to us; for every day had been clear and unclouded, since long before we crossed the Barwan. Abundance of the stones of the quandang fruit (FUSANUS ACUMINATUS) lay at an old fire of the natives, and showed that we were not far from the northern limit of the great clay basin, as the quandang bush grows only upon the lowest slopes of hilly land. Lat. 28° 55' 13" S. Thermometer at sunrise, 70°; at noon, 90°; at 4 P. M., 89; at 9, 70°;--with wet bulb, 61°. 28TH MARCH.--At 2 A. M., loud thunder was heard in the south-west, where a dark cloud arose and passed round to the northward; a few drops of rain fell. The morning was otherwise clear, with a cooling breeze from S. W. Thermometer at sunrise, 56°. We proceeded, travelling chiefly amongst very luxuriant grass. The river now disappeared as far to the westward of my northerly course on this left bank, as it had left me when on the other bank by unexpected turns to the eastward. I came upon its banks after travelling about eight miles. At the spot where I wished to place the camp I perceived a native, and with Youranigh's assistance, managed to prevent him from running away. He spoke only "Jerwoolleroy," a dialect which my native did not understand at all well. He told us, however, that this was still the Narran, and pointed N. W. to the Balonne. Upon the whole we gathered from him that neither that river nor the Bokhara was far from us. I endeavoured to convince him, by Youranigh's assurances, and our own civility to him, that we meant no harm to any natives, and were only passing through the country. He did not seem afraid, although he had never, until then, seen white men. We encamped near him. The river channel was very narrow, and contained but little water here-abouts. I understood from the native (through Youranigh) that the river here spread into various channels, and that "BARRO" was the name of a river beyond the Culg, which falls into it from the northward; "TOORINGORRA," the lagoon on which we encamped after meeting natives on the 31st March. Near this camp we found a PHYLLANTHUS, scarcely different from P. SIMPLEX; a SESBANIA near S. ACULEATA, but with smaller flowers; and the CHENOPODIUM AURICOMUM, formed a white-leaved shrub, three or four feet high. Thermometer at sunrise, 56°; at noon, 78°; at 4 P. M., 82°; at 9, 61°;-- with wet bulb, 56°. 29TH MARCH.--After prayers (the day being Sunday) I sent Mr. Kennedy forward to explore the course of the river, in order to ensure a more direct line for to-morrow's route. Mr. Kennedy was accompanied by one of the men armed, and also by Youranigh, all being mounted. He returned in about four hours, having found the river coming from the northward, and he also reported favourably of the ground. Thermometer at sunrise, 48°; at 4 P. M., 81°; at 9, 51°;--with wet bulb, 47°. 30TH MARCH.--The night had been cool and pleasant, Thermometer at sunrise only 42°. The cattle were yoked up early, and we travelled on over fine grassy plains, and with open gravelly ridges on our right. At length, about the sixth mile, these ridges closed on the river, where there was one hill almost clear of trees or bushes. I ascended it, but could only see plains to the westward, and a dense line of river-trees running north. We at length encamped on what appeared to be still the Narran, after a journey of about eight miles. We this day passed a small group of trees of the yellow gum, a species of eucalyptus growing only on the poor sandy soil near Botany Bay, and other parts of the sea-coast near Sydney. Thermometer at sunrise, 42°; at 4 P. M., 83°; at 9, 61°;--with wet bulb, 57°. Mean height of the camps of the 27th, 28th, and 30th, above the level of the sea, 509 feet. 31ST MARCH.--The various lines of trees were now so much dispersed across the country, that to follow the line of the Narran, it was necessary to see its ponds and channel as frequently as possible. The course, if not of the river, at least of its ana-branches; and there were besides those, branches of another kind, namely, true branches coming from the main channel, as branches leave the stem of a tree, never to unite with it again. Some of those of this description, so closely resembled in every respect the Narran, that the difference was only to be distinguished by observing the marks of flood on trees, and ascertaining the direction of the current. We had crossed several such, and were rather in a "fix" with some lagoons, when I perceived several native children in one of them. I wished here to intercept some natives who might tell us where was the ford of "Congo," where white men had crossed the Balonne, or where was the river Balonne. The children fled, but two manly voices were heard immediately, and two natives came confidently up to Youranigh and then to me. The eldest seemed about fifty-five years of age; the other was a lad of about twenty. They spoke of "Congo," and the Balonne (BALONGO) as quite at hand, and undertook to conduct us to both. It was quite evident from their pronunciation, that "Baloon" was not the proper native name, but Bal, the termination they gave it of "GO," being an article they very often use, Bal-go being equivalent to THE Balonne; as in speaking of the Barwan, they say "Barwàngo." I had nearly completed the usual short journey when we fell in with these natives, but I was unwilling to lose the advantage of their assistance, and so travelled on under their guidance, full five miles further, before I fixed on a spot for the camp. This was by a splendid piece of water, named by them Tooningora, nearly on a level with the adjacent plains, and covered with ducks. We had passed other fine sheets of water guided by our native friends, and over a rich grassy country remarkably level and free from scrub. It was evidently changed by the vicinity of the larger river. I continued to follow our new friends beyond where I had directed the party to encamp, in expectation of seeing the marked tree at Congo, and the river Balonne. After going forward thus about four miles, we saw five gins running off at a great distance across some open plains, apparently near the river. The eldest of our guides ran after them, and I requested him to assure them that the white men would do no harm, and to tell them not to run away. At length he overtook them. Two appeared to carry unseemly loads across their backs, dangling under large opossum-skin cloaks, and it was evident that these were mummied bodies. I had heard of such a custom, but had not before seen it. I had then but a distant view of these females, as they resumed their flight, and continued it until they reached woods bounding the plain on the westward. The line of Yarra trees of the great Balonne river ran parallel to our march westward, and there also, according to my guides, was "Congo," the ford marked out by my son, and which spot I most anxiously desired to see and identify by his initials. Still my guides led westward towards the woods, and as we approached them, the shout or scream of little Dicky, a native child of the Bogan, follower of my camp, first drew my attention to a black phalanx within the forest, of natives presenting a front like a battalion. Youranigh my interpreter halted and remonstrated: our elder guide ran forward, and on his reaching that body, the sound of gruff voices that arose from it strongly reminded me of Milton's description of Satan's army: "Their rising all at once was as the sound Of thunder heard remote." Youranigh would not advance another step, although much pressed by the other native remaining with us to do so, but declared that "those fellows were murry coola," (very angry). We therefore retraced our footsteps to the camp, without having seen either the Balongo or Congo. Our guide soon overtook us, accompanied by fourteen of the strange natives, who, all curiosity, passed the night at our camp, and they brought with them a lad named "Jemmy," who spoke a little English, and had visited many of our cattle-stations. He was very intelligible to Youranigh, who but very imperfectly understood the language of the rest. They seemed upon the whole a frank and inoffensive race. Their food consisted of the fish of the river, ducks, and the small indigenous melon, CUCUMIS PUBESCENS, which grew in such abundance, that the whole country seemed strewed with the fruit, then ripe, and of which the natives eat great quantities, and were very fond. It is about the size of a plum only, and in the journal of my first interior journey (in 1831), is mentioned as a cucumber we were afraid to eat. (Vol. I. p. 88.) Latitude of camp, 28° 38' 47" S. Thermometer at sunrise, 42°; at 4 P. M., 83°; at 9, 61°;--with wet bulb, 57°. 1ST APRIL.--The whole party moved off about the usual hour, 7 A. M., still under the guidance of our new acquaintance, towards the Balonne. On our way the natives were very careful to point out how muddy hollows could best be avoided by our drays. I saw seated at a distance, in due form, the tribe to which they belonged; and having directed the party to halt, went up to them. They were seated in three groups; old men on the right, painted red; old women in the centre, painted white; and other women and children on the left. The few strong men who appeared, formed a circle around me, and told me their names as they came up to me. I desired Youranigh to tell them that we were passing that way across the Balonne to a very far-off country, and did not wish to disturb them, etc. When all was said that could be said, and I was about to return, one of the chiefs, "Yarree," said "good night," words which he must have learnt at some cattle station. Although it was only morning, I returned the compliment with all possible gravity, and took my leave. Soon after, we arrived on the bank of the Balonne, as fine a looking river as I have seen in the colony, excepting only the Murray. There was a slight current, and the waters lay in broad reaches, under banks less elevated above the bed than those of the Darling. In breadth the channel surpassed that of the last named river in any part, I believe, of its course. We encamped near a shallow place, which the natives at first said was "Congo," but where we found no marks on the trees. The curiosity of the natives having been gratified, they disappeared; but I must mention that, having missed the elder of the two men who had guided us here since the first evening, I learnt, on inquiring what had become of him, that he had gone back to his little boys, whom he had left at the water-holes where he first met us, six miles back, and for whom he had apparently gathered his little net of melons. Nothing could have been finer than this man's conduct. He had at once come on with us to guide us where we wanted to go; took great pains to make us known to his own tribe, and, I believe, to other assembled tribes at some risk to himself; and then, without claiming my promised gifts, he had returned to his little family, left at such a distance, only that he might do that which was civil, to us strangers. Yet we call these men savages! I fear such disinterested acts of civility on the part of the civilised portion of mankind are rather rare. He had rendered to us, at all events, a very great service; for the danger of sudden collision with the natives was at an end, after our introduction by him to the tribes. In the afternoon, Slater, one of the bullock-drivers, found a good fording-place; and I sent a few men to cut the banks, and fill up a soft part of the river bed with logs, branches, and earth, for the better passage of the drays; a work they completed before night. I rode about five miles beyond the river to the north-west, and met, first with a very broad lagoon full of water, nearly on a level with the plains, and apparently permanent; secondly, I found beyond this, a river or chain of ponds somewhat like the Narran. This I ascertained was called the Càwan by the natives, and that it meandered very much. The country was rather fine. These waters were bordered by well-grown trees, and the plains were covered with good grass. Lat. of our camp, on the Balonne, 28° 25' 38" S. Thermometer at sunrise, 44°; at noon, 75°; at 4 P.M., 79°; at 9, 60;--with wet bulb, 54°. Height of the bed of the Balonne above the level of the sea, 494 feet; an average of three observations. 2D APRIL.--All the drays and the party crossed the river this morning in good order, and without any accident or much delay, by the little bridge we had made in its bed. While they were crossing, the place seemed to me so favorable for a ford that it might still be possible to find some of the marked trees said to be at "Congo." I again questioned the natives on this point, and one youth undertook to point out some marks made by white men. Mr. Kennedy ran with him on foot up the left bank of the river, and was shown two trees marked, the one with "J. Towns," the other with "Bagot, 1845." Being thus convinced that this ford was really at or near the place called "Congo," where Commissioner Mitchell had crossed, and found the Culgoa, at a distance of only seven miles north-west, I determined to go forward, in the same direction, to that river, taking my track of yesterday, which enabled me to avoid the broad lagoon. On arriving at the "Cawan" we saw two natives fishing in a pond with hoop nets, and Yuranigh went to ask them about the "Culgoa." He returned accompanied by a tall athletic man; the other was this man's gin, who had been fishing with him. There he had left her to take care of his nets, and, without once looking at me or the party, proceeded to conduct us to the Culgoa. I never saw a Spanish or Portuguese guide go with a detachment half so willingly. Yuranigh and he scarcely understood a word of what each other said, and yet the former had the address to overcome the usual difficulties to intercourse between strange natives, and their shyness to white men, and to induce this native thus to become our guide. He took us to the Culgoa, which we made at about seven miles from the Balonne, and I was so much pleased with the willing service and true civility of this native, that I presented him with an iron tomahawk, and I heard him twice ask Yuranigh if it really was meant for him to keep. He then hastened back to his gin, whom he had left five miles off. This river presented as deep a section as, but a narrower bed than, the one we had just left. It had all the characteristics, however, of a principal river, and really looked more important than the Barwan, except that its waters were not then fluent. Gigantic blue gum trees overhang the banks, and the Mimosa grew near the bed of the current. I should say that these and much sand were the chief characteristics of the Culgoa. There were no recent marks of natives' fires, and I was informed that they did not much frequent that part of the river. The grass along the banks was very luxuriant. Latitude 28° 31' 19" south. Thermometer at sunrise, 39°; at noon, 75°; at 4 P.M., 76°; at 9, 50°;--with wet bulb, 46°. The height of this camp above the level of the sea, being forty feet above the bed of the river, 543 feet; from the mean of four observations. 3RD APRIL.--The section of this river being forty feet deep, and the banks in general steep, the work necessary to render it passable to our heavy drays could not be accomplished yesterday afternoon. This day, however, our camp was established on the right bank of the Culgoa. Thermometer at sunrise, 35°; at noon, 80°.; at 4 P.M., 77°; at 9, 49°; and with wet bulb, 46°. 4TH APRIL.--We were now to proceed along the right bank of the Culgoa upwards to the United Balonne, and thence to continue ascending along the right bank of that river also, as far as the direction was favourable to our progress northward. This remained to be ascertained in exploring that river upwards. In gaining the right bank of the Culgoa, we had crossed the vast basin of clay extending from the Bogan on the south, to this river on the north, and westward to New Year's Range and Fort Bourke. That country was liable to be rendered quite impassable, had the rains set in. But even in such seasons we could still travel over the dry, firm ground bounding this basin of clay on the northward, as the left bank of the Bogan was also passable, however rainy the season, indeed more conveniently then than during a dry one. Rain, if it had fallen at this time, had greatly facilitated our exploration of the northern interior; but these rivers we had reached would supply us with water for some degrees to the northward, as I had been informed by the Commissioner of the district, and in our progress so far, I hoped we should arrive at a better watered country. Taking a northerly course, we traversed fine grassy land, on which grew luxuriantly the ACACIA PENDULA and other shrubs, that reminded us of the banks of the Bogan, to which country we found here the exact counterpart, only that this was better watered. The course of the Culgoa was more easterly than I had calculated on, for, after going six miles northward, I had to travel at least as many eastward before I again found the river. We encamped on the acute north-western angle of an anabranch biting into the firm soil, and it was evident that we had reached the Balonne Major, or that part above the separation of the Culgoa from the Minor Balonne, both of which we had already crossed, and which ran thus, as from our camp the lines of trees along each of the minor channels were distinctly visible. The character of these rivers had been described to me by Commissioner Mitchell, the discoverer thereof. It was late before the drays came in, and Mr. Kennedy was led into the camp quite blind, having been suddenly attacked with purulent ophthalmia, when engaged in the survey of our route, about four miles from the camp. The heat had somewhat abated, but still this complaint, which we had attributed to it, had lately affected many of the party suddenly, as in the case of Mr. Kennedy. Latitude, 28° 27' 11" S. Thermometer at sunrise, 33°; at noon, 83°; at 4 P.M., 88°; at 9, 53°; with wet bulb, 47°. 5TH APRIL.--The party halted, and I took a ride to explore the course of the river, proceeding first northward. In that direction I came upon an angle of the Balonne, at about three miles from the camp. Beyond, after passing through much ACACIA PENDULA, I crossed a small plain, bounded by a Casuarina scrub. Partly to ascertain its extent and character, and partly in the hope of falling in with the river beyond, I entered it. I found this scrub full of holes, that obliged me to pursue a very tortuous course, impeded as I was too by the rugged stems and branches. I got through it, only after contending with these impediments for three miles. The country beyond it looked not at all like that back from the river, and I turned to the N.E., pursuing that course some miles; then eastward two miles, and next two miles to the S.E., still without finding any river; but, on the contrary, scrub in every direction. The sun was declining, and I turned at last to the S.W., and in that direction reached an extensive open forest, beyond which I saw at length the river line of trees. I continued to ride S.S.W., and finally south, until I saw our cattle grazing, and the tents, without having regained first, as I wished, my outward track. On the bank of the Balonne we found an apparently new species of ANDROPOGON with loose thin panicles of purplish flowers, and in the scrub I passed through, in my ride, I found a CASUARINA, indeterminable in the absence of flowers or fruit. It produces a gall as large as a hazel nut. Thermometer at sunrise, 37°; at noon, 90°; at 4 P.M., 94°; at 9, 57°;--with wet bulb, 53°. 6TH APRIL.--Mr. Kennedy's eyes being still very bad, I could not proceed, as the survey of our route was very important, in order to keep our account of longitude correctly. The necks of the cattle were much galled, and I therefore the more willingly halted another day. It was not without some impatience, however, that I did so, as we were approaching a point whence I could set out with horses to the north-west, and leave the cattle to refresh in a depôt on this fine river, which afforded an excellent base for our exploratory operations, in the wholly unknown regions immediately beyond it. This line of exploration I had anxiously wished to pursue in 1831, when obliged to return from the Karaula or Upper Barwan; and whatever had since been ascertained about that part of the interior, confirmed me the more in my first opinion as to the eligibility of that direction. It had occurred to me, on crossing the Culgoa, that by marking deeply on a tree, at each camp, a number of reference, our survey might be more practically useful and available to the colonists, as connecting so many particular localities therewith. I therefore marked that No. I. in Roman numerals; this II., and I shall add in this journal, at the end of the narrative of each day's proceedings, whatever number or mark may be made to distinguish the place of encampment described. In the scrub near this, we observed an Acacia, apparently new, a broadleaved, white-looking wattle. There was also a branching Composite, which Sir W. Hooker has determined to be a very distinct and undoubted species of FLAVERIA of which all the other species are natives of the New World.[*] The CAPPARIS LASIANTHA was also found here growing on EXOCARPUS APHYLLA of Brown; it was found by Allan Cunningham and Frazer on Liverpool Plains, also, at Swan River. Thermometer, at sunrise, 44°; at noon, 95°; at 4 P.M., 96°; at 9, 63°;--with wet bulb, 57°. Height above the sea, 497 feet. [* FLAVERIA AUSTRALASICA (Hook. MSS.) foliis lineari-lanceolatis integerrimis basi dilatatis, capitulis densissime globoso-fasciculatis, fasciculis subinvolucratis, bracteis exterioribus praecipue fasciculos superantibus omnibus late amplexantibus.] 7TH APRIL.--When all were preparing to set off early this morning, I was informed that two bullocks were missing, and a third fast in the mud on the river bank. The two stray animals were soon found; but it was impossible to bring on the other in the mud, for he was blown, from having drunk too much water, after over-eating himself with grass. Our journey was continued round one angle of the river in my horse's track. Afterwards turning to the N. E., we crossed two miles of open forest land, where the grass was good, and having the river in sight. At length, even on an easterly course we could not keep it longer in view, but got involved in a scrub on soft red sand. Emerging from this on a course of E. S. E., we again got upon open ground, and soon saw the majestic trees of the river in a line circling round to the northward. Coming upon it at an angle where scrubs of rosewood and ACACIA PENDULA crowned the slopes, we encamped on a beautiful spot. The river was magnificent, presenting a body of water of such breadth, as I had only seen in one other river of Australia, and the banks were grassy to the water's edge. This day, "Jemmy," a young native whom we had seen on the Minor Balonne, came to our camp with another youth, and the voices of a tribe were heard in the woods. As Jemmy had not kept his word formerly, having left us suddenly, and was evidently a scamp, I peremptorily ordered him away. I had heard of his having brought gins to my camp at night on the former occasion, and he was very likely to be the cause of mischief, and could not, or at least, would not, render us any service. We desired no further intercourse, at that time, with the natives, as those with us did not understand their language. The misfortunes of Mr. Finch arose through that sort of intercourse with his men, and had arrested my journey fifteen years ago, when I had advanced to within forty miles of this camp, intent on those discoveries I hoped at length to make even now. I had good reason, therefore, to keep the natives at a distance here, at a time, too, when the bodies of six white men were said to be still uninterred in this neighbourhood. A species of CYPERUS with panicled globular heads of flowers was found here in the sloping bank. Thermometer, at sunrise, 47°; at noon, 97°; at 4 P. M. 97°; at 9, 69°;-- with wet bulb 57°. Height above the sea 634 feet. Latitude 28° 23' 59" S. (Camp III.) 8TH APRIL.--We continued our journey nearly northward, keeping the river woods in sight, as much as the country permitted. An arm or anabranch, at first containing much water, and coming from the north, was on our right for some miles. In following it, our natives found the tracks of three horses, one only having had shoes on, and two foals, as if proceeding first towards our camp, then returning. The branch from the river became dry and sandy, but still we followed its course. We saw about a mile to the eastward, beyond this dry channel, a splendid sheet of water on a level with the general surface, and having extensive tracts of emerald green vegetation about it. The dry channel obliged me to make a longer journey than I had intended. At length, on finding the requisite water in its bed, I encamped. This was near a pond, on whose sandy margin we saw still the tracks of the three horses that had been there to drink. The scrubs came close to the river with intervals of grassy plain. The ACACIA PENDULA, and its concomitant shrubs, the SANTALUM OBLONGATUM, and others, gave beauty to the scenery, and with abundance of water about, all hands considered this a very fine country. At sunset, thunder-clouds gathered in the S. W., and at about 7 P. M. the storm reached our camp, accompanied by a sudden, very strong gale from the S. E. The lightning was very vivid, and for half an hour it rained heavily. By 8 P. M. it was over, and the serene sky admitted of an observation of Regulus, by which the latitude was found to be 28° 17' 8" S. (No. IV.) Thermometer at sunrise, 61°; at noon, 91°; at 4 P. M. 94°; at 9, 66°;--with wet bulb 63°. 9TH APRIL.--The branches of the river, and flats of Polygonum, obliged me to follow a N. W. course. I did so most willingly, as we had already got further to the eastward than I wished. The arm of the river spread into a broad swamp, in which two of the drays sank, the drivers having taken no notice of a tree I had laid across the track, to show where the carts had been backed out. I made them unload the drays and carry the loads to firm ground. Keeping afterwards along the margin of this swamp for many miles, I perceived abundance of water in it, and passed the burning fires of natives, where their water kids and net gear hung on trees about. At length, upon turning to the eastward, I came upon the main river, where it formed a noble reach, fully 120 yards wide, and sweeping round majestically from N. E. to S. E. We here encamped, after a long journey. The banks were grassy to the water's edge. We saw large fishes in it; ducks swam on it, and, at some distance, a pair of black swans. This surpassed even the reach at camp III., and I must add, that such an enormous body of permanent water could be seen nowhere else in New South Wales save in the river Murray during its floods. The Anthistiria grew abundantly where we encamped, which was in latitude, 28° 13' 34" S. and marked V. Thermometer, at sunrise, 63°; at noon, 94°; at 4 P. M., 97°; at 9, 63°;--with wet bulb, 62°. 10TH APRIL.--Pursuing a N. W. course, we crossed small grassy plains, fringed with rosewood and other acacias; but, in order to keep near the river, I was soon obliged to turn more towards the east, as Callitris scrubs were before me. In avoiding these, I again came upon the more open and firm ground adjacent to the river, and saw its course in the line of large Yarra trees, which always point out its banks with their white and gnarled arms. I may here state that the scrubs generally consist of a soft red sandy soil; the land near the river, of clay, which last is by far the best of the two soils for crossing with wheel carriages; the soft red sand being almost as formidable an impediment in some situations as mud. At length, in travelling N. eastward, we came upon a spacious lagoon, extending westward, and covered with ducks. Perceiving, by drift marks, that it came from the West, I kept along its margin, following it as it trended round to N. E., where we arrived at the main channel, about that part whence the waters of the lagoon emanate during high floods. That lagoon presented an excellent place for a cattle-station. Water could never fail, as the main stream was at hand, if even the lagoon dried up, which seemed not at all likely. PSORALEA ERIANTHA was abundant in the bed of the river, along with INDIGOFERA HIRSUTA, and CROTALARIA MITCHELLII.[*] Thermometer, at sunrise, 44°; at noon, 99°; at 4 P. M., 97° at 9, 66°;--with wet bulb, 58°. [* C. MITCHELLII (Benth. MS.) erecta, ramulis flavescenti-tomentosis, stipulis parvis subulatis, foliis ovali-ellipticis obtusis retusisve basi angustatis supra glabris subtus calycibusque subsericeo- pubescentitomentosis, bracteolis in pedicello brevissimo minutis setaceis, legumine sessili glabro. Allied to C. RETUSA and SERICEA, but flowers much smaller, in short dense spikes. It agrees in most respects with the short character of C. NOVOE HOLLANDIOE, etc., but the leaf is not articulated on the footstalk, and the stipules exist.] 11TH APRIL.--Proceeding due north we had the river close on our right hand, when two miles on. After making a slight detour to avoid a gully falling into it, we continued the same course over open forest land, and, at length, saw an immense sheet of water before us, with islands in it. This was also a lagoon supplied by floods in the Balonne. It was covered with ducks, pelicans, etc. I called it Lake Parachute, no natives being near to give me their name for it. I must here add that the true aboriginal name is not Baloon, however, but Balonne, and this I the more readily adopt to avoid the introduction of a name so inappropriate amongst rivers. I was obliged to turn this lagoon, by moving some way about to my right, for it sent forth a deep arm to the S. W. which lay across my intended route. Continuing to travel northward, we arrived upon the banks of a lagoon, where they resembled those of the main channel, having trees of the same kind and fully as large. The breadth was very uniform, and as great as that of the river, so that it seemed this had once been the bed of the Balonne. We crossed it at a dry part of the swamp, the waters extending and increasing in it to the eastward. In the opposite direction it was equally uniform and continuous, but apparently dry. On crossing this old channel, I turned sharply to the N. E., aware that it is usually at acute angles in a river's course that such overflowings break out. I found it necessary in the present case to turn eastward, and even to the southward of east before I could find the river again. At length we came upon the channel divided amongst ridges of sand, where the waters took a sharp turn and broke thus into separate currents. I was now very desirous to select a camp where the cattle might remain to rest and refresh while I proceeded with a small party to the N. W. This place did not please me, having been too scrubby, the water not well tasted, and the grass dry, therefore liable to be set on fire by the natives, or by accident. A bulbous species of CYPERUS grew on the bank of the Balonne, and in the river we found the common European reed, ARUNDO PHRAGMITES: a Loranthus allied to L. LINEARIFOLIUS, but with broader leaves, grew on some of the trees, and we saw a fine new species of ADRIANIA.[*] (No. VII.) Thermometer, at sunrise, 47°; at noon, 102°; at 4 P. M., 104°; at 9, 69°; with wet bulb, 62°. Average height above the sea, of camps V. VI. and VII., 559 feet. [* A. HETEROPHYLLA (Hooker MSS.) foliis ovato-acuminatis grosse sinuatoserratis integris cordatisve trifidis, utrinque bracteisque glaberrimis.] 12TH APRIL.--I accordingly put the party in motion at an early hour, and soon came upon the river, where it formed a noble reach of water and came from the westward, a new direction, which, with the sand that had for some days appeared in shallow parts of its bed, raised my hopes that this river might be found to come from the north-west, a direction it maintained for five miles. The breadth was uniform, and the vast body of water was a most cheering sight. The banks were 120 yards apart, the course in general very straight, contributing much to the perspective of the scenery upon it. At one turn, denuded rocks appeared in its bed, consisting of ironstone in a whitish cement or matrix, which might have been decomposed felspar. I at length arrived at a natural bridge of the same sort of rock, affording easy and permanent access to the opposite bank, and at once selected the spot for a dépôt camp, which we established on a fine position commanding long vistas both up and down the river. It was, in fact, a tête-de-pont overlooking the rocky passage which connected the grass on both sides. This was No. VIII., and in latitude 28° 1' 37''. Thermometer, at sunrise, 68°; at noon, 104°; at 4 P. M., 101°; at 9, 74°;--with wet bulb, 64°. 13TH APRIL.--Here I could leave the jaded cattle to refresh, while, with a small party on horse-back, I could ascertain the farther course of the river, and explore the country to the north-west where centred all my hopes of discovery. I set on foot various preparations, such as the stuffing of saddles, shoeing of horses, drying of mutton, and, first of all in importance, though last likely to be accomplished, the making a pair of new wheels for a cart to carry water. Thermometer, at sunrise, 47°; at noon, 100°; at 4 P. M., 101°; at 9, 67°;--with wet bulb, 62°. 15TH APRIL.--This day I sent Mr. Kennedy to examine the country in the direction of 331½°, my intended route, and he returned about 10 P. M., having seen what he considered indications of the river on his right when about twelve miles from the camp, and plains to the left. Upon the whole, I resolved, from what he said of the scrubs he had met with, to travel north-west, that direction being perpendicular to the general course of this river, and therefore the most likely to lead the soonest to higher ground. Thermometer, at sunrise, 68°; at noon, 104°; at 4 P. M., 103°; at 9, 72°;--with wet bulb, 67°. 16TH APRIL.--In order better to contend with the difficulty of wanting water, and be better prepared for it, I formed my party rather of infantry than cavalry, taking only two horses, drawing a cart loaded chiefly with water, and six trusty men, almost all old soldiers. We were thus prepared to pass several nights without requiring other water than that we carried with us. I hoped thus to be enabled to penetrate the scrubs, and reach, and perhaps cross, the higher land bounding this great basin. Our first day's progress, being rather experimental, did not extend above ten miles. I had been obliged to send back the shaft horse, and exchange him for a better, as our load of water was heavy. The day was very sultry. Thermometer 105° Fahrenheit, in the shade. We had passed over ground more open than I expected, but by no means clear of scrubs. Thermometer, at sunrise, 64°; at 4 P. M., 105°; at 9, 71°;--with wet bulb, 67°. 17TH APRIL.--The messenger returned early with two horses, one being my own second charger, which I put as leader to the cart. We then got forward on foot as fast as the men could walk, or rather as fast as they could clear a way for the cart. We passed through much scrub, but none was of the very worst sort. The natives' marks on trees were numerous, and the ground seemed at first to fall westward as to some water-course; and, after travelling about five miles, there appeared a similar indication of water to the eastward of our route. At one place even the white-barked gum trees appeared; but, although they had the character of river trees, we found they grew on an elevated piece of clay soil. After completing about ten miles, I halted for two hours to rest the horses, where there was a patch of good grass, and we gave them some water from our stock. The mercurial column afforded no indication that we were at all higher than our camp overlooking the river, and it seemed, therefore, not improbable that we might meet with some other channel or branch of that prolific river. After resting two hours we continued, passing through woods partly of open forest trees, and partly composed of scrub. Towards the end of our day's journey, we crossed land covered with good grass, and having only large trees on it, so thinly strewed as to be of the character of the most open kind of forest land. Saw thereon some very large kangaroos, and throughout the day we had found their tracks numerous. We finally set up our bivouac a little before sunset, on a grassy spot surrounded by scrub. In this scrub I found the CLEOME FLAVA of Banks, and the strong-smelling AMBRINA CARINATA. A very remarkable whiteness appeared on the leaves of the EUCALYPTUS POPULIFOLIUS, which, on very close examination, appeared to be the work of an insect.[*] On the plains the SALSOLA AUSTRALIS formed a round bush, which, when loose from its very slight root, was liable to be blown about. Thermometer at sunrise, 71°; at 9 P. M, 68°;--with wet bulb, 64°. [* The following letter from Mr. Westwood to Dr. Lindley relates to specimens of this brought to England:-- "I am sorry that the state of the specimens from Sir Thomas Mitchell (or rather, I should say, the time when they were gathered) does not allow me to say much about the insect by which they are formed. It is an extremely beautiful production, quite unlike any thing I have yet seen, and is, I have no doubt, the scale of a coccus. It is of a very peculiar form, resembling a very delicate, broad, and flattened valve of a bi-valve shell, such as the genus Iridina, the part where the hinge is being a little produced and raised, and forming the cover of the coccus which secretes the beautiful material just in the same unexplained way as the scale insects form the slender attenuated scales beneath which they are born. I could not discover any insect beneath the specimens of Sir Thomas Mitchell's production in a state sufficient to determine what it really is, as I only found one or two exceedingly minute atoms of shrivelled up insects. It is extremely brittle, and looks more like dried, white, frothed sugar than any thing else."] 18TH APRIL.--A pigeon had flown last evening over our camp in a N. N. E. direction, and as the ground sloped that way, and the men believed that water was there, I rode this morning in that direction, leaving the other horses to feed in the meantime. At two miles from our bivouac I found some hollows in a scrub where the surface consisted of clay, and which evidently at some seasons contained water, although they were then dry. Polygonum grew around them, and I doubt not that after a fall of rain water would remain there some time. On riding two miles beyond, in the same direction, I found open forest land only. The country was well covered with good grass, very open, yet finely wooded. We again proceeded north-west over some fine forest land. The soil was, however, only soft red sand, and made it very heavy work for our horses drawing the watercart. On passing through a Casuarina scrub, we entered upon a different kind of country as to wood and grass, the soil being much the same, or still more loose and sandy. The surface bore a sterile heathy appearance, and the trees consisted chiefly of a stunted box, growing but thinly. Instead of grass, black, half-burnt roots of a wiry plant appeared, which I afterwards found in flower (SEE INFRÀ), and one small, shrubby, brown bush, very much resembling heath; apparently a Chenopod with heathlike leaves, and globular hairy heads of flowers. The roots of the firstmentioned plant presented much obstruction to our cart-wheels in passing over the soft sand. As I stood awaiting the cart's arrival, some birds drew my attention, as I perceived I had attracted theirs. They descended to the lowest branches of the tree in whose shade I stood, and seemed to regard my horse with curiosity. On my imitating their chirp one fluttered down, and attempted to alight on my horse's ears. On my whistling to them, one whistled some beautifully varied notes, as soft as those of an octave flute, although their common chirp was harsh and dissonant. The male and female seemed to have very different plumage, especially about the head; that on the one having the varying tint of the Rifle bird, the head of the other more resembling in colour, that of the DACELO GIGANTEUS. They were about the size of a thrush, and seemed the sole residents of that particular spot, and I had not seen them elsewhere. The carts came slowly forward, the horses being much distressed. I continued to ride some miles ahead, and passed through a scrub in a clay hollow, to which succeeded another open forest country with more of the soft red sand. The people with the cart could not overtake me, and I returned. Meeting them at a rather bad place, I determined to encamp at some patches of grassy ground somewhat out of our line, in latitude, 27° 43' S. It is remarkable that, according to the barometer, we had not ascended higher than our depôt camp on the river, at a distance of nearly forty miles from it. I had just quitted my horse's back, and had resolved to return, when two horsemen were seen approaching along our track. They were two of our party come from the depôt to bring me a despatch, which had been forwarded by Commissioner Wright, communicating the news of Dr. Leichardt's return from Port Essington, and enclosing the Gazette with his own account of his journey. Thus it became known to us that we could no longer hope to be the first to reach the shores of the Indian Ocean by land. Thermometer, at sunrise, 62°; at 4 P. M., 93°; at 9, 71°;--with wet bulb, 64°. 19TH APRIL,--I left the men with the cart, to follow while I rode forward along its track, and sat down to peruse the newspapers sent me, until the cart overtook me in the evening, the horses being quite exhausted by the heat and the heavy sand. Thermometer, at sunrise, 61°; at noon, 86°; at 9, 63°;--with wet bulb, 59°. 20TH APRIL.--The men who brought the despatches yesterday having been ordered to bring fresh horses this day from the depôt, I sent our tired animals on thither at once, as we could give them but a limited quantity of water. I rode forward also to the camp, and met the fresh horses about half-way. I immediately ordered the repair of the wheels of another light cart, determined to lose no time in exploring a passage towards the head of Carpentaria. Thermometer, at sunrise, 48°; at noon, 95; at 4 P. M., 93°; at 9, 63°;--with wet bulb, 58°. 21ST APRIL.--The cart came in about 9 A. M. The morning was cloudy, for the first time this month, and a slight shower fell. Had three or four days' rain fallen at that time, it would have enabled me to have explored by much less circuitous routes, than along the bank of this great river, the country to the north-west. In this case, the tour from which I had just returned might have been continued, as I wished and intended, had it been possible to find water, to the mountains or higher ground, whatever it might be that formed the limits to this basin on that side. Thermometer, at sunrise, 65°; at noon, 76°; at 4 P. M., 77°; at 9, 60°; --with wet bulb, 53°. 22D APRIL.--The clouds continued to lower, and a great change in the temperature accompanied this visible change in the sky, but the mercurial column remained uncommonly steady. Arrangements for a concentrated party engrossed my attention so fully this day, with the insertion also of our late work on the general map, that even the newspapers from the colony lay unread. Mr. Kennedy took a ride across the river in a S. S. E. direction, and found a fine grazing country with open forest, as far as he went, which was about twelve miles. On the banks of the Balonne, during my absence, they had found, besides a small bearded CYPERUS, a new creeping PSORALEA [*], and a new species of Acacia, which Mr. Bentham has named A. VARIANS.[*] Thermometer, at sunrise, 41°; at noon, 76°; at 4 P. M., 77°; at 9, 61°;--with wet bulb, 56°. Mean elevation of this camp above the level of the sea, being 50 feet above the river, 623 feet. [* P. ERIANTHA (Benth. MS.) prostrata, canescenti-pubescens, foliis pinnatim trifoliolatis, foliolis ovatis oblongisve dentatis, pedunculis elongatis multifloris, floribus inferioribus remotis superioribus approximatis, calycibus pube molli albida dense tomentosis, legumine molliter villoso.] [* A. VARIANS (Benth. MS.) glabra, pallida v. glauca, ramulis subangulatis, phyllodiis oblongo-lanceolatis v. inferioribus late obovatis summisve linearibus, omnibus basi longe angustatis apice obtusis v. oblique mucronatis subimmarginatis vix obscure glanduliferis uninervibus tenuiter reticulato-penniveniis, capitulis sub 20-floris solitariis subracemosis v. in racemos foliatos dispositis, calycibus truncatis, legumine glabro crasso sublignoso. Very near A. SALICINA, and possibly a mere variety; but the phyllodia are generally considerably broader, and the inflorescence different.] Chapter IV. ADVANCE WITH A LIGHT PARTY--LEAVING THE REMAINDER WITH THE BULLOCKS AND DRAYS TO REST THREE WEEKS AT ST. GEORGE'S BRIDGE.--DISCOVER A RIVER JOINING THE BALONNE FROM THE NORTH-WEST.--CROSS IT, AND STILL TRACE THE BALONNE UPWARDS.--FINE RIVER SCENERY.--VAST PLAINS EXTENDING TO THE EASTERN HORIZON DISCOVERED FROM A TREE.--TRIBUTARY FROM THE NORTH-WEST-- AND RICH PLAINS.--TRACE THIS SMALL RIVER UPWARDS.--EXCELLENT COUNTRY FOR GRAZING PURPOSES.--MOUNTAINS, SEEN AT LENGTH, TO THE NORTHWARD.--NATIVES AT OUR CAMP.--ASCEND MOUNT FIRST VIEW.--MOUNT INVITING.--ASCEND MOUNT RED CAP.--RIDE TO THE BORDERS OF FITZROY DOWNS, AND ASCEND MOUNT ABUNDANCE.-- THE BOTTLE TREE.--ASCEND MOUNT BINDÀNGO.--DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER "AMBY."--DANGEROUS FOLLOWERS OF A CAMP.--RECONNOISSANCE TO THE NORTH- WEST.--ASCEND A TRAPITIC RANGE.--A GAP OR GOOD OPENING THROUGH IT FOUND FOR THE CARTS.--SMALL RIVER DISCOVERED BEYOND, CONTAINING ONE POND OF WATER.--THE CHANNEL DISAPPEARS ON OPEN FLATS.--DISCOVER THE RIVER MARAN.--SELECT A POSITION FOR A DEPÔT.--RIDE OF RECONNOISSANCE TO THE NORTHWARD.--RIDE INTO THE WESTERN INTERIOR.--ASCEND MOUNT LONSDALE.-- EXTENSIVE VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT.--WATER NOT VERY PLENTIFUL.--RETURN TO THE CAMP.--ASCEND A HIGH POINT TO THE EASTWARD.--VIEW THENCE OF THE SUMMITS OF A RANGE TO THE NORTHWARD.--CAMP VISITED BY HOSTILE NATIVES DURING MY ABSENCE.--ARRIVAL OF MR. KENNEDY WITH THE MAIN BODY OF THE PARTY.--HIS ACCOUNT OF THE HOSTILITY OF THE CHIEF AND TRIBE AT "TAGANDO."--VARIOUS PREPARATIONS MADE FOR AGAIN ADVANCING WITH A LIGHT PARTY.--DEPÔT CAMP ESTABLISHED ON THE MARAN. 23RD APRIL.--Our little party started at noon. I took with me eight men, two native boys, twelve horses, besides my own two, and three light carts with provisions for ten weeks--determined, if possible, to penetrate northward, into the interior country, and ascertain where the division of the waters was likely to be found. I intended, with this view, to trace upwards the course of the Balonne, until I found mountains to the north- westward of it; then, to endeavour to turn them by the west, and thus acquire some knowledge on that most interesting point, the watershed towards the Gulf. I left instructions with Mr. Kennedy to follow my track with the drays and main body of the party, and to set out on Monday, the 4th of May, when the cattle would have had three weeks' rest. The first few miles of this day's journey were along a clayey flat or hollow, which enabled me to avoid scrubby and sandy ground on each side. I believed its direction (N. E.), to be about parallel to the river. Leaving it at length to make the river, I met with rather a thick scrub; but came upon the river where the banks were very rocky and picturesque. Its course seemed to be from N. E.; but, following another flat of firm clay, I got again into scrub so thick that I turned eastward towards the river, and travelled along its bank until I encamped in lat. 27° 56' 12" S. There was but little water in the bed of the river there; but long islands of sand, water-worn banks, with sloping grassy bergs behind. The bed, in most places, consisted of rock, the same ferruginous conglomerate, or clay ironstone, seen in the same river lower down. Grass was excellent and abundant on the bergs and near the river, but thick scrub crowned these bergs on our side. It was too late to admit of my examining the other. On our way through the scrub this day, we saw the ENOCARPUS SPARTEA of Brown, a leaf-like wing-branched shrub; and the beautiful parasite, LORANTHUS AURANTIACUS, occupied the branches of Eucalyptus. Thermometer, at sunrise, 49°; at 9 P. M., 47°;--with wet bulb, 41°. [* The dates on the map show my camps; the Roman numerals those afterwards taken up by Mr. Kennedy, in following my track with the main body.] 24TH APRIL.--Set off early, travelling along the bank. The direction was N. N. W. and N. W. For the first few miles, the scenery was wild and very fine. Masses of rock, lofty trees, shining sands and patches of water, in wild confusion, afforded evidence of the powerful current that sometimes moved there and overwhelmed all. At this time, the outlines were wild, the tints sublimely beautiful. Mighty trees of Casuarinae, still inclined as they had been made to bend before the waters, contrasted finely with erect Mimosae, with prostrate masses of driftwood, and with perpendicular rocks. Then the hues of the Anthistiria grass, of a redbrown, contrasted most harmoniously with the light green bushes, grey driftwood, blue water, and verdure by its margin; all these again--grass, verdure, driftwood, and water--were so opposed to the dark hues of the Casuarinae, Mimosae, and rifted rocks, that a Ruysdael, or a Gains-borough, might there have found an inexhaustible stock of subjects for their pencil. It was, indeed, one continuous Ruysdael. "That artist lov'd the sternly savage air, And scarce a human image plac'd he there." May the object of our journey be successful, thought I then; and we may also hope that these beauties of nature may no longer "waste their sweetness in the desert air;" and that more of her graces may thus be brought within the reach of art. Noble reaches next extended in fine perspective before us; each for several miles, presenting open grassy margins along which we could travel on firm ground unimpeded by scrub. At length I perceived before me a junction of rivers, and could see along each of them nearly a mile. I had no alternative but to follow up that nearest to me, and found upon its bank many recent encampments of natives; at one of which the fires were still burning. The country was grassy, and so open, as almost to deserve the colonial name of "plain." This channel took me a long way northward, and to the N. N. E.; but finally turned west, and at last south. Its bed was full of sand; and at length we found it quite dry, so that, when I would have encamped, I could find no water. Yet it bore all the character of a large river; marks of high floods, Mimosae, sand, and river driftwood, like the other. It might, and probably did, finally come out of the main channel; but this seemed too remote a contingency for our wants then, and I crossed it, to look for the other. In riding eastward, I found a wide plain bounded by trees that looked like those along the river. No time could be spared for further reconnoissance: I took the party across, and made for the nearest part. My course was first N. E., then East, finally South, in following the various slopes; and it was only after travelling fifteen miles beyond the point where I met with this river, that I reached the bank of the other, at a spot distant only FOUR miles from where I had quitted it. This was only accomplished at forty minutes after 4 P. M., when we had travelled twenty-six miles. As our circuitous route was likely, if followed by Mr. Kennedy with the heavy drays, to cause delay and inconvenience, I resolved to halt next day, and write to him on the subject, explaining how he could most readily fall into my track by crossing the other channel, quitting first the other track, at a spot to be marked by Graham, who took the letter. Nevertheless, it had been imperative on me to follow it up as I had done; because, whether as a separate tributary or an ana-branch only, the right bank was likely to suit us best, provided only that water could have been found in its bed. Near the new river, the INDIGOFERA HIRSUTA of Linnaeus, with its spikes of reflexed hairy pods, was common; and also the MOSCHOSMA POLYSTACHYUM. Lat. 27° 47' 57'' S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 38°; at 9 P. M., 59°;--with wet bulb, 56°. 25TH APRIL.-- "The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day." A grateful change in the weather promised rain; but suggested to me a contingency for which I had not provided in my letter to Mr. Kennedy, and Graham was gone. A flood coming down, might fill the channel of the other, and prevent Mr. Kennedy's party from crossing to fall into my track; or, if that should finally prove only an ana-branch, shut me up in an island. On this point I again, therefore, wrote to Mr. Kennedy, and buried my letter at the spot marked by Graham, and according to marks on trees, as I had previously arranged with him. I then instructed him to examine the dry channel far enough upwards (halting his party for the day) to ascertain whether it was a separate river, or an ana-branch; and, in the latter case, to keep along its banks, and so avoid the possible difficulty of crossing it during rainy weather. Thermometer, at sunrise, 65°; at noon, 70°; at 4 P. M., 66°; at 9, 64°;--with wet bulb, 63°. Mean height above the sea, 586 feet. 26TH APRIL.--Sunday. Corporal Graham returned from the depôt camp at 1 P. M. The sky continued cloudy, and the barometer low. High wind from the west arose about 3 P. M. Thermometer, at sunrise, 63°; at noon, 78°; at 4 P. M., 78°; at 9, 56°;--with wet bulb, 53°. 27TH APRIL.--The party set off early. We found that a river from the north joined the channel we were about to follow up in its course from the east. The northern river contained water in abundance; and I determined to follow it up so long as the course was favourable, and water remained in it. The general course was much the same as that of the first (about 39 E. of N.). The bed and ponds increased; and after following it up about eleven miles, I encamped the party, and rode northward to ascertain if it was likely to change its course. In ten minutes, I came upon a splendid reach, extending north-west as far as I could see it. Lat. of our camp, 27° 42' 42" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 37°; at noon, 69°; at 4 P. M., 72°; at 9, 57°;--with wet bulb, 55°. 28TH APRIL.--Masses of a ferruginous rock extended across the river bed like a dyke, in a N. W. and S. E. direction; and as the river here broke through these rocks, changing, at a sharp angle, its course to the S. W., it seemed probable that the general course from above might be parallel to these rocks. Continuing along the bank, we found the reaches large, full of water; the country clear of scrub and covered with luxuriant grass. One singular flat sweeping round to the W. S. W. was covered with the rich grass PANICUM LOEVINODE. The tropical PEROTIS RARA, a delicate grass, producing long purple tufts of reflexed bristles, was also here observed. The general direction of the river was towards the N. W., and whenever it took any turn towards the east, I continued to travel northward, and thus, on three occasions, came upon its bank again, cutting off detours I must otherwise have described in following its course. We encamped on a beautiful spot, the sight of which would have rejoiced the heart of a stockholder. A fresh westerly breeze blew during the day, and we were as free from the annoyance of heat, as if we had been in England during the same month. Latitude 27° 32' 37" S. The direction of the river's course was uncommonly straight, and its long sweeping reaches, full of water, seemed capable of being rendered available for the purpose of forming water communications. The surface of the adjacent country presented a thin deposit of sand, near the river, attesting the great height to which its waters sometimes rise; and minor features of ground near, showed, in their water-worn sections, that they had been wholly deposited by the river. Thermometer, at sunrise, 39°; at 4 P. M., 69°; at 9, 48°;--with wet bulb, 46°. 29TH APRIL.--The tendency of the soft earth of the banks to break into gullies, branching back into impervious scrubs, was such as to prevent me from either seeing much of the river during this day's journey, or pursuing a straight course. At one place I could only follow the grassy margin of the river, by passing between its channel and the berg, all seared as it was with water-worn gullies, and crowned with scrub; but I was soon locked up under these where a bad hole impeded our progress along the river, and I was obliged to back the carts out, the best way I could. While travelling along the margin I perceived a slight current in a gravelly part of the bed. I had previously observed a whitish tinge like that of a fresh in the river water, this day and yesterday, doubtless the product of the late rain, and probably from these clay gullies. After a circuitous journey, we came out on a clear grassy brow over-looking much open country. There I still met with heads of gullies, but could easily avoid them, and after traversing a fine grassy plain, we encamped as near the river as the gullies would allow, in latitude 27° 28' 27". One of the party, John Douglas, from the top of a tree, discovered vast plains in the N. E. extending to the horizon, a river line pursuing a northerly course, and in the N. W. a mass of cloud hung over what he supposed to be mountains. Thermometer, at sunrise, 36°; at 4 P. M., 63°; at 9, 47°; with wet bulb, 44°. 30TH APRIL.--Obliged to keep at some distance from the river, I came upon open forest land, where gentle undulations took the place of the rugged gullies. Thus we travelled over a beautiful country, due north, with sufficient indications of the river on our right, in the slopes that all fell to that side. There were ponds in some hollows, and we made the river itself at various parts of our route. At length, where it bit on a high scrubby bank, I again proceeded northward and came upon a large lagoon, sweeping round to S. W. and S. S. W., further than we could see. It had on its surface numerous ducks, and a large encampment of native huts appeared at one end. We encamped by this lagoon, in latitude 27° 20' S. Again vast plains and downs to the N. E. were seen by Dicky, our youngest native, from a tree. Thermometer, at sunrise, 27°; at 4 P. M., 65°; at 9, 43°. 1ST MAY.--On leaving the lagoon, passing between its head and the river, we were soon enveloped in a thick scrub of Casuarinae, on ground broken into gullies falling to the river. I tried to pass by the lower margin of this, but gullies in the way obliged me to ascend and seek a passage elsewhere. Forcing our way, therefore, through the scrub and out of it, we found outside of it, in an open forest, the box and Angophora, and could go forward without impediment, first to the N. W., afterwards northward, and N. E. At length the woods opened into fine grassy plains, bounded on the east by trees belonging to the river berg. There I saw still the trees we had so gladly got away from, the Casuarina; also the cheering white arms of the Yarra, or blue gum. The prospect before us improved greatly; fine plains presented a clear way to the northward, with the river apparently coming thence, and even round from the N. W. From a tree, Yuranigh descried hills in the N. E. and the plains extending before us. I also perceived, from the wide plain, a distant low rise to the N. W. We crossed two hollows on these grassy plains, each containing deep ponds, and descended towards what seemed a branch of the river; we encamped near it, in latitude 27° 15' 4" S. As we approached this spot, natives were seen first looking at us, and then running off-- Yuranigh said he recognized one of them as a countryman of his own. I endeavoured to make him cooey to them, or call them, but they made off, setting fire to the grass. Any information from natives of these parts might have been very useful to us then, and I hoped they would at length come to us. Thermometer, at sunrise, 26°; at 4 P. M., 67°; at 9, P. M., 48°;--with wet bulb, 46°. 2D MAY.--There was a decided difference between the river we were now upon, as well as the country along its banks, and the large river by which we had travelled so far. This was undoubtedly but a small tributary, as its direction seen this day showed, being from the westward, while its waters, meandering in various narrow channels amongst plains, reminded us of some of the finest parts of the south. Which was the principal channel, and which to cross, which to travel by, was rather difficult to determine. The country was very fine. These water courses lay between finely rounded grassy slopes, with a few trees about the water's edge, marking their various courses at a distance. A considerable breadth of open grassy plain, intervened between this river and the woods back from it. At length, sloping stony bergs came near the river's bed, but there the smooth naked water-worn clay was the best ground we could have for wheels, and we thus hugged each bend of the river, passing close to the channel. I hoped thus to find plains on the next change of the river's course. And so it turned out for some way, but the receding bergs guided me, even when only seen at a considerable distance, in shaping my course. Keeping my eye on their yellow slopes, I travelled far along a grassy flat which brought me to a lake containing water like chrystal, and fringed with white lotus flowers. Its western shore consisted of shelving rock. An immense number of ducks floated on its eastern extremity. From this lake, following a grassy flat to the N. W., we at length reached the river, or rather its bed, seared into numerous channels. The lake, and long flat connected with it, appeared to me more like the vestiges of a former channel, than as the mere outlet of surplus waters; nor did it seem that the water is now supplied from the floods of the river. I followed this a few miles further, and then encamped just beyond, where much gravel appeared in the banks. While the men were erecting the tents, I rode some miles to the westward, and found an open iron-bark forest covering it, with much luxuriant grass. This was rather peculiar, as compared with any other part passed through. It was also undulating; and, from a tree ascended by Yuranigh, it was ascertained we were approaching mountains, as he saw one which bore 77°, also a hill to the eastward, in which latter direction (or rather in that of 333°), he saw also an open country. Thermometer, at sunrise, 47°; at 4 P. M., 62°; at 9 P. M 57°; mean height above the sea, 694 feet. 3RD MAY.--Natives were heard near our camp during the night, and we perceived the smoke of their fires, in the bushes, behind in the morning. Yuranigh went up to them, accompanied by one of the party bearing a green branch, and he prevailed on three of their tribe to come to our tents. One stood amongst the carts and tents, apparently quite absorbed in observation. Intense curiosity in these men had evidently overcome all their fears of such strangers. They were entirely naked, and without any kind of ornament or weapon, offensive or defensive. With steady fixed looks, eyes wide open, and serious intelligent countenances, what passed in their minds was not disguised, as is usual with savages. On the contrary, there was a manly openness of countenance, and a look of good sense about them, which would have gained my full confidence, could we but have understood each other. They asked for nothing, nor did they show any covetousness, although surrounded by articles, the smallest of which might have been of use to them. There must be an original vein of mind in these aboriginal men of the land. O that philosophy or philanthropy could but find it out and work it! Yuranigh plied them with all my questions, but to little purpose; for although he could understand their language, he complained that they did not answer him in it, but repeated, like parrots, whatever he said to them. In the same manner, they followed me with a very exact repetition of English words. He, however, gathered from them that the lake was called "Turànimga," this river "Cogoon," a hill to the eastward "Toolumbà," etc. They had never before seen white men, and behaved as properly as it was possible for men in their situation to do. At length we set out on our journey, and in mounting my horse, which seemed very much to astonish them, I made signs that we were going to the mountains. Travelling by the river bank was easy, over grassy forest land. The deep ponds were tolerably well filled, but the quantity of water was small, in comparison with that in the Balonne; which the natives seemed to say we had left to the right, and that this was "one of its brothers." Malga scrub crowned the bergs of the river, where they bounded one of these forest flats forming its margin, and the mere sight of that impervious sort of scrub was sufficient to banish all thoughts of making straighter cuts to the north-west. Our course, with the river, was, however, now rather to the west of north-west; and that this was but a tributary to the Balonne, was evident. That river line, as traced by us, pursued a tolerably straight direction between the parallels of 29° and 27°, coming round from nearly north-east to about north. For these last three days we had travelled with this minor channel, to the westward of north-west; in which direction I had, therefore, good reason to expect that we should soon find mountains. As soon as we arrived at an eligible spot for the camp, I proceeded, with Yuranigh, towards a height presenting a rocky face, which I saw through the trees, and seemed distant about two miles. From that crest, I perceived woody ridges on all sides, but all apparently sloping from the south-west; and a misty valley beyond the nearest of them in the northeast, like the line of the Balonne. But the most interesting sight to me then, was that of blue pics at a great distance to the north-west, the object of all my dreams of discovery for years. No white man had before seen these. There we might hope to find the DIVISA AQUARUM, still undiscovered; the pass to Carpentaria, still unexplored: I called this hill Mount First View, and descended, delighted with what I had seen from its rocky crest. The sides were covered with Malga scrub. The rock was felspathic, apparently allied to those already seen in the Balonne. Lat. 27° 2' 57" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 45°; at 4 P. M., 68°; at 9 P. M., 45°;--with wet bulb, 43°. 4TH MAY.--An Australian morning is always charming,--amid these scenes of primaeval nature it seemed exquisitely so. The BARITA? or GYMNORHINA, the organ-magpie, was here represented by a much smaller bird, whose notes, resembling the softest breathings of a flute, were the only sounds that met the ear. What the stillness of even adds to such sounds in other climes, is felt more intensely in the stillness of morning in this. "The rapture of repose that's there" gratifies every sense; the perfume of the shrubs, of those even that have recently been burnt, and the tints and tones of the landscape, accord with the soft sounds. The light red tints of the ANTHISTIRIA, the brilliant green of the MIMOSA, the white stems of the EUCALYPTUS, and the deep grey shadows of early morning, still slumbering about the woods, are blended and contrasted in the most pleasing harmony. The forms in the soft landscape are equally fine, from the wild fantastic tufting of the Eucalyptus, and its delicate willow- like ever-drooping leaf, to the prostrate trunks of ancient trees, the mighty ruins of the vegetable world. Instead of autumnal tints, there is a perpetual blending of the richest hues of autumn with the most brilliant verdure of spring; while the sun's welcome rays in a winter morning, and the cool breath of the woods in a summer morning, are equally grateful concomitants of such scenes. These attach even the savage to his woods, and might well reclaim the man of crime from thoughts likely to disturb the harmony of human existence. Following up the little river with more confidence now, since I had seen whence it came, I proceeded more directly north-west. Thus I found myself on a small creek, or chain of ponds, from the west and southwest, so that I crossed it and made for some open ground, between ridges clothed with dense Malga scrub. We thus crossed a low ridge, and descended towards a fine open country, on which pigeons were numerous, and traces of natives. It was also sloping to the northward, and I had no doubt that we had passed into a valley which I had observed yesterday from Mount First View, and had supposed it contained a larger river. In the open ground, I found a small rocky knoll which I named Mount Minute. From its summit, I recognised Mount First-Sight, bearing 128° 30'. We next passed through some scrub, and came to a hollow full of Acacia pendula. Following this down we arrived at a chain of ponds, and these led to an open grassy valley, in which we found our old friend, the river, still pursuing, steadily, a north-west course. Travelling along the bank, for a mile or two, we found that these now consisted of fine open forest flats; and at length encamped on the margin, after a journey of about twelve miles. Near our camp, I saw natives on the opposite bank, first standing in mute astonishment, then running away. I held up a green bough, but they seemed very wild; and, although occasionally seen during the afternoon, none of them would approach us. We found on the banks of this river, a purple- flowered CALANDRINIA, previously unknown.