journal qf a qoeensland squmIer OSCAR DE SATGE PAGES FROM THE JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER <^^^^^^<«^t-^^-.?<^k--t^^l^^^^ Pages from the Journal OF A Queensland Squatter OSCAR DE SATGE WITH ILL US TRA TIONS LONDON HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED 13 GREAT MAKLBOKOUGII STREET 1901 All rii;/t/s resen'ed ^^SAz. DEDICATED TO Sir Robert George Wyndham Herbert, G.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., FIRST PREMIER OF QUEENSLAND, AND A USEFUL FRIEND TO THAT COLONY EVER SINCE. \ 440()G4 CONTENTS. Introductory I. — Victoria II. — Moretox Bay yia Sydney III.— First Taste of Bush Life IV. — A Trip to the "Never Never" V. — Darling Downs VI.— Droving Experiences with Cattle and Sheep VII.— Liverpool Plains and Llangollen, New South Wales VIII.— The Namoi, N.S.W IX.— A Trip to the Darling X.— Pioneering in Central Queensland XL — Like on Peak Downs XII. — Some Lawless Deeds in Early Days XIIL— To the South for a Rest, and Back by the Downs XIV.— A Trip to the Paroo in the Far South-West . XV.— The Barcoo and Home by Springsure to Wolfang XVI.— Initiation of Responsible Government in Queens- land, 1860-69 XVIL— Queensland Parliamentary Life XXTIL— Sheei' Station Life, \Volfan<; XIX.— Westwakii II..: XX.— CORKENA AND IHE WesT PAGE. I 7 19 38 52 59 69 88 102 116 132 163 179 194 204 211 220 240 255 270 -74 CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE. XXI. — Farewell to Peak Downs 284 XXII. — Homeward Bound and Old England Again ... 288 XXIII. — Back to Australia 301 XXR'. — Visits to the Darling Downs — Stocking up Coreena — Incidents of Life there 306 XXV.— A Short Trip South — Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart 320 XXVI. — Aramac and Darling Downs Revisited 327 XXVII. — Second Trip Home and Back by the Cape 331 XXVIII. — Representation of the Mitchell 337 XXIX. — Parliament and Land Laws 343 XXX.— The Cattle Industry 354 XXXI.— Cloncurry— The Georgina and The Gulf 365 XXXII.— A Short Visit in 1893-1894 to Albany, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane 386 XXXIII.— The Peel River 406 ILLUSTRATIONS, Oscar de Satge Frontispiece PAGE. View in Sydney Harbour 4 E. AND O. DE Satge, 1853 5 The Treasury, Melbourne— Arrival of Gold Escort, 1852 13 Sydney Harbour from Government House 23 Brisbane, 1862 27 Brisbane from Bowen Terrace 3^ Pine Applf, Plantation, Brisbane 35 The Darling Downs— Freestone Creek, near Warwick ... 59 Travelling Cattle, Queensland 7i Travelling Sheep, Queensland 77 Collaroy Sheep 99 Bullock Teams with Wooi io9 Native Black, Lower Namoi, N.S.W 119 Black .Gin, Lower Namoi, N.S.W 123 Hut on the Darlinc; River 127 Peak Range from ihe N.W., as Sketched hv Leuhaki>t in January, 1845 ^^^ ROCKHA.Ml'TON IN Fl.OOD '37 Table Mountain, Peak Range '43 Wolfang Peak, Peak Downs '49 James Milson, Esq., Nokth Sik.ke, Sydney i<»5 SiK Akiiii K U(jD<;soN and Mk. KdHKKi Ramsay... i 2* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. and Sydney in those days were, I need not say, very small as compared to those doing that service later on, and my means of transport on that occasion was an old Yankee craft, the Governor General^ carrying dangerous top hamper in the shape of an upper deck that had a curious list as she rolled in the trough of a considerable sea. I was, I remember, uncommonly glad to get safely out of her after entering for the first time those Sydney Heads, which, for thirty years after, I was destined to steam in and out of under every condition of weather and fortune, and in all kinds of vessels ; I have gone out of Sydney Heads when the sea was raging outside, and one had to steady one's nerves and footing as the ship took its first plunge into what seemed a dangerous abyss. It must ever be difficult to do full justice to Port Jackson, Sydney's great harbour, but it is better for me to attempt it at this point of my narrative, and in doing so I cannot do better than quote a remark- ably accurate account of it I came across in the London Glube^ from its Sydney correspondent, who writes with full mastery of the subject. He says : " It is a sight well worth a sea voyage of several thousand miles to behold the harbour, with its magnificent lake-like expanse of water, stretching away eight or ten miles inland, forming one of the natural beauties of the world. As the eye wanders along the vista, a succession of picturesque and beautiful landscapes come under review. The irre- 20 MORETON BAY. gularity of the shores, the luxuriant verdure with which the hills are clothed ; the innumerable villa residences nestling cosil}' on the slopes of the cliffs — whicli form the general outline of the bays — surrounded with exquisitely laid-out gardens filled with plants and fruits from almost every clime, form a panorama of singular beauty. The waters of the port are of a depth sufficient for the largest ship afloat to mancBuvre in; vessels drawing 27 ft. can enter the Heads at dead low water with perfect safet}^ ; while as regards its capacity, it is not surpassed by any other haven. It is surrounded by a hundred or more bays, inlets, and creeks, the scenery around each being of a most charming character. Many of these bays form, of themselves, capacious harbours, some of them extending inland for miles. The main waters are dotted over with glittering islets, which add to the exquisite grandeur of this noble estuar}^, while they form no impediment to navigation. "The entrance to the harbour is about a mile in width. On either side the rocks rise up to a great height, forming a natural gateway. iSo completely is the harbour shut in, that until an cnli-aiice is fairly effected, its capacity and safety cannot even be conjectured. The North Head rises with singular abruptness to a height of about 300 ft. The outer South Head, immediately under the Macquarie Light- house, rises to an elevation of upwaids of .'>')() I'l. ; but the rocks dij) toward.s tln^ noiMh, unlil, at tin- iiiiuT 21 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. entrance to the bay, where a fixed coloured light stands, the elevation is not more than 80 or 90 ft. Immediately opposite the entrance stands a bold, rocky promontory. Middle Head, which, when viewed from a distance at sea, gives to the harbour an appear- ance of comparatively small dimensions, a mere in- dentation of the coast, which deceived even the experienced eye of Captain Cook. At the further end of the harbour are the entrances to the Paramatta and Lane Cove rivers, the former being that on which the leading Australian rowing and scuUing contests take place. Both streams pass through scenery of the loveliest description, the Lane Cove river being famous for its profusion of ferns and beautiful native flowers. On one side of Middle Head is an inlet, extending a winding course of several miles, between lofty precipitous slopes covered with primeval forest, and from the ridges of which may be seen the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean, stretching away until they appear to blend with the sunlit sky on the distant horizon." This exceUent description conveys recent impres- sions, and is the more valuable on that accou.nt, as nearly fifty years ago, the villas that dotted the various points were not so numerous nor the gardens so ornate as they are now, though the great natural beauties were the same. I stopped a few days in Sydney intensely interested at everything I saw, marking the difference of its more settled population and institutions from those 22 MO RET ON BAY. of Melbourne, but I had not then the tune or the experience which I had in Later years to form con- clusions of value. I had picked up a friend on board who directed me to an hotel on Church Hill and took me about, and 1 don't know what I should have done without him. It was " blazin^ " hot, locusts sang in the trees, and the waves of the harbour glittered in the radiant atmosphere of mid- summer in the southern hemisphere. I remember visiting the theatre, where I saw Sir Charles Fitzro}', then Governor of the Colony, a stout, jolly -loo king man, who had lost his wife (a daughter of the Duke of Eichmond) a few years previously, by a carriage accident, in coming out of the gate of the old Government Eesidence at Paramatta, when the four- in-hand driven by Sir Charles, who was a skilful whip, swung round so sharply at the turn of the lodge gate, that both Lady Mary and the aide-de-camp, Mr. Chester Master, were thrown out and killed. It happened curiously that my destination in Moreton Bay was the station property which, managed by my brother, was owned by Mr. Eobert Chester Master, a brother of the aide-de camp who had met his death by that accident. I was oidy two or three days in S}'dney before I shipped myself on for Moreton Bay and the then nascent town of Brisbane in the new screw steamer Boomeramj, so called from the fact that her screw- pro[)eller was boomerang shaped, an experiment, I believe, that did not eventually succeed. In al'ier JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. times I had many a steam up and down the northern coast in the old Boomerang. She was commanded by Captain O'Eeilly, who was akeady a favourite on that Une ; an excellent fellow, who, after being senior captain of the A. S. N. Company, became its Bris- bane agent, and died there from the loss of his eye, caused by a spark from a passenger's pipe. I wonder such accidents were not more frequent in those days of reckless smoking on board, anywhere and ever}^- where. On board the Boomerang, I came across by good luck some near neighbours of my brother ; they had been to Sydney on a short holiday, and told me my brother was considered a very smart man and good rider, and in fact could, they believed, ride a buck- jumper, a statement I found made by Bushmen always with due o-ravity. Besides these neifjhbours, I made the acquaintance onboard of a former head of the Government of New South Wales, Sir Stuart Donaldson, a pohshed and accomplished man, who was taking up his ward, young Alick Eiley, to take possession of his property, Clifton, which oddly enough adjoined Mangoola, the station I was going to, a rough range only dividing them. Sir Stuart made himself most agreeable and was full of anecdote and humour. As for Alick Kiley, he was a splendid specimen of the highh' educated new generation of Xew South Wales, and one could not help being fascinated by his companionship. When we got up to our respective stations, we often met for a time, 26 MORETON BAY. and had many a pleasant camp together, -^vhenever business or pleasure tempted us to exchange calls. Like all native-born colonists, Eiley was very fond of horses and had a notable jumper, "Bing-eye," who thought nothing of clearing all the paddock fences at Clifton and Tenterfield. I was sorry to learn in after years that Eiley had died in his prime. His father had imported to their place, Eaby, a noted horse called " Skeleton," from whom some of the best blood in New South Wales claimed descent. I was sorry when our pleasant trip to Brisbane came to an end ; the weather had been magnificent, the sea like glass, and the coast line interesting to me who saw it for the first time. The Boomerang had to wait a bit at the pilot station off Moreton Island for high water to cross the bar, and then make her way slowly and. carefully through the buoyed channel of Moreton Bay on to the mouth of the Brisbane river, which is about thirty miles from Brisbane. It is not easy, even with the help of notes taken at the time, to carry one's memory back over forty years and describe accurately what Brisbane was in 1854, but it had small claim then to become the city it is now. The city had been well laid out, but its improvements were then limited to odd wooden buildings marking here and there the delineation of the wide streets, with occasionally a brick building, and first amongst these the huge and ugly old convict barracks which housed the various Govern- 2!) JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. inent offices, besides doing duty for Immigration barracks, and, later on, for the first Legislative Chambers. For in 1854 there was no Queensland as a Colon}', but only Moreton Bay as a province of New South Wales, with a Government Eesident (Captain Wickham, E.N.) directing the simple and inexpensive government of this northern province. The navigation of the Brisbane Eiver from its mouth had not been dredged as it is now, and only small vessels could come up with the tide and anchor at the wharves. There was no bridge across the river, only punts and ferries, and the roads inland over the little Liverpool Eange and the main range on to the Darling Downs were in wet seasons veritable sloughs of despond. There was a detach- ment of the 12 th Eegiment, which marked a measure of Imperial protection, and, in fact, Moreton Bay was slumbering, waiting to spring into the life she received as the separate Colony of Queensland in 1859. However, the site of the city cannot be chal- lenged ; it nestles on many hills commanding the windings of a beautiful river, a good deal wider than the Thames at London Bridge. Modern Bris- bane clusters on the north side of the river, and if it is by no means as level as Melbourne or Adelaide, it is all the more picturesque. The river frontages, and these are extensive owing to the windings of the river, are chiefly taken up by wharves, excepting always the central bend of the 30 MO R ETON BAY. river, on the banks of which the beautiful Botanical Gardens are laid out, and near which the Govern- ment House and Legislative Chambers are built. The Government House lies somewhat low, favour- ing the mosquitoes in summer, so there was, not many years ago, a talk of building a new one on some of the heights dominating the town, where most of the merchants have built themselves houses. Indeed, Brisbane is i^o exception to the rule of other colonial capitals, viz., to live as much as possible out of town after you have done your business in it. Xot withstanding errors of judgment, and, in colonial parlance, much log rolling, the last fortj- years have done more for Brisbane than, perhaps, any other Australian capital. The river has been dredged to accommodate the liners of most of the great steam companies trading to Australia, in- cluding the British India S. N. Co., which holds the mail contract, and railways have taken the place of the infamous roads which the earlier settlers traversed to get to the great western plains that form the pastoral backbone of Queensland. The construction of the southern line of railway and that of tlie South Western line to Charleville have sent Ikisbane ahead immensely, and opened the inland traffic to the agricultural areas of the DarHng Downs, which have enabled meat and other factories around Brisbane to make sure of a supply of material. Everything tlial h^gislation coiiM do has JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. been done for the chief town of the Colony, which now includes in city and suburbs, a population equal to that of over one -fifth of the whole of the Colony. Of course, Brisbane is not a central capital, and it can never be so, but it is in the centre of that southern and more thickly populated portion of the Colony that is least tropical in its attributes, and, therefore, the most attractive for permanent resi- dence. The northern portion of Queensland, though teeming with mineral and other wealth, be it well understood, lacks the more southern inducements to live in it all the year round, though parts of it have the attraction of considerable altitude and its accompanying temperature. My arrival in Brisbane was marked with the pleasant hospitality of the owner of the station I was going to learn my colonial experience upon, Francis Eobert Chester Master, who had been a subaltern in the Xew Zealand war of ISiS, and had come to settle in Brisbane with his charming wife, a daughter of Hannibal Macarthur, one of the leading families of New South Wales. Bob Master and his wife did all they could to cheer me on my way, and though it was very hot, I Avas charmed with my first glimpse of Moreton Bay, with its semi-tropical life and glowing vegetation, its pineapples and bananas, its sparkling atmosphere and stimulating heat, with cool nights and the skies of Italy ; whilst it was evident from the people I met that the country was bemg colonized by a first-rate set of men, a 34 \i TON BAY. fact, indeed, to which the Queensland of to-day owes much of its attraction. As to chmate, of course it was midsummer, but the heat was not enervating but stimuUiting, the air perfectly translucent ; and I suppose the winter months of Queensland give you the choicest climate in the world, a climate that wdl ever attract the invalid in search of a temperature and air where the lungs take a holiday and do a minimum of work, which is the case especially on the plateau of the Darlino- Downs. 4400(34 CHAPTER III. FIEST TASTE OF BUSH LIFE. After spending a week with m}^ kind hosts, the Chester Masters, they found me, as an escort to Warwick (where my brother was to meet me), the Canning Downs sheep overseer, an excellent old fellow, who judiciously opened my eyes as to the life that was before me. Our road lay via Limestone (now called Ipswich), some five and twenty miles from Brisbane, where we stopped at a good country inn, meeting several Darling Downs men on their way to town. Everything was new, and therefore interesting. I recollect beino- first struck as we rode along with the number of ant hills that lined the road like so many attenuated sentry boxes. Lime- stone was at the head of the navigation of the Brisbane Eiver, and even then was the second town in Moreton Bay, and a considerable township. Our journey from there to Warwick la}' through country that was well timbered, but the grass was all very dry, as there had been no rain for some time, and I was told it was the hottest time they had known 38 FIRST TASTE OF BUSH LIFE. for several years. Wiien we approached the Main Range, twenty miles the Limestcnie side of Warwick, it became cooler, and we enjoyed the change to the gigantic forest that shaded the ascent of the far- famed Cunningham's Gap. That useful timber, the stringy bark and black butt trees, towered above us to the height of two to three hundred feet, and created dense shadows, whilst the undergrowth con- tained a great variety of other evergreen eucalypti. I heard for the first time the cooino- of the wono;a wonga, and my eyes followed the flight of various gaudy-coloured parrots and parroquets, whilst the harsh shriek of the cockatoo resounded through the stillness of the primeval forest. It gave me a feeling of delightful awe, and I did not Ibro-et for a lons^ time this first introduction to the great Liverpool Range, which, under one denomination or another, divides the eastern from the western waters in no less than three of the Australian colonies — Queens- land, Xew South Wales, and Victoria. Ascending the range we met a lot of bullock teams, some going up with rations, others coming down with wool, but all vigorously combating the difficulties of very rough roads. Tlie Australian bullock team does not yield to moi'al persuasion, so stronjj lan<;ua<;e and the resonant crack of the o DC ])ullock whip play a great part in the stock-in- trade of a successful carrier, regarding whom I was there and then considerably enliglitened. Huge saplings were in almost every case attached to the JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. descending loads to act as a drag. Teams in Queensland generally travelled in company, so that they could afford each other assistance, whether in the crossing of creeks or the double banking through boggy country, or the ascent of steep pinches. However the iron horse has long since then been doing the heaviest work of the up- country traffic, and carriage has long ceased to be the bugbear it was in the old pioneering days. My mate and I were glad to lead our horses up the steep ascent of Cunningham's Gap, then follow- ing the windings of a rough and deeply-indented road, with high spurs on either side, some of these clothed with the many evergreens of the dense scrubs that formed in those days the hunting grounds of the native blacks. The range once ascended we stood on the broad plateau of the Darling Downs, some fifteen hundred to two thou- sand feet above the sea level, and breathed a cooler atmosphere, whilst we looked upon a wider prospect. From this our journey to Warwick lay mostly through open black soil downs, picturesquely dotted with clumps of timber; these plains then formed portions of Maryvale, Canning Downs and other stations, but are now mostly cut up into prosper- ous farms, growing as heavy crops of wheat, maize, barley, and oats as any other good land in wide Australia. The third day from Brisbane thus saw our arrival at Warwick, now the chief town of South-Eastern 40 FIRST TASTE OF BUSH LIFE. Darlino- Downs. In those days it boasted of a o-ood general store or two, and a few comfortable public houses. I bade a cordial farewell to my first mate, and put up at Dr. Labat's hospitable house, where I had been told to await my brother. The doctor was clever, eccentric, and abrupt, and like all Aus- tralian country doctors he was a friend all round, and could give you the news of ihe district com- mercially as well as socially. When I arrived he had been called away to a fatal case of snake bite at Ellangowan, and when I met him he put me on my guard regarding snakes, so I soon adopted the excellent habit of walkino- throa^h the bush with my head down instead of up My stay at Dr. Labat's was marked in my memor}- by meeting there William Beit, on his way from Acacia Creek to manaoje Westbrook for J. D. McLean. Beit o-ave me a lot of shrewd as well as good-natured advice, and I never felt astonished at the success that attended his career in after days. In due course, ni}' brother arrived, accompanied by a black boy, bringing spare horses to carry self and swag. It was dehghtful thus, to meet, after eighteen months' separation, during which we had respectively gleaned much information regarding the resources of this new country of our ad()i)ti()n. We yarned far into the night and found that we had botli become smokers. As the chiys were extremely hot, my brother arranged that we should make our Hist start for Mangoola in the evening, ride some 41 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. twenty miles by moonlight and camp out, leaving some sixty-five miles of our journey for the following day. This was my first camp with the saddle as my pillow and the starry sky as a roof, about the best experience in that climate, if you are young, strong and fresh, as we then were. I heard the native dog or dingo howl for the first time, an unearthly cry, and one of them I found in the morning had tugged at and gnawed the bridle I had hung on a sapling a few yards off. I was then also first introduced to the hobbling and short hobbling of horses and the application of a good bell that can be heard for over a mile off to the greatest rambler of your mob, for there is no more important matter to the traveller than his being able to get his horses early, so as to make a good start. Some horses are inveterate rogues, and seem to shy off from the work that awaits them the next morning ; these it is best to keep for head station work, and not take them on a journey. The following day we did the sixty-five miles all right, rather a long ride for a new chum on a hot day, and I was glad enough to turn into a good bed at Mangoola and dream of the new life that lay before me. The country we traversed between Warwick and Mangoola was lightly timbered and sound, but very different to the country we had left on the Darling Downs ; it was chiefly box and iron bark ridges, with pebbly quartz scattered over them ; the country grew fine merino wool then, and presumably does so still, 42 FIRST TASTE OF BUSH LIFE. but the stock must be all the better for a ""ood deal of rock salt. The district was purely grazing land, and would never be selected for agriculture. We called at Pikedale on the road, and I there re- newed my acquaintance with the neighbours I had met on the Boomerang., who had a most com- fortable homestead and made the best of life in the Bush. Mangoola, though small, was certainly an ideal cattle run ; it was encircled by the high mountains of the dividing range between Moreton Bay and New England, and two streams ran through it fringed with broad river flats ; these creeks took their source at the head of the run. The bulk of the cattle, which embraced the quietest portion of the herd, ran on the lower part of the station, whilst the wilder ones kept to the upper part of the creeks, under the range, from which at branding time it was exceed- ingly difficult to dislodge them. Below the horse paddock that surrounded the homestead three creeks met, the Mole, Pike's Creek and the Sovereign, after which junction the river became the Severn, the main head, in fact, of the Macintyre River. These creeks abounded with cod fish and perch. Ducks and other wildfowl were plentiful, and the bigger water-holes were the very home of the duck-billed platypus, specimens of vrhich I could secure at any time. It was a pleasant change to be able, often, lo steal down io the water-hole at the corner of the horse paddock, and JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. secure a brace of fat black duck, than wliicli there is not a better game bird in Australia. They seemed to rise with difficulty, so plump were they, and one could not miss them, when they paused to steady themselves in the air for more rapid flight. We had also quail on the river flats, but I had to look out for snakes, for on my first venture I nearly trod on one ; he was a black snake too, with a pink belly, the bite of which is held to be as fatal as any. We had got to Mangoola just in time for Christmas, which was spent pleasantly together ; we had grapes in the garden and quantities of both rock and water melon. The station hands were few, and con- sisted of a Chinaman cook, acting also as general servant, a stockman and his wife, and a couple of black boys, natives of Mangoola, who could ride anything and, in bush parlance, could track a mosquito. Cattle stations, of course, were more cheaply managed, and required far less expenditure, than sheep stations ; but, on the other hand, cattle don't grow wool, and wool has been found the only factor to keep down the interest of money, which, like the growth of wool, never slumbers. Therefore it is good to start with the maxim of borrowing very inconsiderably, if you must borrow at all, on a cattle station. I began 1855 at Mangoola, with the usual routine work of a cattle station, which is mustering and brandincT the calves, starting fats to market. 44 FIRST TASTE OF BUSH LIFE. breaking in horses, &c. ; not having to bother what money was being made ont of the cattle or the horses. For, at the first start, it is the irresponsibihty of the game that fascinates the new chum, and it is only later on, and when you become the manager or the owner that j^ou begin to reason as to the profit for your labour, and the returns from the property 3'ou have in hand. Such a property as Mangoola was bound to give a good return for its capital value, for that could not be large, whilst droughts did not afTect it, as water, so important on a cattle run, was very plentiful and the markets of both Brisbane and Maitland were good and within eas}^ driving reach. I have often thought, in after years, what a pleasant haven of rest that station would be to an un- ambitious settler, surrounded, as it could be, with cultivated areas of lucerne, so well fitted for the breeding of stud stock, and amidst all the comforts of such a homestead and garden as could be reared there. I have often wondered who has got it now. Well, it may interest the youthful reader of these pages to know that I progressed fast in the art of riding, though I never got to riding a buck-jumper with absolute confidence, a feat which the black boys, stockman, and also my brother, were able to accomplish when occasion required. I got a lot of spills, one of them rather a bad one, in trying to crack the stockwhip; the wliip got round my horse's tail, and he "went to luarket," giving me a cropper from which I lay for some time stunned. 45 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. My brother soon changed saddles and took it out of hmi. We were at work, I will say that, from daylight to dark, no time to read or write letters, and with few hands there was always a job on hand for even a new chum, if it was only riding thirty miles to Tenterlield for our post. The work I got to like best, however, was going after wild horses at the head of the run amongst the ranges. This entailed generally a breathless ride at full gallop of ten or fifteen miles, and if we " found " it was by no means certain we should yard the mob. Of course our black boys played a great part in this work. Our mode of procedure was to camp somewhere near the spot where the horses were supposed to run, the black boys tracking them up, and knowing pretty certainly by the tracks when they had been there. Our horses were then either close hobbled or tethered for the night so as to tackle the wild mob in the morning as early as we could. After a light breakfast of beef and damper we would saddle up with unusual care, looking well to girth and crupper, and make our start from the night's camp as noiselessly as possible. Sometimes over an hour would be spent in tracking up the horses that had perhaps changed their ground ; when, however, we came across their last night's camp we would pro- ceed with the utmost care, as the slightest noise mio-ht start the mob. The moment the horses were sighted, and I sometimes thought the black boys 46 I^IRST TASTE OF BUSH LIFE. could see through a ridge, there was a final girth up, a placing of the pipe in the pocket, and the orders were given by the head man, generally my brother, as to the direction in which the mob was to be headed by the light weight of the party, wdio was ordered to take the first " pull " at them. It was always, I recollect, thought best to give them a good bursting at first, though the ground was often very rough and dangerous, the ridges thereabouts grow- in o- a short grass tree that not unfrequently would catch the horse's feet and send him flying, giving you a fall that at once put you out of the hunt. It was especially exciting when the mob was got down on the river flats and nearing the yards, for it was there the unbranded and wilder colts and fiUies would make their effort to break away, and we used to try and arrange to have a fresh hand ready waiting there to tackle them. When not joining in the hunt, sometimes for want of a sufficiently good nag, after seeing the rails down and the yard ready, I used to listen intently for the first crack of the distant stockwhip announcing the approach of the wild mob, soon to be followed by the rattle of the horses' feet. Some of the horses often staggered with dis- tress against the stockyard rails after a big gallop. Of course the capture would be followed by a good deal of excitement in overhauling the mob that might not only prove rich in unbranded coUs, but include some gay old rogues that jn-eferred their free- dom to everyday work, and had been long missed. JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. We hadn't many visitors to the station, but I recol- lect to have greatly enjoyed the visit of Edward and Arthur Wienholt, who came for horses they had formerly purchased at Mangoola. The friendship we formed then became a very lasting one, and we have carried it through in after life with much pleasure to us both. The Wienholts were then commencing their long pastoral career, and laying the foundation of the large properties they have since formed into an English company. Together with many others I may in these pages refer to, they belonged to the old Darling Downs set, which is sjmonymous for high character and good faith, not less than for every kind of enterprise and im- provement in the culture of live stock. After a good turn amongst the cattle, my brother and I thought it best I should learn something about sheep, so I went over to Glenlyon to camp out with a lambing flock, and get there initiated in the then good old-fashioned system of lambing ewes b} hand. Time has long since brought a change in this respect, and the lambing of the present day is left to nature without assistance, and takes place in paddocks, the smaller the better. In the year 1855 I write of, the flock of dropping ewes used to be in charge of a careful man accompanied by a mate, who gathered in the day time the ewes whose lambs had dropped that day. At the main yard, which was of hurdles, there were a series of small yards for different mobs of ewes and lambs, according to their 48 FIRST TASTE OF BUSH LITE. ao-e. The longer you could keep tlie several drops apart the better they -^ould thrive, and in this employment I found, there and on the Namoi in after j-ears, that the blacks and their gins gave valuable and inexpensive help. In the present day in pastoral Australia, with the huge propel ties that are worked on a corresponding scale, it would be impossible to find the slow and patient labour in the country required to lamb down by hand say from fifty to a hundred thousand ewes. The ewes are now left to lamb as undisturbed as pos- sible in their paddocks, and fifty to eighty per cent. of lambs is considered a fair increase, whilst in old shepherding days I have on Liverpool Plains got as much as a hundred per cent, from flocks of about 1,500 ewes, which flocks often lambed out to within five per cent, of their flock number. Of course the total extinction of the native dog, or in more settled districts the semi-wild dog, is a sine quel non for a fair lambing in paddocks, which must depend, after the essentials of green grass and water have been satisfied, upon the absence of wild dogs to give you what 1 have above stated is considered to be a fair lambing under the paddock system. Had the old price of sheep been maintained it would have ])aid squatters best to lamb by hand, notwithstanding the wage list, and thus get fifteen to twenty per cent, more lambs; but now it is doubtful wiiclhcr the game would be worth the candh'. Headley and old iJunlop, the .slioop overseers I 49 4 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. served under at Glenlyon, were both Scotchmen, and thorough!