[*] Lat. 26° 57' 39" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 25°; at 4 P. M., 70°; at 9, 37°;--with wet bulb, 34°. [* C. BALONENSIS (Lindl. MS.); foliis angustis obovato-lanceolatis alternis oppositisque, racemis secundis multifloris caulibus multo longioribus, floribus (conspicuis) polyandris.] 5TH MAY.--The three last nights had been cold, each, in succession, colder than the former. This morning the thermometer stood at 19° E., yet the water was not frozen, nor did our natives, sleeping in the open air, seem to feel it. Hence, it was obvious that, in a dry atmosphere, extreme cold can be more easily borne than in one that is moist. So, also, in the opposite extreme of heat and drought, we had been so accustomed to a higher temperature than 100° F., that any degree under that felt refreshing. Our journey this day by the side of the little river was still very straight towards the N. W. We met with rocks at the westerly bends; from which side it was also joined by a small tributary, with ponds and hollows containing marks of flood, and beds of the POLYGONUM ACRE. Still, however, the main channel could be distinguished from these, and the open forest flats along its banks became more and more extensive and open as we ascended this channel,--leading so directly where we wished to go. Hills were occasionally seen back from it, chiefly covered with scrub, but some were grassy and seemed fit for sheep. Others were clothed with callitris, and there the woods were open enough to be travelled through. I rode to the summit of one and recognized two of the points seen from Mount First Sight. At one sharp turn of the river rugged rocks had to be removed to make a way for the carts, but this was soon done. Beyond, there was a noble reach of water in a rocky bed, traversed by a dyke of felspathic rock, which exhibited a tendency to break into irregular polygons, some of the faces of which were curved; its strike was E. and W. We encamped on open forest land in lat. 26° 54' 16" S. It was only during the last two days that I could perceive in the barometer, any indication that we were rising to any higher level above the sea than that of the great basin, in which we had journeyed so long, and the difference was still but trifling, as indicated by not more than six or seven millimetres of the Syphon barometer; our actual height above the sea being 737 feet. Thermometer, at sunrise, 19°; at 4 P. M., 67°. 6TH MAY.--The banks of the Cogoon became more open, and the slopes less abrupt as we advanced. They frequently consisted of a mixture of sand, at a height of twenty feet above its bed; where it occupied a section of considerable width, as much, perhaps, as 100 yards between bank and bank. On these rounded off banks or bergs of forest land, Youranigh drew my attention to large, old, waterworn, trunks of trees, which he showed me had been deposited there by floods. As they were of a growth and size quite disproportioned to other trees there, I was convinced that they were the debris of floods; and, consequently, that a vast body of water sometimes came down this channel. This native was taciturn and observant of such natural circumstances, to a degree that made his opinion of value in doubtful cases. Such, for instance, as which of two channels, that might come both in our way, might be the main one; thus my last resource, when almost "in a fix," was to "tomar el parecer," as they say in Spain, of this aboriginal, and he was seldom wrong. At length, the cheering expanse of an open country appeared before us, and a finely shaped hill, half-covered only, with bushes. On reaching an elevated clear part, I saw extensive downs before me. The river turned amongst woods to the eastward, and I continued on our route to the north, sure of meeting with it again, as some fine forest ridges hemmed in the valley to the eastward. Besides the hill already mentioned (which I named Mount Inviting), there was a curious red cone some miles to the westward, crowned with a bit of rock, on which I longed to plant my theodolite. After crossing the plain, we entered an open scrub of Acacia pendula which gradually changed to an open forest, within which I met with a chain of ponds, and encamped in lat. 26° 46' S. I immediately set out, with a man carrying my theodolite, for Mount Red Cap, distant from our camp about six miles. This little red cone had a very singular appearance, as we approached it from the east. A dark tinted scrub of flat-topped trees enveloped its base, on the outside of which the light and graceful Acacia pendula also grew on the grassy plain. I found the red rock to be the common one of the country, in a state of decomposition. It was hollowed out by some burrowing animal, whose tracks had opened ways through the thick thorny scrub, enabling us to lead our horses to near the top. From the apex, I obtained an extensive view of the country then before us, in many parts clear of wood to the verge of the horizon, and finely studded with isolated hills of picturesque form, and patches of wood. Looking backward, or in the direction whence we had come, our valley appeared hemmed in by more continuous ridges; and, towards the extremity of them, I could just recognise Mount First View, this being one of the distant cones I had seen from it. I took as many angles as the descending sun permitted, and then retraced our horses' tracks to the camp. Thermometer, at sunrise, 20°; at 9 P. M., 47°. Height above the sea, 747 feet. 7TH MAY.--Pursuing a N. W. course, we crossed a fine tract of open forest, then a plain, beyond which we entered a scrub of Acacia pendula, in which pigeons and quail were very numerous. Turning northward, now anxious again to see the river, on approaching this open country, we found what we considered the highest branch of it, in a chain of ponds skirting the wood bounding the plains. Halting the party, I continued my ride a mile and a half further northward, to the summit of a clear ridge. From thence I saw an open country to the northward, with some little wood. On my right, or to the eastward, a double topped hill sate in the centre of this fine open country, and from the abundance of good pasturage around it, I named it Mount Abundance. We continued still to follow the now attenuated channel upwards, and found it to come from the west, and even south-west, leaving the extreme corner of the open downs, and leading us into a scrub. There, it formed two branches, in neither of which could we find any water, and had consequently to return to the last of its ponds, situated exactly at the close of the open country towards the S. W. There, we encamped in latitude 26° 42' 27" S., thankful that we had been enabled by its means to advance thus far, and to discover so fine a tract of country as that watered by it. Thermometer, at sunrise, 48°; at 4 P. M., 68°; at 9, 30°. 8TH MAY.--This morning Fahrenheit's thermometer stood at 21° in my tent, a degree of cold I should never have expected to have seen indicated from my own sensations, or from the state of the pond, which was not frozen, neither was there any hoar frost. The sun rose in splendour; pigeons cooed, and birds were as merry as usual in the woods. The business of the day was most exciting; I was to ride over the fine open country to the westward of Mount Abundance, and there look still for a higher branch of the river, or A river; confident that so fine a region could not be deficient in water, but more confident from what I had seen of the range to which we had approached so near. Riding to the N. N. E. in about two hours we came upon the identical river we had so long followed up. It was accompanied, as usual, by the Acacia pendula; had its rounded bergs; reedy water holes; and an open strip along the left bank. Crossing it I rode over towards an elevated part of the open downs, in hopes to obtain a sight of what the country was beyond, but I found that to be impossible, as it seemed boundless. So, turning, I ascended an elevated north-eastern extremity of Mount Abundance, and from it beheld the finest country I had ever seen in a primaeval state. A champaign region, spotted with wood, stretching as far as human vision, or even the telescope, could reach. It was intersected by river lines from the north, distinguishable by columns of smoke. A noble mountain mass arose in the midst of that fine country, and was so elongated in a S. W. and N. E. direction, as to deserve the name of a range. A three-topped hill appeared far to the north of the above, and to the S. E. of the first described, another mass, also isolated, overlooking that variegated land of wood and plain. To the S. E. of all these, the peaks of a very distant range were just visible. I determined to name the whole country Fitzroy Downs, and to identify it, I gave the name of the Grafton Range to the fine mass in the midst of it. In hopes of obtaining an elevated view over the country to the westward, I endeavoured to ascend the northern summit of Mount Abundance, but although the surface to near the top was tolerably smooth, and the bush open, I was met there by rugged rocks, and a scrub of thorny bushes so formidable as to tear leathern overalls, and even my nose. After various attempts, I found I was working round a rocky hollow, somewhat resembling a crater, although the rock did not appear to be volcanic. The trees and bushes there were different from others in the immediate vicinity, and, to me, seemed chiefly new. It is, indeed, rather a curious circumstance, but by no means uncommon, that the vegetation on such isolated summits in Australia, is peculiar and different from that of the country around them. Trees of a very droll form chiefly drew my attention here. The trunk bulged out in the middle like a barrel, to nearly twice the diameter at the ground, or of that at the first springing of the branches above. These were small in proportion to their great girth, and the whole tree looked very odd. These trees were all so alike in general form that I was convinced this was their character, and not a LUSUS NATUROE. [A still more remarkable specimen of this tree was found by Mr. Kennedy in the apex of a basaltic peak, in the kind of gap of the range through which we passed on the 15th of May, and of which he made the accompanying drawing.] These trees grew here only in that almost inaccessible, crater-like hollow, which had impeded me in my attempt to reach the summit.[*] Leaving the horses, however, I scrambled through the briars and up the rocks to the summit, but found it, after all this trouble, too thickly covered with scrub to afford me the desired view to the westward, even after I had ascended a tree on the edge of the broad and level plateau, so thickly covered with bushes. On returning and descending eastward towards the open country, I found a much more practicable way down than that by which I had ascended. Returning to the valley of the Cogoon, I passed between the two summits, and found a good open passage to the westward between the brigalow. Thermometer, at sunrise, 20°; at noon, 70°; at 4 P. M., 68°; at 9, 30°. Height above the sea 1043 feet. [* This remarkable plant constitutes a new and very curious genus of Sterculiads. It agrees with STERCULIA in the position of the radicle with respect to the hilum, but it is, otherwise, a BRACHYCHITON, with which it more especially corresponds in the singular condition of the seeds. These are placed, six together, in the interior of long-stalked, ovate, mucronate, smooth, deep brown follicles, of a tough papery texture, and lined with a thin fur of stellate hairs. The seeds themselves are also closely covered with starry hairs, which are so entangled that they hold the seeds together firmly; these hairs, however, are absent from the upper half of the seed, whose thin brittle vascular primine is shining, smooth, and marked with a brown nipple, the remains of the foramen. Within the primine lies the bony crustaceous secundine, which is quite loose, and seems as if it were independent of the primine. Eventually the end of the thin brittle primine breaks like an eggshell and the secundine falls out. The seeds themselves, remaining attached to each other and to the follicle, resemble six deep cells, or may be rather compared to half a dozen brown eggshells, placed on the broad end, from which the young have escaped through the point. Sir Thomas Mitchell has named the genus after Sir Henry T. De la Beche, as president of a Society which has greatly encouraged him in his Australian researches; and in honour of a science which has occasionally thrown some light on his dark and difficult path. It may be scientifically described as follows:-- DELABECHEA. CHAR. GEN. CALYX 5-fidus, valvatus. ANTHEROE congestae. STYLI. ... STIGMATA. ... FOLLICULI coriaceo-papyracei, 6-spermi, longè stipitati, intus stellato-pubescentes. SEMINA albuminosa, albumine bipartibili cotyledonibus foliaceis parum adhaerente, pube stellari basi vestita, inter se et fundo folliculi cohaerentia; PRIMINÂ laxâ, tenui, fragili, apice foramine incrassato notatâ, SECUNDINÂ crustaceâ, demum liberâ chalazâ magnâ circulari notatâ. EMBRYONIS radicula hilo contraria. DELABECHEA RUPESTRIS. ARBOR grandis, trunco in dolii speciem tumescente. LIGNUM album, laxum, mucilagine repletum, vasis porosis (bothrenchymate) maximis faciem internam cujusque zonae occupantibus, radiis medullaribus tenuibus equidistantibus. FOLIA lineari-oblonga, acuminata, integerrima, in petiolum filiformem ipsis duplbreviorem insidentia, subtus pallida et quasi vernice quâdam cinereâ obducta. INFLORESCENTIA axillaris, trichotoma, tomentosa, foliis brevior. CALYX valvatus, utrinque tomentosus. The wood of the tree has a remarkably loose texture: it is soft, and brittle, owing to the presence of an enormous quantity of very large tubes of pitted tissue, some of which measure a line and half across; they form the whole inner face of each woody zone. When boiling water is poured over shavings of this wood a clear jelly, resembling tragacanth, is formed and becomes a thick viscid mass; iodine stains it brown, but not a trace of starch is indicated in it. No doubt the nutritious quality of the tree is owing to the mucilage, which is apparently of the same nature as that of the nearly allied Tragacanth tree of Sierra Leone (STERCULIA TRAGACANTHA). It is not a little remarkable that the barrel-like form of the trunk should be almost exactly paralleled by another Sterculiad, the CHORISIA VENTRICOSA of Nees, called by the Brazilian Portuguese PAO BARRIGUDO. It seems, however, that a tendency to a short lumpish mode of growth is common among the order, as is indicated by the Baobab of Senegal, which is almost as broad as it is long, and the great buttress trees, or Silk- Cottons of tropical America.--J. L.] 9TH MAY.--The thermometer stood at 19° in my tent this morning, yet no ice appeared on the adjacent pool; for this reason, we named that branch of the river Frosty Creek. In order to leave a more direct track for Mr. Kennedy to follow with the drays, I made the carts return about two miles to the spot where we first made these ponds. There I had a trench cut across the track to the camp we had quitted, and also buried a letter for Mr. Kennedy, in which I instructed him to avoid that detour which might have otherwise led him into scrubs. We then prolonged our track from the south, northward across the open downs. I travelled in the direction of the meridian, and most of our route, this morning, marked a due north line. We came, at length, upon a watercourse which I took for our river, as the banks were finely rounded, the ponds full of water, and the woods quite open. The scenery was parklike and most inviting. The watercourse, soon, however, dwindled into a mere chain of ponds, and these at last were found to contain no water, when we had completed our day's journey. Open downs surrounded us, and fortunately I could still distinguish my rocky position of yesterday, where I had noted that the general direction of the river channel we had now again left, bore N. W. We were still much to the southward of the line so observed, apprehending, as I did think then, that some tempting plains might take us too far along some western tributary. Riding in search of water, I perceived a column of smoke to the northward; and, taking the party in that direction, we found, in the first valley we fell in with, a chain of ponds, and in one of these water enough for our use, whereupon I gladly encamped. This day we discovered a new EUCALYPTUS which casts its bark in small angular pieces.[*] Latitude, 26° 33' 34" S. Thermometer, at 4 P. M., 74°; at sunset, 63°. Height above the sea, 1299 feet. [* E. VIMINALIS (Hook. MS.); foliis alternis glaucis lineari-lanceolatis breviter tenuiter petiolatis subfalcatis utrinque acuminatis reticulatovenosis, nervis lateralibus marginem prope, racemis paucifloris axillaribus, calyce turbinato in pedicellum brevem attenuato.] 10TH MAY.--Continued nearly northwards, over fine open forest land. The sprinkling of mountains of peculiar forms here and there, and the open country, which showed a bluey distance, were new features in the scenery, and most pleasing to us, so long accustomed to travel through a level woody country. The visible possibility of overlooking the country from any eminence, is refreshing at all times, but to an explorer it is every thing; besides he is not half so much in danger of wanting water, when in the neighbourhood of mountains: with these sentiments I went forward this morning, even although rather despairing of seeing more of our friendly river. We crossed two chains of dry ponds, apparently some of its highest sources. Still I travelled steadily towards a fine mountain before us, over open downs, but with scrubs on either side. Reaching a dry bushy hill S. E. of the mountains, about the time we should have encamped, I perceived that the country sloped most to the eastern side of it, which was rather out of my course; for the sake of finding water more readily I got into a water-course falling that way, and followed it down. This, opening soon into grassy flats, enabled us to avoid the scrubs. The welcome white-trunked Eucalyptus next over-hung the holes of the water- course, and the valleys spread into beautiful open plains, gracefully fringed with Acacia pendula. Still, the ponds were dry. I crossed a bare grassy eminence, and, where several channels met, I saw luxuriant white trunks; heard and saw many cockatoos of the same colour (PSITTACUS GALERITUS); and found there an abundant pond of water, beside which we encamped. On some of the Eucalyptus trees grew a beautiful Loranthus, which was new to us; it proved to be one formerly discovered by the indefatigable Allan Cunningham, but only now described by Sir William Hooker.[*] Thermometer, at sunrise, 28°; at 4 P. M., 76°; at 9, 38°;-- with wet bulb, 34°. [* L. NUTANS (All. Cunn. in Hook. Herb.) totus incano-glaucescens, foliis oblongis ellipticis sublanceolatis obtusis coriaceis obscure trinerviis tenui-rubro-marginatis basi in petiolum mediocrem attenuatis, pedunculis axillaribus longitudine petiolorum racemosis compositis, floribus ternis nutantibus, calycibus globoso-campanulatis ore contracto, petalis linearibus.--Two varieties, a narrow-leaved and a broad-leaved, were subsequently discovered; that now described was the narrow-leaved form.] 11TH MAY.--I ascended the mountain accompanied by two men with axes, and one carrying my theodolite. The summit was covered with thick scrub interlaced with vines, but my horse could push his way almost any where. I fortunately found a rock near the summit, and, on throwing down a few of the trees about it, obtained an extensive view over the country to the northward. Open downs surrounded the mountain. Beyond these, valleys, also clear of trees, or thinly wooded, fell on one side to the S. E., on another side, other valleys fell to the N. W., leaving a rather elevated tract between; which appeared to connect this mountain with a range just dimly visible, bearing nearly north. The valley descending towards the N. W., seemed to me to be the head of a river likely to pass through a remarkable gap in a flat range, beyond which the view did not extend. To the westward a woody, and rather level country appeared, from which I thought I saw ridges, with plains or downs between them, descending towards the N. W. river. Anxious to discover the division of the waters, I carefully levelled my theodolite and swept the northern horizon, but found, to my surprise, that the country to the westward was lower than the hill on which I stood, and that the ridge northward with the gap in it, was lower still, the only greater elevation visible being the lofty mass bearing about due north. Could this be all the obstruction I was prepared to open a pass through? Could the hidden mystery of the division between the northern and southern waters be here? Far in the east, a river line was evident from columns of smoke, as well as from the termination of various lateral ranges, between my position and the great mountain to the northward. That was, probably, still the Balonne falling southward. Here I had found an interior river that would, at all events, lead north-west, and this I resolved to follow. On this mountain there grew, in several spots, the remarkable trees I had first seen on Mount Abundance; some of them much resembling bottles, but tapering near the root. On descending and returning to the camp, which was about five miles from the hill, I found eight natives, who had come frankly forward to the party during my absence. I was very glad to see them, and gave to an old man, a tomahawk to express my sentiments, and welcome the strangers, for little could be understood by our native, of their speech, or by them, of his. We did, however, make out from them, that the hill I had just returned from, was "Bindango;" its lesser brother to the westward of it, Bindyègo; and the ponds or creek beside which we were then encamped, "Tagàndo;" all very good sonorous names, which I was glad to adopt at once in my notes and map. These natives were coloured with iron-ochre, and had a few feathers of the white cockatoo, in the black hair of their foreheads and beards. These simple decorations gave them a splendid holiday appearance, as savages. The trio who had visited us some days before, were all thoughtful observation; these were merry as larks, and their white teeth, constantly visible, shone whiter than even the cockatoo's feathers on their brows and chins. Contrasted with our woollen-jacketted, straw- hatted, great-coated race, full of work and care, it seemed as if nature was pleased to join in the laugh, at the expense of the sons of art. Sun never shone upon a merrier group of mortals than these children of nature appeared to be. One amongst them was a fine powerful fellow, whose voice sounded so strongly, that it seemed as if his very whisper might be heard half a mile off. The old man remained by our fire all night; the others who, as I understood, were all his sons, had departed about 11 P. M., having left their gins in the vicinity. Thermometer, at sunrise, 22°; at noon, 76°; at 4 P. M., 59°; at 9, 35°. 12TH MAY.--I took a ride in the direction where I hoped to find a river flowing towards the interior, according to my observations at Mount Bindango. I rode over an open plain, or open forest country, soon found the dells marked by water-courses, and, at length, the channel of a river, with the Yarra trees. Following this new channel downwards a short way, I found the beds of the ponds moist, and seven emus, running from one a-head of me, first indicated the situation of a large pond; from which three wood-ducks also waddled away as I approached it. This water was only fifteen miles from where I had left the party encamped, to which I hastened back with the tidings of a discovery that was likely to expedite so much our momentous journey. Thermometer, at sunrise, 30°; at noon, 81°; at 4 P. M., 59°; at 9, 52°;--with wet bulb, 51°. Height above the sea, 1168 feet. 13TH MAY.--I buried a letter here for Mr. Kennedy. This day the party crossed the dividing ground, which I found to be elevated only 1563 feet above the sea, and consisting, as already stated, of fine open grassy downs, sprinkled with Acacia pendula and other shrubs. One or two knolls projected, however, and resembled islands in a sea of grass. I rode to one and found it consisted wholly of trap-rock in nodules. This was the first trap I had seen during the journey beyond the Barwan, and from their aspect I thought that other minor features of the mountains Bindango and Bindyègo, which I had not leisure to examine then, also consisted of this rock. The little knoll I did visit, was about one hundred yards in diameter at its base on the plains, and was covered with trees wholly different from those in the adjacent forest, namely, CALLITRIS PYRAMIDALIS, EUCALYPTUS (Iron-bark species), etc. We next descended to a separate system of drainage, apparently falling to the north-west. Instead of following rivers upwards, as we had hitherto been doing, and finding them grow less, or taking a tributary for a main channel, we were now to follow one downwards, with the prospect of finding it to increase as we proceeded. The relief from the constant apprehension of not falling in with water was great, as each day's journey was likely to show additional tributaries to our new found river, and, of course, to augment the supply. The old native at Tagàndo, had pointed much to the north-west, frequently repeating the word "MARAN;" whether that was, or what was, the name of this river, remained to be ascertained. A sweet breeze from the N. W. met us as we descended the slopes, and thus it was that white men first passed in that direction, "AL NACIMIENTO DE LA ESPECERIA." Thermometer, at sunrise, 26°; at noon, 75°; at 4 P. M., 64°; at 9, 43°. Height of camp above the sea, 1226 feet. 14TH MAY.--The left bank of the river being rather steep and broken, I crossed it, determined to pursue a N. W. course, so long as I found the country open, thinking I might easily fall in with the river about the time I wished to encamp, believing its course would be towards the gap. We passed through some scrub, but chiefly over good forest land. When we had travelled on about ten miles, I saw hills nearly clear of wood before me, and halted the party while I went forward to look at the country in that direction. I soon overlooked a deep dell, full of the richest grass, and wooded like a park. The fall of the enclosing ranges showed me, however, that our river might be further to the westward than I had thought at all likely. On returning to the party, I found they had been called to by natives in our rear, one of whom was formally seated in advance, prepared for a ceremonious interview; and I accordingly went forward to him with the green bough, and accompanied by Yuranigh. We found him in a profuse perspiration about the chest, (from terror, which was not, however, obvious in his manner,) and that he had nothing at all to say to us after all; indeed his language was wholly unintelligible to my native, who, moreover, apprised me that he was the big bully from the tribe at our former encampment, then distant some twenty-five miles. He handled my hat, asked for my watch, my compass, and was about to examine my pockets, when Yuranigh desired him to desist, in a tone that convinced him we were not quite at his mercy. I thought he said that the river was called the "Amby," and something about the "Culgoa!" It then, for the first time, occurred to me, from a gesture of this man's arm, that this might be only a tributary to the Culgoa after all. We bade him adieu as civilly as we could, but he hung upon our rear for a mile or two, and I perceived that he had brought with him his whole tribe after us. Nothing more unfortunate can befall an explorer, than to be followed by a wild tribe like this, as I had experienced in former journies. The gift of the tomahawk had done all this mischief, and how it would end, was a thought which caused me some anxiety. The tall savage had set his heart upon our goods and chattels, and it was not in human nature for him to desist from his aggressive purpose, if we could not, in some way, contrive to cheek the pursuit. I knew instinctively, by the first sound of a loud whisper of his at "Tagando" at night, near our tents, that there was no music in this man's soul. We soon arrived at a ridge of ferruginous sandstone, whereof the strike tended S. S. W. and the dip was to the eastward. A gradual ascent brought us to the verge of a low ridge, which was steep towards the N. W., and a rocky knoll (of red sand-stone) afforded me a view of the gap I had seen from Bindango, and hills about it. I perceived, with great disappointment, that the structure of the country was not according to my anticipations. The river course seemed marked out by plains far to the south-west, and all the valleys and watercourses fell FROM the gap in that direction, and not TO the gap. Still the country about that opening looked very inviting. Picturesque hills, clothed with grass and open forest, especially on their summits, and dells between them, yellow or red with rich ripe grass, indicated a spot of the finest description; and through the gap lay my destined line of route, to the north-west, river or no river. Just then, however, we wanted water, but on following a little channel about a mile downwards, we found in it a spacious pond, and encamped. I rode three miles further down this channel, which there turned SOUTHWARD, so that I despaired of my newly discovered river Amby being of any further utility now; but I was almost convinced that it would have brought me into this very country, had I come round by Fort Bourke. Latitude 26° 17' 8" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 35°; at 4 P. M., 80°; at 7 P. M., 71°; at 9, 48°. Height above the sea, 1150 feet. 15TH MAY.--My servant Brown drew my attention, early this morning, to natives occasionally peeping at us from a hill overlooking our camp. Some time after, I perceived a figure resembling a large black quadruped, with head erect like a lion, prowling about, amongst the long grass beside my after breakfast tree. Taking my glass, I recognized the identical big savage of yesterday. Hamlet might here have exclaimed-- "What a piece of work is man! ... ..... how infinite in faculties! In form and action how like a QUADRUPED! In apprehension, how like a DEVIL!" There the fate of Mr. Darke[*] doubtless awaited me; and this was to be the result of my spontaneous gift of a tomahawk to the old man! This savage had evidently been watching us all night, and his party were concealed behind the hill. Our only remaining little dog, Procyon, had been very restless during the night, when these people were, probably, drinking at the pond near us. My rifle (fortunately I now think) was in the case, but I fired a carbine so that the fellow should hear the bullet whistle near him into the long grass; and at the same time shouted, expressive of my disgust at his conduct, making the men join in a loud JEERING cheer as he galloped off, still on all-fours, towards his camp. My horse was standing saddled for a ride of reconnoissance in a different direction, and, as it was not desirable that these people should know either where I went, or even that I was absent, I took this opportunity of frightening them away from our rear, and covering my ride the other way. With this intention, I immediately mounted, rode first to the tree, with my rifle in hand, and, accompanied by one of the men and Yuranigh, both mounted, I next examined their camp behind the hill, whence I found that a great number had just retired, leaving even their opossums still roasting on the fire;--they having, in a very brief interval, by rapid strides, retired to a considerable distance, where I heard their shouts in the woods, calling their gins together for a precipitate retreat-- aware that we were now justly offended. I then set out, passing behind some hills on the opposite side of our camp, and proceeded with the business of the day, through woods in an opposite direction. I found a low flat-topped range, extending nearly W. N. W., and consisting of black ferruginous sandstone. It was broad and of peculiar structure, so that it might well have been considered a dividing feature. Parallel to it on the south, a line of pointed hills of trap or basalt, extended so as to give birth, in the valley intervening, to the watercourse by which we were encamped. On one of these Mr. Kennedy afterwards found the Bottle tree, represented at page 154. I at length reached the gap in this range, and in it discovered a most favourable and curious opening to the country westward. Passing, then, into that region, I eagerly sought a watercourse, soon found one, and followed it down to Yarra trees and dry ponds; its first direction having been, as usually remarked in the commencement of various other channels, to the N. W. Following this downwards, I found the valley to improve, and two retreating emus drew our attention to a particular spot, where we found water, at length, in a pond. But the course of this little river had come round to S. W., and the ridges enclosing its tributaries from the eastward, being apparently in the same direction, I was still rather at a loss, but determined to bring forward my little party to this pond, and then to reconnoitre the country beyond. The XEROTES LEUCOCEPHALA was just coming into flower, and the country seemed to contain much good grass. Thermometer, at sunrise, 38°; at noon, 82°; at 4 P. M., 82°; at 9, 43°. [* This gentleman was killed by natives when obeying the calls of nature behind a tree.] 16TH MAY.--We pursued a tolerably straight and level route with the carts, from the camp to the Pass. The trap hills appearing successively on the right hand, rendered the scenery more than ordinarily picturesque, while the probable future utility of this pass, gave them still more importance in my estimation. We found a more direct route than along the creek, to my pond of yesterday, where we encamped, thankful to find water at such a convenient distance, during such a dry season. Lat. 26° 15' 24" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 27°; at 4 P. M., 83°; at 9, 49°. Height above the sea, of the Pass, 1458 feet;--of this camp, 1256 feet. 17TH MAY.--Another reconnoissance seemed indispensable, before I could move the carts. Taking the direction of an opening in the sandstone ranges before us, I found that our little creek turned (as I hoped it would), to the W. and N. W., having on all sides broken ranges enveloping valleys of good open forest land. Some of the tops of these ranges were clear of timber, and bore a heavy crop of grass. I ascended one, and found it was capped with trap rock in amygdaloidal nodules. This height afforded me an extensive view northward, where the country appeared to be chiefly flat and thinly wooded. A low range of hills broke the horizon, and presented some favourable points, and I thought I could trace the course of our little river, through an extensive intervening woody flat. I descended from the hill, and followed the little river down, but could find no more water in its ponds. There were the Yarra trees, and fine grassy flats on its banks; and I came to a fine looking piece of rising ground, on the right bank, where the grass was on fire. We sought the inhabitants of the woods, but could discover none. I now found our creek turning towards the south, and that its channel disappeared in a spacious open flat. While thus perplexed, and under an apprehension that our further progress northward in such a season would be found impossible, I perceived a dense line of trees, skirting a grassy flat, and rode towards it, observing, that any where else I should have said we were approaching a large river. I next perceived steep sloping earthy banks; then, below these, a deep section of rock, and at length, dark green reeds, and the blue surface of extensive reaches of water. I had left my party at a pond that could not have lasted long,--here I saw at once secure, a firm footing thus far into the interior. Whence the river came, or whither it went, was of less importance; thus far we had water. The river was fully as large as the Darling, and I very soon saw that its course was from N. to S.; but in that case, we could, by following it upwards, penetrate far on our way into the interior, and at its sources probably fall in with other streams, flowing where we wished to go. I followed the course downwards about two miles, and passed through native camps just deserted, the water vessels and other gear of the natives having been left suspended on trees near their fires. I found that the river turned sharp under the rocky extremities of sandstone spurs from the S., and that its final course was an enigma not to be solved without much more research. I returned to my camp, glad that I could take the party forward to a permanent supply of water. Thermometer, at sunrise, 29°; at noon, 78°; at 4 P. M. 75°; at 9, 49°. 18TH MAY.--Leaving a buried letter for Mr. Kennedy we proceeded to trace, with our cart-wheels, the best route I could find for the heavy drays coming forward with him. The soil was sandy, but in other respects the country was good: consisting chiefly of open forest, and being well covered with grass. Another gap enabled me to pass very directly on to the newly-discovered river, and it seemed that this, and the other gap behind it, were almost the only openings in the ranges from which we had descended. Both led in the direction of our route, and the pond we had just left was ascertained to be the only one in the little channel. I sought a good position for a depôt camp on the newly-discovered river, and found one extremely favourable, on a curve concave to the N. W., overlooking, from a high bank, a dry ford, on a smooth rocky bed; and having also access to a reach of water, where the bottom was hard and firm. We approached this position with our carts, in the midst of smoke and flame; the natives having availed themselves of a hot wind to burn as much as they could of the old grass, and a prickly weed which, being removed, would admit the growth of a green crop, on which the kangaroos come to feed, and are then more easily got at. Latitude of this camp, 26° 12' 47" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 40°; at 4 P. M., 78°; at 9, 57°. 19TH MAY.--I could now venture to halt a day without any apprehensions about leaving sufficient water for the party who were following us; and I had recently obtained many angles I wished to put together, in order to learn the character of the country, which required much study. That I should have overlooked an extensive country, without perceiving any indication of a large river flowing through it, almost at my feet, seemed a singular circumstance, and I was still as little aware of its ultimate course. I found on laying down my work on paper, that the chief elevations ran, in a continuous line, nearly due north from Mount Red Cap, Bindango, and Bindyègo, to the high ranges nearer the coast. That the nascent stream on the western side of Bindango (the Amby), and flowing first N. W., turned towards the S. W. within a range of basaltic rock, which was a branch from the main stem between Bindango and the northern range. Thus, upon the whole, this seemed but one side, and that the south-eastern, of the basin of the river we had discovered. Where was the other? The marks of flood were not high. The waters were full of fish, but they would not take the bait. Thermometer, at sunrise, 46°; at noon, 73°; at 4 P. M., 76°; at 9, 65°. 20TH MAY.--The sky was wholly overcast, and drizzling rain afforded us some grounds for hoping that the great impediment to our exploration during this dry season, was at an end. The temperature underwent a sudden change, and this day was the coldest as yet experienced during the journey; the thermometer at noon being only 48°. F. Yuranigh contrived to catch three fishes, of a kind wholly different from those of the rivers in the south; leaving it doubtful, again, whether this river could belong to the system of the Barwan. Thermometer, at sunrise, 53°; at noon, 48°; at 4 P. M., 45°; at 9, 45°. 21ST MAY.--The morning being clear, frosty, and serene, induced me to ride towards an elevated point, about thirteen miles to the north-west, in hopes of obtaining a view of more distant mountains. Crossing the river near our camp I met with no obstruction, but found open forests, and a good grassy country throughout; the soil being, however, rather too loose and sandy, for the easy passage of wheel carriages. I crossed three channels of water-courses all dry, but evidently receptacles of water in ordinary seasons. They now contained a most luxuriant crop of oat-grass (Anthistiria). The hill was rocky and open on the summit, the chief trees being very remarkable; especially a species of FICUS, of a unique kind, but not in fruit, closely resembling the English ash; but growing wholly on rock. Bottle trees (DELABECHEA) grew also in a romantic nook, such as they seem to delight in, in the neighbourhood of minor shrubs, equally strange. The rock consisted of a sandstone with vegetable impressions, such as I had never seen on the sandstone of the ranges. From this summit, the crests of very distant ranges appeared to the northward; the highest bearing nearly north, by compass, and apparently distant 70 or 80 miles. The course of the river, or at least of a river, judging by a line of smoke, came from the north-westward, between that mountain, and others to the westward of it. More to the right, or eastward, the horizon presented flat-topped ranges; increasing in elevation as they receded from that side of the country whence we had come. That sort of level horizon seemed always to bound our view to the southward, the little gap was the only relieving blue break in the whole of that side. The eye ranged over a vast extent of country, however, at its base, extending eastward, where open plains or downs shone bright in the remote distance; in which direction, much smoke arose from fires of the natives. I returned from the hill but little wiser than I went, except that I had observed the strata dipping southward, and that we might, therefore, still look for their synclinal line to the northward; and beyond that, for the heads of other rivers. These hills, overlooking the valley of the river, resembled rocky bergs, at a distance of ten or twelve miles west of it. They, however, partly formed a small range, and belonged to an extensive tract of sandstone country; which, on the south, was broken into gullies, falling towards the river. Thermometer, at sunrise, 27°; at noon, 54°; at 4 P. M., 55°; at 9, 30°. 22D MAY.--This morning, the thermometer in my tent stood at 20°; and in the open air, at 12°. The river was frozen, and the grass was white with hoar-frost. The soil appearing so sandy in the country before us, I resolved to form a depôt with our drays and heavy equipment here, and to await their arrival before I proceeded further with the carts. The spot was eligible in every respect; and in awaiting the arrival of Mr. Kennedy with the drays, I could have time to investigate more extensively the character of the surrounding country. I was, indeed, rather apprehensive that the drays could not reach without difficulty even this point; and I was resolved, on their arrival, to make some arrangement for continuing the journey, without dragging them any further through the heavy sand. It was most irksome, during the finest of weather, thus to be obliged to remain comparatively inactive, in the middle of such a journey, when horses and light carts might have enabled me to have pursued it to a conclusion, without such delays. Thermometer, at noon, 54°; at 4 P. M., 55°; at 9, 27°. 23D MAY.--The river seemed to cut its way through rocky ranges, and to receive many tributaries; had, in some places, bergs, and margins of ancient gravel and sedimentary strata; in others, rocky escarps of great height, presented sections of rocks through which it passed. Its further course downwards, seemed accessible for some way from this camp; and, in awaiting the arrival of the drays, I resolved to explore it. With this view, I this day proceeded westward to head the gullies falling to it from the other bank, from the sandstone country already mentioned. I ascended by an extremity of the hill, to the rocky crest without difficulty, or much deviation from my intended course. On reaching the western side of the rough scrubby table of the range, I found the descent gradual, through an open forest: traversed two flats, having in them the Yarra gums, but no water-course, the surface very sandy. Here grew the ACACIA CONFERTA, a small shrub just coming into flower; the XANTHORRHOEA MIMOSA (with rough bark), yellow gum, black-butted gum, iron-bark, and stringy bark. The woods astonished my native companion Yuranigh; who remarked that they were trees belonging to the sea coast at Sydney. But deep rocky ravines prevented me from exploring the country, in the direction in which I should have expected to find the river. At length, we approached a valley, in which was a deep channel with rocky banks; but quite dry, and very sandy. It ran to the southward; in which direction I turned with it, to follow it to its junction with the main river; but it pursued a very tortuous course, and our time did not admit of my going far enough that day, and I returned to the camp, resolved to extend this interesting search on a greater scale subsequently. I had seen, from the furthest point I reached, that the same table land to the southward, extended west; and it therefore appeared to me probable that the river would be found at its base. In the evening we heard, at a short distance from our camp, the songs of females or children; as if the overflowing of their animal spirits. I had seen their smoke in a part of the range I passed this day, to which I feared they had fled on our approach, hearing our guns, and in terror of strangers. I was, therefore, glad to find that they had no longer any dread of us, and had returned to THEIR home, the river bank. These people had no clothing,--the mercury stood at 19° and 20° F.; the means of subsistence open to them, had been scarcely enough to have kept white men alive, even with the aid of their guns. Yet, under such circumstances, and with such strange visitors so close to them, these human beings were so contented and happy, that the overflowings of their hearts were poured forth in song! Such is human nature in a wild state. Their happiness was not such as we could envy; on the contrary, I was so solicitous that we should not disturb it, that, much as I wished to learn the original name of this interior river, and something about its course, I forbade any of the party from taking any notice of these, its original inhabitants. Our last intercourse with the natives, had also taught me to bear ever in mind aesop's fable of the camel. Thermometer, at sunrise, 12°; at noon, 52°; at 4 P. M., 56°; at 9, 32°. 24TH MAY.--I proceeded, with two men bearing axes, to a hill about two miles S. W. of our camp, one of the extremities of the range already mentioned, (which I call River Head Range). We passed, at no great distance from our camp, those natives whose song we had heard last evening, but without taking any notice of them, except by slightly waving my hand. One tall female stooped amongst the long grass, and several others, male and female, endeavoured to hide themselves in a similar manner, as they beheld, probably for the first time, a white man on horseback, followed by others bearing a saw and axes. On the summit, grew the Malga tree; which is an acacia of such very hard wood, that I was obliged to be content to cut off the top branches only of a tree on the summit I had endeavoured to cut down, and to erect a sort of platform on the remainder, whence I took my angles. Up the river, there appeared some open plains, and a level horizon, in the direction of its apparent course. Thermometer, at sunrise, 11°; at noon, 65°; at 4 P. M., 67°; and at 9, 30°. 25TH MAY.--Protracting the observed angles I endeavoured to fix, if possible, some prominent points, whereby I might obtain some knowledge of the structure of the surrounding country. The result of my work was a conviction that the course of the river was parallel to the projecting extremities of the low range beyond it (River Head Range), and that its basin had extensive ramifications, back amongst the sandstone cliffs on this side. But the course downwards still remained a question, which diminished in its importance, as I discovered the upper course to come from where it was my wish to go. I resolved, nevertheless, while thus awaiting the arrival of the drays, to extend my ride of the 23RD MAY, and ascertain whether it could turn westward under the southern cliffs, the only direction in which it was likely to be available to us, downwards, at this time. Thermometer, at sunrise, 17°; at noon, 70°; at 4 P.M. 68°; and at 9, 38°. 26TH MAY.--Taking with me two men and Yuranigh, mounted, I retraced my former track to the westward, and on proceeding beyond the dry river bed, where I had previously been, I entered amongst sandstone gullies, where one grassy flat extended nearly in the direction I wished to pursue; and this brought me to a sort of table-land, covered with an open forest of iron-bark (with the common leaf). The rock consisted here of the same felspathic sort characterising most of the hills of the Barwan basin; the soil sterile, bearing, in lieu of the ordinary grass, the stiff, hard leaved, glutinous TRIODIA PUNGENS. But this was better than scrub, and, further on, I perceived through a forest on the western slopes, the blue distance and yellow plains of an open country. As plains usually accompany rivers, I believed I was approaching the river I was in search of. We crossed a deep watercourse falling to the S.E.b.S., and entered on a noble flat of firm rich soil, whereon grew luxuriantly, the ACACIA PENDULA (not previously seen by us in that region), and the two best kinds of grass, ANTHISTIRIA and PANICUM LOEVINODE. Then we came to a good pond of water, with recent footmarks of natives, and, at about a mile beyond, we reached the open downs. They extended eastward as far as we could see between the range on the S., under which I had expected to find the river, and the rocky country over which we had come. Westward, the downs were bounded by several very picturesque isolated conical hills,-- the southern sandy ranges on the S., still continuing westward like a limit to all this interior open country. Yet through that barrier the river had found a course, and instead of its overlooking the river, I found that the ground rose towards it, and I hastened four or five miles further westward, in hopes still to see it beyond the open downs, but I saw nothing like it. Kangaroos showed their heads occasionally amid the long grass: the air was all astir with pigeons, and traces of native inhabitants were numerous. As the sun was then near setting, we hastened back to the pond, and lay down beside it for the night, which happened to be a mild one. Thermometer, at sunrise, 20°; at noon, 72°; at 4 P.M., 71°; at 9, 44°. 27TH MAY.--We rode nearly westward towards a conical hill, which I had seen on the evening before, and named Mount Lonsdale. This peak appeared to me then to promise an extensive view to the W. and S.W., and in that expectation I was not disappointed. I also fortunately recognised two of my fixed points, at distances of thirty-two and fortytwo miles respectively, besides an elevated extremity of the continuous range on the S., which I had previously intersected, and here determined to be only five miles off, bearing about S.E.b.S. I could now see not only westward, but to the southward of S.W., for nearly twenty miles over a long flat, containing indeed, a line of ACACIA PENDULA scrub, such as accompanies lines of water drainage, but no river. All the country in sight more to the northward seemed to fall that way, or southward, and although it seemed possible that a cross line of valley and blue mist at the far extremity of the flat might be the river, it was much more probable, from the general slope of the country, that it was only another tributary coming from the north.[*] Such was Yuranigh's opinion too, who alone stood on that peak with me, and who there reminded me of the fate of the rivers Macquarie and Narran, and maintained that rivers were not to be found every where. "Where then is our river, Mr. Yuranigh?" "Bel me know," was the reply. I could soon have found this out, however, had it been an object for our journey northward. It was enough to know then that it did not turn into that interior country, which was open, and looked much lower, and how much further the fine valley extended beyond the twenty miles, an adjacent woody hill prevented me from seeing. The land around me was fair to look on; nothing could be finer than the forms of the hills--half clear of wood, the disposition of open grassy downs and vales--or the beauty of the woods. Water was not wanting, at least there seemed to be enough for the present inhabitants, and to an admirer of nature there was all that could be desired. Deeply impressed with its sublime and solitary beauty, I sketched the scene, and descended from that hill, resolved to follow the river upwards, as more favourable, in that direction, to the chief object of my mission. I named the hill overlooking that lonely dale, Mount Lonsdale, in honour of my valuable geological friend. We reached the dépot camp in the evening, and found all well, only that a very tall and powerful native had been reconnoitring our position during the day, from various trees commanding a view of it; probably only from curiosity. These visits, however, always happened to be made, as it would appear, when some portion of the party was absent, as on this occasion. Thermometer, at sunrise, 34°; at noon, 79°; at 4 P.M., 68°; at 9, 59°; with wet bulb, 50°. [* Probably the Nive. See INFRA.] 28TH AND 29TH MAY.--My ride westward had enabled me to intersect more points to the northward; but this was certainly the most intricate country I had ever either to survey or explore; for neither by laying down points on a map, nor by overlooking it from high summits, could I gain a satisfactory knowledge of its structure. Upon the whole, however, I was convinced that the downward course of the river, above our depôt camp, was in a favourable direction for the continuation of our journey. The arrival of the drays and the rest of the party was now an important desideratum; for I had resolved to establish them in a dephere, and continue the journey with a smaller party and the horses; the sandy soil beyond the river, appearing almost impassable for the absurdly heavy drays, with which the party had been equipped. They had now had nearly time sufficient to come thus far, making due allowance for sand and other obstructions. In the mean while I determined to extend my reconnoissance northward from a commanding height, distant fourteen miles, and bearing 27½° E. of N. from my camp. Thermometer, at sunrise, 47°; at noon, 85°; at 4 P.M., 79°: at 9, 65°. 30TH MAY.--I proceeded, accordingly, to the hill, over a tract of excellent open forest land, which extended to its base. The summit consisted of trap-rock in nodules, and, towards the highest point, was much broken. On the most elevated part of the summit, grew one of those remarkable trees, first seen by me on Mount Abundance. I had since seen them in various solitary singular situations; two on the Hogs'-back crest of Bindango; two or three near the summit of various other heights. The girth of this was thirty feet at its greatest circumference, and only sixteen at the ground. There was only one companion of the same kind, a very young one, beside this; which in locality, form, and quality, seems to be as remarkable a tree, amongst trees in general, as the kangaroo is remarkable amongst other animals. Of its quality, much, I am sure, remains to be said, when it becomes better known; the wood being so light, moist, and full of gum, that a man, having a knife or tomahawk, might live by the side of one without other food or water; as if nature in pity for the most distressed of mortals, hiding in solitary places, had planted even there this tree of Abundance. The wood must contain a great portion of mucilage, for, on chewing it, it seems to contain as much nutritious matter, as fibre. The pods contain a great number of seeds which are eaten by the natives, and also by many birds; and, from the circumstance of my having found one pod half-eaten by a bird on a rock, the very apex of a lofty summit, the solitary locality of this tree may, perhaps, be considered at least partly owing to its seeds being the favourite food of some birds inhabiting such places, each seed probably requiring to be picked out of the thick shell, in order that it may grow.[*] The view the hill afforded me was most gratifying and satisfactory. I saw again Mounts Bindango, Bindyego and Abundance, to the southward; the cone I had lately visited in the west, (Mount Lonsdale): the course of the river downwards, marked by open plains in the S. W.; and, an extensive rather level country lay to the northward, beyond which, at great distances, the summits of lofty mountains were just visible. Through the wide champagne country intervening, the river's course seemed marked by a line of smoke; a hot wind was then blowing, and the natives are in the habit of burning off the old grass on such occasions. The river seemed to come from the mountains, nearly from the N.N.W.; so that the prospect of finding water in that direction, or towards these mountains, was all I could desire. Here I intersected various lofty distant summits seen on the 21st instant, and could thus connect the whole trigonometrically with back angles to Bindango, Mount Abundance, etc. In the eastward, a range of tabular masses, some almost clear of wood, extended apparently to the coast ranges; and seemed to be also connected with those stretching towards Bindango, and separating the basin of the upper Balonne from this interior country. A hill similar to that on which I stood, but of less height, lay on the interior side of it, having a remarkable conic summit clear of bushes. The valley at the base of these two hills contained a fine crop of ANTHISTIRIA; and there was also a chain of ponds, where natives had been encamped not long before, but in which no water then remained. [* A new genus, since named DELABECHEA.] On returning to the camp in the evening, I learnt that soon after I left it in the morning, two natives came boldly up, painted white, bearing, each, several spears and four or five bommerengs. They were followed by two females bearing loads of spears. The men were got immediately under arms, forming a line before the tents, and Corporal Graham beckoned to the natives to halt. They pointed after me, and by very plain gestures motioned to the party to follow me, or to begone. Finding the men before the tents made the same signs to them, and stood firm, the principal speaker edged off towards a man at a distance, in charge of the horses. Graham got between, so as to cover the man and the horses, when they advanced more boldly upon him, quivering their poised spears at him, at a distance of only ten or twelve paces. At length the foremost man turned round, and by slapping his posteriors, gave him to understand by that vulgar gesture, his most contemptuous defiance: this induced the old soldier to discharge his carbine over the head of the savage, who first sprung some feet into the air, and then ran off with all the others. Soon after, the same native was seen creeping up the steep bank, so as to approach the camp under the cover of some large trees, the rest following, and he was again met by our party. He then seemed to recite with great volubility a description of the surrounding territory, as he continually pointed in the course of his harangue to various localities, and in this description he was prompted by the female behind, who also, by rapid utterance and motions of the arm, seemed to recite a territorial description. Finding, however, that his speech made no impression on the white strangers, and that they still beckoned them to depart; he stuck a spear into the ground, and, by gestures, seemed to propose that, on the one side, the ground should be occupied by the strangers, and on the other side, by them. Graham apparently assenting to this, they seemed more satisfied and departed. There were two deep reaches; one above, the other below, our camp. The upper one was deepest, largest, and more remote from our party, and most within reach of the natives. I gave strict orders that no man should go there; nor that the cattle should be allowed to feed there; that it should, in fact, be left wholly to the natives; that no ducks should be shot, that no men should fish there. Nothing could be more reasonable than the proposal of this native, nor more courageous than his appearance before our more numerous party, with his spears and open defiance; and I was determined to take every precaution to avoid a collision with his small tribe, and prevent, during our probably long residence here, our people from doing them any harm. Thermometer, at sunrise, 22°; at noon, 60°; at 4 P.M., 63°; at 9, 31°. 1ST JUNE.--The sound of a distant shot about noon, which proceeded from the Doctor firing at a bird, gave us the first notice of the approach of the other party. Soon after, Mr. Kennedy came in, measuring the line; and, subsequently, the drays, and the whole of the men in good health. The cattle had got refreshed without delaying me, and I could now again proceed with a good supply of stores, leaving them again in depôt here. Mr. Kennedy had examined the river, about which I had written to him, for twelve miles up, and found that it was a separate river, coming from the N.W., and that in all its bed no water could be found. The tribe of Tagando had been troublesome to him, as I feared they would, after their attempt upon us. The following account of their visit to Mr. Kennedy is from his own notes:--"At 1 P.M., an old native, accompanied by five younger men, approached the camp, each carrying a green bough, and when within forty yards, they sat down in a line, the old man (probably their chief) taking up his position about four yards in advance of the rest. Sir Thomas Mitchell having mentioned, in a communication I received here, that the natives had been friendly to him, I was anxious to preserve that good feeling, but at the same time to keep them at a distance, according to my instructions. I therefore went up to them with a green bough, and endeavoured by signs to make them leave:--finding that of no avail, I presented the chief with an old hat, and gave to each a piece of bread. After they had eaten it, I raised the old man with my right hand, and taking another in my left, I led them away in the direction whence they had come, broke off a green branch, gave a portion to each, and bid them farewell. As the others still remained in STATU QUO, I went through the same ceremony with them until they were all on their path homewards. Having heard nothing more of them for some time, I flattered myself that I had succeeded in giving them a friendly hint that we did not wish them beside us; but I soon discovered my mistake, for at 4 P.M. a large number of natives, accompanied by two or three gins and children, came boldly up and encamped within a few yards of the tents, and two hundred more were reported to me by Mortimer as being at a short distance in their rear. I gave strict orders that no man should go near them, and I mustered the party myself at 8 P.M. Shortly afterwards, three or four natives came down to our fires, and on the men saying that they would not be made to leave, I put my hand upon their shoulders, and shewed them their own camp. One tall young native in particular, wearing an opossum cloak, exhibited a strong inclination to resist. I continued to watch their movements until half-past eleven, P.M. up to which time they were talking very earnestly, continually repeating the words "white fellow." I had not retired to my tent five minutes when I heard Baldock (one of the two men on watch) several times desire the natives to go back, who, as it appeared, would insist on coming forward to our fires. Serjeant Niblet then called me, saying he thought "all was not right," that the natives refused to keep away, and that he had seen the fire sticks of others approaching from several directions. On turning out, I found them making a line of fires within twenty-five yards or less of our tents, and the grass on fire, the old man urging them on in their mischievous work. I called to them in the language of some of the aborigines, to go away quickly, using the words "Yau-a-ca-burri!" but seeing that they still drew nearer with their fires, to the imminent danger of the camp, I desired the men, who by this time had got ready with their arms, to charge them with a shout, but not to fire until they received orders. We succeeded in making them run; when, to add to their alarm, one or two shots were fired in the air. In their haste, they left the old hat I had given them, an iron tomahawk, and a few other implements, behind them, all of which I caused to be left untouched, in order to show them that we had only objected to their intrusion. All being quiet, and the cattle brought close to the camp, I added a third man to the morning watch, and no more was heard of the natives." This was a specimen of the treacherous nature of their mode of warfare, and very characteristic of the aborigines, but by no means so creditable to them, as the conduct of our neighbours at this camp, where the arrival of the other party was likely to convince them still more, that they could not induce us to quit that position, until we thought proper to do so. I had instructed Mr. Kennedy to continue the numbering of the camps; but as the drays could not keep pace with mine, only some of my camps have been so numbered, the others marked being those where his party had passed the night. This depôt camp was, thus, No. XXIX, and the numbers of such others of mine as have been marked between this and VIII., shall be added to this journal, and the whole marked on the map. A new species of CALLITRIS appeared among the trees, the ACACIA STENOPHYLLA, and the large leaved variety of ACACIA DECORA, further removed than usual from the common form, and approaching, in some respects, to A. RUBIDA. Among the bushes was the beautiful little A. CONFERTA, remarkable for its little heath-like leaves, and among the grasses was remarked an abundance of a new annual SPOROBOLUS with extremely minute flowers.[*] Thermometer, at sunrise, 18°; at noon, 64°; at 4 P.M., 64°; at 9, 30°. [* S. PALLIDUS (Lindl. MS.) foliis planis glabris ligulâ nulla nisi squamulâ quâdam, paniculâ effusâ ramis brevibus alternis verticillatisque scabriusculis, paleis truncatis alterâ 3-nervi alterâ binervi.] 2D JUNE.--Two half-boats were mounted on frames, and fixed over two of the light carts, and other preparations made for the prosecution of the journey with a small party. My plan was to reduce each man's ration of flower from 7lbs. to 4lbs. per week: to allow a larger quantity of mutton: some gelatine and barley, dried potatoes, etc. With my party, I now proposed to take forward a portion of the sheep, as not requiring carriage, and Mr. Stephenson, a man to assist him, and the shepherd, formed the only addition to the number with which I had advanced to this point. Mr. Kennedy had brought me a dispatch from Commissioner Mitchell, accompanied by some newspapers, in which I read such passages as the following:--"Australia Felix and the discoveries of Sir Thomas Mitchell now dwindle into comparative insignificance." "We understand the intrepid Dr. Leichardt is about to start another expedition to the Gulf, keeping to the westward of the coast ranges," etc., etc. Not very encouraging to us, certainly; but we work for the future. Thermometer, at sunrise, 11°; at noon, 67°; at 4 P.M., 67°; at 9, 30°. 3D JUNE.--This day one of the party caught several fishes in the river, which appeared to be of the same species as the Eelfish, or Plotosus tandanus described in the journal of my first journey (Vol. i. p. 95). It is therein stated to be an Asiatic form of fish, on the authority of Mr. Wm. M'Leay, but in other respects this was identical with one in the Barwan. The course downwards of the new river, which we even now believed to be called the Maran, from what we had gathered from the natives, was thus almost proved to be towards the southern rivers. I instructed Mr. Kennedy to employ the party in digging, and fencing in, and daily watering, a garden; also, to make a stockyard wherein to lodge the cattle at night, as this would leave more men disposable for the immediate protection, if necessary, of the camp and stores. I also gave him very particular instructions as to the natives, that no intercourse should be allowed between them and the men; that he should, nevertheless, use them very civilly, and endeavour to obtain some information, if possible, respecting the final course of the Maran, etc. Thermometer, at sunrise, 16°; at noon, 69°; at 4 P.M., 66°; at 9, 34°. Chapter V. CROSS THE MARANOA WITH A LIGHT PARTY.--SEND BACK FOR ONE DRAY AND THE FRESHEST TEAM.--JUNCTION OF A RIVER FROM N.N.W.--FOLLOW UP THE MINOR BRANCH.--A DAY'S RAIN, AND RECONNAISSANCE TO THE N.W.--HOSTILE TRIBE.-- HOW DISPERSED.--CROSS POSSESSION CREEK.--ARRIVE AT A SMALL RIVER FROM THE WEST.--CROSS IT, AND REACH ANOTHER.--AGAIN RIDE TO THE N.W.--DETERMINE TO FOLLOW THE FIRST RIVER DOWN-WARDS.--AGAIN ARRIVE ON THE MARANOA.--CROSS THE SECOND RIVER FROM THE WEST.--ASCEND A SMALL ROCKY HILL.--MOUNT OWEN AGAIN RECOGNIZED.--TRAVEL IN THAT DIRECTION.--THROUGH SCRUBS, AND OVER SANDY GROUND.--AGAIN WANT WATER.--TURN TO THE MARANOA.--FIND ITS CHANNEL DRY.--ASCEND MOUNT OWEN.--RIDE OF RECONNAISSANCE.--DISTANT MOUNTAINS.-- ADVANCE WITH THE PARTY.--ASCEND MOUNT P. P. KING.--THE RIVER WARREGO DISCOVERED.--IT TURNS TO THE S.W.,--THE PARTY CROSSES IT.--MOUNT FARADAY.--THE PYRAMIDS.--RIVER SALVATOR.--THE SALVATOR JOINS THE NOGOA.-- COURSE OF THE NOGOA, N.E.--CROSS IT AND CUT THROUGH TEN MILES OF SCRUB, IN A N.W. DIRECTION.--THE RIVER CLAUDE DISCOVERED.--FINE OPEN DOWNS.-- BALMY CREEK, AND VERY DIFFICULT COUNTRY.--TOWER ALMOND.--MOUNT MUDGE.-- LINE OF RIVER SEEN TO THE NORTHWARD. 4TH JUNE.--EVERY preparation having been made, I bade Mr. Kennedy adieu, for at least four months, and crossed the Maranwith my party and light carts. It was not without very much regret that I thus left this zealous assistant, and so large a portion of my men, behind, in departing on a hazardous enter prise, as this was likely to be, where the population might be numerous. Anxiety for the safety of the party left, predominated with me, for whatever might be the danger of passing and repassing through these barbarous regions, that of a party stationary for a length of time in one place, seemed greater, as they were more likely to be assailed by assembled numbers, and more exposed to their cunning and treachery. I gave to Mr. Kennedy the best advice I could, and we parted in the hope of a happy meeting, at the period of my return--a hope, I must confess, I could not indulge in then, with any degree of pleasure, looking forward to the many difficulties we were prepared to encounter, and considering the state of my own health. The sandy bed of the river was difficult to cross with the carts, and delayed us an hour. A different adjustment of the loads was necessary; therefore I was obliged to turn out of my intended route for this day, and go into a bight of the river for water, in making a much shorter journey. This was only of six miles from the depôt camp. Amongst the waterworn pebbles in the bed of the river, we found various portions of coal and the rocky sections in parts of the banks resembled its concomitant strata. Thermometer, at sunrise, 16°; at 9 P.M., 40°. 5TH JUNE.--The ground was sandy, and several gullies descending to the river occasioned difficulties which tried the mettle of our horses, and convinced me that we now carried too much weight for them. I accordingly sent back Edward Taylor and another man with a note to Mr. Kennedy, and with directions to pick out ten good bullocks, and bring forward one of the drays as soon as possible. We met with various dry channels of tributaries so deep and rocky, that they seemed, at first sight, like the main river. I wished to reach the bank of this, at a favourable point to encamp at, and await the arrival of the expected dray. But there gullies rendered the access difficult. Sand and callitris covered the intermediate ground, and augmented the impediments the horses had to contend with. After crossing three rather important channels, I turned to the N. E., and fortunately came upon the river, where the ground was very open, and the acclivities gentle. The bed of the river was full of water, forming a long reach covered with a red weed, the course from north to south, straight. Height above the sea, 1190 feet. This we marked XXXI., last camp being XXX. Thermometer, at sunrise, 24°; at 4 P.M., 70°; at 9, 43°. 6TH JUNE.--Taylor arrived early with a fine team and strong dray, confident in being able to keep up with the carts, and lightly loaded, of course, that he might cross heavy sand, or deep gullies. I employed the time usefully, in adapting Mr. Kennedy's measurements to my map. I had now measured bases, besides those of latitude for my trigonometrical work, and I should not have regretted even a day longer in camp, to have had more time to protract angles, but time was too precious, as my men were voluntarily on very reduced rations. The DODONOEA HIRTELLA of Miquel was the only novelty found here. Latitude 26° 6' 25" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 30°; at noon, 75°; at 4 P.M., 76°; at 9, 50°. 7TH JUNE.--We set off at a better pace this morning, and kept it up, as we found the ground firmer, and less broken. Several hollows with water- courses in them, lay in our way, but presented no serious impediment. At length, I saw some of the heads of River-Head Range, and a long ridge appeared before us. On ascending it obliquely, following up the smooth clay floor of a water-course, I found myself gradually entangled in a bad scrub of brigalow and rosewood. After cutting our way through it, for a mile and a half, I sought on the other side for any hollow leading off water, and found one which brought us into an open forest flat with a fine chain of ponds. The Acacia pendula appeared on its skirts; and, at length, abundance of water, also, in the ponds. The grass was so luxuriant near one of these, that I encamped beside it, without seeking the river, to which these ponds seemed adjacent. Thermometer, at sunrise, 36°; at 4 P.M., 85°; at 9, 70° (XXXII.). Height above the sea, 1309 feet. 8TH JUNE.--The country beyond this camp in a northerly direction was very fine. The Acacia pendula, open forests, and gently undulating country intersected by chains of ponds then dry, were its characteristics. At length, we reached the river bank, and could travel along it to the west. Just there, I perceived the junction of a river (perhaps the main channel) from the N. N. W. It seemed full of water, whereas that which I was obliged to follow, being the most westerly, was nearly dry, although its banks were boldly broken, and precipitous. Its course came round even from S. W., and deep ravines and water-courses coming into it, obliged me to travel to the southward of that bearing in order to avoid them. We thus, at length, came into a fine open grassy country, tolerably level, and could resume a north-west course. In that direction, we crossed a water-course from the S. W., and came to another in a deeper valley, where we saw natives, who did not run away. There was a water-hole nearest to our side, and one from which a native was ascending when I approached. I directed the men (having encamped here) to keep the cattle from that water-hole, if possible, anxious to avoid giving any offence on this delicate point to the natives of these forests. Thermometer, at sunrise, 36°; at 4 P. M., 85°; at 9, 70°. (XXXIII.) 9TH JUNE.--The sky being overcast, and rain likely to fall, I considered that the bullocks' necks might be galled by the yokes in wet weather; and, being in some doubt about finding water in the direction in which I wished now to travel, I set out with two men on horseback to explore the country to the N. W., leaving the party to enjoy a day's rest. Little rain fell, and the ride was very pleasant. A perfume like that of hay, but much more fragrant, arose from the moistened vegetation, and I found a beautiful country of open forest with ACACIA PENDULA in graceful clumps. A few miles on, we were suddenly hailed from behind a few bushes, by about twenty-five natives, painted red. We halted and endeavoured to talk to them, but not a word was intelligible to Yuranigh, who was with me. In vain he inquired about rivers, or water, in his language, and in vain they bawled to us in theirs: so, after this unintelligible parley at some distance, (for they would not come close up,) we rode on. We came at length on a sandy country with much Callitris, but the whole surface was undulating, and we crossed several chains of deep ponds, all falling to our right, or eastward; some containing water. At length, I perceived on the right, a deeper valley, and found in it a little river with a rocky bed, and coming from the N. N. W. At two miles further, along my N. W. course, I found it crossed it, coming from W. S. W., and here I turned, well pleased to find an abundant supply of water, and a good country in the best direction for our interior journey. The river ran chiefly on rock, and the water was plentiful. Having returned to the camp, in the evening, after sunset we were called to by a numerous tribe of natives, assembled on the opposite steep bank of the chain of ponds, over which we had encamped. By the particular cooey, I recognised the same party we had seen in the morning. Their language was now loud and angry, and war was evidently their purpose; from experience I judged it best to nip the evil in the bud, and ordered five men under arms, who were first formed in line before the tents, and with whom, at the bugle's sound, I advanced steadily up the opposite bank, as our only reply to all their loud jeering noise. They set up a furious yell on our approach, and advanced to the brow of the cliff, as if prepared to defend it; but as we silently ascended, they fell off, and, by the time we gained the height, they had retired to a considerable distance, still shouting vociferously. Two, however, were seen drawing round our left flank, in a little gully, followed by a female carrying spears. I discharged my rifle over their heads, upon which they hastened to their fellows. On firing another shot over the dark noisy mass before us, they became suddenly quite silent, probably persuaded that we were really in earnest. We marched through their camp, made a feint, by descending into a gully, of coming upon them unawares, and continued there, until silence and darkness secured our peaceful occupation of the ground. Thus I prevented a night of alarms and noise, which might have been kept up until morning, and until they had worked themselves into that sort of frenzy, without which I do not think they have courage to fight Europeans; and having once got their steam up, they were sure to have followed us, and gathered a savage population in our rear. Lat., 25° 54' 17" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 56°; at 4 P. M., 70; at 9, 50°. (XXXIII.) 10TH JUNE.--We advanced at an early hour, crossing Possession Creek, for so we called it (and which proved rather an impediment, until we filled a hollow with logs), and followed my horse's tracks of yesterday. Thus we reached the little river in good time, notwithstanding much heavy sand in the way of our carts, and encamped at the furthest point I had previously visited. Thermometer, at sunrise, 30°; at 4 P.M., 75°; at 9, 39°. Height above the sea, 1240 feet. (XXXIV.) 11TH JUNE.--Keeping along the bank of the rocky river, we were obliged to turn southward, and even S.S.E., such was the direction whence the river came. I therefore encamped the party, after a journey of only 3½ miles, and proceeded to explore again, towards the N. W. I thus came upon the rocky river where the rock formed a bridge affording an easy means of crossing it, and this I valued more, as being the only passable place I had seen in it, so deep and rocky was the bed elsewhere. The strata at this bridge dipped N. N. E., a circumstance which induced me to travel westward instead of N. W., in hopes to cross thereby sooner, a synclinal line, and so arrive at the sources of some northern river. We passed through some scrub, and attained, by gradual ascent, considerable elevation. The country in general consisted of open forest, and contained grass in great abundance. At nine miles, I came upon a chain of ponds falling northward, and in which were two good ponds of water, whereupon I returned to the camp. Thermometer, at sunrise, 38°; at 9 P.M., 38°. Height above the sea, 1287 feet. (XXXV.) 12TH JUNE.--The rock about the river here was deeply impressed with ripple marks, and also dipped N.N.E. or northward. It consisted of a yellow sandstone in thin strata, covered in some parts with beds of waterworn pebbles. These consisted chiefly of quartz, felspar, and a silicious petrifaction of woody appearance. We proceeded along my horse track of yesterday. In crossing what seemed a principal ridge on which grew brigalow scrub (through which we had, in parts, to cut a way), we came upon a fine specimen of the Bottle Tree (DELABECHEA); near it grew the GEIJERA PARVIFLORA, which did not attain a greater height than 10 feet. I found by the syphon barometer that our height above the sea was here 1579 feet. By the same gauge I found that two other ridges further on were still higher (1587 feet). In the afternoon, the sky became overcast with dark, round, heavy clouds, and in the evening, slight showers fell. Thermometer, at sunrise, 20°; at noon, 74°; at 4P.M., 73°; at 9, 60°. The wind and clouds came from the west. 13TH JUNE.--The line of ponds we were upon might turn to the northward; nevertheless I was unwilling to follow them down, and again lose westing, until I had made another attempt to penetrate to the N. W. The morning was rainy, and, as in such weather travelling was likely to gall the necks of the bullocks, I halted the party, and took a ride in that direction. I encountered much soft sand and scrubs of brigalow, rosewood, and Callitris. Scrubs of the latter were most dense and continuous. I fell in with a goodly little river at five miles; its course there was from S. W. to N. E. Beyond it, I found the country still more sandy, although intersected by one or two water-courses falling to the northward. The furthest one, at fifteen miles from our camp, had in it ponds containing no water. It seemed near the source, and that we had almost reached the crest of some dividing feature. A thunder-storm then burst over us, and the time of day did not admit of going further. I therefore returned, convinced that I could not in that direction make much progress.* Thermometer, at sunrise, 49°; at noon, 57°; at 4 P.M., 54°; at 9, 48°. [* This was unfortunate: it will be seen by the map, that ten miles further would have taken me to the river Warregin a direct line to the head of the river Victoria, avoiding the mountains.] 14TH JUNE.--A drizzling rain continued, and the barometer indicated a change; hence I hoped the rain would last until the water-holes were filled. The day being Sunday, I gave the party another day of rest, and took that opportunity of laying down on my map, the recently discovered rivers and water-courses. It was only after I had done so, that I began to think the water-course we were encamped upon, was worth following down. The evening was clear, and I ascertained the latitude to be 25° 47' 28" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 52°; at noon, 55°; at 4 P.M., 57°; at 9, 38° (XXXVI.). Height above the sea, 1528 feet. 15TH JUNE.--In following down this chain of ponds, we found its channel became a well-formed river, with abundance of water in it, a few miles below our camp. The course thus far was northward; and I saw in one part of it rocks dipping to the westward. I was in expectation that it would have continued northward, when it suddenly turned towards the S.S.W. I thereupon crossed it, and resumed my N.W. course. My path was thus again crossed by our river flowing northward: we had then travelled 12½ miles, and I encamped on its banks. The whole of the day's journey, with little exception, had been over heavy sand, and, but for the rain that had fallen, it must have greatly distressed the horses and oxen. As it was, they got over it wondrous well. In a pond of this river, Mr. Stephenson caught a great number of the harlequin fish, a circumstance almost proving that this was a tributary to the Maran. We found this day a new narrow-leaved TRISTANIA[*], thirty feet high, with bark thick, soft, and fibrous. A smooth narrow-leaved variety of ACACIA HOLOSERICEA was loaded with spikes of crooked sickle-shaped pods. Among the herbage was observed the TEUCRIUM ARGUTUM of Brown; and the XEROTES LEUCOCEPHALA grew in the light dry sand. Novelty in the plants, animals, and fishes, was now to be expected; the weather was cool and pleasant, and our travelling equipment tolerably efficient. Thermometer, at sunrise, 30°; at 4 P. M., 58°; at 9 P. M., 46° (XXXVII.). Height above the sea, 1827 feet. [* T. ANGUSTIFOLIA (Hook. MS.); foliis angusto-linearibus mucronatoacuminatis supra glabris subtùs subsericeis marginibus arcte revolutis, paniculis terminalibus folio brevioribus calycibusque incano- tomentosis. These specimens were in fruit. It is very distinct from every other species.] 16TH JUNE.--Proceeding nearly north-west, we met with the little river I had discovered a few miles beyond my camp of the 13th and 14th instant. The distance of this point from the camp we had left this morning was about 2½ miles. We crossed it, and turned to the westward, and even south-west, to avoid it. Over its extreme south-western bend there was a little rocky hill, which I ascended, and thence saw a mountain I had intersected from the high station east of the depôt. It now bore 12° west of north, and I directed my course towards it, as well as the country would permit. We crossed several sandy ranges on which the callitris was, as usual, the chief tree, as it was also on the soft heavy sand between them. Occasionally, the lowest parts where water would take its course, consisted of firm clay, and we took advantage of such flats, when their direction was favourable. I was at length under the necessity of encamping on one of these, where there was no water, nor any to be found in it after I had followed it down four miles. In my search for water, I found a curious new PHEBALIUM.[*] Thermometer, at sunrise, 43°; at 9 P. M., 54°. Height above the sea, 1646 feet. [* P. GLANDULOSUM (Hook. MS.); foliis angusto-lineari-cuneatis retusis canaliculatis marginibus revolutis subtus ramulisque argenteo-lepidotis superne (praecipue) grosse glandulosis nudis, corymbis terminalibus parvis sessilibus fusco-lepidotis, calycibus subtruncatis, petalis ovatis concavis. Allied to P. SQUAMULOSUM and P. ELOEAGNOIDES, but very distinct, especially in the presence of the large semipellucid hemispherical glands, seen more or less in various parts of the plant, but very conspicuous on the upper side of the leaves.] 17TH JUNE.--Pursuing a course in the direction of the mountain already mentioned, I met with much heavy sand on which grew thick forests of callitris, frequently quite impervious to our carts except at open places amongst which we had to wind, as they permitted. The ground was undulating, and there was clay in the hollows, but the direction of these ran across my intended route, falling all to the east-ward. We at length attained what seemed the highest of these ridges, and on the summit I ascertained its elevation to be 1833 feet above the sea. Beyond it, we came to a flat of firmer surface, consisting of clay, and, as we greatly wanted water, I followed it down to the north-east. I found it soon hemmed in by sandstone rocks; but we travelled still on a broad grassy flat which fell into one still broader, through which ran a continuous but dry channel coming from the north-west. After following this downwards about a mile, we crossed towards an opening between the sandstone cliffs beyond it; this opening terminated under shelving rocks. Ascending at another place, with my horse, I found a table-land above, and an open forest country. I succeeded in getting the carts and dray up at a rocky point, and travelled thence E.S.E., anxious now to find the Maran, convinced by a deep ravine on our right, that it could not be far off. We descended by a gently inclined part of the sandstone to a dry watercourse lined with brigalow, and which soon guided us to the river. Here, however, the bed was dry and full of sand, of spacious and uniform breadth, and with grassy sloping banks. The course was towards S.W., and I followed it upwards, in hopes soon to meet with a pond. No water, however, was to be seen, when a rocky precipitous bank before us, and the sun setting in the west, obliged me to encamp the party. I hastened up the dry channel, followed by all the horses and the bullocks. We found some rain water on a level piece of rock, about two miles from the camp, which was scarcely enough for the horses, and afforded a few gallons for our kegs; nor could I find more, although I continued my search upwards until dusk; the bullocks had therefore to pass a second night without drinking. The bed and banks of this river were of very uniform extent throughout; averaging, in width about 100 feet; in height of banks from 30 to 50 feet. The course was straight, and it seemed as if a few dams might have sufficed to render it navigable, or at least to have retained a vast supply of water; for although the bed was sandy, the bottom was rocky, and the banks consisted of stiff clay. These being covered with rich grass, and consisting of good soil, water alone was wanting to make the whole both valuable and useful. Yet this was not so scarce amongst the gullies and tributaries, nor in the channel itself, lower down. I found, growing in the bed, the ALPHITONIA EXCELSA of Reissek, collected by Allan Cunningham and Frazer along the Brisbane and upper part of Hunter's River; also a remarkable kind of Brome grass I had never seen on the Darling. Thermometer, at sunrise, 36°; at 9 P. M., 61°. 18TH JUNE.--Drizzling rain had fallen during the night, which greatly refreshed the grass for the cattle. Early this morning, I sent Corporal Graham and another man, up the river, in search of water; and the bullock-driver with his cattle down the river, with orders to go on until he fell in with some. Others of the party were directed to search amongst the rocky crevices nearer to our camp. I set out with Yuranigh for the summit of the mountain already mentioned, which, according to my survey, lay about seven miles off to the N.W. My ride to it was unimpeded by gullies; and, on ascending it, I obtained a most extensive view, embracing lofty ranges to the eastward and south-east. A line of volcanic cones (of which this was one) extended from these ranges in the direction of about N.E.b.N. But, besides these elevated summits, little could be seen of the adjacent country: nothing of the sandstone gullies, by which the party was then shut in. I could only imagine one bluey tint in a long line of ravines, to be over the bed of the Maran, which seemed thus to pass through the line of cones, and to come from high ranges about the 25th parallel. The country to the northward was still hidden from my sight by a portion of the old crater which was higher than that I had ascended. The western interior was visible to a great distance bounded by low ranges; some of which seemed to have precipitous sides, like cliffs, towards the west. Lines of open plains, and columns of smoke, indicated a good country, and inhabitants. I recognised, from this station, that eastward of the depôt camp, to which, from the peculiar interest then attaching to that distant spot, I now named Mount Kennedy after the officer in charge of the party there. I could now intersect many of the summits observed therefrom; thus adding extensively to the general map, and checking my longitude, by back angles into the interior. I was now at a loss for names to the principal summits of the country. No more could be gathered from the natives, and I resolved to name the features, for which names were now requisite, after such individuals of our own race as had been most distinguished or zealous in the advancement of science, and the pursuit of human knowledge; men sufficiently well-known in the world to preclude all necessity for further explanation why their names were applied to a part of the world's geography, than that it was to do honour to Australia, as well as to them. I called this hill Mount Owen; a bald- forest hill to the N.E. of it, Mount Clift; a lofty truncated cone, to the eastward of these, the centre of a group, and one of my zero points, Mount Ogilby; a broad-topped hill far in the north-west, where I wished to continue my route, Mount Faraday; a high table land intervening, Hope's Table Land; the loftiest part of the coast ranges, visible on all sides, Buckland's Table Land, etc. etc. The part of Mount Owen on which I stood, consisted of basalt, which had crystallised cubically so as to form a tottering pile on the summit, not unlike the ruins of a castle, "nodding to its fall," and almost overhanging their base. Curious bushes grew amongst these rocks, unlike those in the lower country; amongst them, a climber, resembling a worm, which wholly enveloped a tree. On returning to the camp, I learnt that the bullock-driver had found a spacious basin in a rocky part of the bed, some miles down the river; having thereat watered his cattle and returned; also, that Corporal Graham had met with a pond ten miles higher up the river than our camp: thus it was evident that many miles intervened between these two ponds in the river. The other men left at the camp had fortunately found in the crevice of a rock beyond the river-channel, enough of water for the horses and themselves. But, had this river-channel contained much more water, I could not have followed it in its upward course, and so go to the north-east, instead of the north-west; neither had this been possible from the precipitous rocks overhanging it at almost every turning. I had found, in Mount Owen, a nucleus, which was a key to these sandstone gullies radiating about it, and I had also perceived from it that towards Mount Faraday, the north-western interior was tolerably clear of mountainous obstructions; three small or very distant cones, seemed the principal features beyond it. I wished much to have explored a route for our carts in that direction; but it was necessary that I should first establish the party near water. I accordingly determined to conduct it along the range towards Mount Owen next day, as far as might be necessary, in order to turn off to the right, and encamp, overlooking some rocky gully within a convenient distance of Mount Owen; and, again to explore these recesses for water, or send for it to Corporal Graham's pond in the main channel. Mr. Stephenson gathered near this camp two beautiful and delicate ferns, the ADIANTUM HISPIDULUM, and ADIANTUM ASSIMILE, the Australian maiden's hair. The ACACIA IXIOPHYLLA, and ACACIA CUNNINGHAMII, on the rocky cliffs; occurred with an Exocarpus, probably a variety of E. SPARTEA, and a new Eucalyptus.[*] Thermometer at sunrise, 56°; at noon, 69°; at 4 P.M., 63°; at 9, 55°. Height above the sea, 1578 feet; and above river bed 40 feet. [* E. POPULIFOLIA (Hook. MS.); foliis rhombeo-triangularibus obtusissimis longius petiolatis coriaceis minute punctatis (punctis pallidis) reticulatovenosis. This species is remarkable in the size and shape of its petiolated leaves. The branches bear turbinated woody excrescences (galls), each with two or more, generally three, sharp angles, and as many unequal projecting wings, altogether exactly resembling the fruit of some BEGONIÀ.] 19TH JUNE.--Another dewy night had providentially refreshed the grass for our thirsty animals. We ascended, at a very favourable point, the sandstone table-land, and travelled for some miles along my horse's track towards Mount Owen, turning round the heads of gullies which broke abruptly in steep rocks both to our right and left. Then, turning to the right, where a branch of the high land projected eastward towards the river, we encamped on its extreme eastern point, overlooking a grassy valley, hemmed in by precipitous cliffs, yet easily accessible to our horses and cattle, from the point on which we had encamped. I had already found a deep hole in a rock on the right, containing water sufficient for the men and horses for several days, and, on riding down the valley while they pitched the tents, I found a large pond only a mile from the camp. The valley contained many still larger, but all, save this one, were dry. Grass grew there in great abundance, and of excellent quality. Pigeons were numerous of that species (GEOPHAPS SCRIPTA) which is so great a luxury; the most delicate food, perhaps, of all the feathered race. The highest of the sandy tableland crossed this day appeared (by Captain King's subsequent calculations) to be 1863 feet. That of the camp over the cliffs, 1840 feet above the sea, the height of these cliffs above the bed of the river being thus about 300 feet. Thermometer, at sunrise, 50°; at 4 P.M., 65°; at 9, 61°. 20TH JUNE.--I set out (with two men and Yuranigh) to explore the country beyond Mount Owen. From its base I observed some open forest land, and a less broken country, in a direction much further to the westward than the course I had previously selected, which was N.N.W. I now proceeded W.N.W. towards that open forest land. We found the country open for some miles, then, entering a flat or valley, I descended gradually between sandstone rocks, to a valley in which a chain of deep ponds led to the north-west. On following this down, I found it turned more and more to the westward, and at length to the south-west, whereupon I quitted its bed and cliffy banks, and, following up a ravine from the other side, again endeavoured to pursue my intended course. We crossed, at the head of the ravine, a sandstone range, and descended by another valley which led first northward, but terminated in joining a spacious grassy flat with dry ponds in it. I endeavoured to trace this downwards for several miles in a rainy evening, and found at last, to my disappointment, that this also turned to the S.W. This flat was broad and hemmed in by low rocky points of ground, of very uniform shape. Many marks of natives appeared on the trees, and, in good seasons, it must be one of their favourite spots. I left it, however, when darkness and heavy rain obliged me to look for shelter in a gloomy forest to the westward. By the time we arrived at this, we could see no grassy spot for our horses, nor any sort of cover for ourselves. Douglas found, at length, a fallen tree, and under this, covered with a few boughs, we lay down on the wet earth for the night, being ourselves as wet, yet wanting withal, water for ourselves and horses. Thermometer, at sunrise, 54°; at noon, 69°; at 4 P.M., 67°; at 9, 57°. 21ST JUNE.--The rain had abated to my great disappointment, for we should have been amply compensated for wet jackets, by the sight of well filled ponds of water, the want of which was the great impediment to this journey. The sky was still overcast, and the wet bushes were unavoidable. On I travelled north-west, until we approached some fine open forest hills, the bare tops of which, just visible from the foot of Mount Owen, had first drawn me in that direction. One tempting peak induced me to approach it, and to think of an ascent. In a rugged little water-course in its bosom, we found water enough for our horses, the product of last night's rain. The view from the summit, made up for the deviation from my route. A group of the most picturesque hills imaginable lay to the northward, and were connected with this, the whole being branches from the Table Land of Hope. Some appeared of a deep blue colour, where their clothing was evergreen bush. Others were partly of a golden hue, from the rich ripe grass upon them. The sun broke through the heavy clouds and poured rays over them, which perfected the beauty of the landscape. I recognised, from this apex, my station on Mount Owen, and several hills I had intersected from it. Amongst others, the three remarkable cones to the westward of Mount Faraday, apparently a continuation of the line of summits I have already mentioned. This hill consisted of amygdaloidal trap in nodules, the crevices being filled with crystals of sulphate of lime, and there were many round balls of ironstone, like marbles or round shot, strewed about. A red ferruginous crust projected from the highest part, and, on this summit, the magnetic needle was greatly affected by local attraction, and quite useless. Fortunately, I had also my pocket sextant, and with it took some valuable angles. On descending, I heartily enjoyed a breakfast, and named the hill which gave us the water, Mount Aquarius. Returning towards Mount Owen, by a more direct route, I arrived at the head of a gully which led tolerably direct until we found our track, in the creek I had run down on the preceding day. But night was approaching, and we had water enough in a rocky hollow, and also a cavern before which a large fire gave such warmth, that, in passing the night there in my cloak, I was quite insensible to a frost without, which, at the camp, at 4 P. M., had lowered the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer to 22°, or 10° below the freezing point. 22D JUNE.--Our provisions being out, I hastened back to the camp, determined to explore in a more northerly direction, according to my original intention. Water was only to be found in so dry a season, in the neighbourhood of mountains, or in rocky gullies likely to retain a passing shower. In our way back, I ascended the north-western shoulder of Mount Owen, and was much more inclined to take a northerly route, from the appearance of the mountains on that side. The view from that summit to the northward, was very grand; I saw more plainly the line of the Maranfrom its upper sources. Two mighty masses of table-land seemed the highest of all. One I had already seen and named Buckland's Table Land. I could here distinguish the apex of Mount Aquarius, and fix it in my map. I perceived a hollow part of the range immediately to the northward, and a sort of hiatus amongst the peaks in the broken country beyond, through which I hoped to find a way. I hastened to the camp to prepare for a "raid" of a whole week, if necessary, in that direction. Thermometer, at sunrise, 27°; at noon, 52°; at 4 P. M., 55°; at 9, 59°. 23D JUNE.--Returning early by the foot of Mount Owen, I travelled nearly northward through a fine open forest, in which we saw a large kangaroo entirely black. Rocky gullies next came in my way, and, in avoiding those on the left, others falling to the right, or to the Maran, showed me that this was a dividing feature. I knew it was continuous to Mount Clift from my former observations, and therefore followed it by keeping between the heads of gullies breaking to each side, until I found one favourable for a descent to the left. Below, we found a broad, grassy, valley, extending about W.N.W., and in it, deep ponds, which sometimes evidently held much water, although they were then dry. This soon, however, turned to the south-west, evidently to join the channel I had before explored. Quitting it, therefore, much disappointed, I ascended sandstone cliffs and pushed through scrubs, determined to proceed directly north-ward, until I met with valleys falling north-west. We thus passed just under the most easterly part of Hope's Table Land, and came, about sunset, to a hollow containing ponds, in two of which we found water. Here we gladly bivouacked for the night. ZAMIAS grew here, and were numerous higher up the valley. Thermometer, at sunrise, 26°; at noon, 54°; at 4 P. M., 50°; at 9, 40°. 24TH JUNE.--The hoar-frost had stiffened the grass, and the water was frozen so that the horses cared not to drink. I proceeded N. N. W., in which direction a beautiful cone rose to a great height, and sharp apex. Stony hills of trap appearing also in that line, I turned northward, and, after crossing a level tract of high ground, much like a dividing feature, (especially as seen from Mount Owen,) I entered a valley descending to the northwest. It fell rapidly, contained large water holes, and in two of these, at length, an abundant supply of water. The course, throughout all its windings, was towards the north-west, and this I, at the time, thought, might be a northern water. I therefore returned, anxious to bring the party thus far, at all events, and resolved to follow this little river down. We arrived, on our way back, in the evening of the same day, in the valley I had quitted in the morning, having followed down a water-course from the end of Hope's Table Land, under which I had passed, in search of a good way for the carts. Although we had seen promising ponds of water in this little channel, we could find none in the lower part, having in the expectation of finding some, rode on until darkness prevented me from going further. We were thus obliged to pass the night (a very cold one) without water, and almost without fuel. I missed the comfortable cavern where I had slept a few nights before, especially when I arose here in the night to mend the fire, and found we had no more wood at hand. I learnt afterwards that at the camp, the thermometer at 4 P. M. had been as low as 17° of Fahrenheit.[*] Thermometer, at sunrise, 21°; at noon, 51°; at 4 P. M. 49°; at 9, 29°. [* This was 15° degrees below the freezing point, and shows how much more easily cold may be endured in a dry atmosphere than where there is moisture, as instanced in the following extract from a despatch of Captain James C. Ross (in command of the Antarctic Expedition), dated 7th April, 1841, and published in the Tasmanian Journal. "With a temperature of 20° below the freezing point, we found the ice to form so rapidly on the surface, that any further examination of the barrier in so extremely severe a period of the season being impracticable, we stood away to the westward, for the purpose of making another attempt to approach the magnetic pole, and reached its latitude (76° S.) on the 15th February."] 25TH JUNE.--Continuing our ride as soon as day-light permitted, ten minutes brought us to a pond containing plenty of water under a shelving rock, and here we alighted to breakfast, which was pleasant enough, but not so gratifying as the position of this pond, which would enable me to bring the carts through these valleys, to this convenient intermediate stage in the way to the Northern river. The next question was, whether the route to the eastward, descending into these valleys near Mount Clift, or that by my first route, when I discovered this rocky country, should be preferred; and I returned towards our camp this morning by the eastern gullies, in hopes to find an easy descent nearer to Mount Clift than at the point where I before came down. But I found them much more acclivitous and rocky. We at length, with difficulty, got our horses up a rocky point, on which grew a thick scrub of "blackwood," as Yuranigh called it, an acacia having many tough stems growing thickly together from one root, and obstructing the passage, and covering the ground with its half-fallen and fallen timber. Our passage along the range thence towards Mount Owen, having been too much to the eastward, brought us upon the bend of a gully falling to the Maran; a wild and impracticable looking dell as ever was seen. On regaining our track near Mount Owen, and returning along it to the camp, I found that another pond had been discovered in the valley, by Felix Maguire, who on two occasions, had dreamt of water, risen, and walked directly to where he found it! However that might have been, this man had a happy knack in finding water. In the neighbourhood of this camp some interesting plants were collected; viz. NOTHOCHLOENA DISTANS, GRAMMITIS RUTOEFOLIA, CHEILANTHES TENUIFOLIA, ADIANTUM HISPIDULUM and ASSIMILE, all ferns, together with HOVEA LANCEOLATA, the weedy SPHOERANTHUS HIRTUS, GREVILLEA FLORIBUNDA, a low shrub, occupying the ravines. Besides these we observed a small species of SIDA in the sandy soil of forests, the DOODIA CAUDATA Br., a verdant fern, and the SOLANUM FURFURACEUM with lilac flowers, and small red berries. A shrub loaded with succulent drupes, seated in reddish cups, appeared to be a new species of VITEX, but its genus was uncertain, there being no flowers. What is here called GREVILLEA FLORIBUNDA may have been an allied species, for the leaves were more downy, almost tomentose above. In addition to this a new species of the common genus DODONOEA, frequently met with afterwards, was now producing its flowers.[*] Thermometer, at sunrise, 12°; at noon, 50°; at 4 P. M. 51°; at 9, 22°. [* D. MOLLIS (Lindl. MS.); molliter pubescens, ramulis subteretibus, foliis obovatis acutis truncatis rotundatis retusis tridentatisque, capsulis tetragonis trigonisque pubescentibus apteris.] 26TH JUNE. The party moved forward, at length, with the certainty of finding water for at least three days' journey, and of a hopeful water- course being before us. Passing by the foot of Mount Owen, I observed the barometer which gave an elevation of 2083 feet: the summit might be 700 feet higher. My plan of route was, to enter the little river that turned to the south-west (as I had found it did, on the 20th,) and to travel along its valley upwards, until I reached the pond near which I had bivouacked on the 25th. This we accomplished most successfully before sunset, encamping beside the large pond already mentioned, near which were two others. The earth by the margin was so soft that neither the horses nor bullocks could approach the water; they could only be watered out of buckets; but the water was excellent, and water of any quality, in abundance too, was to us rather uncommon good fortune, and quite cheering, even when surrounded by soft mud. Thermometer, at sunrise, 14°; at noon, 48°; at 4 P. M. 47°; at 9, 37°. 27TH JUNE. We had next to trace up a grassy valley which seemed to come directly from the vicinity of that in which I had found water and bivouacked on the 24th. It formed an excellent line, and we found it possible to keep this fine firm level surface, until we had approached to within two miles of that spot. Leaving a little hill of trap to the left, and some brigalow scrub on the right, we reached the old ground and encamped. The small ponds had evaporated, but, in the frosty night, the cattle were not likely to require water, as they had been watered on the way, about 3 P. M., at a rocky well in the valley. We had now traced with our wheels, a good way through a country much broken and shut up by sandstone gullies; but which contained also many rich valleys, and extensive hilly tracts of trap rock, on which the grass was very luxuriant, apparently available for either sheep or cattle. Immediately to the westward of this camp (marked XXXVIII.) an extensive valley was bounded by the fine trap range of Hope's Table Land; which range was open along the summit, and contained springs, in various ravines along its sides. In these ravines, we first saw the arborescent Zamia, and various remarkable shrubs; the MYOPORUM CUNNINGHAMII of Swan River, forming a shrub six feet high, with white fragrant flowers. Thermometer, at sunrise, 20°; at 9 P. M., 29°. Height above the sea, 2064 feet. 28TH JUNE.--Severe frost whenever the sky was clear, seemed the ordinary weather of that country, at that season; showing, as the barometer also indicated, that we were at a great height above the sea. I sent the party forward, guided by Yuranigh, along my former track, to the ponds in the newly discovered channel, falling north-west; and I proceeded myself, accompanied by Mr. Stephenson, to the summit of the fine cone already mentioned. From this, I beheld a splendid and extensive view of the mountains further northward. Most of the summits I had previously intersected, and many others, very remarkable, just appeared over an intermediate woody range, through which I was at a loss to discover where our supposed northern river would pass. Far in the north-west, I could just distinguish the tops of curiously broken hills arising from a much lower country; and therein I hoped to find, whatever might be the final course of our river, a passage to the north-west, and water. The most important feature in that scene seemed to me to be a grey misty tint, as if it marked a valley descending from the highest eastern mountains, towards the curiously broken summits in the northwest. Bare crests of similar hills, appeared to arise throughout the whole extent of that valley. Under those lofty mountains, at such elevation, in such a clime, with these romantic hills, that valley must be a paradise if watered well, as I hope it is. So flowed the "spring" of hope at least, as it was fed by the scene then before me. The cone we had ascended consisted of trap rock, much resembling that of Mount Aquarius; but, at its base, and on its sides, I found in large masses, the very compact felspathic rock which characterises the valley of the Darling. This has been considered a very fine-grained sandstone; but it is evidently an altered rock. Here, in contact with trap, it possessed the same tendency to break into irregular polygons, some of the faces of which were curved; and I observed one mass which had been so tossed up, that its lower side lay uppermost, inclined at an angle of about 60°. That this is a hypogene rock, sometimes in contact with granite as well as with trap, is evident at Oxley's Table Land, and other places. I was glad to find it here, as affording a prospect of meeting with better soil than the loose sand we had seen so much of. We here found the grey, prickly SOLANUM ELLIPTICUM. I named this cone Mount P. P. King; and, I have since ascertained, by that officer's register and calculations, the height of this summit above the sea, to be 2646 feet; and the height of this camp, 2159 feet. Thermometer, at sunrise, 25°; at 4 P. M., 55°; at 9, 25°. (XXXIX) 29TH JUNE.--Crossing a small tributary which was full of water (coming from Hope's Table Land), we continued to travel along the left bank of the newly found river. Rocky precipices overhanging it, obliged me to make some détours, and to pass through some scrubs; but still we regained the banks of the river, although our progress was not considerable. Its general course was still north-west, to the spot selected for my second camp on its banks. The channel was now broad; the banks high, rounded, and grassy; in some places, rocky. Water in the channel was rarely to be seen, but at the junction of tributaries, where recent temporary showers seemed to have fallen. By careful observation, I ascertained the variation of the needle to be 8° 4' E. here. Thermometer, at sunrise, 25°; at 4 P. M., 68°; at 9, 53°. Height above the sea, 1914 feet. (XL.) 30TH JUNE.--The course of the river was now found to turn to the southward of west; and, even in that direction, rugged cliffs covered with scrub greatly impeded our progress. I endeavoured to conduct the carts along the bed of the river, soft and sandy as it was; but we did not proceed far in it, before rocks, fallen trees, and driftwood, obliged us to abandon that course as speedily as we could. Then, ascending a projecting eminence, we plunged into the scrubs; but, even in a southwest direction, we came upon the river. Pursuing its course along the bank, southward, I arrived near the base of a fine open forest hill; and, directing the party to encamp, I hastened to its summit. I there obtained a view of most of the mountains of the eastern range formerly observed, and enough of the fixed points, to enable me to determine the position of this. In the south-west, a line of open forest, and a vast column of smoke seemed too plainly to mark the further course of our river; but, towards the north-west, I saw much to reconcile me to this disappointment. Summits of broken and uncommon aspect, beyond an intervening woody range, there indicated a much lower and different kind of country, as if that was, indeed, the basin of a system of northern waters; the woody intervening range appearing to be the division between them. As our last explored river again turned southward, it seemed reasonable to expect, beyond that very continuous range, rivers pursuing a different course. This range was plainly traceable from the high mountains more to the eastward, and was continuous westward to three remarkable conical hills, beyond which, the view did not extend. On the same range, a fine tableshaped mountain appeared nearly north. This I had already intersected from other stations, and named Mount Faraday. The hill on which I stood consisted of trap-rock, and seemed to be almost the western extremity of Hope's Table Land. A copious spring was afterwards found by Mr. Stephenson, in a valley to the eastward of this summit. That ravine was extensive; and in it grew various remarkable trees. The bottle-tree (Delabechea) grew more gregariously than we had ever seen it, in the stony banks of the channel of the torrent from the hills. One thorny tree or shrub (first seen at the base of Mount P. P. King) again appeared here; it was, generally, in a withered state; had a leaf somewhat like the human hand, and a pod containing two peas of a bright scarlet colour, about the shape and size of a French bean. This, sometimes grew to a tree as much as a foot in diameter; and the natives, who, like Nature herself, may be said to do nothing in vain, had cut one down, and carried off the whole of the trunk. The wood was of a leaden colour. This proved to be a new species of ERYTHRINA, or coral tree.[*] By our last day's journey, we had lost two miles of northing, and had thus recrossed the 25th parallel of south latitude. I therefore determined to cross our friendly little river, and look for another beyond the range to the northward. Thermometer, at sunrise, 44°; at noon, 68°; at 4 P. M., 65°; at 9, 38°. Height above the sea, 1732 feet. (XLI.) [* E. VESPERTILIO (Benth. MS.); glaberrima, caule fruticoso aculeato, foliorum petiolo elongato, foliolis trilobis lobo medio recto acutiusculo lateralibus multo majoribus falcato-divaricatis obtusissimis.--Although no flowers were seen, the genus of this shrub is well indicated by the pod and the general habit. The leaflets are often above four inches broad and not two inches long, not unlike the form of a bat with its wings extended.] 1ST JULY.--With that view, I rode towards Mount Faraday, anxious to look into the valley beyond it. After a two hours' ride, I passed under its western summit, and still pressed forward, in hopes of seeing at length into the valleys beyond. I thus entered a very thick scrub, so impervious that I was obliged to turn westward, until I came upon sandstone gullies into one of which I descended. Following this downwards, I found it fell to the westward, and in a hollow part of its rocky bed I came to some clear water. But this was inaccessible, even to my horse, nor could I take him further down that wildly broken gully; therefore we backed out, and ascended as we could. Then riding southward in search of one more accessible, I at length, descended into a grassy valley, which ran northwest, and gave promise of something still better. I could not follow it then without provisions, having none with me, and I therefore hastened back to the camp, resolved to take with me men and provisions sufficient to enable me to explore this further. In the scrub I passed through on my way back, I found various very remarkable shrubs new and strange to me. One grew on a large stalk, from which leaves radiated without other or any branches. These leaves, hanging gracefully around the stem, gave to this shrub the resemblance of the plume of a staff-officer. The outer side of each leaf was dark and shining, the inner white and woolly. Rarely these tall stems separated into two. Other branches there were none. Some very beautiful new acacias also grew there. One, in particular, with leaves exactly similar to those of the silver-leaved ironbark, was very remarkable, a broad rough-leaved FICUS, with opposite leaves not unlike those of the New Holland Upas. The white-flowered lead- wort (PLUMBAGO ZEYLANICA) and the TRIODIA PUNGENS were abundant among the grasses. A downy Dodonaea, with triangular leaves, was producing its small flowers[*], and a scrubby bush with hard narrow leaves and globular fruit the size of a rifle-ball, proved to be a new CAPPARIS.[**] Thermometer, at daybreak, 35°; at 9 P.M., 38°. [* D. TRIANGULARIS (Lindl. MS.); molliter pubescens, foliis obtriangularibus tridentatis, pedunculis masculis axillaribus subsolitariis.] [** C. LORANTHIFOLIA (Lindl. MS.) ramosa, inermis, ramulis tomentosis, foliis lineari-oblongis obtusis coriaceis glabris sesqui-pollicaribus aveniis, pedunculis solitariis axillaribus tomentosis foliis brevioribus, stipite duplo longiore, fructu sphaerico tuberculato glabro.] 2D JULY.--Returning with two men and Yuranigh to the valley where I had been yesterday, I followed it downwards, and soon found that it widened very much, and contained large dry ponds, with the traces of a deep current of water at some seasons. At length, the rocky precipices seemed to recede, and formed occasionally bold headlands of most picturesque outline. Two, that towered above the woods before us, resembled pyramids, and I saw an open country beyond them, from which other summits of extraordinary form seemed to emerge. Yet we had found no moisture in the ponds, and lamented that a country, in every other respect so fine, should be without water. Further on, I perceived reeds in the hollow of the valley, and Yuranigh said there must be a spring, upon which he walked in amongst them, but still found the earth dry. The reeds at length covered an extensive flat, and looked, at the lower part of the flat, so green, that I sent Corporal Graham to examine that point. He emerged from the reeds with a face that, at a distance, made Douglas, my other man, say, "He has found water." He had found A RUNNING STREAM, to which he had been guided by its own music, and taking a tin pot, he brought me some of it. The water was clear and sparkling, tasting strongly of sulphur, and Yuranigh said that this was the head of a river that NEVER DRIED UP. In this land of picturesque beauty and pastoral abundance, within eighty miles of the tropics, we had discovered the first running stream seen on this journey. I returned, determined to bring the party thus far, and with the intention of passing that night where we had found water in a rock about six miles back, that we might sooner reach the camp next day. At that spot we had also the benefit of a cavern, before which, a good fire being made, we defied the frost of a very cold night, the thermometer having been registered at the camp, at 3 A.M., as low as 7°. In the scrubs we had passed through in the morning, a variety of the ACACIA PODALYRIIFOLIA, with grey velvety leaves, was scarcely in flower; and I observed a beautiful new species of STENOCHILUS with large tubular flowers.[*] The ACACIA FALCATA appeared also on the sandstone ground above the gullies, and a broad-leaved form of the EREMOPHILA MITCHELLII. The moon shone brightly, and the rock being full of silver mica, the splendour of the scene imparted to my eye and mind then a degree of gratification far beyond any associations of the richest furniture of a palace. We found it impossible to get our horses to the water; but we hit upon an expedient which answered even better than a bucket,--my Mackintosh cloak. [* S. CURVIPES (Benth. MS.) glaber, foliis lanceolatis integerrimis basi in petiolum angustatis pedicellis recurvis, calycis foliolis latis acuminatis, corollae glabrae ventricosae laciniis acutis inferiore ultra medium solutâ.--Flowers large and thick on recurved pedicels 4 to 6 lines long. Calycine leaves broader than in all the other species.] 3D JULY.--In returning, we looked for a good line of approach, and found an easy way for the carts to descend into the valley. On arriving at the camp, I learnt that a large pond had been discovered in a rocky part of the river, about a mile below our camp. Thermometer, at sunrise, 14°; at noon, 60; at 4 P.M., 61°; at 9, 26°. Height of camp above the sea, 1800 feet. (XLII.) 4TH JULY.--The clouds had gathered, and it rained heavily this morning. Nevertheless, the party moved off, crossing the river where the banks had been cut to facilitate the passage. With Yuranigh's assistance we hit upon an excellent line of route, availing ourselves of a grassy valley descending from Mount Faraday, just so far as to avoid the rocky crooked part, and then crossing and cutting through a piece of scrub directly to the point of easy ascent, we thus made a good road into the valley, and arrived in good time, notwithstanding the rain, at the rock of my bivouac. The night-sky cleared up, and I found our latitude (by Arcturus) to be 24° 54' 12" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 43°; at 4 P.M., 49°; at 9, 38°. Height above the sea, 1437 feet. (XLIII.) 5TH JULY.--Another frosty night succeeded the day of rain, and froze our tents into boards, not easily to be packed up this morning. We proceeded along our horses' track, and the beautiful headland which appeared quite isolated, and just such as painters place in middle distance, I named Mount Salvator. We encamped on a slight elevation of the right bank of the reedy rivulet, near the pyramids. Our prospects had suddenly brightened, when instead of following chains of dry ponds, we had before us a running stream, carrying life and nourishment towards the country we were about to explore. The whole aspect of the country seemed new to us. The barometer showed we were rapidly descending, and I expected that our living stream would soon join that greater stream, the basin of which I thought I could trace in the line of mist seen from Mount P. P. King on the 28th June. The course of this river, unlike the others, curved round from N.W. towards north, and having its origin in mountains equidistant between Cape York and Wilson's Promontory, it was reasonable to suppose that we had at length crossed the division between northern and southern waters. That between eastern and western waters was still to be discovered, and in a country so intricate, and where water was so scarce then, the course of rivers afforded the readiest means of determining where that division was. If the general course of this river was found to be to the eastward of north, we might safely conclude that the dividing ground was on the west or to the left of our route; if to the westward of north, it might be to the eastward, or on the right of our route, and this seemed the more probable from the line of a river flowing north- westward, which I had seen the valley of, from Mount P. P. King. Latitude 24° 50' 2". S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 16°; at noon, 50°; at 4 P. M., 49°; at 9, 38°. Height above the sea, according to sixteen observations, 1421 feet. (XLIV.) 6TH JULY.--A number of small bushes of CRYPTANDRA PROPINQUA appeared amongst the rocks; back from the valley, and in the woods below, we found an acacia, apparently, but distinct from, A. DECORA (Reichb.) VAR. MACROPHYLLA; it approached A. AMOENA, but the stem was less angular, and the phyllodia bore but one gland. A large tree with long hoary leaves, and flat round capsules, proved to be a fine new BURSARIA, at a later season found in flower. See October 10th.* A Loranthus also was found here, which Sir William Hooker has since described.[**] Travelling along the bank of this stream, we found it flowing, and full of sparkling water to the margin. The reeds had disappeared, and we could only account for the supply of such a current, in such a country, at such a season, by the support of many springs. We made sure of water now for the rest of our journey; and that we might say of the river "Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum." The hills overhanging it surpassed any I had ever seen in picturesque outline. Some resembled gothic cathedrals in ruins; others forts; other masses were perforated, and being mixed and contrasted with the flowing outlines of evergreen woods, and having a fine stream in the foreground, gave a charming appearance to the whole country. It was a discovery worthy of the toils of a pilgrimage. Those beautiful recesses of unpeopled earth, could no longer remain unknown. The better to mark them out on my map, I gave to the valley the name of Salvator Rosa.[***] The rocks stood out sharply, and sublimely, from the thick woods, just as John Martin's fertile imagination would dash them out in his beautiful sepia landscapes. I never saw anything in nature come so near these creations of genius and imagination. Where we encamped, the river was very deep, the banks steep and muddy, so that the use of a bucket was necessary in watering the cattle. Notwithstanding every precaution, one animal walked into the river, and could not be got out without great difficulty. The only fish we caught in this river were two enormous eels, beautifully spotted. Large shells of the UNIO genus lay abundantly on the banks, about the old fires of the natives. These were larger than either those found on the Darling, or those of the Maran; and although such freshwater mussles seem to have but one shape, a peculiarity in these was pointed out to me by Yuranigh, who said they much resembled the impressions left by a black-fellow's foot, (which is much broader at the toes than at the heel). We here met with a new species of BORONIA, resembling B. ANETHIFOLIA, of which many varieties afterwards occurred. It grows about two feet high, and had solitary pale purple flowers.[****] A new species of ACACIA with straight, oblong, shining leaves, also grew here.[*****] In the valley we found ERECHTITES ARGUTA, a weed resembling European groundsel; on the rocks, a small slender shrub with white flowers; and in the sandy scrub, the LEUCOPOGON CUSPIDATUS formed a small shrub. Thermometer, at sunrise, 16°; at noon, 50°; at 4 P.M., 49°; at 9, 38°. (XLV.) Height above the sea, 1270 feet. [* B. INCANA (Lindl. MS.); arborea, inermis, foliis oblongo-linearibus supra glabris subtus incanis, paniculâ terminali tomentosâ, floribus distantibus.] [** L. SUBFALCATUS (Hook. MS.); ramis dichotomis patentibus, foliis oppositis linearibus lineari-lanceolatisve obtusis subfalcatis glabris trinerviis, floribus axillaribus binis arcte pendentibus brevissime pedicellatis, calycis contracti cylindracei ore dilatato, petalis 6 linearibus glaberrimis supra medium coalitis.] [*** "His soul naturally delighted in scenes of savage magnificence and ruined grandeur; his spirit loved to stray in lonely glens, and gaze on mouldering castles."--ALLAN CUNNINGHAM (THE POET).] [**** B. BIPINNATA (Lindl. MS.) glabra vel pilosa, foliis bipinnatis pinnatisque, foliolis linearibus subteretibus obtusis, floribus subsolitariis axillaribus foliis brevioribus 8-andris.] [***** A. EXCELSA (Benth. MS.) glabra, ramulis subangulatis, phyllodiis falcato-oblongis obtusiusculis mucronulatisve basi angustatis subcoriaceis nitidis multinervibus venulosis eglandulosis, pedunculis solitariis geminisve capitulo dense multifloro brevioribus vel brevissimis. Very near A. VENULOSA, Cunn.; but smooth, the phyllodia shining, 2 to 3 inches long, 6-9 lines broad, the flower heads usually almost sessile.] 7TH JULY.--Continuing along the eastern margin of the reeds, we soon found that the river expanded into a lake covered with them, and that in one or two spots there also grew the "Balyan" of the Lachlan, (a bulrush mentioned in my former journals). We listened, and still heard the current of water amongst these reeds. From the margin of this lake the hills, rocks, and woods, on the opposite shore, presented a most charming morceau of picturesque scenery. Our route was through an open forest which skirted the reedy margin, over very firm ground, and in a general direction about north-west. At length we approached the northern limits of the reedy lake, no river being visible flowing out of it, as we had reason to expect. We found there, however, only a dry channel, which bore the marks of a considerable stream at some seasons. Following this dry channel down, I found its course turned to the northward, and even to the north-east. When we were disposed to encamp, I could find no water in the bed, nor were we better off when we had encamped, until Corporal Graham dug between two rocks therein, and, fortunately, found a spring. Thus, in one day vanished the pleasing prospect we had enjoyed in the morning, of a stream flowing in the direction of our intended route. This might be, I then thought, the tributary to a larger river, which I still hoped would be found to flow westward from the coast ranges, and, finally, take the desired north-west direction. Thermometer, at sunrise, 23°; at 4 P.M., 58°; at 9, 25°. (XLVI.) Height above the sea, 1191 feet. 8TH JULY.--Entertaining this opinion, I still should have followed this river down, had I not been impeded by gullies as deep as itself falling into it, and which obliged me to cross to the left bank. There a thick brigalow scrub grew to the very margin, and this was seared by rugged gullies. A deep and continuous channel, entering from the westward, induced me to turn in that direction so far, that I at length determined to penetrate at once, if possible, to the north-west, expecting that there I might intercept our river, if it should turn in that direction, or, if not, cross some range into a more open country. The whole day was lost, however, in toiling through a brigalow scrub. Various water-courses crossed our route, but all descending towards the river we had left. The scrub was so thick that we could only pass where accidental openings admitted us, and by this sort of progress, until within an hour of sunset, I found we had travelled about nine miles, and had gained only half a minute of latitude. Having penetrated, on foot, and with difficulty, about two miles ahead of the party, in pursuing the course of a small watercourse, I found that even this turned south-east, evidently to fall into the reedy basin we had previously explored; therefore, I determined on an immediate retreat out of that labyrinth of scrub, back to our friendly river. It was comparatively easy to return through the opening we had made by cutting down much of the brush as we advanced, so that by twilight we reached a good grassy spot about half way to the river, and near it, found some good ponds of water. A pigeon, flying almost in my face, first drew my attention to the hollow where we afterwards found the water. It was in soft mud, however, in which one of the bullocks got bogged, and could only be taken out by the whole strength of the party dragging him with ropes. Thermometer, at sunrise, 18°; at 4 P.M., 54°; at 9, 25°. Height above the sea, 1241 feet. 9TH JULY.--The cattle were so much exhausted by drawing through the scrub, and I had so much to do at my map, that I gave to the cattle and the party, a day's rest. Latitude, 24° 34' 12" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 14°; (in my tent, 18°;) at 9 P.M., 48°. 10TH JULY.--Returning, still along our old track, towards a slight eminence, three miles from our camp, I there set the party to work, to cut a way across the gully, which had first obliged me to turn westward. While the men were so employed, I rode about five miles northward, but met with no opening or water-course admitting of a passage in that direction. On the contrary, I returned, on intercepting one running S. E. towards our river. The party had taken all things across when I rejoined them, and we travelled along the left bank of the gully, chiefly through open forest land, until we approached the river. Scrub, and muddy gullies, obliged us to cross the river soon after we reached its banks. Water appeared more abundant in its bed here, and we encamped on the border of a small plain, hemmed in by brigalow scrub, in latitude 24° 33' 25" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 23°; at noon, 58°; at 4 P.M., 62°; at 9, 29°. Height (XLVII.) above the sea, 1192 feet. 11TH JULY.--We travelled along the right bank of the river, through a fine open forest, until our route, in a N. E. by N. direction, was again impeded by the river. We had now descended from the upper sources of this river, at least 1000 feet according to the barometer. We had seen, in a large pond, a fish called mullet, which abounds in the rivers falling to the eastern coast, but which I had never seen in those falling westward. It was also obvious that there was no coast range between us and the coast, and consequently that a very decided break, at least, occurred in it, about the latitude of 25° S. This was more apparent to me on crossing the river, and sending Yuranigh up a tree, about three miles beyond. He could see no mountains to the northward or north-east, but only the high table land already seen to the eastward, in which direction he could trace the course of the river. I hastened back to the party, directed them to encamp, and proceeded with two men and Yuranigh in a N. W. direction, carrying provisions for a long ride. We plunged into the sea of Brigalow-- "----And we did buffet it, With lusty sinews throwing it aside, And stemming it with JACKETS ALL IN TATTERS." After working out our way thus, for about ten miles, our toils were rewarded with a scene of surpassing beauty, that gradually opened to us. That long-lost tree, the graceful Acacia pendula, received us in the foreground, and open plains, blended with waving lines of wood, extended far into bluey distance, beyond which an azure coronet of mountains of romantic forms, terminated the charming landscape. "Far in the west, the long, long vale withdrawn," included columns of smoke, marking out the line of a river, which, with its dark and luxuriant woods, pervaded the whole scene; perhaps the finest I ever had the good fortune to discover. I beheld it from a perfectly clear and grassy hill of rich black soil, on which we had emerged, through a fringe of Acacia pendula. I could not advance beyond that spot, until I had taken bearings and angles on the peaks and summits before me. To the north-west, an apparent opening, seen between these masses, seemed to indicate the bed of another river. On completing my observations we rode forward across the plain, towards the woody vale, the sun being then near setting. A solitary emu ran towards us, from a great distance, apparently encouraged by the mere appearance of quadrupeds, which, although new to it, seemed to have no terrors for it. I could not allow the men to fire at it, partly, I believe, from a sense of shame that we should thereby appear to take unfair advantage, and prove ourselves more brutal than the quadrupeds, whom nature had indulgently destined to carry us on their backs. The open down we traversed, consisted of rich black mould, in which there was fossil wood in great abundance, presenting silicified fragments so curiously wooden as to be only distinguishable from wood, by their detached and broken character. Such fossils are not uncommon in Australia, on plains of rich black earth, which is a constant concomitant. Their geological history may be simple, and would probably be very interesting, if philosophy could but find it out. We found, further on, a channel full of water, with reeds about the bed of it. There had been a current in it a short time previously, and, indeed, we had seen the remains of recent rain, in some hollows in the Brigalow scrub. The river came from the westward, and thus might have afforded the means of travelling in that direction, had other directions been found impracticable. We made our fire in a hollow near the water, not wishing either to alarm or attract the natives; and thus we passed the night pleasantly enough, with a large fire before us. Thermometer, at sunrise, 18°; at 4 P.M., 65°; at 9, 30°. 