}' understood the practical working of sheep and their habits. Later on I shall have occa- sion to describe sheep-farming on a much larger scale ; but I never regretted having been broken in at Glenlj'on to follow ewes and lambs with a bough in my hand, to hobble a refractory_e we and mak e her suckle a motherless lamb. I had, moreover, to do everythino- I was told, and manv a mile have I walked of a morning, and that before breakfast, after the hobbled horses of the overseer till the tinkle of the distant horse bell warned me I was approaching the objects of my search, generally feeding on a bit of sweet grass in some hidden gully. I also took a turn at sheep washing when shearing time came round, which was a very rough operation in those days, and not unlike the English process. The mania for spout washing and steaming the sheep had not set in, as it did some few years later in southern Queensland, when it turned sheep washing into the most complicated as well as the most expen- sive sheep operation of the year. The shearing was done on rough slabs and under a barked roof, the wool table a cJumsy affair, and the wool press a long lever with a box attached, the whole business being a rough and inexpensive job, very different to some of those big sheds that I knew in after years, the building of which cost a goodl}' sum, and, indeed, re|)resented the capital outlay of a small station — to wit, the Jondaryan woolshed on the Darling Downs, 50 FIJ^ST TASTE OF BUSH LIFE. that was stated to Lave cost £5,000. Glenlj'on was only a small station, and in the rough. High prices for wool and the rapid development of the pastoral industry soon created a great improvement in the management of sheep properties, managers vying with each other in the smartness of their work. 51 i* CHAPTER IV. A TRIP TO THE " NEVER NEVER." After some months at sheep station work an oppor- tunity presented itself by which I was able to start for the then so-called " Never Never " country on the Dawson, to assist a man named Archie McNab to get a tract of new country he had taken up for Mr. Master and my brother reported upon by the nearest Crown Lands Commissioner, which was required by the Land Act. McNab was a good old Scotchman, but by no means a brilliant explorer ; he had, however, been out there before, and had secured a good run for himself, afterwards called Kianga, which became the property of his excellent widow in after years. The Commissioner we had to meet was the late W. H. Wiseman, who was located for the time being at Ramies, one of the very outside stations of what was then called Northern Queensland, but which is now in the Central District. So for Rannes we had to make, and it was then a journey that involved no little danger owing to the fierce character of the 1)awson blacks, who had committed already some isolated murders of shepherds and stockmen. We 52 A TRIP TO THE '' XEVER NEVER." made the best preparations we could, getting each a couple of the hardiest tried horses on Mangoola that we knew would last the journey out. We carried arms, McN"ab a double-barrelled fowling piece, self a Tyrolese rifle, with which I could make excellent practice. We took a black boy, from whom we expected great things, but when we got to Dalby, the furthest township in the direction we were bound for, hearing from his tribe, I presume, about the Dawson blacks, he bolted and left us in the lurch. To get to Dalby we had to travel over a great part of what was then the cream of the Darling Downs, quite unfenced and only partly stocked. It consisted chiefly of rolling plains, growing barley, kangaroo and oat grasses, that grew in some cases as high as a mounted horseman, but which the heavy stocking of after days has long since extinguished. No better country for sheep and cattle existed in those days, now much of it is under the plough. Dalby, a veritable city of the plains, only boasted in those days of a store and a couple of public-houses ; now it is a big township, and is the capital of the Western Downs. Leaving it, we traversed the largest plains I had up to that time ever seen. We passed and camped at Bell's celebrated station of Jimbour, then travelling via Charlie's Creek we entered the thnbered country of the Jiurnett District to Burandowan, wliicli boasted in those days of having more sheep upon it than any station on the .08 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Darling Downs. It was carr3'ing 65,000 sheep, and as sheep washing and shearing were in full swing the place rather astonished us with its bustle and work, though in after years I was destined to see many a bigger shed. Washpools have been given up since those days, and the rum cask forms no longer a part of the shearing supplies, for the sheep washers, who were a good deal in the water, used to expect their three glasses of grog a day. Now everybody shears in the grease, the extra carriage of the dirt having been met by the advantages of railway carriage. We camped a couple of days at Burandowan, and watched the shearers making big tallies. At Bon- dooma (Lawson's), the next station we passed, there was a notice up warning travellers with sheep of scab being on the run. This was the first and last I ever heard or saw of that pest in Queensland, a pest that had nearly ruined squatting in many parts of New South Wales and Victoria, an insidious and almost imperceptible insect that causes the valuable wool to fall off, and is the source of terrible suffering to the poor sheep, which can be seen rubbing against every post or tree they can get near. A few stages of some twenty miles a day brought us to Eawbelle, then the furthest out station on the Burnett; the country, so thickly timbered throughout our journey from Charlie's Creek, getting more open and somewhat richer. All this sheep country, it is sad to reflect, has long since 54 A TRIP TO THE ''NEVER NEVER." ceased to be lit for that purpose, and the district has since been turned into cattle stations. In the fifties it bred good sheep and grew fine wool, but when the superior grasses were eaten out and grass seeds pre- vailed, an end was put to sheep farming on all the eastern waters of Queensland, with the rare excep- tions of the Springsure country and Peak Downs, that still retain their good wool-growing properties. From Rawbelle to Eannes we had somethincr like a hundred miles of unstocked countr}^ to travel through, using all precautions to avoid surprise by the blacks, such as camping for the night without fires, eating our supper before we made the night's camp, tethering our horses so as to have them handy, and watching back to back against some big tree. Here it was that we felt the want of a black boy. When we reached Eannes, a sheep and cattle station belonging to the Messrs. Leith Ilay, who had been assisted in their large undertaking by Mr. Thomas Holt, of Sydney (who thereby earned the name of the " Haymaker "), shearing operations were in full swing, and there seemed to be a large number of highly-paid hands about. To protect this outside station there was a sub-inspector of Native Police, one white sergeant, and half a dozen black troopers, who camped at some little distance oil" the homestead, which consisted chiefly of a lot of rough bark buildings, whilst on the opposite side of the head station the native blacks were encamped lo the JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. number of several hundred, their fires extending over a mile. These blacks, we were told, were by no means civilized yet, and given to robbing the huts of the outlying shepherds. They were daily employed in stripping bark for the manager, who paid them by the occasional gift of a bullock. Having introduced ourselves to Mr. Charles Leith Hay, the managing partner, who shared with us his roush accommodation, he in turn introduced us to Mr. Wiseman, who, although quite unable to ac- company us and report on the country, gave us the necessary permit and signed the documents securing the land we wanted. It was impossible to be in Mr. Wiseman's society without feeling its charm, and his powers of description were as great as his varied experience. He gave us a glowing account of the country the Messrs. Archer had just taken up about 80 miles north-east of Eannes, describing it as first-class sheep country, something like the Darling Downs ; but in after years, when I passed Gracemere, as the Archers called their hospitable station near Eockhampton, and recalled this description, I re- flected how little it had been borne out by practical experience — it turned out good cattle country, and nothing more. Listening, however, to a man of Mr. Wiseman's experience, one could not help feeling that there was a boundless future in the further pastoral development of Queensland to the north and west, and when, years after, of which more anon, I was offered an opening to stock and develop 56 A TRIP TO THE ''yEVER NEVER." the richer country of Peak Downs, I often thought of Wiseman's sanguine anticipations. Singularly enough, Wiseman, some years later, was appointed Crown Lands Commissioner at Eockhampton, the town built on Messrs. Archer's station, and I then spent many an evening in his house listening to his reminiscences of Itah% and of the days when he had spent his fortune in the best of European society, for old Wiseman, notwithstanding the rough surroundings of Eockhampton's early days, ever remained a gentleman of the most cultivated tastes. We rested our nags for a few days at Eannes, but were anxious to get back, as we liked neither the camp nor its surroundings. We returned by the same track, and were not altogether astonished on nearing Eawbelle at being overtaken by a messenger from Eannes, who gave us the bad news that the native police had been attacked at night Ht Eannes, and five of the six troopers killed, the sixth being desperately wounded. It was supposed that the native troopers had been decoyed to their fate by some of the black gins. Marshall, if I recollect right, was the inspector, and no doubt had been saved by his camping at the head station. This slaughter created a great stir in the newly- formed district, and other police, then sent for, no doubt made the wild blacks pay for it. But the cause was a want of management, as the blacks had been unwisely employed, and thereby got to know the dailv habits of both station hands an- over a hundred and twenty miles. I had a couple of good Yandilla black boys to assist me, and my mob generally consisted of about 150 head of fats. I had power to sell any of them to butchers on the road, which was better than boiling down, a process wasteful even in those rough days, and all the more so since the method of making extract of beef, which has greatly increased the profit of boiling down for the fat alone, had not then been discovered. I was lucky in my droving and did well, getting to know every tree from Yandilla to Ipswich. My first sta^re from Tummaville would be Felton, Alfred Sandeman's phuM*, in whose absence Whitchmvli did ihc hniioui-s of tliat excellciil properly. Xe.Kl camp I made was J-^tonvalc, tiicu as now owned by Arthur Hodgson, who still, as Sir Arlliur Hodgson, 09 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. leads the rank of old Queenslanders. John Watts was his managmg partner of those days, a very hard-workinsf man and full of gfood nature. I re- member my Yandilla cattle knocking down his yard, one wet night, and making away over the Felton back ridges and his insisting in helping me to track them before breakfast the following mornino;. It was doing me a good turn, but that was his way, and most of the Downs men were of that sort. From Etonvale I generally used to get to the next stage, down the range past Drayton and the Swamp to Helidon, wdiere I got a yard and a hearty welcome from William Turner, w'ho had ceased to be the " fighting Turner " of old days, though he would still be glad to fight his battles again over a glass of grog surrounded by his beautiful and musical children. From Helidon I passed or camped at Grantham, Gatton, Bigges' Camp, and Laidley, as the stages fitted. I generally stayed at Ipswich, resting my horses until the cattle were boiled down and the tally in produce of tallow w^as declared. A good beast would yield from 230 to 280 lbs, of tallow, though I have seen a good lot go over 300 lbs. of fat, and occasional beasts go as high as 400 lbs. Boiling down, pure and simple, has fortunately died out, though as an adjunct to the extract of meat, which yields as valuable a return as that of the tallow, it still continues in factories now widely distributed over Queensland. Eighteen hundred and fifty-seven was a very 70 > 4 •X Ol DRO VIXG EXPERIENCES. wet year, and that affected Yandilla, which was naturally a wet run, a good deal of the country between the two branches of the Conda- mme bein^ often under water. This occasioned wet legs in riding, and sowed the seeds of rheumatism in after life. The black boys and I were nearly caught in the falling of a hut on a wet night at Gatton, and had a job in travelling the cattle on the rotten ground between Gatton and Bigges' Camp, otherwise we fared well enough. There is something fascinating in a drover's life," however anxious you may be or little rest }'0u may get. It gives you complete exemption from mental effort and imbues you with a knowledge of the habits of the stock you are driving, such as cannot be obtained in any other way. You get to know that such a beast, the rogue or rowdy one of the mob, will at a bend of the road make for the creek on the roadside or "gammon to shy" at some passing teams. The life in the open gives you a splendid appetite, and as you are generally off by dawn, sometimes by starlight, I leave ni}- young readers to guess with what ])leasure 3'ou reach the flat on which you will steady your cattle to feed, whilst you eat your own breakfjist which you had sent your black boy on to get ready. '11 le getting ready meaning undoing the pack, h(jbl)ling the j)ack horse, lighting a lire, and boiling the "billy" for tea, the food being generally cold boiled i^all JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. beef and bread or damper, as the case may be, unless indeed you were out of both and had to make Johnny cakes of flour and water, with a sprinkle of salt and soda. Johnny cakes are often best toasted a second time. On my return from deliveiing my last mob of cattle at Ipswich, Mr. Gore offered me the appoint- ment of cattle manager at Yandilla, but considera- tions arose that led me after a year's experience of droving cattle to the pots to try my hand at overlanding sheep to Victoria. It was only the year before that overlanding wethers from Queensland to Port Philip had commenced, and that Melbourne buyers had found their way to the Darling Downs. The venture had evidently proved remunerative, and ail the young sheep were being bought up at golden prices for delivery a year after. This gave a fillip to Queensland squatting, so good humour and briskness prevailed on the Downs, for all sorts of horses and carts were wanted for droving outfits, and anything like a decent man got 30s. a week as drover for a good long job of six months. 1 came across Dr. Eowe, of the Campaspe in Victoria, a clever, amusing and successful man, who was then buying on the Darling Downs some twenty thousand three and four year old wethers at from 10s. to 14s., which he hoped to resell when he had fattened them on his stations at a pound to twenty- five shillings in the Bendigo market. Dr. Piowe's 74 DRO VI XG EXPERIENCES. head man McLeod wanted an overseer for the second mob of sheep to be travelled, Butler, now of Kilcoy, having engaged to take the first lot, so I encao-ed with him for the second lot, and it is not too much to say here that Butler and I did nearly the whole of the work, McLeod attending merely to riding ahead, and giving the required notice to stations on the hue of road. I was glad to get this chance of travelling some thousand miles across the laro-er part of the o-reat back countrv of New South Wales, and acquiring not only experience of the country itself, but a knowledge of. the many methods employed by a host of squatters in putting it to the best use. For those who don't know the business, I think I ought to describe at the commencement of the trip the every-day routine of travelling such a large lot of sheep. The person who was in full charge and on whom the responsibility rested, and who chose the road and went ahead to give notice according to the Act, was Mr. McLeod above mentioned. Under him Butler and I took charge of the sheep, divided into two lots of over ten thousand each, and these lots travelled a day apart from each other, and of course camped separately. Each lot had a cook, and a horse driver who dnn-e the cart wliicli held the rations, cooking uteusiis, men's swags and Iciits. The cart went on alicad of the slicep and slopped at the place fixed upon for the camj), tlic lioi.sc di-iver seeing to the fixing of the tents and making every- JOURNAL OF A QUEEXSLAND SQUATTER. thing ready for the arrival of the shepherds, who generally appeared on the scene about mid-day, as the allotted distance of six miles a day can by starting the sheep at sunrise be easily accomplished by noon. When once in view of the site of the camp the shepherd would go as far as he could, so as to give his flock a good feed before nightfall. On occasions, of course, he might have ten miles to drive in the day, and in that case he would have to keep his sheep going to do the distance. Two men had to watch in turns for the night, thus every man in the camp had half a night's watch every third night. These watchmen had to make up the fires round the sheep when they got low (such being- made to scare the native dogs) and to continue walking round the camped sheep, most of which, if the feed had been fair, would lie down and not stir. If they had been badly off during the day and there was any food near the camp they would draw out and give the man on the watch a good deal of trouble. When the morning star appeared (reminder to many a shepherd of his task and care) the watcher would first rouse the cook and then wake the men to roll up their swags and get ready for their day's work. Fresh mutton was generally used, though we used to get beef for a change whenever we could. The sound of chops fizzing in the pan (sliep- herds like fat things) gave an interest in the coming meal, which was generally quickly got through, as 76 Ji^ zx DRO VI NG EXPERIEXCES. the sheep soon get uneasy on the camp after da}''- light. The overseer in charge would 'then cut off the sheep to the shepherds in five flocks of two thousand each; the eye. got accustomed to masses of sheep, and we got to divide them with remarkable accuracy. Every third day we counted the sheep through '' brakes " made for that purpose, often on each side of two saplings growing about three feet apart, through which the sheep would run out in twos and threes. The art of sheep counting is the result of long habit and quickness of eye, some sheep overseers being able to count sheep through an opening nearly a hurdle wide. After starting my lot of sheep I used to eat m}^ own chop in peace, and then mounting ni}- horse and looking at each flock as I passed it, would follow the road to be pursued till I had reached what I thought was a good camping place for the night, when I generally selected the spot and lit a fire to indicate it, the desiderata of a good camp being good elevation, water, wood, some saplings for the tents, and last, but not least, an absence of ants, especially those of the formidable kind called " soldiers." We started from Dal by with a good outfit and fair lot of men. Our route lay b}' Canal Creek, tlie Mclntyre brook and through the 13eebo scrub. The water on this main road south was getting short, the track dusty and grassless, and llie season generally bade fair t(j l)e a dry one. .Vt ^'allaroi, after doing 7!) JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. a couple of days without water, our twenty thousand wethers became unmanageable and got away from the shepherds as they neared the creek and smelt the water, Fortunatel}^ we headed them down the creek and succeeded in turning them on horseback, but it was not till late that night and by the light of the moon that we succeeded in rounding them up and camping them in one lot. We were seriously afraid of losses, but on counting them the next mornino; we found them all rio'ht. That day several of our sheep dogs perished of thirst, and here I got a nasty kick from a horse that I was driving in hobbles up to camp, the calkin of the horseshoe entering my shin. For some days the pain was so excruciating that I had to ride in the cart, but got case eventually by lancing it and using that then general remedy, Holloway's Ointment, with powdered lump sugar to eat off the proud flesh. After we got out of the thick country, we crossed the Mclntyre and " Big " rivers, and travelled through the far-famed Liverpool Plains and the sea-like expanse of Golatheral and Gundamaine, fine country that I was destined to be concerned with later on. We then came to the Namoi Paver, and as the country was pretty thickly stocked, we were a good deal hunted by the owners of sheep through wdiose runs we passed, who made us keep to our strict distance of not less than six miles a day. Steering south after crossing the river, w^e travelled through a long stretch of thick salt bush country 80 DROVIXG EXPERIENCES. to the Macquarie Eiver, which we crossed 60 miles below Dalbo. Xear here we met with our first bad accident. One of our drovers, Eichardson b}^ name, who was the jocular man of my lot, got astray on a by-track with his flock, and ride where I would, I could not reach him before dark. He, however, turned up at our camp on the road, past the middle of the night, without his sheep, and this in a country much infested with wild dogs meant a regular smash. His story was that on finding himself quite astray on a creek he had followed instead of the road, he had camped his sheep at nightfall, and made up roaring fires to keep away the dingoes and assist in his being found, for the country was very thick. He kept his watch and walked round his sheep when, unfortunately, he was attracted by the rise of the late moon, which looked to him like a fire. He had followed this ignis fataus over a ridge and then got bushed, being unable to retrace his steps to his flock, which was thus left to the mercy of the wild dogs and nearly cut to pieces. Fortunately for his own self he had struck the road the main lot had travelled, and found himself at our camp in the early morning. We did all we could to muster llie lost shee}), but they hail been scattered everywhere and lay dead in heaps, so we only managed to recover about half the number the man had had with liim, which made the loss come up to (piite a thcmsand. This threw a gloom over M 6 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. our party, as we had up to this tmie got on very well for the first, which as f;ir as the countr}^ went was the most difficult, half of our long jour- ney, liichardson was so chaffed in the camp for having taken the rising moon for a camp fire that he left in despair as soon as I could replace him. From the Macquarie we crossed over to the head of the Lachlan, which river we followed down a long way to Booligal. The most of the Lachlan country was extremely dry, and the expiring water- holes were often filled with dead beasts, which made it difficult to get decent water, even by boiling it. We had a tight pinch of 40 miles without water before we got to the Lachlan, a distance difficult to accomplish by sheep without water. We filled our water casks for our own and the draught horses' drinkinfT, and sent the ridino- horses ahead, the overseers as well as the men having to tramp it, which made us powerless to go after any flock that got astray. There was little feeding on the part of the flocks, however, it being all hard driving in thick dust and great heat. This squeeze was the worst one of our journey, and any ill-timed accident would have been fatal. I shall not forget when we approached our first water, the J3urrawangbineah, Lagoon (the water of which was white and thick) ; the sheep smelt the water, and at once got lively, and noses in the air started galloping to the lagoon. The Yallaroi scene was acted over again as far as the mixhig of the flocks went, but havino- davlidit DR O \ VXG EXPERIENCES. for it, we managed to get the sheep camped in two lots. We lost, however, a couple of valuable draught horses, faithful creatures, who, after a good drink, lay down never to rise again, after having nobly pulled us through. I recollect McLeod staring at the figure the Burrawang manager asked us for two horses to replace them, but, as we couldn't do without them, we had to " pay up and look pleasant." The country round these parts, I don't think, has ever had a much worse drought than that of the year we passed through it, 1858. Years after, the Burrawang grew into a noted sheep station, cele- brated for sheep cutting heavy fleeces of wool, and it became in the hands of the Messrs. Edols, father and sons, quite a show place for the profitable husbandry of sheep on a large scale. The Lachlan was famous country for cattle in those days, but as the only water lay wholly in the river and in the lagoons on the frontage, the herds spent their time travelling to and from the river to the pastures of the back country, chiefly fattening plains with light belts of timber. So that life meant a kind of long drudgery to the cattle of the Lachlan before water was made in the back country, for the beasts were always on the move, excepting when they rested awhile on the river camps after that long — and often polluted--d)ink that came to them, porlia])^, only once in thirty-six hours. 83 6* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Water conservation by tanks and dams and artesian bores has since made an alteration no doubt in lessening the tronble as far as water is concerned, but with the increase of water there has come an increase of stock rendered necessary bv the higher rentals claimed by the Governments of most of the Australian Colonies, who have often unjustly rented the squatter in proportion to the very capital he has laid out on his leasehold, instead of its being the other way about. It was singular that throughout all our journey of nearly seven months we had not had a drop of rain, though when we reached Booligul and there approached the plains of Eiverina we found the grass springing from recent rains, which had the eflect of making the sheep perfectly unmanage- able at night, so that we had to mount men to keep them within bounds of their camp till the time came for the daily morning start. At Booligul we turned off the Lachlan to cross the wide plains of Eiverina, country which I never then thought would have attained its present value. In those days it was a dead level, treeless, unin- teresting country, with widely-scattered tufts of grass growing amidst ubiquitous clumps of salt bush, that corrective herb which sets the seal of healthy sheep country throughout most of Aus- tralia. The land, of a clayey reddish tinge, gave little hope then of being worth a couple of pounds an acre, which it realizes now for sheep farming 84 DRO VIXG EXPERIENCES. purposes, though in many places wheat and other cereals have been successfully grown. Time may- yet bring about a system of irrigation by canalizing the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, and Murray Eivers, such as will irrigate the country and probably turn it into a garden. At present Eiverina is content to feed Melbourne with fat beef and mutton, to grow splendid wool, and enrich a set of fine fellows who are hospitable to a degree, whether you visit them at their comfortable station homesteads or in those suburban palaces they have built near Mel- bourne with the proceeds of their well managed estates. When we neared Denihquin, then a very busy squatting centre, we felt we were approaching the land of gold, for there was any amount of excite- ment about, and travelling was evidently an expen- sive game, for it cost a pound to put up a horse for a night at the hotels, and the same money was asked for a bottle of grog. After punting the sheep across the Murrumbidgee at Denihquin and the ana-branch of the Edwards, at Hay, we crossed the famed Murray at Moama or Maiden's Punt, on a corduroy bridge, and felt lighter hearts at Hearing the end of our journey, and being at last in Victoria. A week's more drovini^ brought us to Dr. Eovve's station, Eesedown Plains, on the Campaspe, and I shall not easily forget the delight and comfort witli which we delivered up our trust, and once 85 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. more slept in a comfortable l)ec], free from iiiglitly alarms and disturbino- watches. But for that loss of Hichardson's mob we would have made an exceptionally good trip, considering the dryness of the season. Dr. Eowe was, however, quite patisfied, and gave Butler and myself a handsome bonus beyond our salary. After a few days' rest at Dr. Eowe's I started by coach to Bendigo which a lapse of four years since my last visit had greatly altered both as a town and as a goldfield, for brick edifices of con- siderable pretensions were taking the place of the old tents and shanties, and the alluvial wash stuff of endless earth heaps was being puddled by machinery for the third or fourth time ; besides which gold had been found in quartz reefs, which gave direct permanence to the field. After a few days spent at Bendigo amongst old friends I drove down to Melbourne in an enormous Cobb's coach, horsed by a team of a dozen spanking horses that travelled swiftly over a well macadamized road, very different to my last experience over the same country. Melbourne I found increasing rapidly, good build- ings were springing up on every side, not forgetting the increasing suburbs which play such a conspicu- ous part in the settlement of this great city. I was glad to look up my friends and get a few days of perfect rest and easy enjoyment. I had a good deal to talk about after the conversational restraint 86 DROVING EXPERIENCES. of a long bush trip, and soon found that over landing from Queensland to Victoria was considered almost a feat, so I felt somewhat proud of an achievement that had certainly considerably in- creased my self-confidence. So much for the present on the subject of sheep and cattle droving, undoubtedly a fine healthy life to lead for a time, and an excellent introduction to a thorough knowledge of country, live stock, and the men you emplo3^ CHAPTER VII. LIVEEPOOL PLAINS AND LLANGOLLEN, NEW SOUTH WALES. OvERLANDiNG promotes restlessness and ambition, sol was soon anxious to get fresh work and applied, from Melbourne, to Mr. Edward Lloyd, whose brother John had just married my cousin, to see if he could put anything in my way. Mr. Edward Lloyd was managing partner of Lloj^d Brothers, great squatters on the Namoi in New South Wales, and resided as a member of the Sydney Upper House at Denliam Court near Sydney. I received an agreeable letter from him, asking me to come and stay with him and talk matters over ; this I was very glad to do, when, a few days later and after a better passage than my first in the Governor General^ for a second time I entered the Sydney Heads. Mr. Lloyd and his wife (a daughter of Major Johnstone of Annandale) received me with the greatest cordiality ; their home, Denham Court, was a delightful country house, nearly twenty miles out of Sydney, and handy to the railway, by which the metropolis was reached in a little over an hour. 88 LIVERPOOL PLAINS AND LLANGOLLEN. He soon told me that his firm were about to begin shearing at Burbiirgate, and that he proposed taking me up with him to look after the wash- pool, where they were to spout-wash the sheep under a new system, thus promising me another insight into sheep farming on a large scale, at which I much rejoiced. In the meantime, I spent a few weeks most agreeably, amid social surroundings that I had been a stranger to since I left the Darling Downs. When Mr, Lloyd, who was a busy man and went to S3'dney nearly every day, was ready, we made a start for the Hunter Eiver, by steamer, via Xew- castle, intending to drive up to Burburgate with a horse and buggy which we took with us. The Newcastle boat started at eleven p.m. and landed you at this centre of the coal industry of New South Wales by early da5'light. Of course New- castle was a small and uninteresting place in those days; still the coal is there in quantit}' and quality pre-eminently greater than at other places on the Australian coast ; and so long as that is the case, Newcastle must be a place of importance and ofler to the obsolete old passenger boats of the southern hemisphere as colliers the haven of a useful, if somewhat dirt}-, old age. From Newcastle we travelled through Maitland, a bustliii'^ country town, thence, via Sinirleton, to Muswell Jirook, traversing a country very much like dear old England in its fresli pasture, gardens and 8«J JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. cultivation, with this addition, that on the Hunter peaches, apricots and grapes grow out of doors in rich variety. The Hunter is certainly a countr}' of rich gardens, vineyards and fattening farms, and as such often bears the name of the Garden of Xew South Wales. Certain choice growths of wine, both red and white, such as Cawarra, Kaludah, Kinross, and one or two vintages are grown on the Hunter that closely approach the choicest growths of the Eliirie, not excepting even such brands as Steinberg Cabinet and Eudesheimer Bero\ Given fair aoe the white wines of the Hunter are superb. We made easy stages through this favoured land, ascending from Murrurundi (then called the Page) the Main or Great Liverpool Eange, dividing the eastern waters of the Hunter from the western watersheds of the Namoi, Barwon and Darling. The ascent was arduous in those days, though nothing so steep as Cunningham's Gap in Moreton Bay, or the Blue Mountains on the Bathurst line. We were glad, however, to stand on the plateau of the famous Liverpool