12TH JULY.--Returning to the camp, I sought and found, with the assistance of Yuranigh, a more open way through the scrub for our carts, than that by which we had penetrated to the good country. I had directed Mr. Stephenson to examine, during my absence, the western shore of the reedy lake of Salvator, in order to ascertain whether it had any outlet in that direction; but he returned without having reached the base of the remarkable rocky range to the westward; thus leaving it still uncertain, although the direction of the river since discovered, left little reason for supposing that any waters from the valley of the Salvator, could escape to the westward. Thermometer, at sunrise, 11°; in my tent, 15°; at noon, 67° at 4 P.M., 65°; at 9, 35°. Height above the sea, 1107 feet. 13TH JULY.--After marking this camp XLVIII., we quitted the river Salvator, and travelled along our track of yesterday, or nearly N. W., but deviating from this track occasionally, where broken ground or thick scrub was to be avoided. The highest part of the scrubby land we crossed, was 1310 feet above the sea. We arrived in good time at the river, where I had previously slept, and there encamped. On the plains adjacent, the ACACIA PENDULA grew, as on those near the Bogan; and we saw also various new and curious grasses, and some very singular shrubs in the scrub. The banks of the river were steep, and consisted of soft clay. I employed the party to make a bridge across it, and this was well completed before sunset. Thermometer, at sunrise, 23°; at noon, 65°; at 4 P.M. 68°; at 9, 40°. Height above the sea, 951 feet. (XLIX.) 14TH JULY.--Crossing the river, (which I called the Claude), we travelled, first, through an open forest, and then across one of the richest plains I had ever seen, and on which the ANTHISTIRIA AUSTRALIS, and PANICUM LOEVINODE, the two best Australian grasses, grew most abundantly. The soil was black; the surface quite level. There might have been about a thousand acres in the first plain we crossed, ere we arrived at another small river, or water-course, which also contained water. We soon reached the borders of other very extensive plains and open downs, apparently extending far to the eastward. On our left, there was a scrub of Acacia pendula. The undulating parts of the clear land, were not so thickly covered with grass as the plains, not because the soil was bad, but because it was so loose, rich, and black, that a sward did not so easily take root and spread upon it, from its great tendency to crack, after imbibing moisture, on its subsequent evaporation. All this rich land was thickly strewed with small fragments of fossil wood, in silex, agate, and chalcedony. Many of the stones, as already observed, most strikingly resembled decayed wood, and in one place the remains of an entire trunk lay together like a heap of ruins, the DILAPIDATED remains of a tree! I obtained even a portion of petrified bark; but specimens of this were rare. The elevation of the highest part of these downs, was 1512 feet above the sea. Crossing an open forest hill, which had hitherto bounded our view to the westward, I perceived a deep grassy valley on our right, sloping towards a much lower country, but I still travelled westward, in hopes to find an open country, beyond a low woody range on which we had at length arrived. I soon, however, perceived rocky gullies before me, and having halted the party to examine them, I found they were quite impassable. Such an unexpected obstacle, on the horizon of the fine open country, yet UNDER that smooth horizon, was certainly as singular as it was unexpected, and I returned to descend into the deep grassy valley I had seen on our right, which seemed open and inviting. We therein also found some large ponds of water, and encamped. While the men were pitching the tents I rode down the valley about two miles, and found that the direction of the water-course was about north-east. Such a direction was not very favourable for us, and I resolved to look at the country beyond the limits of this valley to the westward, before we followed it further. Latitude, 24° 17' 42" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 19°; at 4 P. M., 66°; at 9, 49°. (L.) 1279 feet above the sea. 15TH JULY.--Following up a flat which came from the N. W., I proceeded about five miles amid overhanging precipices, until, at length, mighty rocks rendered it quite impossible to push my horse further. Leaving him in a hollow, I ascended a rocky point, which was barely accessible with Yuranigh's assistance, and, on reaching an elevated summit, I saw still worse gullies before us, amongst which I could perceive no feature affording any cue to their final outlet, nor any characteristic of the structure of these labyrinths. I looked in vain for the rugged summits I had seen peeping over the plains when first discovered, and could not then be convinced (as I found long afterwards, on completing my map), that they were then under my feet. The highest parts seemed to extend south-westward. To cross such a region with our carts, was quite impossible, and I could only return, and, however reluctantly, follow down the valley in which we had encamped, until it should afford access to a more open country. The banks of the watercourse were steep, the bottom was sandy. The course was very tortuous, alternately closing on rocky precipices, at each side of the valley. Thus we were obliged to cross at every turning, and the steep banks rendered each crossing a difficult operation, occasioning so much delay, that after crossing ten times, evening obliged us to encamp, although our direct distance from the last camp did not exceed five miles. We had, at each crossing, cut the banks, filled up hollows with logs, etc. The general direction, I ascertained to be N.E. Water was found providentially near the spot, where the approach of night had obliged us to encamp; this having been the first water we had seen during that day's laborious journey. Thermometer, at sunrise, 21°; at 4 P.M., 65°; at 9, 44°. 16TH JULY.--After some examination of the valley before us, I considered it best, upon the whole, to travel in the bed of the river itself, and thus avoid the frequent necessity for crossing with so much labour and delay: the sandy bed was heavy for the wheels, and therefore distressing to the animals, and one or two rocky masses obliged us to work out of it, to get round them. The whole day was consumed in proceeding thus about 5½ miles, and in an easterly direction. The closing in of the valley lower down, seemed to shut us from further progress even so, and I encamped, rather at a loss how to proceed. Just then Mr. Stephenson came to inform me that he had seen, from a rocky point on the left, an opening to the north-west, and level ground beyond it. I therefore determined to accompany him next day, and to reconnoitre the country in that direction. By digging in the bed of the creek, water was again obtained by Corporal Graham. Some extremely fragrant shrubs were discovered in these rocky recesses, especially one, which filled the air with perfume to a great distance around. It seemed to be a EUCALYPTUS without flowers or fruit, but with a powerful odour of balm, and formed a bush five feet high, growing on sandstone rocks, having a narrow leaf, and rather thorny stalk. The lower leaves were also rough.[*] There was another bush, with leaves of the same shape, and glossy, but having a perfume equally strong of the lime.[**] We regretted much, that neither the seed, flower, nor fruit of these interesting shrubs could be obtained at that season. In that valley, we saw also the DAUCUS BRACHIATUS, an inconspicuous weed, and MYOPORUM CUNNINGHAMII. The soft leaved ACACIA PODALYRIOEFOLIA began to indicate its flowering season, and we found a magnificent new crimson CALLISTEMON with its young flowers and leaves wrapped in wool.[***] A new DODONOEA with wingless, 3-cornered, 3-celled fruit[****]; a new species of AOTUS, with narrow hoary leaves[*****], and one of the forest trees was a splendid new GEIGERA, with broad lance-shaped leaves.[******] The PLATYZOMA MICROPHYLLUM, a very singular and little known fern, with narrow leaves and small orbicular leaflets, was also there, with the ACACIA FALCATA, ACACIA EXCELSA, and a shaggy-leaved variety of the AJUGA AUSTRALIS, the Australian bugle. The BRUNONIA SERICEA, with its scabious- like heads of flowers, was common; and the blue flowered HARDENBERGIA MONOPHYLLA was observed among the grass. Thermometer, at sunrise, 25°; at 9 P.M., 41°. [* E. MELISSIODORA (Lindl. MS.); ramis ferrugineo-tomentosis scabris, foliis utrinque papillis rubiginosis scabris ovato-oblongis obtusis supra basim peltatis (floribus fructibusque ignotis).] [** E. CITRIODORA (Hook. MS.); ramis angulatis fuscis minute tuberculatis, foliis lato-lanceolatis petiolatis pinnulatis patenti- parallelo-venosis viridibus (non glaucis). Sir Wm. Hooker has ventured to name this EUCALYPTUS, though without flower or fruit, from the deliciously fragrant lemon-like odour, which exists in the dry as well as the recent state of the plant.] [*** C. NERVOSUM (Lindl. MS.); ramis pallidis, foliis ovato-lanceolatis quinque-nerviis mucronatis junioribus tomentosis, rachi calycibusque lanatis.] [**** D. TRIGONA (Lindl. MS.); ramulis subpilosis, foliis obovato- lanceolatis parum pilosis integerrimis vel utrinque unidentatis, capsulis 3-locularibus trigonis apteris.] [***** A. MOLLIS (Benth. MS.); undique molliter tomentoso-villosus, ramis crectis-rigidis, foliis sparsis anguste oblongis margine revolutis, calycis vix bilabiati dentibus subaequalibus, ovario breviter stipitato villosissimo.--Near A. PASSERINOÏDES Meisn., but differing in the narrow and longer leaves, the calyx and ovary.] [****** G. LATIFOLIA (Lindl. MS.); foliis ovato-lanceolatis longe petiolatis subtus obscure pubescentibus junioribus convolutis.--This appears to differ from G. SALICIFOLIA in its long-stalked leaves.] 17TH JULY.--Our ride this morning soon led amongst different scenes. By merely turning to the left we came upon a flat, in which another water- course, similar to that we had been tracing (Balmy Creek), came from the west, apparently out of that inaccessible country, across which I had previously looked in vain for a passage. Several other gullies joined this water-course, and seared the flat, which consisted of a deep clay deposit, in almost every direction. After crossing these, we found a fine broad opening between rocky precipices of most picturesque forms. This gap I called Stephenson's Pass; it led into a spacious glen surrounded on all sides but the N.W. by mountains such as I have described, recalling to my memory the most imaginative efforts of Mr. Martin's saepia drawing, and showing how far the painter's fancy may anticipate nature. But, at the gorge of this valley, there stood a sort of watch-tower, as if to guard the entrance, so like a work of art, that even here, where men and kangaroos were equally wild and artless, I was obliged to look very attentively, to be quite convinced that the tower was the work of nature only. A turret with a pointed roof, of a colour corresponding, first appeared through the trees, as if it had been built on the summit of a round hill. On a nearer approach the fine tints of the yellowish grey rocks, and the small pines climbing the sides of a hill abruptly rising out of a forest of common trees, presented still a very remarkable object. I named the valley "Glen Turret," and this feature "Tower Almond," after an ancient castle, the scene of many early associations, and now quite as uninhabited as this. Passing through Glen Turret, we ascended the nearest summit on the right, and from it beheld a prospect most cheering, after our toils amid rocky ravines. On the westward, the rocky range seemed to terminate abruptly towards the north, in an elevated point, which seemed to command an extensive view over the unknown W. and N.W. Out of that region two isolated mountain masses arose from an open country, and were clothed with open forests to their summits. Further eastward, masses of mountain in the extreme distance appeared covered, also, with open forests, and presented finely rounded outlines, not likely to impede our passage, in any direction. But towards the N.W. our view was not so extensive; like the uncertain future, it still lay hid. The retrospect was very extensive, including Mount Faraday in the extreme distance, and which thus afforded me a valuable back angle for the correction of our longitude from any errors of detailed survey. The lofty mass of Buckland's Table Land still overlooked all from the E., and I could here again intersect its three principal points. The view back to the Pass was very fine, for the rocks and wood were so blended on the bold summits, as to present sublime studies for the artist. Far to the westward, an interior line of cliffy range resembled a sea beach, presenting a crescent, concave on that side, apparently the limit to the basin of the Nogoa, and the dividing range between eastern and western waters. Our Pass seemed to be the only outlet through the labyrinths behind us. Even the open plains beyond them were visible in a yellow streak above the precipices. Far beyond these plains, Mount Faraday was distinctly visible, on the horizon of the landscape. Thermometer, at sunrise, 29°; at 9 P.M., 43°. (LI.) 1234 feet above the sea. 18TH JULY.--By retracing our horses' footsteps, the carts were soon brought to the base of the same hill; deep gullies in the clay having obliged us to pass close under it, and, indeed, to cross two of its elevated extremities. We found the country beyond, in a N.W. direction, tolerably open, and we encamped in a valley containing abundance of grass, and near to our camp, water was found in a chain of ponds descending to the eastward. A new SUAEDA, with short leaves, and the habit of a dwarf Tamarisk, was found this day.[*] Latitude, 24° 6' 47" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 31°; at noon, 65°; at 4 P.M., 69°; at 9, 44°. (LII.) [* S. TAMARISCINA (Lindl. MS.); fruticosa, ramosissima, foliis brevibus cylindraceis imbricatis obtusissimis, axillis lanatis, floribus solitariis sessilibus.] 19TH JULY.--With the intention to lose no opportunity of getting further to the westward, I travelled on towards the base of the most northern summit of the range in the west; but I was, at length, so shut up by gullies and scrubby extremities near its base and all radiating from it, and becoming very deep, that I took the party aside into a grassy ravine near, where I directed the men to encamp, and hastened myself to the summit. From it, the view westward was not so extensive as I expected. Something like precipitous slopes to some channel or water-course, apparently falling either S. W. or N. E., formed the most promising feature; but, although my object was to have travelled in that direction, the scrub seemed too thick to admit of a passage. Open forest land appeared to the N. E., and there, the gently undulating features, although much lower than the range on whose northern extremity I then stood, seemed nevertheless to form a connection between it and some higher ranges of open forest land, that appeared between me and the coast. Through one wide opening in these, about east, I saw some broken hills, at a very great distance, say seventy or eighty miles. The ridgy- connected undulations formed the heads of some valleys sloping to the south-east, whereof the waters would evidently join those of the Balmy Creek, while others, rising on the north-west side, seemed to belong to a separate basin, and to form a river falling to the north-west. This river was indicated only by slopes meeting and interlacing in a valley. To the left or westward of that supposed river channel, a mighty isolated mountain mass shut out any view of the further course of the water of the valley formed between it and these slopes; but, as the very lowest point of the whole horizon, as indicated by the spirit-level of the theodolite, lay in that direction, I determined to pursue that bearing, (10° W. of N.) through the open forest country that intervened. I found that the mountain commanding this view, was elevated 2247 feet above the sea, according to the Syphon barometer, and in using this instrument, I could not forget Colonel Mudge, who had kindly taught me its use; I therefore named that summit Mount Mudge. In the gravel at the base of the hill, were water-worn pebbles of trap and basalt. The rock of which the range itself consisted, seemed to be a calcareous grit, with vegetable impressions, apparently of GLOSSOPTERIS BROWNII. On descending to the camp, I was informed that the cattle-watering party came suddenly upon two natives, one of whom was a placid old man, the other middle-aged. Corporal Graham did all he could to allay their fears, and convince them that they were in no danger from such strangers. The elder at length handed his little bundle to the younger and sat down, on seeing the Corporal's green bough; meanwhile the other walked on. When Graham took the old man's hand, and shook it, also patting him on the back, and expressing a friendly disposition only, the poor helpless man of the woods burst into tears, finding himself incapable of either words or deeds suitable for a meeting so uncommon. They could not relieve him from this state of alarm, so readily as by leaving him sitting, and moving on, which they did. In the scrubs near this camp, Mr. Stephenson discovered a very remarkable tree, apparently a casuarina, having long drooping leaves, hanging like long hair from its upper boughs[*]; and in the stony gullies a DODONAEA allied to D. SALSOLIFOLIA A. CUNN., from Van Diemen's Land, but the leaves slenderer, and three or four times longer[**]. Although we were approaching the tropics, the weather was most cool and pleasant. A delicious breeze played amongst the woods, and welcomed us to the Torrid Zone. Until now, during every clear night the air had been frosty. Latitude, 24° 6' 50" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 34°; at noon, 68°; at 4 P.M., 61°; at 9, 47°. [* See page 285.] [* D. FILIFOLIA (Hook. MS.); foliis sparsis ramis binis ternisve lineariangustissimis elongatis subrugosis viscosis glabris utrinque canaliculatis falcatis, fructibus trialatis.] Chapter VI. THE PARTY DESCENDS INTO A VALLEY FALLING NORTHWARD.--COMES UPON A CHAIN OF PONDS.--THE HEAD OF THE RIVER BELYANDO.--FOLLOW IT DOWN, THROUGH MUCH WATER SCARCE AT FIRST, IN ITS BED.--RANGE OF HILLS VISIBLE TO THE EASTWARD.--CROSS THE TROPIC OF CAPRICORN.--MOUNT NARRIEN.--OPEN PLAINS, WEST OF THE RIVER.--WATER MORE PLENTIFUL.--NEW PLANTS DISCOVERED.--DRY CHANNEL OF A LARGE RIVER JOINS FROM S.W.--CROSS IT AND PROCEED N.W.--FROM A HEIGHT OBTAIN A VIEW OF THE NORTHERN HORIZON.--MUCH BRIGALOW SCRUB TRAVERSED.--REACH THE RIVER BY MOONLIGHT.--FOLLOW THE CHANNEL MORE CLOSELY.--COME UPON LARGE REACHES OF WATER.--ANOTHER DRY CHANNEL JOINS FROM W.S.W.--RIDE OF RECONNAISSANCE BEYOND IT, TO THE NORTH-WEST.--CROSS FINE DOWNS.--LIMESTONE IN A THICK SCRUB.--ENTER THICK BRIGALOW.--NIGHT WITHOUT WATER.--NEXT DAY MEET WITH THE RIVER.--ITS COURSE BEING EASTWARD OF NORTH, DETERMINE TO RETURN.--NATIVES.--RETRACE OUR TRACK TO THE PYRAMIDS, IN ORDER TO EXPLORE MORE TO THE WESTWARD.--PREPARE TO DEPART, WITH TWO MEN AND YURANIGH.--WRITE DESPATCH TO THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENT. 20TH JULY.--AFTER a little trouble with the gullies and brigalow scrub, on first setting off, we came upon fine undulating open forest land, and crossed many a gully and small water-course, all declining towards the N.E. A very remarkable flat-topped hill appeared on our right, resembling a wart, on one of these ridges; to the northward it was precipitous, and seemed to consist of a very red rock. At length, after crossing a ridge rather broader than the rest, with some brigalow scrub upon it, and one or two specimens of that tree of solitary places, the bottle tree, (DELABECHEA) we arrived at valleys and water-courses descending to the southward of west, into a valley turning to the N.W. One, at length, on our right, taking the direction in which I was proceeding, viz., 10° W. of N., I followed it down, and thus entered a broader valley leading N.W. Following this, on a wide flat of open forest, we found at length a fine pond of water in it, and encamped beside it, after a journey of about twelve miles. This valley seemed to continue to the base of the lofty isolated mountain already mentioned, where a lower valley crossed it, falling either to the northward or southward. This I left in pleasing uncertainty until next morning, for I had remarked in that locality, when I stood on Mount Mudge, a long line of grey mist running north and south. I named the large mountain beyond that valley, Mount Beaufort, in honour of my scientific friend at the Admiralty. Thermometer, at sunrise, 40°; at noon, 66°; at 4 P.M., 73°; at 9, 62°. (LIII.) 21ST JULY.--On following downwards the chain of ponds and broad valley, we came upon the bed of a river, running to the N.N.E. We gladly turned in that direction, and after it had received various tributaries from the south, I found it took the course I had foreseen it must from Mount Mudge. We saw water in the channel, and now again I believed that we had at length discovered the head of a northwestern river. The soil consisted of firm clay, and tributaries occasionally impeded our journey. We got amongst brigalow scrub, and could find no water in looking for the channel of the river, which we knew must still have been on our left. Ponds in the scrub could not easily be identified as channels. I met with no better success on turning to the left, and encamped amongst the brigalow, where I found some grass. On riding westward I came upon arid stony ground, on which many of the trees were dead, apparently from drought, and so near the Tropic such a scene was by no means encouraging. On turning my horse, he trod on an old heap of fresh watermussles, at an old fireplace of the natives. This was a cheering proof that water was not distant, which was further indicated by the flight of two native companions, from the N.W. We had encamped on a flat of clay, on which salsolaceous bushes, such as grew on similar plains on the Bogan, had been growing, but were then all withered from drought. The very grass seemed parched and useless. I never saw vegetation so checked by drought. A longer continuance was likely to kill all the trees, and convert the country into open downs. I determined, before I ventured further, to send the cattle to a pond four miles back, next morning, and to examine the country before us. Latitude, 23° 48' 36". Thermometer, at sunrise, 57°; at noon, 69°; at 4 P.M., 75°; at 9, 48°. 22D JULY.--Having sent bullocks, horses, and sheep back to the water, I went forward on the bearing of 30° W. of N. I soon fell in with the united channel of the river, and found in it abundant ponds of water, the direction of the course being as favourable as could be wished. From these ponds I perceived a clear hill to the westward, which I hastened to ascend, and from its summit I beheld some fine mountains to the northward, although an easterly wind and sea air brought a haze over them, which soon obscured some of my points. But I saw enough to relieve me of all anxiety at that time about the want of water. A promising valley from the mountains in the eastward, came due west, and from it arose the smoke of many natives' fires. Lines of other rivers, from other ranges, were partly visible beyond, until the haze obscured the outlines of mountains still more remote. The bright prospects of this morning were a pleasing contrast to the temporary difficulties of yesterday. Such is human life in travelling, and so it was in war at Salamanca this day thirty-four years back. We encamped after a short journey on the bank of the river. Latitude, 24° 46' 46". Thermometer, at sunrise, 49°, at noon, 74°; at 4 P.M., 73°; at 9, 64°. (LIV.) 23D JULY.--The water in the adjacent pond was trodden into mud, so that none remained for the horses and bullocks this morning. Accordingly, on arriving at a pond about two miles on, we gave water to all, that they might better bear the privation in the afternoon, should we not fortunately find more. The river had a singular tendency to spread into little channels within a belt of brigalow scrub. The little holes formed by these channels were almost all dry, while the withered state of the grass, and even of the forest trees, showed that rain had long been due, and we therefore hoped some would fall before our return. When we had travelled about twelve miles, keeping as close to the river line as the scrub would permit, and crossing one or two fine rising grounds covered with a very open forest, and consisting of large gravel, I found a pond, and encamped near it, on a plain of almost naked clay. Amongst the water- worn pebbles, of which the rising ground consisted, there were, besides the ingredients of the Barwan gravel, many of trap and basalt. Very old and dry grass only, could be had for the cattle. In the pond were small fishes of a different form from any we had seen, having a large forked tail, only two or three spikes in the dorsal fin, and a large jet-black eye within a broad silvery ring. Mr. Stephenson found three crabs, apparently identical with those about the inlets near Sydney. Latitude, 23° 37' 51". S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 46°; at noon, 73°; at 4 P.M. 80; at 9, 55°. (LV.) 24TH JULY.--The morning was overcast by heavy clouds, and the air was balmy and mild, reminding us of the spring season near Sydney. Lightning had been seen to the northward during the night. In following the little wayward channel downward, we met with much brigalow scrub, and crossed two apparently important tributaries. In one of them was a good large pond. We had some trouble with an ana-branch, resembling the main channel, which we had twice to cross at a distance of two miles. With the last tributaries, plains and an open forest country became neighbours to the river; and where we encamped beside it, no scrub was to be seen, and the water lay in a deep broad reach, nearly half a mile in length, with ducks upon it. Towards evening, the unwonted sound of thunder was heard in the west, reminding us, at this season of the year, that we were near the Tropic. In the same direction, two distant storms exhausted themselves, and most likely giving birth to young grass where they fell. During the night, much thunder was heard, and also early next morning, to the northward. Latitude, 23° 31' S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 56°; at noon, 75°; at 4, P.M., 82°; at 9, 66°. (LVI.) 25TH JULY.--There was no hill or other geographical feature near our route, whereby it might have been possible to mark there the limit of Tropical Australia. We were the first to enter the interior beyond that line. Three large kangaroos hopping across a small plain, were visible, just as we entered these regions of the sun. The air was extremely fragrant; the shrubs and grass being still moist with the thunder-shower. The course of the river continued favourable, and the country seemed to improve as we advanced, opening into plains skirted by scrubs of rosewood, and drooping shrubs whose verdure was most refreshing to the eye, after just having passed through dry and withered brigalow. At eight miles a large lagoon appeared on our left, on which we saw many ducks, and at nine miles we encamped where the grass seemed good, finding that water was at hand now, in the river bed, wherever we required it. Latitude, 23° 25' 26" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 45°; at noon, 77°; at 4 P.M., 85°; at 9, 53°. (LVII.) 26TH JULY.--The river appearing to pursue a W. N.W. course, I set out in that direction, attracted there, also, by some open plain separated by scrub from the river. We travelled on, a good many miles, when, instead of the firm clay, we found, under foot soft, red sand, and trees of the genus callitris growing in close thickets. I turned to the northward, and travelled many miles to the eastward of north, without seeing any indications of the river, whose general course had been previously straight. Scrubs of almost every description lay in our way. Brigalow, rosewood, casuarina, a thick light-green scrub of a close-growing bush, new to us, and some scrubs of the tree as yet undescribed for want of flowers or fruit, although well known to us as a graceful, and, indeed; useful bush; of which, as an impediment, we could not much complain; and useful, as forming excellent whip-shafts. This is the tree of unknown fruit figured in my former journal. At length, when it was growing late, I travelled eastward to make sure of the river, and, at length, regained its banks, where we found in its bed plenty of water. The surface looked bare, and the grass dry; but this day I discovered green shoots amongst it, evidently the product of recent rain, and indicating the approach of spring. On sandstone rocks, we found a plant which Sir William Hooker terms "a singular Euphorbiaceous (?) plant[*]," destitute of flower and fruit. Branches very thick, and they, as well as the long petioles and underside of the leaves clothed with dense white wool. Leaves a span long, cordato acuminate; the laminae all pointing downwards, glossy green and glabrous above. Also a new DODONOEA, with very narrow, linear, pinnated leaves. The only hills visible, from a tree ascended by Yuranigh, during this day's journey were those to the eastward, already seen. None appeared above the horizon in any other direction. Thermometer, at sunrise, 39°; at noon, 79°; at 4 P.M., 89°; at 9, 75°. (LVIII,) [* D. TENUIFOLIA (Lindl. MS.); glaberrima, viscosa, ramulis angulatis, foliis impari pinnatis: foliolis 3-5-jugis linearibus obtusis subalternis.] 27TH JULY.--The same characteristic, still distinguished our river; a variety of channels, so concatenated amongst brigalow scrub, much whereof lay dead, that it was scarcely possible to ascertain whether there was any main channel. Hitherto, I had not detected one; but this was of little consequence to us, so long as these ponds contained abundance of water. This we saw in many parts of our route this day; for I kept as close as possible to the river's course, to avoid such detours as that of yesterday, and being very anxious about the river's general direction, I was glad to find it turn somewhat westward of north. After travelling thus about nine miles, I perceived a blue pic nearly due north, which I named Mount Narrien; and Yuranigh saw from a tree, that there was a range in the same direction, but very distant. This seemed likely not only to send down some additional waters to our river, but also to turn it westward. Entering, soon after, upon a plain of good grass, I looked for water; and, on finding some, encamped after a journey of about eleven miles. Latitude, 23° 9'S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 43°; at noon, 83°; at 4 P.M., 90°; at 9, 53°. (LIX.) 28TH JULY.--The brigalow scrub, still a concomitant of our river, so hemmed in the patch of plain, that I was obliged to move out of it, in a southerly direction. Even thus, however, the scrub was not to be avoided, and we were obliged to force a way through, where the still more formidable impediment of much fallen timber, rendered it almost impossible that our vehicles could pass. This dead wood seemed peculiar to that sort of brigalow, and appeared to remain unburnt, chiefly from the usually naked surface of the ground where brigalow grows. I left the party, when brought almost to a stand, and sought for a more open part, by riding northward. This rather singular river seemed to have spread over a considerable extent of surface, and much of the brigalow, however fond of water, appeared to have died of too much, on spots which had been flooded. I traversed a plain, beyond which I found, what seemed there, the main chain of ponds or channel. There was a fine reach of water, and beside it, were the still smoking fires, water-vessels, etc., of a tribe of natives, who had disappeared. On the plain, the remains of decayed stumps of brigalow showed that there also, this tree had once grown, and that the openings were caused only by such trees perishing; as if, according to seasons, the half-dead scrub might either give place to open downs, or, that the plains might, by long succession of regular seasons, become again covered with scrub. I returned to the party halted in the scrub, and conducted it through an opening I had found, to the plain, and across it, in a N.W. direction; where, after passing through some open forest, we had again to contend with brigalow. One of the many dry channels assisted us much in seeking openings, as the bottom then consisted of smooth, firm, clay. A pond, however, obliged us to quit it, and seek our way through the wood. We arrived next at slightly undulating ground, and finally entered an open forest, where I saw the LORANTHUS SUBFALCATUS of Sir William Hooker. I made Yuranigh climb a tree, from whence he again saw the pic seen yesterday, (the bearing of which I ascertained), and also a gap appeared in the range beside it, through which, as he thought, a river was likely to come down. The extreme westerly escarp of these hills bore 17° E. of N., so that nothing was likely to impede the continued course of our friendly river in the direction we wished. The scrub we met with on the rising ground, consisted of the verdant bushes in rosewood scrubs, and we next found brigalow all dead, with a rich crop of grass growing amongst the dead stems. I had never seen grass, amongst brigalow, when in a healthy state. On turning northward, we next entered upon an open plain covered with good grass mixed with verdant polygonum. I selected a corner of this plain, nearest to the river, for my camp; and, on approaching its bed, found water as usual, near some old huts of the natives. Latitude, 23° 5' 20" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 44°; at noon, 82°; at 4 P.M., 88°; at 9, 58°. (XL.) 29TH JULY.--The scrub between our camp and the river, admitted of easy access from it to open forest ground, over which we travelled in a N.W. direction for several miles. Belts of scrub, consisting of rosewood and other acacias intervened, and, in some parts, TRIODIA PUNGENS grew in the place of grass. But, upon the whole, the country was fine, open, park- like, and with much anthistiria, and other grasses in which a greenness was observed quite novel to us, and unexpected in these tropical regions. Amongst the shrubs, we recognised the CASSIA HETEROLOBA, a small yellow- flowered shrub; also a glutinous Baccharislike plant, and a form of Eremophila Mitchellii, intermediate between the two other varieties. This was a shrub ten feet high. Another new species of the genus GEIJERA formed a tree twenty feet high, with long slender weeping branches. It was otherwise much like the GEIJERA PARVIFLORA, except that its flowers were larger.[*] A dwarf shrub belonging to the genus STENOCHILUS, but new, was found here[**]; and we met also with a large spreading tree, from which we could bring away nothing that would enable botanists to describe it, except as to the texture and nervation of the leaves, which, Sir William Hooker observes, resemble CAPPARIDEOE; but the fruit appeared to be sessile, and was too young and too imperfect to lead to any satisfactory conclusion. The very crows cawed differently from those near Sydney, or, (as Yuranigh observed) "talked another language." This river was not the least unique of our recent discoveries. It still consisted of a great breadth of concatenated hollows without any one continuous channel, and this character seemed to be preserved by various trees growing in the banks. When their large roots became denuded by the floods, or were washed out, or partially gave way, so that the tree fell over the stream, they presented impediments, first to the floating-wreck, and, next, to the water itself: when that collection of floating wreck became consolidated with muddy deposit, new banks so formed forced the river into new currents, working out new courses; and this appeared to give the peculiar character so uniformly observed. It seems extremely favourable for the retention of water in a country where it may be scarce; for the many ponds so formed and shaded from the sun, preserve it much better and longer, than if one continuous unobstructed channel alone, received and carried off, the water of the surface. I found the hollows we saw this day drier than usual; but we at length succeeded in discovering three good ponds. The foliage of the trees, with dry and naked water-worn roots, presented all the hues of an English autumn, although none of these were deciduous. This effect I was disposed to attribute to unseasonable drought, or past heat. The weather we had was delightful; for, although the thermometer in the shade rose sometimes to 90° about 4 P.M., the heat of the Bogan was still fresh in our recollection; and the frosts which, not above three weeks before, had disturbed our sleep, made this degree of heat as welcome as the flowers in May. Latitude, 22° 55' 35" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 38°; at noon, 80°; at 4 P.M., 85°; at 9, 51°. (LXI.) [* G. PENDULA (Lindl. MS.); ramis gracilibus pendulis, foliis linearibus in petiolum sensim angustatis 5 uncias longis cum ramo parallelis.] [** S. SALICINUS (Benth. MS.); foliis lanceolato-linearibus integerrimis apice subuncinato ramulisque canescentibus, calycis foliolis brevibus lanceolatis, corollae puberulae inferne attenuatae laciniis obtusis infimâ retusâ vix caeteris magis solutâ.--Very near S. PUBIFLORUS, but much whiter, the flowers smaller with the lobes much more equal, the lower one much broader.] 30TH JULY.--The scrub of the river being likely to surround us, I endeavoured to pass it, and cross the river, but on examination I found the brigalow belt beyond, so serious an obstruction, that I adhered to the left bank still, and proceeded N. N. W. The woods opened into extensive plains covered with wild Indigo, as high as a horse's head, and that was skirted by a plain covered with rich grass. Beyond these, we entered an open forest where the anthistiria grew luxuriantly. I saw, from the skirts of the plain, the mass of mountains partly seen in the east for several days past, and I was able to intersect various points. We seemed to be descending to a very low country. A fine large lagoon, covered with ducks, appeared on our right. The whole country was improved both as to grass and trees. The MYOPORUM DULCE, a shrub about five feet high, was perhaps a distinct species intermediate between M. DULCE and M. DESERTI. It had the habit of the latter, but the leaves nearly of M. DULCE. A hollow at length indicated the river bed near us. It contained abundance of transparent water, a continuous channel, rocky bed, and, instead of brigalow, there grew on its banks a thick crop of strong grass, and much verdure. A tributary from the west cost us some trouble to cross, and soon after crossing it, I encamped. The course this day had run well to the westward. We had crossed the 147° of E. longitude, and I was very anxious to learn more of the further course of this river. I crossed it, and hastened to some rising ground, whence I perceived a flat-topped cliffy range extending from S. W. to the N. of west. It was low; the middle part, appearing highest, was probably the nearest to our camp. It was likely to turn our river too far to the northward for our purpose. Latitude, 22° 51' 55". Thermometer, at sunrise, 54°; at noon, 82°; at 4 P.M., 83°; at 9, 45°. (LXII.) 31ST JULY.--We travelled over a rather different sort of country from that recently seen upon the river. It was still on our right, and ran in a deep, well-marked channel. I pursued a N.W. course, although the range I had seen yesterday lay across it. I thus came upon the bed of a large river from the south, very near where our little river joined it. This new river was there fully 100 yards broad, with a sandy bed. I hastened across it, and proceeded still N.W. In the bed, just above the junction of the two rivers, I found a large podded pea, the seed both in green pods and dry pods, was very sweet and edible. The pods were larger than those of Turkey beans, and contained each ten or eleven peas (Dr. L.?) Beyond the last found river, we travelled over open forest land, occasionally passing patches of rosewood scrub on the left. When we might again see water was rather a desperate thought, for we had witnessed our abundant little river, wholly absorbed in a deep mass of dry sand, for such was the bed of the larger. At length we came upon a very spacious dry lagoon. Following this, as it appeared to be the channel of large floods from the river, we arrived at a part containing water, and, still continuing along the hard dry bank, another and another pond appeared, and I finally encamped near the last, where I saw some good grass. The course and character of the river below the junction last mentioned, remained to be ascertained. Parts of the surface in the scrub, which, before the rain, had been quite bare, now presented a crop of lichen, which bore some resemblance to the orchilla. It might have been gathered in any quantity. The ant-hills in this region, presented a different form from any to be seen in the south, consisting of slender cones of hard clay about the size and shape of sugar-loaves on an average, many being larger, or as much as 3½ feet high, others smaller. In some places they were so numerous, as to be rather inconvenient to ride amongst, especially where the grass was long. Latitude of this camp, 22° 44' 45". Thermometer, at sunrise, 52°; at noon, 70°; at 4 P.M., 69°; at 9, 43°. (LXIII.) 1ST AUGUST.--Supposing that this line of lagoons led to the river, I followed that direction westward, until it disappeared where we came upon the water brigalow. Then, turning northward, I travelled many miles in that direction, through rosewood scrubs, and over ground where the very coarse hard grass grew on red sand. The callitris and casuarina appeared amongst the trees. On a spot rather clear of wood, Yuranigh went to the top of a callitris tree, and saw a lofty mountain somewhat to the eastward of north, and he thought he could trace the trees marking the course of the river to the westward of it. Further westward, the low range already mentioned, was still visible, and he saw that the country between the two ranges was very "deep," as he termed it, meaning very low. Upon the whole, there was reason to believe that the river pursued a course, somewhat to the westward of north. I turned in that direction, and forced our way through scrub and brush, until, after cutting through much fallen brigalow, I entered upon good grassy land, and saw the large Yarra trees before me. These grew by the river, which here looked very important, having a bed wider than that of the Barwan, with sloping grassy banks at least sixty feet high, and Yarra trees growing from the lower margin. Continuing along its banks, we soon found various large ponds of water, and in the short course of it we had to trace before we encamped, the direction was S. W. Many curious plants and trees now appeared about the banks. A rough-leaved fig tree with well-formed woolly, globular fruit; an ALTERANTHERA, with very large balls of satiny white flowers, resembling A. NODIFLORA; the ACACIA FARNESIANA, a prickly tree; the narrow-leaved smooth variety of ACACIA HOLOSERICEA; and in the bed of the river, the ACACIA SIMSII (Cunn.) A broad-leaved form of LORANTHUS NUTANS was parasitical on trees, and the EURYBIA SUBSPICATA of Sir W. Hooker also grew on the upper bank. A very extraordinary CAPPARIS was here observed in fruit. Its leaves were as much as eight inches long, although not more than three quarters of an inch wide, and their hard leathery texture gave them the appearance of straps. It did not afterwards occur.[*] The water in the river was excellent. Thermometer, at sunrise, 23°; at noon, 65°; at 4 P.M., 69°; at 9, 44°. Latitude, 22° 38' 40". (LXIV.) [* C. UMBONATA (Lindl. MSS.); inermis, glaberrima, foliis coriaceis longissimis loratis obtusis in petiolum sensim angustatis, pedunculis solitariis (2 poll.) stipite brevioribus, fructu ovoideo umbonato.] 2D AUGUST.--We had approached this fine river over a park-like plain, but lower down we found the banks lined with scrub. I pursued a N.W. course in passing through it, and emerged on plains and open forests alternating with scrubs. The scrubs were remarkable, as always involving dry hollows where water had lodged. The clay was then hard; but, in all these hollows, the deep impressions of naked feet of men, women, and children, remained since the bottom had consisted of mud. These numerous receptacles for water, when it is sent, attest the wisdom with which even the clods of the valley have been disposed for the benefit of the animal world. The day's journey was long, and chiefly through that sort of scrub. I was disappointed in my hope of falling in with the river, by travelling N.W. Yuranigh descried from a tree, the continuation, far to the westward, of the low range that had been already seen from a former camp. Its direction had then appeared to be nearly N. and S. The turn the river had taken westward was, therefore, favourable to my hopes, that it would continue in that direction. Its general course was found to be nearly northward. On the other hand, the high ranges in the E. seemed to terminate abruptly towards the N., so that a very low country appeared to be to the northward of our position then, stretching from 40° N. of W. to 40° E. of N., a full quarter circle which the course of the river almost bisected. After travelling twelve miles without seeing any thing of the river, I reluctantly turned N.E., and then E., and in the last-mentioned direction, I hit the river where it contained a fine reach of water. In the dry part of the bed, grew various curious plants in flower, all quite new to me; a species closely allied to the ACACIA DELIBERATA (Cunn.), and a very fine silky leaved TRICHODESMA.[*] A new VELLEYA was also found near this camp.[**] In the scrubs back from the river, the STENOCHILUS CURVIPES was loaded with its long tubular flowers. A small species of Acacia was perhaps a variety of A. LEUCADENDRON Cunn.; and we found also a curious scrubby species of JACKSONIA.[***] Latitude, 22° 30' 10" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 29°; at noon, 61°; at 4 P.M., 69°; at 9, 40°. (LXV.) [* T. SERICEUM (Lindl. MSS.); caule erecto sericeo setis nullis, foliis oppositis lineari-lanceolatis basi angustatis sericeopilosis, pedicellis pilosis lateralibus longis, calycis lobis lanceolatis pubescentibus basi pilosis, nucis dorso polito maculato.--Near T. ZEYLANICUM, but quite distinct.] [** V. MACROCALYX (De Vriese MSS.); foliis omnibus radicalibus, oblongospathulatis acutis, integris, membranaceis, remote, minute et obsolete dentatis, uninerviis, glabris, subdecurrentibus, glabris; scapis radicalibus elongatis, folia vix exaequantibus; bracteis dichotomiarum vel trichotomiarum binis ternisve lanceolatis acutis vel lineari- lanceolatis, floribus 2-3nis; calycibus (involucris) ternis, magnis, membranaceis, ovatis, ellipticisque, acuminatis, basi cordatis, petiolatisque; antherae liberae, stigmatis indusium maximum ciliatum, labiis compressis, cochleariforme.--Folia sunt 6-12 cent. longa, 3 cent. lata, crassinervia; scapi adscendentes, inferne tenuiores, sursum parum elongati.] [*** J. RAMOSISSIMA (Benth. MSS.) inermis, ramis angulatis ramosissimis glabriusculis, floribus subsessilibus, calycis colorati profunde divisi laciniis duabus supremis diù vel omnino cohaerentibus, legumine subsessili ovato-acuto ventricoso.] 3D AUGUST.--Our carts had been so much jolted about and shaken, in crossing the dead timber yesterday, that I resolved to keep along the river bank this day, if the ground and woods permitted. To a certain distance from the banks, there was less fallen timber, as the natives had been accustomed there to make their fires, and roast the mussles of the river, and other food. The river was found to spread into separate channels, in which I did not readily recognise it, until I found them again united in a splendid reach of water under steep banks. The general course was by no means promising, being somewhat to the E. of N.; it was much to be apprehended that this river, too, would run to the E. coast, and become another instance of the utter want of any knowledge of the interior country, that still may prevail, long after complete surveys have been made of the lines of coast. Again we came upon wide fields of polygonum, and tracks of open forest with large lagoons. Then scrubs of brigalow obliged us to travel in the river bed, as the only open part where we could pass. That surface consisted of clay iron-stone, denuded by torrents, and the "DISJECTA MEMBRA," of a river. Ponds, water-worn banks, and timber, alive and dead, were there intermixed. Emerging from these obstructions, as from a feverish dream, we entered upon park-like scenery and good grass. The latter had been a desideratum during the last two days. We next came upon a river containing plenty of water, and coming from the N.W. I expected this would terminate our journey along the other, and I encamped on discovering it, after a journey of ten miles. The Australian rivers have all distinguishing characteristics, which they seem to possess from their sources to their termination. That we had just quitted, had a great affection, like its upper tributary, for brigalow scrubs, and spreading into ana-branches. This last discovered river seemed quite the reverse of all this. Its channel was very uniform; the banks being covered with open forests and good grass. The bed was sandy, but contained water in abundance, so that I hoped it would lead us to higher regions, by following it upwards, to where other waters might fall in the direction of the Gulf. This river contained the Harlequin fish of the Maranin great abundance. Yet we had found none of these in the river to which this was a tributary, but, on the contrary, two other sorts. There was much novelty in the trees and plants. One tree in particular, growing in the bed of the river, had the thin white shining bark of the tea-tree (mimosa), and drooping leaves shaped like those of the eucalyptus; a HIBISCUS allied to, if not the same, with II. LINDLEYI, but not in flower; a CASSIA, perhaps C. CORONILLOIDES in ripe fruit, or at least closely allied to it, occupied the dry sandy ground with MONENTELES REDOLENS, a silveryheaded weed; and some Cinchonad allied to Coffea, with young fruit, the size of small olives. Latitude, 22° 23' 10". Thermometer, at sunrise, 21°; at noon, 59°; at 4 P.M., 64°; at 9, 37°; with wet bulb, 28°. (LXVI.) 4TH AUGUST.--We had still so much westing to make, in order to hit the head of the Gulf, that I was disposed to follow up the new river in any direction that did not take us much to the S. The river, however, was soon found to come from the S.W. and S., so that I was obliged to cross it. I then travelled W. through open forest three miles, which brought us to undulating ground. I then turned to the W.N.W., and proceeded over ground equally open and favourable for the passage of our carts. At length, a hard ferruginous conglomerate rock, projected from the surface, and clumps of thick brigalow grew on some of the summits. On one piece of rising ground, I found a mass of rocks, a few feet higher than the rest, and from it I perceived a continuation of the slightly elevated flattopped range, to the southward and westward. A somewhat higher but similar sort of range appeared in the east, beyond a very broad and level woody country, through which it was probable that our first-found river still pursued a northerly course. Beyond that flat, and further to the eastward, the same hills already seen were still visible, and others northward of them, just like them. There was a high summit beyond all these bearing about E. I could not discover any satisfactory line to follow in the country thus partially visible, and as the sun was near the horizon, I only continued, to go forward to a valley wherein I hoped to have found water, but was disappointed, the soil being too sandy and absorbent. There we nevertheless encamped, in Lat. 22° 19' 45" S. On this day's journey, I saw two of the rose-coloured paroqueets of the Barwan, none of these birds having been seen by any of the party since we crossed the Culgoa. A fragrant stenochilus, with leaves smelling exactly like mint, was found this day, and a splendid banksia in flower, also a new MELALEUCA.[*] Thermometer, at sunrise, 23°; at noon, 58°; at 4 P.M., 63°; at 9, 29°; with wet bulb, 18°. [* M. TAMARISCINA (Hook. MSS.); ramosissima ramulis gracillimis copiose excavatis e foliis delapsis, foliis rameis remotis parvis ovatis acuminatis appressis, ramulinis minutissimis squamaeformibus convexis obtusis imbricatis immersis, capsulis circa ramos spicatis parvis globosis.--A very singular MELALEUCA, somewhat allied to M. HUGELII, Endl.: but extremely different in the very minute squamiform leaves of the copious slender branchlets, from which they fall and leave the bleached slender branchlets full of little pits or cavities in which the leaves had been, as it were, sunk.] 5TH AUGUST.--The last-found river not having answered my expectations, we had come quite far enough from the one we had previously followed, which still might have turned N.W., where we wished it to go; although I confess the prospect was by no means promising. The doubt was still to be removed, and, after a night passed without water, the earliest dawn saw us again going forward, in a direction a little to the eastward of N. It was only after pursuing that line for seventeen miles, that we again found the river, unchanged in character, and still running northerly. This was a trying day for our animals, as they could not be watered until long after it was dark; a brigalow scrub, full of much fallen timber, having retarded and impeded the carts so that they could not be got to the water sooner. Nor had this been possible, even then, but for the fortunate circumstance of our having the light of a nearly full moon. I had preceded the party by some miles, accompanied by Yuranigh, the rest following my horse's tracks, and I had thus passed through the four miles of scrub, and reached the river early in the day. On returning, we found the party in the midst of this scrub, and succeeded in guiding it, even by moonlight, to the pond at which we had watered our horses during the day. Many dry hollows of indurated mud appeared, as usual, in the brigalow we had passed through; and we endeavoured to lead the carts, as much as possible, through these hollows, in order to avoid the dead logs, many of which we were obliged to cut, before the carts could pass. Many deep impressions of natives' feet appeared in these clay hollows; also the tracks of emus. Yuranigh showed me several tracks where a native had been following a kangeroo's track; and he told me of a certain method adopted by the natives of killing the kangeroo during wet weather,--which is, to pursue the track, following it up day after day, until they overtake the animal, which, on being so incessantly followed, becomes at length so defenceless, that one native can despatch it with a tomahawk. According to the barometer, it appeared that this river was not now much higher above the level of the sea, than the Bogan or the Balonne. Still it spread into many channels and isolated ponds; the latter being sometimes in good grassy land, apart from the brigalow. Nothing could be more sterile than the surface where the brigalow grew; but the first indication of the river was an open space covered with luxuriant grass, and we had to ride two miles along this, before Yuranigh and I could find the river, having been guided to it chiefly by some smoke of the natives. At the first place we approached, we found two ponds of excellent water, under the shining boughs of lofty Yarra trees. Latitude, 22° 10' 15" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 39°; at noon, 64°; at 4 P.M., 61°; at 9, 36°;-- with wet bulb, 28°. (LXVII.) 6TH AUGUST.--I gave the jaded cattle a day's rest, and the men thus had an opportunity to screw up and repair their carts. 7TH AUGUST.--The brigalow scrub obliged me this day to travel along the river banks, upon which I found it pleasant to go, as they proved open and grassy. Large lagoons and reaches of water appeared in the scattered channels. At length, a deep broad reach, brim full of pure water, glittered before us. Clouds of large ducks arose from it, and larger water-fowl shrieked over our heads. A deep receding opening appeared to the northeast, as if our river had been either breaking off in that direction, or met with some important tributary from that side. I continued to travel northwest, passing through some fine open forests. The character of the country seemed changed. The grass was of a different kind, and a refreshing breeze from the north-east seemed to "smell of water," as Yuranigh expressed it. The dense line of Yarra trees appeared still to be continuous on the right, and the more I travelled westward, the more I was convinced that we still had the river at hand. We did at length approach its banks after a journey of ten miles, when we found this was a river FROM the west appearing fully as deep and important as the one we had been following, and containing ponds of water. This new tributary from the west, left no room to hope that the channel we had been pursuing would turn westward--on the contrary, it became but too probable that below the junction of this river, the channel would turn towards the N. E. It could not well be doubted that this went to the eastern coast; but, to remove all doubt, as Yuranigh was of a different opinion, I sent Corporal Graham with him up the newly-found river, to ascertain whether it did not come from the north-west, in which case we could not expect that the other it joined would go in that direction. Their report on returning, only rendered it necessary that I should take a ride forward next morning. They said this river came from the S. W., and at two miles higher, had a very narrow channel. Lower down, it was found to join the main channel, which, below the junction, still continued northward. There, we found a beautiful new Grevillea.[*] The STENOCHILUS PUBIFLORUS formed a willow-leaved shrub about twelve feet high, and in the sandy bed of the river was an EUPHORBIA very near E. HYPERICIFOLIA, but with narrower leaves, and the ovary pubescent not glabrous. The DODONOEA VESTITA, with its hairy foliage and large shaggy fruits, clothed the sandstone surface back from the river.[**] Latitude, 22° 2' 15" S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 30°; at noon, 78°; at 4 P.M., 77°; at 9, 55°;--with wet bulb 49°. (LXVIII). [* G. MITCHELLI (Hook. MSS.); appresso-subsericesa, foliis pinnatifidis bipinnatifidisque, laciniis angustissime linearibus elongatis marginibus arcte reflexis subtus concoloribus, racemis elongatis secundis densifloris, floribus subverticillatis, perianthiis pedicellisque tomentosis, folliculis oblique ovatis tomentosis sessilibus, stylis glabris.--Allied to G. CHRYSODENDRON, Br., but the segments of the leaves are narrower, not golden-coloured beneath: the flowers are entirely secund: a splendid species.] [** D. VESTITA (Hook. MSS.); tota densissimè pilosa, foliis pinnatis pinnis oppositis 4--5-jugis cuneatis apice lunulato-emarginatis vel incisis, rachi articulatâ articulis obovatis, capsulis profundis tetrapteris villosissimis.] 8TH AUGUST.--With two men and Yuranigh, I proceeded first, northward by compass, for some miles, when I emerged from scrub, upon fine open downs covered with a crop of excellent grass. The soil was soft and rich, the grass PANICUM LOEVINODE. Small clumps of Acacias were strewed over these downs, which were very extensive, and from them I saw several rather high hills to the eastward, terminating abruptly over a low country to the northward. Supposing that the main channel would there turn round to the eastward, I proceeded north-west to examine the country. I soon entered a thick scrub of rosewood and other Acacias. I remarked the CALLISTEMON NERVOSUM, previously seen (July) with rich crimson flowers, forming a large tree, in the dry open forest, with perfectly green spikes; also, on the branches of Eucalypti, a beautiful orange coloured LORANTH. The soil was rich, yielding, and rather bare of vegetation. Nodules of variegated limestone, or marble, appeared on the surface, showing that the improvement in the soil was owing to a change in the rocks under it. Again emerging on open plains, the country seemed to fall northward, which induced me to ride again in that direction, thinking we might meet with some river either coming from the N. W. or leading there. The open plains terminated upon a hollow full of trees, growing, as was very evident, on a lower surface. The hollows resembled those of brigalow scrub, and we soon found this tree in full possession of them. Dry channels, leading in various directions between N. W. and E. engaged my attention throughout the afternoon: indeed, they seemed interminable. At length, we detected some continuity in the hollows, leading towards the N.N.E. Yarra trees at length appeared in it, abundance of grass on the banks, and deep dry ponds. Two crows hovering over one, raised our hopes that it contained water, as we also perceived a line of green vegetation over the margin. It was deep and full of water. Here, about 4 P. M., we were thus enabled to water our horses, and continue our ride independently of finding more water that evening. We next perceived an open forest hill on our right; but, on examining the country from it, we saw no immediate indications of the river. On reentering the brigalow scrub, the continuity of ponds was very indistinct, and I at length lost it, as it seemed, on its turning off to the eastward, a direction in which I was unwilling to follow it at that time. I threaded the mazes of another chain of hollows, which turned in various directions between N. W. and 20° N. of E., the latter being the general course. During this unsatisfactory sort of exploration, night overtook us, where the dry and naked clay presented neither grass nor water. Our horses had come thirty miles, and it was only after considerable search, in the dark, that I found a grassy spot for our horses, and where we tied them up, and lay down to pass the night. 9TH AUGUST.--We saddled them as soon as day broke, and proceeded again into the scrub; but the hollows took no longer any continuous channel, and I again travelled N. W., in which direction I entered upon a plain. Thence I perceived a low flat, and a line of trees beyond it, very much resembling those of a river, and towards this I hastened, and found the river we had followed so far, unchanged in character. The scattered ponds, and nearly northerly course, were legible proofs of its identity. We watered our horses and took some breakfast, after which, while engaged laying down our route, one of the men observed some natives looking at us from a point of the opposite bank. I held up a green bough to one who stood forward in a rather menacing attitude, and who instantly replied to my signal of peace by holding up his bommareng. It was a brief but intelligible interview; no words could have been better understood on both sides; and I had fortunately determined, before we saw these natives, to return by tracing the river upwards. Our horses had been turned loose, the better to allow them to make the most of their time while we breakfasted. Graham got them together while I was telegraphing with the natives, some of whom I perceived filling some vessel with water, with which they retired into the woods. We saddled, and advanced to examine their track and the spot they had quitted, also that they might afterwards see our horses' tracks there, lest our green bough and subsequent return might have encouraged them to follow us. Yuranigh was burning the mutton bones we had picked; but I directed him to throw them about, that the natives might see that we neither eat their kangaroos nor emus. I found the course of the river very straight, but rather more than it had been, to the eastward of north. In some parts of the channel, lay deep reaches of water, fully a mile long; at other places, shallow hollows quite dry, seemed to be the only channel for the river's currents. We avoided brigalow scrubs, and passed the night on a grassy part of the bank, about ten miles back from the farthest point we had reached that morning. 10TH AUGUST.--Early in the morning a moist breeze blew from the north, with low scud not very high above the trees. Higher clouds drove as rapidly from the westward. The extremely moist air was a great novelty to us there. About 9 A.M., the sky was wholly overcast; but it finally cleared up, and the day was cool. We reached the camp about 3 P.M., having hit the river on which it was situated, two miles lower. There I found, to my surprise, that its channel was very deep and full of water, being broader than that of the main river. I was, therefore, inclined to explore its sources by proceeding upwards next day, as the direction of the northerly stream, did not promise much. The camp had just been visited by seventeen natives, apparently bent on hostile purposes, all very strong, several of them upwards of six feet high. Each of them carried three or four missile clubs. They were headed by an old man, and a gigantic sort of bully, who would not keep his hands off our carts. They said, by signs, that the whole country belonged to the old man. They pointed in the direction in which I had gone, and to where Mr. Stephenson happened to be at the time, down in the river bed; and then beckoned to the party that they also should follow or go where I had gone, or leave that place. They were received very firmly, but civilly and patiently, by the men, and were requested to sit down at a distance, my man Brown, being very desirous that I should return before they departed; thinking the old man might have given me some information about the river, which he called "Belyando." But a noisy altercation seemed to arise between the old chief and the tallest man, about the clubs, during which the latter again came forward, and beckoned to others behind, who came close up also. Each carried a club under each arm, and another in each hand, and from the gestures made to this advanced party, by the rest of the tribe of young men at a distance, it appeared that this was intended to be a hostile movement. Brown accordingly drew out the men in line before the tents, with their arms in their hands, and forbade the natives to approach the tents. "Nothing damps the ardour of troops so much," says General Lloyd, "as an unexpected obstacle at the moment of attack," and these strong men stood still and looked foolish, when they saw the five men in line, with incomprehensible weapons in their hands. Just then, our three dogs ran at them, and no charge of cavalry ever succeeded better. They all took to their heels, greatly laughed at, even by the rest of their tribe; and the only casualty befell the shepherd's dog, which biting at the legs of a native running away, he turned round, and hit the dog so cleverly with his missile on the rump, that it was dangerously ill for months after; the native having again, with great dexterity, picked up his club. The whole of them then disappeared, shouting through the woods to their gins. It was remarkable that on seeing the horses, they exclaimed "Yerraman," the colonial natives' name for a horse, and that of these animals they were not at all afraid, whereas they seemed in much dread of the bullocks. That these natives were fully determined to attack the white strangers, seems to admit of no doubt, and the result is but another of the many instances that might be adduced, that an open fight, without treachery, would be contrary to their habits and disposition. That they did not, on any occasion, way-lay me or the doctor, when detached from the body of the party, may perhaps, with equal truth, be set down as a favourable trait in the character of the aborigines; for whenever they visited my camp, it was during my absence, when they knew I was absent, and of course must have known where I was to be found. The old man had very intelligibly pointed out to Brown the direction in which this river came, I. E. from the S. W., and I therefore abandoned the intention of exploring it upwards, and determined to examine how it joined, and what the character of the river might be, about and below that junction, in hopes I might still obtain an interview with the natives, and learn something of the country to the north-west. Thermometer, at sunrise, 59°; at noon, 82°; at 4 P.M., 81°; at 9, 62°;-- with wet bulb, 59°. 11TH AUGUST.