Plains, about to open its wide expanse of fattening pastures to us, fur we had still seventy or eighty miles to travel to Burburgate, and we hoped for Hue weather to do so, so that our wheels shouldn't clog ; buggy travelling becoming exceed- ingly awkward after ram in black soil. Liverpool Plains, taking it all in all, is I think the finest pastoral country I know of in the big island 90 LIVERPOOL PLAINS AND LLANGOLLEN. that forms the Australian contment ; it has had over fifty years of continuous grazing, and it still fattens both sheep and cattle as well as it ever did. Its position, which is to Sydney much what the Darhng Downs is to Queensland, both nestling as they do close to the main dividing range, renders it, now that there is railway connection between the fat- tening pasture and its market, easily accessible to a city of half-a-million people. The country, a rich black soil, taken as a whole is undulating and picturesque, in many parts dotted with volcanic hills and its wide plains studded with clumps of the mayall, a tree that greatly resembles the drooping willow. The mayall has ceased to droop, as it has from time to time been fed off by stock in droughts, but it is still picturesque, and its dark wood emits the fragrance of the violet, and is greatly in use for pipes and stockwhip handles, its ashes also being useful for curing kangaroo skins. In the old days, clumps of saltbush used to surround the mayall trees and sheep, panting in the exuberance of their fat, used to be attracted to the shade, the whole forming a pastoral look out, hard to beat for interest to the squatter. But the greed of gain, the cvesdt amor niLrnmi, has led Liverpool Plains to suffer, like all other " crack " districts, from over stocking. The best attributes of this fine district are shared by not much more than a dozen crack stations like Warrah, Walhollow, Bando, lireeza, Mooki Plains, Gallendaddy, Curley, Gundamaine, Edgeroi, Gala- 91 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. tlieral, and a few others, tliat have all long since become freeholds, and in carrying nearly a sheep to the acre for their owners have managed to enrich them, and that sometimes for more than one Generation. For M'hat wise man will care to part with a really good station ? We yarned as we walked up the range, myself happy to gather information regarding a district which Mr. Lloyd thoronghly knew, and I was almost sorry to jump again into the trap and trot off to the Willow Tree, a good roadside inn, where the road to Tamworth and New England turned of]*. Here we were fortunate enough to get a feed of strawberries for oui- tea. After a rest we tackled the wide monotony of Breeza Plains, stretching as far as the eye could see, and covered with luxuriant grasses. Live stock were all fat, and my heart rose at what seemed to offer a squatter's paradise. At Breeza, where we had to camp for the night, we put up at a dirty little inn rejoicing in the name of the " Pig and Tinder Box." The beds had previous occupants calculated to murder sleep, so we were not sorry to get away early the next morning. The following day was to be our last on the stage to Burburgate, and one of our lirst sights on the plain was a string of wild pigs making for water. Further on we passed on the plains a fine team of mules bound to Maitland from Burburgate, and known as Lloyd's mule team. Mr. Lloyd told me 92 LIVERPOOL PLAINS AND LLANGOLLEN they used to do double the work compared to an ordinar}' horse team. He seemed to know all the teamsters and horsemen as they passed by, and it was pleasant to have the characteristics of the dis- trict and people explained to you by so good a judge. We arrived at Burburgate towards sundown ; it was evidently the centre of a large estabUshment, the working part away from the owner's and manager's residence, everything ship-shape, close to the bank of the Xamoi, and possessing every reasonable comfort in a cfood house and the usual wide verandah which always accompanies an Australian house. Besides which there was a fine garden, sloping to the river, full of peaches, figs and grapes. We were received by Mr. Charles I-loyd, the youngest of the three brothers. Mr. John Lloyd, the eldest, being in England. The station was in a bustle of preparation for washing and shearing, and the day seemed hardly long enough to crowd into it the business required to be got through. The Messrs. Lloyd were practical men and full of energy, and I felt at once it was a good thing for me to be in their service. Soon after we arrived, however, it became ap- parent that the large body of sheep that had to be shorn at the station that year could not well be worked at the new washpool, as the grass was failing on the river and the washpool was too near the woolshed. The job, as it was pro])osed, would have 03 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. meant a good deal more starvation than was ad- visable for the sheep, a large number of which had to travel over fifty miles from other out-stations, which I refer to later on in my description of Messrs. Lloyd's properties. So washinsf was knocked on the head for the vear, and they shore in the grease, and I was content to o-et an insight into the workinof of a big shed before starting for Llangollen, near Cassilis, at the head of the Hunter Eiver, a small sheep station Mr. Edward Lloyd offered me the management of when my engagement at the washpool fell through. This property Mr. Edward Llo}-d had" lately bought, together with Melville Plains, otherwise Gullen- daddy, from Mr. Alfred Denison, a successful squatter, and brother of Sir William Denison, who had been for some years Governor of New South Wales, and was a member of that illustrious family which furnished a Sj)eaker to the House of Commons and Churchmen and scholars of dis- tinguished attainments. Llangollen was prettily situated amongst the mountains of the Munmurrah, one of the heads of the Hunter River, and although it was a sour-grassed, rough bit of country requiring plenty of rock salt for the stock, it grew healthy sheep and good wool, and was a profitable little place. There was a charming homestead that had been made comfortable by Mr. Denison and his manager, Mr. Lambe, so I stepped into snug quarters, and though T had to be my own overseer, 94 LIVERPOOL PLAIXS AND LLANGOLLEN. storekeeper and book-keeper, and was hard at work from " rosy morn to dewy eve," I never recollect spending a happier year than that of 1S59, which was passed there, amongst other advantages, with a library of choice books at my command, left by Alfred Denison to his successor. I had an excellent couple as servants. William, the man, used to keep my bridle and stirrups clean, an unusual thing in those days, and sunrise found him with my old horse ready at the door to go the usual before-breakfast round of sheep counting at the out-stations, none of which were more than eight miles from the head station. The flocks had to be small in that mountainous countr}^ say from 1,000 to 1,500, there being according to the old style of things two shepherds and a hut keeper at each station. We employed new chums a good deal for the sake of economy, sometimes Germans, and, if a married couple, the wife kept hut. Ovving to the nature of the country sheep were often lost, but we soon used to get them, William and I being very good hands at finding them. They always made for the top of the highest rido-es. My busy life at Llangollen was greatly cheered and its influences softened by my proximity to the station of Cassilis, which was only two short miles from Llangollen. This station was owned by Messrs. A. and W. Hnsljy, Mr. Alexander Busl)y being the managing resident partner. j\Ir. liusb}' was the beau ideal of an Australian s(|uatter ; though JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. beyond middle age, fresh, vigorous, and with the courtly manners of the old school retained through the trying ordeal of the early settlement of the district he had resided in for thirty years. The estate of Cassilis was like that of Llangollen, nearly all freehold. The improvements were excellent, and included a stone house, capital stabling, and the first two-storeyed wool shed I had seen. During my resi- dence at Llanf^ollen I was made welcome to the evenino' meal whenever I liked to trot down on Mr. Denison's old cream-coloured cob, an animal who knew every step of the road, Mr. Alfred Denison having been Mr. Busby's intimate friend as well as his nearest neighbour. Cassilis was the stronghold of the celebrated B.Y. stud, so that, with an early developed passion for horses, T was often amono'st them, and on .good terms with Trotter, the stud groom, wdiose assistants w'ere ever ready to fetch out my cob, when, after a pleasant evening at Cassilis, I returned to my quarters ready for my early duty ride of the following da}'. I had always cause to be thankful for Mr. Busby's neighbourly hospitality. It kept me up to the mark, making me more tidy about my costume, and I ceased to carry my pipe in my pocket when Mrs. Busby w^as near, and gave my wide-brimmed cabbage tree a brush before I started for my call. My employer paid me a visit at shearing time, and was pleased with my progress and attention ; in fact, 96 LIVERPOOL PLAINS AND LLANGOLLEN. he hinted that he had promotion to more responsible and highly paid work in store for me. He thought I must be lonely, so he told me he had arranged to take on the station a new chum, George King, second son of Mr. George King, of Thacker, Daniell and Co., one of Sydney's most respected residents. George King was a first-rate fellow, with a good disposition and honourable instincts. Being a native he was already a good rider. We got on capitally, and remained close friends for many a year after- wards. Whilst at Cassilis we enjoyed a good many hunts after wild bulls at the head of the Mun- murrah, which varied the monotony of our sheep- station life. The Munmurrah was a flowing brook, and I was able to spout-wash the sheep by natural spouts formed by damming up the creek instead of requiring an engine and pumping the water from a water hole with a centrifugal pump. As there was not much dust between the w^ashpool and the wool-shed, the wool was clean and well got up, and I was compli- mented upon its condition. It fetched 2,9. a pound in Sydney, including locks and pieces, not a bad price even for those days of good prices all round. Llangollen in after years became the property of Dr. Traill, of Collaroy, and it paid him and the partner who managed for him very handsomely indeed. My residence at Tilangollen enabled me to form the valuable acquaintance of Dr. Traill, then managing partner of Collaroy, a fine black soil estate about 97 7 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. eighteen miles from Llangollen. Dr. Traill had previously earned for himself at Tenterfield the reputation of a first-rate station manager, and I was eager to " sit at his feet," so to speak, and nnprove my knowledge of sheep management. It is not too much to say that in Australia the successful manager of a large sheep station may aspire to fill au}^ place, from that of the clear- sighted dispenser of justice from his own bench of magistrates to that of Premier of his Colony under responsible government. Traill had certainly very remarkable abilities befitting the sheep autocrat that he became. He was, I am glad to say, most friendly to me, and manj^ was the trip I took to CoUaroy, especially at shearing time, to handle the large fine-framed sheep Traill had succeeded in breeding at Collaroy from a continuous importation of Eambouillet or French Merino rams, which undoubtedly give the maximum of wool and meat with robustness of constitution. The breed is still located at Collaroy, though excel- lent old Traill has gone to his long rest, after a remarkable career of useful prosperit3^ I am glad to say that after over forty years of existence the flock is still in great demand, my friends of the Wienholt Estates Compan}^, amongst others, often recruiting their flocks from that source. Dr. Traill's overseer for a time was Jesse Gref^son, afterwards of Eainworth, Queensland, and now the well-known and capable manager of the Australian 98 w O Pi o u LIVERPOOL PLALNS AND LLANGOLLEN. Agricultural Company in Australia. Mr. Gregson had arrived in Australia as a gentleman new chum to stay with his connections, the Busbys of Cassilis, and after a brief experience, to his credit be it said, he " humped his swag " and made his way to CoUaro}', applying for work as a station hand. He soon (jot made under overseer and then head sheep overseer, learning thoroughly and from the best source that practical management of live stock which serves him in such good stead now. Few Australian careers have shown more deter- mination of character than that of Jesse Gregson. lOl CHAPTER VIII. THE NAMOI, N.S.W. At the end of 1859, Mr. Lloyd offered me what he thought was a more useful and important outlet for my energies in the assistant managership of Messrs. Lloyds' Burburgate and other Namoi properties, under the managing partner, Mr. Charles W. Lloyd. I was loth to leave such a perfect little station and home as Llangollen, as also my very good friends and neighbours ; but there was the probability of a considerable position hereafter, and a rise in salary at once, so I started with no little reluctance the same way back to Burburgate, via Coolah and Melville Plains, some 90 miles. Coolah was a rough little place in those days, and I was told an amusing story about the late Mr. Alfred Deni- son arriving there at night on his way to Melville Plains, and, on asking for accommodation, being given a blanket to camp on the sofa, all the bed- rooms being occupied. As it was dark, he did not make out his camp very well ; but in the morning, finding a soft object at the foot of his sofa, he found he had lain all night on a sheep's paunch dragged there by a kangaroo dog. 102 THE NAM 01, N.S.W. Melville Plains (Mr. Denison's former station) was a very fine property indeed, the plains and creek dotted with drooping mayall, with plenty of salt bush at their foot. It was not well watered, but the}' had begun to sink wells, and found a good supply, and it was a country well worth spending money upon. Where it was not purchased b}^ the leaseholder, it fell gradually to the selector ; though, in the end, the capitalist had the best of it, as it was better for pastoral than agricultural purposes, and the district is chiefly now used for sheep fatten- ing purposes. Melville Plains was then managed by a smart Irishman, Dopping by name, who was one of the few men I have met with who could jump his own height of six feet. On my arrival at Burburgate, I was located in the house, and made comfortable, and soon put into harness. The properties then held by Messrs. Lloyd Brothers were amongst the finest and most fattening on the Namoi. Burburgate had a long stretch of both sides of the river, with Baanbah north and south below it, and, forty miles lower down, tlie splendid stations of Gurley and Edgeroi, on wliich some 120,000 sheep were grazed, or about half what would be carried on the same area in these later days of fencing and water making. Edgeroi and Gurley consisted of roUing downs and bhick soil plains, with sufficient shelter for sheep in clumps of mayall and emu bush. Adjoining these, and nearer the river, Messrs. 103 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Lloyd owned the fine shorthorn herds carried on the Gundamaine and Galatheral stations, which fattened cattle that always topped the Sydney market. These stations were also much under- stocked, or at any rate would have been considered so in these days, but they were then lightly stocked, so as to turn off as many fat cattle as possible, the breeding cattle being chiefly carried at Manila, a rougher piece of country under the range. I have always considered Gurley and Edgeroi, and Gundamaine and Galatheral, the best properties for growing and fattening sheep and cattle that I ever saw under one holding, such as they were when the Lloyds had them. They became partly the prey of selectors in after days, and are now held by several owners. Burburgate was the head station, and all these other out-stations had efficient overseers, who fur- nished to the head station monthly accounts of the stock under their charge, together with the money orders drawn in payment of wages, etc., on the head office. The system was complete and orderly, and books well kept by a bookkeeper. I was soon initiated in the work, and accompanied Mr. Charles Lloyd round all the stations, being much struck at the extent of their undertaking and its organi- zation. The lambing arrangements were particularly suc- cessful, being chiefly carried on at Burburgate under the supervision of the best of overseers, Old 104 THE NAMOI, iV.S. W. Mackenzie, who was a model in his way ; slow and sure, he was never known to put his horse out of a walk, but he was out at daylight, and between that and dark had gone the round of the lambing flocks, and looked into that most important of all jobs, if you want to get into numbers. The run being well watered, it was especially adapted for lambing, and certainly results were obtained there that I have never seen equalled elsewhere. We often got 90 to 100 per cent, of lambs over the ewes put to the ram, a result very different to that obtained in paddock lambings now. The Burburgate lambing was by hand, and a great many blacks were employed. In the Lloyds' cattle management an equal amount of care was shown. At the head station they bred bulls from imported shorthorn stock and the Peel Piiver Company's j-diorthorn cows. The breeding herd was kept apart from the fattening bullocks, and when they came to a certain age the weaners were taken out and herded. The heifers were also regularly herded and kept apart for a time ; then, of course, cattle paid better in those da3'S than they do now, when a general carelessness, the result of poor markets, has, I am afraid, crept upon cattle farming generally, I hope not to remain, for there is nothing more unsatisfactory than a badly-managed herd, or more pleasing to the eye than a well- managed one. Shearing soon came upon us with all its prepara- 10.3 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. tions and various responsibilities, and Mr. Lloyd gave me charge of tlie wool shed under his super- vision. Fortunately the season was a good one, and we had kept as much grass round the place as we could, though we should have liked a good deal more. Burburgate shed was the biggest on the river, and that meant that you could generally get the pick of shearers, who far and wide applied year by year for a stand therein. We could put on forty shearers and had cover for a whole day's shearing, some 1,500 sheep or over ; then there was every convenience for penning up the sheep, and the whole affair worked well. Some of the hands could easily shear over a hundred a day, thouiih that number is now exceeded through our friend Fred Wolseley's machines in the present day, which possess the enormous advantage of doing away with cutting the sheep. This matter of cuts had been for many years a standing disgrace to our civilization, as a large proportion of sheep in the days I write of were turned out sometimes cut all over, to be irritated for days by the swarms of flies that infest the country. Tar was put on the cuts certainl}^ but that was only a counter irritant. The picking up of the fleeces and their skirting, rolling and pressing was all interesting work, and came under the special charge of the wool-sorter, who had been there for years, and knew every shade and degree of the true value of the Merino staple that has done so much to make New South 106 THE NAMOI, N.S.IF. Wales what it is as a colon3\ A good deal of the wool M'as engaged beforehand to carriers, who had selections and homesteads on the river, and looked forward to their share of the Burburgate clip in the way of a cheque for its carriage. I must say it was a grand sight when eight or ten bullock teams loaded with the Burburgate wool started together ; teams loaded with over twenty bales each, sixteen bullocks to the team, the bullock driver with his formidable whip and the offsider with the humbler stick. Such a cracking of whips and guttural gees were heard when the long string- moved on, and the patient bullocks all strained their necks to the stiff yoke. A cheery sight this great pastoral harvest, the result of widespread toil and active management. We had no event of importance during our shearing, which averaged over 10,000 sheep a week. We made, however, an annoying loss of some 1,200 yearling sheep owing to cold rain coming on them after shearing, and on empty bellies. This gave me a lesson I was not slow to profit by in after years, and that was never to shear hoggets except in warm weather, and that on full bellies. I must here mention the great price obtained in this September, 1860, for the lirst lot of fat wethers that arrived from Gurley and were shorn at Burbur- gate, viz., 21s. 6d. each " off the shears," sold at Homebush, near Sydney, driven over the Bulga ranges (drover McMillan), the highest figure I ever 107 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. knew Merino wethers to fetch in New South Wales. The reason was that the market was bare, and we had not reached the present days of over-produc- tion. After the shearing settlement, which was in those days washed down with a glass of grog and a remark from the boss, if tlie shearer was a good one, that there would be a stand for him next year, I was glad to get a short run to Sydney and rest my legs, which is the part of the body most affected in looking over a shed. Lloyd gave me a letter of introduction to one of a family of merchant princes in Sydney, who acted as his station agent, and who has hved, alas, to see his throne a good deal shaken by financial troubles. However, in those days every- thing was couleur de rose, and I thoroughly enjoyed both the hospitality of that merchant prince and that of my young friend George King's father. As i had only a small cheque to spend, I was not long in retracing my steps, and once more getting into work. We had some very good fellows working at Lloyds' in those days, most of whom have had successful careers. We were all fond of cricket, and amongst my pleasantest recollections was that of a challenge of the township of Tamworth, some fifty miles above Burburgate, to play our Lloyds' eleven a friendly game of cricket on their own ground. Our ride to Tamworth was dehghtful, as we broke our journey at the hospitable station of the Bells of 108 THE NAM 01, N.S.W. Keepit, whom I was destined to meet in Queensland later on. Our game was a good one, and the visitors, I am glad to say, managed to beat the home team. Our victory was celebrated by a feast given b}' the leading inhabitants of the town, some of whom the following day accompanied us part of the way back. Jolly days, when a ride of fifty miles on a hot day was neither here nor there. Tamworth in 1860 was a thriving township built in a beautiful situation on the Peel Eiver, which is the head of the Namoi. Tamworth was a good deal assisted in its progress and importance by the proximity of the fine estate of the Peel Piiver Company, a freehold grant of over 300,000 acres of mixed land, chiefly of a very picturesque and useful description, of sound sheep country, growing a profitable class of Merino wool that generally manages to top the market for New South Wales wool. This estate has for over forty j^ears had the Ijenefit of the management of the Hon. Mr. Philip Gidley King, whose acquaintance I made about this time. Mr. King is a man made for the place, having, like Dr. Traill, an unerring judgment in the breeding of live stock, which he has turned to the best account for the company he is still managing. I have given an account later on of the Peel Piver Estate and the King family, wiitten after my visit to Australia and to that property in 1893-94. Writing of Tamworth and the Peel Piver in 1859 111 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. recalls an event that had occurred m the neigh- bourhood to a well-known Queensland pioneer, Francis E. Bigge, of Mount Brisbane, so early as 18th August, 1842, when he was "stuck up" and severely wounded by bushrangers whilst on his way with stock to settle on his station near Moreton Bay. Mr. Bigge, wdio is still to the tore and lives in the West of England, has himself furnished me with the narrative of the dramatic event — which is one that will interest my readers, as it forcibly brings before them the lawlessness of those early days and the perils then attached to travelling away from settlement. Mr. Bigge's party consisted of Alexander McDonald, Joseph Nott, and Daniel Collins. This party of four had left the Cowpasture Eiver in July, 1842, with about two hundred head of horses to travel to Mount Brisbane, Moreton Bay ; about fifty head belonged to Mr. Mackenzie, and he and Balfour were to join the party later on. The party travelled by Ravensworth, then Dr. Bowman's, on the Hunter Hiver, stopping there, about August 12th, for a few days on their way to the Peel River where they camped on good grass. When out the following morning looking up their horses Bigge was joined by a stranger who said he was also looking for his horses, and with whom he had some conversation before parting ; this stranger no doubt being one of the bushrangers who afterwards attacked the party. After mustering their horses on August 18tli, 112 THE NAM 01, N.S.W. Bigge's party made their start and had not got far on their road before three horsemen appeared out of a patch of scrub and ordered Bigge and his men to dismount, presenting three double barrels at them to enforce their demand. Bigge's party dismounted, and Bigge being ordered to strip, which he refused to do, one of the bushrangers, who was no other than the celebrated " Long Tom," seeing Bigge trying to disengage his pistols, which were all the arms possessed by the party apparently, shouted to his mate, a man called Wilson, to shoot Bigge. Wilson fired without effect. "Long Tom," however, shot Bicrge throuo'h the shoulder and Bigire fired ineffect- ually with his pistols, but received other shots from the bushrangers through his coat, and receiving no assistance from his party, seems, from Evan Mac- kenzie's letter to his father. Sir Colin Mackenzie of Kilcoy, describing the event, to have behaved very pluckily and scared the bushrangers, whose swag and horses were found in the mob of Bigge's horses the following morning. Bigge lay for some time in Nimingar hut near Tamworth, where Dr. Jay attended to his wounds which did not heal until a splinter of the bone was taken out of his shoulder. The bushrangers were seen by Martin the postman the night of the attack, sixteen miles off, " Long Tom" sending Bigge a complimentary message by him. They did not, however, long evade capture, Wilson being taken by Corporal Kirk and Tr()oi)er JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Stevenson on September 4th, and " Long Tom" a few days after, the third man who formerly belonged to their party having been "turned off," Wilson said, for not firing at Bigge when told to do so. Probably he was made away with. In March 1843, the follow- ing 3''ear, when arraigned at Maitland assizes, Wilson and Thomas Forrester {tdias " Long Tom " ) both pleaded guilty to wounding with intent Francis Edward Bigge. Their pleading greatly surprised the judge ; in reply to his question they said they had both been transported for life. They were sentenced to death and executed at Newcastle jail some little time after. The Judge (Sir William Burton) told Mr. Bigge that after they were executed a free pardon and £300 had been received in the Colony for Wilson, and that he was the natural son of a baronet well known in London societ}^ Our nearest township at Burburgate was Gun- nedah, eight miles off, a distance I used to trot with my excellent horse " Foxhound " in half-an- hour, though, generally speaking, Australian horses are more taught the slow canter than the fast trot as a journey pace. To get to Gunnedah we had to cross the JSTamoi, often in flood, so we used to stretch a thick taut rope to giant gum trees on each side, and to this rope fasten a big block, by which heavy weights, even to bales of wool, were drawn from one side of the river to the other. It was considered a good trial of 114 THE NAM 01 N.S.W. strength to pull yourself over hand over hand. One morning, however, when going over with the mail bag, my exertions made it drop out of my waistband, and I had nothing to do but to plunge into the flooded stream and strike out after it. It was a plunge of many feet, and the current took me down a long way, but I managed to save the bag all right, which to an indifferent swimmer might not have been easy. Dry as Australia is, generally speaking, it is strange how often you are called upon in time of floods to exercise your faculty of swimming. It is strange, too, the number of deaths from drowning that occur in the bush generally ; so I give the strong advice to prospective Australian travellers to learn swimming if they don't know it already. 11.5 CHAPTER IX. A TEIP TO THE DAELING. Aeout this time a proposal was made to nie by Mr. Edward Lloyd that I should get my elder brother, then residing on the Darling Downs, to join me in an expedition down the Eiver Darling, some 250 miles below Burburgate, to inspect and report upon two valuable blocks of country on the north-west side of that river, and possessing thirty miles frontage to it. This country lay at the confluence of the Warrego with the Darling, about forty miles below Sir Thomas Mitchell's old camp, called Fort Bourke, and Mr. Lloyd had obtained the refusal of the blocks from his brother-in-law. Dr. Jenkins. Mr. Lloyd proposed that if we approved of this country we should enter into a partnership agreement with him to improve and stock the run on joint behalf, on his finding the capital to do so at an easy rate of interest. As the country on the Darling, which up to this time had been chiefly used as a harbour of refuge in great droughts for the settlers in the upper parts of its various heads, was commencing to attract atten- 116 A TRIP TO THE DARLING. tion not only from its intrinsic grazing qualities, but from beino' found navio;able in certain seasons below Fort Bourke, there was a good deal to recommend the proposal, and I lost no time in submitting it to my brother, whose reply came in person, as he " made tracks " to the Namoi at once, riding over from the Darling Downs in a very short space of time. Mr. Lloyd gave us carte blanche to fit out our small expedition from Burburgate, an expedition which, although it was to be mostly through stocked country, still possessed considerable elements of risk, as not much was known of the country off the river, especially up the Warrego, the blacks about those parts being yet uncivilised. We lost no time in getting our expedition ready, as the rainy season was approaching and we ex- pected floods to succeed the dry weather that had laid the country pretty bare. We secured a few hardy station horses and the services of " Flash Billy," king of Burburgate blacks, who took as mate another good boy, " Jonathan" by name, whom he called his brother. " Flash Billy " was a wonderful fellow ; he was a dead shot, and a first-rate cook, rarely missing a black duck when firing for the pot and cooking him perfectly afterwards. He was always in good humour, and never short of hobbles, as he had a marvellous way of making up his equipment when it ran short. He would drink, of course, when he got grog, but the brass plate on his splendidly developed chest, proclaiming him King of the 117 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Biirburgate tribe, was not without its pledge of responsibility to his employer and his " honour amongst thieves."' Often in colonial after days have! wished for " Flash Billy " and his invaluable services in tracking and finding horses, and looking out for good camping places, but he was tied to his kingdom and would never leave it for long. The country between Burburgate and Walgett was called the " Namoi," as being watered by the river of that name, till it became the Darling after its junction with the Barwan. All this country was divided into good cattle stations, having from 10 to 15 miles frontage to the river, either on one side or the other, and perhaps 20 miles back, but seldom taking in both sides. These stations were generally pretty bare on the river frontage, owing to the cattle feeding and lying about near the water ; but further back from the river the country got more grassy, with plenty of mayall and saltbush, a great deal of which has now disappeared, but which in old days turned out the primest cattle for the Sydney markets. There were hardly any sheep west of Gurley in those days. These cattle stations were mostly owned by well-to-do old colonists living in and around Sydney, Richmond and the Hawkesbury, Bathurst and so on, who were content to inspect their properties once a year, to decide on the fat stock to be taken off when ripe for market, but who left the general charge of the station to smart 118 L NATIVl'. lil.ACK. I.nWI'.K NAMOl. N.S.W, A TRIP TO THE DARLING. responsible stockmen, who worked the station with black boys. These boys had wives, or black gins, who generally did the honours of the stockman's hut, and that with no little grace and good humour, furnishing generally a good feed, of prime beef and damper, to the hungry traveller, whether he came from up or down the river. There were few paddocks in those days, and we generally camped for good feed, as far away from head stations as we could. Our tent was a strong calico fly, open at both ends, our saddles and packs occupying the centre, and ourselves taking one end and the black boys the other. With plenty of leaves from the sandal-wood or emu bush, and a waterproof sheet to keep out the damp, with a good pair of blankets to boot, we lay very comfortable and snug. Our first stage of 150 miles to Walgett, then a wretched-looking place, brought us to a couple of primitive public-houses and a very expensive store, where we renewed our supplies, as we were told that between Walgett and Fort Bourke we should have to depend on the kindness of stations to allow us to bu)'' flour, tea and sugar, which became scarce articles the further west you went. We limited our day's stage generally to some 25 miles a day ; this chiefly depended on the state of feed, and the detours we had to make to avoid bad crossing places necessitating often the fording of creeks, or, if it was the main river, a big 121 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. swim. If canoes were not handy at the usual crossing pLace, we had to construct them of bark, stripped from the big river gum, by the indefatigable arms of our black boys, who were splendid hands with the tomahawk. These canoes would be cleverly stripped, so as to allow one end to be stopped up with mud, and take in our saddles and packs, to be guided over the river by Billy and Jonathan, who swam like otters, my brother and myself, who were not much behind our boys in that respect, driving the horses after the canoe. Our nao-s sfot so used to follow the canoes, that, before our expedition was over, they gave us hardly any trouble in taking to the water and landing on the right side after their swim across. About 150 to 200 miles more brought us to the country Mr. Lloyd wanted us to inspect, which was opposite Gundabooka, a station then held by the brothers Spence who had settled there very recently, some 30 miles below what is now the big town- ship of Bourke, which was originally founded on the site of an old camp of Sir Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor- General of New South Wales, who had called a stockade he there made of huge gum logs Fort Bourke, after Governor Bourke. The township is now a very important one, being the terminus of the Western Eailway of New South Whales and the head of the navigation of the Darling, from the eventual canalization of which, with its pro- bable irrigation, enormous possibilities are undoubt- 122 J'.I.ACK CIS. ],()\ni;k XAMOI. x.s.w. A TRIP TO THE DARLING. edly in store. Moreover, from its wide meat supplies, it is not too much to say that Bourke may at no ver}" distant date become the Chicago of AustraHa. We were at once enabled to authenticate the position of our blocks, Mere and Toorale, by the line of timber that marked the junction of the Warrego Eiver, one of the most important of the confluents of the Darling that join it on its north- western bank. The Messrs. Spence were very hospitable, and gave us all the information they could. We estab- lished our camp on the other side of the river, opposite their head station, and spent a fortnight in thoroughly exploring the country under offer. We also went some distance up the Warrego, that river assuming larger proportions above its junction with the Darling than we could have believed likely by its appearance at the junction ; not at all an unfrequent characteristic of central and western watersheds in Australia, which oftentimes have a tendency to die out ^s they terminate their course. Being midsummer, and that part of Australia ex- tremely hot, we did most of our work early and late, and spent our slack time in skimming the river in our bark canoes and Ashing for cod and yellow- bellies, as also shooting ducks when our supplies ran short. Flash Billy being the surest sportsman. Mere and Toorale consisted of lightly timbered and thinly grassed ridges near the frontage, with 12o JOURXAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. wide, arid, and thinly grassed plains at the back of the river. It was then impossible to judge what the country might become thereafter by stocking, but as it stood and we saw it, it compared unfavourably with the Darling Downs country in Moreton Bay. and that of Liverpool Plains we had just left on the Namoi. So much so that we made up our minds it wasn't o'ood enough, and we should o'o in for something better, and refuse Mr. Lloyd's offer when we got back. Of course, when we turned back after our inspec- tion, we could not help feeling a little disheartened, but little did we think what that country was to turn out some few years after, when stations on the Darling came to be stocked with sheep, and rapidly improved under the process, so that the district became famous for fattening all descriptions of stock, and growing the finest of merino wool. The countr}^ we refused to take up and stock, oddly enough was destined to form a considerable portion of the famous Dunlop Station, which capped the fortunes of that great shepherd king, Mr. Sam McCaughey, and enabled him to pay the vendor a huge yearly sum as the proceeds of the settlement for this thriving property. So much for the ups and downs of the squatter's life. Had we accepted Lloyd's offer and stocked Toorale, who knows what hard work and good fortune might not have done for us ? Amongst other benefits Toorale brought with it hereafter, was a certainty of obtaining great artesian 126 A TRIP TO THE BARLING. supplies at a low depth, so that the country back from the Darling could be watered by artesian wells to the full extent of its grazing capacity. Our journey back was a good deal delayed by rains that brought down creeks and rivers "Bankers," and, what with continual swims and short supplies, we became " thin by degrees, and beautifully less." Our black boys, who "smelt home," behaved splendidly in all these crossings and recrossings of flooded rivers, and on one occasion, that will long live in my memory. Flash Billy certainly earned our gratitude by literally saviuGf the party from a watery grave by his fine black fellow's instinct. We had camped for the night below the big dam at " Bungle Gully," a station owned by a family of the name of Evans, and turned in ; the rain that was falling increased to a deluge, flooding our tent, the boys started talking rapidly to each other, and soon after Flash Billy brought the horses to us and woke us up, urging us to shift the camp at once, and get out of the danger of the waters, should the big dam burst. We lost no time in striking camp and going round to the homestead above the dam a mile off, and soon after we had put our things under the store verandah, we heard the roar made by the waters that had burst through the dam, thus realizing Flash liilly's extraordinary instinctive dread. There could be no doubt that, had we remained where we were, nolhiiig could liave saved 129 9 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. us, for it was one of the biggest slieets of water in the country, being backed up for several miles. The only other adventure we had on our trip back was meeting with a white madman, stark naked, who was brought to us by some blacks oppo- site Brewarrina station. The poor fellow, till he fell in with these blacks, must have existed on berries or possibly on mussels in the waterholes. He had been with those who found him about ten da3's. He was a muscular, well-built man about thirt}^ and his skin was tanned a bright red with the action of the sun. He was good tempered and had quite a happy smile. He was glad to put on the clothes we spared him amongst us, and to travel with us to the next station, to await a convoy of native police to take him by coach to the nearest police station. These cases are not unfrequent in the bush, and it is extraordinary how they are accompanied by a happy unconsciousness of the troubles of life. This man had apparently not suffered by his six months' wanderings, for his hair and beard denoted at least a six months' growth. The new year of 18G1 saw us back to Burburgate all right, and we were glad to recruit on fresh food and prime fruits, for the stations down the river had nearly all gone short of rations, and those that had any flour had it weevilly and sour. Tea and sugar had been running short, and what tea there was in use was that old-fashioned green tea so often sent up to the back tracks without ever having seen 130 A TRIP TO THE DARLIXG. the East. We had kept ourselves goinfr with fish and wiki duck, and beef when we could get it fresh, with " Pigsface " as vegetable, so we didn't do so bad. After a week's stay at Burburgate, my brother went to Sydney to square up with Mr. Lloyd and hand in our report of the country. Mr. Lloyd behaved liberall}" to us, and I resumed my work at Burburgate with additional zest, though in after days, whenever we met, we talked of the chances we once refused of becoming squatters on the Darling Eiver. ?A y* CHAPTER X. PIONEEEIKG IN CENTRAL QUEENSLAND. I WAS not destined to remain much longer on the Namoi, for early in 1861 I received from Gordon Sandeman, who was about to be connected with me by marriage, an offer to undertake on certain favourable terms the stocking and development of the greater portion of the Peak Downs district in Central Queensland on his behalf. This tract of picturesque and beautiful country had been first traversed and called Peak Eange by Leichardt on his expedition to Port Essington in 1845, when he had named several of the Peaks after the companions of his trip, and he had again sighted Peak Eange on his second trip on IDth April, 1846. In the interesting account published of his first expedition, Leichardt gives a sketch of the Peak Eange and the undulating plains that surround it, and states that if the plains of Peak Eange were only adequately watered tliey would form some of the finest country in Australia. No wonder then that, some years later, in 1854, the Messrs. Archer made an expedition from the Burnett to take up new pastures in that direction, and secured most of 132 FIOXEERIXG IN CENTRAL QUEENSLAND. the country on the south or best side of the Peak Range, under the New South Wales Land hiws called " Orders in Council." The lease of this country, after holding it for some years, they had disposed of to Gordon Sandeman, who, as owner of Burandowan on the Burnett and several other properties on the Dawson, held a prominent position in Queensland as one of its most adventurous settlers. Meantime the development of the Central and Northern districts of Queensland was attracting considerable attention, and I was flattered by the proposal of dealing with such a large tract of country, though I was sorry to leave a good and certain position for one of considerable hardship and uncertainty. However, as Sandeman promised partnership and the Lloyds did not stand in my way, I accepted Sandeman's offer of stocking the Peak Downs, and, as it was a matter that would not brook delay, bade adieu to the Lloyds and started at once for the north. I was sorr}' to leave the Lloyds and their magnifi- cent property, in those days tJiriftily and excellently managed. Free selection and its accompanying dis- memberment have, I understand, since played havoc with that fine country, but in the days I speak of, the good old days of squatting, we were all happy in workino; earlv and late — nianag;ers, overseers, and men — for the employ we served in. The selector had not sprung up as a thorn in the scpiatter's side, nor was the " Sundowner "' the institution he has JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. since Ijecome in the country, viz., the man who travels from station to station asking for rations and for work, tlie second of which he heartily prays he may not get. I will say this for the Namoi forty years ago, that everything prospered in the pastoral districts with the industrious, whether he was a teamster, bush contractor, shearer, or drover ; for he did then put by the foundation of a comfort- able independence from the well-earned wages he received. I agreed with Sandeman to rendezvous at his station, Burandowan on the Burnett, as soon as I could get there, as our expedition to survey Peak Downs was to start from that station. So I travelled from the Xamoi to the Darling Downs overland and on horseback, following pretty much the same road I had taken three years before with Dr. Eowe's sheep. I made a hospitable station every night, and heard there the squatting news of the district I travelled through and gave mine in exchange over a pipe, and not unfrequently over a glass of grog, if the station drays had happened to have recently arrived. I made for Warwick, and thence once again traversed the incomparable Darling Downs, hunting up my good kind friends at Gowrie, who were always glad to see me, thence by Dalby, Jimbour, Charlie's Creek to Burandowan, noting everywhere the great progress of settlement on the Darling Downs, and the evidence of comparative luxury 136 PIOXEERIXG IX CEXTRAL QUEEXSLAXD. foUowiiio- the earlier davs of settlement. All this was owing to good prices for wool, and a good demand for wethers for the south and Ijreeding ewes for the north. I arrived in good time at Burandowan, and at once began organizing our party for the Peak Downs expedition, a trip with a good spice of g ^ ^^^/^ ^ ^ B ^^ ^lto^^^^>_^ rockha:mpton in flood. adventure in it. Our party consisted of Sandeman and myself, Tommy, a half-caste boy, a hrst-rate horseman and tracker, and Mungo and Billy, two pure-caste black boys. We took a certain number of Burandowan bi-ed horses, Ijut intended further to recruit our horseflesh when we got to liock- hampton, a journey of about 'M)<) miles, rid Gavndah and mv old road of 1S5'), pasl IJawbelle JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. and Eannes, which I found now quite settled places. Rockhanipton, now the chief town and port of the Central Distri(?ts of Queensland and a consider- able city, was only in 18(31 a stirring and lively township. The wonderfully rich Canoona diggings, an isolated alluvial deposit, difficult to trace or to explain, had started the place in July, 1858, and after these diggings were worked out the exodus of squatting speculation to the central and northern districts from the south had kept it going at some- what high pressure. The site of the town, which was vrrtually deter- mined by the Messrs. Archer in 1855, is, as most of my colonial readers will at any rate know, situate on the Fitzroy Eiver some 40 miles from its mouth at Keppel Bay. The situation is a happy one, below a barrier of rocks, v*dnch say " halt " there to the further navigation of the Fitzroy Eiver by steamers of any size. The river is broad and handsome, whilst distant ranges and smaller hills close to pre- vent any dull monotony. In 1861 galvanized iron played a great part in the buildings of that period, and Piockhampton could not then boast of the many handsome edifices, public and private, which it now possesses. The town presented a busy scene, as many expeditions similar to our own were daily starting west and north in quest of country. The country on the enormous watershed of the Fitzroy seemed virtually boundless, and included the fme 138 FIOXEERIXG IX CENTRAL QUEENSLAND. black soil land of wliicli Spvingsure is now tlie centre, as well as the line downs of the Peak Rano-e. But between Rockhampton and the black soil country above named, much countr}- was being taken up as sheep runs, that is now only fit for cattle. Many small stations of that kind were being taken up within a hundred miles from Eockhampton, and these helped in those days of good prices of produce to keep the township going. All that we heard in Rockhampton of the Peak Downs increased our desire to get there quickly. It was described as a second Darling Downs, only if anvthino- richer. Sandeman was held to be a lucky man to have bought the country, and the Messrs. Archer the contrary for having parted with it. My principal, I may mention here, not content with the big slice of Peak Downs he had already secured, had heard of an outlying part of it held by Arthur Macartney, of Waverley, near liroad Sound, which was said to be for sale, so we decided to f^o to Peak Downs via Broad Sound, and see Macartney, and try and get the country from him. At Rockhampton my brother Henry joined us from Albinia Downs, and I was glad of his valuable services as assistant from this time out. So our party being thus strengthened, we made our lirst start from li(>ckliam[)ton via Yaaiuba, where 1 remember we saw the carcase of a huge alligator that had been shot at the crossing place of ihc creek tliere, thus denoting our approach lo their V.V.) JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. tropical haiiiils. From Yaamba we journeyed by Ganoona, Princliester, and Marlborough stations, about a hundred miles to Waverley, the property Messrs. Macartney and Mayne had secured on the fine marine plains that there skirt the seaboard and form admirable cattle stations, held by our friends to this da3\ Macartney was most entertaining and helpful ; he was then in that full physical vigour which often led him in the many rides he took from station to station, to ride a hundred miles and over in one day, and that on the same horse. No man in Queensland, I suppose, has ever ridden as hard as Arthur Macartney has, or has traversed so much of the central and western districts of that Colony. Sandeman managed to secure the leases he had come to buy, afterwards called Wolfang, which proved hereafter of some importance to my brother and myself, as through subsequent arrangements we became partners in that property. At Waverley we heard that Thome, lately of Charlie's Creek station on the Burnett, and a quondam neighbour of Sandeman's, had gone ahead of us to take up the Cotherstone run, a piece of country on the north-eastern side of Peak Rangfe, and as his tracks were still fairlv fresh, we determined to follow them over the rough country that separated Broad Sound from the Peak Downs, which was about 120 miles as the crow flies. 140 PIOXEERING IN CENTRAL QUEENSLAND. The first part of the road was over the main coast rano-e, and meandered, durini? an ascent of some 1,500 feet, in anything but a straight line, and through rough ranges, where we for the first time heard the " coeeys " of the native blacks. These genuine "coeeys" denoted that the blacks saw us though we didn't see them, and were on that account somewhat impressive. However, we kept watch at night, and without any event of mark found our- selves on the fourth day of our journey at Thome's encampment, distant but a few miles from the Peak Eange, the country Thorne had settled upon being an immense improvement on what we had traversed from Broad Sound, though neither so open nor so well grassed as that which awaited us on the other side of the range. Thorne was both hospitable and communicative, liaihng Sandeman, of course, as an old neighbour who had pioneered with him on the ]3urnett many years before. He offered us fresh mounts from some of his young horses, which mounts, however, as we found out later on, the splendid pastures had ren- dered a bit above themselves. We were in o-reat spirits in getting so quickly and safely on the borders of our country, and the prospect of crossing the Peak Pange the ibllowing day and dropping down up(^n the s])lendid plains so temptingly described and sketched in Leichardt's wuri<, lillcd us with pleasurable excitement. We sat late b\ the camp lire with Thorne, Sandeman and he talking JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. over their old Burnett days, and myself extracting all I could from his overseer about the country, its powers of fattening, and so on. August, 1861, was a glorious season for the country we came to explore ; abundant and unusual rains had fallen early in the month, filling the many little creeks that headed from Peak Eange. The country, which chiefly consisted of black and chocolate-coloured loam, had evidently been burnt before this late rain by the blacks, and the undu- lating plains that lay under the picturesque peaks that formed the so-called range were clothed with a carpet of burnt feed, forming a vivid green dotted with a variety of wild flowers, also many kinds of wild peas and vetches, wild cucumbers, and other traiUng plants I did not then know. Xever after, during m}' long experience of the district, did I see it in such splendid condition — I might, indeed, say glorj' — as when our little party, after some buck- jumping at the start on the part of Thome's young horses (which only damaged the packs), started from Thome's camp, ascended this low range, and dropped on the rolling downs the other side, the most of which country we knew to be included in the tenders that had been transferred by the Archers to Sandeman. We ascended one of the twin peaks called by Leichardt "Brown and Charlie's Peak," which rose 700 or 800 feet from the high downs at its base, and from that point the country lay before U2 PIOXEERING IX CEXTRAL QUEEXSLAXD. us like a map, enabling us to identify with more or less accuracy the site of the creeks and the position of the various blocks on Archer's tracing, which we carried with us. It seemed all open country before us and on both sides, and we could not look upon this vast stretch of open land, clothed with the richest herbage and grasses, without forming dreams of future success and its accompanying fortune. As we descended from that preliminary survey of our realms to be, and followed the biggest watershed we could make out and trace with our glasses, our spirits rose, and mutual exclamations of interest were the order of the day. The spare horses could hardly be driven along, so anxious were they to crop the sweet burnt feed. Huge kangaroo lazily turned round to gaze at the new intruders before hopping majestically away ; bronzed-wing pigeons sprang up on every side wdtli the strong whirr of perfect condition ; the grey-headed wild turkey or bustard stalked about in robust alarm ; whilst occasional mobs of the statelier emu trotted round us with their usual curiosity. Nature, in fact, both as regards season and time, was at its fill, before the hand of the white man had been able to set its riches to good account. To my last day will I remember with gratification that first impression of the Peak Downs, with its many glories of anticipation. To Sandeman the sense of possession must have been sweet ; as for myself, 1 thought chieily of tlie 145 10 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. responsibility in turning a district so evidently promising to the best account. However, I was full of hope, and although many of my anticipations were destined to remain unfulfilled, I never regretted the fifteen years of my life I devoted thereafter to the development of Peak Downs. Consulting our charts as we went along, we followed the main watershed above referred to for about 20 miles from Peak Eange, making our first camping place on the Peak Downs, strangely enough, as it turned out, at a spot a mile from where I afterwards placed my head station, named Gordon Downs, after Gordon Sandeman. This creek was set down on Archer's chart as Belcombe Creek, Bel- combe, in the native Peak Downs language, being held to mean " Baal Camoo," or " no water," not a promising name ; and, indeed, in after years — notaWy in 1862 and 1868 — our head station creek did certainly bear out the name the blacks had given it. As the creek had been so recently filled it was impossible to determine its lasting powers, and the same doubt applied to all the creeks we then surveyed. The country was easy of identification, as the Peaks made excellent landmarks, so we set about the resolute exploration of the creeks that passed through Sandeman's country, which, commencing at the eastern side, had been named Crinum, Belcombe, Capel]a, Abor and Eetro Creeks, which formed the chief watersheds of the southern side of Peak 146 PIOXEERIXG IX CENTRAL QUEENSLAND. Downs. These watercourses, which w^ere generally- dry, only boasted of occasional water holes ; they headed from Peak Range and ran from five to ten miles apart from each other through our country for over 30 miles before they joined the waters of the Xoo-oa, one of the main tributaries of the Fitzroy, so that the southern portion of Peak Downs meant an area of over 60 miles by 30, all fine volcanic downs land. On exploring these creeks we easily found the trees the Archers had marked A + B. These marks, cut seven years before, w^ere still well defined and reminded us of the pioneering camps of a band of brothers who have had a good deal to do with the early history of Queensland. The country w^e rode through was partly black, partly chocolate soil, exceedingly friable and rich ; being unstocked and therefore untrodden it was " ashy," and the horses travelled over their fetlocks in the loose soil. It became evident as we went on that Archer's tenders did not include all the country we went through, so Sandeman and I set to work to apply for all the unclaimed land not covered by Archer's tenders, which in all amounted to a considerable area. This work, chiefly travelling lines by compass and averaging on horseback the distance by time, we found very tedious, but there is a kind of " greed of country " that comes over the pioneer, which spurs him up to great efTorts if the reward before him is a good slice of rich sheep country. We did not leave our work till we 147 10* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. had made our leases secure and Sandeman had drawn out the applications for the country still unclaimed, to be sent in to the Land Office at Eock- hampton as soon as opportunity would permit. Having finished the survey of Archer's country, that of the blocks we had secured from Macartney of Waverley next claimed our attention, and for this purpose we had been joined by that fine bushman Claudius A. Ker, who originally had taken up the Wolfang country and sold it to Macartney. So we went on to Wolfang, at the south-west corner of the Peak Downs ; the country, if less undulating in its character, we found exceedingly rich and the pasture superb. It was easily identified by a singular isolated peak resembhng a dog's tooth, which Ker had not inaptly called Wolfang. This rocky peak started abruptly out of the plain to the height of 800 or 900 feet, and was rather difficult of ascent ; a cave towards the summit contained salt, which augured well for the saHne nature of the pasture. Indeed, in the years of development that followed our first trip no sheep throve better in the district than those grazed within sight of Wolfang Peak, Prom its top a very grand view of the range and the rolling downs that ran up to its foot could be obtained, which in a quiet harmonious way I often thought as fine a pastoral landscape as there was in Queensland. Further on in these pages I have alluded to station life at Wolfang, which I trust may be interesting to those 148 "A o Q < W in < W Ph O In 1-r o «*' ^ PIOXEERIXG IX CEXTRAL QUEEXSLAXD. who have in view the idea of sheep farming in the youngest of the Aiistrahan colonies. Having finished our exploration of Archer's blocks and Wolfang, there was no time to lose in stocking the country, so I had to start at once with Sandeman to the Burnett, to obtain the necessary sheep for the purpose, intending of course to use Eockhampton as our port. A track to it had already been opened from Vicary's station, which adjoined our country-, and we had been able whilst in Eock- hampton to make arrangements with some of its adventurous carriers to bring us supplies direct to Peak Downs. These supplies we believed to be on the road up, a road which had the crossings and scrubs of the Mackenzie Eiver to negotiate, and so turned out a very rough and arduous one. We arranged that my brother should remain on the new country at Gordon Downs, with a couple of black boys and some bushmen that had been engaged from Eockhampton to build huts and bough-yards, till I came back with the sheep. Protection was afforded to our slender force by the fact that we had neighbours in the shape of a Victorian firm, who had bought from James Archer the upper part of Capella Creek and called it the " Peak Downs " Station. This new station was about IG miles from our camp, an easy distance as things went, and my brother was able to get his meat from there, a track being soon established over the downs between the two places. JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Bidding good-bye to the small party left behind, late in October, 1861, we made our st-art south towards the Burnett, intending to give a call if possible upon an energetic old Victorian squatter, Mr. Wills, who had settled about a hundred and fifty miles south of Peak Downs upon some fine black soil country similar to ours, which had been explored and taken up by P. F. Macdonald, of Yaamba, and sold to Wills, who had purchased sheep on the Darling Downs and Burnett (some of them from Sandeman) and travelled north with what was in those days a remarkably liberal' equipment of teams, stores, &c. Wills, being a wealthy man and one of great pastoral experience, his advent to the new country was hailed as a great encouragement to others. Sandeman, a good black boy, and myself made our start from Peak Downs with but three or four days' rations, hoping to make Eichards' Station, near Springs ure, in that time, which we should have done had it been all plain sailing. The scrul)s of the various branches of the Nogoa made traveUing very difficult, and we soon found that the fine country we had left behind was somewhat of an "oasis in the desert," and that 100 miles more or less of inferior and scrubby country separated the downs of Peak Range from those of Springsure. At our second day's camp an occurrence took place that filled us with alarm. Our black boy, in coming to camp with the nags, was in a state of 152 PIONEERING IN CENTRAL QUEENSLAND. high excitement, and reported having met a flying mob of blacks loaded with new blankets, moleskin trousers and blue shirts ; we knew thereby that some station must have been looted and possibly wild work done. We felt very gloomy, and our rations being short did not detract from the clieer- lessness of the situation, there being nothing more depressing than travelling through scrub on an empty stomach. We were very glad on the fifth day from Peak Downs to come upon the tracks of bullocks and horses, which on being followed up led us to the welcome sio'ht of a distant hut. Losino- no time in unsaddling at the creek, we sent our boy up to the hut for supplies, and he came back with young Eichards, whose appalling stor}^ more than confirmed the alarm we had felt a day or two before when the black boy had seen the blacks flying with their booty, which no doubt had formed part of the stores stolen from Wills. Mr. Eichards' story w^as a tragic one. He told us that less than a week ao'o Wills, together with his overseer and wife and child and nineteen station hands, had been massacred by the blacks, this slaughter having evidently been well concocted among the wretches, as the men were all struck down at a given time, when the various hands had come in and were resting from their avocations in the heat of the day after the noonday meal. The only man saved was an old stager shepherding the rams, who got into a tree on hearing the cries, and, 153 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. after witnessing the plundering of the stores and rations by an immense mob of blacks, had made tracks to the nearest station, which I think was Orion Downs, to warn Wills' neighbours. These were chiefly men of great energy and considerable experience, and numbered among them Messrs. Patten, Gregson, Thomson, Macintosh, Eichards, and others, who soon made up a party to pursue the blacks. Eichards gave a vivid description of the chase and of the combat that had taken place at dawn of day, which was, however, of so undecisive a character that it was not till the advent of Lieu- tenant Cave and the native pohce that the murderers of Wills and his party were pursued and thoroughly punished for their misdeeds. The feeling in the outside country became deeply aroused by this terrible massacre, which no doubt acted as a warning to many not to trust or admit the blacks, a plan Sandeman and some of the other old pioneers had always advocated, but from which Wills had dissented. He had come north, he had said, to Queensland, after his long Victorian expe- riences, prepared to civilise and make use of the aborigines, and he had made friends with them from the first. They had got to know all about his habits and hours and the tempting nature of the supplies he had brought up, and had, for greed, deliberately planned and carried out this wholesale murder. Poor WiUs paid the penalty ol his kindness and over-confidence. 