--Crossing this river at a favourable spot near our camp, we travelled on, eleven miles, and encamped early, on a fine reach of the main river. Here I had leisure to lay down my late ride on paper, and to connect it with the map; whereupon I concluded, with much regret, that this river must be either a tributary to, or identical with, that which M. Leichardt saw joining the Suttor in latitude 21° 6' S., and which he supposed to come from the west. It had supplied me with water across three degrees of latitude, and had gradually altered its course from N.W. to about 30° E. of N. In my ride I had traced it to 21° 30' of latitude south, and no high land had appeared, as I expected, to the northward, at all likely to turn its course towards the west. I found the height of its bed, moreover, to be so little above the sea (not much more than 600 feet), that I could no longer doubt that the division between eastern and western waters was still to the westward; and I arrived at the following conclusions:-- 1st. That the river of Carpentaria should have been sought for to the westward of all the sources of the river Salvator. 2nd. That the deepest indentation as yet discovered of the division of the waters, was at the sources of that river, and corresponded with the greatest elevation indicated by the barometer (about 2500 feet); and, 3dly. That there, I. E. under the parallel of 25° S., the highest spinal range must extend westward, in a line of truncated cones, whereof Mount Faraday appeared to be one. I accordingly determined to retrace our wheel-tracks back to the head of the Salvator, and to explore from thence the country to the north-west, as far as our stock of provisions and the season would permit. I had marked my camps by Roman letters cut deep in sound trees, and at this, I left the number LXIX. cut under the initials of the colony, N.S.W.; this being the number marked from the Culgoa. We had, at least, laid out a good carriage road from the colony to a river in M. Leichardt's route; which road, as far as we had marked it with our wheels, led through pastoral regions of much greater extent than all the colonists now occupied. At this farthest point traced by our wheels within the Tropics, the plants were still known to botanists, but with some interesting exceptions. We here found the CASSIA HETEROLOBA in flower; also the burr plant, CALOTIS CUNEIFOLIA of Brown; the PITTOSPORUM LANCEOLATUM of A. Cunningham, a shrub with yellow flowers and narrow willowy leaves; and the beautiful laurel-leaved GEIGERA LATIFOLIA was still conspicuous among the forest trees. But here also we found a very fine new species of STENOCHILUS[*], a new pine-leaved DODONOEA, allied to the D. PINIFOLIA of Swan River[**], and a most singular hard-leaved shrub, with spiny foliage resembling five pointed stars, proved to be a new species of LABICHEA.[***] Thermometer, at sunrise, 36°; at noon, 71°; at 4 P.M., 70°; at 9, 35°;--with wet bulb, 30°. [* S. PUBIFLORUS (Benth. MS.) foliis lanceolato-linearibus elongatis integerrimis apice subuncinato novellis ramulisque tomentellis mox glabratis, calycis foliolis lanceolatis, corollae pubescentis inferne attenuatae laciniis oblatis infima breviter soluta.--This agrees pretty well with Brown's short diagnosis of S. LONGIFOLIUS, as well as with Cunningham's specimens so named; but those have no corolla, which Brown also had not seen, and his is a south coast plant. (Another new species with leaves like this, but very different flowers, was gathered by Sir T. Mitchell in his former expedition.)] [** D. ACEROSA (Lindl. MS.); foliis tenuibus acerosis subfalcatis glandulosis, corymbis axillaribus paucifloris folio brevioribus, capsulis tetrapteris alis apice rotundatis.] [*** L. DIGITATA (Benth. MS.) ramulis tomentellis, foliis subsessili bus, foliolis 3-5-digitatis lineari-oblongis spinoso-mucronatis coriaceis reticulatis terminali caeteris vix majore, antheris parum inaequalibus conformibus.] 12TH AUGUST.--I reluctantly ordered my men, (who believed themselves on the high-way to Carpentaria,) to turn the horses' heads homewards, merely saying that we were obliged to explore from a higher point. The track already marked out by our party advancing, was so much easier for the draught animals, as requiring less driving, that they arrived at an early hour again at the river they formerly crossed, and travelled with ease three and a half miles further back to a lagoon, on the banks of which the grass was good, and where we therefore now encamped. The track of the large feet of the natives showed they had followed us this morning, from our camp of yesterday; and a fragment of burning wood they had dropped, showed that they had this day met us in the scrub as we returned, and had gone out of our way. Even to the lagoon, their track along our route was also plainly visible. I was now, apparently to them, at their request, leaving the country; and we should soon see if their purpose in visiting our camp was an honest one, and whether their reasonable and fair demand, was really all they contemplated on that occasion. Thermometer, at sunrise, 37°; at noon, 70°; at 4 P.M., 71°; at 9, 65°. 13TH AUGUST.--We continued back, along the old track, to beyond Camp LXVII. I then took the direction of the camp two stages back, in order to avoid the great detour formerly pursued; the camp without water, and the thick brigalow. All these we successfully avoided, passing over fine open forest land, and encountering no brigalow. We found the river on our left when we required it, and encamped on a plain near the water, and distant only a few miles from the camp two journies back from LXVII. I was guided by the bearing of 10° E. of N. We found much of the grass on fire, and heard the natives' voices although we saw none. We crossed some patches of dry swamp where the clods had been very extensively turned up by the natives, but for what purpose Yuranigh could not form any conjecture. These clods were so very large and hard that we were obliged to throw them aside, and clear a way for the carts to pass. The whole resembled ground broken up by the hoe, the naked surface having been previously so cracked by drought as to render this upturning possible without a hoe. There might be about two acres in the patch we crossed, and we perceived at a distance, other portions of the ground in a similar state. The river had, where we made it, a deep wellmarked channel, with abundance of clear water in it, and firm accessible banks. It was still, however, enveloped in a narrow belt of brigalow. The shepherd having most imprudently taken the sheep to water when it was near sunset, lost his way in the scrub, and could not be found all night. Some thought he had fallen into the hands of the aborigines who were closely watching us; and it was obvious that had they got possession of our sheep, they could have annoyed us very seriously, or indeed, destroyed the whole party. The night was very dark, the sky having been overcast. Thermometer, at sunrise, 56°; at noon, 61°; at 4 P.M., 60; at 9, 60. 14TH AUGUST.--Drizzling rain this morning with an easterly wind, and high barometer, reminded me of the coast rains of Sydney. At dawn, I sent Yuranigh with one of the men, both being mounted, in search of the shepherd, and they returned with him and the sheep about 8 A. M. He had been found in full march to the eastward, where he never could have fallen in with the party. His track, circling in all directions, had soon been come upon by Yuranigh in the scrub. We then proceeded, and still found a way clear of brigalow, which, once or twice during the day, seemed almost to surround us. At about seven miles from where we had encamped, we crossed the first discovered tributary from the S. W., and at a mile further on, we fell in with our old track, travelled two miles more along it, and then encamped beside a fine reach of the river. The drizzling rain continued, and I hoped the ponds at the higher range, towards which we were returning, might be replenished by still heavier rain. An unpleasant smell prevailed every where this day, resembling that from a kitchen sewer or sink. Whether it arose from the earth, or from decayed vegetable matter upon it, I could not form any opinion; but it was certainly very different from the fragrance produced by a shower in other parts of New South Wales, even when it falls only on sunburnt grass. It was equally new and unaccountable to Yuranigh. Two proteads, probably GREVILLEAS, were found here.[*] [* The one with singularly thick, firm, and rigid leaves, a foot long, linear attenuated at each extremity, pubescenti-sericeous, striated: the other with white acerose leaves pinnated in two pairs. Both were large forest trees, neither in flower nor in fruit.] 15TH AUGUST.--We continued to return along the old track until we arrived at Camp LXV., taking the direction of the river's general course, (7° E. of S.). I travelled along its banks several miles, endeavouring to cut off a detour we had previously described. The river, however, obliged me to go so far to the westward, that I met with my former track, about midway between the two camps. We soon left that track, crossing a strip of brigalow and a rich grassy plain; beyond which, I found the river, and encamped about 3 P.M., when the rain again came on, the morning having been, until then, fair, although the sky was cloudy and overcast. Thermometer, at sunrise, 57°; at noon, 64°; at 4 P.M., 66°; at 9, 60°;-- with wet bulb, 58°. 16TH AUGUST.--The sky still clouded, seemed to promise rain in the country to which we were returning. We came to the channel of the main river, after proceeding about three miles in the direction of a turn in our route beyond next camp. The channel here was broad, and occasionally filled with a good body of water. The bed was sandy, and in it grew a tree with thin loose white bark, resembling that of the mimosa or tea- tree of the colony; some of these trees were of large dimensions. There also grew, in the sandy bed of this river, a new white-flowered MELALEUCA, resembling M. ERICIFOLIA, but with long mucronate leaves[*]; and, in the scrubby bank the STENOCHILUS BIGNONIOEFLORUS formed a willow- like shrub fifteen feet high. We again came came upon our track where I intended to hit it, although we had been retarded by brigalow scrub. We thus left Camp LXIV. on the left, and finally again pitched our tents at that of LXIII. Thermometer, at sunrise, 58°; at noon, 65; at 4 P.M., 63°; at 9, 63°;--with wet bulb, 57°. [* M. TRICHOSTACHYA (Lindl. MS.); folsaepius oppositis linearibus planis utrinque acutissimis, spicâ terminali laxiusculâ rachi pilosâ, calyce glabro dentibus herbaceis, phalangibus polyandris ungue petalis breviore.] 17TH AUGUST.--The ground was covered in many parts with a lichen, the product of the late rain, and which had no root in, nor attachment to, the soil, but could be collected in handfuls, and lay quite loose in heaps, or rather in a thick layer. I could not comprehend the origin of this singular vegetable production, which might then have been gathered in any quantity. The day was cool, cloudy, and pleasant. Fine round clouds driving still from the eastward, with a high barometer (for this of Bunten stood seven millimetres higher, than it did when we had been formerly encamped on the same ground). On recrossing the great river from S. W., we found more of the pea with large pods, it seemed to grow only on the dry sand of the river bed. This was a most interesting river, and I could have wished much to have explored it upwards, had the state of my horses and provisions permitted. On its banks we had discovered various rare trees and plants seen by us nowhere else; and the pea just mentioned, which had, as Mr. Stephenson thought, valuable qualities as a laxative medicine. The bed of the river was broad and sandy; the banks were quite clear of brigalow or other scrubs, level, open, and in most parts covered with luxuriant anthistiria and wild indigo. We arrived in good time, the way being good, at Camp LXII., and there again established ourselves for the night. It was an excellent spot for the purpose, having plenty of water in rocky ponds, and abundance of grass, half green. The wind lulled, and heavy clouds of stratus appeared in the east, towards evening. Some stars were afterwards visible, and about 9 P. M., a wind from the S.E. suddenly arose, but no rain fell. Thermometer, at sunrise, 55°; at noon, 71°; at 4 P. M., 74°; at 9, 68°;--with wet bulb, 62°. 18TH AUGUST.--The mercurial column was lower this morning, and the sky was overcast. No wind could be felt from any quarter. We moved off, at our usual hour, 7 A. M. About nine, the western portion of the sky seemed loaded with rain; the wind suddenly arose from S. W., and a heavy rain began to fall steadily, to my great joy. The soil consisted of clay, which clogged the wheels, nevertheless, we arrived, without much delay, at a large lagoon, not much more than a mile short of Camp LXI., and there, of necessity, encamped. The rain continued without intermission until the evening, turning the surface around our tents into mud, almost knee deep. Still I rejoiced in the prospect the rain afforded, of water in the remaining part of our journey; the grand object of which was still to be accomplished, namely, the discovery of an interior river, flowing towards the Gulf of Carpentaria. Thermometer, at sunrise, 51°; at noon, 54°; at 4 P. M., 53°. 19TH AUGUST.--The soft clay was still impassable, but the sun shone brightly in the morning, and was likely soon to put a crust upon the earth. The wind continued, however, in the same quarter, the S. W., and I had thus a little leisure to mature my plan of farther exploration in that interesting country, to the westward of the vale of Salvator Rosa. I had ascertained that the whole of that fine country so named, and all the gullies falling towards it, were on the seaward side of the dividing range, if range there was. That, southward of the high ground under the parallel of 24° or 25°, the fall of waters and of the whole country was towards the south; whereas, northward of that parallel, the fall was so decidedly in the very opposite direction, or northward, that the river we had just explored extended across three degrees of latitude, descending from a mean elevation of at least 2000 feet, to one of only 600 feet above the sea. No river of any importance came from the westward; those we had seen, coming from S. W. What then could be supposed, but that the water-shed on that side was not far distant? Nor was it less reasonable to expect to find beyond it, the heads of a river or rivers leading to the Gulf of Carpentaria. In that nook, where it seemed that the spinal range extended westward in the elongated direction of this great island, and there probably separated from whatever high land extended northward and formed a limit to the basin of the Belyando, was therefore, to be sought the solution of this important geographical question; one result of which would probably be, the discovery of a river falling towards the north-west, to enter the Gulf of Carpentaria. The exploration of the country to which we were returning was, therefore, of the most momentous interest; and although our cattle were tired, and our time and provisions almost exhausted (the sun being likely to approach the tropic line before we could return to it), I was determined to carry the exploration so far, with whatever means could be spared from the party, even had it been necessary to have travelled on foot, or to have lived, like a native, on opossums, in order to investigate that point. Thermometer, at sunrise, 45°; at noon, 63°; at 4 P. M., 63°; at 9, 47°;--with wet bulb, 44°. 20TH AUGUST.--Heavy clouds promised more rain, but a crust had been formed on the surface which enabled us to proceed. The day cleared up, and we encamped within two miles of Camp LX.; much of the ground passed over having been sandy and dry. We now found water in every hollow, a great blessing brought by the rain, and affording some prospect of relief from one great difficulty for some time to come. At 10 minutes past 10 P.M. a very extraordinary meteor alarmed the camp, and awoke every man in it. First, a rushing wind from the west shook the tents; next, a blaze of light from the same quarter drew attention to a whirling mass, or revolving ball of red light, passing to the southward. A low booming sound, accompanied it, until it seemed to reach the horizon, after which a sound like the report of a cannon was heard, and the concussion was such that some tin pots, standing reversed on a cart-wheel, fell to the ground, and the boat on the dray vibrated for some minutes. The sky was very clear. Fahrenheit's thermometer 46°. 21ST AUGUST.--Following our former route, the track led us through hollows, formerly clear of the fallen brigalow, but now rendered impassable by water, a new impediment. I was, however, most thankful for the glorious abundance of that element, the want of which had hitherto confined my route, and retarded the exploration of the country. We cheerfully sought round-about ways to avoid these new ponds. Our journey was accomplished very satisfactorily, having made two cuts to avoid the former camp (LX.), which formed an angle in the route, and much bad brigalow near Camp LIX., where we again encamped, for the sake of a piece of good grassy plain near it. The weather was most pleasant, temperate, and Englishlike, though we were still within the tropics. A sweet breeze blew from the S. W., and the degree of temperature was between 50° and 60° of Fahrenheit, the most agreeable, I believe, of any, to the human frame. There was abundance of water, and young grass was daily growing higher; many trees were also beginning to blossom. We were retiring, nevertheless, RE INFECTÂ, from these tropical regions, and I was impatient to arrive at the great range once more, to resume my explorations. At this camp, we found a plant, which was a wild carrot, tasting exactly like parsley. The men did not like to eat it, from the effects they had recently experienced from eating the large pea already mentioned--violent vomiting and purging; but I had no doubt whatever, that this carrot would have been found a good vegetable. The GEIJERA PARVIFLORA again attracted attention, by the strong pungent odour of its long narrow leaves; and we here observed the EREMOPHILA MITCHELLII, in the form of a shrub, from ten to twelve feet high. Its wood was remarkable from a perfume like roses. 22D AUGUST.--The morning was beautiful, our way plainly marked and sufficiently open, although it led wholly through a scrub for twelve miles. Flowers, the product of the late rain, were beginning to deck the earth, and water lodged in every hollow. We arrived early at Camp LVIII., and encamped 300 yards beyond it, to be nearer to a plain of good grass. Thermometer, at sunrise, 25°; at noon, 69°; at 4 P. M., 72°; at 9, 43°;-- with wet bulb, 40°. 23D AUGUST.--The route back to the next camp went too far to the westward; and I therefore endeavoured to make a direct cut back to it. We thus encountered much scrub, and twice crossed the river. A bank, or berg, of water-worn pebbles, appeared on the west side of the river; and, to the eastward, a hill was visible amongst the trees. The river channel was full of water, and seemed to have been even running, with the late rain. The whole journey was through scrub; but this was chiefly of rosewood, which is not nearly so formidable an impediment as brigalow. We encamped on the river bank before we got so far as Camp LVII., at a spot where there was grass, the ground generally about that camp being very bare, although a fresh spring was observable, which would soon alter the case. At this camp I found, on a very low bush with a small leaf, splendid specimens of the fruit of a CAPPARIS, in a dry state, containing seeds. A crop of young fruit appeared also on the same bushes. This must be a very different species from the C. MITCHELII; the bush seldom exceeding the height and size of a gooseberry bush, although the fruit was larger than that of the tree CAPPARIS, and of a more uniform size and spherical shape. It seemed to grow only within the tropic. Thermometer, at sunrise, 28°; at noon, 73°; at 4 P. M., 75°; at 9, 44°;--with wet bulb, 41°. 24TH AUGUST.--The fine grassy plain had afforded better food for our horses and cattle, than they had seen for some time. Keeping along its eastern side, I continued to travel until I fell in with our former track; and in passing Camp LVII., I caused the letter T to be cut above the letters N.S.W., to distinguish it as our first camp within the line of Capricorn. I left the intertropical regions with feelings of regret; the weather had favoured our undertaking, and water had become abundant. The three last mornings had been frosty; the thermometer having stood on these mornings at 25°, 28°, and 29°, respectively. Many interesting trees and shrubs were just putting forth buds, of which we might never be able to gather the flower for the botanist. We travelled from Camp LVII., along our old track, to Camp LVI., in latitude 23° 31' 36" S.; and there again set up our tents, having been exactly one month in the interior of tropical Australia. A pigeon this day arose from her nest in the grass near our route, and Yuranigh found in it two full fledged young ones. These being of that sort of pigeon preferable to all others for the table, GEOPHAPS SCRIPTA, we took this pair in hopes it might be possible to bring them up, and, perhaps, to obtain from them a domestic brood. This bird seemed to have the shortest beak of all the pigeon tribe, and flew more clumsily than others. It had three streaks of white about the head, assimilating it to the poultry class; and in building on the ground, it afforded another indication of its resemblance to our domestic birds. The flesh is very white, firm, yet tender. It is, perhaps, the most delicate of all birds. Thermometer, at sunrise, 29°; at noon, 75°; at 4 P.M., 76°; at 9, 46°;--with wet bulb, 42°. 25TH AUGUST.--The former route to this camp having been very crooked from following the course of the river amongst brigalow scrub, I set out on the bearing of the next camp, and reached it by travelling in a straight line, without much impediment, having found tolerably open ground. The blue summits of mountains appearing again above the trees, were welcome to our eyes; and Mounts Beaufort and Mudge reminded me of the Persian proverb, "The conversation of a friend brighteneth the eyes." We encamped a mile on, from Camp LV., for the sake of better grass than we had left formerly at that camp. The hills adjacent consisted of gravel; and amongst the large water-worn pebbles, of which it consisted, I found basalt and trachite, neither of which rocks had been detected by me amongst the gravel of the basin of the Darling. Thermometer, at sunrise, 48°; at noon, 76°; at 4 P.M., 77°; at 9, 52°;--with wet bulb, 47°. 26TH AUGUST.--After cutting off an angle in the old track, and so shortening the way about a mile, we pursued it back to Camp LIV.; which spot we again occupied for the night. The horses were leg-weary; but I could spare no time for rest, otherwise than by making the daily journies short, until we could return to the foot of the dividing ranges. One of the young pigeons was found nearly dead this morning; but Yuranigh, by chafing and warming it by the fire, soon recovered it. The thermometer had been as low as 38°; but the birds had been kept in a box well covered with wool, and also by canvas. On the hill, southward of this camp, I found one tree, of the remarkable kind mentioned, as having been first seen by Mr. Stephenson, near Mount Mudge. Thermometer, at sunrise, 37°; at noon, 80°; at 4 P.M., 81°; at 9, 44°;--with wet bulb, 40°. 27TH AUGUST.--On reaching a difficult place for the passage of carts along the rocky margin of the river, we took a new direction, more to the right, crossing the clear hill, from which, on the 23d July, I had a view of the mountains to the eastward. Then descending, we came upon plains of firm clay, whereon grew some trees of ACACIA PENDULA. The rock in the hills seemed calcarious, and on a detached slab of ferruginous sandstone, I saw a more perfect specimen of ripple marks than I had ever seen elsewhere, except on the sea-beach. I had now an opportunity of observing, in the hills forming a low range on my right, or to the westward, that their stratification dipped toward the east, at an angle of about 25° with the horizon; on which side those slopes did not exceed that angle, whereas on the westward, they presented abrupt, precipitous sides, each terminating in two steep sides, forming an angle at the highest point. We encamped on a fine plain on the east side of that range, but westward of the river (beyond which lay our former route), and we found water in a lagoon a quarter of a mile eastward of our camp; also, in a mountain rivulet two miles south of the camp, coming from near Mount Beaufort, and some, very clear, was found in a rocky gully immediately westward of our camp. Still, the bed of the main channel was dry, and we had been obliged to seek for the water before it was found in these several directions. Thermometer, at sunrise, 41°; at noon, 79; at 4 P.M., 82°; at 9, 48°;--with wet bulb 39°. 28TH AUGUST.--The cattle were well refreshed by the grass on the plain: a fresh growth was now apparent in it. We continued to travel due southward over the plain, and through a brigalow scrub beyond it, until we crossed, for the last time, the little river that had led us so far astray. Just beyond it, we joined our old track, at about five miles short of Camp LIII., to which we proceeded, and where we again encamped, although the pond we formerly found there had dried up. We afterwards found a good supply, at a lagoon about half a mile lower down; from which a little dog of mine (called Procyon), had come out wet, and so made it known to us. Thermometer, at sunrise, 40°; at noon, 81°; at 4 P.M., 76°; at 9, 49°;-- with wet bulb, 41°. 29TH AUGUST.--Continuing along the old track, we this day quitted the basin of the Belyando, and ascended those grassy slopes, and that range, which I had formerly taken to be the water-shed of the coast rivers. We thus crossed to the basin of another eastern river, the Nog; and, in quitting that of the Belyando, I have to observe, that like most other Australian rivers, it maintained a peculiar character throughout its course, with great uniformity, even after it received tributaries apparently larger than itself. All these lapsed into the same concatenated line of ponds; at one place, spreading amidst brigalow scrub, at another, forming one well-defined deep channel. For the formation of ponds, and the retention of water, in so dry a climate, we see here something between the ordinary character of rivers, and artificial works which man must construct, when population may spread into these regions. The fallen timber of the brigalow decays very slowly, and is not liable to be burnt, like most other dead wood in open forests, because no grass grows amongst the brigalow, as in open forests. The accumulations of dead logs become clogged with river rack and the deposit of floods; to which floods these heaps present obstructions, forcing the waters into new channels, and, in their progress, scooping out new ponds, and completing the embankment of dead logs; which thus form natural dams and reservoirs to hold, under the shade of the brigalow trees, more water for a longer time than any single river channel could retain, however sluggish its course. Thus it was, that during a season of unusual drought, we had found abundance in this river's course, across nearly 3½ degrees of latitude. The fallen brigalow presents awkward obstructions to wheel carriages; and, as the river spreads into broad plains, and is very favourable to the growth of brigalow, the difficulty of travelling along this river is greatest, where its waters are most scattered. Experience has taught us, in such cases, to endeavour to follow the river channel as closely as possible (the general course being very straight); and thus, open grassy spots and small plains are frequently met with, beyond which nothing could be distinguished, and from which it is safest to go forward in the known general course of the chain of ponds. We again encamped under Mount Mudge, where I perceived that a projecting portion of white rock on the summit, had fallen since I had stood upon it; and that the avalanche of rock had strewed the woody side of the mountain with white fragments down to the very base. In the sheltered ravine below, a curious new CASSIA formed a shrub six feet high.[*] Thermometer, at sunrise, 39°; at noon, 70°; at 4 P.M., 82°; at 9, 56°;--with wet bulb, 50°. [* C. ZYGOPHYLLA (Benth. MS.) glabra vel pube tenuissimâ subcanescens, foliolis unijugis linearibus planis crassis, glandula inter foliola parva depressa, racemis petiolo brevioribus 2-4-floris.--Near C. NEMOPHILA Cunn.; but there appear never to be more than one pair of leaflets, the plant is smoother, the leaflets longer, and the glands different.] 30TH AUGUST.--The old track guided the party, while I preceded it to sketch one or two landscapes. A fine breeze blew from the northward, and goodly clouds seemed to promise rain. I completed my drawings before the arrival of the carts; and on their coming up I conducted them to a spot where we encamped, on the left bank of the creek, or opposite to camp LI., being resolved to seek a better and more direct way to the plains, than that down the bed of Balmy Creek, which we formerly found so difficult. As soon as I had chosen a spot for the tents, I took a ride, accompanied by Mr. Stephenson and Yuranigh, to explore the ravines eastward of that of Balmy Creek, and which led in a more direct line towards the plains of the Claude. We found the precipices in this direction much lower. After riding a few miles, we could ride up one of the points, and following the ridge we had ascended (which was thickly covered with brigalow), we at length got to an open forest, and once more saw the open plains before us. In returning, I selected, with Yuranigh's able assistance, a smaller valley, by which I hoped to succeed in conducting the carts next day, so as to avoid the ascent of the brigalow range. The barometer at this camp had fallen ten millimetres lower than the point at which the mercury stood formerly at the adjacent camp (marked LI.). By the side of the water-course, we found the ACACIA DORATOXYLON and also the ACACIA CONFERTA. The valley was gay with the ultramarine blue flowers of a new species of HOVEA[*]; and on rich soil we saw also the PODOLEPIS ACUMINATA? D. C. A shrub with long curved leaves and singular zigzag stems, was ascertained to be the ACACIA MACRADENIA, a very striking new species; and on Balmy Creek we found also a new BOSSIOEA, with deep red flowers.[**] Thermometer, at sunrise, 59°; at noon, 83°; at 4 P.M., 81°; at 9, 62°; with wet bulb, 54°. [* H. LEIOARPA (Benth. MS.) fruticosa, foliis anguste oblongis sublanceolatisve integerrimis subtus reticulatis pubescentibus, venis primariis obliquis, pedicellis in pedunculo brevissimo axillari subgeminis calyce longioribus, calyce adpresse tomentoso, legumine glaberrimo.--Not unlike some forms of H. LANCEOLATA, but readily distinguished, besides the shorter leaves, by the smooth fruit and the veins of the leaves, which diverge from the midrib at a very acute instead of a right angle.] [** B. CARINALIS (Benth. MS.) ramulis teretibus puberulis foliosis, foliis subsessilibus subcordato-ovatis acutiusculis puberulis, pedicello calyce paullo breviore, corollae alis vexillo longioribus carinâ multo brevioribus.--The same remarkable proportion of the petals may be seen in an unpublished species gathered by Fraser on the Brisbane river.] 31ST AUGUST.--Some heavy showers fell during the night, and in the morning the sky was wholly overcast. We crossed various formidable gullies, and travelled some way down the bed of Balmy Creek, then ascending by the valley through which I yesterday penetrated in my ride, we travelled southward in a tolerably direct line through the valley up to its highest heads, from one of which we contrived to draw up carts and drays along three traverses, formed by nature on the face of a rocky slope. Above this, we found a plateau of flowering shrubs, chiefly new and strange, so that Mr. Stephenson was soon loaded like a market gardener. He had found in the hollow of the little gulley by which we ascended a variety of ACACIA DECORA with leaves shorter that usual; the CASSIA ZYGOPHYLLA, a very curious new species; and the BERTYA OLEOEFOLIA, a shrub three feet high, with green flowers. On the top of the plateau grew a singular dwarf shrub, loaded with yellow flowers, and covered by strong sharp leaves resembling the curved blade of a penknife. It has been ascertained by Mr. Bentham to be an Acacia, referable to his ACACIA TRIPTERA. A little upright bush, with glandular leaves smelling strongly of thyme, proved to be a new PROSTANTHERA.[*] The beautiful ACACIA DECORA appeared as a shrub four feet high; the DODONOEA NOBILIS was just forming its fruit; the DODONOEA VESTITA was also there; the white flowered MYOPORUM CUNNINGHAMI with its viscid branches, formed a bush about four feet high: PITTOSPORUM LANCEOLATUM was a shrub about three feet high, with yellow flowers; and here we met in abundance with the beautiful TECOMA OXLEYI, a kind of Bignonia, loaded with yellowishwhite flowers. [* P. ODORATISSIMA (Benth. MS.) viscoso-puberula foliis linearibus sublanceolatisve obtusissimis paucidentatis integrisve crassis ad axillas fasciculatis, floribus paucis axillaribus subsessilibus, calycis labiis integris inferiore minore, antherarum calcare longiore loculum superante.--Near P. ASPALATHOIDES: leaves two or three lines long, remarkably thick. Calyx strongly ribbed. The specimens found were past flower, having only a few fragments remaining of the corolla and stamens. The whole plant appears very viscid and retains when dry a very strong smell of thyme.] There ended all our troubles with the sandstone gullies, for we soon entered open forests, and crossed a grassy valley gently sloping to the eastward, in whose bosom we found a fine deep rocky pond. Beyond that valley we arrived at open downs of the richest soil, and of an extent not to be embraced by the eye at any one point of view. The finest sorts of grass were fast springing up, and curious herbs were beginning to shoot from the rich alluvium in the vallies. We encamped on these downs, about ten miles from our former camp by the Claude, XLIX. 1ST SEPTEMBER.--The morning clear and frosty; Thermometer 25°. All prospects of rain had vanished "into thin air." The scene now around us was as different as could well be imagined, from that which surrounded us at the same hour yesterday. As we proceeded, we crossed a hill quite clear of trees, which commanded a view over an extent of similar country, large enough for a county. The broken summits, just appearing above the placid horizon of undulating downs, had formerly looked like a range to us, and were certainly highly ornamental to the scenery; but no stranger could have supposed these features to have been only the highest parts of such a broken sandstone country as that from which we had just emerged. The plains, or rather, I should say, downs, for they were nowhere level but everywhere gently undulating, were first seen in white streaks high above us, when we first perceived them through the scrubs. These downs consisted of the richest sort of black mould, on which grew luxuriantly, ANTHISTIRIA and PANICUM LOEVINODE. But the surface in general was loose, resembling that of a field after it had lain long in fallow. Herbs in great variety were just emerging from the recently watered earth, and the splendid morning did ample justice to the vernal scene. The charm of a beginning seemed to pervade all nature, and the songs of many birds sounded like the orchestral music before the commencement of any theatrical performance. Such a morning, in such a place, was quite incompatible with the brow of care. Here was an almost boundless extent of the richest surface in a latitude corresponding to that of China, yet still uncultivated and unoccupied by man. A great reserve, provided by nature for the extension of his race, where economy, art, and industry might suffice to people it with a peaceful, happy, and contented population. These plains are much higher than the sandstone ravines, and the soil contains not only pebbles, but angular fragments of the knots and fibres of wood in a silicified state, and much encrusted with chalcedony. The component parts of the sandstone in the gullies resemble those of a sea beach. These fragments of fossil wood in rich soils of plains or downs above formations of sandstone, are found in various parts of Australia, and I have seen fossil wood from similar plains in Tasmania. The fossil wood of such plains has no appearance of having been exposed to fire. The ACACIA PENDULA grows on the skirts of them, and indicates a salsolaceous soil. These circumstances are obvious to everybody, but no geologist has yet explained to us the causes of such changes as may have produced that rich black mould, on which trees, now silicified, formerly grew; or these wide plains and downs of rich earth, above a red sandstone formation. One has called the interior of Australia a "dry seabottom;" but this phrase admits of no easy application to such cases as these. Fragments of a ferruginous conglomerate of water-worn pebbles, apparently identical with those in the basin of the Darling, in some places accompany these angular fragments of fossil wood. We found this day a new ERIOSTEMON allied to E. BREVIFOLIUM, with small knobby fleshy leaves[*]; also a fine new shrubby EURYBIA.[**] Scattered plants of BOSSIOEA RHOMBIFOLIA also appeared in the adjacent gullies; and LORANTHUS SUBFALCATUS (Hook), was parasitical on trees. We encamped on the margin of the rich plain N. of Camp XLIX, and about a mile distant from it, our draught oxen being very weak and leg-weary. Thermometer, at sunrise, 25°; at noon, 67°; at 4 P.M., 73°; at 9, 44°;--with wet bulb, 40°. [* E. RHOMBEUM (Lindl. MS.); ramulis pubescentibus, foliis carnosis obtuse rhombeis revolutis subtus glabris, pedicellis terminalibus unifloris tomentosis foliis brevioribus, staminibus pilosis.] [* E. SUBSPICATA (Hook. MS.); foliis linearibus obtusis supra glabris subtus ramisque albo-tomentosis, corymbis terminalibus spiciformibus, involucri squamis lineari-oblongis albis apice viridipunctatis.] 2D SEPTEMBER.--We recrossed the perfectly level plain formerly mentioned. We found, on reaching the Claude, that our bridge, then made, had been much damaged by a flood. The little river was still running, and it was cheering to learn thus, that rain had fallen at its sources, beyond which, I had still much to do. We lost no time in repairing our bridge, so that all things were got across safely. We ascended the undulating downs along our old track, and where many curious specimens of trees in flint, lay mixed with the rich black mould. I observed that no entire sections of trunks were cylindrical, all appearing to have been compressed so as to present a diameter of two to one. Yuranigh brought me one specimen which he said was "pine;" (Callitris), which so far confirmed what has hitherto been observed of the coniferous character of Australian fossil woods; but, from the appearance of other specimens, I am not at all convinced that these fossils are all of that description. I left these beautiful regions with feelings of regret, that the direct route to the gulf, could not be carried through them. I was rather at a loss for names of reference to these parts. I had given the name of Claude to the river; and it occurred to me, that the scenery of the Mantuan bard, which this painter has so finely illustrated with pastoral subjects, deserved a congenial name; and that this country might, therefore, be distinguished by that of the Mantuan Downs and Plains. About half-way through our former stage, I found water in ponds which had been formerly dry; and there we encamped, our animals being almost exhausted. It is one redeeming quality of brigalow scrub, that water is to be found within its recesses, at times when all other channels or sources are dry; the soil in which it grows being stiff, retentive, and usually bare of vegetation. Thermometer at sunrise, 28°; at noon, 73°; at 4 P.M., 78°; at 9, 47°;--with wet bulb, 42°. 3D SEPTEMBER.--Another morning worthy of "Eden in her earliest hour." The thermometer 31° at day-break, with a little dew. The notes of the magpie or GYMNORHINA, resounded through the shady brigalow, and the rich browns and reddish greens of that prolific bush contrasted with its dense grey shades, were very beautiful. We found the Nogoa much in the same state as when we left it. No flood had come down the channel of that river. The tracks of the feet of many natives were visible along the old route, and bushes had been burnt all along the line; but it is remarkable that in no case had they injured or defaced the letters and numerals marked on trees at the various camps, nor disturbed our temporary bridges. We cut our way through a scrub of brigalow, thus passing camps XLVIII., XLVII., and XLVI., encamping at a short distance from the latter of these places. Thermometer, at sunrise, 31°; at noon, 74°; at 4 P. M., 75°; at 9, 52°; with wet bulb, 40°. 4TH SEPTEMBER.--The surrounding grass, and also the reeds in the lake, had been very extensively burnt along our former tracks, and a green crop was springing to the great gratification and refreshment of our cattle. Formerly this splendid valley appeared to be uninhabited, but this day, proofs were not wanting that it was too charming a spot of earth to be left so. In proceeding over an open part of the plains bordering the river, we perceived a line of about twelve or fourteen natives before they had observed us. Through my glass, I saw they were painted red about the face, and that there were females amongst them. They halted on seeing us, but some soon began to run, while two very courageously and judiciously took up a position on each side of a reedy swamp, evidently with the intention of covering the retreat of the rest. The men who ran had taken on their backs the heavy loads of the gins, and it was rather curious to see long-bearded figures stooping under such loads. Such an instance of civility, I had never before witnessed in the Australian natives towards their females; for these men appeared to carry also some of the uncouth-shaped loads like mummies. The two acting as a rear guard behaved as if they thought we had not the faculty of sight as well as themselves, and evidently believed that by standing perfectly still, and stooping slowly to a level with the dry grass, when we passed nearest to them, they could deceive us into the idea that they were stumps of burnt trees. After we had passed, they were seen to enter the brigalow, and make ahead of us; by which movement I learnt that part of the tribe was still before us. Some time afterwards, we overtook that portion when crossing an open interval of the woods; they made for the scrub on seeing us. Meanwhile columns of smoke ascended in various directions before us, and two natives beyond the river, were seen to set up a great blaze there. To the westward of the beautifully broken rocky woody range beyond Lake Salvator, a dense smoke also arose, and continued until evening; thus adding much sublimity to the effect of a gorgeous sunset, which poured its beams through the smoke between the rocky pinnacles, as I sat drawing the scene at my camp by the lake, two miles northward of XLV. Thermometer, at sunrise, 26°; at noon, 67°; at 4 P.M., 65°; at 9, 39°;-- with wet bulb, 32°. 5TH SEPTEMBER.--The cooler air reminded us that we had returned to a more elevated region than that on the Belyando. This morning heavy clouds of cumulostratus promised more rain, and gave a cool day for the last effort of the jaded animals, which the driver doubted could not be driven much farther. I cut off all the roundabouts and steep pulls, where this could be done, by laying logs across such gullies as we were obliged to cross. We thus saw more of the river and its romantic scenery, which well deserved the name of a painter. No natives, nor columns of smoke, were seen this day; and I concluded that they concentrated the tribe yesterday, and had departed this morning. We finally took up a very snug position near the pyramids, in the very gorge of the mountain valley by which we had approached this country; camp XLVI. being within sight, and the swamp with the spring, at the foot of this hill on which we now encamped, as a camp of occupation during my intended absence, on an excursion with horses only, to the north-west. The genial influence of spring had already induced many plants to show their colours, which had formerly been passed by us unnoticed. In the sandy soil, grew the purple- flowered CHLOANTHES STOECHADIS; THE ACACIA CUNNINGHAMII; the pink- flowered CRYPTANDRA PROPINQUA; and a species of CALYTRIX; these two forming small shrubs, the latter from four to six feet high. A very handsome new BORONIA, with large white and red downy flowers, here first appeared in the open forest.[*] The rocks were partly covered with a small white-flowered shrub, which proved to be a new species of LEPTOSPERMUM allied to L. PUBESCENS, but perfectly distinct.[**] At the foot of them, was found the AOTUS MOLLIS, a little hoary bush, with yellow black flowers; a santalaceous plant like CHORETRUM, forming a tree fifteen or twenty feet high: the CALLITRIS GLAUCA or CUPRESSUS GLAUCA of ALL. CUNN. (in Hook. Herb.). A small tree, about twenty-five feet high, proved to be a new species of Acacia, or possibly a variety of A. CUNNINGHAMII, but handsomer, with larger phyllodia, longer spikes of flowers, and everywhere clothed with a soft velvety pubescence.[***] Thermometer, at sunrise, 33°; at noon, 68°; at 4 P. M., 64°; at 9, 40°;-- with wet bulb, 31°. [* B. ERIANTHA (Lindl. MS.); foliis pinnatis cum impari 1-3-jugis, foliolis glaberrimis linearibus retusis emarginatisque laevibus, pedunculis solitariis unifloris axillaribus foliis brevioribus, sepalis triangularibus glabris, petalis tomentosis, staminibus 8.] [** L. SERICATUM (Lindl. MS.); foliis obovatis linearibus planis obtusis aveniis impunctatis utrinque sericeis, calycibus tomentosis dentibus acutis persistentibus.] [*** A. LONGISPICATA (Benth. MS.) pube brevi mollissima vestita, ramulis elevato-angulatis, phyllodiis amplis falcatis utrinque angustatis subcoriaceis tenuiter striato-multinervibus nervis 3-5 validioribus, spicis elongato-cylindricis densis, calyce dentato corolla 2-3-plo breviore, ovario villoso.] Chapter VII. PREPARATIONS FOR A RIDE TO THE NORTH-WEST.--DESPATCH LEFT WITH THE PARTY STATING WHAT HAD BEEN DONE.--ASCEND EAST SHOULDER OF MOUNT PLUTO.-- PASSAGE TO THE WESTWARD.--NAME OF THE WARREGASCERTAINED.--THE RIVER NIVE.--ITS COURSE TURNS SOUTHWARD.--CROSS A LOW RANGE.--PLAINS OF THE VICTORIA DISCOVERED.--EXTENSIVE DOWNS TRAVERSED.--RIVER SPREADS INTO VARIOUS CHANNELS.--TRIBUTARIES JOIN IT FROM THE N. E. OR RIGHT BANK.--THE RIVER ALICE.--NATIVE CAMP.--A TRIBE SURPRISED WHILE BATHING.--LOWEST POINT OF THE RIVER REACHED.--RETURN BY THE LEFT BANK.--TRIBUTARIES FROM THE SOUTH.--GOWEN RANGE.--ENTER OUTWARD TRACK.--PROVISIONS EXHAUSTED.-- ASCEND WEST SHOULDER OF MOUNT PLUTO.--RETURN TO THE CAMP AT THE PYRAMIDS.--NEW PLANTS COLLECTED THERE DURING MY ABSENCE. 6TH AND 7TH SEPTEMBER.--It being necessary to rest and refresh the horses for a few days before setting out with the freshest of them, all being leg-weary, I determined to halt here four clear days; and during these two, I completed my maps, and took a few rough sketches of scenery within a few miles of the camp. The whole of the grass had been assiduously burnt by the natives, and a young crop was coming up. This rendered the spot more eligible for our camp, both because the young grass was highly relished by the cattle, and because no dry grass remained to be set fire to, which, in the case of any hostility on the part of the natives, is usually the first thing they do. Thermometer, at sunrise, 33°; at noon, 68°; at 4 P.M., 64°; at 9, 40°;--with wet bulb, 31°. 8TH AND 9TH SEPTEMBER.--I employed my time these two days in writing a despatch to the governor of New South Wales, giving a detailed account of my proceedings and discoveries down to the present time; that in the event of any misfortune befalling me or the very small party now to accompany me, this despatch should be forthcoming, as I intended to leave it at this depôt camp. On the 8th, heavy clouds gathered over us, and a fine heavy shower fell, a circumstance most auspicious for our intended ride; but it was of brief duration; and, although the sky continued overcast even until the evening of the 9th, no rain fell, in sufficient quantity to fill the water-courses. It was, however, enough to produce dew for some mornings to come. Thermometer, at sunrise of the 8th, 53°; at noon, 55°; at 4 P. M., 57°; at 9, 50°;--with wet bulb, 46°; and at sunrise of the 9th, 39°; at noon, 77°; at 4 P.M., 70°; at 9, 52°;--with wet bulb, 45°. 10TH SEPTEMBER.--I set out on a fine clear morning, with two men and Yuranigh mounted, and leading two pack-horses carrying my sextant, false horizon, and a month's provisions. Returning, still up the valley, along our old track to Camp XLIII., I there struck off to the S.W., following up a similar valley, which came down from that side. This valley led very straight towards Mount Pluto, the nearest of the three volcanic cones, which I had already intersected from various points. The other two I had named Mount Hutton and Mount Playfair. These three hills formed an obtuse-angled triangle, whereof the longest side was to the north-west, and, therefore, I expected that there the elevated land might be found to form an angle somewhat corresponding with the directions of the two shorter sides; in which case, it was probable that, to the westward of such an angle in the range, I might find what had been so long the object of these researches, viz., a river flowing to the Gulf of Carpentaria. We reached Mount Pluto, at the distance given by my former observations as far as could be ascertained by the mode of measurement I employed then; which was by counting my horse's paces. On ascending the mountain on foot, I found a deep chasm still between me and the western summit, which was not only the highest, but the only part clear of bushes. A thick and very thorny scrub had already so impeded my ascent, that the best portion of the afternoon was gone, before I could return to the horses; and I resolved, therefore, to continue my ride, and to defer the ascent and observation of angles from the summit, until my return from the unknown western country, which we were about to explore; the search for water that night being an object of too much importance to be longer deferred. We, accordingly, passed on by the southward and westward of the mountain, following a watercourse, which led first N. W., then north, and next E. of N.; to where it at length joined one from the west, up which I turned, and continued the search for water until darkness obliged us to halt. During that search for water, my horse fell with me into a deep hole, so concealed and covered with long grass, that we both wholly disappeared from those following; and yet, strange to say, without either of us being in the least hurt. We encamped where there was, at least, good grass; but--no water. 11TH SEPTEMBER.--Within 400 yards of the spot where we had slept, we found a small pond. The water was of that rich brown tint so well known to those with whom water is most precious, and to whom, after long custom, clear water seems, like some wines, to want body. Here we had breakfast, and we took also a bagful of water[*] with us. This timely supply relieved me from the necessity for following up the windings of some water-course; and I could proceed in a straight direction, westward. We passed, at first, through rather thick scrub, until, at length, I perceived a sharp pic before me, which I ascended. It consisted of trap rock, as did also the range to which it belonged, being rather a lateral feature thereof. Mount Hutton, Mount Pluto, and Mount Playfair, were all visible from it, as were also Mounts Owen and Faraday. The connections extended westward; for to the W.N.W. the broken cliffs at the head of the Salvator and the Claude, were not very distant, and these I was careful to avoid. A range immediately westward of this cone, was higher than it, and extended from Mount Playfair. To cross that range at its lowest part, which bore 26° W. of S., was our next object. We found the range covered with brigalow and other still more impervious scrubs. On the crest, the rock consisted of clay ironstone. The centigrade thermometer stood, at noon, at 30° 5' equal to 87°, of Fahrenheit; the height above the sea we made 2032 feet. Beyond this crest, we encountered a scrub of matted vines, which hung down like ropes, and pulled some of us off our horses, when it happened that any of these ropes were not observed in time in riding through the thicket. A very dense forest of young Callitris trees next impeded us, and were more formidable than even the vines. The day was passed in forcing our way through these various scrubs, the ground declining by a gentle slope only. We next found firmer soil underfoot, that where the Callitris scrub grew having been sandy, and we saw at length, with a feeling of relief, that only brigalow scrub was before us; we ascended gravelly hills, came upon a dry water-course, and then on a chain of ponds. Near one of these ponds, sate an old woman, beside a fire, of course, although the weather was very warm; and a large net, used for taking emus, hung on a brigalow bush close by. The men were absent, looking for food, as we partly conjectured, for little could Yuranigh make out of what she said, besides the names of some rivers, to which I could point with the hand. I was surprised to find that here, the name for water was "Narran," the name for it in the district of the Balonne being "Nadyeen," whereas the word for water amongst the tribes of the Darling is Kalli. That the "Narran" river and swamp are named from this language of tribes now dwelling much further northward, seems obvious; and, as the natives on the Darling know little of the "Narran" or its swamp, it may be inferred that there the migration of native tribes has been progressive from south to north; the highest known land in Australia being also to the southward of the Darling. The chain of ponds, according to the old woman, was named "Cùnno," and ran into the "Warreg" which, as she pointed, was evidently the name of the river we had formerly traced downwards from near Mount P. P. King. I left the "Cùnno," and plunged into the brigalow to the northward, thus crossing a slightly elevated range, where we found a little water-course falling N.N.W. By following this downwards, we found water in it, as twilight grew obscure, and gladly halted beside it for the night, in latitude 25° S. [* A thick flour-bag covered outside with melted mutton-fat.] 12TH SEPTEMBER.--At 7 A.M. the thermometer was 59°; our height then above the sea has been ascertained to have been 1787 feet. Continuing to follow down the brigalow creek, we found that it joined a chain of ponds running N.E., and these we traced in the contrary direction, or upwards, as far as seemed desirable. We struck off from that water-course, first to the N.W., then to the W., arriving soon at a steep low ridge of clay ironstone, which was covered thick with brigalow. We crossed that low ridge, and, at a distance of about a mile and a half beyond, met another acclivity still more abrupt and stony. This we also ascended, and found upon it a "malga" scrub: the "malga" being a tree having hard spiky dry branches, which project like fixed bayonets, to receive the charge of ourselves, horses, and flour-bags; but all which formidable array we nevertheless successfully broke through, and arrived at the head of a rocky gully, falling N.W. Down this, however, we attempted in vain to pass, and in backing out we again faced the "malga," until, seeing a flat on the right, I entered it, and there fell in with the water-course again. It led us many miles, generally in a N.W. direction, and contained some fine ponds, and entered, at length, a little river, whose banks were thickly set with large yarra trees. The general course of this river was W.N.W., until it was joined by one coming from the N., and at the junction there was a deep broad pond of clear water. At this we watered our horses, and passed on to encamp under some rocky hills, three quarters of a mile to the N.N.W. of that junction, in latitude 24° 52' 50" S. The temperature at noon this day, on the highest part of the ridge we crossed, was 84°; the height there above the sea, 1954 feet; and at 3 P.M., in channel of water-course, the thermometer stood at 89°; the height there above the sea being 1778 feet. 13TH SEPTEMBER.--At 7 A.M. the thermometer stood at 38°; the height above the sea was found to be 1659 feet. I verily believed that THIS river would run to Carpentaria, and I called it the Nive, at least as a conventional name until the native name could be ascertained, in commemoration of Lord Wellington's action on the river of that name; and, to the tributary from the north, I gave the name of Nivelle. Pursuing the united channel downwards, we traversed fine open grassy plains. The air was fragrant from the many flowers then springing up, especially where the natives had burnt the grass. Among them were MORGANIA GLABRA; EREMOPHILA MITCHELLII; a singular little POLYGONUM with the aspect of a TILLOEA; two very distinct little FRANKENIAS[*], and a new scabrous HALORAGIS with pinnatifid leaves.[**] The extensive burning by the natives, a work of considerable labour, and performed in dry warm weather, left tracts in the open forest, which had become green as an emerald with the young crop of grass. These plains were thickly imprinted with the feet of kangaroos, and the work is undertaken by the natives to attract these animals to such places. How natural must be the aversion of the natives to the intrusion of another race of men with cattle: people who recognise no right in the aborigines to either the grass they have thus worked from infancy, nor to the kangaroos they have hunted with their fathers. No, nor yet to the emus they kill FOR their fathers ONLY; these birds being reserved, or held sacred, for the sole use of the old men and women! [* F. SCABRA (Lindl. MS.); undique scabro-tomentosa, foliis linearibus margine revolutis non ciliatis, floribus solitariis pentameris, calycibus patentim pilosis. F. SERPYLLIFOLIA (Lindl. MS.); tomentosa hispida, foliis oblongis planis longè ciliatis, floribus solitariis subcapitatis pentameris, calycibus patentim hispidis.] [** H. ASPERA (Lindl. MS.) caule angulato foliis fructuque scabris, foliis alternis oppositisque linearibus acutis apice pinnatifidis, floribus distanter spicatis monoicis pendulis, stigmatibus plumosis, fructu subgloboso.] The river pursued a course to the southward of west for nine miles, but it turned afterwards southward, eastward, and even to the northward of E. After tracing it thus twenty-two miles, without seeing any water in its bed (which was broad, but every where choked with sand), we were obliged to encamp, and endure this privation after a very warm and laborious day. Where the natives obtained water themselves, quite puzzled Yuranigh, for we passed by spacious encampments of theirs, and tracts they had set fire to, where trees still lay smoking. 14TH SEPTEMBER.--The temperature at 7 this morning was 72° of Fahrenheit; the height above the sea, of the river bed, as subsequently determined by Captain King, 1470 feet. With the earliest light, I had laid down my survey of this river, by which the course appeared to have turned towards the S.E. This not being what was desired, I took a direct northerly course through the scrub, towards a hill on the left bank, whence I had seen, on our way down, a rocky gap to the N.W. in a brigalow range. After a ride of eight miles, by which we cut off the grand curve in the river's course, we arrived at this hill. I hoped to have found water near the spot, in a sharp turn in the river which I had not examined, and near which, on the day before, I had seen two emus, under a bank covered with brigalow scrub. Nor was I disappointed, for after finding traces of a recent current into the river-bed at that point, I discovered, at less than a hundred yards up, a fine pond of precious OPAL--I mean not crystal, but that fine bluey liquid which I found always so cool and refreshing when it lay on clay in the shady recesses of brigalow scrubs, a beverage much more grateful to our taste than the common "crystal spring." Here, then, we watered our impatient horses, and enjoyed a wash and breakfast--the men (two old soldiers) being D'ACCORD in one sentiment of gratitude to a bountiful Providence for this water. Like "a giant refreshed with wine," we next set out for the gap to the north-west, and passed through an open brigalow scrub, ascending very gradually, during a ride of three miles, to where I at length could discover that the fall was in the other direction. At this point, I observed the barometer, which indicated our height above the sea to be 1812 feet. Fahrenheit's thermometer stood then (5 P.M.) at 86°. The dry channel of a water-course had afforded us an opening through the scrub, and had also guided us to the highest part of the ground. The fresh prints of the feet of three men in the smooth bare sand, told us that the same natives whose track Yuranigh had seen in the river we traced yesterday, were now going in the same direction as ourselves, and just before us; for the smell of their burning fire-sticks, and even small portions of burning embers which had dropped, made this evident. The higher ground was flat, and on it the rosewood acacia grew amongst the brigalow. The rocky gap (in a ridge) was still distant at least three miles; the sun nearly set, and not a blade of grass visible amongst the brigalow bushes. But what was all this to the romantic uncertainty as to what lay beyond! With eager steps we followed a slight channel downwards; found that it descended more rapidly than the one by which we had ascended; that it also increased, and we were guided by it into a little valley, verdant with young grass, while yet the red sky over a departed sun shone reflected from several broad ponds of water. This seemed to us a charming spot, so opportunely and unexpectedly found, and we alighted on a fine grassy flat by the margin of a small lagoon, where stood a most graceful group of bushes for shelter or shade. After sunset, the sky was overcast with very heavy clouds; the air was sultry, and we expected rain. 15TH SEPTEMBER.--As soon as daylight appeared I hastened towards the gap, and ascended a naked rock on the west side of it. I there beheld downs and plains extending westward beyond the reach of vision, bounded on the S. W. by woods and low ranges, and on the N. E. by higher ranges; the whole of these open downs declining to the N. W., in which direction a line of trees marked the course of a river traceable to the remotest verge of the horizon. There I found then, at last, the realization of my long cherished hopes, an interior river falling to the N. W. in the heart of an open country extending also in that direction. Ulloa's delight at the first view of the Pacific could not have surpassed mine on this occasion, nor could the fervour with which he was impressed at the moment have exceeded my sense of gratitude, for being allowed to make such a discovery. From that rock, the scene was so extensive as to leave no room for doubt as to the course of the river, which, thus and there revealed to me alone, seemed like a reward direct from Heaven for perseverance, and as a compensation for the many sacrifices I had made, in order to solve the question as to the interior rivers of Tropical Australia. To an European, the prospect of an open country has a double charm in regions for the most part covered with primaeval forests, calling up pleasing reminiscences of the past, brighter prospects for the future--inspiring a sense of freedom, especially when viewed from the back of a good horse:-- "A steed! a steed! of matchless speede, A sword of metal keene--All else to noble minds is drosse, All else on earth is meane!" --OLD SONG. I hastened back to my little party (distant a mile and a half from the gap), and immediately made them mount to follow me down the watercourse, which, as I had seen from the rock, would lead us into the open country. The little chain of ponds led westward, until the boundless downs appeared through the woods; a scene most refreshing to us, on emerging from so many thick scrubs. Our little river, after crossing much open plain, fell into another coming from E.S.E., and columns of smoke far in the N.W. showed that there was water, by showing there were inhabitants. The grass on these downs was of the richest sort, chiefly PANICUM LOEVINODE, and I was not sorry to recognise amongst it, SALSOLOE, and the ACACIA PENDULA, amongst the shrubs. As we followed the river downwards, the open downs appeared on the W.N.W. horizon as if interminable. This river, unlike that I had called the Nive, had no sand in its bed, which consisted of firm clay, and contained deep hollows, and the beds of long reaches, then, however, all dry, while abundance of large UNIO shells lay upon the banks, and proved that the drought was not of common occurrence. The general course of the river I found to be about W.N.W. true. We continued to follow it through its windings all day, which I certainly should not have done, but for the sake of water, as our progress downwards was thus much retarded. Towards evening, Corporal Graham discovered water in a small tributary coming from the S.E., while Yuranigh found some also in the main channel, where that tributary fell into it. We encamped on Graham's ponds, as this was called, and turned our horses loose on the wide plain, up to the knees in grass half dry, half green, that they might be the more fit "for the field to-morrow." The sky had been lowering all day, and the heat was intense; but during the night, the air was delicious for sleeping in, under heaven's canopy and protection. 16TH SEPTEMBER.--The "gorgeous curtains of the East" over grandly formed clouds harmonised well with my sentiments on awaking, again to trace, as if I had been the earliest man, the various features of these fine regions of earth. At 7 A.M. the temperature was 63°; and (from observations registered then) the height above the sea has been found to be 1216 feet. Throughout the day we travelled over fine downs and plains covered with the finest grass, having the river on our right. Beyond it, we saw hills, which seemed to be of greater height in proportion as we descended with the river. Some were much broken, and appeared to present precipices on the other side. A broad valley extended westward from between the farthest of these broken ranges, which range seemed to be an offshoot from one further eastward. On examining the river, below the supposed junction of a tributary from the east, I found its character altered, forming ponds amongst brigalow trees. Water was, however, scarce. We fortunately watered our horses about 3 P.M., at the only hole we had seen that day, a small muddy puddle. The ACACIA PENDULA formed a belt outside the brigalow, between the river and the open plains, and many birds and plants reminded us of the Darling; the rose cockatoo and crested-pigeon, amongst the former; SALSOLOE and SOLANUM amongst the latter. At length, we saw before us, to the westward, bold precipitous hills, extending also to the southward of west. A thunder storm came over us, and night advancing, we halted without seeing more, for that day, of the interesting country before us, and having only water enough for our own use, the product of the shower. No pond was found for the horses, although we had searched for one, many miles in the bed of the river. Still, the remains of mussel shells on the banks bore testimony that water was seldom so scarce in this river, flowing as it did through the finest and most extensive pastoral region I had ever seen. 17TH SEPTEMBER.