154 PIOXEERIXG IX CEXTRAL QUEENSLAXD. I carried away this lesson of Wills' massacre with me, and vowed I never would have the blacks in on any station 1 managed, and I kept to this rule for over ten years, until the Peak Downs blacks became absolutely civilised, so that during my fifteen years there I never lost but one shepherd by them, and that by a neighbour's folly and not ours. I may here mention that seventeen years after this murderous episode I visited Cullinaringo, as Messrs. Wills Brothers' station is called, to purchase sheep to stock country on the Barcoo. I found the sons of the murdered pioneer married and settled, pursuing peacefully their pastoral avocations and largely employing the blacks in station work, many of whom no doubt had had a hand in the massacre of 1861. Fortunately for themselves Mr. Wills' sons were at school when their father went north. The fine property he took up then is still in their hands, and, I understand, doing well. We felt thoroughly downhearted, as we had pro- posed spending some time with Wills and resting our horses ; we now thought it best to push on and get to Sandeman's other station, Burandowan, which I was to make the headquarters of my stock-recruiting for Peak Downs. On our arrival at Buraiulowan I promptly took in hand the work of prei)aring a large molj of breeding sheep to stock Gordon Downs, and there the experi- ence of my overland journey to Victoria in 1858 stood me in good stead. I went on to the Darling 1.3.3 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Downs for my equipment, and had then a good opportunity of marking the progress made on stations there since 1 left the district three years before. High prices for sheep and ayooI were working wonders in the improvement of properties, which were all yielding substantial returns ; these found their wa}' largely into the pockets of the Govern- ment, as the lucky holders of Darhng Downs stations had begun to put together, by securing themselves by their pre-emptive right against coming selection, the freehold estates that have been re- tained by some to this day. It is certain that at this time Darling Downs stations were coining money ; young wethers for the Port Phihp market were fetching 12s. to 14s. a head, and for northern settle- ment you could get for good ewes 15s. and for maiden ewes up to 20s. per head, whilst Merino wool kept up wonderfully, some well-washed Darling Downs clips going up to 2s. 6d. per pound. Drayton and Toowoomba divided claims for the position of the capital of the Eastern Darling Downs, Dalby that of the Western portion, and Warwick was the chief township for the Southern part of this favoured district. These townships all wore an appearance of prosperity; the stores were always full, and the chief hotels were the rendezvous of squatters and their managers and overseers, discussing to late hours the varied movements of stock and stations. And certainly 156 PIOXEERING IN CENTRAL QUEENSLAND. these squatters of the Darlmg Downs in those good old times were a fine set of men ; generally men of education and mostly of refinement, who had brought to that favoured portion of Queensland the habits and ways of gentlemen ; so that if the Darling Downs did for many years, so to speak, rule Queensland and legislate possibly to somewhat selfish ends, this early legislative power might certainly have fallen into far less scrupulous and more dangerous hands. And certainly on the whole it was a matter of immense future import that not only was the character of Queensland's early settlers such as I have described it, but that when settlement followed westward and northward there were pioneers of the same stamp ready to undertake the development of those extensive terri- tories. The main point in providing a good start for the object I had in view was certainly to get the best material in men, stock, teams, and general equip- ment, and to that end Sandeman had provided the requisite means with his agents in Sydney during his absence in England ; so I felt a free agent, entrusted with a great responsibility. Fortunately I had }'outh, energy, and experience. I had no difficulty in getting good men on the Darling Downs for my purpose. I had arranged to take up some fifteen thousand good breeding ewes, and one thou- sand ration wethers from Burandowan, also three good bullock teams, one horse team, and a fair Vol JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. supply of hacks. To drive the lot, the party con- sisted of eight seasoned shepherds, three good bullock drivers, a horse driver, and a famous general knockabout man — Eody Hogan by name — also, of course, a cook. Following my main mob of sheep I took in charge of the rams Edmund Filmer Craven, an old friend of ni}^ principal's, who, after resigning a naval career that might have been brilliant, had made at his own request a fresh start, and that in the bush under my auspices. I am glad to say that, after man}' ups and downs, this scion of an old stock is serving Her Majesty as one of her police magistrates in Queens- land with credit and success. I had no overseer or assistant at the start, but later on was joined by a very efficient amateur. It spoke well for my self-confidence in those days that I made my start for this new country w^ithout an assistant, but I had been enjoined to practise the strictest economy, and was eager to act up to my instructions. The distance from Burandowan to Peak Downs I roughly computed at 350 miles, and ni}^ best road lay by Taroom, Palm Tree Creek, Gwambagyne, Banhinia Downs, and Springsure, up to which I would have the benefit of newly- stocked country. From Springsure to Peak Downs we were to make our own roads, and I anticipated some difficulty there in getting through the scrub. My Christmas was spent pleasantly enough at Burandowan before starting, ]\Ir. Parry Okeden, Sandeman's manager, 158 PIONEERING IN CENTRAL QUEENSLAND. a genial gentleman of the old school, doing all that lay in his power to assist and hasten the start of the expedition. I was able to get away early in the year 1862, and soon found I had a trustworthy lot of men, and no incident worthy of note took place beyond a court case at Taroom with the bullock drivers, the only refractory men I had. This enabled me to make the acquaintance of the leading Justice of the Peace at Taroom — John Scott, afterwards member for the Leichardt and Chairman of Com- mittees in the Legislative Assembly, who had formed a comfortable bush home at his station at Palm Tree Creek, where his musical and charming wife dispensed what was in those days a very rare degree of refined hospitality. I have described sheep droving in one of my early chapters, so its various incidents in this journey northwards need not be again referred to. In this trip I was drivino- a big lot in one mob, but then it was through country less heavily stocked than the southern areas. The sheep therefore got better feed and camped well. At Gwambagyne, beyond Taroom on the Upper Dawson, Sandeman had asked me to look up his partner, Henry Gregory, a member of that well- known West Australian family who, inured to every form of Australian travel, had already made such a name in Australian exploration as recipients of the Gold Medal of the lioyal Geographical Society lo9 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. for their expedition on the north-east coast of Queensland. Henry Gregory was tough as whalebone, and used to ride from Gvvambagyne to Burandowan, a two days' ride, it was said, with one pocket full of oatmeal and the other of sugar, and no other pro- vision, disdaining, in that semi-tropical climate, blanket and ration bags. Single-handed, after the murder of the Frazer family, he pursued the blacks, tracking them up from camp to camp, " dispersing " them, and doing thereby as much to protect his neighbours as a whole detachment of pohce. An account was given me by one who ought to know of Henry Gregory returning late from Taroom to Gwambagyne, on a broad moonlight night, not long before an attack was made on the station by a mob of blacks. He had barely fallen into a sound sleep when a spear was thrust through the slabs of his hut that went through his blanket, and narrowly missed him as he lay in his bunk. He started up, and, on his unbarring the door, found a large mob of blacks trying to force open the door of the store, which formed the next building in a line with his hut. He was said to have accounted for two of the aggressors by his first rifle shot, and then to have gone out and shot several others, thus liberating the cowardly hands that dared not come out of the store. It was also said that a new chum, lately out from England, had slept most soundly through the whole of this incident. Like all his brothers, Henry 160 PIONEERING IN CENTRAL QUEENSLAND. Gregory was a first-rate biishmau. He used I noticed, in travelling, after a long da}^ to wash his horse as a first dut}^ where water permitted. I beheve he is living in England, and should he read these Hues he will know his share in the settlement of Queensland is not by some wholly forgotten. At Banhinia Downs I met the interesting family of the Buttons, who showed us every attention. Of the two generations that had there conquered the wilder- ness several of the sons became successful squatters, and one of them, aspiring 'to political life, became for a time Minister of Lands. The Duttons had been connected with my friends the Bells, of Keepit on the Xamoi, and I therefore felt as if I knew them ; a more hospitable station to the northern traveller there could not be, and if they were friends of the whites they were no less such to the native blacks, who found in the Messrs. Dutton warm protectors from anything like cruelty or injustice. About this time I was joined by young Fred Want, a son of Mr. E. Want, the eminent solicitor of Sydney, who had ridden up after me anxious to get on, and, if possible, obtain the rough experience of outside settlement on Peak Downs. Being full of life and energy and of good temper, fond of horses, and a good horseman, and as by this time I badly wanted an assistant, I was glad, with the scrubs of the Nogoa before me, to take him on, and until he left me some twelve months or so later he was of essential service on the station. lie was unfortunate 161 11 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. with fever and ague, to which he used to fall a special victim ; there was no better companion, and he was never dull. As anticipated, we had some ugly da3's in getting stock and teams across the Nogoa Eiver and the brigalow scrubs that Uned its banks, much of which we had to cut through. We were singularly for- tunate in not losing sheep and in having no sickness amongst the men, or mishap of any kind, arriving about the middle of March, 1862, at the camp on Belcombe Creek Peak Downs, where my brother and his few hands had made all the progress they could with a lot of sheep station yards. The sheep were counted, and the total losses amongst them amounted for the journey to only forty two, a result quite extraordinary on such a big lot for so long a trip. I attributed the health and condition of the sheep to the fact that they came from a comparatively poor country to a virgin country full of saline grasses and herbage, which led them to improve every day as they moved northwards. Certainly a correspond- ingly long journey with so small a loss was a result I have never heard of since. 162 CHAPTER XI. LIFE ON PEAK DOWNS. Though much drier than the previous October, when we had left Peak Downs for the Burnett, we found plenty, indeed too much, grass at the former, and were much afraid of bush fires. It was evident the carrying capacit}^ of the country would be great, as we were able to run a large number of sheep within a short distance of our camp. The cool season was beautiful, though heavy dews were an augury of a dry time ahead. These dews had the effect of brinofino; on fever and a^'ue amono^ some, and I very soon had a bad touch of it. Having secured the services of a smart man as work- ing sheep overseer, by name Macalister, we soon had things in trim and working satisfactorily, the first teams from Rockhampton finding their way through the scrubs of the Mackenzie in good time to relieve our wants. This track to port established we could breathe more freely, as carriers are great at follow- ing a leader, and I did not despair of getting plenty of teams on that road after the first had pulled 163 11* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. through. Being anxious to explore the route, with a view to shorten it, I was able to do so to my satisfaction after shearing. There was, of course, much to do and look after on a newly- formed station with an early shearing in view and a lambing to follow. There were huts to build, yards to make, and a head station and store to put under way, roads to make, and rations and shearing supplies to procure from port. Contracts had to be drawn out for the required building-s, timber had to be found and the carriasfe to be organised to bring in the stuff, whilst the contractors had to be watched, for bush contractors have a way of evading the strict letter of their agreement. The post that should be put two feet into the ground is often only put in eighteen inches, and that makes a wonderful difference in the stability of fences. It may ])e the corner post of your hut that is sawn off a foot instead of being sunk the proper depth in the ground, to the eventual detriment of the building, which gets a slew in the first wet season, with the consequence that out drop the wall plates, and the slabs soon follow. A manager should never depute to an overseer the fixing of sites or the supervision of improvements, whether they be dwell- ings, fences, yards, dams or wells. I took great pride, I recollect, in deciding on the sites of all my improvements, avoiding slovenly work and badly joined ties and wall plates, and in running my fencing lines rectangular, so as to please the eye. 164 LIFE ON PEAK DOWNS. Bad " improvements " form a continual eyesore, and tell more than is generally imagined against the sale of a property. Of course there is a medium in all things. The era of the fifties and sixties when a hut and bough- yards placed at the back of a water-hole were suffi- cient for a couple of flocks of sheep, two shepherds and a hut keeper, has been followed by that of the seventies to the present time, when a profusion of paddocks of small area are deemed necessary for your flocks, when your boundary rider requires a paddock for his horses and a smart verandah cottage for his dwelling, not to speak of elaborate wool- sheds that cost a small fortune. Wells and tanks or circular dams, and latterly artesian wells, represent- ing large sums, have opened up the back country, which, previously unwatered, has in most instances been found the richest and closest in pasture. Such large concerns as Saltern and Wellshot are instances of perfectly unwatered country being made, by lavish expenditure, to carry immense bodies of sheep. Natural water has now, so to speak, little to do with the disposition of the stock on one of these big Western Queensland runs. We had been fortunate in getting from the Government pretty early in the day the great protection of a detachment of native police, the lieutenant of which, Genitas by name, was supposed to be a connection of the accomplished and excellent wife of our first (jovernor. Sir George 13oweii, and 165 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. like her hailed from those " Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung." Genitas was an excellent fellow and pleasant companion. We had also a good neighbour at Capella in " Sydney Beavan Davis," a quondam hard rider of the Cotswold and V.W.H. packs, who had arrived some time before us, with fine sheep and first-class equipment, to take up Peak Yale, a tract of country at the extreme w^est of Peak Dowais, for Alfred Sandeman, then of Felton Darling Downs. This country Davis had found on inspection to be mere forest country with plenty of spear grass and its fatal seeds, and anything but the first-class sheep country it had been described to him and sold for ; so Davis had borrowed from us some good sheep country on Capella Creek, about twelve miles from Gordon Dow-ns, where he ran his sheep and w^ent through his first shearing and lambing. It was a sad pity that Davis, from want of experience in that line of hfe, instead of at once giving up the idea of forming a sheep station on such inferior country, should have persevered in stocking Peak Vale with sheep to the eventual loss of his principal, whom no less than himself it largely helped to bring down. It was so much capital and w^ork thrown away, for the country w^as only fit for cattle, w-hich it carries to this day. Poor Davis ! Many a camp- fire yarn w^e had in those days, when he would recount the splendid runs he had witnessed in the old country, w^hen he made Cheltenham his head- quarters, and would describe in glowing terms the 166 LIFE ON PEAK DOWNS. then opening glories of Bob Chapman's incomparable horsemanship. Ir was fortunate that labour and carriage became much more readily obtainable on Peak Downs than was at first anticipated, owing to the fact that, in the winter season of 1862, a good deal of gold had been found near Hood's Lagoon, the present site of the township of Clermont. Gold had also been found some few miles out at Hurley's Eush, as well as at the springs on the south- west end of the Wolfang run, the latter being in pretty deep leads. These gold discoveries, though never warranting a big rush, nevertheless brought a good sprinkling of diggers ; and when about the same time Manton had discovered a big outcrop of copper ore, some three miles west of Hood's Lagoon, the joint fame of these mineral discoveries brought traffic and labour. This copper outcrop, when secured, was sold to a Sydney Syndicate and became the once famous Peak Downs Copper Mine, which was destined to largely influence the progress of the district ; as big supplies of machinery and other require- ments at once opened the road I had marked from Yicary's to Gordon Downs, and thence to the present site of Clermont, which thus early began to assume the importance of a township. The Government had not l)een slow to recognise the settlement of a district that bore to Rockhamp- ton a good deal of the importance that the Darlmg 1G7 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Downs had created as regards Brisbane, for they had at the beginning of 1862 sent up to Peak Downs as District Surve3-or Mr. Charles Gregory, one of the brothers of the Surveyor-General, and thus early in the field he had marked the site of three township reserves on Peak Downs ; the first on the big water hole on Crinum Creek called Lilyvale, the second at Capella Creek, and the third at Hood's Lagoon, afterwards called Clermont. During his stay on Peak Downs I had many a camp with Gregory and had access to the valuable charts he was making of the district. Like all his brothers, he was a rare good bushman, and, being full of varied information, I was glad to see as much of him as I could. He was not a strong man, and I was sorry to hear he got delicate later on and, like those " whom the Gods love," died young. I made several expeditions with him, one of the most interesting being that of the ascent of Eoyer's Peak, which, with its twin peak adjoining, viz., Scott's Peak, over 1,000 feet high, divide respectively the honours of being the higliest of the range. The ascent was made difficult in that Gregory took his theodolite with him, which enabled him from the summit of Eoper's Peak to fix the exact locality of the several landmarks of the district he was surveying. The view^ was certainly magnificent ; below us lay stretched as a variegated carpet the then beautiful plains of 168 LIFE ON PEAK DOWNS. Peak Downs which filled in the prospect towards the south, where the horizon was bounded by the ranges of the Nogoa and the dark masses of scrub between them and the Peak Downs. To the west lay the Drummond Range ; then came the serrated teeth, so to speak, of the Peak Range, which we could all identify from Leichardt's book and Archer's chart, Scott and Roper's Peaks forming the highest as well as the most eastern extremity of the range, the next in succession westwards being respectively " Brown and Charlie's " Peak, " Murphy's " Peak, a volcanic cone, then the flat-topped Table Mountain, then Mount Donald, after which " Fletcher's Awl," and last of all the isolated Wolfang. Certainly a singular range, not more than 25 miles in length, but from which the watersheds, radiating like a spider's web and increasing in width as they ran south embraced, at a distance of 20 to 30 miles from the range, a width of downs country quite 70 miles in extent. Of the many grasses that clothed this rich country the barley grass was the chief, and in a good season that grass would give the country the appearance of a w^ell cultivated field ; the hardier and coarser star grass had not then become so prevalent. Of animals we had the kangaroo, of which there was a goodly number, but they had not overwhelmed the district as tliey did in 1875-7(5-77, after the extermination of the wild dog. On the ranges the Wallaroo, a Ijlack and stumjner kangaroo, held 10!) JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. his lair. In the way of game we had in the creeks the black duck and the wood duck, both excellent eating, and on the plains the bronze-wing and squatter pigeon abounded, whilst the wild bustard afforded us an ever abundant change of diet, as they were more numerous than I ever saw them elsewhere ; I have counted no less than seventy in a flock on burnt feed, and I have known them weigh up to eighteen pounds. We had also occasional visits from the flock pigeon, a species bigger than the squatter pigeon but smaller than the bronze- wing ; this pigeon travelled in enormous flocks, evidently birds of passage ; a good shot in the " brown " of them could bring down as many as twenty or thirty. They made splendid pies. I think this bird has now moved further west, where I have seen them in flocks so numerous as to make their visits almost a devouring scourge to the seeding grass. At this time I felt keenly the responsibility of holding such an extent of country with what was only a handful of stock ; for although my lambings were good and some more sheep had been sent up from the Burnett, I felt I had not stock enough for the stretch of country which I had in my charge. I distributed my sheep, however, to the best advantage I could. I had formed an out- station at Crinum Downs, ten miles east of Gordon Downs, which remained my centre ; then I formed an overseer's camp and out-station at Scott's and 170 LIFE ON PEAK DOU'XS. Eoper's Peaks, where I had found a spring, calhng the latter " Malvern " ; that camp under the range Avas twenty miles from the head station. I also had sheep at Capella Creek, twelve miles westward, and another camp at Eetro eight miles beyond, and had sent sheep to Wolfang, which was fifty miles from Gordon Downs, to hold that as a separate property. This distribution of my stock naturally enjoined continual inspection, and at this time I almost lived in the saddle. The season and the climate were dry, grass plentiful, and my horses were the best I could secure. Indeed I look back with fond memory to the ease and courage with which some of my old nags would carry me fifty to sixty miles without fatigue in the heavy soil of that virgin country ; there were one or two the like of which I shall never see again. I was fortunate with my men, and thanks to that and to keeping the blacks at arm's length, avoided many of the accidents and losses ordinarily incidental to the opening up of new country, especially when on so large a scale. I will here briefly narrate the circumstances that attended the loss of the only shepherd I had killed by the blacks during my occupation of Peak Downs. The only country 1 held on the other or north- east side of Peak Piange was a block, " Cheese- borough," which took in the head of the Logan Downs Creek. In tendering for it, at kSandeman's re([uest, I had named it after Cheeseborough Mac- JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. donald, the gallant owner of Logan Downs, who was Sandeman's nearest and best neighbour on the Burnett. This block I occupied in 1863 with a flock of. mixed wethers and weaners in charge of one of m)^ best shepherds, Hamel by name : and to look after him in his somewhat isolated position I had sent a young Frenchman, Castres by name, who acted as hut-keeper and overseer, riding round every day to see Hamel and his flock on the plains that formed the best part of this little " run." The then manager of the Peak Downs station, which lay as the crow flies only about a dozen miles from Cheeseborough, contrary to most of his neigh- bours, harboured and employed a large mob of wild blacks ; and shortly before the event I now recall these blacks had been fired at in a scrimmage that had occurred between them and the men in charge of a mob of travelling sheep. In this scrimmage one of the Peak Downs blacks had been shot, upon which the camp had suddenly broken up, and in revenge the blacks marauded Thome's Cotherstone station and killed a couple of his shepherds. Thorne sent at once for the native pohce from Capella Creek, and no time was lost in following up the main mob of these rascals. But in the meantime, after mur- dering Thome's shepherds, the blacks went on to Cheeseborough and came across poor Hamel and his flock, and, after hacking him about a good deal, battered in his head and took his sheep away. Castres himself had a narrow escape ; for when on 172 LIFE O^ PEAK DOWNS. his daily round he found that the tracks of Hamel's flock Lay in a bunch as if the sheep were being- driven, he came on to the mob of blacks driving the flock to the scrub that lay at the head of the plains. Castres' horse was struck on the nose by a boomerang, the nag reared, Castres fell over, but most fortunately, however, kept hold of his bridle, managing to scramble on, and finding himself without fire-arms he galloped to the nearest station, Locyan Downs, to give the alarm. Meantime the blacks cut off from the flock the fattest of the wethers, for which they made a yard at the edge of the scrub, and prepared for a great feast at our expense. However they reckoned without their hosts. The native police were soon hard on their tracks, and actually, so the sergeant told me after, viewed, from the top of a ridge dominating the camp the blacks had chosen, a lot of young blacks of various ages riding the fat wethers round the yard, raising a cloud of red dust. The police waited till sundown for their attack, which did not result in the expected slaughter, owing to the dense scrub and small attacking force. When word of Hamel's loss was sent me to Gordon Downs, and I rode over and inspected the scene, it was a curious one. The wide-spread blacks' camp stretched over an extent of nearly half a mile ; fires smouldering and strings of fat decorating the scrub, with bark platters of half- 173 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. roasted mutton at every family fire. A couple of big blacks, shot in the act of running, and partly suj^ported by the dense scrub, gave ghastly evidence of the disturbed feast, the preparations for which had been on a large scale. This loss of one of my best shepherds was the only one I experienced during my long stay on Peak Downs, and it was traceable entirely to an inexperienced manager letting in wild blacks in large numbers on a station where they were bound soon to learn the best points of attack. For the next two years I pushed ahead the forma- tion of these out-stations on behalf of Sandeman, with a view to their disposal as separate stations, as I could see that a demand for properties in so tempting a portion of Northern Queensland was surely approaching, and when the time came I succeeded in disposing of the bulk of Mr. Sande- raan's property, together with sheep enumerated as follows : — To Messrs. Travers and Gibson through the active partner, Mr. Eoderick Travers, the Malvern Downs station, which consisted of the heads of Balcombe Creek in and around Scott's and Roper's Peaks ; this was sold with 17,500 sheep for £22,500, and the purchasers seemed very gratified with their bargain. Later on I sold to Mr. Brown, a friend of Mr. Travers, a block of country under Table Mountain called " Huntly," with 10,000 sheep for £14,000. That country was well watered with springs, and very picturesque as well as rich. Then 174 LIFE ON PEAK DOWNS. followed the sale of Crinuin Creek, from its head to Lilyvale township, to Messrs. Hope and Eamsay, of the Darling Downs, with 16,000 sheep for £20,000; after which Mr. Travers' elder brother, Mr. S. Smith Travers, was tempted to pnrchase from Sandeman the head station I had formed, " Gordon Downs," consisting of the bulk of the country on Belcombe and Gordonstone Creeks, together with 35,000 sheep and such improvements as I had made, for £45,000. This left in Sandeman's hands only the country on Capella and Eetro Creeks, which was afterwards disposed of to a Victorian firm. Thus, owing to the hard exigencies of the ])osition with regard to Sandeman's southern proper- ties, this line tract of country was cut up and disposed of, leaving me only the development of the Wolfang Downs property, in which I had a consider- able share, to attend to, and to this I applied myself with vigour after the sales I have iust enumerated had taken place. These fairly successful transactions enabled me to acquire a great insight into the business part of squatting. The calculations entered into by the purchasers were evidently based on the high prices then existing for wool and sheep, and few had fore- seen the sharp and severe fniancial crisis that was to overtake Queensland, the sequel of the crash that shook the city of London in 1866. In 1867, and from that to 1872, when confidence was restored and high prices for station property were to rule again, 17.3 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER we all had to fight with a severe depression and a dearth of money that entailed great sacrifices. It was fortunate for their owner that these sales of Peak Downs properties had taken place before this crisis came to pass. In the meantime the attention of Victorian capi- talists was being directed to Queensland, as had previously been the case after the first introduction of Wills' ill-fated settlement on the plains of the Nogoa. It may be said to have commenced on a larger scale on the Peak Downs station by the Messrs. Fairbairn, to be soon afterwards extended to the wider pastures of the Mitchell and Gregory, where at this date Victorian investments represent millions of money. The latter end of 1863 and commencement of 1864 quite set up all the sources of Peak Downs springs for some years ; the rainfall was abnormal and enormous, and the tributaries of the Fitzroy poured into it supplies that rendered the country between Peak Downs and Eockhampton wholly impassable for teams. It was then that the shorter road from Broad Sound to Clermont was initiated, and the country it passed through was certainly less flooded. Eockhampton was surrounded with water, steamers were moored in mid-stream, and I well recollect being weather-bound for a month in that city of mosquitoes, which nearly drove me crazy. This rainy season, and a couple of fair ones that followed it, were of immense help to the develop- 176 LIFE OX PEAK DOWXS. ment of Northern and Western Queensland, 1868 being the next dry season : 1865 saw Clermont a rising township with a Police Magistrate, Gold Com- missioner, and Court of Petty Sessions, and the copper mines fairly started, with a capital of £100,000 obtained in Sydney. These works were erected at " Copperfield," distant three miles from Clermont ; and, what with the gold found at small rushes near Clermont and the furnaces at work at Copperfield, these twin townships became great factors in the settlement and civilisation of that part of Queensland. To the squatters com- mencing operations in and around Peak Downs these townships meant labour for their stations and carriage for their wool ; and some of the brawny Cornishmen imported to the copper mine were not above sinking some of my best wells at Wolfang. That copper mine promised well, and indeed did famously for a time. Banks and kindred institutions sprang up, and coach communication by the universal and invincible Cobb and Co. became so complete an organization as to be of great value to travellers. Amongst the many notable friends and men of action I met for the first time about this date was William Kilgour, of Surbiton, who afterwards took up the management of Gordon Downs for Mr. Travers, soon after he had purchased it from Sande- man. Keen, hardy, and resolute, Kilgour soon became a leading spirit on the Peak Downs, and, 177 12 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. devoting liimself to wool growing, managed to get wonderful prices for the Gordon Downs wool in those cheery years of good prices, 1873-74-75. Gordon Downs then offered a charming home, graced by the presence and infinite hospitality of Mrs. lulgour, the sister of the gifted Jean Ingelow. Kilgour is now managing one of the largest financial and i)astoral mortgage companies in Sydney. It is well to record here that our first bank manager on Peak Downs was the popular Tom Hall, who opened the first branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank in Clermont. After a career of steady work, I am glad to say Dame Fortune put in his way one of her very best chances, of which he readily availed himself. He is now one of the chief owners of the celebrated Mount Morgan mine. He was always known in the olden days as a model bank manager, discreet and cautious, but still obliging. 178 CHAPTER XII. SOME LA.WLESS DEEDS IN EAELY DAYS, QUEENSLAND. The growth of our District and the mention of Country Banks recalls an event which convulsed our settlement and became the talk of Queensland, namely, the murder, at Bedford's public house at the Mackenzie crossing, between Eockhampton and Peak Downs, of the sergeant and trooper of the escort while traveUing from Eockhampton to Clermont with funds for the Australian Joint Stock Bank. In giving a brief account of this sensational episode it is well to retrace one's steps a bit to the period antecedent to the event, when the Bris- bane Government of the day had sent up to Clermont as its first Police Magistrate, Gold Com- missioner, Inspector of Police and Commissioner of Crown Lands, John Thomas Griffin, a smart Irishman who had served in the Land Transport Corps in the Crimea. Griffin's only credentials for these con- current appointments were his having served twelve months in Brisbane as Acting Clerk of Petty Sessions, where he had readily mastered the routine of the police court work. Clermont was developing rapidly 179 12* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. at the time ; the Bench work had become too great a tax on my fellow-magistrates and myself, and the goldfields round Clermont required attention from a revenue point of view, so an energetic, active man was undoubtedly required to represent the Government. Griffin certainly possessed plenty of energy, and was full of pushing qualifications ; indeed, soon after his arrival he arrogated to himself a good deal more than even the full powers of his various appointments ; he had the assistance of Mr. Cave, a plodding but timid officer, as Clerk of Petty Sessions, who could do but little to check Griffin's overbearing self-will. After a time Griffin had become engaged to a young lady in Eockhampton, and his frequent absences to that town threw a good deal of work and responsi- bility on the local Bench. In fact, it w^as not long before the condition of affairs became such that I took upon myself as Senior Magistrate to request that an inquiry should be made in Brisbane into the conduct of our Police Magistrate, making certain distinct charges, too long to enumerate, but which I could have proved had not my witnesses, owing to sickness and other causes, been prevented from attending the inquiry at Brisbane, which took place under the presidency of a leading under-secretary of the Civil Service. Griffin was acquitted of blame owing to want of evidence ; had fate ruled it other- wise, both crime and mischief would have been prevented. 180 SOME LAWLESS DEEDS IN EARLY DAYS. Griffin, after this exoneration, acted more inde- pendently than ever ; his absences at Eockhampton became more and more frequent, and it was said he was getting into debt. He gave out that he had received word from New South Wales that bush- rangers would probably stick up the escort which, every month or so, as soon as the quantity became sufficiently large, was sent down to Eockhampton from Clermont with the gold purchased by the local bank, the escort returning to Clermont with notes and bullion for the service of the same bank. Griffin had evidently made up his mind to take a desperate step. He gave out, contrary to all usage, that he would accompany the next escort to town, alleging the possibility of its being stuck up as a reason for his trip. It thereafter became evident that he was checkmated from the first by the decision and firmness of Sergeant Julian, who was in charge, and who refused to camp at the Mac- kenzie Crossing, on the way down, at the scrubby spot Griffin had indicated. Xo doubt Griffin was baulked on this occasion, or his nerve failed him, in getting possession of the untraceable gold, which was, on arrival, safely delivered to the Bank in Eockhampton. On the start of the return escort Griffin accom- panied it to its first camp at a lagoon a few miles out of Eockhampton, near which resided the lady to whom he was paying his addresses, and there an occurrence took place tliat threw a light on liis 181 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. criminal intentions. He remained in camp to boil the tea whilst the escort men, including Julian, the sergeant in charge, were out with the horses, and when he (Julian) returned and tasted the tea Griffin had made in his absence, he at once spat it out, and emptied the billy. There could be no doubt Griffin had poisoned it with strj'chnine. Julian, however, very wrongly as it turned out, kept this to himself, and, refusing to go any further with the escort, resigned his charge. Had he communicated his suspicions to the other two men, and thus put them on their guard, they might have been saved, but Julian was afraid of Griffin. On Julian resio-ninw his post the escort was brought back, and the other men started with it again. Griffin accompanying them, this time on the plea that they were short- handed. When tlie}^ reached the Mackenzie Eiver Crossing the camp was fixed at the scrubby spot indicated by Griffin, about half a mile from Bedford's public-house, where Griffin had left his horse in order to start back to Rockhampton with the publican, Bedford, who was also starting to Rock- hampton early next morning. During the night Bedford heard two shots, one about midnight, the other about two hours later. Griffin made his appearance at Bedford's at daylight, carrying a valise in his hand, and looking, as Bed- ford said in his evidence, very pale and disturbed. On Bedford remarking upon the firing he had heard. Griffin said he had fired his pistols to scare any 182 SOME LAWLESS DEEDS IN EARLY DAYS. bushrangers there might have been about, as this was the only camp he was afraid of for them, but that havino- left his escort men all riiflit, he could now return to Eockhampton easy in his mind. Griffin and Bedford rode to town very quickly, Bedford remarking upon the nervousness of his mate, who several times lagged behind him, and subsequently, as they neared Eockhampton, turned off towards the settlement where \\y& jiancee lived. A few days had barely passed before Eockhampton was startled by the news brought by the mailman that the two escort troopers had been found dead at the Mackenzie by a man searching for his bullocks, and that their camp had to all appearance been robbed, the saddler}^ and so forth being scattered about. The report, moreover, stated the men to have been poisoned, as some pigs, that had appa- rently eaten of the matter thrown up b}' the men, lay dead near the place. Griffin, who was still in Eockhampton, showed himself both distressed and surprised, and was, of course, one of the first to instigate an inquiry, for the purpose of which a party consisting of the Sub-Inspector of police, Elliott, the Bank Manager, Tom Hall, the Medical Inspector, Dr. Salmond, and a black tracker, together with Griffin, made ready to start for the scene of the outrage. On the journey up to the Mackenzie Crossing Griffin showed so much nervousness that on nearing the scene of the murder, after the party had arrived 183 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. at Bedford's and refreshed themselves, it did not astonish Elliott, who had his ideas pretty well made up on the subject, when Griffin exclaimed, "My God ! I cannot face this," upon which Elliott at once arrested him, and put him in handcuffs. On examination of the victims by Dr. Salmond, the bodies were found to be, of course, in an extreme state of decomposition ; but the heads had a shot through each of them, proving thereby that on the troopers showing signs of recovery after sickness from their overdose of poison, Griffin had de- liberately shot them. The black tracker had no difficulty in fitting the tracks found round the scene with the boots worn by Griffin, who had a particu- larly small foot. The circumstantial evidence on which Griffin was solely convicted was extremely well put together, and much credit was reflected thereby upon Sub-Inspector Elliott. About this time Griffin had been found to have made away with some of the police pay, and also to have defrauded some Chinamen of a parcel of gold, for which he had given them a worthless escort receipt. After a long and sensational trial, which was the talk of the day in Queensland, Griffin was convicted and duly hanged. He refused to confess, but gave a warder such information as enabled him to claim the reward for the valise full of bank-notes, found soon after in a hollow log near the Lagoon Camp, a few miles out of Eockhampton. It turned out that Griffin was a married man 184 SOME LAWLESS DEEDS LN EARLY DAYS. whose wife was in Victoria ; he had thus been hving a double life. No doubt he was, up to a certain point, a clever scoundrel, after which he seems to have completely lost his head. I recollect having been taxed by some mutual friends with much undue animus against him, but I never wavered in my estimate of the man after I had found out certain reckless and arbitrary ways of his in connection with the office work. It was hereafter always a marvel to me how Griffin could have left so good a record in Brisbane as to have pointed him out to the Colonial Secretary as a fit man for the charge . of our Peak Downs district. He certainly was very plausible, had a winning manner and a good deal of Irish wit ; moreover he was tall, symmetrical in build, and extraordinarily active, for I have known him to follow his kangaroo dogs on foot, hunting wallaby and kangaroo round Clermont. Though he was young then, about thirty-five to forty, we could see he had led a hard life, and he made no pretence to the refinements of a gentleman. There was some posthumous romance attached to Griffin's crime, as the lady he was engaged to married well and lived happily after : the same may be said of the fiancee of the murdered escort leader, who, after a time of mourning, became the wife of a distinguished Queensland parliament- arian and Minister of the Crown. In those rising days of Cential (iueensland good wives were scarce, and it is jdeasant to reflect that a crime like 1 H.J JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. the one I have described swept by, leaving but a transient record of disaster. After an interval, the Peak Downs district was entrusted to the care of a very different officer, who was appointed to all the offices that had been held by Griffin, viz., Captain F. Henry Lambert, who had been senior captain in the 19th Eegiment, a brave soldier in whose pleasant society my friends and I passed many an evening. When, at Wolfang, we saw him approaching on the plain, followed by Brown, his orderly, and a mob of kangaroo dogs, we always hailed his advent with pleasure. He was full of wit and anecdote, and though he had led a some- what stormy life, he was apparently content to become Police Magistrate of Clermont, where he died respected by the whole district — a great con- trast between his career and that of his predecessor. During this period the Peak Downs copper smelting works made rapid advances, and presented a formid- able appearance with dozens of furnaces, stacks of chimneys, and rows of huts for the miners, who were in most cases Cornishmen imported from England. William Woodhouse, brother of a former o-eneral manao-er of the Bank of New South Wales, was the superintendent, and he was ably assisted by Captain Dennis as mining captain, and Christoe as smelter. I was always glad to vary my pastoral experiences by a visit to my friend Woodhouse, who would take me underground to view the resources of his copper mine, from which some wonderful speci- 186 SOME LAJVLESS DEEDS IN EARLY DAYS. mens of malacliite were from time to time obtained. The mine is now exhausted, I am sorry to say, and the furnace fires are quiescent. In those Peak DoM^ns days I write of the traffic from Clermont and Copperfield, together with that of the urowing pastoral district, travelled by a road diflereiit to that adopted after that expensive railway was started from Eockhampton to Westwood. The road from Eockhampton to Peak Downs then went to Yaamba, where in those days my good friend, P. P. Macdonald, who had pioneered the Nogoa and Springsure country, resided, and a good many pleasant evenings did I owe to my hospitable enter- tainer when travelling that road. From Yaamba the road went via Princhester to Marlborough, where the Broad Sound road turned off. thence to Apis Creek, past the lower crossings of the Mackenzie to Columba, where dwelt then my good old friend A. K. Callan. From Columba one had to travel through much scrub to the upper crossing of the Mackenzie, where the Griffin tragedy took place, the last stage of the forest country before emerging on the open plains of Peak Downs being Vicary's Station, where Mr. Yicary, the respected owner of Canoona, had formed a station. The first aspect of the Peak Downs plains after the timbered cnimtiy one rode througli from Mcary's was rendered striking 1jy an array ol" bottle trees that stood here like sentinels of tlic road, in appear- ance ]ike so many gigantic soda water bottles. JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Under these curious trees we used to pull up in old days and have man}^ an impromptu luncheon, after gladdening our eyes on the vista of open downs stretching for miles towards Scott and Eoper's Peaks, which became here visible for the first time, and were not unlike the Egyptian pyramids. In these days no end of " shanties " lined this Eockhampton road, especially during its high traffic, and there the weary traveller or teamster could obtain an unlicensed glass of grog. These " shanties " were, of course, exceedingly rough ; we therefore hailed as a great boon the erection of any decent accommoda- tion house on that townless road. A'proi^os of this, I must relate a circumstance in connection with the Peak Downs road that greatly affected me, and is clearly imprinted on my memory. One day, returning from one of the many trips I had to make to Eockhampton on station business, I first met, near Apis Creek, the man who then called himself James Christie ; he was riding a very fine brown horse, and was crossing the road before me, making towards a camp that had a tent with a lot of timber stacked about it. As the man was a stranger I caught him up and entered into conversation with him, and he proved, though shy, affable and fairly communicative, asking me to get off my horse and have a cup of tea with his " old woman," who turned out to be a pretty little person, though silent and demure. Having asked him if he would sell the brown horse, he referred me to his wife as the SOME LAWLESS DEEDS JX EARLY DAYS. owner, when she at once said nothing would induce her to sell liim. I little knew then the " romance of the road " that was attached to that gallant brown horse. Christie then told me he had come overland from Victoria, and that in company with a good mate, who was then out splitting stuff, he intended to put up a public-house where we were, as he thought it a good stand, with which I quite agreed. I gave him every encouragement, and promised him he would get his license if the house was a good one. I made up my mind to stop there on ray next trip down from Peak Downs (in Australia, especially Queensland, it is down to town, and not up), which I did, camping there some time after wdth some fellow-travellers and many horses for two nights, when we were well taken care of by Christie and his partner, whom we found very decent fellows, the accommodation being superior to anything on that road, as the respective wives of Christie and his part- ner thoroughly understood how to make travellers comfortable. On another occasion when camping there, I remember giving into Christie's charge for the night a saddle-bag with a considerable sum in cheques and notes that I was about to pay into the Eockhampton Bank, which he kept quite safe for me. Within twelve months or so, however, of this start of Christie's at Apis Creek, the news arrived on Peak Downs that his house had been visited by a large body of native police from lLOckliami)ton, and that IK!) JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Christie had been arrested as Frank Gardiner, the renowned New South Wales bushranger, whose dis- appearance some time before (on his gang being at last broken up by the N.S.W. Police) had occasioned a nine days' wonder. He was supposed to have shipped himself off to South America ; Gardiner, instead, had lain planted in some of his old moun- tain haunts (so well described in " Robbery Under Arms "), and on the attraction afforded by the gold discovery in the vicinity of Clermont, had started for those diggings overland v/ith a cart, bringing with him Mrs. Brown, a pretty woman, who had linked her fate with his, and taking with him also the line brown horse, which was a stolen animal, and who could jump anything and travel any journey. Amongst the many travellers from Peak Downs who had about this time passed Christie's was one Jacobsohn b}^ name, a storekeeper at Copperfield, where he held interests ; this man at once recognised Christie as the bushranger Gardiner, who had stuck him up and robbed him on one of the goldtields in I^ew South Wales. Jacobsohn held his tongue and went to Sydney, where he found that the £1,000 reward for Gardiner's capture still held good ; he then returned to Brisbane, where the Commissioner of Police made prompt and complete arrangements to have Gardiner seized by the Eockhampton police, an arrest that was effected without the slightest resistance on the part of Gardiner or his mate. As to the mate, there was nothing against him, and 190 SOME LAWLESS DEEDS IN EARLY DAYS. it was a moot question wlietlier in his heart of hearts he ever knew that James Christie was the renowned Frank Gardiner. This capture created intense astonishment in the colonial world, for Gardiner had, no doubt, been held somewhat as a j)veux chevalier among bush- rangers, and certainly was the leader of a gang that had for a long time defied every effort of the K.S.W. police. It was said, however, that he had never shown cruelt}^ in his doings like some of his bloody successors ; but there could be no doubt that he deserved capital punishment as the originator and organiser of the bushranging of that day. Proceeding to Sydney shortly after this event, I was asked by the authorities, as a matter of form, to identify him as the Christie I had known on the Peak Downs road. I must say I could not but pity him as I saw him in the iron-railed yard of the jail, so shrunk and grey and aged, a very different man from the one I had first seen riding the fiery brown horse, with easy seat and consummate horsemanship, under the free blue sky of the Queens- land refuge he had endeavoured to retire to. Verily his sins had found him out. Christie, I remember, shook my hand when my interview was over, and said, " Well, Mr. de Satge, you can testify that I tried to Hve a respectable life on the Peak Downs road," and that he certainly had; and I believe it was greatly owing to tliat 1 IJ 1 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. extenuating fact that his sentence was not a capital one, but that of imprisonment for hfe, which was afterwards commuted to a release after nearly twenty 3'ears of hard labour, when Gardiner was shipped to California, where, it is understood, he died shortly after, shot in a gaming-house brawl. I did hear in Sydney about this time that there was a strong feeling amongst a certain class that Gardiner should not be condemned to death, a:nd that had that been his sentence an attempt at rescue would have been made. I give this rumour, however, as I heard it, and for what it is worth. Whilst on this sul)ject of bushranging there was, I may mention, some attempt at this class of law- lessness in Northern Queenshmd about this time, but it met with a short-lived existence. A curious incident occurred in the case of two bushrangers, who were pursued towards the Mackenzie by two amateurs from Eockhampton, one of them being Mr, Paton, a merchant of Eockhampton, who on coming up with the outlaw, covered him with his revolver, commanding him to throw up his hands ; in his nervousness, however, Eaton's pistol went off, and shot the bushranger dead. Eaton, I heard, was sorely troubled at this contretemps, and handed over to the Eockhampton hospital the reward he was entitled to for this capture. A noted case was the sticking up and foul murder of a respectable and well-known gold buyer on his return from the Crocodile Diggings to Eockhampton, near the banks 192 SOME LAWLESS DEEDS LX EARLY DAYS. of the Fitzroy, between Yaamba and Eockhampton. In this case the murderers were two youths, natives of Xew South Wales, and respectably born, who expiated on the scaffold a crime that was, I under- stood, unpremeditated. These young men wore masks, and only wanted the gold, but on the victim recognising his assailants, and vowing that he would show them up, they shot him, and dragged his body to some neighbouring water, where it was found. 193 13 CHAPTER XIII. TO THE SOUTH FOR A EEST, AXD BACK BY THE DOWNS. Apter the work and responsibilities entailed b}^ the development and subsequent sales of station property on the Teak Downs, which 1 have described, I was glad to seek a change south, and first paid a visit to Sydney, stopping there with my partner, Mr. James Milson, who was anxious to discuss many matters of interest in connection with Wolfang, which station was to absorb most of my energies for some years to come. Out of much property which he had pos- sessed on the north shore, Mr. Milson had preserved to himself a delightful home in that locality, where, in a bit of primeval eucalyptus forest you could hear the locust sing in full strength, and fancy yourself a hundred miles from Sydney, had not an opening of deep blue sky through the taU gums revealed the distant heads of Port Jackson. Sweet spot, full of the attributes of peace and quiet, long may it retain its natural charms. There my rest was as complete as it was pleasant, and I felt a regret when business required me to face the crowded 194 ■ TO THE SOUTH FOR A REST. north shore steam ferry and be conveyed to Circular Quay, there to meet the busy throng of George Street. After a good stay in Sydney, I returned to Queensland, stopping first at Brisbane, a capital \\diich, previous to the crisis of 1866, seemed to JAMES MII.SOX, li^ij., .NokUl SHORE, vSYDXEV. iXative born Australian.) have been making the most of the stimulus given to the community l)y Parliamentary Government, which it had enjo3'ed since separation in 1859, under the auspices of its first Governor, Sir George Bowen. And here I may say of tliat ( lovci'iior that it would have been difficult for the Colonial Office of the day to have ])rovided for Queensland a more genial JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. representative of Imperial interests. Sir George Bowen, whose classical career at the University had early fitted him for his work in the Ionian Islands, and afterwards for the Colonial Service, was then in the prime of life, good-looking, full of honhomie, and gifted with remarkable con- versational talents ; these advantages, together with the talents of his beautiful and graceful spouse, lent much charm to the social gatherings they had insti- tuted at the new Government House, which were amenities Brisbane had hitherto lacked. In 1860 his first ParHament had met in the old convict barracks in Queen Street, and it was there, in the somewhat dim legislative chamber of that old building, that my ear first caught the sounds of the graceful and polished periods of Eobert Herbert in answer to the harsher tones of Eatcliffe Pring. Over thirty years have passed since those days of Queens- land's youth, and whilst the latter luminary has passed away, leaving kindly recollections of his legal life, the former is still vigorous and alert, and has only just closed, as Sir Eobert Herbert, G.C.B., a long career of Colonial and Imperial usefulness amid the congratulations of his many friends. Between the date of separation in 1859 and the financial crisis of 1866, it is hardly too much to say that our new Colony had been enjoying somewhat extravagantly the first and costly experiences of independence. A sumptuous Government House was, of course, an early requirement to replace 196 TO THE SOUTH FOR A REST. the temporary use the Governor had made of Dr. Hobbs' old house ; then came the erection of the palatial Parliament Houses, inclined, from their heiofht and size, to elevate the minds of their occu- pants. Eaihvays were undertaken, destined some- what largely to enrich European contractors, whilst a fortunate sea captain found a good fortune in dredo-insf the shoal waters of " Francis' Channel " ; furthermore, early loans at 6 to 10 per cent, remained for some time a proof of the sanguine hopes of the Treasurer of that day. However, there was a good deal, I must say, in favour of such hopes ; gold had been discovered in many portions of the Colony ; other metals, furthermore, were found which pointed to possibly inexhaustible mineral resources ; and the treasures of the soil, whether by cultivation on the Darling- Downs, sugar-growing at Mackay, or pastoral settle- ment in the Western Plains, seemed to promise bound- less scope for a growing population. A great deal of real profit was being earned in the leading industry of the country at the time by those whose pastoral properties in Southern Queensland were within fair carriage of port ; there was a growing demand for breeding stock to go north and west, whilst other sheep required for mutton continued to command a good price for overland supply to the Victorian markets. Wool of no great quality, and sometimes indiflerently washed, fetched two shillings a pound delivered at Ii)S\vich, which black soil township JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. obtained considerable commercial activity in those days both as the terminus of the Brisbane river navigation and the starting point of our southern railway system to the Darling Downs, These were also the palmy days of that excellent little haven of rest the Ipswich Club, where the jolly and prosperous Darling Downs squatters of that day used to foregather, and it was a lucky stroke for a baked-up northerner if he had managed to secure a room at the Ipswich Club for the gaieties attendant on the June meeting of the North Australian Jockey CJub. He would be sure there to meet the cream of squatting Queensland, and amongst them often a noted honvivant and sporting judge, also a still more sporting attorney-general, whose set-up appearance and well-oToomed hack would have done credit to Newmarket. "Fred" was the clul) caterer, and furnished remarkable dinners, notably pigeon pies, that fell generally to the Judge's gastronomic nod. Fellows rode down from Drayton to Ipswich, seventy miles, with little trouble in a day, for the hacks then were good and a change generally procurable at such hospitable stations on the road as HeHdon, Gatton, or Grantham. Heavy weights like William O'Grady Haly on his chestnut, "Wellington," Arnold Wien- holt on his weight-carrying brown "Bolivar," or W^illiam Kent on his " Cannon Ball " (men who would all have figured as " Paladins " in the days of the Crusades) were content to don silk and match ■■•^ . ^--^-/^i. > --r:: > , : j SIR Ak'llIIK IIODCSO.N AND .MR. Ri )i:i;R'r RA.MSAV. TO THE SOUTH FOR A REST. themselves and their favourites fifteen stone up for a three-mile race on the Limestone Eacecourse, amidst the hearty cheers of their old chums and neishbours, and often also that of their shearers and employes down for a spree to the Ipswich races, whilst lighter weights, like Garden Collins, delighted the cognoscenti with admirable jockeyship. There were even then some fine studs in Queens- land, which was ceasing to depend upon the Clarence for her blood stock. The Bells and the Bigges, the Halys and Dr. Simpson, imported sires and formed studs the excellence of which can be traced to this da}' ; gentlemen in those days raced more for the pleasure than the profit of the sport, chiefl}' riding themselves when they could. If they returned to their comfortable stations on the Darling Downs or elsewhere after the Ipswich meeting without any great winnings from their wagers they had at any rate interviewed their agents and found their station balances generally on the right side, for Queensland squatters had not yet arrived at the days of great scientific improvements, low returns and labour unions. Those who had sold out, like the Gammies and some others, had perhaps had the best of Moreton Bay ; still the bulk remained, and they comprised such men as Arthur Hodgson of Eton Vale, Hope and Eamsay of Eosalie Plains, John Watts, Deuchar of Glengallan, the Douglases of Talgai, Kent and the Wienholts of Maryvale, Fassifern and Jondaryan, Isaac of Gowrie, McLean 201 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. and Beit of Westbrook, the Gores of Yandilla, Bells of Jimboiir, and others I could recount, who left names, families and fortunes linked with the early history of Queensland that leave little to be desired in the way of reputation for industry, courage, honesty of purpose, and absolute good faith ; their word being their bond, their agreements seldom written, their servants well used, their animals cared for, and their homesteads open to the most ungrudging hospitality, and what can a country desire more in the founders of her earh^ history ? The younger school that have succeeded these, if things are not so rosy as they were, must only remember their predecessors and struggle on, trust- ing to Providence, fair seasons, and that turn of the wheel which is always going round in Colonial history from good to bad and bad to good times in almost certain rotation. They must not, above all, shirk their political or municipal duties, or allow an}^ socialistic or other combination to do them out of their legislative rights, which can all be attended to coupled with their sheep farming ; they should allow no tampering with the advantageous tenure of the land for all classes. It strikes me that if you can't make out of squatting in Australia the great returns of bygone days, you can still eke out of it a happy and intelligent lot, surrounded with comforts and a dash of intellectual pursuit unknown in our old days. 202 TO THE SOUTH FOR A REST. The panic of 186G, the influence of which was felt in Queensland for several years after, played the mischief with all pastorahsts who were either largely in debt or whose credit was not good. Many good men and true went down then, and many a good property was bought for little by rising men who took their good fortune on the hop, several of these bargains leading to considerable fortunes. Large sacrifices continued to be made by sellers in the dull time between 1866 and 1872, notably in outside stations, such as those for instance of the Messrs. Ellis on the Barcoo, Burenda, and others I could name. The development of the Barcoo had been pushed out during this period by stock from the DarUng Downs, a start being made also to the northern portion of that district from Clermont, ■vid the Belyando, surrounding the Aramac coimtry. In fact, reports came in before 1866 that neither the Darlino- Downs nor the Peak Downs, good as they might be thought to be, were a patch on the Barcoo ; but its early settlers had to fight ao^ainst lonf? carriage and high wages, to say nothing of financial difhculties. 203 CHAPTER XIV. A TRIP TO THE PAROO IN THE FAR SOUTH-WEST. After the sale of Gordon Downs, I became more closely identified with the development of Wolfang, which we were able to work profitably. We were anxious to keep our account at the bank as little overdrawn as possible, the charge for interest on overdrawn accounts being 10 per cent. ; so not finding a ready sale for our wethers on Peak Downs, we started a lot of 12,000 young wethers overland towards Riverina by the extreme western route, advising the Sydney agents to sell them, if possible, for delivery towards the Queensland border on the Lower Paroo. Hearing such a sale was likely to be efiected, with delivery within a fixed period wherever the sheep might be (they were then travelling down the Paroo, a river west of the Darling), I determined to start to Sydney, and thence to work out west and deliver them in person. The difficulty, however, was that from the coast to the Darling in New South Wales, 1868 had brought a real bad drought, and coach 204 A TRIP TO THE PAROO. travelling had been given up. However, I made up my mind to start west from Sydney wdth a light American buggy and a strong horse, and take with me as much feed as I could, trusting to eke it out with fodder procurable at stopping places. This I did, shipping from Sydney to Newcastle, and thence by rail to Muswellbrook, passing my old friend the township of Cassihs ; from there to Coolah, crossing the Castlereagh, and by Coon- barabran to Walgett, wdiere I expected to hear of the sheep. Xothing could exceed the wretched state of the country ; not a vestige of food was visible, and the only fodder available w^as either oaten hay, purchaseable at a very high figure, or reeds cut by the blacks down the banks of watercourses. Gaunt cattle seemed dying by inches, and starving horses stood at stock-yard gates like Mr. Micaw^ber, "waiting for something to turn up." I certainly never saw a country look worse. A change was, however, at hand, for at my last stage before reaching Walgett rain came on, wdiich obliged me to leave the buggy, as the wheels clogged in the black soil ; so I had to ride into Walgett on horse- back. There I was "l^ailed up" three days by heavy rains that soon changed the aspect of the country, and relieved from destruction most of the stock in that rich part of New South Wales. I heard here that my wethers would be at a certain stage on the Paroo by the time fixed for 20o JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. their delivery, and, as prices had been falling, was anxious not to miss being there on the appointed day. Taidng the buggy further was out of the question, so I left it at Walgett, and, buying a pack horse, started down the Barwon to Bourke. Grass being still bare, and roads heavy and horses weak, I knocked up several horses, and had to buy fresh ones to keep to my time. At Bourke, which was even then a considerable and lively township, I met two leading men with whom here- after I became well acquainted — Mr. Yincent Dow- lincr, now one of the foremost sheep breeders of New South Wales, whose property, YantabuUa, lay on my road to the Paroo, and Cecil Guinness, a partner of Mr. W. Furlonge, of Bemery on the Darling, a station I had passed above Bourke. These good men put me in the way of getting fresh horses, and as I found I had only fort3'-eight hours left to get to the camp where I expected to meet the sheep, or about 140 miles to travel in that time, I felt keeping my appointment depended a good deal on my horses not knocking up. For- tunately they didn't, and I reached the camp of my travelling sheep on the day fixed in the sale note. My buyer, having taken another and badly watered route from Walgett, had killed a couple of horses thereby, at which he was very grumpy. He had arrived before me, and was hoping I would not put in an appearance, when he could have claimed to be let off his bargain. It wasn't a pleasant delivery, 206 A TRIP TO THE PAROO. and as lie would take only a few of the horses with the travelling sheep, I determined I would take them all back to Wolfang, picking up those I had recently bought and knocked up on my way down from Walgett. This trip up the Warrego I felt would make me acquainted with the fine country up that river and between Bourke and Charleville, a distance of over 300 miles, traversing rich pastoral country, from which I intended to pay my first visit to the far- famed Barcoo. I settled with my drover, who had made an excellent trip considering the season, the worst of which he had avoided by keeping well west, and whilst he took coach to Sydney from Bourke, where I posted my receipt for the sheep, which meant cash for same on presentation, I took on the black boy and a new-chum Frenchman, who had acted as assistant, and who was companionable and pleasant. I was glad to accept Guinness' invitation to rest my horses at his station, Bemery, previous to my long journey back, so at Bemery I spent a most charming three weeks, watching the grass grow and the country resuming its normal appearance after one of the worst droughts on record. Guinness was a very good companion, and amongst other accom- plishments sang delightfully ; we spent the days canoeing on tlie flooded Darling and shooting ducks in the anabranches, or breaking in the bulk of our horses to draw tlie buggy. 