--The temperature at seven this morning was 57°; our height above the sea 1112 feet. "Like the gay birds that" awoke us from "repose" we were "content," but certainly not "careless of tomorrow's fare;" for unless we found water to-day, "to-morrow" had found us unable either to proceed or return! Trusting wholly to Providence, however, we went forward, and found a pond in the river bed, not distant more than two miles from where we had slept. In making a cut next through a brigalow scrub, towards where I hoped to hit the river, in a nearly westerly direction, I came out upon open downs, and turned again into a brigalow scrub on my right. After travelling a good many miles, N.W., through this scrub, we arrived on the verge of a plain of dead brigalow; and still pursuing the same course, we came out, at length, upon open downs extending far to the northward. I continued to ride in that direction to a clear hill, and from it I obtained a view of a range of flat-topped hills, that seemed to extend W.N.W.; the most westerly portion of these being the steep-sided mass seen before us yesterday. They now lay far to the northward, and the intervening country was partly low and woody, and partly consisted of the downs we were upon. But where was the river? Yarra trees and other indications of one appeared nearest to us in an easterly direction, at the foot of some well-formed hollows on that side the downs. Towards that point I therefore shaped my course, and there found the river--no longer a chain of dry ponds in brigalow scrub, but a channel shaded by lofty yarra trees, with open grassy banks, and containing long reaches full of water. White cockatoos shrieked above us; ducks floated, or flew about, and columns of smoke began to ascend from the woods before us. This was now, indeed, a river, and I lost no time in following it downwards. The direction was west; then north-west, tolerably straight. Water was abundant in its bed; the breadth was considerable, and the channel was well-marked by bold lofty banks. I remarked the salt-bush of the Bogan plains, growing here, on sand-islands of this river. The grass surpassed any I had ever seen in the colony in quality and abundance. The slow flying pelican appeared over our heads, and we came to a long broad reach covered with ducks, where the channel had all the appearance of a river of the first magnitude. The old mussle shells (UNIO) lay in heaps, like cart-loads, all along the banks, but still we saw none of the natives. Flames, however, arose from the woods beyond the opposite bank, at once in many directions, as if by magic, as we advanced. At 3 P.M. Fahrenheit's thermometer in the shade stood at 90°. Towards evening, we saw part of the bed dry, and found it continuously so, as night came on. The sun had set, while I still anxiously explored the dry recesses of the channel in search of water, without much hopes of success, when a wild yell arose from the woods back from the channel, which assured us that water was near. Towards that quarter we turned, and Yuranigh soon found a fine pond in a small ana- branch, upon which we immediately halted, and took up our abode there for the night. It may seem strange that so small a number could act thus unmolested by the native tribes, but our safety consisted chiefly in the rapidity of our movements, and their terror of strangers wholly unknown, perhaps unheard of, arriving on the backs of huge animals, or centaurs whose tramp they had only heard at nightfall. Like Burns's "Auld Nick," ----"rustling through the boortrees comin' Wi' eerie sought!" our passage was too rapid to admit of any design for attack or annoyance being concocted, much less, carried into effect; next night we hoped to sleep thirty miles off, where our coming would be equally unexpected by natives. Latitude, 24° 34' 30" S. 18TH SEPTEMBER.--At 7 A.M. the temperature of the air was 72°; the height of the spot above the sea, 995 feet. Keeping along the river bank for some miles, I found its general course to be about N.W.; and seeing clear downs beyond the right bank, I crossed, and proceeded towards the highest clear hill on the horizon. There I obtained a distant view of the ranges intersected yesterday, and of their prolongations. That to the northward of the river, whose general direction to the point already fixed had been 22° W. of N., there formed an angle, and continued, as far as I could judge by the eye, nearly northward. The range to the southward of the river also turned off, extending nearly to the southward. These two limits of the vast valley, thus receding from the river so as to leave it ample room to turn and wind on either side, amidst its accompanying woods, through grassy downs of great extent, obliged me to explore its course with closer attention. From another clear hill on these downs, to which I next proceeded, I thought I perceived the line of another river coming from ranges in the N.E., and expecting it would join that whose course we had thus far explored, I proceeded in a nearly N.W. direction over open downs towards the line of trees. I found therein a fine pond of water, the soil of the downs consisting of stiff clay. MESEMBRYANTHEMUM and various SALSOLOE appeared in some parts. My horses being rather jaded, I halted rather early here, and laid down my journey, protracting also the angles I had observed of the points of distant ranges. Latitude, 24° 27' 27" S. I found by the barometer that we were already much lower than the rivers Salvator and Claude, and the upper part, at least, of the Belyando; while we were still remote from the channel we were pursuing. 19TH SEPTEMBER.--The thermometer at 7 A.M. stood at 57°. The height of these ponds above the sea was 861 feet. Young, I think, has said, that a situation might be imagined between earth and heaven, where a man should hear nothing but the thoughts of the Almighty; but such a sublime position seems almost attained by him who is the first permitted to traverse extensive portions of earth, as yet unoccupied by man; to witness in solitude and silence regions well adapted to his use, brings a man into more immediate converse with the Author both of his being, and of all other combinations of matter than any other imaginable position he can attain. With nothing but nature around him; his few wants supplied almost miraculously; living on from day to day, just as he falls in with water; his existence is felt to be in the hands of Providence alone; and this feeling pervades even the minds of the least susceptible, in journeys like these. Those splendid plains where, without a horse, man seems a helpless animal, are avoided, and are said to be shunned and disliked by the aboriginal man of the woods. Even their lonely inhabitant, the emu, seems to need both wings and feet, that he may venture across them. We travelled nearly west over plains; then through a brigalow scrub, two miles in breadth; emerging from which, on a perfectly level plain of very rich soil, we turned rather to the southward of west, to where the distant line of river-trees seemed most accessible. Bushes of ACACIA PENDULA skirted this plain; and, passing through them, we crossed a track of nearly half a mile wide of soft sand, evidently a concomitant feature of the river. We next traversed a belt of firm blue clay, on which a salsolaceous bush appeared to be the chief vegetation; and, between it and the river, was another belt of sand a mile broad, on which grew a scrub of rosewood acacia. The river there ran in four separate channels, amongst various trees; brigalow and yarra being both amongst them. I crossed these channels, and continued westward that I might ascend a hill on the downs beyond. From that eminence, no hill was visible on any part of the horizon, which everywhere presented only downs and woods. Far in the S.W. a hollow admitted of a very distant view, which terminated in downs beyond a woody valley. The course of our river appeared to be N.W., as seen by Yuranigh, from a tree we found here. In that direction I therefore proceeded; recrossing the river, where, in a general breadth of about 400 yards, it formed five channels. The grass was more verdant here, and the ponds in these small separate channels seemed likely to contain water. We continued N. W. across fine clear downs, where we found the heat so intense, (Centigrade thermometer, 37°, or 99° of Fahrenheit,) that I halted two hours under the shade of a small clump of trees. When we continued our ride in the afternoon, three emus that had been feeding on the downs came inquisitively forward; curiosity, apparently inspiring them with more courage than even the human inhabitants. Unfortunately for these birds, our bacon had become so impalatable that a change of diet was very desirable, and Graham, therefore, met them half-way on his horse; the quadruped inspiring more confidence in the bird. It was curious to witness the first meeting of the large indigenous bird and large exotic quadruped--such strange objects to each other! on the wide plains where either of them could ----"overtake the south wind." One of the emus was easily shot from the horse's side, and, that evening being the Saturday night of a very laborious week, we were not slow in seeking out a shady spot by the side of a pond in the river bed. There my men had a feast, with the exception of Yuranigh; who, although unable to eat our salt bacon, religiously abstained from eating emu flesh, although he skinned the bird and cut it up, SECUNDUM ARTEM, for the use of the white men. The channel of the river was still divided here, amongst brigalow bushes. We only reached it by twilight. Thermometer, at 6 P.M., 86°. Height above the sea, 758 feet. 20TH SEPTEMBER.--At 7 A.M. the thermometer was 78°. Water appearing to be more constant now in the river, I ventured to pursue its general course in straighter lines, across the fine open downs, which lay to the eastward of it. Beyond these I perceived lines of wood as belonging to another river; and, on advancing in that direction, I first encountered a great breadth of brigalow scrub; next, we entered a rosewood scrub, redolent with blossom; then an open forest, in which we found the deep well-formed channel of a river coming from the eastward. The bottom was rocky, and bore marks of a recent current. This river also spread into branches: we crossed three, and then again entered upon open downs. Next we crossed a well-defined line of deep ponds, with yarra trees, and coming from E.N.E. over the downs; and three miles further on, we crossed another coming from N.E., on which, finding a good lagoon, I encamped early, that the men might have time to cook for themselves some of the emu, and that the horses might also have some sufficient rest. Latitude, 24° 12' 42" S. Thermometer, at 1 P.M., 86°. Height above the sea, 724 feet. 21ST SEPTEMBER.--Thermometer at 6 A.M., 63°. I found that the various tributaries to the river channel had imparted to it a greater tendency westward; but we fell in with it again six miles to the westward of where we had passed the night. Its character was the same--a concatenation of ponds amongst brigalow; but these seemed better filled with water, apparently from the more decided slopes and firmer soil of the adjacent country. The course next turned considerably to the southward of west, while one ana-branch separating from it, ran about westward. I found an open plain between these, across which I travelled; until, again meeting the southern branch, we crossed it where it seemed to turn more to the northward. The day was warm, and I halted two hours under the shade of some trees, where I laid down our journey on paper, and found we were making great progress towards Carpentaria, across a very open country. We were no longer in doubt about finding water, although in the heart of Australia, surrounded by an unbroken horizon. On proceeding, we passed some large huts near the river, which were of a more substantial construction, and also on a better plan than those usually set up by the aborigines of the south. A frame like a lean-to roof had first been erected; rafters had next been laid upon that; and, thereupon thin square portions of bark were laid, like tiles. A fine pond of water being near, we there spancelled our horses and lay down for the night. At 5 P.M. the thermometer was at 82°. Height above the sea, 707 feet. 22D SEPTEMBER.--Thermometer, at 6 A.M., 58°. This was no sandybedded river like others we had discovered. The bed still consisted of firm clay, and now the rich vegetation on the banks presented so much novelty, that, without the means of carrying an herbarium, I was nevertheless tempted to select a bouquet of flowers for Dr. Lindley, and carry them amongst my folded maps. The very herbage at this camp was curious. One plant supplied an excellent dish of vegetables. There were others resembling parsley, and having the taste of water-cresses with white turnip-like roots. Here grew also a dwarf or tropical CAPPARIS. Among the grasses was a tawny ERIANTHUS, apparently the same as that formerly seen on the banks of the Bogan, and the curious DANTHONIA PECTINATA, gathered in Australia Felix in 1836. There was also amongst the grasses a PAPPOPHORUM, which was perhaps the P. GRACILE, formerly collected in the tropical part of New Holland by Dr. Brown; and a very remarkable new species of the same curious genus, with an open narrow panicle, and little branches not unlike those of a young oat.[*] The river again formed a goodly continuous channel. Its most splendid feature, the wide open plains, continued along its banks, and I set out on this, as we had indeed on all other mornings since we made the discovery, intensely interested in the direction of its course. We had not prolonged our journey very far across the plains, keeping the trees of the river we had left visible on our right, when another line of river trees appeared over the downs on our left. Thus it seemed we were between two rivers, with their junction before us, for the ground declined in that direction. And so we found it. At about seven miles from where we had slept, we arrived at the broad channel of the first river we had traced down, whose impetuous floods had left the trees half bent to the earth, and clogged with drift matter; not on any narrow space, but across a deep section of 400 yards. The rocks in the channel were washed quite bare, and crystal water lay in ponds amongst these rocks. A high gravelly bank, crowned with brigalow, formed the western margin, but no brigalow could withstand the impetuous currents, that evidently, at some seasons, swept down there. It was quite refreshing to see all clear and green, over so broad a water-worn space. The junction with the northern river took place just below, and I continued my journey, not a little curious to see what sort of a river would be formed by these channels when united. I found the direction of the course to be about N.W., both running nearly parallel. About three miles on I approached the united channel, and found the broad, deep, and placid waters of a river as large as the Murray. Pelican and ducks floated upon it, and mussle-shells of extraordinary size lay in such quantities, where the natives had been in the habit of eating them, as to resemble snow covering the ground. But even that reach seemed diminutive when compared with the vast body of water whereof traces had, at another season, been left there; these affording evidence that, although wide, they had still been impetuous in their course. Verdure alone shone now, over the wide extent to which the waters sometimes rose. Beyond that channel lay the almost boundless plains, the whole together forming the finest region I had ever seen in Australia. Two kinds of grass grew on these plains; one of them a brome grass, possessing the remarkable property of shooting up green from the old stalk. [* P. AVENACEUM (Lindl. MS.); aristis 9 inaequalibus scabris infra medium plumosis, paniculâ pilosâ angustâ interruptâ ramulis inferioribus demum refractis, spiculis 3-floris, glumis pubescentibus multistriatis, paleis villosis, foliis......] The bees were also new to Yuranigh, who drew my attention to their extreme smallness; not much exceeding in size a knat or mosquito. Nevertheless, he could cut out their honey from hollow trees, and thus occasionally procure for us a pleasant lunch, of a waxy compound, found with the honey, which, in appearance and taste much resembled fine gingerbread. The honey itself was slightly acid, but clear and fine flavoured. I hoped the deep reach would have been continuous, as it looked navigable, even for steamers, but it continued so only for a few miles, beyond which the channel contained ponds only. I finally alighted beside one of these ponds, which was so large, indeed, that the colonists would have called it a lagoon; this one being high above the river channel, on a verdant plain. As yet, we had not seen a single inhabitant of this El Dorado of Australia. At 2 P.M. thermometer 88°. Height above the sea 712 feet. 23D SEPTEMBER.--At 7 A.M. thermometer 59°. Latitude 24° 2' S. New flowers perfumed the dry bed of this river, and these showed, in their forms and structure, that nature even in variety is infinite. I regretted I could not collect specimens. Our only care now, was the duration of our provisions. Water was less a subject of anxiety with me now, than it had been at any period of the journey. We had made the Emu eke out our little stock, and my men (two old soldiers) were willing to undergo any privation that might enable me to prolong my ride. This day completed half the month, but I was determined to follow the course of this interesting river at least four days longer. The back of one of our pack horses had become so sore, that he would no longer endure a load; we threw away the pack saddle, and divided his load, so as to distribute it in portions, on some of the saddle horses and the other pack animal. The course of the river towards the west, and our limited time, obliged me to stride over as much of the general direction as possible. I crossed the river, and travelled across open downs. I saw the tops of its Yarra trees on my left. At about four miles, we crossed what seemed a large river, but which must have been only an ana-branch from the main stream. We next traversed a fine open down of six miles; the soil, a firm blue clay with gravel, and on this grew two varieties of grass which I had seen nowhere else. The valley I next approached, contained the channel of a river flowing towards our river; a tributary, which evidently bore impetuous floods into it, sometimes. This also ran in three channels. I called it the Alice. As this new river was likely to turn the main stream off to the westward or south, I travelled west by compass over vast downs, finely variegated with a few loose trees like a park, but extending on all sides to the horizon. Where I looked for the main channel, I saw rising ground of this kind; and meeting with another small river, with a stoney bed and water in it, I bivouacqued, for the day was very hot; the thermometer, at 3 P.M., 90° in the shade. The pond here was much frequented by pigeons, and a new sort of elegant form and plumage, was so numerous that five were killed at two shots. The head was jet-black, the neck milkwhite, the wings fawn-colour, having lower feathers of purple. I had no means of preserving a specimen, but I took a drawing of one.[*] Height above the sea here, 826 feet. [* By which I find it has been named GEOPHAPS HISTRIONIEA.] 24TH SEPTEMBER.--I continued to seek the river across extensive downs, in many parts of which dead brigalow stumps remained, apparently as if the decay of that species of scrub gave place to open ground. I turned now to the S.W., and became anxious to see the river again. At length we came upon a creek, which I followed down, first to the S.W. and next southerly, until it was time to alight, when we established our bivouac by a large lagoon in its bed, in latitude 24° 3' 30" S. Thermometer, at 3 P.M. 98°. Height above the sea, 688 feet. 25TH SEPTEMBER.--At 6 A.M. the thermometer stood at 73°. We ought to have been retrogressive yesterday, according to the time calculated on for our stock of provisions; but we could not leave the river without tracing it to the furthest accesible point. We still continued, therefore, to follow the water-course which had brought us thus far, expecting at every turn to find its junction with the river, whose course had obviously turned more than usual to the southward. We fell in with a larger tributary from the N. W.; after which junction, the tributary took a more westerly direction than the minor channel which brought us to it. We thus came upon a large lagoon, beside which were the huts of a very numerous tribe of natives, who appeared to have been there very recently, as some of the fires were still burning. Well beaten paths, and large permanent huts, were seen beyond that encampment; and it was plain that we had entered the home of a numerous tribe. I should have gladly avoided them at that time, had not a sight of the river been indispensable, and the course of the creek we were upon, the only certain guide to it. Level plains extended along its banks, and I had been disappointed by the appearance of lofty Yarra trees, which grew on the banks of large lagoons. On approaching one of these, loud shrieks of many women and children, and the angry voices of men, apprised me that we had, at length, overtaken the tribe; and, unfortunately, had come upon them by surprise. "AYA MINYÀ!" was vociferated repeatedly, and was understood to mean, "What do you want!" (What seek ye in the land of Macgregor!) I steadily adhered to my new plan of tactics towards the aborigines, and took not the slightest notice of them, but steadily rode forward, according to my compass bearing. On looking back for my men, I saw one beckoning me to return. He had observed two natives, with spears and clubs, hide themselves behind a bush in the direction in which I was advancing. On my halting, they stole away, and, when a little further on, I perceived an old white-haired woman before me, on seeing whom I turned slightly to one side, that we might not frighten her or provoke the tribe. The whole party seemed to have been amusing themselves in the water during the noon-day heat, which was excessive; and the cool shades around the lagoon looked most luxuriant. Our position, on the contrary, was anything but enviable. With jaded horses scarcely able to lift a leg, amongst so many natives, whose language was incomprehensible, even to Yuranigh. I asked him whether we might not come to a parley with them, and see if they could understand him. His answer was brief; and, without turning even his head once to look at them:--"You go on!" which advice, quite according with my own notions, founded on experience, I willingly went on. Even there, in the heart of the interior, on a river utterly unheard of by white men, an iron tomahawk glittered on high in the hand of a chief, having a very long handle to it. The anxious care of the females to carry off their children seemed the most agreeable feature in the scene, and they had a mode of carrying them on the haunch, which was different from anything I had seen. Some had been digging in the mud for worms, others searching for freshwater muscles; and if the whole could have been witnessed unperceived, such a scene of domestic life amongst the aborigines had been worth a little more risk. The strong men assumed a strange attitude, which seemed very expressive of surprise; having the right knee bent, the left leg forward, the right arm dropping, but grasping clubs; the left arm raised, and the fingers spread out. "Aya, aya, minyà!" they continually shouted; and well might they ask what we wanted! Hoping they would believe us to be Centaurs, and include the two old pack-horses in counting our numbers, I had not the slightest desire to let them know us more particularly; and so travelled on, glad, at length, to hear their "Aya minyàs" grow fainter, and that we were leaving them behind. About five miles further south, the perfume from the liliaceous banks of the river was the first indication of its vicinity. We found it full 400 yards broad, presenting its usual characteristics,--several separate channels and ponds of water; there, according to the barometer, the height above the sea was only 633 feet; the temperature at 3 P. M., in the shade, 99° of Fahrenheit. We watered our horses, crossed, and plunged into the brigalow beyond, where I meant to steal a march upon the noisy tribe; who, by that time, probably were sending to call in their hunting parties, that they might follow our track. Their mode of killing a kangaroo may best exemplify their tactics towards strangers; whose path in the same manner could be followed by day, and sat down beside at night, to be again tracked in the morning, until the object of pursuit could be overtaken. The brigalow beyond the river grew on a rising ground of sharpedged red gravel, and, from a small opening, I saw the course of the river running nearly northward. Here, then, I turned towards the east to travel home by ascending the left bank, with the intention to cut off the great sweep which the river described, as we had found on tracing it down; and, in hopes we should so intercept any tributaries it might receive from that side. At dusk, I met with one containing a fine lagoon, and near this I fixed my bivouac. Yuranigh most firmly objected to our sitting down close by the water, saying we might there be too easily speared by the wild natives who were then, probably, on our track; but he did not object to my bivouac on the more open plain adjacent, one man keeping a good look-out. I called these, Yuranigh's ponds. Latitude, 24° 19' 2" S. 26TH SEPTEMBER.--At 6 A. M. the thermometer stood at 61°. My horse was quite leg-weary, and I was very loath to force him on, but one day's journey further was indispensable. We traversed open plains and passed through patches of brigalow of an open kind of scrub. The surface was grassy, but very gravelly; indeed it was, in many places, so devoid of mould as to resemble a newly Macadamized road,--the fragments being much of that size, and in general of a reddish colour, consisting, for the most part, of a red siliceous compound. In a ride of twenty-six miles, we saw no country much better, and I was obliged to conclude that the left bank was by no means so good as the country on the right, or to the northward of the river. We arrived, however, by nightfall, at a goodly water-course, in which we providentially found a pond, and encamped; resolved there to rest our horses next day, (being Sunday,) and most thankful to Him to whom the day was dedicated. Latitude 24° 12' 37" S. Thermometer, at 6 P.M., 92°. 27TH SEPTEMBER.--Thermometer, at 6 A. M., 68°. On laying down my work on paper, I found we had made a most favourable cut on the way homewards, our old bivouac of the 21st inst., being about due east from us, and distant not quite fifteen miles; the great tributary from the S.E. passing between, upon which we could depend for a supply of water, if it should be required. It would appear that the finer the climate, and the fewer man's wants, the more he sinks towards the condition of the lower animals. Where the natives had passed the night, no huts, even of bushes, had been set up; a few tufts of dry grass only, marked the spot where, beside a small fire, each person had sat folded up, like the capital letter N; but with the head reclining on the knees, and the whole person resting on the feet and thigh-joints, clasped together by the hands grasping each ankle. Their occupation during the day was only wallowing in a muddy hole, in no respect cleaner than swine. They have no idea of any necessity for washing themselves between their birth and the grave, while groping in mud for worms, with hands that have always an unpleasant fishy taint that clings strangely to whatever they touch. The child of civilization that would stain even a shoe or a stocking with one spot of that mud, would probably be whipt by the nurse: savage children are not subject to that sort of restraint. Whether school discipline may have any thing to do with the difference so remarkable between the animal spirits of children of civilised parents and those of savages, I shall make no remark; but that the buoyancy of spirit and cheerfulness of the youth amongst the savages of Australia, seem to render them agreeable companions to the men on their hunting excursions, almost as soon as they can run about. If the naturalist looks a savage in the mouth, he finds ivory teeth, a clean tongue, and sweet breath; but in the mouth of a white specimen of similar, or indeed less, age, it is ten to one but he would discover only impurity and decay, however clean the shoes and stockings worn, or however fine the flour of which his or her food had consisted. What, then, is civilization in the economy of the human animal? one is led to inquire. A little reflection affords a satisfactory answer. Cultivated man despises the perishable substance, and pursues the immortal shadow. Animal gratification is transient and dull, compared to the acquisition of knowledge--the gratification of mind--the raptures of the poet, or the delight of the enthusiast, however imaginary. It is true that, amongst civilized men, substance is still represented by the yellow ore, and that the votaries of beauty "bend in silken slavery;" but are not beauty or gold as dust in the balance, substantial though they be, when weighed in lofty minds against glory or immortality? When the shadow he pursues is worth more, and is more enduring than the substance, well might it be said that "Man is but a shadow, and life a dream." Such were my reflections on this day of rest, in the heart of a desert, while protected from the sun's rays by a blanket, and in some uncertainty how long these dreams under it would continue undisturbed. "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell: a hell of heaven!" Thermometer, at 6 P. M., 90°. 28TH SEPTEMBER.--Thermometer, at 6 A. M., 63°. The horses were much refreshed by that day's repose, and we this morning continued our journey in an easterly direction, over downs and through open scrubs, meeting no impediment from brigalow. We crossed the various branches of a considerable tributary coming from E.S.E., the only water seen this day, besides the great river; which we met with, exactly where, according to its general course, it was to be looked for. We crossed it, and encamped on the right bank of the northern river, at the place where I had previously crossed. This day I had discovered, from the highest parts of the downs, a range to the S. W., and was able to intersect some of the principal hills, and so determine its place and direction. I named the most westerly feature, Mount Gray; the lofty central mass, the Gowen Range, and a bold summit forming the eastern portion, Mount Koenig. I had now obtained data sufficient to enable me to determine the extent of the lower basin of the river, by laying down the position and direction of the nearest ranges. The last-mentioned appeared flat-topped, and presented yellow cliffs like sandstone. At 6 P.M., the temperature was 81°. 29TH SEPTEMBER.--At 6 A.M., the thermometer was 59°. Re-crossing the river, I travelled, in a straight line, towards my camp of 19th September: thus, performing in one, the journeys of two former days. We crossed the main channel we had previously traced down, thus identifying it. The country was, in general, open; the downs well covered with grass, and redolent with the rich perfume of lilies and strange flowers, which grew all over them amongst the grass. We arrived at the spot I sought, and there encamped. Our provisions were nearly out; the sun having reduced the men's sugar, and melted the bacon, which had been boiled before we set out. This was an unfortunate blunder. Bacon, in such warm weather, should be carried uncooked, and our's might have then been very good. The men jocosely remarked, that, although we had out-manoeuvred the natives, the weather had been so hot that, nevertheless, we could not "save our bacon." Thermometer, at 5 P.M., 83°. 30TH SEPTEMBER.--Thermometer, at 7 A.M., 67°. I found, by my map, that I might very much shorten the homeward route to next camp (that of 18th September), by travelling towards it in a straight line across the downs. We accordingly set out on the bearing of 5½° S. of E., and hit the spot exactly at a distance of eighteen miles; arriving early, so as to afford some good rest to our horses. We crossed open downs chiefly, passed through a narrow belt of brigalow (about a mile wide), and twice crossed a tributary to the river, which tributary we thus discovered. The water- course on which we had again encamped, arose in open downs of fine firm clay, and it was pleasant to see a great river thus supplied by the waters collected only amongst the swelling undulations and valleys of the country through which it passed, like the rivers of Europe. The river we had discovered, seemed, in this respect, essentially different from others in Australia, which usually arise in mountains, and appear to be rather designed to convey water into regions where it is wanting, than to carry off any surplus from the surfaces over which they run. 1ST OCTOBER.--Our track back across the downs, brought again into view the Northern range, and I now named the prominent mountain at its salient, Mount Northampton, in honour of the noble marquis at the head of the Royal Society. The range to the southward also appeared above the trees of the valley, and I gave the name of Mount Inniskillen to the salient mountain, which appeared so remarkable a feature to us on first advancing into that region, from the eastward. We again reached the river this day, after traversing the wide plains. Its woods still resounded with the plaintive cooing of a dove, which I had not seen elsewhere. At a distance, the sound resembled the distant cooy of female natives, and we at first took it for their voices until we ascertained whence these notes came. I had arrived at a fine reach of the river, and while watering the horses, preparatory to leaving its banks, (to make a short cut on our former route,) when a pair of these birds appeared on a bough over head, so near that I could take a drawing, by which I have since ascertained the bird to have been GEOPELIA CUNEATA. But the river we were about to leave required a name, for no natives could be made to understand our questions, even had they been more willing than they were to communicate at all. It seemed to me, to deserve a great name, being of much importance, as leading from temperate into tropical regions, where water was the essential requisite,--a river leading to India; the "nacimiento de la especeria," or REGION WHERE SPICES GREW: the grand goal, in short, of explorers by sea and land, from Columbus downwards. This river seemed to me typical of God's providence, in conveying living waters into a dry parched land, and thus affording access to open and extensive pastoral regions, likely to be soon peopled by civilised inhabitants. It was with sentiments of devotion, zeal, and loyalty, that I therefore gave to this river the name of my gracious sovereign, Queen Victoria. There seemed to be much novelty in the plants along its banks. The shells of the fresh-water mussle (UNIO), which lay about the old fires of the natives, exceeded in size any we had seen elsewhere. I measured one, and found it six inches long, and three and a half broad. On the plains near this spot, grew a beautiful little ACACIA, resembling A. PENDULA, but a distinct species, according to Mr. Bentham.[*] We crossed the open downs and our former route, hastening to make the tributary river before night. We reached the channel by sunset; the moon was nearly full, and we continued to search in the bed for water, until we again fell in with our former track, near the place where we had watered our horses on the morning of the 17th September. On hastening to the pond, we found the intense heat of the last twelve days had dried it up, and we were obliged to encamp without water; a most unpleasant privation after a ride of thirty miles, under an almost vertical sun. The river must receive a great addition below this branch from the Northampton ranges, entering probably about that great bend we had this day cut off; leaving the deep reaches formerly seen there, on our left, or to the northward. An uncommon drought had not only dried up the waters of this river, but killed much of the brigalow scrub so effectually, that the dead trunks alone remained on vast tracts, thus becoming open downs. [* A. VICTORIAE (Benth. MS.) glabra, glauca, ramulis teretibus, phyllodiis linearibus subfalcatis obtusis basi angustatis crassis enervibus, glandulâ prope basin immersâ, pedunculis glaberrimis gracilibus racemosis capitulo parvo 12-20-floro multoties longioribus.] 2D OCTOBER.--At 6 A.M. the thermometer gave a temperature of 59°. The height above the sea was 1081 feet. In tracing back our old track, I sent Corporal Graham to examine a part of the river channel likely to contain water, and the report of his pistol some time after in the woods, welcomer than sweetest music to our ears just then, guided us to the spot, where he had found a small pond containing enough for all our wants. For the men, having no more tea or sugar, a good drink was all that was required; the poor fellows prepared my tea not the less assiduously, although I could have had but little comfort in drinking it under such circumstances, without endeavouring to share what was almost indivisible. We this day performed a long journey, reaching our former bivouac, of the 16th September, on Graham's creek, at an early hour. Three emus were seen feeding close by; but, although several attempts were made to get near them, with a horse stalking, we could not kill any of them. 3D OCTOBER.--Soon after we had quitted our bivouac, the emus were again seen on the plains. I could not deny the men the opportunity thus afforded them of obtaining some food; for, although they concealed their hunger from me, I knew they were living on bread and water. Graham succeeded in wounding one of the birds, which, nevertheless, escaped. He then chased a female followed by about a dozen young ones, towards us, when we caught three. It had occurred to me this morning, to mark and number the bivouacs we had occupied thus far, for the purpose of future reference, when any other party might proceed, or be sent again, into this country. I had, therefore, cut the number 73 on a tree at this bivouac of 3d October, under the initials N.S.W. We pursued a straight course over the downs, east by compass, until we joined our old route along the water-course, from our camp near the gap, and this brought us back, at an early hour to that spot, where I marked a tree with the figures 72. 4TH OCTOBER.--We recrossed the brigalow range, (where the temperature, at 9 A.M., was 79°,) and alighted by the pond at the junction of the Nivelle and Nive; near where we had passed the night of the 12th September. This day we again saw the CALLITRIS; a tree so characteristic of sandy soils, but of which we had not observed a single specimen in the extensive country beyond. Marked 71 on a tree. 5TH OCTOBER.--Soon after we left our bivouac, I saw in the grass before me, a large snake. This was rather a novelty to us, being almost the first we had seen in these northern regions of Australia. I dismounted, and went forward to strike it with a piece of wood. Yuranigh did the same, both missed it, when it unexpectedly turned upon us, took a position on higher ground beside a large tree, then descended with head erect, moving nimbly towards the horses, and the rest of the party. The deadly reptile glided straight to the forefeet of my horse, touched the fetlock with his head, but did not bite; then passed to the hind legs and did the same, fortunately the horse stood quietly. The snake darted thence towards one of the men, who was about to throw a stick at him, and was next in the act of pursuing Yuranigh, when Graham gave him a charge of small shot, which crippled his movements until he could be despatched. This snake was of a brown colour, red spotted on the belly, about six feet long, and five inches in circumference. I had never before known any Australian snake to attack a party, but we had certainly brought the attack on ourselves. We made a good cut on our former circuitous route when tracing down the river Nive, and arrived at our former bivouac at an early hour. This was fortunate, as all the ponds, formerly full of good water, had, in the interim, dried up; and I proceeded to cross the scrubby range, by pursuing a straight direction towards Mount Pluto. But some magnetic influence so deranged my compass, that, on reaching the crest of the range, I found that mountain bore nearly east instead of N. E. N. I saw three of my fixed points, however, by which, with my pocket sextant, I could ascertain our true position, which proved to be very wide of my intended course. It was, like many other accidental frustrations of my plans in this journey, an aberration that did us good, for we had thereby avoided the bad scrub formerly passed through, and also a rocky part of the range. We next descended into a valley in which, after following down a dry watercourse two miles, we found a fine pond of water, exactly as the sun was setting. This day I had shot a curious bird, somewhat resembling a small turkey, in a tree. The feathers were black; the head was bare and red. This fowl was apparently of the galinaceous tribe. The flesh was delicious, and afforded a most timely dinner to the party. A numerous body of natives had followed our former track across the rocky ranges we traversed this day, as appeared by their foot-marks, and Yuranigh also discovered, in the same manner, that three natives had this morning preceded us on our return; nevertheless we saw none of these denizens of the woods. 6TH OCTOBER.--Thermometer, at 6 A. M., 48°. Height above the sea, 696 feet. This day we hoped to rejoin the party at the camp of the Pyramids; but the journey was long, and it included an ascent of Mount Pluto, from which I had still to observe some important angles. I marked this bivouac, with 70 cut on a tree, the two last being, respectively marked, 71 and 72, as already stated; these numbers continuing the series from LXIX, my lowest camp on the Belyando. The scrub is thick about these volcanic ranges, but on the downs and plains of Central Australia, that impediment disappears. My men and myself were in rags from passing through these scrubs, and we rejoiced at the prospect of rejoining, this day, our countrymen at the Pyramids. I found a fine open forest between the ponds where we had formerly passed the night, and Mount Pluto; and we crossed several water-courses, the grass on their banks being green and young, because the old grass had been burnt off by the natives. These water-courses form the highest sources of the Salvator. We were at no very considerable elevation above the sea where we had slept (696 feet), yet we found the air on the mountains much cooler than that of the interior plains. There was much Callitris in the woods passed through this day; and the soil, although well covered with grass, was sandy. I ascended Mount Pluto by the N. W. side, where the loose fragments of trap, on a very steep slope, obstruct the growth of a thorny scrub, covering other parts of the mountain sides. The view from the summit was very favourable for my purpose, and I passed an hour and a half in taking angles on all distant points. Mount Owen and Mount Kilsyth were both visible; Buckland's Table-land in the East, and some of the recently discovered ranges in the west, were just visible across the trap-rock range, which connected Mount Playfair with Mount Hutton; which range almost shut out the view to the westward. In the S. W., some very remarkable features appeared to terminate westward, in abrupt cliffs over a low country, into which the Maran (as far as known), the Warrego, and the Nive, seem to carry their waters. What that country is, was a most interesting point, which I was very reluctant to leave still a mystery. No volcanic hills appeared to the westward of this trio, which thus seem to mark the place where the upheaving forces have most affected the interior structure of Australia. The temperature on Mount Pluto, at noon, was 90°; and the elevation above the sea, 2420 feet. On descending to where I had left the horses, we mounted, and struck into the old outward track; but we had difficulty in following it, although it was not above a month old. We saw many kangaroos to the eastward of Mount Pluto, but could not get a shot at any. I had seen much smoke in the direction of our camp, and was anxious about the safety of the party left there. We reached it before sunset, and were received with loud cheers. All were well, the natives had not come near, the cattle were in high condition. Mr. Stephenson had a fine collection of insects, and some curious plants. My man Brown had contrived to eke out the provisions so as to have enough to take us back to Mr. Kennedy. The grass looked green and luxuriant about the camp, and the spot proved a most refreshing home both to us and to our jaded horses, on whose backs we had almost constantly been for nearly a month. The party had collected specimens of XEROTES LEUCOCEPHALA; BOSSIOEA CARINALIS; the purple INDIGOFERA AUSTRALIS; XEROTES MULTIFLORA; the DODONOEA HIRTELLA of Miquel, a hairy shrub with pinnated leaves; EVOLVULUS LINIFOLIUS; GOODENIA PULCHELLA Benth.; HIBBERTIA CANESCENS; these had been found on the rocky ground near the camp, some on the sides, and even near the summits of the pyramids. On the sandy flats at the foot of these hills, were gathered, AJUGA AUSTRALIS; DAMPIERA ADPRESSA, a gay, though, almost leafless herb, with blue flowers nestling in grey wool; three miles below the camp a species of VIGNA, closely allied to V. CAPENSIS Walp., was found; and among the larger forest trees was a Eucalyptus, allied to, but probably distinct from, the E. SIDEROXYLON A. Cunn. The LABICHEA DIGITATA was now in fruit; the JACKSONIA SCOPARIA formed a shrub, ten or twelve feet high, occupying sandy places, and having much resemblance to the common broom of Europe. The ACACIA CUNNINGHAMII grew about the same height; the GREVILLEA LONGISTYLA was seen on the sandstone, forming a shrub seven or eight feet high; and there also grew the pretty ZIERIA FRAZERI[*]; the DODONOEA MOLLIS was a small shrub six feet high, whereof the fruit was now ripe; the LEUCOPOGON CUSPIDATUS, also small. A PIMELEA near P. LINIFOLIA formed a shrub, only two feet high, growing on the rocks; the HOVEA LANCEOLATA, grew ten feet high in similar situations; the LEPTOSPERMUM SERICATUM was still abundant on the sandstone rocks, and amongst these also grew the POMAX HIRTA, a plant six inches high. [* Z. FRASERI (Hook. MS.); ramulis junioribus puberulis, foliis impunctatis brevissime petiolatis, foliolis lanceolatis acutis marginibus leviter revolutis subtus pallidis pubescenti-sericeis, pedunculis trifloris folio brevioribus.--Very distinct from all other ZIERIOE. Detected by Fraser on Mount Lindsay.] At the base of these mountains, a slight variety of ACACIA VISCIDULA formed a bush twelve feet high; a variety of BORONIA BIPINNATA formed a small upright shrub, with flowers larger than usual; and much finer specimens were now also found, of the white and red flowered BORONIA ERIANTHA; the DODONOEA PEDUNCULARIS was loaded with its fruit; the SCHIDIOMYRTUS TENELLUS, or a new species nearly allied to it, formed a shrub six feet high. A variety of AOTUS MOLLIS, with rather less downy leaves and rather smaller calyxes; the ACACIA LONGISPICATA, with its silvery leaves and long spikes of yellow blossoms, acquired a stature of twelve feet, at the foot of the rocks; and small specimens of the beautiful LINSCHOTENIA DISCOLOR, which we had also observed, in a finer state, near Mount Pluto. The LABICHEA DIGITATA was abundant in sheltered ravines amongst the rocks; and, also, the DODONOEA ACEROSA, loaded with its four-winged reddish fruit, formed a shrub there four feet high. On the flats at the base of these ranges, grew the stiff, hard leaved, glutinous TRIODIA PUNGENS, with fine erect panicles of purple and green flowers (the first occasion this, on which I had seen this plant in flower). The BRUNONIA SERICEA continued to appear; also a minute species of ALTERNANTHERA. The DIANELLA STRUMOSA formed a coarse, sedgy herbage, relieved by its large panicles of blue flowers; and a fine species of Dogbane near TABERNOEMONTANA, and probably not distinct from that genus, according to Sir William Hooker. A shrub, five feet high, which proved to be a new species of ACACIA, also grew at the foot of the precipices[*]; a new and very distinct species of LOGANIA[**]; a new RUTIDOSIS, a tall herbaceous perennial[***]; a fine, new, long leaved GREVILLEA, with yellow flowers.[****] A woolly-leaved KERAUDRENIA, with inconspicuous flowers[*****]; and, in the open forest, a pretty species of Comesperm, about five feet high, with rosy flowers, and smooth or downy stems; it was allied to C. RETUSA.[******] [* A. UNCIFERA (Benth. MS.) molliter velutino-pubescens, ramulis subteretibus, stipulis subulatis caducissimis, phyllodiis falcatoellipticis v. oblique oblongis utrinque acutis uncinato-mucronatis minute 1-2- glandulosis, racemis polycephalis phyllodio paullo longioribus, capitulis multifloris tomentosis.--Near A. CALEYI and A. VESTITA. Phyllodia from an inch and a half to two inches long, half an inch broad, resembling much in shape those of A. MYRTIFOLIA.] [** L. CORDIFOLIA (Hook. MS.); herbacea erecta estipulata glabra, foliis cordato-acuminatis sessilibus 3-5-nerviis, racemis corymbosis axillaribus terminalibusque in paniculam contractam terminalem foliosam magis minusve congestis.] [*** R. ARACHNOIDEA (Hook. MS.); elata, arachnoideo-tomentosa, foliis remotis lanceolatis acuminatis calloso-cuspidatis, panicula laxa, ramis longis polycephalis, capitulis aggregatis, involucris ovatis.--A widely distinct species from the only hitherto described species of this genus (R. HELICHRYSOIDES), both in the leaves and flower-heads.] [**** G. JUNCIFOLIA (Hook. MS.); ramis angulatis pubescenti-sericeis, foliis rigidis angustissime linearibus elongatis semiteretibus acutis glabris marginibus revolutis, racemis ovatis multifloris, pedicellis perianthiisque sericeis, ovariis sessilibus longissime albosericeis, stylis glabris, folliculis oblique ovatis sericeo-tomentosis.] [***** K. ? INTEGRIFOLIA (Hook. MS.); foliis oblongo-lanceolatis apiculatis subtus pannoso-tomentosis marginibus costa nervisque glandulosis.--In this the styles are connected at the apex, free below. The capsule is deeply 5-lobed. The anthers are remarkably curved outwards, like a horse-shoe, which is not the case in true KERAUDRENIA. W. I. H.] [****** C. SYLVESTRIS (Lindl. MS.); erecta a basi divisa, caulibus pubescentibus glabrisve, foliis oblongis mucronatis, racemis corymbosis terminalibus, bracteis deciduis, corollae lobo medio integerrimo.] On the rocky slopes, or crests, were found, also, various new plants which have been since described, viz. A small shrub, with leaves from three to four inches long, found to be a new species of CONOSPERMUM[*]; a small shrubby species of LABICHEA[**]; an inconspicuous shrub, two feet high, was a new species of MICRANTHEUM, allied to M. ERICOIDES, Desf.[***]; a downy DODONOEA, very near D. PEDUNCULARIS, but with thinner truncated leaves, and more glutinous fruit[****]; and, on the edge of the mountain, grew a curious new Acacia, resembling a pine tree[*****], but with the stature of a shrub, and a GREVILLEA, forming a shrub seven or eight feet high.[*] [* C. SPHACELATUM (Hook. MS); foliis linearibus subfalcatis sphacelatoapiculatis molliter incano-pubescentibus inferne longe attenuatis uninerviis paniculis pedunculatis corymbosis, floribus bracteisque sericeis.] [** L. RUPESTRIS (Benth. MS.) glabra vel vix in partibus novellis puberula, foliis sessilibus plerisque trifoliolatis, foliolis lineari- oblongis spinosomucronatis coriaceis marginatis terminali lateralibus bis pluriesve longiore, antheris subaequalibus conformibus.] [*** M. TRIANDRUM (Hook. MS.); foliis cuneatis solitariis, floribus masculis triandris.] [**** D. PUBESCENS (Lindl. MS.); minutissime pubescens, viscosa, foliis brevibus apice triangularibus tridentatis truncatisque, capsulis tetrapteris pedunculatis alis rotundatis.] [***** A. PINIFOLIA (Benth. MS.) glabra ramulis teretibus, phyllodiis erectosubincurvis longe lineari-filiformibus nervo utrinque prominenti subtetragonis breviter pungenti-mucronatis, pedunculis solitariis brevissimis, capitulis multifloris, sepalis spathulatis liberis v. vix basi cohaerentibus.--Very near A. PUGIONIFORMIS, but the phyllodia are five, six, or more inches long, being longer even than in A. CALAMIFOLIA. It differs from the latter species in the inflorescence and calyx.] [****** G. LONGISTYLA (Hook. MS.); ramis pubescentibus, foliis longissime linearibus acutis basi attenuatis margine subrevolutis supra glabris subtus albo-tomentosis, racemis oblongo-ovatis, perianthiis glandulosis, ovariis semiglobosis stipitatis sericeo-hirsutissimis, stylo longissimo glabro.--Leaves a span and more long; flowers rather large, apparently purple.] Chapter VIII. SINGULAR FOSSILS NEAR THE CAMP.--INTERESTING PLANTS DISCOVERED.--ASCENT OF MOUNT FARADAY.--RETURN TO THE WARREGO.--A NATIVE OLD MAN.--PASS BY MOUNT OWEN.--THE MARANOÀ.--RECROSS THE MINOR STREAMS.--ITS TRIBUTARIES.-- NONDESCRIPT ANIMAL.--POSSESSION CREEK.--A HORSE KILLED BY ACCIDENT.-- APPROACH THE CAMP OF MR. KENNEDY.--FIND ALL WELL THERE.--MANY PLANTS FOUND THERE.--HIS ACCOUNT OF THE NATIVES' VISITS.--RIDE TO MOUNT SOWERBY.--FOSSILS FOUND THERE.----THE WHOLE PARTY FINALLY QUITS THE DEPÔT CAMP.--TRACE THE MARANÒA DOWNWARDS.--OPEN DOWNS ON ITS BANKS.--WATER SCARCE.--REQUISITE PONDS.--REACH ITS JUNCTION WITH THE BALONNE.--TRACES OF HORSEMEN ALONG OUR OLD TRACK.--THE PARTY ARRIVES, AND HALTS, AT ST. GEORGE'S BRIDGE.--MR. KENNEDY SENT TO RECONNOITRE THE COUNTRY IN A DIRECT LINE TOWARDS MOUNT RIDDELL. 7TH AND 8TH OCTOBER.--THESE two days were devoted to the completion of my maps of the late tour, and of drawings of two of the birds seen on the Victoria. Our horses required a day or two's rest, and I had enough to do in my tent, although the heat was intense. 9TH OCTOBER.--Once more I rode into the lower country a few miles, to take a sketch of another remarkable hill. In the afternoon I examined the sandstone caverns in the hill opposite to our camp; some very curious organic remains having been found there by one of the party during my absence. I found that these occurred on the lower side of sandstone strata, and that they had become denuded by the decomposition of sandstone underneath. We were to leave this camp next morning. The men were on very reduced rations, and I was apprehensive that we might be disappointed in our search for water in many places where we had before encamped and found it. In the afternoon, the sky became suddenly overcast, distant thunder was heard; and the southern portion of the heavens, over the country to which we were about to return, was evidently discharging some heavy rain there. At twilight, the rain commenced to fall heavily at our camp, and continued to do so during four hours. Such a supply came most opportunely for us, and, although I could not be so vain as to suppose that the thunder rolled only for our benefit alone, I felt as thankful as though it had. This day I saw on the cavernous hill the woolly ACTINOTUS HELIANTHI, one of the most singular of umbelliferous plants; and, on descending to the base, a white variety of the COMESPERMA SYLVESTRIS, with smooth branches: unlike the kind observed in September, it did not grow above one foot high. A small shrub grew on the rocks, a pretty little Calytrix, near C. MICROPHYLLA A Cunn. (from Port Essington and Melville Island); but the branches, with their leaves, are more stout, and the bracts more obtuse. Sir W. Hooker supposes it to be a new species. We here found this day a woolly-leaved plant, with long branching panicles of brilliantly blue flowers, which Professor de Vriese has ascertained to be a new genus of the natural order of Goodeniads, and which he calls LINSCHOTENIA DISCOLOR.[*] Thermometer, meter, at sunrise, 60°; at noon, 94°; at 4 P. M., 76°; at 9, 64°;--with wet bulb, 64°. [* LINSCHOTENIA DE VRIESE. Calyx superus, limbo obsoleto. Corollae quinquefidae tubo hine fisso, lobis majoribus margine utroque auriculato- crispis, alatisve, duobus minoribus lanceolatis, interne appendice proprio cuculliformi instructis. Antherae imberbes, cohaerentes. Filamenta libera, quandoque subflexuosa. Ovarium uniovulatum; stylus inflexus; stigmatis indusium ore nudum; semen in nuce solitarium. Genus dicatum Jano Huigenio Linschotenio, geographo, navarcho, itineratori seculi XVI., qui historiae naturalis, imprimis vero geographiae et rei nauticae progressui eximie profuit. Linschotenia Dampierae proxime habitu et plurimis cum floris, tum habitus characteribus, paracolla cuculliforme ab omnibus Goodeniacearum generibus huc usque cognitis, diversa. L. DISCOLOR, suffruticosa, erecta, albo-lineata, foliis alternis, petiolatis, oblongis, acutis, integris, planis, superne pallide viridibus, glaberrimis, inferne densissime albo-lanatis. Inflorescentia spicata, ramosa, griseo-lanata, floribus subsessilibus, basi bracteolatis, corollis quinquelobis, lilacinis, extus griseo-barbatis; paracorollis nigrescentibus. Legit anno 1846, Praefectus militaris nobil. T. L. Mitchell in Nova- Hollandia subtropica. Planta elegantissima, inter Scaevolas persimilis habitu SC. REINWARDTII de Vriese in LEHM. PL. PREISS. videtur esse suffruticosa. Caulis est teres. Folia sunt alterna, fere 7 cent. longa et 1½ cent. lata, petiolata, petiolo ad insertionem quodammodo crassiore, fere ½ cent. longo, integerrima, utrinque acuta, nervo medio crassiore, subtus lanata, fere alutacea, albissima; superne viridia, opaca; bracteae lineari- lanceolatae, utraque superficie lanatae, acutae; rhachis elongata, fere 10-15 cent. longa, inferne albo-lanata, sursum griseo-lanata. Pedunculi communes 5-10 cent. longi, patentes, alterni, griseo-tomentosi. Flores alterni, sessiles, bracteolati, bracteolis suboppositis; calyces villosi, limbis obsoletis; corollae persistentis lobis marginibus inflexis, externe medio calycis instar hirsutis, interne glaberrimis: cucullis corollae badiis, convexis, uno latere hiantibus, interiori mediaeque loborum parti affixis; filamenta libera, filiformia, antherae his continuae, glabrae. Stigma capitatum, indusio imberbe.--DE VRIESE.] 10TH OCTOBER.--We commenced our retreat with cattle and horses in fine condition, and with water in every crevice of the rocks. That in the reedy swamp near the pyramids, had a sulphureous taste, and nausea and weak-stomach were complained of by some of the men. I certainly did not think the swamp a very desirable neighbour, with the thermometer sometimes above 100°, and therefore I was more desirous to retire from it. As the party returned along their former track, I went to the summit of Mount Faraday, and observed a number of useful angles for my map. Mr. Stephenson was with me, and found some new plants and insects, while I ascertained the height, by the barometer, to be 2523 feet above the sea. The plants growing there were COMMELINA UNDULATA, THYSANOTUS ELATIOR, PLECTRANTHUS PARVIFLORUS, the yellow VIGNA LANCEOLATA, with a villous form of AJUGA AUSTRALIS, and a little PILOTHECA, with narrow, closepressed leaves.[*] The mountain is volcanic, the broken side of the crater being towards the N.W. Some compact basalt appeared near the summit. On reaching the Warrego in the evening, we found the party had arrived there at 3 P. M., the distance travelled comprising two former days' journeys. They had also found water close to the camp, where none had been when they had been there before. Many beautiful shrubs were now beginning to bloom. The BURSARIA INCANA was now covered with its panicles of white flowers; the OZOTHAMNUS DIOSMOEFOLIUS, a shrub four feet high, was loaded with small bulbs of snow white flowers; a downy variety of LOTUS AUSTRALIS, with pink flowers[*], was common on the open ground; the ACACIA PODALYRIOEFOLIA was now forming its fruit; in the open forest we found a beautiful little GOMPHOLOBIUM[***]; the HAKEA PURPUREA, a spiny- leaved, hard shrub, with numerous crimson leaves[****], and the EUPHORBIA EREMOPHILA, an inconspicuous species of SPURGE.[*****] Mr. Stephenson and I had been so busy collecting these on our way back, that we only reached the camp at sunset. Thermometer, at sunrise, 58°; at noon, 75°; at 4 P. M., 82; at 9, 62°;--with wet bulb, 59°. [* P. CILIATA (Hook. MS.); ramulis pilosis, foliis erectis subimbricatis linearibus obtusis ciliatis dorso convexis glandulosis superne planis nudis, petalis ovali-ellipticis obtusis marginibus extus albopubescentibus.--Allied to P. AUSTRALIS, but different in the leaves, which are here ciliated at the margin, very glandulous on the back; and in the flowers, which are smaller, the petals more obtuse, and having a broad, white line of pubescence round the margin at the back.] [** L. AUSTRALIS var. PUBESCENS, ramis pedunculisque pilis mollibus patentibus vestitis. G. B.] [*** G. FOLIOLOSUM (Benth. MS.) foliis impari-pinnatis, foliolis 15-25 obovato-truncatis obcordatisve glabris, petiolis ramulisque pilosulis, racemis terminalibus subcorymbosis laxis paucifloris. Fruticulus ramosissimus foliolis confertis vix lineam longis.] [**** H. PURPUREA (Hook. MS.) foliis tereti-filiformibus rigidis trifidis segmentis simplicibus furcatisve mucronatis glabris, floribus purpureis pedicellisque glabris, capsulis obovatis acutis lignosis stipitatis subtuberculatis.] [***** E. EREMOPHILA (All. Cunn. in Hook. Herb.); fruticosa, ramulis fastigiatis foliisque parvis linearibus dentato-scrratis glabris, capsulis globosotriangularibus laevibus glabris.--Collected by Allan Cunningham in Dirk Hartog's island.] 11TH OCTOBER.--Following the chord of the arc described by our journeys of 30th June, and 1st July, on tracing down the Warregò, I made the furthest of the two camps, by a straight line of nine miles, passing through a fine open forest country. The pond, which formerly supplied us here, was now quite dry, but one much larger in a rocky bed was found a few hundred yards further up the river. Thermometer, at sunrise, 54°; at noon, 80°; at 4 P. M. 88°; at 9, 57°;--with wet bulb, 52°. 12TH OCTOBER.--This day we also turned two former days' journeys into one, and arrived at Camp XXXVIII. by 2 P. M., the ponds at the intermediate camp (XXXIX.) being dry. Nevertheless, the recent rains had left some water in rocky hollows, at which we could water our horses on the way. By the river side this morning, we found a variety of the HELIPTERUM ANTHEMOIDES, D.C., with the leaves pubescent and the scales of the involucre paler. The silky grass, IMPERATA ARUNDINACEA, occurred in the swampy flat we crossed before we encamped. Soon after we set out in the morning, an old man was seen coming along the valley towards us, without at first seeing the party. When he did, which was not until he had come very near, he uttered a sort of scream, "OOEY!", and ran up amongst some rocks beyond the water-course, nor would he stop, when repeatedly called to by Yuranigh. He carried a firestick, a small bag on his back, and some bomarengs under his left arm. His hair was grey but very bushy, and he looked fat. The poor fellow was dreadfully frightened, which I much regretted, for I might otherwise have obtained from him some information about the ultimate course of the Warrego, etc. We found water in one of the rocky ponds near our former encampment, but others in which some had formerly been found, were dry, and I was not without some doubt about finding water, on our way back to join Mr. Kennedy. Thermometer, at sunrise, 42°; at noon, 87°; at 4 P. M., 96°; at 9, 78°;--with wet bulb, 60°. 13TH OCTOBER.--The night was uncommonly hot, thermometer 79° here, where in June last it had been as low as 7°. The sky had been clouded, but the morning cleared up, and we enjoyed a cool breeze in passing amongst the sandstone gullies. On arriving at the foot of Mount Owen the day became very sultry, and there was a haziness in the air. On Mount Owen Mr. Stephenson found a new species of VIGNA with yellow flowers[*], and the SWAINSONIA PHACOIDES, conspicuous with its pink flowers. We took up our old ground over the gullies, and I went in quest of water. The ponds formerly here, had dried up, but Yuranigh found a deep one in the solid rock, containing enough for months. It was inaccessible to horses, but with a bucket we watered both these and the bullocks. The mercurial column was low, the sky became overcast, and a slight shower raised our hopes that at length rain might fall in sufficient quantity to relieve us from the difficulty about water, in returning towards Mr. Kennedy's camp. Thermometer, at sunrise, 63°; at noon, 79°; at 4 P. M., 76°; at 9, 64°;-- with wet bulb, 59°. [* V. LANCEOLATA (Benth. MS.) glabra volubilis, foliolis lanceolatis reticulatis integris v. basi hastato-lobatis, pedunculis folio multo longioribus apice paucifloris, calyce glabro campanulato dentibus tubo brevioribus, carina rostrata acuta.--Flowers smaller than in V. VILLOSA, but of the same form.] 14TH OCTOBER.--During the night several smart showers fell, and at daybreak the sky seemed set for rain. When we set off it rained rather heavily. I took a new direction, and got into a gully which led to our former track of 17th June. Crossing it, I passed into the bed of the Maranòa, and followed it down with the carts, until we arrived at the large pond in solid rock, to which I had sent the bullocks on the 18th June. Here we encamped, and I marked a tree with the number 74, as it might be necessary on future occasions to refer to where a permanent supply of water may be found in that part of the country. Thermometer, at sunrise, 60°; at noon, 71°; at 4 P. M., 66°; at 9, 52°;--with wet bulb, 48°. 15TH OCTOBER.--Last evening the wind blew keenly, and the night was cold, the temperature very different from that experienced of late. The morning presented a thick haze and drizzling rain, this kind of weather being rather favourable for crossing the loose sandy surface, which the men dreaded, remembering how it had before affected their eyes. I at first endeavoured to travel this day along the river bank, but I found its course so tortuous, and the country on its banks so hilly and rocky, that I left it, and proceeded in a direction that would intersect the former track. We thus passed through a fine open forest, fell in with our old track at a convenient point, and found water still in the pond at the camp of 15th June, where we therefore again set up our tents. The sky had cleared up, and the air was pleasantly cool, with a fine breeze blowing from S.E. On the river bank, we observed this day the native bramble, or Australian form of RUBUS PARVIFOLIUS, L. A small nondescript animal ran before Mr. Stephenson and myself this morning. It started from a little bush at the foot of a tree, had large ears, a short black tail, ran like a hare, and left a similar track. It was about the size of a small rabbit. The death of our dogs on the Bogan, under the intense heat and drought, had been a very serious loss to us, as we found on many occasions like this; and where kangaroos, of apparently rare species, escaped from us from our having no dogs. We were, also, from want of such dogs, much more exposed to attacks of the natives. Evening again cloudy. Thermometer, at sunrise, 45°; at noon, 64°; at 4 P.M., 67°; at 9, 57°;-- with wet bulb, 50°. 16TH OCTOBER.--A clear cool morning, with a fine refreshing breeze from east, succeeded the cloudy weather of yesterday. I crossed the little river, and travelled straight towards Camp XXXVII. On the higher ground grew a heath-like bush, (ERIOSTEMON RHOMBEUM,) three or four feet high. At a distance of only nine miles, we came upon the little river beside that camp, and fell into the old track a mile on beyond it; and, early in the day, we arrived at a chain of ponds, half-way to the next camp at Possession Creek. The ponds where I went to encamp were dry; but, on following the water-course downwards, I came to its junction with the Maranòa, at half a mile from the camp, and found a large basin of water at that point. Here, the NOTELOEA PUNCTATA was no longer a low trailing bush, but a shrub ten or twelve feet high, with the appearance of a European PHILLYREA. On the wet ground at the river bank, grew an entire- leaved variety (?) of PLANTAGO VARIA. The wild carrot, DAUCUS BRACHIATUS, with an annual wiry root, was also seen in the rich ground near the river. Yuranigh found more of the native tobacco, which the men eagerly asked for some of. This was a variety of the southern NICOTIANA SUAVEOLENS, with white flowers, and smoother leaves. Thermometer, at sunrise, 37°; at noon, 70°; at 4 P.M., 76°; at 9, 51°;--with wet bulb, 42°. Height above the sea, 1315 feet. (Camp 75.) 17TH OCTOBER.--The thermometer stood as low as the freezing point this morning, and the day was cooled by a wind from the N. E. In crossing Possession Creck, we saw nothing of the formerly belligerent natives. From Camp XXXIII, I took a direct course to Camp XXXII, where we arrived early. No water remaining in the adjacent ponds, I followed the dry channel down to its junction, and found the Maranòa full of water; this point being three quarters of a mile from our camp. We had this day passed over a fine open forest country, in which were also groves of the ACACIA PENDULA. The vegetation, in general, seemed drooping, from the want of rain; but the whole was available for grazing purposes. We saw, this day, plants of PYCNOSORUS GLOBOSUS, in the dry forest land; and the purple-flowered RUELLIA AUSTRALIS. The ACACIA SPECTABILIS formed a spreading bush, about eight feet high. The HOVEA LEIOCARPA, and CONVOLVULUS ERUBESCENS, were also found; with a new MYRIOGYNE[*], and a small shrub, three feet high, with narrow, blunt, glaueous leaves, tasting like rum. A small fruit, with the fragrance of an orange, proved to be a new species of TRIPHASIA.[**] [* M. RACEMOSA (Hook. MS.) radice perenni fusiformi superne multicipiti, caulibus decumbentibus, foliis lineari-cuneatis grosse serratis punctatis, capitulis in racemis subnudis terminalibus.--Very different from any described MYRIOGYNE, in the terminal racemed capitula.] [** T. GLAUCA (Lindl. MS.); spinosa, foliis coriaceis integerrimis crenatisque linearibus glaucis obtusis retusisque, floribus trimeris dodecandris 2-3nis brevi-pedicellatis.] It is much to be regretted, that the specimens gathered here of the brigalow, should have been so imperfect that they could not be described. If an Acacia, Mr. Bentham says, it is different from any he knows. The vicinity of the river here affords security for a supply of water, in seasons like the present, when any contained in the smaller channels may be dried up. In the afternoon we lost a horse, which fell from a precipitous part of the bank, at the junction of the creek with the river. One man was leading four, when one horse kicked another, which, falling perpendicularly, from a height of about forty feet, was so much hurt as to be unable to rise. The folly, or rather obstinacy of the man, leading so many together, on the verge of a precipice, was contrary to particular orders previously given, and which ought to have been enforced by Graham, who was in charge. Thermometer, at sunrise, 32°; at noon, 78°; at 4 P.M., 79°; at 9, 60°;--with wet bulb, 45°. 