207 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. At last, my horses having rapidly put on flesh, I made a start, and as the cool season was on I made an excellent trip by the Culgoa up the Warrego to Charleville. We made excellent camps every night and had plenty of rations, the customary habit on the cattle runs we traversed being to leave a fat hindquarter of beef hanging in the store verandah pro bono publico, so we had a good recollection of Warrego beef. We passed Claverton Downs, where I renewed my acquaintance with Messrs. Geary and Francis Bigge. As Mr. and Mrs. Geary and Mr. and Mrs. Bigge were going to the Charleville races we agreed to travel together, and we had a jolly camp or two under somewhat unusual comfort and society. At Charleville I made the acquaintance of several of the neighbouring squatters, who seemed a good sort. The races called for no particular comment, the principal events falling to the share of a common-lookino- little horse called " Whitefoot," which (as was often the case in those days at outside meetings) was said to have been a winner down below in another name. 208 ox CLAVERTON DOWNS RUN. CHAPTER XV. THE BAECOO AND HOME BY SPEINGSUEE TO WOLFAXG. Bidding goodb}'e to my friends at Cliarleville, I followed the Nive up to Lansdowne, a fine newly- formed property of Burne Mayne and Ward, and on to Tambo, the capital of the Barcoo, where I found the racing- world of that fat district had gathered together to hold the festival of their annual races, and a jollier or better lot of fellows it would be difficult to find. I was known to some and had been heard of by the rest, and their hospitality was as unstinted as it was thoroughly acceptable. Messrs. Berkelman and Lambert, part- ners in some fine properties in tliat district, possessed a liuf^e tent under which we made our comfortable shake-downs, and there we met the elite of the squatters around, including besides the above, those rare horsemen the brothers Govett, Felix Burne, the Messrs. Ellis with Dick Cobham as their pastoral adviser, Kelman and .some of the Springsure men, and others whose names have for the moment dropped out of the recesses of my memory. 211 14* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. I certainly thought the condition of the horses, mostly trained without corn and fed entirely on the grasses of the country, quite wonderful. I was now for the first time initiated in the great sustaining powers which the grass of the western prairies of Queensland can impart to stock, whether it is to fatten the beast for the road to market, to train the racehorse, or sustain the roadster on a journey requiring the greatest endurance. These grand plains of the Barcoo here became imprinted in my mind as something better even than I had thought the Peak Downs to be, though the Barcoo, which stretched out on a far wider scale, certainly lacked the picturesqueness of the smaller district. I hope to touch in the latter part of my story on the development of the Mitchell and Gregory dis- tricts in which I became largely interested, and the former of which, the pastoral district par excellence of Queensland, I was proud to represent in the Queensland Parliament of 1881. Leaving Tambo in the delicious winter of these western plains, filled with the comfort of new friend- ships and the open hospitality I had received on the Barcoo, I liad four days' not unpleasant jour- neying over the rough country dividing the table- land of the Barcoo from the Comet country, arriving at Springsure, the chief township of the Comet or Leichardt District, in time to partake of the annual festivities of the Pastoral Show and Pace Meeting to follow; no mean bill of fare in 212 TO THE B ARC 00 AND HOME. those days, when the glory of the Comet District was at its height. In 1867 that district was charming, and although the downs and plains of the Comet country lacked the peaks that ornamented our landscape of Peak Downs, still the fme black soil plains, covered with blue grass and timbered with clumps of drooping •SPRIXGSURE MOUNTAIN. mayall, recalled to the settler the aspect of Liverpool Plains, and gave every confidence of success to pastoral investment. Springsure township was particularly well situated at tlie foot of a Ijold mass of rock, which for many miles formed a landmark to the approaching traveller, who could make sure of replenishing his packs at Ilinton's stores and comforting the inner 213 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. man at the adjoining inn. From the rocks issued springs that ran the creeks for many years after the wet season of 1864, watering the stations lower down, such as Eainworth and Cardbeign, and enabhng their owners to carry out their lambing operations with success. The squatters of that district were a rare good lot of pioneers, and could boast in those days of Jesse Gregson of Eainworth, Patton of Albinia Downs, Thompson of Orion Downs, Nevile Griffiths of Nardoo, little Buchanan of Cardbeign (who could carry in his head the finances of the Colony), William Kelman of Meteor Downs, Paul of Glen- darriwill, Macintosh, and, last but not least, Charles S. Dicken, ever youthful and popular, who had left the sword for the pen, and guided as C.P.S. at Springsure as popular a lot of magistrates as ever sat on a Queensland Bench. In the hands of these and many others the Spring- sure Pastoral Society was a great success, and its show became the forerunner of other similar institu- tions throughout the country. It was attended by visitors from Eockhampton and other parts, and the Springsure publicans reaped a golden harvest. Ex- cellent races followed the show, several studs in the neighl^ourhood, such as Kelman's noted B Y breed from the Busbys of Cassilis, N.S W., descendants of old " Gratis," " Cheddar," and " Coroebus," furnish- ing many a winner to the local and other races. They could boast of good horsemen too, and the 214 TO THE BARCOO AND HOME. " identities " of those merry days that may read these pages will doubtless recall the many triumphs of the Govetts on old "Eeindeer," Dick Hopkins on " Ximrod " and " Bosco," and Charlie Dicken on that fine mare " Lucy Chambers." To wind up the show and races there would be a pleasant dinner, at which many a humorous speech HORSE TEAMS, SPRIXGvSURE. would be made, followed by still more amusing songs. Good old days those, that marked a fair page in the history of Central Queensland, of which it is well to make some record before " Time's effacing fingers" have served to extinguish it. Subsequent depression in piisloi-al affairs some time after began to press heavily on the Springsure and Comet districts, and a iew of its leading spirits, good 215 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. men and true, succumbed to the weight of compound interest and fall in produce. Many, however, are pursuing distinguished careers in other spheres, and have shown the stuff they are made of. In this cateo-ory it is not invidious to mention Jesse Gregson of the Austrahan Agricultural Company, and Charles S. Dicken, C.M.G., the popular secretary to, and so often acting for, the Agent-General of Queensland. These and many others will, I feel certain, never refyret the old Springsure days, when under the balmy blue skies they smoked the sweet pipe of adventure and good fellowship. After this jolly week in Springsure I was not sorry to cross the Nogoa and make home to Wolfang with my brother, who had done very well at the Spring- sure races with "Dartford," " Bosco," "Nimrod," and other good nags. I must say here that my brother and I found time to train a few horses in a quiet way and were fairly fortunate ; he won the Brisbane Cup with " Sydney," whilst I was fortunate to breed in " Sunrise " the winner of another Bris- bane Cup, and our joint success with the black " Cassihs," the son of " Corcebus " (an imported son of "Slane's"), was considerable, for at weight-for- ao-e he was quite the champion of our district, and handicaps were not so much in fashion then as they are now. " Cassilis " was a genuine stayer, and we eventually sold him to John Tait of New South Wales, the owner of the " Barb." I returned to Peak Downs all the better for my 216 TO THE BARCOO AND HOME. four months' trip through that great stretch of pastoral Austraha from the Hunter to the Paroo and Bourke to the Peak Downs, a journey that had opened my eyes to the great resources of Xew South Wales and Queensland as pastoral colonies. The vast fattening frontage of the Warrego and the rich plains of the Barcoo, followed by the downs of the Comet and Peak Downs, had filled my mind with the coming future of our Colony, the fulfilment of which has been steady and continual, much of it at the hands of experienced southerners, whether Vic- torians or Xew South Welshmen. A great part of the Warrego was even then owned by our Australian bachelor millionaire, the somewhat austere James Tyson, but I never heard in those parts that he did much either for the improvement of the stock or the development of the vast tracts he held, a fact one could not help contrasting with the improvement of adjoining country like Lansdowne, which the capital and energy of the Fairbairns under the manacrement of Meredith had turned from a waterless grassy waste that would barely carry five- and -twenty thousand sheep in the sixties into a grand run that was not overstocked with a quarter of a million of sheep in the seventies. Fencing and water conservation by huge dams (artesian water had not then Ijeeu discovered) were the order of the day, and this meant thousands of pounds trustingly invested on leasehold security by enter- prising men. I recollect riding through a paddock :>! JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. at Lansdowne in the seventies that carried 60,000 wethers. At this time (1869) it became necessary that better security should be afforded to the pastoral interest, which was obviously staggering under the financial pressure of 1866, and to encompass this end, Clermont and Copperfield having some time before been formed into an electoral district and the seat of its representative, the gifted Robert Travers Atkin, having been declared vacant after a brief session, I was urged by my squatting friends to put up for the seat in order to assist in passing the Pastoral Leases Act of 1869, which the Lilley Government then in power had pro- jected for the relief and support of our predominant interest. I must confess to a good deal of doubt and diffi- dence at this start into a political career at the time, but as the chosen candidate of a lot of warm friends and good neighbours I ended in waiving all draw- backs, and embarked into a hot contest v^ith the proprietor of the local newspaper, the Peak Downs Telegram, Mr. Charles Hardie Buzacott, who might in those days be called an anti-squatter and ad- vanced Liberal. That Charles H. Buzacott was a foeman worthy of anyone's steel his career in and out of Parliament and in the wider field of the metropolis of Queensland has amply proved. We hit out in those days and worked hard to collect the scattered votes, but having the support of the 218 TO THE BARCOO AND HOME. manager of the Copper Mining Company I managed to beat my opponent by 26 votes. I recollect the squatting rejoicings at Wolfang and Clermont on that occasion, also certain feelings of pride at representing a district I had so largely helped to settle, and with which I had been so closely connected for a good many years. I had been elected in April, 1869, and the end of that month found me in Brisbane ready for the opening of the session of Parliament, and greeted by a number of friends old and new. 2 1 'J CHAPTER XVI. INITIATION OF EESPONSIBLE GOVEBNMENT IN QUEENSLAND, 1860-69. I MAY here state with benefit to the readers of this SIR GEORGK AND LADY BO WEN. volume the pohtical growth of Queensland between the opening of its first Parliament in May, 1860, and the period 1869, when I became able to speak from 220 INITIATIOX OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT. personal knowledge of Queensland parliamentary life. Sir George Bowen, the first Governor of Queens- land, had landed in Brisbane in December, 1859, and ]iad been accompanied by Mr. Eobert George Wyndham Herbert, a cousin of Lord Carnarvon's, whose brilliant University career and secretarial training had pointed him out as one of the rising men of the day. Mr. Herbert became the first Premier of Queensland under responsible govern- ment, and had at the start as his colleagues in the Executive Council of the Colony Messrs. Eatchffe Bring and Robert Eamsay Mackenzie. The first Legislative Council had made its start with Sir Charles Nicholson as President ; he was, however, succeeded within a few months by Mr. Maurice, afterwards Sir Maurice, O'Connell. The Council consisted of: — Maurice O'Connell, John Balfour, Francis Edward Bigge, Alfred William Compigne, George Fullerton, John James Galloway, James Laidley, John McDougall, Kobt. George Massie, Wm. Henry Yaldwin, Henry Bates Fitz, George Harris, and Stephen Simpson. The first Electorates of the Colony which returned 26 members to the Legislative Assembly were filled as follows at the elections of April, ISGO : — Brisbane . 3 members George KalV, Henry Jordan, Charles Wm. JJlakeney. South Brisbane J ,, Henry Richards. Forlitudo Valley ■ 1 ,. Ciiarles Lilley. 221 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Town of Ipswich 3 members Arthur Macalister, P. O'Sullivan, and G. E. Forbes. Drayton and Toowoomba 1 William Henry Groom. Warwick 1 St. George R. Gore. East Moreton 2 George Edmonstone and Henry Buckley. West Moreton 3 George Thorn, Senr., A. D. Broughton, W. L. Nelson. Eastern Downs 1 RatclifTe Priug. Western Downs 2 T. de Lacy Moffatt and James Taylor. Northern Downs 1 Charles Coxen. Maranoa 1 John Ferrett. Burnett 2 Robert Ramsay Mackenzie and C. R. Haly. Wide Bay . . . 1 Gilbert Elliot. Port Curtis . 1 Charles Fitzsimmons. Leichardt 2 R. G. W. Herbert and Charles James Royds. Gilbert Elliot was unanimously elected Speaker, and Macalister Chairman of Committees. Writing some forty years after these early days it is curious to reflect what little growth Central and Northern Queensland had so far made, Central Queensland in a House of 26 being represented only by the three members for Port Curtis and the Leichardt, and Northern Queensland being abso- lutely not represented in the first Parliament of the Colony. The Assembly of Queensland since 1898 has 72 members, a fair proportion of whom on the population basis represent Central and Northern Queensland electorates. The first Governor's first speech was long and elaborate. It embraced, as in duty bound, the pressing needs of the best education for the rising '^'^a IXITIATION OF RESPOXSIBLE GOVERNMENT. generation with exhibitions to the English Uni- versities ; it treated of telegraphic extension so as to connect Brisbane with the capitals of other colonies (a system which was opened in April, 1861), and it sna-f^ested also a cable via Torres Straits to Java ; it advocated direct trade with Europe as well as the East by Torres Straits. Eegular steam com- munication as far as Eockhampton was to be in- augurated, and Bills on Lands and Immigration were promised. The obstructive bars to navigation in the Brisbane, Mary and other rivers on the Eastern coast were to be dredged away, and the financial statement provided a substantial sum for a powerful steam dredge. The revenue of Queensland as sketched forth in the financial statement of 1860 was expected to be £160,000 and the expenditure for the same financial year something under £150,000. We have as I write (1898) lived to see the revenue of Queensland total £3,613,150 :— £ s. d. The expenditure 3,604,263 The total imports The exports The imports per head The exports , . . , Total trade ,, ,, o,42!l,l'Jl 9,091,557 11 6 11 19 1 30 7 The years 1861 and 1862 were eminently favour- able to the growth of the nascent Colony, the pastoral development of which during these two years, as mentioned elsewhere, took firm root, espe- 223 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. cially in Central, Western, and Northern Queens- land. Telegraphs had been started and the first Queensland Exhibition opened. A Show of the hrst Horticultural and Agricultural Society took place in Brisbane, and a new Government House, built at a cost of £10,000, had been occupied by Sir George Bowen and his family. 1863 was a droughty year throughout the Colony, the break-up of the drought at the end of that year and commencement of the following one being marked with the severest floods the Colony had up to that time knowm. This great rainfall, which extended to outside districts, misled settlers in many instances as to the rainfall of the country they had settled in. , . February 25, 1864, saw the important function of turning the sod of the first Queensland railway, performed at Ipswich, the battle of the gauges having, after a long and instructive Parliamentary fight, been settled in favour of the 3ft. 6in. gauge, a gauge which I may here mention has fulfilled all that was required of it, and affords a smooth if not very rapid conveyance for the traffic required of it. The first railway from Ipswich to the plateau of the Darling Downs cost over £10,000 a mile, and was destined to be Queensland's costliest railway, as the engineering difficulties of the main range were con- siderable. Once over the Coast Range, later con- structions' have proved that Queensland can build her ^nes for one-fourth of the above cost, in fact less 224. IXITIATION OF RESPOXSIBLE GOVERNMENT. than was paid by the Colon}' in its early days for corduroy roads for its wheeled traffic over the once infamous road between Ipswich and Toowoomba. It is not too much to say that the future of Queensland, in common with that of oldet' countries, rests greatly on its future polic}' of cheap and light railways wherever these can be conscientiously given to a struggling community. Queensland, as I write, has a railwa}" bill of over sixteen millions, but has nearly 2,500 miles of railway to show for it, a record which none of the other colonies can approach in the shape of value for capital expended. In 1864 Mr. Herbert's . Ministry was composed of himself as Colonial Secretary, Thomas de Lacy Mofiatt as Colonial Treasurer, Arthur Macalister as Minister of Public Works and Lands, and Eatcliffe Pring as Attorney-General. De Lacy Moffatt died in October, 1864, and was succeeded by his brother-in-law, J. P. Berll. As Minister for Public Works Macalister had the hardest work, the initiation of railways alone requiring great forethought, besides which the de- velopment of a great, colony is something like that of " station impravements " which are constantly required, and no new member of the legislature was held worth his salt by his constituents who did not try to- get a dam made or well sunk on some water- less road, to §ay nothing of a jail and court-house for every opening townshij). I may here mention fl^al the following- members 225 15 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. had been added to the roll of the Legislative Council since its creation three yedrs back : John Bramston (afterwards Attorney-General for Queensland, then for Hong Kong, and lastly Assistant Under Secretary for the Colonies in London, now Sir John Bramston, C.B., K.C.M.G.), E. I. C. Browne, St. George H. Gore, Hon. Louis Hope, AVilliam Landsborough (the explorer), John McConnel, Francis North, Richard J. Smith, John Watts, Wm. D. White, and Western Wood, some of these representing a few resignations, the Council totalling 21 in all at that time. And the following new members of the Assembly had taken the place of retiring members : Joshua P. Bell, Henry Challinor, Benjamin and Eobert Cribb, John Douglas, John Edwards, John Donald McLean, T. B. Pugh, Gordon Sandeman, and Arnold Wien- holt, names that included some of Queensland's fore- most colonists and a welcome infusion of squatting blood. The Viceregal speech, read with emphasis by Sir George Bowen, alluded to the construction of the first railway from Ipswich, and promised ihat from Eockhampton, and Sir George was further able " To congratulate my Parliament for the fifth time on the rapid but solid progress of Queensland which has been now addressed to you in opening the annual sessions of four successive years, also to say that the popula- tion has doubled in two years and eight months, and the revenue and trade and other chief elements of prosperity have increased in equal ratio with our 226 IXITIATIOX OF RESPOXSIBLE GOVERNMENT. population. It appears, moreover, that notwith- standing' the recent disastrous floods the revenue of the first quarter of the current year exceeds by no less than 40 per cent, the revenue of the corresponding quarter of 1863." This was the first appearance of Joshua Bell, who moved the adoption of the Address in a speech that created a most favourable impression, John Douglas, who after- wards attained considerable reputation, taking a prominent part, also for the first time, in the debate ihat followed. 1865 opened with the same Ministry, with the exception that Joshua Bell had succeeded T. de Lacy Moffatt, Bell thus early in his career obtainino- Cabinet rank. Congratulations were given in the Viceregal speech on the appointment of an Agent- General, and upon the establishment of a steam service via Torres Straits, Sir Georw Bowen endinfj his speech with the following pregnant and remark- able statement : " The Registrar-General has fur- nished the Government and me with a clear and able statement of the result of the statistics for 1864 when compared with those of 1860, the first year of the political existence of the Colony. It appears that the centesimal increase during the interval of four years was exactly as follows :- " Populntion ...... 105 per cont. Revenue 13!) Trade 178 „ Shipping 18'J ,. lo* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. The other elements of prosperity have advanced in similar proportions, that is to say, they have been nearly trebled. It will be for you to consolidate the many blessings which, under the favour of Divine Providence, Queensland already enjoys." In the following year, 1866, Queensland lost the services of Mr. Eobert Herbert, her first Premier, who returned to England after six years of eventful tenure of office ; he had set the ParUamentary machine of the Colony going, and that on safe and dignified lines, and had every reason to con- gratulate himself on his share of the remarkable result sketched by his chief in the foregoing state- ment. I am glad to say that after many years industriously spent as the working head of an enormously increasing Colonial Office, he continues, as Sir Eobert Herbert, G.C.B., to retain his interest in the great Colony, the Parliamentary fortunes of which he first directed. Mr. Herbert was succeeded by Arthur Macalister as Premier and Minister for Lands, the other posi- tions in the Ministry being occupied by Piobert Ramsay Mackenzie, Charles Lilley, Joshua Bell, and John Douglas. Macalister had assisted Herbert in former Ministries, and as a leading Ipswich solicitor had great local knowledge and attractions ; he might be called a useful if not eminent Parhamentarian, with shrewd business-hke qualities, but he could hardly be compared in administrative capacity with either his predecessor Herbert, or his successors, 228 IXITIATIOX OF RESPOXSIBLE GOVERNMENT. Lilley and Palmer. Still lie deserved well of his country, and virtually ended his days as the Colony's representative in London. Robert Mackenzie, afterwards Sir Eobert Mac- kenzie of Coul, was a man of high type, and safe MR. ROBERT G. W. HERBERT (First Premier of Queensland.) and honourable in his representation of the "pure merino " of those days. Joshua Bell of Jimbour was a great favourite with everybod}-, public and private. Handsome and prosperous, he was our champion representative of Queensland growth ; he never made 229 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. an enemy, but, alas ! died in the prime of life, President of the Legislative Council of Queensland, as Sir Joshua Bell, K.C.M.G. Fortunately his eldest son is imbued with proper political ambition, and so far is treading in his father's footsteps in the Colony of his birth, and one can only wish that there were more with the same ambition. 1866 saw the advent in the Queensland Parliament of the gifted and high-minded William Henry Walsh as member for Maryborough, who was destined to take a place in a good many Ministries and fill the Speaker's Chair with great credit for some years. The Ministerial speech of the Session of 1866 that saw the foregoing Ministry in power, congratulated the Colony on both the northern and southern railways having been pushed forward. It alluded to the stream of continental immigration, and stated the protracted drought to have been the main cause of the temporary depression (which it was not, as it really arose from the financial panic in London), and it wound up with the satisfactory statement " That the revenue of 1865 had exceeded that of 1864 by 25 per cent., and that during the six years since the establishment of the Colony the European population had increased fourfold, whilst our revenue and trade had been more than trebled, and pastoral settlement had been extended over an area at least four times larger than the area of the United Kingdom." This year saw some labour riots at Brisbane, which indicated the coming financial depression. 230 IXITIATIOX OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMEXT. In 1867 the Ministry of Arthur Macalister met Parliament, TA'ith the exceptions to its roll that T. B Stephens took the Treasurership, and Joshua Bell relieved Macalister of the Lands Department, John Douglas becoming Minister for Works, and the Postmaster-Generalship fell to St. George Gore in the Upper House. This Ministry, however, was beaten in August, and was succeeded by Sir Eobert Eamsay Mackenzie as Premier and Colonial Trea- surer, Arthur Hunter Palmer as Colonial Secretary and Secretary for Public Works, Edward W. Lamb as Secretary for Lands, Eatcliffe Pring as Attorney- General, and Thomas Murray Prior as Postmaster- General. This year 1867 was a busy one for Legislators with its session in May and a second one in August. The Viceregal speech at the earlier date stated that " The Leasing and Agricultural Eeserves Act had been brought into active o]-)eration and the survey of Crown lands vigorously prosecuted." It further- more thus described the position of Queensland : " The public domain is ha])pily of such vast extent and of such varied character that there can be no practical difficulty in supplying the utmost possible demand for the possession of landed property." Prophetic words, uttered over thirty years ago, which were destined to l)e thoroughly realised. For whether it be agricultural soil <»n tlie Darling Downs, or the western plains of Eonia, or the coast lands of Mackay, liundaberg, f)r the Burdekin, (he rich wool- 281 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. growing and fattening pastures of the great west, or the mineral holdings of Gympie, Charters Towers, Chillagoe and Croydon, or the Cloncurry, Queens- land's reputation is now thoroughly established, and the requirements for every description of settlement are being fully met. The railway to Toowoomba was this session announced as open to traffic, and notice was given of contracts for further extension. This was an immense relief and comfort to travellers inland from Brisbane, as the road from Ipswich to the foot of the main range had long been a "slough of despond," and had become, where not corduroyed after wet seasons, an almost impassable morass. From the foot of the main range there were about ten miles of an ascent to Toowoomba, covering a gradual height of some 2,000 ft., the engineering being clever and picturesque, the windings of a certain gap being followed which brings the line, backwards and forwards almost over its own steps, thus gaining the summit almost imperceptibly. From the top a grand panorama towards the east is obtained over the country traversed, chiefly sombre forest of the eucalyptus type, with crags and knolls that were once the fastnesses of the fighting abori- ginal tribes of the early Darling Downs days, one peak being pointed out as having been held by natives who checked the approach of their aggressors by rolling huge pieces of rock upon them. Whether the engineering of this line was the most saving in 232 XP, W w p o( "< o o o o H w C/3 INITIATION OF RESPONSIBIE GOVERNMENT. expenditure I liave heard great doubts expressed, having been told that a much better gap has been found since those days. I may here say a few words about Toowoomba, which was my home for a few sessions. That good, rich red-soil township is unquestionably the sana- torium of Queensland ; it is almost impossible not to feel well there ; the air is like champagne, and the tropical denizen of the north and west can soon find renewed strength and vigour for them if he brings his family, as he often does, to this capital of the Darlincr Downs. Toowoomba has a great future before it, being at the junction of railway lines south to the New South Wales border and west to Eoma and Charleville ; not only is it a great agricul- tural centre, but it is one from which a pastoralist can by telegraph command markets, or if necessary travel by rail and coach to his possessions. In this third Parliament of Queensland the follow- ing additional members were added to the roll of the Assembly : James (now Sir James) Garrick, destined to make his way hereafter as a valuable Minister and Agent-General for Queensland ; Eobert Kamsay, hereafter alluded to as Colonial Treasurer; George Clark of Talgai, T. H. Fitzgerald, Charles Fitz- simmons, Wilham Miles, for some time a Mhiister for Works; A. II Pritchard, and Henry Thorn, a brother of George Thorn, who was for some little time I'remier of Queensland. The Governor's speech in the second session of 23.3 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. 