18TH OCTOBER.--The horse, still unable to get on his legs, and apparently dying, was shot, and buried in the sand of the bed of the creek. This loss, when we were so near our depôt camp, was much to be regretted, as we should have otherwise taken back every bullock and horse, after an absence, from that camp, of four months and fifteen days. We saw not a single native about the woods or the river, and were, therefore, the more anxious to know how Mr. Kennedy and the natives had agreed at the depôt camp, now within a day's ride of us. We continued to follow our former track to Camp XXXI, and it may be remarked, to their credit, that the aborigines had not attempted to deface any of these marked trees. It might have occurred, even to them, that such marks were preparatory to the advent of more white men into their country. The fine, deep reaches in the river, looked still full and unfailing; and a short journey to- morrow would take us to the camp of the rest of the party. We this day found a little jasmine in flower, of which Mr. Stephenson had formerly collected the seeds. It was white, not more than a foot high, with solitary white flowers, emitting a delightful fragrance, and it grew in the light sandy forest land.[*] A tree loaded with pods, which the natives eat, has been determined by Sir William Hooker to be the BRACHYCHITON POPULNEUM, Br., or STERCULIA HETEROPHYLLA of Cunn. Here was picked up a singular little annual plant, belonging to the genus PIMELEA, with hairy, loose spikes of minute green flowers[**]; and by the river we found the CALANDRINIA BALONENSIS. [* J. SUAVISSIMUM (Lindl. MS.); herbaceum, ramis angulatis, foliis sessilibus simplicibus alternis oppositisque lineari-lanceolatis, pedunculis solitariis unifloris supra medium bibracteatis foliis longioribus, sepalis subulatis, corollae laciniis 5-7 acutissimis.] [** P. TRICHOSTACHYA (Lindl. MS.); annua, foliis alternis linearibus pilis paucis adpressis, spicis laxis terminalibus villosissimis.] The morrow was looked forward to with impatience. Four months and a half had the main body of the party been stationary; and that was a long time to look back upon, with the expectation that it had remained undisturbed, although isolated in a country still claimed and possessed by savages. Thermometer, at sunrise, 38°; at noon, 83°; at 4 P.M., 86°; at 9, 64°;-- with wet bulb, 48°. 19TH OCTOBER.--The party was early in motion along the old track. Leaving the intermediate camp to the left, we struck across the country so as to hit the track again within a few miles of the depôt camp. Old tracks of cattle, when the earth had been soft, and the print of A SHOE, were the first traces of the white man's existence we met with; nor did we see any thing more conclusive, until the tents on the cliffs overhanging the river were visible through the trees. We saw men, also, and even recognised some of them, before our party was observed; nor did they see us advancing, with a flag on the cart, until Brown sounded the bugle. Immediately all were in motion, Mr. Kennedy coming forward to the cliffs, while the whole party received us with cheers, to which my men heartily responded. Mr. Kennedy ran down the cliffs to meet me, and was the first to give me the gratifying intelligence that the whole party were well; that the cattle and sheep were safe and fat; and, that the aborigines had never molested them. A good stock-yard had been set up; a storehouse had also been built; a garden had been fenced in, and contained lettuce, radishes, melons, cucumbers. Indeed, the whole establishment evinced the good effects of order and discipline. Drysdale, the storekeeper, had collected many birds and plants, and had also been careful of the stores. The orphan from the Bogan, little Dicky, had grown very much, and seemed a very intelligent boy; and the little intercourse Mr. Kennedy had had with the aborigines, limited as it was, by my instructions to him, was curiously characteristic of the tact and originality of this singular race. On one occasion, when on being informed that natives were near, he had hastened to meet them, taking little Dicky with him, he found remaining only a female and her mother, a remarkably old woman, who had before concealed herself among the reeds. The daughter on his approach sung a beautiful song, rapidly running through the whole gammut. Then bowing her head, she presented the back of it to him, and placing her stone-tomahawk in his hand, she bade him strike. Mr. Kennedy threw the tomahawk on the ground; and seeing the grey head amongst the reeds, he prevailed on the mother to come out. She was hideous in person, which was much more AFFREUX from the excessive rage with which she seemed to denounce the white men;--her fiend-like eyes flashing fire, as if prophetic of the advent of another race, and the certain failure of her own. The daughter seemed, at first, to treat lightly the ire of her aged parent, playfully patting with her finger her mother's fearfully protruding lip. Mr. Kennedy endeavoured to ascertain, through Dicky, the downward course of the river, and she seemed to express, and to point also, that the river passed southerly into the Balonne, which river she named, and even the Culgòa: she seemed to say the name of that locality was "Mundì." Neither of these females had any covering, but the younger wore, by way of ornament, a page of last year's Nautical Almanac, suspended by a cord from her neck. The mother continuing implacable, the daughter, with a graceful expression of respect for her, and courtesy to the stranger, waved her arm for him to retire, which gesture Mr. Kennedy and Dicky immediately obeyed. At another interview, a scheme to decoy Dicky away was tried, as related thus in Mr. Kennedy's journal:--"Sunday, 26th July. Prayers were read at 11 A.M., after which, having been told by Drysdale that the natives were still near the camp, and that there was a native amongst them who could make himself more intelligible to Dicky than the rest, I had started down the river to see them to collect what information I could, and then induce them to go farther from the camp. I had not gone far before the cooys from the tents made me aware that the natives were by this time in sight. I therefore returned, and the first object that caught my eye was the bait--a gin, dancing before some admiring spectators; and behind her was a fine, lusty native advancing by great strides, as he considered the graceful movements of his gin were gaining as fast upon the hearts of the white men. On going up to him Dicky put the usual questions as to the name of the river, and its general course. His reply to the first was not very satisfactory, but our impression was that he called it Bàlun. With respect to its course, he plainly said that it joined the Balonne; repeatedly pointing in the direction of that river and then following with his hand, the various windings of this branch; repeating the while some word implying 'walk, walk,' and ending with 'Balonne.' He knew the names of the mountains Bindàngo and Bindyègo. After this conversation he took some fat, which he appeared to have brought for the purpose, and anointed Dicky by chewing it, and then spitting upon his head and face. He next whispered to him, and (as Dicky says) invited him to join them. I then motioned to the men, who were looking on at a short distance, to go to the camp; and as they obeyed, I made the same signs to the native to move in the opposite direction, which he at length did with evident reluctance and disappointment, throwing away his green bough, and continually looking back as he retired. I desired Dicky to tell him never to come near our tents, and that no white man should go to his camp." It seems that one family only inhabits these parts, as only three huts at most were to be seen in any part of the country, either up or down the river; a very fortunate circumstance for our party, obliged to remain so long at one spot, after such a formal notice had been given to quit it, as our visitors of the 30th of May gave during my absence. Mr. Drysdale, the store-keeper, had collected an herbarium during the long sojourn of the party at that camp, which included many new plants. In August, plants had begun to blossom; and in September various novelties had been found in flower. In August, he gathered EURYBIA SUBSPICATA, Hook. EURYBIOPSIS MACRORHIZA; or a species allied to it. ACACIA DECORA; GOODENIA CORONOPIFOLIA R. Br.; CONVOLVULUS ERUBESCENS; a hairy variety of BORONIA BIPINNATA, with smaller flowers than usual, and most of the leaves simply pinnate. A cruciferous plant, probably new; two new species of EURYBIA and CALOTIS, SENECIO CARNOSULUS? D. C. An ASPERULA? with the habit of Galium. MYOPORUM DULCE; VERONICA PLEBEIA; an acerose LEUCOPOGON; a species of violet, with small, densely-spiked flowers (was covered with wild bees in search of its honey). A species of BRUNONIA, apparently the same as the B. SIMPLEX of the north bank of the Darling, but taller and less hairy. A NYSSANTHES, apparently undescribed; SWAINSONA CORONILLOEFOLIA; a small variety of SALSOLA AUSTRALIS; XEROTES DECOMPOSITA, a hard-leaved, sedgy plant; a fine LEUCOPOGON, with unilateral flowers; and another species with yellowish blossoms, both perhaps new. A pretty little grass belonging to the genus PAPPOPHORUM, with a blackish green colour.[*] A magnificent new ACACIA, with leaves nearly a foot long.[**] A minute annual CALANDRINIA.[***] An ERODIUM, closely resembling the European E. LITTOREUM, Arn. and Benth., from Isle of St. Lucie; it was also found by A. Cunningham in the swamps of the Lachlan. A new PROSTANTHERA, with indented glandular viscid leaves.[****] A beautiful ever-lasting plant belonging to the genus HELIPTERES.[*****] A new LEPTOCYAMUS, with slender, trailing, hairy stems.[******] SIDA VIRGATA (Hook. MS.)[*******] SIDA FILIFORMIS (A. Cunn.).[********] A new DODONOEA in the way of the D. CUNEATA of the colony, with long, slender flower stalks.[*********] [* P. VIRENS (Lindl. MS.); pumilum, caespitosum, aristis 9 plumosis rigidis apice nudis, spicâ compositâ laxâ tenui villosâ, glumis pilosis, paleis sericeo-pilosis, foliis tactu scabris vaginis pilosis juxta ligulam villosis.] [** A. MACRADENIA (Benth. MS.); glabra, ramulis angulatis, phyllodiis elongatis subfalcatis acutiusculis basi longe angustatis marginatis crassiusculis uninervibus penniveniis nitidis glandula magna prope basin, racemis brevibus polycephalis flexuosis subpaniculatis, capitulis multifloris, calyce breviter dentato apice corollaque aureo-hispidulis, ovario tomentoso.--Near A. FALCIFORMIS D. C. Phyllodia eight to ten inches, or near a foot long, from six to ten lines broad.] [*** C. PUSILLA (Lindl. MS.); foliis equitantibus subacinaciformibus radicalibus, caulibus simplicibus racemosis v. unifloris, floribus longè pedunculatis infimis divaricatis, floribus minutis 8-andris.] [**** P. EUPHRASIOIDES (Benth. MS.) tota viscoso-villosa, foliis linearioblongis pinnatifido-dentatis ad axillas subfasciculatis, floribus paucisaxillaribus breviter pedicellatis, calycis labiis integris, antherarum calcare longiore loculum superante.--The foliage and flowers look at first sight very much like those of some of the AUSTRALIAN EUPHRASIOE. The leaves are about three lines long.] [***** H. GLUTINOSA (Hook. MS.); piloso-glandulosa, viscosa, foliis angustolinearibus cuspidato-acuminatissimis, capitulis solitariis.--Young buds rich rose-colour: full blown capitula pure white, the involucre having a slight tinge of purple.] [****** L. LATIFOLIUS (Benth. MS.); molliter villosus, foliolis membranaceis oblique obovatis ovalibusque utrinque adpresse pubescentibus villosisve, calycibus subsessilibus villosis.] [******* S. FILIFORMIS (All. Cunn. MS.); tota stellato-tomentosa, ramis patentissimis elongatis, foliis brevissime petiolatis cordato-ovatis crenato-serratis, pedunculis axillaribus unifloris gracillimis folio triplo longioribus, calyce 5-fido petalis duplo breviore.] [******** S. VIRGATA (Hook. MS.); ramis elongatis virgatis stellato- tomentosis, foliis brevissime petiolatis lineari-oblongis serratis supra pubescentivelutinis subtus calyceque 5-fido stellato-pannosis fulvescentibus, stipulis acicularibus rigidis spinescentibus, pedunculis axillaribus unifloris folio brevioribus, petalis (flavis) calyce duplo longioribus.] [********* D. PEDUNCULARIS (Lindl. MS.); viscosa, glabra, foliis rigidis elongatis spathulatis acutis tridentatis integrisque lobo medio majore, pedicellis 1-3-filiformibus, capsulis tetrapteris viscosis alis coriaceis rotundatis.] In September, were gathered in water-holes on the ranges, RANUNCULUS SESSILIFLORUS, Br. in De Cand.; and near the camp the hard-leaved XEROTES LAXA; JUSTICIA MEDIA; EVOLVULUS LINIFOLIUS; GOODENIA FLAGELLIFERA De Vr.; CHLOANTHES STOECHADIS; the beautiful ACACIA SPECTABILIS, loaded with yellow flowers, on the banks of the river S. W. of the camp. A broader haired variet of ACACIAPENNIFOLIA; BOERHAAVIA MUTABILIS, Br. ? TECOMA OXLEYI; ACACIA CUNNINGHAMII; CARISSA OVATA Br.? a spiny, zigzag, shrub with shining leaves and white flowers; CASSIA ZYGOPHYLLA. A variety of SIDA PISIFORMIS, A. Cunn., with closer leaves and a browner pubescence; SIDA (Abutilon) FRAZERI Hook. var. PUMILA. KERAUDRENIA INTEGRIFOLIA; LEPTOCYAMUS LATIFOLIUS; POMAX HIRTA? D. C., or a variety. EREMOPHILA MITCHELLII var.? LATIFOLIA (Benth. MS.). DODONOEA ACEROSA, A. HELICHRYSUM? near H. ODORUM D. C., but with the leaves downy on both sides. PIMELEA COLORANS, a plant found by A. Cunningham along the river Macquarie. STACKHOUSIA MURICATA, Lindl., which is, perhaps, not distinct from S. SPATULATA, Sieb. A PODOLEPIS, resembling P. RUGATA Labill. PODOLEPIS LONGIPEDATA, D. C. SOLANUM BIFLORUM, a grey-leaved, dwarf, herbaceous plant. RANUNCULUS PLEBEIUS, very like an English buttercup. A PLEURANDRA, near P. ERICIFOLIA, probably a variety. RUELLIA AUSTRALIS; PITTOSPORUM SALICINUM. One of the Dodder laurels (CASSYTHA PUBESCENS, R. Br.), a species also found near Port Jackson. VIGNA LANCEOLATA; XEROTES LONGIFOLIA, a very common, hard-leaved plant. ANTHERICUM BULBOSUM, R. Br. GERANIUM PARVIFLORUM? or one nearly allied to it: exactly the same species is found in Van Diemen's Land. HELIPTERUM ANTHEMOIDES? D. C., but smaller in all its parts. NEPTUNIA GRACILIS; BRUNONIA SERICEA; SIDA, apparently new. A new and fine species of MENTHA.[*] A new, round-leaved species of PROSTANTHERA.[**] A new species of SWAINSONA[***]; PLEURANDRA CISTOIDEA (Hook. MS.).[****] A new TRICHINIUM, with conical flower- heads.[*****] A species of HIBISCUS, with purple flowers.[******] A new species of DAVIESIA, with spiny, shaggy leaves.[*******] Thermometer, at sunrise, 46°; at noon, 81°; at 4 P.M., 75°; at 9, 50°;--with wet bulb, 47°. [* M. GRANDIFLORA (Benth. MS.); molliter pubescens, caulibus erectis, foliis petiolatis ovatis acutiusculis dentatis planis verticillatis laxis sexfloris, calycis dentibus lanceolato-subulatis intus vix pilosis, corolla calyce subduplo longiore, staminibus exsertis.--Near M. AUSTRALIS Br., but the leaves broader and flowers larger.] [** P. RINGENS (Benth. MS.); ramulis puberulis, foliis petiolatis rhombeoorbiculatis integerrimis utrinque opacis glandulosis, calycis glandulosi glabri labiis integris, corollae labio superiore subgaleato, antherarum calcaribus loculo brevioribus.--Foliage nearly that of P. RHOMBEA. Flowers much larger.] [*** S. PHACOIDES (Benth. MS.); decumbens molliter pubescens, foliolis 13- 15-linearibus cuneatisve, pedunculis folio longioribus apice paucifloris, legumine brevissime stipitato villoso.--A low plant with much the habit of several PHACAS or ASTRAGALI. Flower yellow, smaller than in S. CORONILLOEFOLIA.] [**** P. CISTOIDEA (Hook. MS.); pilis stellatis brevibus rigidis asperis, foliis angusto-linearibus obtusis marginibus revolutis, floribus in ramos breves solitariis, staminibus sub-12 unilateralibus, filamentis infra medium inaequaliter connexis antheras longitudine aequantibus, ovario parvo globoso lanato.] [***** T. CONICUM (Lindl. MS.); hirto-pubescens, caule basi diviso, ramis ascendentibus subsimplicibus, foliis lineari-lanceolatis acutis, spicâ conicâ, bracteis unincrviis mucronatis glabris, rachi tomentosâ.] [****** H. STURTII (Hook. MS.); suffruticosus ubique subtus praecipue dense stellatim tomentosus, foliis petiolatis oblongo-ovatis ellipticisve obtusis grosse crenato-serratis, pedunculis axillaribus unifloris solitariis folio brevioribus, involucro monophyllo ..... turbinato 6-8- fido calycem 5-fidum aequante, capsulis hispidissimis.--This species was also found by Capt. Sturt in the south interior. The flowers are purple, sometimes yellowish in drying. The involucre is very remarkable, monophyllous, broad at top and 6 or 8-cleft, almost wholly concealing the calyx.--W. J. H.] [******* D. FILIPES (Benth. MS.); ramis hirsutis inermibus, foliis ovalioblongis sublanceolatisve apice spinoso-mucronatis planis pubescentibus, pedicellis filiformibus folio demum longioribus in pedunculo brevissimo solitariis geminisve.] 20TH OCTOBER.--It was necessary to halt here a day or two, that the blacksmith might have time to repair the light carts, and shoe the horses. I took a ride this day with Mr. Kennedy to a hill some miles eastward of the camp, in which he had found some remarkable fossils. The hill consisted of a red ferruguinous sandstone, in parts of which were imbedded univalve and bivalve shells, pieces of water-worn or burnt wood, and what seemed fragments of bone. To some of the portions of wood, young shells adhered, but others bore, evidently, marks of fire; showing the black scarified parts, and those left untouched or unscarified, very plainly. Other portions of woods had their ends waterworn, and were full of long cracks, such as appear in wood long exposed to the sun. These specimens were, in general, silicified: but the outer parts came off in soft flakes resembling rotten bark, being equally pliant, although they felt gritty, like sand, between the teeth. This hill was rather isolated, but portions of tabular masses, forming the range of St. George's Pass, and in contact with the volcanic hill of Mount Kennedy which forms a nucleus to these cliffy ranges, being about 9 miles N. E. of this hill, to which, from its contents, I gave the name of Mount Sowerby. The weeping GEIJERA PENDULA again occurred in abundance near Mount Sowerby; the CAPPARIS LASIANTHA was climbing up the rocks there, and amongst the grasses we observed a species of the genus LAPPAGO, perhaps not distinct from the Indian L. BIFLORA. Thermometer, at sunrise, 39°; at noon, 56°; 4 P.M., 87°; at 9, 67°; with wet bulb, 52°. 21ST OCTOBER.--I took a ride with Mr. Kennedy to the summit to which I had attached his name, having occasion to take a back angle from it on Mount Owen, and one or two other points. I could there show him many of the distant summits to the northward of the country, I was about to lay down on my map. We rode over a fine tract of forest land, extending from the camp to the foot of the mountain, a distance of about twelve miles. On the high range grew a profusion of a beautiful little PTEROSTYLIS, quite new, but in the way of P. RUFA[*], a single specimen of a new KENNEDYA was gathered there.[**] On the plains we found a curious new form of the genus DANTHONIA, much resembling wheat in ear[***], and a new JASMINE, with a rich perfume, resembling I. LINEARE, but with short axillary corymbs of flowers. This species has been named by Dr. Lindley after myself.[****] We found also the SOLANUM VIOLACEUM with its violet flowers and orange spines. A fine wiry herbage was formed by the LAXMANNIA GRACILIS, now in flower, ERYTHROEA AUSTIALIS D. C., a smallflowered species of CENTAURY, the DIANELLA RARA, R. Br. and SALVIA PLEBEIA. Thermometer, at sunrise, 48°; at noon, 85°; at 4, P.M., 84°; at 9, 65° with wet bulb, 52°. [* P. MITCHELLII (Lindl. MS.); foliis omnibus radicalibus stellatis, vaginis scapi multiflori 3 remotis, scpalis setaceo-acuminatis, labelli laminâ ovato-lineari obtusâ canaliculatâ supra pilis (luteis) articulatis crinitâ.] [** K. PROCURRENS (Benth. MS.); foliolis 3 ellipticis ovatisve mucronulatis utrinque hirtellis subtus reticulatis, stipulis subcordato- lanceolatis acutissimis striatis, pedunculis versus apicem plurifloris petiolo multo longioribus, floribus subnutantibus.--Flowers considerably smaller than in K. PROSTRATA, and petals narrower.] [*** D. TRITICOIDES (Lindl. MS.); culmo ramoso stricto, foliis glabris margine spinoso-scabris basi planis apice involutis, spicâ cylindraceâ distichâ secundâ, spiculis subtrifloris flore summo mutico abortiente, paleae inferioris dorso lanatae aristâ rectâ glumâ mucronatâ multinervi longiore.] [**** J. MITCHELLII; foliis ternatis glabris; foliolis linearibus linearilanceolatisque, ramis teretibus, corymbis axillaribus subsessilibus foliis multo brevioribus, calycibus pubescentibus subtruncatis 5-dentatis, corollae limbo 5-fido acuto.] 22D OCTOBER.--The information Mr. Kennedy had gathered from the natives, about the final course of the river; his surveys thereof, which, even on foot, he had extended sixteen miles (eight miles each way from the camp), and the fact, that the fish of the Balonne, Cod, or GRISTES PEELII had, at length been caught in it, all led to the conclusion that this river was no other than the tributary which on the 24th, of April I at first followed up, and afterwards halted and wrote back to Mr. Kennedy about. By following this down, the probability that we should find water seemed greater, than by returning along our old track, where we had left behind some ponds so small that we could not hope to find any water remaining, especially at two of the camps between us and Bindango, I therefore determined to follow this river downward, and to survey its course. We left the depôt camp this morning, and to avoid some overhanging cliffs on the river, we travelled first over an open tract. The camp we left, namely, XXIX, or "MOONDI," or the "second depôt camp," will be found a valuable cattle-station or sheep-station, by the first squatter coming this way. The runs about it are very extensive; the natives few and inoffensive, and the stock-yard etc., left there, renders it very complete. I must not omit, however, to mention, that the water had become slightly brackish, but not so as to be unpalatable, or even, indeed, perceptible, except to persons unused to it. The large reach had fallen two feet since the party first occupied that station. In other reaches lower down, that we passed during this day's journey, the water was perfectly sweet. I proceeded about thirteen miles with the light party, and encamped at the junction of a little river from the N. W. formerly crossed by me (on my ride of 23d May). A new poppy was found on the flats by the river, near PAPAVER DUBIUM; but the leaves, when dry, became darkgreen not pale; the aculei are too numerous and stout, pectant not depressed, and the flowers very small. The teams and drays did not arrive as expected, and the men with me had not brought any provisions with them. We saw natives in the woods before we encamped, and parts of the grass on fire. A beautifully worked net, laid carefully under a piece of bark, having two curiously carved stakes attached to it, was found by Mr. Kennedy, who made deep impressions of his boots in the soil near it, that the natives might see that white men had been there, and had left the net untouched. Thermometer, at sunrise, 47°; at noon, 81°; at 4 P.M., 85°; at 9, 70°; with wet bulb, 56°. Height above the sea, 1185 feet (Camp 76). 23RD OCTOBER.--We were obliged to halt, and await the arrival of the drays, which only took place at ½ past 11, A.M. The cattle were found to be so fat and fresh, that the drivers could not get them along faster. Mr. Stephenson obtained a specimen of the dove observed by me on the Victoria. (GEOPALIA CUNEATA). I had heard the note in the woods, and directed his attention to it. The SWANSONIA CORONILLOEFOLIA adorned the rich flats with its crimson pear-shaped blossoms, and the CROTALARIA DISSITIFLORA, was also in flower, but smaller than usual; more rigid, with a denser silky pubescence, and smaller, shorter leaflets. The SIDA (Abutilon) FRAZERI (Hook. M S.)[*] and also the CLEMATIS STENOPHYLLA[**], were found on this part of the river. Thermometer, at sunrise, 48°; at noon, 91°; at 4 P. M., 93°; at 9, 65°;--with wet bulb, 53°. [* S. (ABUTILON) FRASERI (Hook. MS.); tota stellato-pubescens, foliis ovatiscordatis acutis argutè crenato-serratis, petiolo folium aequante, pedunculis axillaribus solitariis unifloris apicem versus articulatis, calycis 5-partiti segmentis ovato-lanceolatis.--SIDA DUMOSA, J. Backhouse MS. in Hook. Herb. (not Swartz). This has a most extensive range; having been found at Moreton Bay by Mr. Backhouse, at Brisbane River by Fraser and Smith, and in other parts of this colony by All. Cunningham.] [** C. STENOPHYLLA Fraser in Hook. Herb. C. OCCIDENTALIS A. Cunn. in Hook. Herb.--Very nearly allied to C. MICROPHYLLA of De Cand. Syst. i. p. 147. but in that the carpels are said to be glabrous.] 24TH OCTOBER.--Soon after leaving the camp this morning, we entered upon an open country, the downs extending before us from the right bank of the river, the course of which was somewhat to the eastward of south. The cattle came on faster this day, and we encamped on the skirts of the plain, near a fine reach of water in the river. We were now upwards of twenty miles to the westward of Bindango, with abundance of water; whereas I had always looked back to much difficulty in returning by that route, as the ponds near it were likely to be dried up. I had seen the higher parts of these downs from the summit of Bindango, but did not then suspect that a large river was in the midst of them, whose course was so favourable for a traveller proceeding northward. The discovery of these extensive downs was an important incident in this journey, watered as they were by a fine river; especially as the country to the N. W. was open or thinly wooded, and likely to be found so as far as the central downs and plains on the banks of the river Victoria. A new and very remarkable Ventilago was found this day.[*] I now again numbered the camps, continuing the series backwards, by a different character; this was numbered 77; the last, 76. The utility of these numbers along our surveyed line will be admitted, when the country is taken up, as they will not only serve to identify localities with the map, but may also enable the land-surveyors to connect local surveys with the general map of the country. The sky was overcast with thunder-clouds in the afternoon, and the mercurial column was low; but no rain fell, and a clear starry sky, at 9 P. M., admitted of our observations as usual. Thermometer, at sunrise, 53°; at noon, 85°; at 4 P. M., 83°; at 9, 58°;-- with wet bulb, 47°. Height above the sea, 1295 feet. (Camp 77.) [* V. VIMINALIS (Hook. MS.); foliis anguste elongato-lanceolatis integerrimis nervis costa parallelis, paniculis axillaribus terminalibusque.--The other hitherto known species of the genus, have broad leaves, more or less denticulate, with patent nerves. The flowers and fruit entirely accord with those of the genus.--W. J. H. "Tree 20 feet high, growing on high sandy ridges."] 25TH OCTOBER.--We continued in the direction of a column of smoke I had perceived yesterday, believing that there I should intersect the river, or at least find water. We found the open downs at length, hemmed in by ACACIA PENDULA, growing openly; but which gave place to a scrub, as we approached some ridges. These ridges consisted of red gravel; the scrub contained callitris, casuarina, silver-leaved iron-bark, malga and brigalow, the two latter growing so thickly as to compel me to turn eastward to avoid them. This elevated rocky ground was found more extensive than I had expected, throwing down many water-courses to the east and north-east; but, at length, we made the river, and encamped after a journey of 10 1/3 miles. It there ran through a deep valley, due south, with a broad channel, in which we found a reach of water covered with ducks. The country beyond it, to the eastward, over which our former route passed, appeared like high table-land in bluey distance; but neither of the mountains Bindango or Bindyego were visible from the country traversed by the party this day. Thermometer, at sunrise, 43°; at noon, 81°; at 4 P. M., 94°; at 9, 65°;--with wet bulb, 51°. Height above the sea, 1186 feet. (Camp 78.) 26TH OCTOBER.--A river coming into the Maranòa, about a mile from our camp, was apparently the river Amby; but without having traced its course throughout, I could not feel certain of this, after all I had seen of these rivers: I think this was the same, however. We kept the Maranòa on our left during the whole of this day's journey, and were thus able to pursue a tolerably straight line in the direction of about 20° E. of S. At length, arriving at the junction of an important tributary from the N. W., full of water, and seeing another also join from the east, I crossed the main channel and encamped on the left bank, in sight of a reach of broad blue water below the junction, of an extent which reminded us of the Balonne itself. The valley of the river seemed bounded by continuous ranges of high land, which looked in the back-ground like table-land. Recently, much grass and bushes had been burnt, along the banks of the river, by the natives; and we this day passed over a tract where the grass was still in a blaze on both sides of us. Crows and hawks hovered over the flames, apparently intent on depriving the devouring clement of whatever prey more properly belonged to them. In a dry part of the bed of the river, I met with many instances of a singular habit of the eelfish (JEWFISH) PLOTOSUS TANDANUS.[*] I had previously observed, elsewhere, in the aquatic weeds growing in extensive reaches, clear circular openings, showing white parts of the bottom, over which one or two fishes continually swam round in circles. I now found in the dry bed, that such circles consisted of a raised edge of sand, and were filled with stones, some as large as a man's closed fist. Yuranigh told me that this was the nest of a pair of these fish, and that they carried the stones there, and made it. The general bed of the river where I saw these nests, consisted wholly of deep firm sand; and that the fish had some way of carrying or moving stones to such spots, seemed evident, but for what purpose I could not discover. Thermometer, at sunrise, 56°; at noon, 83°; at 4 P. M., 93°; at 9, 75°;--with wet bulb, 59°. [* See Pl. 6. fig. 2. p. 44. vol. i. of Three Expeditions.] 27TH OCTOBER.--We now travelled along the left bank of the river, and found the country tolerably open. The ADRIANIA ACERIFOLIA grew on an islet in the river.[*] This still pursued a remarkably straight course, and contained abundance of water. After passing over a place where the bush was on fire, we saw a female in the act of climbing a tree. When she had ascended about eight feet, she remained stationary, looking at us without any appearance of dismay. I continued to pursue a straight- forward course, but told Yuranigh to inquire, EN PASSANT, what was the name of the river; to which question she replied, in his own language, "The name of that water is Maranòa:" thus confirming the name we had already understood, however indirectly, to be that of the river. It proved the accuracy of my servant Brown's ear, for it was first communicated to him, during my absence, by the old chief at Bindango. The gin appeared to be climbing in search of honey. To state that this female wore no sort of clothing, were superfluous to any reader of this journal who may have been in such interior parts of Australia. After travelling about fourteen miles, we came upon a fine reach of the river, and encamped beside it. Thermometer, at sunrise, 59°; at noon, 68°; at 4 P. M., 95°; at 9, 77°;--wet bulb, 65°. Height above the sea, 832 feet. (Camp 80.) [* A. ACERIFOLIA (CROTON ACERIFOLIUM All. Cunn. MS.); foliis cordato- ovatis trifidis segmentis acuminatis grosse inaequaliter sinuato- serratis, subtus bracteisque pubescenti-tomentosis.--Shrub three feet high. Flowers scarlet. Collected by Allan Cunningham along the Lachlan river.] 28TH OCTOBER.--Heavy rain was falling soon after day-break, and I most willingly sat still in my tent, hoping the rain would continue. Just in sight of it grew a picturesque tree: the half-dead, half-alive aspect presented by the same sort of tree, was not unfrequent in the Australian woods; and I was induced to sketch this specimen, as highly characteristic of the scenery. These trees, "so wither'd and so wild in their attire," generally appear under the shelter of other taller trees; have half their branches dead, the part still in foliage drooping like the willow, the leaf being very small. It is an Acacia (A. VARIANS), and I was informed by Yuranigh that it is the Upas of Australia; the natives call it "Goobang," and use a bough of it to poison the fish in waterholes. They are too honest and fair in their fights to think of poisoning their weapons. The aspect of this half-dead tree is certainly characteristic of its deleterious qualities, in the wild romantic outline resembling Shakspeare's lean, poison-selling apothecary,-- --"who dwelt about the very gates of death, Pale misery had worn him to the bones." Some good soaking rain fell until about 10 A. M., after which we had a cool day and cloudy sky. The rain ensured to us at least dew on the grass for a morning or two; and this, with the prospect of finding the channel dry lower down, was a great advantage. Thermometer, at sunrise, 61°; at noon, 75°; at 4 P. M., 76°; at 9, 60°;--wet bulb, 51°. 29TH OCTOBER.--A clear cool morning. We travelled this day with so much ease, that we got over twenty miles without apparent fatigue, to bullocks or horses. The necessity for travelling so far arose from the utter want of water in the river bed. The course was very direct; the country was open, and clothed with rich verdure on which our cattle could have reposed, doubtless with great satisfaction, both to themselves and drivers, had water also been at hand; but after travelling over, and measuring twenty miles, we were obliged to encamp without any. As this seemed only a branch of the river. I sent Corporal Graham to ascertain what was beyond, while I, with Yuranigh, examined this channel backwards. We found no water in either direction, but Corporal Graham discovered the main channel at a mile and a half westward from our camp, and traced it to near the junction with the ana-branch on which we were encamped. We discovered this day a club and shield, such as the natives use on the Belyando, carefully put away upon a sort of scaffold of bark, and covered with bark. The shield was made of very light wood, the face being rounded, and having been covered with a dark varnish like japan; for which the surface had been made rough by crossed lines, resembling those made on the first coat of plaster. It was evident, from the marks on this shield, that the clubs were frequently used as missiles.[*] Each man of the tribe that visited my camp on the Belyando, carried three or four of these, but no shields; a plain indication that they were not then armed for war against other aborigines. Thermometer, at sunrise, 36°; at noon, 68°; at 4 P.M., 73°; at 9, 49°;--with wet bulb, 40°. [* Deposited in the British Museum (60, 61.).] 30TH OCTOBER.--We were now fifty-two miles from the junction of the dry channel we crossed by the Balonne, and forty from the nearest part of our former route, in advancing into this country. The risk of want of water was worth encountering in the most direct line homewards, which was by following down this river. I travelled, as straight as the bush would allow, towards the junction; Graham examining the channel while we proceeded. No water was found where the rivers united. Having halted the small party with me, I followed one branch many miles with Yuranigh, but all we could find were some wells, dug by natives, in a part of the sandy bed; in one of which Yuranigh found, by a long bough he thrust in, that there was moisture about five feet below the surface. I returned, determined to encamp near this, and dig a well. The bullock teams had also arrived when I returned to the party, and I learnt that Drysdale, having observed that my little dog Procyon came in wet, had been led to the discovery of a lagoon about three miles back, at which the cattle had been already watered. I immediately encamped. At finding water the dog was most expert, the native next, we inferior to both. We had come about fifteen miles, and I wished to lay down the journey on the map. On doing this, I found we had at length attained a point from whence, in case of necessity, we could go as far as the Balonne, even if no water were found in the country intervening, the direct distance being under forty miles. During the afternoon, a still larger lagoon was found, higher up than the first. I resolved to give the cattle a day's rest, and then to proceed prepared, by well watering them previously, to travel on to the Balonne, but not with much expectation that scarcity of water would oblige us to go so far. Thermometer, at sunrise, 34°; at noon, 70°; at 4 P. M., 78°; at 9, 60°;--with wet bulb, 46°. 31ST OCTOBER.--Two men were sent to the westward, where they found a dry sandy country with pines, the same as that seen by me on my first ride from St. George's bridge to the N.W., on the 18th of April. I was myself engaged at the camp, on my general map of the country. Thermometer, at sunrise, 33°; at noon, 81°; at 4 P. M., 84°; at 9, 51°--wet bulb, 43°. Height above the sea, 882 feet. 1ST NOVEMBER.--The cattle and horses, having been all night loose beside Drysdale's ponds, were brought in early, and we then proceeded. After travelling about eight miles, over ground bearing traces of inundation, and looking, as we proceeded, into the river channel for water, Yuranigh found a lagoon in a hollow parallel to the river, and I encamped, resolved to reduce as much as possible the distance to be traversed in uncertainty about finding water. We had, however, found rocky ridges on the left, like bergs to the river; and the voices of natives in the woods, as well as these ridges, redeemed the country from the aspect of drought. This was but a small portion of the fine pastoral country, traversed by this river, where we found the channel dry; and I think this want was compensated by many lagoons and watercourses in that back country extending to the little river from Mount Abundance, the Cogoon. 2D NOVEMBER.--After watering all the animals, we went forward, prepared to go on to the Balonne, even if we should meet with no water until we arrived at that river. We found, however, that the country we were to traverse was well watered. Three miles on from our camp, the country appeared quite verdant, and park-like in its woods. The channel of the river was bordered with green reeds, and contained a deep reach of sparkling water. The river took a turn to the eastward, and, in the angle formed by its again turning south, a little tributary entered it from the north, which was full of ponds of water, and had not long ceased to run. This came from the rocky tract situated between our old line of route, along the little river Cogoon near Mount First View, and the Maranòa. The water now found supplied the only link wanting in our explored line along the last mentioned river, and I had no doubt that, by crossing that country more directly towards the upper part of the Maranòa, a supply would be found at convenient stages. On crossing the little tributary (which I called Requisite Ponds), we found that the river resumed its straight course towards the Balonne; and, in latitude 27° 31' 37" S., we again saw green reeds and a good pond, beside which we encamped. Thermometer, at sunrise, 50°; at noon, 76°; at 4 P. M., 79°; at 9, 63°; --with wet bulb, 61°. (Camp 82.) Height above the sea, 969 feet. 3D NOVEMBER.--The river accompanied us but a short way this day, as I had determined to follow a straight line towards the junction with the Balonne, aware that the course of the river, for ten or twelve miles above that point, turned very much to the westward. We passed through much open forest, and over much sandy ground, on which the callitris always appeared to predominate. Little scrub lay in our way. At length, plains again appeared before us through the trees; and, beyond them, after travelling twenty-two miles, we saw before us the river line, running north-east. We crossed it, and still continued to travel on towards the main river; but night overtook us when not far distant from it, so that we were obliged to encamp within the distance of a mile and a half, after a journey, with carts, of 26½ miles. Here occurred the only Epiphyte observed during the expedition. It was growing in the dead parts of trees in the forest, and proved to be the CYMBIDIUM CANALICULATUM of Brown. One of the specimens had a raceme of flowers above a foot long. The fragrant JASMINUM MITCHELLII occurred, with narrower leaves than usual, at the foot of the forest trees. JUSTICIA ADSCENDENS, an inconspicuous weed, covered the plains in large tufts. The MELALEUCA TRICHOSTACHYA was there; and on the plains, and in open forests, grew a woolly. ANDROPOGON, which appeared not to be distinct from the A. BOMBYCINUS. In the open forest grew, here and there, the delicate COESIA OCCIDENTALIS, and on the plains a small species of HEDYOTIS; a new CALOCEPHALUS in bunches[*], and a creeping plant, with yellow flowers, since found to be a new species of GOODENIA.[**] Thermometer, at sunrise, 51°; at noon, 85°; at 4 P.M., 86°; at 9, 66°;--with wet bulb, 54°. Height above the sea, 819 feet. [* C. GNAPHALIOIDES (Hook. MS.); annua erecta arachnoidea superne dichotome ramosa, foliis linearibus, capitulorum glomerulis laxiusculis corymbosis, involucri cylindracei squamis pellucidis albis.--Probably a distinct genus.] [** G. FLAGELLIFERA (de Vriese MS.); herbacea, glabra, foliis radicalibus longe petiolatis, spathulatis, flagellis elongatis: floribus radicalibus, axillaribus, longissime pedunculatis; calyce supero, quinquefido, laciniis lineari-lanceolatis, bibracteolato; corolla bilabiata flava, labio superiore fisso; fllamentis et antheris liberis; stigmatis indusio ciliato; flagellis folii-et floriferis valde elongatis capsula prismatica, biloculari; seminibus marginatis compressis; flagellis floriferis; floribus in axilla folii ovatorotundati, auriculati, subamplexicaulis, contentis, brevius pedunculatis.--Folia radicalia, 8-10 cent. longa, 1½-2 cent. lata, apice rotundata, subrepandula, deorsum attenuata, subdecurrentia, utrinque glaberrima, subtus pallidiora; folia flagellorum bracteiformia, ovata, subrotunda, uno vel utroque latere auriculata, alterutra auricula multo minore, floribus vero in bractearum illarum axillis, reliquis multo minoribus neque ad normam perfectis, brevius pedunculatis. Affinis species G. HEDERACEOE.--DE VR.] 4TH NOVEMBER.--At an early hour we proceeded, and had the satisfaction soon to find our old wheeltracks along the bank of the majestic Balonne. This truly noble river was here as broad as the Thames at Richmond; its banks were verdant with a luxuriant crop of grass, and the merry notes of numerous birds gave the whole scene a most cheering appearance; especially to us who were again upon a route connected with home, and at a point 200 miles nearer to it, than where we had last seen that route. We had since made the discovery, and completed the survey, of the lower Maranòa, a river which had brought us in a very straight direction back to this point; and by tracing this down, we had established a well watered line of route back to the fine regions we had discovered in the more remote interior. I marked a tree at this camp (83.), which mark is intended to show where this route turns towards the Maranòa x. being marked at the next camp back along the old track. In the Balonne, huge cod-fish (GRISTES PEELII) were caught this afternoon; indeed, we already felt comparatively at home, although still far from the settled districts, and strangers to all that had been passing in the world during seven months. I was busy endeavouring to complete my maps before other cares should divert my attention from the one subject that had occupied it so long. But in perusing nature's own book, I could, at leisure, think sometimes on many other subjects, and I fancied myself wiser than when I set out,--much improved in health,--bronzed and bearded; sunproof, fly- proof, and water-proof: that is to say, proof against the want of it, "LUCUS A NON LUCENDO." Thermometer, at sunrise, 44°; at noon, 76°; at 4 P.M., 85°; at 9, 71°;--wet bulb, 59°. Height above the sea, 738 feet. 5TH NOVEMBER.--We now travelled back along our old track towards Camp VIII., at St. George's Bridge, where the first depôt had been stationed; the tracks of several horsemen, returning after rain, were visible along our route, and the prints of natives' feet with them. How far these parties had been further on, along the other route by which we had advanced, we could not then ascertain. In the course of our ride this day, we came suddenly upon two females, who were so busy digging roots on a plain crossed by our track, that we were too near to admit of their running off before they perceived us; they therefore remained on the spot until we went up to them. They informed us, through Yuranigh, that "the tracks were those of five white men on horseback, who had been accompanied by natives on foot. They came there about one moon before then, and had been looking very much all about; these females could not think what for." We took up our old position, overlooking the rocky bed of the river. Pieces of old iron had been left untouched by the natives, both at this camp, and were found on our old track in returning. As these articles were such as they could have made great use of, I considered their leaving them a proof of their good disposition towards the exploring party; and of the very favourable impression we had made formerly on the aborigines, at the interview with the assembled tribes of this river. In the scrubs adjacent, we found, for the first time, the ripe fruit of the "Quandang" (FUSANUS ACUMINATUS), and several shrubs in flower that we thought new to botany. Thermometer, at sunrise, 44°; at noon, 76°; at 4 P.M., 85°; at 9, 71°;--wet bulb, 59°. Chapter IX. MR. KENNEDY SENT TO EXPLORE THE MOONI PONDS.--I COMPLETE THE MAPS.-- EXCESSIVE HEAT AGAIN.--NEW PLANTS FOUND.--MR. KENNEDY RETURNS--AFTER SUFFERING MUCH FROM THE HEAT AND DROUGHT.--CORPORAL GRAHAM SENT WITH DESPATCHES FOR THE GOVERNOR OF NEW SOUTH WALES.--THE PARTY CROSSES THE BALONNE--BY ST. GEORGE'S BRIDGE.--REACHES THE MOONI PONDS--OR RIVER.-- TRACKS OF CATTLE AND HORSES NUMEROUS.--A WHITE WOMAN MET WITH.--CATTLE STATIONS.--HEAVY AND CONTINUED RAIN RETARDS THE PARTY.--FLOODS ALMOST SURROUND THE CAMP.--THE WATERS KEPT BACK BY A DAM OF SAND.--AFTER SEVENTEEN DAYS HALT, THE PARTY CROSSES FROM THE MOONI TO THE BARWAN.--A FLOOD IN THE BARWAN.--PASSAGE WITH THE BOATS.--MUSQUITOES NUMEROUS AFTER THE RAIN.--STRAY HORSES JOIN OURS.--THE MAAL ALSO FLOODED.--CROSS IT WITH THE BOATS.--THE MEEI CROSSED.--CROSS OTHER BRANCHES OF THE GWYDIR.-- RECOGNISE MOUNT RIDDELL.--ENTER ON EXTENSIVE PLAINS.--SNODGRASS LAGOON.-- A YOUNG SQUATTER.--LEAVE THE PARTY IN CHARGE OF MR. KENNEDY.--RIDE HOMEWARDS. 5TH to 9TH NOVEMBER.--These days I devoted to the protracting of angles taken on the Victoria, and the last day to writing my despatch to the Government; and on this morning (the 9th) I sent Mr. Kennedy, followed by Corporal Graham and John Douglas, to examine the country in the direction of the furthest point attained by me on my journey of 1831; that was on the Barwan (Karaula) in latitude 29° 2' S., and bearing about 20° E. of S. from this camp. A chain of ponds, called the "Mooni" ponds, were said to water the intervening country, and I wished to ascertain whether they were favourable for the connection of our recently explored route, with the termination of that marked out by me in 1831, when my journey, undertaken expressly with the same objects in view, was accidentally frustrated. Corporal Graham was to go forward to the postoffice at Tamworth with the despatches, when Mr. Kennedy, having ascertained the situation of the Mooni ponds, should return. In the meanwhile, I continued to finish maps and drawings, although suffering much inconvenience from excessive heat, under a tent infested with numerous flies. The banks of the river were gay with the purple flowers of SWAINSONA CORONILLOEFOLIA; FUSANUS ACUMINATUS, produced its crimson-coloured fruit, which Yuranigh brought us from the bush; the spotted bark tree, ELOEODENDRON MACULOSUM, was also in these scrubs. A yellow-flowered herbaceous plant, has been determined by Professor De Vriese to be identical with the Swan River GOODENIA PULCHELLA. A salt plant, greedily eaten by the cattle, proved to be a variety of the ATRIPLEX NUMMULARIS, observed in February on the Macquarie. A species of GREWIA, in fruit, appeared to be the same as the G. RICHARDIANA of Walpers. The TRICHINIUM FUSIFORME R. Br., was covered with its globular, shaggy flower-heads, in the sandy open parts of the forest. A very remarkable shrub, five or six feet high, with the foliage of a Phyllirea, and spreading branches, was loaded with short racemes of white flowers. It proved to be a plant of the natural order of Bixads, and allied to MELICYTUS, but with hermaphrodite flowers.[*] A submerged plant, in the water, was found to be a new species of MYRIOPHYLLUM, with tuberculate fruit.[**] CASSIA CORONILLOIDES, a low shrub, was in flower.[***] A shrubby MYOPORUM put forth sweet and edible fruit. A new ELOEODENDRON, with small panicles of white flowers, formed a forest tree twenty feet high, remarkable for its spotted bark.[****] A fir-leaved CASSIA, with thin, sickle-leaved pods, formed a bush, from four to five feet high.[*****] A new blue-flowered MORGANIA, decorated the river- bank[******]; lastly, a new species of indigo[*******], completed the list of plants we gathered at this season at the camp over St. George's Bridge. [* M. ? OLEASTER (Lindl. MS.); glaberrimus, foliis lineari-lanceolatis supra griseis subtus virentibus venosis racemis strictis multo longioribus, floribus hermaphroditis.--OBS. SEP. 5. PET. 5 hypog. imbricata. ST. 5 in margine disci magni inserta. OVAR. ovatum 1-loc. plac. 3-par. STYLUS simplex. STIGMA parvum 3-dent. FRUCTUS ignotus, verisim. carnosus.] [** M. VERRUCOSUM (Lindl. MS.); foliis submersis capillaceo-multifidis emersis ternatim verticillatis ovatis pinnatifidis, floribus octandris, fructibus tuberculatis.] [*** C. CORONILLOIDES (A. Cunn. MS.); ramis subangulatis petiolisque minute puberulis, foliolis 8-10-jugis lineari-oblongis obtusiusculis glabris, glandula cylindrica inter par infimum, racemis axillaribus 2-3- floris folio multo brevioribus.--Very near C. AUSTRALIS, but the leaflets are fewer and smaller, and the subulate glands of that species are wanting.--G. B. M. DULCE (Benth. MS.); ramulis laevibus, foliis anguste lanceolatis planis acutis uninervibus basi angustatis, laciniis calycinis linearilanceolatis acutis brevibus, corollae limbo imberbi.--Intermediate between M. TENUIFOLIUM Br. and M. DESERTI Cunn.] [**** E. MACULOSUM (Lindl. MS.); inerme, foliis linearibus obovatis integerrimis obtusis, paniculis terminalibus ultra folia evectis.] [***** C. CIRCINNATA (Benth. MS.); glabriuscula, petiolis phyllodineis lineari-subteretibus, foliolis nullis, racemis phyllodio plerumque brevioribus 1-2-floris, legumine plano glabro cincinnato v. spiraliter contorto.--Phyllodia one to one and a half inch long, resembling the leaflets of C. HETEROLOBA. Pod like that of several PITHECOLOBIA, but not yet ripe.] [****** M. FLORIBUNDA (Benth. MS.); dense glandulosa, caeterum glabra, ramis strictis dense foliosis foliis linearibus rarissime dentatis, pedicellis plerisque geminis folio florali multo brevioribus.--This is a very distinct species which was also gathered by Sir T. Mitchell in 1836, but my specimen was not complete enough to describe it accurately, the branches are thickly covered with leaves and flowers. The lower leaves are one to two inches long, the flowers blue, like those of M. GLABRA. G.B.] [******* I. BREVIDENS (Benth. MS.) fruticosa, gracilis, pilis parvis canescens, foliolis 6-10-jugis cum impari oppositis obovatis subplanis mucronatis v. emarginatis utrinque strigosis, racemis multifloris laxis folia vix superantibus, bracteis minutis, calycis villosuli dentibus brevissimis obtusis, corolla pubescente, legumine strigilloso incurvo.-- It has much the aspect of I. MICRANTHA (Bunge), but the flowers are not quite so small, and the teeth of the calyx are very different.] 15TH NOVEMBER.--Mr. Kennedy having been absent much longer than was expected, at length appeared on the opposite bank of the river with Douglas, both being on foot, and Douglas leading only one (strange) horse. The information Mr. Kennedy brought me was favourable to the project of uniting this route with that to the Barwan, and the (now) settled district of the Nammoy. He had found that the Mooni ran nearly north and south, and that its banks were occupied with cattle-stations to within a day's ride of our camp. This ride of discovery had, however, cost the lives of two of our horses, the bearing already mentioned as the direction given for Mr. Kennedy's guidance having been TRUE and not magnetic. Pursuing that bearing BY COMPASS, Mr. Kennedy had ridden almost parallel to the Mooni, sixty-three miles, without hitting them, or finding water. The heat was intense, one of the horses died, and the men were very ill; when they at length reached these ponds. In returning, he had travelled by the stations, and borrowed the horse brought back, from the station nearest to us, occupied by Messrs. Hook. From these gentlemen Mr. Kennedy had ascertained that Sir Charles Fitzroy was the new Governor. 17TH NOVEMBER.--The whole party crossed the Balonne by St. George's Bridge, and I arrived, the same afternoon, with a small advanced party on the Mooni, which we made in latitude 28° 17' 51" S. The channel was full of water, and thus we completed the last link wanted to form a chain of communication DIRECT FROM SYDNEY, to the furthest limits we had explored. The ground was imprinted with the hoofs of cattle, and we already felt as if at home. The day was one of extreme heat without any wind; the thermometer stood at 104° in the shade. Yet the horses drew the carts easily twenty-four miles and a quarter. We had passed over a country covered with excellent grass, consisting chiefly of plains and open forest, with scrubs of ACACIA PENDULA, and a soil of clay. In the scrubs we found a new species of CANTHIUM, a shrub ten or twelve feet high; and in the open forest ACACIA NERIIFOLIA was observed in fruit; HIBISCUS STURTII Hook.; an Evolvulus related to SERICEUS; a new yellow CROTALARIA[*] ; and a noble new species of STENOCHILUS, with willowy leaves and large trumpet flowers.[**] Thermometer, at sunrise, rise, 62°; at noon, 103°; at 4 P.M., 104°; at 9, 81°;--with wet bulb, 67°. Height above the sea, 622 feet. (Camp 84.) [* C. DISSITIFLORA (Benth. MS.); herbacea, laxe ramosa, stipulis setaceis, foliolis elliptico-oblongis rarius ovalibus obtusis supra glabris subtus ramulisque pube tenui subcanescentibus, racemis erectis oppositifoliis elongatis, floribus (ultra 20) distantibus, carinae rostro brevi recto, ovulis numerosis, legumine breviter stipitato pubescente.-- Very near to C. SENEGALENSIS among the LONGIROSTRES, but the habit is more rigid, the leaflets rather larger, the beak of the keel shorter, and the pod (which is only very young in the specimen) is borne on a short stalk.] [** S. (PLATYCHILUS) BIGNONIAEFLORUS (Benth. MS.); glaber viscosus-foliis longe lanceolatis linearibusve apice subuncinato, calycis foliolis latis acutis, corollae glabrae ventricosae laciniis obtusissimis infima dilatata subtriloba vix caeteris magis soluta, staminibus vix exsertis.-- Leaves three to six inches long, two to six lines broad, thick and clammy. Flowers above an inch long, remarkable for the broad divisions of the corolla, and the general form much that of a BIGNONIA. This difference in the form of the corolla, would perhaps justify the placing it into a distinct genus instead of a mere section, especially as that peculiarity which gave the name of STENOCHILUS does not exist, were it not that the forms of the corolla are so different in different other species, that they will not furnish generic characters where the habit is similar.--G. B.] 18TH NOVEMBER.--The teams came in very early, not having been above one mile behind. I remained encamped there, in the expectation of some decided change of weather. The night had been oppressively hot. The season during which we had been beyond the Balonne, viz., that between the 23rd April and 5th November, was the most proper for visiting the tropical regions of Australia. Here we found TRICORYNE ELATIOR, a delicate yellow-flowered plant; a species of the genus Fugosia near F. DIGITATA, a plant of Senegambia, but less glabrous, and with the leaflets of the involucre much larger. MORGANIA GLABRA, a little erect herbaceous plant, having the appearance of being parasitical on roots; ACACIA VARIANS, in the open forest, in rich soil. ANTHERICUM BULBOSUM, formerly seen on the Narran. In the thick forest, a shrub six feet high with small white flowers, CATHA CUNNINGHAMII[*] (Hook. MS.), and a new species of VIGNA very near V. LANCEOLATA, though very different in habit.[**] Thermometer, at sunrise, 58°; at noon, 102°; at 4 P.M., 103°; at 9, 76°;--with wet bulb, 64°. [* C. CUNNINGHAMII (Hook. MS.); inermis, foliis lineari-lanceolatis rigidis mucronato-acutis integerrimis subfalcatis superne latioribus basi in petiolum perbrevem attenuatis, floribus axillaribus fasciculatis, pedunculis simplicibus vel racemosis bracteolatis.] [* V. SUBERECTA (Benth. MS.); leviter pubescens, suberecta, ramosissima, foliolis lato-lanceolatis basi integris vel hastato-trilobatis, pedunculis folio subbrevioribus apice paucifloris, calycis pubescentis campanulati dentibus tubo subaequilongis, carina rostrata acuta, legumine puberulo.] 19TH NOVEMBER.--The party moved off at an early hour. The tracks of cattle and horses became more and more numerous as we proceeded, and the channel of the little river was full of water, on which a large species of duck was very plentiful. At length we came upon the track of wheels, and followed them towards the station; which was not yet visible when our young native, Dicky, fell a shouting and laughing, drawing my attention to what certainly was a "RARA AVIS" to him. This was a white woman going with pails to milk the cows, and the first white female he could ever have seen. The jeering laugh of the young savage was amusing, as he pointed to that swaddled, straw-bonneted object, as something curious in natural history, to which my attention, as he thought, would be rivetted: but the sight was, nevertheless, a welcome one to all the party. Soon two comfortable stations, one on each side of the river, appeared before us; and the neatly dressed mother of two chubby white children stood at the door of one of them. I had a memorandum from Mr. Kennedy to call at the other, to thank the owner for lending him a horse; and there I first entered again under a roof, and a most agreeable cover it did seem to me after living nearly a year under canvass, in houseless wilds. These were cattle stations, and both appeared to be well-laid out for the purpose, and upon a scale more substantial and worthy of it, than I had hitherto seen in squatting districts. The placing of two such stations thus near each other, is a good arrangement, not only affording better security against the depredations of natives, but also as banishing that aspect of solitude and loneliness such places in general present; and in the outset of such a life, implanting, in the still uncultivated soil, the germs of social union, on the solid basis of mutual protection. I continued to travel some miles beyond these stations, for the sake of obtaining better grass for our cattle; and thus lengthened the journey to near twenty miles, in very warm weather, the thermometer being 104° in the shade. Thermometer, at sunrise, 58°; at noon, 102°; at 4 P.M., 104°; at 9, 75°;--with wet bulb, 63°. (Camp 85.) Latitude, 28° 30' 51" S. 20TH NOVEMBER.--Travelling south by compass, we found a tolerably open forest, and the Mooni on our left, until we fell in with Mr. Kennedy's track on riding back. Following this (as he had been guided back by an experienced stockman), we at length crossed the Mooni, and fell into a cart-track leading southward, and at a few miles beyond where we fell into that track, we encamped on the left bank of the Mooni; a tree at this camp being marked 86. Again we saw, in the woods about this camp, the HYLOCOCCUS SERICEUS R. Br., a remarkable tree, with oblong leaves, and fruit resembling a small orange. It is a curious genus, and belongs to the poisonous order of Spurgeworts. We found here also, the HELICHRYSUM SEMIPAPPOSUM D. C.; ACACIA SPECTABILIS; a new species of BEYERIA, near B. VISCOSA, Mig.; the variety of CASSIA SOPHERA (Linn.) cultivated in some botanical gardens, under the name of C. SOPHERELLA; a beautiful tree with pinnate leaves and spreading panicles of large white flowers, called THOUINIA AUSTRALIS; the EUCALYPTUS BICOLOR A. Cunn. MS., a species closely allied to E. HOEMATOMMA Sm., but the marginal nerve is not so close to the edge of the leaf (this is the "bastard box" of the carpenters); a fine new large-flowered SIDA[*]; and it appears that the "Yarra" tree of the natives here, is a new Eucalyptus, which Sir William Hooker calls E. ACUMINATA.[**] [* S. (ABUTILON) TUBULOSA (All. Cunn. MS.); tota velutino-pubescens, foliis cordato-ovatis (sinu profundo angusto) sublonge acuminatis dentatoserratis, stipulis subulatis flaccidis, pedunculis axillaribus solitariis unifloris folio brevioribus, calyce elongato tubuloso 5-fido laciniis acuminatis, petalis (flavis) vix duplo brevioribus.--W. J. H.] [** E. ACUMINATA (Hook. MS.); foliis alternis petiolatis lanceolatis longe acuminatis subaristatis penninerviis glaucis reticulatis nervis lateralibus a margine remotiusculis, floribus umbellatis (4-6-floris), umbellis pedunculatis, calycis tubo hemisphaerico in pedicellum gracilem attenuato, calyptra conico-acuminato calycis tubum superante.] Just as we sat down here, rain came on; the wind changed to S. W. and the sky looked more portentous of rainy weather than we had ever seen it on this journey. Now this was the first country in which we had any reason to dread wet weather, since we crossed the Culgoa about the beginning of April. Here rain would render the ground impassable, and inundate the country. The mercury in the barometer was falling, and so was the rain. Thermometer, at sunrise, 61°; at noon, 62°; at 4 P.M., 57°; at 9, 53°;-- with wet bulb, 53°. 21ST NOVEMBER.--The wind had shifted from E. to S. W., and the rain had set in,--to proceed was quite impossible. The coolness of a cloudy day rendered the tent much more agreeable and convenient for finishing maps in, than one under the extremely hot sunshine which mine had been recently exposed to so long at St. George's Bridge. I had now, therefore, a good opportunity of completing the maps. The great heat which had prevailed during so many successive days there, portended some such change as this; and we were thus likely to be caught in that very region so subject to inundation, which I was formerly so careful to avoid, that I endeavoured to travel so as to be within reach of a hilly country. For that reason chiefly I had proceeded into the interior, by the circuitous route of Fort Bourke. 21ST NOVEMBER TO 7TH DECEMBER.--The sky resembled that in Poussin's picture of the Deluge; and to one who had contended a whole year with scarcity of water, in regions where this coming supply had so long been due, the reflection would often occur, that this rain, if it had fallen a year sooner, might have expedited that journey very much indeed; whereas it was now very likely to retard the return of the party. This was the only spot where such a rain could have seriously impeded our progress; the waters of the great rivers were sure to come down, and we had still to traverse extensive low tracts, where, in 1831, I had seen the marks of floods on trees, which had left an impression still remaining on my mind, that I thought it very desirable then, to get my party safe out of these flats as soon as possible. On the 28th November, or eight days after the rains set in, the Mooni waters came down, at first slowly, but gradually filling up the channel, until they rose to such a height, as to oblige me to move three of the drays. During the night, the rising inundation began to spread over the lower parts of the surface back from the river; while the current came down with such rapidity, and, judging from marks of former inundations on the trunks of box-trees ("GOBORRA"), it appeared probable the water might reach our camp. I therefore determined to move it by daylight to a sand- hill, about a quarter of a mile back from the river. This was effected in good time, and only in time. Between the camp beside the Mooni, and that we afterwards established on the sand-hill, there was a hollow by which the rising floods would pass to an extensive tract of low ground almost surrounding our camp on the sand-hill, and which would, probably, render our passage out of that position difficult, even after the waters had subsided. I therefore employed the men in throwing up a dam across this hollow, between our hill-camp and the river, so as to prevent the inundation from passing that way. We had no better material than sand to oppose to this water; yet, by throwing up enough, we succeeded in arresting the waters there, although they rose to the height of two feet four inches on the upper side of our dam, and gave, to the country above it, the appearance of a vast lake, covering our old encampment; so that the figures 86 cut on a tree, were the only traces of it that remained above water. Our camp on the sand-hill was elevated above the sea 641 feet, or about 80 feet higher than the river. The waters continued to rise until the 2d of December, when they became stationary; and next day they began slowly to subside. By the evening of the 5th, they had receded from the dam; and the sky, which had been lowering until the 1st, began to present clouds of less ominous form. Still the return of clear weather was slow, and accompanied by thunder-showers. Plants put forth their blossoms as soon as the sun re-appeared; amongst others, the DIDISCUS PILOSUS Benth.; a pretty little umbelliferous plant. BOERHAAVIA was again seen here; CARISSA OVATA, a shrub three feet high, with spiny branches, and very sweet white flowers; the NEPTUNIA GRACILIS also, with the appearance of a sensitive plant, was seen in the open flats. It was only on the 7th that a crust had been formed on the earth, sufficiently firm for the cattle to travel upon; and we embraced the earliest opportunity of quitting that camp, where the superabundance of water had detained us seventeen days. Musquitoes now tormented us exceedingly, and had obliged us to tether the horses at night, to prevent them from straying. We this day passed over the soil without finding the wheels to sink much, until we arrived at Johnston's station, five miles from our camp, and where I had been told the ground was firm. There, on the contrary, we encountered the only two swamps at all difficult. Even the drays got through them, however, and I gladly quitted the banks of the Mooni, taking a straight direction towards the Barwan, and encamped ten miles from the former. That central ground between the Mooni and the Barwan, had brigalow growing upon it, was firm, and in some hollows we found water. A heavy thunder-shower fell at sunset, but we were on such firm soil, that I was under no apprehension that it would have the effect of retarding our journey. 8TH DECEMBER.--Thermometer, at 6 A.M., 69°. Height above the sea, 782 feet. Having determined our position on the map, I now chose such a direction for our homeward route, as would form the most eligible general line of communication between Sydney and the Maranòa. It seemed desirable that this should cross the Barwan (the Karaula of my journey of 1831), some miles above the point where I had formerly reached that river; and thus avoid the soft low ground upon the Nammoy, falling into my old track about Snodgrass lagoon, or when in sight of Mount Riddell. With this view, our latitude being 28° 57' 20" S., longitude 149° 11' E., I chose the bearing of S.S.E. (or rather 23½° E. of S.), for my homeward guidance; and this morning I travelled, over a good firm surface, for sixteen miles in that direction, when we arrived at the bank of the Barwan and there encamped. We had passed through some open scrub, chiefly of the rosewood kind, and crossed several small grassy plains; saw one or two patches of brigalow, but very little callitris. An improvement was visible in the quality of the grass, when we came within the distance of about two miles from the river; and open forests or plains of richer soil, its usual concomitants, plainly enough indicated the presence of the Barwan (or "Darling"). In the country we traversed, we saw no cart tracks; but the deep impressions of a few stray cattle, apparently pursued by natives, were visible throughout the scrubs. There was still a considerable flood in the river, although the water had been recently much higher, as was obvious from the state of the banks. Latitude, 28° 37' 20" S. Height above the sea, 590 feet. 9TH DECEMBER.--All hands were busy this morning in making preparations for crossing the Barwan. The boats were soon put together, and on reconnoitring the river in one of them, I soon found a favourable place for swimming the cattle and horses at, and which was effected without accident. The unloaded drays were next drawn through the river at the same place; which was about three hundred yards lower down the river than that at which we had encamped, and which was marked by the number 87, cut on a tree. My former camp on this river in 1831, for want of such a mark, could not be recognised. According to my surveys, it should have been found seventeen miles lower down the river. All our stores and equipment were carried across in the boats. These looked well in the water; their trim appearance and utility, then renewed my regret that I had not reached the navigable portion of the Victoria, and that its channel had been so empty. Perhaps more efficient portable boats never were constructed, or carried so far inland undamaged. They were creditable to the maker, Mr. Struth of Sydney. By their means, the whole party was comfortably encamped this afternoon, on the left bank of the Barwan, just before a heavy thunder-shower came down. The river had fallen several feet during the day. Thermometer, at 6 P.M., 82°. 10TH DECEMBER.--At 6 A.M. thermometer 68°. The mosquitoes were most tormenting; as was well expressed by one of the men outside my tent, who remarked to his companion, "That the more you punishes 'em, the more they brings you to the scratch:" a tolerable pun for one of "the fancy," of which class we had rather too many in the party. The horses, although tethered and close spancelled, could not be secured, even thus. Some had broken away and strayed during the night. It was ascertained by Yuranigh, that four other strange horses were with ours, having come amongst them and led them astray. These had broken loose from a neigh- bouring station, whence a native came to the men I had left to await the horses at the Barwan, and took back the strange horses. I had gone forward with the party, still pursuing the same bearing, and came thus upon the "Maäl," a channel not usually deep, but, at the time, so full of water, with a very slight current in it, that here again we were obliged to employ the boats. This channel was distant 5½ miles from where we had crossed the Barwan. The bullocks were made to swim across in the yokes, drawing the empty drays through, which they accomplished very well; "RARÎ NANTES IN GURGITE VASTO." The loads were carried in the boats, and the horses taken across, as before. The camp was established at an early hour on the left bank of the "Maal," which camp I caused to be marked 88, in figures cut on an iron bark tree. Latitude, 29° 1' 20" S. This seemed to be the same channel crossed by me on 5th February, 1832, at a similar distance from the main river. 11TH DECEMBER.--Thermometer, at 7 A.M., 70°. We continued to travel homewards on the same bearing; thus tracing with our wheels, a direct line of road from Sydney to the northern interior and coast. The plains were gay with the blue flowers of a new CYCLOGYNE[*]; a new CANTHIUM, was in fruit[**]; and we found also a species of Malva, which Sir William Hooker has determined to be MALVA OVATA (Cav.), or scarcely differing from that species, except in the rather soft and short hairs to the calyx (not long and rigid): the two ends of the curved carpels are equal or blunt; but in M. OVATA the upper one is longer and attenuated into a short beak. The same plant was found by Frazer along the Brisbane. The THYSANOTUS ELATIOR was again found here; and a shrubby CRUCIFEROUS plant, quite woody at the base, with very narrow linear setaceous pinnatifid leaves,[***] and linear curved torulose silicules. A new HAKEA with stout needle like leaves, was also found this day in the scrub. We met with no impediment for eighteen miles, when I encamped, although without reaching water enough for our cattle. I knew we could not expect to meet with any watercourse between the Barwan and the Gwydir; which latter river I wished to cross as soon as possible, in hopes then to meet with roads and inhabitants. Even cattle-tracks had again become rare in this intermediate ground, although the grass was in its best state, and most exuberant abundance. We crossed much open plain, and passed through several shady forests of casuarina. A curious provision of nature for the distribution of the seeds of a parasitical plant was observed here, each seed being enclosed within a sort of pulp, like bird-lime, insoluble in water; the whole resembling a very thin-skinned berry. On this being broken, probably by birds, the bird-lime is apt to attach the seed to trees or branches, and so the parasitical growth commences. On the plains, the blue flowers of a large variety of MORGANIA GLABRA caught the eye: the rare and little known HETERODENDRON OLOEFOLIUM of Desfontaines, a genus referred to Soapworts by Mr. Planchon. We found also this day, a new POLYMERIA with erect stems, silky leaves, and pink flowers.[****] Height above the sea, 554 feet. [* C. SWAINSONIOIDES (Benth. MS.); foliolis 8-11 anguste oblongis, racemis laxis dissitifloris, carina spiraliter contorta.--Habit of a SWAINSONIA or LESSERTIA. Flowers blue, as in the original Swan river species (C. CANESCENS). That has not a spirally-twisted keel, but the structure is indicated both by the circinnate apex of the style, and by a slight curl at the summit of the keel.] [** C. OLEIFOLIUM (Hook. MS.); foliis obovato-oblongis obtusis glaucis basi in petiolum gracilem attenuatis, stipulis parvis acutis, fructibus didymis.] [*** H. LONGICUSPIS (Hook. MS.); rigida glaberrima, ramis junioribus subpubescentibus, foliis bi-triuncialibus tereti-filiformibus rigidis strictis longe mucronatis, perianthiis glabris, capsulis suboblique ovatis lignosis glabris brevi-acuminatis.] [**** P. LONGIFOLIA (Lindl. MS.); erecta, foliis sericeo-nitentibus linearilanceolatis auriculatis, pedunculis unifloris foliis multo brevioribus.] 12TH DECEMBER.--Thermometer, at 6 A.M., 67°. Passing over a similar sort of country for some miles (and through a scrub, on first leaving the camp), we at length came upon a more open country, where the ground seemed to fall southward. Cattle-tracks were again numerous, and cow-dung abundant, an article in much request with us just then, its smoke being a valuable specific for keeping off the mosquitoes, when a little of it was burnt before a tent. We next came upon more spacious plains than any we had seen southward of the Balonne; and I recognised, with great pleasure and satisfaction, the blue peak of Mount Riddell, distant 61 miles. This seemed to peep through the obscurity of fifteen laborious years, that had intervened since I had given a name to that summit. It now proved the accuracy of my recent survey, appearing exactly in the direction, where, according to my maps, I pointed my glass to look for it. Like the face of an old friend, which, as the Persian proverb says, "brighteneth the eyes," so this required clear eyes to be seen at all; even Yuranigh, could not at first be persuaded that it was not a cloud. This fine peak must always be a good landmark on these vast plains, and may yet brighten the eye of the traveller from India, when emerging from the level regions upon the Barwan. We next perceived at a distance, a cloud of dust raised by a numerous herd of cattle, and came upon a water-course, or branch of the Gwydir, called, I believe, the "Meei." As I wanted to cross the Gwydir, I crossed this and continued; met with another deep ditch or channel, four miles beyond the Meei; and, at three miles beyond that, another: none of these resembling the Gwydir I had formerly seen. I had ridden twenty-five miles, and hastened back to meet the carts, and encamped them just beyond the first-mentioned of these two water-courses. The heavy drays were, of course, far behind. Latitude, 29° 34' 41" S. Height above the sea, 553 feet. 13TH DECEMBER.--Thermometer, at 10 A.M., 70°. The drays joined us early, having performed an immense distance yesterday. This being Sunday, rest for the remainder of the day was both proper and necessary. I found we were within a less distance of Snodgrass Lagoon, than we were from the camp we had left the previous day. I expected to fall in with some road, when we reached the country to which I had formerly led the way. At sunset the sky seemed charged with rain, and the barometer had fallen 2½ millimetres; much thunder, and but a slight shower followed, after which the sky cleared up. Heavy rain there, must have caused much difficulty and delay to the party, as we were upon low levels subject to inundation. Height above the sea, 499 feet. Thermometer, at 6 P.M., 88°. 14TH DECEMBER.--Thermometer, at 6 A.M., 76°. During the night, and at day-break, heavy rain pattered on my tent, but a streak of the blue sky appeared in the N.W., which increased; and before 7 A.M. the sun shone on the ground, and dried it so that we could proceed. We crossed a channel of the river, at three miles, which is called the "Moomings;" and still I doubted whether we had not yet to cross the main channel of the Gwydir, having seen no current in any of those channels I had crossed. I had however already crossed the latitude of the river I had formerly seen; and, coming soon to rising ground, and seeing before me the wide-spread plains of my former journey, I was convinced that the late rains had not extended to the Gwydir, and that this river had been crossed by us in these several channels. At length, I arrived at the lagoon I had named, in former times, after Colonel Snodgrass; thus terminating this journey, having travelled in a direct line the last seventy-three miles of it, to meet at this point the line from Sydney, traced by me thus far in the year 1831. Height above the level of the sea, 545 feet. Thermometer, at 7 P.M., 87°. The temporary occupation of the country by squatters, imprints but few traces of colonization. Cattle-tracks were visible, certainly, but nothing else. No track remained along the line which I had so many years before laboured to mark out. Having ordered some of the men to look out for a stockman, one was at length caught, and persuaded to come to my tent, but not without some apprehension that the people he had come amongst so suddenly were robbers. He was a youth, evidently of the Anglo- Saxon race, in a state of transition to the condition of an Australian stockman. His fair locks strayed wildly from under a light straw hat about the ears of an honest English face, and the large stock whip in his hand explained what he was about,--"in search of some stray cattle." He had evidently never heard of exploring expeditions, past or present; nor of such a name as "Snodgrass Lagoon." Mount Riddell was called "Cow hill," according to him. Knew there was a road to Maitland, but of Sydney he seemed to require some minutes to recal the recollection. He had come from the station of Mr.----, where he was employed as stockman. Came out from England about six years ago with a brother. When asked if his brother was with him, he said "No." To my next question, as to the rest of his relatives, a tear was the only reply, and I pushed my inquiries no further. 16TH DECEMBER.--I left the camp, accompanied by Mr. Kennedy, and, in looking for my old route, we soon arrived at cattle stations. The lagoon was full, and the first station we saw was on the opposite bank; but having crossed some miles higher, we arrived at one, where the master and some men were busy in the stockyard, and there we were hospitably received. It was then about 2 P.M., and tea mixed with milk was set before us, with a quart pot full of fine salt, and some hard-boiled eggs. Having put into my tea a table-spoonful of the salt, mistaking it for sugar, and there being no sugar, I had two strong reasons for not taking much tea. Fortunately for me, however, I did eat one of the hard-boiled eggs, for from that hour I was doomed to fast two days. There I bade Mr. Kennedy farewell, leaving him in charge of the party, and proceeded along a cart-track homewards, followed by John Douglas, and a led horse. Before we could arrive at the station where I intended to halt, night overtook us on a plain, with very heavy rain, and total darkness. The cart-track was no longer visible, and, after groping on some way without it, we were obliged to alight and sit in the mud, without the shelter of even a tree, until day-break. Daylight exhibited the station not above two miles off, but that did not avail us much; for, on awaking the inmates, and asking them for some breakfast, the hut-keeper shook his head, and said he had no provisions to spare. Once more I struck away from these "abodes of civilized men," to look for my old track, which had been traced along the base of the Nundawàr Range, where the bold outlines of Mounts Lindesay and Forbes hung dimly, like shadows of the past, amongst clouds lighted by beams from the rising sun. After having been long in unknown regions, time and distance seem of little consequence when we return to those previously known; and thus the whole day soon passed in looking for my former track. But I sought it in vain; and was glad at night to turn towards the banks of the Nammoy, in search of a cattle-station. Since I had first explored that country to which my wheel-tracks marked and led the way, station after station had been taken up by squatters, not by following any line of route, but rather according to the course of the river, for the sake of water; and in such cases, the beaten track from station to station, no matter how crooked, becomes the road. Thus it is, in the fortuitous occupation of Australia, that order and arrangement may precede, and be followed only by "CHAOS come again." I arrived about sunset, at Mr. Cyrus Doyle's station near the Nammoy, where I was hospitably entertained by a man in charge of it, who rode eight miles in twenty minutes only, to borrow some tea and sugar for me, and who lived on very friendly terms with some old natives who remembered me, and my first advance into that country. 18TH DECEMBER.--At 6 A.M., Thermometer 75°. Height above the sea 750 feet. Guided by one of these natives, I reached the "great road," saw many wool drays upon it, before I arrived at Maule's creek; and I endeavoured, for a considerable time, to pass two gentlemen in a gig, and wearing veils, who were driving a lot of mares before them, and who seemed to derive amusement from making their mares keep pace with my entire horse. The road this day traversed the luxuriant flats of the Nammoy, one of the richest districts in the colony, as the fat cattle on the banks of the river sufficiently attested. The mountains behind, afforded equally eligible runs for sheep. Nothing could surpass the beauty of the scenery, amid abundance of water, umbrageous trees, cattle, verdure, and distant mountains. I was most comfortably lodged that night at Mr. Wentworth's station on the Nammoy, elevated above the sea 1055 feet, and next day I reached the dwelling of a resident squatter, and saw a lady in a comfortable house near the very spot, where, fifteen years before, I had taken a lonely walk by the then unknown Nammoy, the first white man permitted there to discover a "flowery desert."[*] I was most kindly welcomed by this family; but I asked in vain, even there, to be favoured with the perusal of a newspaper. When I expressed anxiety about my numerous family, and spoke of my long absence of a year, I observed a tear in the lady's eye, which I then thought the product of mere sensibility; but I learnt subsequently, that she was aware the newspapers she possessed, and out of sympathy withheld, would have apprised me of the death of a son, which sad tidings were only communicated to me some days after.[**] [* Three Expeditions, etc., vol. i. p. 54.] [** He died on the 16th July, at the age of eighteen, from the want of medical aid, when surveying, in winter, the Australian Alps. His grave, trodden by cattle hoofs, is in a desolate unconsecrated spot. He had served the public, gratis, upwards of two years, as a draughtsman and surveyor.] Chapter X. MR. KENNEDY CONDUCTS THE PARTY TO SYDNEY.--PROCEEDS OF THE SALE OF THE CATTLE AND EQUIPMENT.--APPLIED TO THE REFITTING OF A LIGHT PARTY ON HORSEBACK.--MR. KENNEDY'S INSTRUCTIONS TO TRACE DOWN THE VICTORIA.--Of the aborigines.--CHARACTER OF YURANIGH.--IMPEDIMENTS TO THEIR CIVILIZATION.--Of the Convicts.--THEIR USES IN THE COLONY.--CHARACTER OF THOSE OF THE PARTY.--DIFFERENT CLASSES OF CRIMINALS.--THE UNFORTUNATE AND THE DEPRAVED.--Of the present Colony of New South Wales.--NATURAL STATE. --CAPABILITIES.--ITS TEMPORARY USES.--ULTIMATE COLONIZATION.--RETENTION OF WATER.--NEW SYSTEMS OF AGRICULTURE REQUISITE.--GROWTH OF COTTON AND SUGAR ALONG THE EASTERN COAST.--THE VINE AND THE OLIVE.--WHEAT CROPS.-- DIFFICULTY OF ACCESS TO MARKETS.--ROADS.--PROJECTED RAILWAYS.-- Conclusion.--ORIGIN OF THIS SURVEY.--ITS PRIMARY OBJECTS.--ULTIMATE TENDENCY.--MY RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT.--CO-OPERATION OF THE COLONIAL LEGISLATURE.--FINAL REPORT.--GREAT GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES.-- THE NATURAL DIVISIONS OF THE TERRITORY.--PORT BOWEN--CAPRICORNIA.--GULF OF CARPENTARIA--AUSTRALINDIA. The party which I had left in charge of Mr. Kennedy near Snodgrass Lagoon arrived in the neighbourhood of Sydney on the 20th of January, and the new Governor, Sir Charles Fitzroy, kindly granted such gratuities to the most deserving of my men as I had recommended, and also sent the names to England of such prisoners as His Excellency thought deserving of Her Majesty's gracious pardon. The sale of the cattle and equipment produced about 500L.; and as Mr. Kennedy volunteered his services, when the proper season should arrive (March), to trace down the course of the river Victoria with a light party on horseback, I submitted a plan to Sir Charles Fitzroy, and obtained His Excellency's permission to send this officer to survey the river, and to apply the above-mentioned proceeds of sale in providing the equipment of his party. Mr. Kennedy finally left Sydney about the middle of March, with a party of eight men, all well mounted and leading spare horses, with two light carts carrying a stock of provisions for fourteen months. The following copy of his instructions will show what Mr. Kennedy was required to do. * * * Surveyor-General's Office, Sydney, 22d February, 1847. "Sir, "His Excellency the Governor having been pleased to sanction my proposal for the further exploration of the river Victoria with a small party to be sent under your command; I have now the honour to enclose to you a copy of instructions by which I was guided in conducting the late expedition into the northern interior, and I have to request that you will conform thereto, as much as the following particular instructions for your especial guidance may permit. "You will as early as possible return by the road across Liverpool Plains so as to fall into the return route of the late expedition before you leave the settled districts, and in this manner you will recross the Balonne at St. George's Bridge, take the route back to Camp (83), and thence by the route along the Maranoa to Camp (XXIX), beyond which you will proceed as hereinafter detailed, with reference to the accompanying tracing of my survey. "You will cross the Maranoa at Camp (XXIX), and continue along my return route until you reach Camp (75). I beg you will be particular so far in looking for the track of my party returning, as you will perceive by the map that many very circuitous detours may be thus avoided. But beyond Camp (75), about seven miles, you will have to leave my return track on your right, and not cross a little river there at all, but go along my old advance track to Camp (XXXIV). Thence you will proceed by Camps (XXXV) and (XXXVI), in order to approach the bed of the Warregò in the direction of my ride of 14th June, in a general N. W. direction. It is very desirable that you should keep my horse tracks there; but this I can scarcely expect, and I can only therefore request that you will proceed as closely in that direction as you can. The bed of the Warregò may be looked for at a distance further on, equal to that of my ride of 14th June. "You will next pursue the course of the Warregò upwards towards Mount Playfair, which the accompanying map will be sufficient to guide you to. You will follow up the Cùnno Creek, leaving Mount Playfair on your right or to the eastward, and you will thus fall into the line of my horse- track about the spot where I spoke to an old native female. I wish you would then take some pains to travel in the direction of my track from the head of Cùnno through the Brigalow, which is comparatively open, in the direction of my bivouac of 11th September. "Keeping the direction of my track of next day, you will arrive at a low, but stony, ridge (A) (across which you must be careful how you pass your carts, but it is of no breadth), and you will descend into a flat, from which you will ascend another stony ridge (B), of no greater height but more asperity than the first, and covered with fallen timber. You will have about a mile of that sort of difficulty to deal with on the higher part, but by turning then to the right, you will fall into a well watered valley, which will lead you to the Nive. In the whole of your route thus far, you can meet with no difficulty in tracing it, guided by the map, and following these instructions; but if Douglas should be with you, he will no doubt recognize the country through which he passed with me. It is very important that you should keep that route, as leading to the Victoria in a very straight direction from Sydney, and a direction in which, should your return be delayed beyond the time for which your party is to be provisioned, it is probable, that any party sent after you to your aid or assistance would proceed to look for you. After you shall have reached the Nive and Camp (77), you cannot have any difficulty in finding Camp (72) near the Gap, and from that valley you have only to follow down the watercourse to be certain that you are on my track to the Victoria, and, as you have been instructed to take an expert native with you, you ought to find still my horse's track across the downs, cutting off large bends of the river. But beyond Camps 16th September or 1st October, you must keep by the river along my route back, and not follow the circuitous track which I took through Brigalow to the westward. After about four miles by the river, you will see, by the map, that my return track again crossed the outward track over the downs, so that you may fall into the route westward of the great northern bend of the Victoria. I fear you must depend on the latitude, pace measurement, and bearings, for ascertaining the situations of my camps of 29th September and 28th September. You will see by the map how generally straight my journeys were between these points, and how important it would be for you to know the situation of the camp of 28th September, that you may thence set out westward in the direction of my return route, instead of following the main channel throughout the very circuitous turn it then takes to the northward. Beyond the lowest point attained by me, or the point (wherever that may be) to which you will be able to identify the accompanying map with my track, of course it will be your duty to pursue the river, and determine the course thereof as accurately as your light equipment and consequent rapid progress, may permit. You may, however, employ the same means by which I have mapped that river so far; and, for your guidance, I shall add the particulars of my method of measuring the relative distances. If you count the strokes of either of your horse's fore feet, either walking or trotting, you will find them to be upon an average, about 950 to a mile. In a field-book, as you note each change of bearing, you have only to note down also the number of paces (which soon becomes a habit); and to keep count of these, it is only necessary to carry about thirty-five or forty small pieces of wood, like dice (beans or peas would do), in one waistcoat pocket, and, at the end of every 100 paces, remove one to the empty pocket on the opposite side. At each change of bearing, you count these, adding the odd numbers to the number of hundreds, ascertained by the dice, to be counted and returned at each change of bearing to the other pocket. You should have a higher pocket for your watch, and keep the two lower waisctoat pockets for this important purpose. "Now, to plot such a survey, you have only to take the half-inch scale of equal parts (on the 6-inch scale in every case of instruments), and allowing TEN for a hundred, the half-inch will represent 1000 paces. You may thus lay down any broken number of paces to a true scale, and so obtain a tolerably accurate map of each day's journey. The latitude will, after all, determine finally the scale of paces; and you can, at leisure, adjust each day's journey by its general bearing between different latitudes; and, subsequently, introduce the details. You will soon find the results sufficiently accurate to afford some criterion of even the variation of the needle, when the course happens to be nearly east or west, and when, of course, it behoves you to be very well acquainted with the rate of your horse's paces, as determined by differences of latitude. You will be careful to intersect the prominent points of any range that may appear on the horizon; and the nature of the rock also should be ascertained in the country examined: small specimens, with letters of reference, will be sufficient for this. Specimens of the grasses, and of the flower or seed of new trees, should be also preserved, with dates, in a small herbarium. But the principal object of the journey being the determination of the course of the Victoria, and the discovery of a convenient route to the head of the Gulph of Carpentaria, the accomplishment of these great objects must be steadily kept in view, without regard to minor considerations. Should the channel finally spread into an extensive bed, whether dry or swampy, you will adhere, as a general rule, to the eastern side or shore, as, in the event of any scarcity of water, the high land known to be there will thus be more speedily accessible to you; and I am also strongly of opinion, that you would cross in such a route more tributaries from the east than from the west. On arriving at or near the Gulph of Carpentaria, I have particularly to caution you against remaining longer than may be unavoidable there, or, indeed, in any one place, in any part of your route, where natives may be numerous. "Having completed (at least roughly) the map of your general route, it will be in your power in returning, to take out detours, and cut off angles, by previously ascertaining the proper bearings for doing so; and when so returning, it would be convenient to number your camps, that the route and the country may be better described by you, and recognised afterwards by others. These numbers may be cut in common figures on trees; and if, as I hope, you should reach the Gulph, you can commence them there: you may prefix C to each number commencing with 1, thus avoiding any confusion with the numbers of my numbered camps on the Victoria. "On returning to the colony, you will report to me, or to the officer in charge of the Survey Department, the progress and results of your journey. "I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, "T. L. MITCHELL, SURVEYOR-GENERAL. "E. B. C. Kennedy, Esq. J. P. Assistant Surveyor, Sydney." OF THE ABORIGINES. There is no subject connected with New South Wales, or Australia, less understood in England than the character and condition of the aboriginal natives. They have been described as the lowest in the scale of humanity, yet I found those who accompanied me superior in penetration and judgment to the white men composing my party. Their means of subsistence and their habits, are both extremely simple; but they are adjusted with admirable fitness to the few resources afforded by such a country, in its wild state. What these resources are, and how they are economised by the natives, can only be learnt by an extensive acquaintance with the interior; and the knowledge of a few simple facts, bearing on this subject, may not be wholly devoid of interest. Fire, grass, kangaroos, and human inhabitants, seem all dependent on each other for existence in Australia; for any one of these being wanting, the others could no longer continue. Fire is necessary to burn the grass, and form those open forests, in which we find the large forest-kangaroo; the native applies that fire to the grass at certain seasons, in order that a young green crop may subsequently spring up, and so attract and enable him to kill or take the kangaroo with nets. In summer, the burning of long grass also discloses vermin, birds' nests, etc., on which the females and children, who chiefly burn the grass, feed. But for this simple process, the Australian woods had probably contained as thick a jungle as those of New Zealand or America, instead of the open forests in which the white men now find grass for their cattle, to the exclusion of the kangaroo, which is well-known to forsake all those parts of the colony where cattle run. The intrusion therefore of cattle is by itself sufficient to produce the extirpation of the native race, by limiting their means of existence; and this must work such extensive changes in Australia as never entered into the contemplation of the local authorities. The squatters, it is true, have also been obliged to burn the old grass occasionally on their runs; but so little has this been understood by the Imperial Government that an order against the burning of the grass was once sent out, on the representations of a traveller in the south. The omission of the annual periodical burning by natives, of the grass and young saplings, has already produced in the open forest lands nearest to Sydney, thick forests of young trees, where, formerly, a man might gallop without impediment, and see whole miles before him. Kangaroos are no longer to be seen there; the grass is choked by underwood; neither are there natives to burn the grass, nor is fire longer desirable there amongst the fences of the settler. The occupation of the territory by the white race seems thus to involve, as an inevitable result, the extirpation of the aborigines; and it may well be pleaded, in extenuation of any adverse feelings these may show towards the white men, that these consequences, although so little considered by the intruders, must be obvious to the natives, with their usual acuteness, as soon as cattle enter on their territory. The foregoing journal affords instances of the habits of the natives in these respects. Silently, but surely, that extirpation of aborigines is going forward in grazing districts, even where protectors of aborigines have been most active; and in Van Diemen's Land, the race has been extirpated, even before that of the kangaroos, under an agency still more destructive. It would be but natural, even admitting these aboriginal inhabitants to be, as men, "only a little lower than the angels," that they should feel disposed, when urged by hunger, to help themselves to some of the cattle or sheep that had fattened on the green pastures kept clear for kangaroos from time immemorial by the fires of the natives and their forefathers; but such cases have been, nevertheless, of rare occurrence, partly because much human life has been sacrificed to the manes of sheep or cattle. No orders of the local government can prevent the perpetration of these atrocities. Government Orders have been put forth in formal obedience to injunctions from home, and the policy of the local authorities has not been influenced by less humane motives. It would ill become me to disparage the character of the aborigines, for one of that unfortunate race has been my "guide, companion, councillor, and friend," on the most eventful occasions during this last Journey of Discovery. Yuranigh was small and slender in person, but (as the youth Dicky said, and I believed,) he was of most determined courage and resolution. His intelligence and his judgment rendered him so necessary to me, that he was ever at my elbow, whether on foot or horseback. Confidence in him was never misplaced. He well knew the character of all the white men of the party. Nothing escaped his penetrating eye and quick ear. His brief but oracular sentences were found to be SAGE, though uttered by one deemed a SAVAGE; and his affection and kindness towards the little native Dicky seemed quite paternal. The younger was the willing servant of the elder; who obliged him to wash and clean himself before he allowed him to sleep near him. Yuranigh was particularly clean in his person, frequently washing, and his glossy shining black hair, always well-combed, gave him an uncommonly clean and decent appearance. He had promised himself and Dicky a great reception on returning to Sydney, and was perhaps disappointed. Dicky had never before seen houses, and Yuranigh took much delight in showing him the theatre, and whatever else was likely to gratify his curiosity. The boy was all questions and observation. I was at a loss how to make these natives comfortable; or suitably reward their services. The new Governor kindly granted the small gratuity asked for Yuranigh, and Dicky became a favourite in my family. Both these natives loathed the idea of returning to the woods, as savages; and, as if captivated with the scenes of activity around them, both expressed a desire "to work and live like white men." This shows that, when treated on a footing of equality, as these had been in my party, the Australian native MIGHT be induced to take part in the labours of white men; but at the first annoyance, the old freedom of the bush seems to overmaster their resolutions, and attracts them back to it. Yuranigh was engaged (for wages, and under regular agreement,) as stockman to a gentleman who had cattle in the north, and he took an affecting leave of my family. I carried Dicky to my house in the country, with the intention of having him educated there with my children, provided A TUTOR COULD BE FOUND, which seemed doubtful when I left the colony. It has been long a favourite project with me, to educate an aboriginal native, as a husband for Ballandella, and that their children should form, at least, one civilized family of the native race, upon which the influence of education and religious principles might be fairly tried. This has never yet been done, although the experiment is one of much interest. It seems scarcely practicable, except by withdrawing the married couple to another country, where the children might be educated, and kept clear of all predilections for a life in the woods. I thought of sending such a pair to some congenial climate, such as the South of Europe, where they should be taught the whole art of cultivating the grape, fig, and olive, as well as the management of other productions of similar latitudes in that hemisphere. They might return to Australia with their family in ten or twelve years; when, in speaking a different language from those about them, they would be less open to the influences that interpose between the employers and the employed in that colony; while the utility of their employment might be of some benefit to it. Were this experiment to succeed, the decent and comfortable condition afforded by industry might raise the aborigines in their own estimation, and inspire them with hope to attain to a state of equality with the white men, which, without having some such examples set before them, must seem to them unattainable. The half-clad native finds himself in a degraded position in the presence of the white population: a mere outcast, obliged to beg a little bread. In his native woods, the "noble savage" knows no such degrading necessity.--All there participate in, and have a share of, Nature's gifts. These, scanty though they be, are open to all. Experience here has proved, and the history of the aborigines of other countries has shown, the absurdity of expecting that any men, "as free as Nature first made man," will condescend to leave their woods, and come under all the restraints imposed by civilisation, purely from choice, unless they can do so on terms of the most perfect equality. Surely it behoves the nation so active in the suppression of slavery to consider betimes, in taking up new countries, how the aboriginal races can be preserved; and how the evil effects of spirituous liquors, of gunpowder, and of diseases more inimical to them than even slavery, may be counteracted. OF THE CONVICTS. The prisoners who had hitherto formed the bulk of all the exploring parties previously led by me into the interior of New South Wales, were chosen chiefly from amongst men employed on the roads, who had acquired good recommendations from their immediate overseers; but, on this last occasion, the men forming the party were for the most part chosen from amongst those still remaining in Cockatoo Island, the worst and most irreclaimable of their class. The concentration of convicts in that island was intended, I believe, to follow out the Norfolk Island system, keeping the men under rigorous surveillance, and making them work at their respective trades, or as labourers. Even there, so near to Sydney, that labour, so available to lay the foundations of a colony, might have been employed with great advantage, in constructing a naval arsenal and hospital for our seamen on the Indian station, with a dry dock attached to it for the repair of war- steamers. Such a dock has been long a desideratum at Sydney, and private enterprize might, ere this time, have embarked in a work so essential to an important harbour, had not the Government always possessed the means of cheaply constructing such a work by convict labour, and been thus able at any time to have entered into such competition as might have been very injurious to a private speculator. At Cockatoo Island, blacksmiths, shoemakers, wheelwrights, were at work in their various avocations; all the shoes, for both the men and horses of the expedition, were made there; also one half of the carts, which proved equally good as the other portion, although that was made by the best maker in the colony, a celebrated man. The eagerness evinced by all these men, so confined in irons on Cockatoo Island, to be employed in an exploring expedition, was such that even the most reckless endeavoured to smooth their rugged fronts, and seemed to wish they had better deserved the recommendation of the superintendent. The prospect of achieving their freedom, by one year of good behaviour in the interior, was cheering to the most depressed soul amongst these prisoners. All pressed eagerly forward with their claims and pretensions, which, unfortunately for the knowing ones, were strictly investigated by Mr. Ormsby the superintendent, and Captain Innes, the visiting magistrate. The selection of such as seemed most eligible was at length made, after careful examination of the phrenological developments and police history of each; and it was not easy to find one without a catalogue of offences, filling a whole page of police-office annals. Still there were redeeming circumstances, corroborated by physical developments, sufficient to guide me in the selection of a party from amongst these prisoners. With them, I mixed one or two faithful Irishmen, on whom I knew I could depend, and two or three of my old followers on former journeys, who had become free. This party of convicts, so organized, with such strong inducements to behave well, and so few temptations to lead them astray, may be supposed to have afforded a favourable opportunity for studying the convict character. It may be asked by some, how such a party could have been made to yield submissive obedience for so long a period as a year, away from all other authority, than mere moral controul. This was chiefly because these men were placed in a position where it was so very clearly for their own interest to conduct themselves properly. Accordingly, the greater number, as on all former expeditions, gave the highest satisfaction, submitting cheerfully to privations, enduring hardships, and encountering dangers, apparently willing and resolved to do anything to escape from the degraded condition of a convict. But still there were a few, amounting in all to six, who, even in such a party, animated by such hopes, could not divest themselves of their true character, nor even disguise it for a time, as an expedient for the achievement of their liberty. These men were known amongst the rest as the "flash mob." They spoke the secret language of thieves; were ever intent on robbing the stores, with false keys (called by them SCREWS). They held it to be wrong to exert themselves at any work, if it could be avoided; and would not be seen to endeavour to please, by willing cooperation. They kept themselves out of sight as much as possible; neglected their arms; shot away their ammunition contrary to orders; and ate in secret, whatever they did kill, or whatever fish they caught. Professing to be men of "the Fancy," they made converts of two promising men, who, at first, were highly thought of, and although one of them was finally reclaimed, a hero of the prize ring, it was too obvious that the men, who glory in breaking the laws, and all of whose songs even, express sentiments of dishonesty, can easily lead the unwary and still susceptible of the unfortunate class, into snares from which they cannot afterwards escape if they would. Once made parties to an offence against the law, they are bound as by a spell, to the order of flash-boys, with whom it is held to be base and cowardly to act "upon the square," or HONESTLY in any sense of the word; their order professing to act ever "upon the cross." These men were so well-known to the better disposed and more numerous portion of the party, that the night-guards had to be so arranged, as that the stores or the camp should never be entirely in their hands. Thus a watch was required to be set as regularly over the stores, when the party was close to Sydney, as when it was surrounded by savage tribes in the interior. Between the "flash men" and the other men of the party, there was a wide difference: An old man to whom they once offered some stolen flour, refused it, saying, "I have been led into enough of trouble in my younger days, by flash friends, and now I wish to lead a quiet life." Convicts, in fact, consist of two distinctly different classes: the one, fortunately by far the most numerous, comprising those whose crime was the result of impulse; the other class consisting of those whose principle of action is dishonesty; whose trade is crime, and of whose reformation, there is much less hope. The offenders of the one class, repented of their crime from the moment of conviction; those of the other, know no such word in their vocabulary. The one, is still "a thing of hope and change;" and would eagerly avail himself of every means afforded him to regain the position he had lost; the other, true to his "order," will "die game." For the separation of the wheat from the chaff, a process by no means difficult, the colony of New South Wales was formerly well adapted. The ticket of leave granted to the deserving convict was one of the most perfect of reformatory indulgences; each individual being known to the authorities, and liable, on the least misconduct, to be sent to work on the public roads. The colony of New South Wales has been the means of restoring many of our unfortunate countrymen to positions in which they have shown that loyalty, industry, public spirit, and patriotism, are not always to be extinguished in the breasts of Englishmen, even by fetters and degradation. It is to be regretted that a more vigilant discrimination had not interposed a more marked line between those convicts deserving emancipation, and those whose services are still wanted on the roads and bridges of the colony. OF THE COLONY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. There is no country in which labour appears to be more required to render it available to, and habitable by, civilised men, than New South Wales or Australia. Without labour, the inhabitants must be savages, or, at least, such helpless people as we find the aborigines. The squatters' condition is intermediate, temporary, and one of necessity. That country without navigable rivers, intersected by rocky ranges, and subject to uncertain seasons, is unfavourable to agriculture and trade; to social intercourse, and to the moral and physical prosperity of civilised man. With equal truth, it may be observed, that there is no region of earth susceptible of so much improvement, solely by the labour and ingenuity of man. If there be no navigable rivers, there are no unwholesome savannas; if there are rocky ranges, they afford, at least, the means of forming reservoirs of water; and, although it is there uncertain when rain may fall, it is certain that an abundant supply does fall; and the hand of man alone is wanting to preserve that supply and regulate its use. In such a clime, and under such a sun, that most important of elements in cultivation, water, could thus be rendered much more subservient to man's use than it is in other warm regions, where, if the general vegetation be more luxuriant, the air is less salubrious. Sufficient water for all purposes of cultivation, health, and enjoyment, is quite at the command of art and industry in this most luxuriant of climates. Thus, the peculiar disadvantages Australia presents in her wild state, are such as would greatly enhance the value of such a country under the operation of human industry. In such a climate, for instance, an abundance of water would be found a much greater luxury when retained, distributed, and adjusted, by such means, to man's uses, than where an abundance is but the natural product of cloudy skies and frequent rains. Where natural resources exist, but require art and industry for their development, the field is open for the combination of science and skill, the profitable investment of capital, and the useful employment of labour. Such is New South Wales. But the age of such adaptations there is still to come. The future is too much speculated upon; hence no system of agriculture has been yet adjusted to the peculiarities of climate and soil. Instead of studying and adopting the agriculture of similar climates, and the arts by which deficiencies in similar latitudes have from time immemorial been corrected: irrigation, for instance, has not been yet attempted; the natural fertility of the soil has alone been relied on, to compensate, in favourable, seasons, for the deficiencies of others, not favourable, perhaps, for the growth of wheat or barley, but the best imaginable for that of other kinds of productions. So generally available is the structure of the country for the reservation of water by dams, that a small number of these might be made to retain as much of the surface water as might even impart humidity to the atmosphere. This is because the channels of rivers are in general confined by high banks, within which many, or indeed most of them, might be converted by a few dams into canals. To such great purposes convict labour ought to have been applied, had it been possible to have allowed colonization and transportation to work together. But the undulations of the land present everywhere facilities for constructing reservoirs, which heavy showers would fill, and thus afford means sufficient for the purposes of irrigation, were not labour now too scarce there, to admit of the progress of colonization in a manner suitable to the spirit of the age, and character of the nation. The rich lands along the eastern coast, under a lofty range which supplies abundance of water for the purposes of irrigation, are well adapted for the cultivation of cotton and sugar, and, with labour, nothing could prevent these regions from being made extensively productive of both articles. Of the vine and the olive[*], it remains to be ascertained whether some parts of the country may not be made as productive as Andalusia, for instance, is, in the same parallel of latitude, in the opposite hemisphere. The want of hands alone retards the development of every branch of production derivable from industry in these regions. [* Five months ago, soon after my return to England, I gave to the Society of Arts two bottles of olive oil, the first samples ever produced, I believe, in Australia. The oil was made by Mr. Kid, superintendent of the Botanic garden at Sydney, from olives grown there, and seemed very clear and good.] Settled districts, back from the coast, at elevations of 1000 feet and upwards, have produced abundant crops of wheat of very superior quality; and, but for the non-completion of the roads between these districts and the capital, in consequence of the withdrawal of convict labour, the progress of agriculture in its adaptation to the soil and climate, and, as a field for the employment of British immigrants, had been much more advanced than it is there. The roads which were opened by the above means, or proposed to be opened, have become almost impassable, or remain wholly so; and it is, therefore, the less surprising that the colonists look to the possible introduction of railways with much interest. In a country like that around Sydney, where extensive tracts of inferior land must be traversed by roads in order to arrive at lands which are productive and settled, the value and importance of a railway would be greatly enhanced; and calculations have been made to show that a railway between Sydney and the southern districts would pay, even from the traffic at present along that line. The town of Goulburn, 124 miles from Sydney, in an open undulating country, at a considerable height above the sea, is rapidly growing into importance; and, by making either a good road or a railway, between that town and Sydney, access would be gained to very extensive tracts of valuable territory, easily traversed, and to which Goulburn is a sort of centre. On the whole, it may be said that the difficulty of access to the best lands, from the want of good roads to them from the principal port, has, of late years, greatly impeded the introduction of immigrants to the rural districts, and added to the population of Sydney many individuals who had been brought to the colony at the public expense, for the assistance of settlers in the country. CONCLUSION. The employment of convicts on useful public works was, twenty years ago, a primary object with the government of New South Wales. The location of settlers on their grants by the measurement of their farms, then much in arrear, and the division of the territory into counties, hundreds, and parishes, in order to complete the deeds of grant to settlers, altogether rendered necessary a general survey of the colony, which work I commenced in 1827, EX OFFICIO, and, pursuant to Royal Instructions, sent to the colony in 1825. The time between the years 1827 and 1837 was the most prosperous in the history of the colony of New South Wales, when convicts made good roads, farms were measured up, and the country was surveyed and divided into countries. Colonization extended rapidly to the shores of the southern ocean, and Australia Felix was made known to the British public. The survey touched the limits of the then unknown country, for the direction of great roads from a centre could not be considered permanent, however limited the colony, without such consideration of their ultimate tendency as could only be given with a knowledge of the whole intervening country. My plans of exploration have been governed by these views and objects, and the journey recorded in these pages was intended to complete the last of three lines radiating from Sydney. One led across the Blue mountains to Bathurst and the western interior as far as the land seemed worth exploring; another by Goulburn to Australia Felix and the southern coast; and, lastly, this, the third general route, to the northern shores at the nearest point, the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria,--from which I trust that by this time my assistant Mr. Kennedy will have returned to Sydney. Held responsible by the Government for the performance of such a duty[*], I have endeavoured to work out its views with that unity of plan which must result from a mathematical principle, and which has enabled me to bring to a satisfactory conclusion, after the lapse of many years, and in the face of considerable difficulty, an undertaking commenced at the command of my Sovereign, and under the auspices of the British Government. That the Royal Instructions were originally intended for the benefit of the colony of New South Wales is best evinced by the fact that this journey of survey and exploration has been undertaken on the petition of the Legislative Council of the Colony, and performed wholly at the expense of the colony of New South Wales. [* Appendix, Letter No. 30/1252., page 431.] It now remains for me to submit my final "Report," or, in other words, to point out how the geographical knowledge thus acquired may be available for the economical extension of that colonisation which the expansive energies of this great nation seem to require. New South Wales may be benefited, it is true, by the establishment of any additional market on the eastern coast, for her produce; and by a road to the Gulf of Carpentaria; but a timely knowledge of the structure of the interior was necessary to enable the Government to determine on the sites most eligible for centres of colonisation required along the coast. It is now ascertained that a great range separates the coast settlements from the open pastoral country of the interior, as far as the parallel of 25° south. That there it breaks off at the lofty plateau of Buckland's Table Land, which overlooks a much lower country in the north;--a country but lightly wooded, watered by good rivers, and which affords an easy access to extensive pastoral regions in the interior, without the intervention of any such formidable barrier between that interior open country and the coast, as the great range nearer the actual colony. Precisely on that part of the coast, to which the united channels of the water lead, a harbour has been surveyed and approved of by competent naval officers. These geographical facts, therefore, render it easy to define one situation more favourable than any other that might be found along that coast, for the nucleus of a colony, and which would divide almost equally the whole coast line between Sydney and Cape York. I allude to Port Bowen, near Broad Sound; and the river Nogoa, which has been (I believe) called lower down, the Mackenzie. A port on that part of the coast, at the entrance within the reefs, would be advantageous to steam navigation. The occupation of the fine country on the rivers Victoria, Salvator and Claude, must depend on some such sea-port for supplies; and on the occupation of that back-country must again, in a great measure, depend the establishment of a direct line of communication between Sydney and the Gulf of Carpentaria. At the head of that gulf, admitting that a practicable and direct line of route can be opened to it, the country, and the sea adjacent, may soon require attention. By timely examination and good arrangement, a commodious place of embarkation may be established there, which might, by degrees, become an important town; where horses might be shipped and conveyed by a short passage to India, free from the hazards of Torres Straits. It would appear from the brief but intelligible description by Captain Flinders, that Wellesley Islands, or Sweer's Island, being both higher than the main land, might be connected with it, by some permanent work, and thus afford a good port for steamers, and shelter and anchorage for other ships. According to the interesting narrative of Captain Stokes, the temperature is remarkably low, and convict labour might there be very usefully employed upon such works. The head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, being that part of the Indian Ocean nearest to Sydney, has appeared of more importance to the colonists, since steam navigation became regular between England and the Indian archipelago. Then it became more desirable for the colonists to know the nature of the interior country between their capital and that northern coast. The interior has been found very open and accessible; the fine country at the head of the Victoria must soon be occupied, and thus divide the whole distance into two equal parts, each of these not much exceeding the distance between Sydney and Melbourne, in Australia Felix; between which places mail- carriages now run twice a week. Thus, while, by the extension of geographical research, the proper fields for colonization are laid open for selection, and prepared for timely arrangements on the part of the Imperial Government; the colonists of New South Wales have promoted the general interests of their fellow subjects at home, by the developement of the resources of the territory around them. He "who measured out the sea in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the earth in a balance," has determined, by the condition of these two elements, the situation of the Gulf, and that of the great break in the East Coast range--the one affording the nearest access to an important sea, the other the easy way to a rich interior land. I would, with deference to Him, "who led Israel like a flock," and me in safety through the Australian wilds, distinguish the two regions by timely descriptive names on the map I now lay before the public; Capricornia, to express the country under the tropics, from the parallel of 25° South, where nature has set up her own land-marks, not to be disputed: Australindia, the country on the shores of the most southern part of the Indian archipelago; which two regions may be made conterminous according to natural limits, when such limits can be accurately ascertained. APPENDIX. The Colonial Secretary to the Surveyor-General of New South Wales. No. 30/1252. Colonial Secretary's Office, October 28. 1830. Sir, I have the honour, by the direction of His Excellency the Governor, to inform you that the Right Honourable the Secretary of State has been pleased to signify the King's instructions for the discontinuance of the office of the Commissioners appointed to survey and value the lands of the Colony, and His Majesty's commands that the performance of their duties is for the future to be entrusted to the Surveyor-General, who, with the aid of the Assistant Surveyors, will be held responsible for all arrangements connected with the survey and division of the territory. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, ALEX. M'LEAY. To T.L. Mitchell, Esquire, Surveyor-General. * * * * * A SYSTEMATICAL LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL PLANTS COLLECTED IN THE FOREGOING JOURNEY. THOSE MARKED * ARE NEW. [numerals refer to page numbers in the book] FERNS. Adiantum hispidulum, 204, 212. ----assimile, 204. 212. Nothochlaena distans, 212. Grammitis rutaefolia, 212. Cheilanthes tenuifolia, 212. Doodia caudata, 212. Platyzoma microphyllum, 236. GRASSES. Aristida calycina, 33. Arundo Phragmites, 124. * Anthistiria membranacea, LINDL. 88. ----australis PASSIM. ----sp. 97. Andropogon sericeus, 62. ----bombycinus, 378. ----sp. 117. Bromus australis, 61. * Chloris selerantha, LINDL. 31. ----acicularis LINDL. 33. Dactyloctenium radulans, 88. Danthonia pectinata, 319. ----* triticoides LINDL. 365. Erianthus, fulvo aff. 62. Imperata arundinacea, 60. 349. Lappago biflora, 364. Neurachne Mitchelliana, 33. Perotis rara, 139. Panicum laevinode 60. AND PASSIM. Pappophorum gracile, 319. ----* avenaceum LINDL. 320. ----* virens, LINDL. 360. ----* flavescens, LINDL. 34. * Stipa scabra, LINDL. 31. * Sporobolus pallidus, LINDL. 187. Triodia pungens, 177. 340. Triraphis mollis, 88. SEDGES. Cyperus, sp. bulbosa. 124. ----sp. 120. Kyllinga monocephala, 100. MISCELLANEOUS ENDOGENS. Damasonium ovalifolium, 31. Xerotes laxa, 361. ----leucocephala, 198. Cymbidium canaliculatum, 378. * Pterostylis Mitchellii, LINDL. 3 Commelina undulata, 347. Thysanotus elatior, 347. Tricoryne elatior, 387. Laxmannia gracilis, 365. Dianella rara, 366. ----strumosa, 341. GYMNOGENS. Zamia, 209. Callitris sp. n. 187. ----glauca, 298. ---- pyramidalis, 93. SPURGEWORTS (EUPHORBIACEAE). * Adriania acerifolia, HOOKER, 371. ----* heterophylla, HOOKER, 124. Beyeria, sp. n. 390. Bertya oleaefolia, 290. Euphorbia hypericifolia? 265. ----* eremophila, A. CUNN. 348. Hylococcus sericeus, 389. * Micrantheum triandrum, HOOKER, 342. Phyllanthus simplex? 106. CUCURBITS. Cucumis pubescens, 110. BIXADS (FLACOURTIACEAE). * Melicytus? oleaster, LINDL. 383. FRANKENIADS. * Frankenia scabra, LINDL. 305. ----* serpyllifolia, LINDL. 305. CAPPARIDS. * Capparis umbonata, LINDL. 257. ----* loranthifolia, LINDL. 220. ---- lasiantha, 102. ----Mitchellii, 36. Cleome flava, 127. STERCULIADS. Brachychiton populneum, 355. * Delabechea rupestris MITCHELL, 155. BYTTNEBIADS. * Keraudrenia integrifolia, HOOKER, 341. MALLOWWORTS. Hibiscus Lindleyi? 260. ----* Sturtii, HOOKER, 363. Fugosia digitata? 387. ----sp. 64. Malva ovata, 397. * Sida Frazeri, HOOKER, 368. ---- pisiformis, 362. ----* virgata, HOOKER, 361. ----filiformis, A. CUNN. 361. ----tubulosa, CUNN. 390. ----sp. n. 103. LINDENBLOOMS (TILIACEAE). Grewia Richardiana, 383. MILKWORTS (POLYGALACEAE). * Comesperma sylvestris, LINDL. 342. SOAPWORTS (SAPINDACEAE). Thouinia australis, 390. * Dodonaea acerosa, LINDL. 273. ----* filifolia, HOOKER, 241. ----* hirtella, 191. ----* mollis, LINDL. 212. ----* peduncularis, LINDL. 340. 361. ----* pubescens, LINDL. 342. ----* tenuifolia, LINDL. 248. ----* trigona, LINDL. 236. ----* triangularis, 219. ----* vestita, HOOKER, 265. DILLENIADS. Pleurandra ericifolia, 362. ----* cistoidea, HOOKER, 363. Hibbertia canescens, 339. CROWFOOTS (RANUNCULACEAE). Clematis stenophylla, 368. Ranunculus plebeius, 362. ----sessiliflorus, 361. PITTOSPORADS. * Bursaria incana, LINDL. 224. * Pittosporum salicinum, LINDL. 97. ---- lanceolatum, 272. EPACRIDS. Leucopogon cuspidatus, 226. CITRONWORTS (AURANTIACEAE). * Triphasia glauca, LINDL. 353. RUEWORTS (RUTACEAE). * Boronia bipinnata, LINDL. 225. ----* eriantha, LINDL. 298. * Eriostemon rhombeum, LINDL. 293. * Geijera parviflora, LINDL. 102. ----* latifolia, LINDL. 236. ----* pendula, LINDL. 251. Heterodendron oleaefolium, 398. * Pilotheca ciliata, HOOKER, 347. * Phebalium glandulosum, HOOKER, 199. * Zieria Frazeri, HOOKER, 339. CRANESBILLS (GERANIACEAE). Geranium parviflorum? 362. Erodium littoreum? 360. PURSLANES (PORTULACACEAE). * Calandrinia balonensis, LINDL. 148. ----* pusilla, LINDL. 360. BUCKWHEATS (POLYGONACEAE). Polygonum acre, 149. ----junceum, 85. NYCTAGOS. Boerhaavia mutabilis, 362. AMARANTHS. Amaranthus undulatus, 102. Alternanthera nodiflora, 35. ----sp. 341. Nyssanthes? 360. * Trichinium semilanatum, LINDL. 45. ----Janatum, 33. 88. ----* conicum, LINDL. 363. ----fusiforme, 383. ----alopecuroideum, 88. 91. CHENOPODS. Ambrina carinata, 127. * Atriplex nummularia, LINDL. 64. ---- elaeagnoides, 29 Atriplex semibaccata, 23. * Chenopodium auricomum, LINDL. 94. Enchylaena tomentosa, 102. Kochia brevifolia, 33. 67. ----* thymifolia, LINDL. 56. ----* lanosa, LINDL. 88. ----* villosa, LINDL. 91. Rhagodia parabolica, 53. Salsola australis, 24, etc. Seleroaena uniflora, 72. * Suaeda tamariscina, LINDL. 239. FICOIDS. Mesembryanthemum, sp. 315. DAPHNADS. Pimelea linifolia? 340. ----* trichostachya, LINDL. 355. ----colorans, 362. Exocarpus aphylla, 118. ----spartea, 135. PROTEADS. * Conospermum sphacelatum, HOOKER, 342. * Grevillea Mitchellii, HOOKER, 265. ----* juncifolia, HOOKER, 341. ----floribunda, 212. ----* longistyla, HOOKER, 343. ----sp. 276. * Hakea longicuspis, HOOKER, 397. ----* purpurea, HOOKER, 348. DODDER LAURELS (CASSYTHACEAE). Cassytha pubescens, 362. LEGUMINOUS PLANTS. Acacia conferta, 174. 289. ----Cunninghamii, 204. ----doratoxylon, 289. ----delibrata, 258. ----decora, 359. var. 223. ----* excelsa, BENTH. 225. ----Farnesiana, 256. ----falcata, 221. Acacia holosericea, 256. ---- Simsii, 256. ----leucadendron, 258. ----* longespicata, BENTH. 298. ---- ixiophylla, 204. ----leptoclada, var. 95. ----* macradenia, BENTH. 360. ----neriifolia, 386. ----pendula, PASSIM. ----pennifolia, 361. ---- podalyriifolia, 221. ----* pinifolia, BENTH. 342. ----stenophylla, 81. ----spectabilis, 353. ----salicina, 56. ----triptera, 291. ----* varians, BENTH. 132. ----* Victoriae, BENTH. 333. ----* uncifera, BENTH. 341. ---- viscidula, 340. * Aotus mollis, BENTH. 236. * Bossiaea carinalis, BENTH. 290. ----rhombifolia, 294. * Cassia circinata, BENTH. 384. ----* coronilloides, CUNN. 384. ----* zygophylla, BENTH. 288. ----sophera, 390. ----occidentalis, 378. ----heteroloba, 251. * Crotalaria dissitiflora, BENTH. 386. ----* Mitchellii, BENTH. 120. * Cyclogyne swainsonioides, BENTH. 397. * Daviesia filipes, BENTH. 363. * Erythrina vespertilio, BENTH. 218. * Gompholobium foliosum, BENTH. 348. Hardenbergia monophylla, 236. Hovea lanceolata, 212. ----* leiocarpa, BENTH. 289. * Indigofera brevidens, BENTH. 385. ----hirsuta, 122. * Jacksonia ramosissima, BENTH. 258. ----scoparia, 339. * Kennedya procurrens, BENTH. 365. Labichea rupestris, BENTH. 342. * Labich ea digitata, BENTH. 273. * Leptocyamus latifolius, BENTH. 361. * Lotus laevigatus, BENTH. 62. ----australis, var. 348. Neptunia gracilis, 362. * Psoralea eriantha, BENTH. 131. Sesbania aculeata? 106. * Swainsona phacoides, BENTH. 363. Vigna, an capensis? 339. ----* lanceolata, BENTH. 350. ----* suberecta, BENTH. 388. ROSEWORTS. Rubus parvifolius, 351. LOOSESTRIFES (LYTHRACEAE). Lythrum Salicaria, 62. RHAMNADS. Alphitonia excelsa, 201. Cryptandra propinqua, 223. * Ventilago viminalis, HOOKER, 369. SPINDLE TREES (CELASTRACEAE). * Catha Cunninghamii, HOOKER, 387. * Elaeodendron maculosum, LINDL. 384. STACKHOUSIADS. Stackhousia muricata, 362. DOGBANES (APOCYNACEAE). Carissa ovata, 393. Tabernaemontana, sp. 341. * Doobàh, 85. LOGANIADS. * Logania cordifolia, HOOKER, 341. GENTIANWORTS. Erythraea australis, 366. OLIVEWORTS. Notclaea punctata, 352. NIGHTSHADES (SOLANACEAE). Nicotiana suaveolens, 64. Solanum ellipticum, 215. ----furfuraceum, 212. ----biflorum, 362. ----violaceum, 365. ----sp. 85. BINDWEEDS. * Polymeria longifolia, 398. Convolvulus erubescens, 353. Evolvulus, sericeo aff., 386. ----linifolius, 339. LEADWORTS. Plumbago zeylanica, 219. RIBWORTS (PLANTAGINACEAE). Plantago varia, 352. JASMINWORTS. * Jasminum suavissimum, LINDL. 355. ----lineare, 94. ----* Mitchellii, LINDL. 365. EHRETIADS. Halgania, sp. 24. BORAGEWORTS. * Trichodesma sericeum, LINDL. 258. BRUNONIADS. Brunonia sericea, 341. ----simplex? 360. ----* simplex, LINDL. 82. LABIATES. Ajuga australis, var., 236. 347. * Mentha grandiflora, BENTH., 362. Moschosma polystachya, 137. Plectranthus parviflorus, 347. * Prostanthera odoratissima, BENTH., 291. ----* ringens, BENTH., 363. ----* euphrasioides, BENTH., 360. Teucrium recemosum, 31. ----argutum, 198. Salvia plebeia, 366. VERBENES. Chloanthes stoechadis, 298. Vitex, sp. n., 212. MYOPORADS. * Eremophila Mitchelli, BENTH., 31. * Myoporum dulce, 253. ---- Cunninghamii, 214. * Stenochilus pubiflorus, BENTH., 273. ----* salicinus, BENTH., 251. ----* curvipes, BENTH., 221. ----* bignoniaeflorus, BENTH., 386. BIGNONIADS. Tecoma Oxleyi, 291. ACANTHADS. Justicia media, 31. 89. 361. ----ascendens, 97. Ruellia australis, 353. FIGWORTS (SCROPHULARIACEAE). Morgania floribunda, 62. 384. Veronica plebeia, 360. GOODENIADS. Dampiera adpressa, 339. Goodenia pulchella, 339. ----* flagellifera, DE VRIESE, 378. ----coronopifolia, 359. ----geniculata, 72. * Linschotenia bicolor, DE VRIESE, 340. 345. * Velleya macrocalyx, DE VRIESE, 258. COMPOSITES. Brachycome, heterodontae prox., 62. * Calotis scapigera, HOOKER, 75. ---- cuneifolia, 28. * Calocephalus gnaphalioides, HOOKER., 378. * Eurybia subspicata, HOOKER, 293. Eurybiopsis macrorhiza, 359. Erechthites arguta, 225. * Ethulia Cunninghami, HOOKER, 62. * Flaveria australasica, HOOKER, 118. Helichrysum bracteatum, 79. ----* ramosissimum, HOOK., 83. ---- semipapposum, 389. ----odorum? 362. Helipteres anthemoides, 349. ----* glutinosa, HOOK., 361. Minuria heterophylla, 64. Monenteles redolens, 263. * Myriogyne racemosa, HOOK., 353. Ozothamnus diosmaefolius, 347. Podolepis acuminata? 289. ----rugata? 362. ----longipedunculata, 362. Pycnosorus globosus, 353. Rutidosis helichrysoides, 78. ----* arachnoidea, HOOK., 341. Senecio carnosulus? 360. ----Cunninghami, 45. ----brachylaenus, 62. Sphaeranthus hirtus 212. HIPPURIDS (HALORAGACEA). * Haloragis aspera, LINDL., 306. ----* glauca, LINDL., 91. * Myriophyllum verrucosum, LINDL. 384. MYRTLE BLOOMS (MYRTACEAE). Angophora lanceolata, 81. * Callistemon nervosum, LINDL. 235. Eucalyptus sideroxylon, 339. ----* acuminatus, HOOK. 390. Eucalyptus pulverulento aff. 91. ----* melissiodorus, LINDL., 235. ----* citriodorus, HOOKER, 235. ----* populifolius, HOOKER, 204. ----bicolor, 390. ----* viminalis, HOOKER, 157. * Leptospermum sericatum, LINDL. 298. * Melaleuca trichostachya, LINDL. 277. ----* tamariscina, HOOKER, 262. Schidiomyrtus tenellus, 340. * Tristania angustifolia, HOOK. 198. CINCHONADS. Canthium sp. 386. ----* oleifolium, HOOKER, 397. Pomax hirta, 340. STELLATES. Asperula? 360. UMBELLIFERS. Actinotus Helianthi, 345. Daucus brachiatus, 235. Didiscus pilosus, 593. SANDALWORTS (SANTALACEAE). Fusanus acuminatus, 105. Santalum oblongatum 101. LORANTHS. * Loranthus linearifolius, HOOK. 102. ----* aurantiacus, HOOKER, 101. ----* subfalcatus, HOOKER, 224. ----* nutans, CUNN. 158. [* The routes of the party advancing are coloured red (long-short-short- long) on the maps; those by which it returned, blue (short-short-short).] LONDON, FEB. 15. 1848.