1867 mentioned the promised visit of the Duke of Edinburgh, then Prince Alfred, and dwelt on tlie proposed enlargement of the settled districts with a selection of 40 to 640 acres of land to be leased for eight years at 2s. 6d., which should form the purchase-money, the land under offer to comprise most of the Darling Downs, East and West Moreton, the district of Wide Bay, and "all lands within reasonable distance of navigable rivers." It alluded to the readjustment of electorates and fresh laws for the registration of electors and the conduct of elections. The end of 1867 brought with it the departure of Governor Bowen, who had been trans- ferred to the Government of New Zealand, which he was to assume on December 21, 1867, and his departure was made the occasion of reciprocal addresses between the Legislature and himself that testified to the friendly nature of the bonds that had existed between Queensland and her first Governor. As might be expected. Sir George Bowen's farewell message was happily put. It told Parhament that "he had earnestly laboured throughout the eight years of his administration to perform his duty to the best of his judgment and abihty ; he would here- after continue to regard with proud and grateful interest the progress of this Colony where he and his family had received so much sympathy and respect, and with the history of which his name as that of its first Governor must remain for ever connected." A graceful reply was sent from both 236 IX IT I ATI ox OF RESPOXSIDLE GOVERXMEXT. branches of the Legislature, which voted a sum of money to be spent in procuring a good portrait of the retiring Governor. The sitting in March, 1868, was renewed in August of same year, Sir Maurice O'Connell acting as Governor ; the occasion was made interesting by both Houses meeting for the first time in the new Houses of Parhament, which had been erected nominally for £17,500, Sir Maurice O'Connell stating that " he had pleasure in meeting you for the first time in this noble building, which the munificence of a former Parliament has pro- vided as the future Palace of the Legislature." Allusion was made to the attempted assassination of Prince Alfred by O'Farrell on 12th March in one of the little bays of Sydney Harbour, Clontarf, soon after his return from Queensland, where the previous month he had laid the foundation stone of the Brisbane Grammar School. I was in Sydney, stopping at the Union Club, at the time of this attempt, and well do I remember the horror it created. It was at first thought the wound was mortal, and it was reported as such. The Prince was brought to Government House from Clontarf, and the public were soon relieved by an examination, which proved the bullet to have glanced round the ribs without penetrating the vital parts. It was a period of intense excite- ment, and as all the Prince's shi})mates were going in and out of the Club eager for news, the reaction, 237 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. when word was brought tliat there was no danger, was tremendous, and a good many healths were drunk to the complete recovery of the genial Prince. The Viceregal speech spoke of a million acres of the choicest portion of the Darling Downs being thrown open for agriculture and 800,000 acres in East and West Moreton, and an allusion was made to the difficulties of accurate survey. Now I must say I always thought the Survey Department of Queensland under its old heads, Augustus Gregory and W. A. Tully, a very wonderful and accurate department — a marvel, in fact, of administration. Considering its vast dealings, with the drawbacks of drought and flood, scrub and plain, and all the incidents of such a widespread country, there were wonderfully few mistakes made, and no corruption was ever even tried. In August, on the arrival of Governor Blackall, Parliament was prorogued preparatory to a dissolu- tion, in consec|uence of the defeat of the Mackenzie Ministry on the Address, by a majority of two in a House of twenty-seven members. The downfall of the Squatting Ministry was followed by the following Liberal administration on 25th November : — Charles Lilley T. B. Stephens T. H. Fitzgerald A. Maealister John Douglas Premier and Attorney-General. Colonial Secretary. Colonial Treasurer. Secretary for Lands and Works. Postmaster-General. Parliament met for its second session in that year late in November, 1868, the session lasting till April, 238 IXITIATIOX OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT. 1869. Gilbert Elliot was for the fourth time elected Speaker, ^Yell-ea^ned eulogiums being made on his conduct in the chair now for twelve sessions. And it was pleasant to record thus early that " The Parliament of Queensland would bear a pleasing comparison with any other Parliament in any part of the world in the propriety and decorum which characterised its debates." Governor Blackall's opening speech of the Fourth Parliament of Queensland was a short production, as it was proposed to curtail the present session so as to re-assemble at a more convenient time of the year, the closing months of which were then more devoted to the pastoral exigencies of lambing and shearing than, at any rate, in Western and Xorthern Queensland, they are now, when shearing often begins before July, and lambing is carried out still earlier in March and April. Thanks were expressed for rains, which led the Governor to hope " That the disastrous drought which had for an unusually lengthened period affected the Colony is about to give place to a succession of seasons alike favourable to the agriculturist and grazier." Parliament was prorogued on 22nd April, 1869, a reconstruction of the Ministry having taken place on 28th January, b}' which Arthur Hodgson became Colonial Secretary and James Taylor Minister for Lands, thus giving a backbone of solidity to the Lilley Ministr\', Hodgson and Taylor Ijeing large holders of real i)roperty on the Darling Downs. CHAPTER XVII. QUEENSLAND PAELIAMENTARY LIFE. April, 1869, saw me, as before mentioned, in Bris- bane taking my seat as M.L.A. for Clermont, and I must confess that after the ups and downs of a bush life, which have formed the preceding chapters of my sunny Australian career, it was pleasant to be a representative of the people for the part of the great Colony that one had assisted in settling, all the more so as the Council and Assembly were composed of a lot of straight old colonists who gave character to those institutions, which I hardly need say were formed strictty on the model of the English Parliament. The natural surroundings were charm- ing, the Houses of Parliament were even then (they have been added to since) noble buildings, rather beyond the wants of the country than otherwise, though they were not so after subsequent additions to the roll of the Assembly had been made. The Speaker, old Gilbert Elliot, was a benign and fine old gentleman, courteous to all members ; his Clerk of the Assembly, Louis Bernays, C.M.G., who I am glad to say is still to the fore, was the 240 QUEENSLAND PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. friendly adviser of all new members and the trusty confidant of most of the old ones who wanted to mature, secundum artem, a Bill for the good of the Colony at large, or pass a measure of relief for their own constitutents. The Parliamentary Library was also an attractive feature, with a librarian (Mr. Donovan, C.M.G.), whose industry and attention is beyond praise. In fact, ensconced in one of the many comfortable armchairs to be found there, and given a bright Queensland winter's day, with a look-out on the glorious vista of the Botanical Gardens below you and the chosen literature of the old world within your reach, a Queensland member of Parliament had much to be thankful for, and I think could have done very well without the £800 a year which, I am told, is his solatium now. The Legislative Council was presided over by that distinguished old soldier. Sir Maurice O'Connell, who had won his spurs in the Carlist wars and wore the f{rand cordons of the orders of Ferdinand and Isabella and Charles III. of Spain with the grace and dignity of a Spanish hidalgo — a good type of colonist was Sir Maurice, handsome, courteous and suave. The Ministry at the opening of the session of 1869 was a coalition one, of which Charles Lilley was the Premier and Attorney-General, Artliur Hodgson Colonial Secretary, McAlister Secretary for Public Works, James Taylor ^Minister for Lands, T. B. LMI Ki JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Stephens, Colonial Treasurer, and John Douglas Postmaster-General, The chief provisions of the ministerial programme, as set forth in the speech from the throne, which I will however not quote in extenso., were : — Additional Eepresentation, Amendment and Con- solidation of Laws relating to the Occupation of Crown Lands (virtually the great "Pastoral Leases Act of 1869 " ), Polynesian labour, " demanding a determined solution of the question." The cotton bonus came next, and it was singular that in the attempt to establish it the speech stated : " That by our liberality it had established that article on the list of exports, thus providing an almost unlimited field for the extension of agricultural enterprise." Later on it became evident that the production of cotton in Queensland diminished in the same ratio as the bounty, and when that was withdrawn altogether the production of cotton ingloriously ceased — so much for bounties and bonus. It is well to recall here the extreme financial pressure we suffered from at that time, quoting the Governor's speech, which went on to say, and it was not badly put, that "In common with the most wealthy countries in the world we have endured, since 1866, a severe and discouraging depression in trade and commerce. The sacrifices of these past years, however, have not been made in vain, we regret great private losses by our citizens, much public inconvenience, and great suffering." 242 QUEENSLAND PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. And it alluded to " the spirit of economy roused by our reverses." Twenty-three years after, in 1893, amidst the crash of our banks and financial institutions and depreciation of even real property, much the same remarks could with justice have been made ; let us hope that the periods between these colonial crashes will get longer and longer. On this my first session I recollect Jordan moved the address in reply, and I was asked, as a new member, to second it, which I did, specially stipu- lating, however, that I did not pledge myself to sup- port the Government, though I must confess I wanted to get out of them as much as I could for my somewhat waterless constituency. The incce cle resistance of the session was the " Pastoral Leases Act of 1869," which has since formed the basis of Queensland Pastoral Legislation. A tenure of twenty-one years was given to the Squatter at the then low rentals, with an increase of ten per cent, on same after each period of seven years ; the lessees were to be allowed to protect their head stations or other improvements by the pre-emptive right to buy not more than 2,560 acres, at 10s. an acre out of every 25 square miles, or 1 6,000 acres, which was the regulation " block of country." The Government were to have the right to reserve the same quantity ])y ])i'oclamation, and a furtlier invidious clause was introduced that the Government should be able to resume " any por- tion " of the Pastoralists' leasehold, provided that the 2\?, 10* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. schedule of the same was laid before both Houses of Parliament and was not dissented from by same for sixty days. I well remember the fight over this, as it seemed to us then, iniquitous clause, and the bitter feeling these long nights' debates engendered between Pastoralists and Anti-Pastoralists, but the coalition ministry was too strong, and, half a loaf being better than no bread, the measure was finally accepted. I must say here that in after days, during the currency of this Act, I can recollect no instance in which the obnoxious clause was used to the detriment of an}^ lessee. This Act of 1869 gave a feeling of security to the Pastoralists, and when things began to mend in the early seventies, many a fine property changed hands at high figures on the strength of the tenure that a few years before had not been deemed good enough for the then impoverished Squatter. The Act of 1869 was remodelled in 1884 to meet the exigencies of a growing demand for pastoral land in smaller areas. There have been in all the other colonies similar amending Land Acts from time to time, but I can safely say that in no colony, with the exception of South Australia perhaps, has more re- spect been paid than in Queensland to the genuine rights of the leaseholder ; hence the capital the Colony has attracted, not only from Great Britain but other colonies, especially Victoria. As regards the leaders of parties in the Parliament of Queensland of that time, the palm of oratorical 244 QUEEXSLAND PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. success of course easily lay with Charles Lilley, Q.C., who was gifted by nature with an excellent and per- suasive voice and was never at a loss for the right word to illustrate his argument or chastise his foes. He would have held his own in any Assembly in the world, but he was his own enemy in that he never gave sufficient credit for high motives, and was avowedly a radical in a new country, where you don't SIR ARTHUR HUNTKR PALMKR. want to uproot, Init rather to plant out. His oppo- nent, Arthur Hunter Palmer, who was the leader of the Pastoral party (afterwards Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer, President of the Legislative Council), was a wonderful man to emanate from sheep station luan- af^ement. Though not an orator, he had the con- vincing gift of speaking the strongest common sense in excellent and at times indeed eloquent language ; 2 1.', JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. he was always forcible, and when they lost him in the Legislative Assembly, on his retirement to the Presi- dency of the Council, Pastoral Queensland suffered a heavy loss and the Colony generally a sound and honest statesman. The fact is the management of a colony is a good deal like the management of a station on a large scale, and Palmer had proved him- self an excellent station manager, and in that business learned the best use to put the country to and the control of the various kinds of labour required to develop it. Amongst those who were numbered in the Parliament of that day some few filled, and that ably, positions in the ministries of the day, such as John Douglas, Joshua Bell, Arthur Hodgson, Eobert Eamsay, Archibald Archer, and John Bramston ; but Lilley and Palmer were the conspicuous leaders, and as such I venture to pay a tribute to their memory, especially as they have passed away. Following these notable men other statesmen have since filled the roll of service as leaders of parties and Premiers in Queensland, to wit. Sir Samuel Griffith, Sir Thomas Mcllwraith, and more lately Sir Hugh Nelson ; and when in the next and fast approaching century the history of Queensland comes to be written ample j ustice will no doubt be given to the services of these distinguished men. Having sat some time in Parliament with the first two I may venture to touch upon their leading characteristics : Sir Samuel Griffith, who now fills with honour the post of Chief Justice of Queensland, is a first rate 246 QUEENSLAND PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. specimen of blended colonial and English education, and by indomitable industry and perseverance, as well as great ability, lie soon attained the highest position at the Bar in Queensland. No case was too long for him, no hours too fatiguing ; he thus early earned the highest fees of any counsel in the colony, and the statute book of Queensland and records of Hansard bear testimony to the volume of his indefa- tigable industry. It may, however, be a moot point whether clever lawyers always make the best states- men, and perhaps Sir Samuel Griffith's most valuable work pohtically for Queensland will be found to have been watching that the statesmanship of Sir Thomas Mcllwraith should not assume too broad a groove, whilst Sir Thomas' best work on the other hand will perhaps have been that of seeing that his opponent Sir Samuel Griffith's legislation was not too narrow. Sir Samuel's pohtical services are, however, quite apart from the great legal ones he has during his long career been able to render Queensland, which are comprised in his '-Criminal Code Act" of 1899, and his even more recent efforts in the cause of Federation. Sir Thomas Mcllwraith's abilities and character were of an opposite type to that of his opponent, being bold, prompt, and masterful, almost too sanguine in fact ; still, in critical times of doubt or difficulty, when a strong man was wanted at the helm, that strong man was there, and the people of Queensland, and notably Brisbane, had at one time immense con- 2 17 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. fidence in him ; it is a matter of regret that ill-health has in his case prematurely closed a great career. Of Sir Hugh Nelson, who has succeeded Sir Arthur Palmer in that haven of Queensland repose, the Presidency of the Legislative Council, it will be said of him that as Premier he was always safe on the brido-e, with iust and honourable instincts and a good shrewd head for accounts, which made him an especially good treasurer. Sir Hugh is another in- stance of sheep station management qualifying for the bigger grasp of colonial statesmanship, his early days having been spent in the industrious care of flocks and herds, first for others, then for himself. In his too early and serene retirement Sir Hugh Nelson must remain pleasantly conscious of having made but few enemies, and, at the same time, must congratulate himself in leaving a difficult task for his successor; for the Queensland of to-day is a different country to the Queensland of thirty years ago, having expanded more consistently and natu- rally than any other of the Australian colonies from the fact of her possessing a greater diversity of soil and climate and resources within her, riches which seem to come out always when wanted, and that at the rio-ht time. 1870 saw MacAlister elected Speaker, vice EUiot resioiied ; and it also saw two dissolutions of the Assembly during twelve months, the first given to the Lilley Cabinet, the second to the Palmer Ministry in July, the Governor granting the second " con- 248 QUEENSLAND PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. sidering the defeat of both parties in the Legislative Assembly within so short a time, and the vital im- portance to the colony of a decision on its future financial policy." The fact was in those days the balance of parties in a house of thirty members was a matter of one or two votes, and often that of the casting vote of the Speaker ; and I recollect Palmer congratulatino- me when I came down a second time as member for Clermont on " forming the Govern- ment majority," and he considerately made me whip of his party on that occasion. Palmer's Ministry consisted of himself as Colonial Secretary, Bramston as Attorney-General, Pobert Eamsay Colonial Treasurer, W. H. Walsh Secretary for Works, Malbon Thompson Minister for Lands, and T. L. Murray Prior as Postmaster-General, a strong team as things M'ent, the Colonial Treasurer, Eobert Piamsay, making " the most clear and lucid statement of the country's financial position at tliat date that had so far been furnished to the country." It is well to recall that the loan account of the colony at that date in the Acts passed 1861, '63, '64, and '66 amounted in all to only 3J millions. Palmer's programme was met on 30tli November by a series of counter resolutions framed by Lilley which became famous, and which it is not unin- teresting to quote as a most liberal dish. The resolutions were as follows : — L Judicious system of immigration and libei-al scheme of public works. 249 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. 2. Ee venue to be derived from sale and rent of Crown lands in each district to be applied towards meeting interest of all money expended in public works in such district. 3. That with this view it is expedient to alienate land at a low rate or at cost of survey in fee simple, reserving a perpetual annual rent proportioned to the special advantages of their location. The division on this question was fourteen for and fourteen against the measure, the Speaker giving his casting vote for the Government and against these resolutions in order to enable the Government to procure supply. This meant a narrow shave for a gamble in land and the adoption of " sell the land first and tax it after." With the limited knowledge we had of the real value of our lands in those days I always considered this proposal a very dangerous one, and succeeding years did not alter my opinion, and ever after I should have ticketed Charles Lilley as " dangerous " in politics. In Jul}', 1870, Thomas Mcllwraith made his first appearance in Parliament as member for the War- rego ; he then took his seat on Lilley's side, and presumably voted for these resolutions. In 1871, Governor Blackall, an amiable gentleman who had never been strong and who had suffered from residence in hot countries, died, and was suc- ceeded, after a long interregnum filled by Sir Maurice O'Connell as Lieutenant-Governor, by the Marquis of Normanby. Lord Normanby, besides his long Par- 250 QUEEXSLAXn PARLIAMEXTARY LIFE. liamentary experience in tlie House of Commons as Liberal whip, brought with him the solid prestige and sporting tastes of the English country gentle- man. He was accompanied by Lady Normanby, who endeared herself to all, and employed as private secretary his kinsman, Captain L^win C. Maling, a MARQUIS AND MARCHIONKSS OF XORMAXBY. smart soldier, and as A.D.C. a son of his great friend, Mr. Martin Tucker Smith, the late lamented Charles Eidley Smith. These two lively gentlemen kept the society of Brisbane going with an (':dai the capital had been a stranger to during the days of depression. Lord Xormanljy's Oovernr)r.slnp was in every way a 251 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. success, his strong common sense and parliamentary experience standing him in good stead as a constitu- tional Governor, especially in cases of precedent and disputes between rival leaders, which were not uncommon in those days. This year saw nascent signs of returning prosperity, the long series of droughts having broken up, and that in some districts with destructive suddenness. 1872 saw the introduction of an Electoral Districts Bill, which gave twelve new members to the Assembly, giving thereby more scope to its discus- sions. Normanby was one of the new electorates and I was glad to sit for it, ceding my seat for Clermont to C. J. Graham, who some time after became Under Secretary for Education. Samuel Walker Griffith this year began his eventful Parliamentary career as member for East Moreton ; also the witty and ever cheerful B, D. Morehead, who moved the address in reply. A new loan bill for a million and a half was proposed, raising the whole indebtedness of Queens- land in July, 1872, to £5,129,000, about a sixth of our present burden. 1873 brought the new members with it, and an excellent lot they were ; C. J. Graham moved the address in a promising speech, A. B. Buchanan, called " Little Buchanan," seconding it in an equally sensible speech. Henry King, who afterwards occupied the Speaker's chair, making a trenchant oration ; alto- gether the additions to Parliament were a success. It was noteworth}', as recalling the economic progress 252 QCEEXSLAXD PARLIAMEXTARY LIFE. the colon}' was making at the time, that the Colonial Treasurer, Eobert Eamsay, speaking in the debate on the Address, stated the following fact regarding our loans; that whereas £1,170,956 had in 1866 been offered at six per cent, and disposed of at an average of £90, or £6 13s. per cent., the recent loan ( 1 872-73) at £4 had fetched £87, or £4 lis. lOd. ; the colony had thus saved £2 Is. 4d. per cent. Had the pubhc purse of the Colonj^ been able to secure a continuity of the services of so clear-headed a business man as Eobert Eamsay as its custodian, it would have been a great advantage to the Colony. He was, however, affected at the time with a throat ailment, which caused his early retirement, much to the loss of the Colony. I am happy to say he still lives in the enjoy- ment of his excellent faculties in England, his numerous sons carrying on the pastoral occupations of the family in Queensland. The end of 1873 saw another dissolution m-anted o by Lord Xormanby, " so as to allow a new and enlarged house to be elected on a broader basis of representation." The fact was the turn of the wheel had come and wool was leturning to its old price and everything recovering from the dark days of 1866-70. 1874 opened uncommonly well for the Colony, which was jumping ahead, a ministerial statement being made to the effect that the financial operations for the last two years showed a surplus of revenue over expenditure of £240,000 after liquidating a previous deficit of £56,000. 2.5:5 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. J. E. Dickson and C. H. Buzacott, both excellent men, made their first appearance in Parliament at this period ; the first continues a useful business-like career that has enabled him at one time to occupy the Premier's chair, and since as Chief Secretary to render excellent services to Queensland as its delegate in London on the Federation question. Mr, Buzacott, after a useful career, has found rest and repose in the Legislative Council. 254 TF CHAPTER XVIII. SHEEP STATION LIFE, WOLFAXG. " Eeyexoxs a xos 3I0UT0NS." I now resume my squatting narrative. With the year 1870 began better hopes for the pastoral industry of Queensland, though that particular year was a very dr}- one. The fniancial panic of 1866 was giving way to restored confidence, wool was beginning to look up, capital for fencing and water conservation purposes was forthcoming to reliable managers, and the banks began to give out what they had been so desperately anxious to pull in. In the Peak Downs countr}^ headed by the Messrs. Travers, settlers now began fencing their runs and dismissing the old-time shepherd. I well recollect the endless discussions manaijers and owners had amongst themselves regarding the gauges and descrip- tion of the sheep fencing whenever they met or camped with each other. Good bushmen, i.e., fencers, etc., were in great demand, carriage was brisk, and indents for wire of different specifications in the London market reached large proportions. It was clear that country under fencing would carry a lot more stock than under the old shepherd- JOURNAL OF ^ QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. ing system, when a flock of sheep with a knowing old hand at its tail would be driven over the pasture instead of roaming in perfect freedom and taking its time to nibble the untrodden grass as it chose, either by day or by night ; the habits of stock in semi- tropical Queensland favouring feeding at early dawn and late at night, the sheep generally camping in the day time. Besides which, a lazy shepherd, who wasn't watched, might not let out his sheep till any hour. We were not slow in following Messrs. Travers' lead in beginning our fencing at Wolfang, for which purpose we were lucky in having a splendid reserve of iron bark timber on the outskirts of our run. Fencing meant increasing our debit at the bank, but we saw repose from lost sheep hunting and a smaller labour bill in days to come, as under the paddocking sj^stem the boundary rider might look after twenty thousand sheep instead of three. Of course the native dog had to be exterminated, and the demand for strychnine to poison baits with became fjreat. We formed an Association which offered a pound a head for the scalp and tail of each native dog, so that, besides our own boundary riders, mailmen far and wide drove a good trade in securing scalps by lajdng baits on distant tracks. I recollect one year on the Peak Downs when nearly two thousand dogs were paid for, causing a whole- sale destruction of the dreaded dingo, which after- wards led to an inroad of marsupials, a counter pest 2o6 SHEEP STATION LIFE, WOLFANG. which increased rapidly after the destruction of their natural enemy. The district for several years hereafter had to suffer heavily for thus destroying the balance of nature ; many runs had to add to the sheep fencing marsupial wire netting, which was very costly ; this after trying all kinds of battues to shoot off the wallaby and kangaroo inside the paddocks as well as those outside, which bred up in thousands in the outlying scrubs of the Nogoa and Belj^ando which surround Peak Downs. The break up of the long drought of 1870 took place, I well remember, in a very summary fashion on the last day of February, 1871. Watercourses had not run for fifteen months, the black soil plains of Wolfang were parched and grassless, and large cracks gaped in the soil here and there, dangerous to sheep and horse ; the live stock, with flaccid sides and drooping heads, hung about the wells waiting for the filling of the tanks and troughs by the primitive but certain horse-and-whim process of those days, for our water supply at Wolfang in dry weather was wholly dependent on wells, the supply being secured at under 100 feet. We used horse-whims of one regular Eiverina pattern, with thirty - gallon self-acting buckets attached. The moment the horse began haulinf^ at the whim the sheep round the well would rouse up and make a dash for the spouts that filled the troughs, giving the whim driver all he could do to prevent their smothering. It was wonderful, certainly, to see how 2.J7 17 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. stock would hold out with little and dry grass so long as they could get a belly-full of sweet, cool water. It was a close and hot Sunday afternoon, I recol- lect, when my brother and I rode down to our agistment paddocks near Clermont to see how matters were getting on there, when on our return at sundown we noticed a bank of dark cloud, the first for man}^ a month, rising over the line of Peak £ange, distant some twenty miles from our home- stead. This bank kept steadily and swiftly rising, an ominous stillness prevailed, and we made up our minds that something unusual was going to happen. By dark the sky had become covered, and soon, driven by a north-east wind, the water spout came down upon us fast and furious^ so much so that we had to run up to the kitchen for our evening meal, which the servant couldn't face the storm to bring down. It poured with a thin close rain, which meant big floods, and found out every crack in our slabbed huts and shingled roofs, sleep being out of the question ; so brother and self and our fidus achates and factotum storekeeper, Baldwin, kept walking up and down the verandah wondering what disaster the morning would bring with it. We had a fine lot of breeding ewes about to lamb in our lower paddock and dreaded their having run into the shelter of the creek timber, which in a big flood would mean their being swept away. There was no lull till morning in the thick rain, that kept 258 SHEEP STATION LIFE, WOLFANG. falling at the tropical rate of perhaps over an inch an hour, and compelled the reflection that in this land of extremes yon really could never tell whether to dread most a famine or a flood. The grey morning dawned with the tailing-off of the water- spout, and showed the distant line of the creek water coverino- the low mavall bushes that sfrew more than a mile on the station side of the creek ; this meant that the flood was already two miles wide, which would cover the greater part of our lowest paddock. Before evening we had got the strongest horses we could get and ploughed our way to our lower run, where, after swimming and wading across the creek, all we could find out of our 6,000 choice ewes was a small lot of 300 ; and, alas, other sheep from paddocks above seemed caught here and there in the high branches of the creek timber, which prepared us for further losses. The ground being like a vast bog we deferred investigation till it dried up a bit, anxl returned home sadder and wiser men, soaked through and glad to get a glass of grog and smoke a comforting and reflective pipe. We soon learnt that the eastern end of Peak Downs had sufl^ered nearly as much as our end. Lilyvale had been cleared out, and at Capella two teams and teamsters had been swept away at their camp at dead of night. Our losses at Wolfang were found to Ije not far short of ] 5,000 sheep, and we heard of heavy losses at other stations, 2.".!) 17* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. such as Gordon Downs and Yamala ; whilst fencing, new fencing mostly, too, had suffered enormously. We were also very anxious to learn the fate of Clermont, my electoral town, which lay at the junction of Wolfang with Sandy Creek, some eight miles below us, but it was some little time before news could get across. When our stockman came he brought news that carcases of our sheep were to be seen in the tree tops along the creek, and also caught on the roofs of such houses as were left standing in Clermont, the lower portion of which had been swept clean away, having been injudici- ously built between Sandy Creek and the Clermont Lagoon. The houses on the Sandy ridge beyond the Lagoon had escaped. Four or five people were missinof, and stories were told of a cottage, the corner posts of which had not been sunk in the ground, waltzing down the flood with lamps alight. The editor of the local paper had passed the night, with many others, in the forks of some neighbouring trees, and had seen the ruin of his plant. Clermont had learned a lesson which I trust will be of profit to that excellent little township in its future and present building operations. It is well to fix this flood as an historical one that may happen again in sub-tropical Queensland ; for, exactly twenty years after, a similar waterspout fell in the environs of Brisbane, during which twenty- seven inches of rain fell in twenty-four hours, devastating the valley of the Brisbane and Bremer, 260 SHEEP STATION LIFE, WOLFANG. carrying away the great Victoria Bridge and doing the capital of Queensland an immensity of damage. This loss of sheep coming to us so soon after the cessation of the shepherding system made old settlers reflect that the old way had its advantages, as sheep stations and sheep yards were generally put out of flood reach, and sheep in the fold were generally safe. Sheep are, it must be said, uncommonly stupid animals which will take shelter in any flooded ground provided it is timbered. After this flood we always took good care to clear the low grounds near the creeks on the approach of heavy rains. The lesson was a severe one, but then Queensland squatting is full of such, especially considering that not many weeks before we had lost over 100 sheep in a fierce bush fire that had swept one of our upper paddocks. Our excellent partner in Sydney hearing of Clermont being swept away, and our sheep being lodged high in river gum trees, sent alarming tele- grams. We were glad to reassure him and advise him he must not give in, for this flood proved the turning point of good seasons and better times. Our credit was good, so we set to work developing the rest of the run; and when our fences were ready we purchased 30,000 breeding ewes from settlers between us and the coast, who found their country better adapted for cattle tlian sheep. These shee]) we got very cheap, and putting them to good rams, and having a run of rattling good seasons, we soon 2G:5 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. got into numbers, so that after judicious culling we were able to deliver 110,000 good sheep with Wolfancf when we sold it in 1875. The price pastoralists obtained for wool in the first half of the seventies, together with current seasons, were excellent, and had these been main- tained we should have all become wealthy men. I recollect shearing a clip of seven pounds per sheep over all at Wolfang and getting a shilling a pound in the grease for it, and also selling wethers half fleeced at nine shillings a head for the Darling Downs market. This was in 1873. At this time Peak Downs presented an attractive residence for a squatter. If the summers were hot the winters were delightful, and as everything was progressing and the returns good, a man felt in good heart with himself. The scenery was never monotonous as long as you were in sight of Peak Range, and there was always plenty of work in laying out new paddocks, fixing the site of new wells, and ever and anon when these were bottomed watching the last blasts of our clever well-sinker, Marshall, when he had struck water on the rock and the last shot had to be fired upon which the success of the flow of water greatly depended. We built good huts and good horse paddocks for our boundary riders, and generally arranged that they should work together at mustering time, so that on open country like Peak Downs one could work a big property with wonderfully few hands. The 264 SHEEP STATION LIFE, WO LEAN G. Peak Downs was excellent wool-growing country, and remains so still ; much of it has been converted into freehold, and that is partly in the hands of selectors who combine agriculture with grazing, but it is mostly owned by the lessees of the original stations, who were able to purchase the pick of their land at a very reasonable rate. We had made a good out-station in a picturesque spot under Table Mountain, and often spent Sunday there restino- from the week's work, taking with us generally a visitor or two to hunt the kangaroo with some excellent dogs I had bred and secured. Joe Conway was the chief whip on these occasions, and many's the fight we have had with gigantic old men kangaroo and also the wallaroo, a black and more thick-set mountain kangaroo that was tougher to kill The riding, owing to the rocky nature of the country, was pretty rough, but we had a lot of handy horses that went nose to the ground like greyhounds after their prey. My eldest brother I recollect paid us a visit about this time, and, being a famous hunter, we had a week's camp at Table Creek, which nearly ended disastrously, as his horse being blown feU in a stony gully in one of our chases, and he gave himself a severe strain, so severe indeed that it was not until we had sent for Dr. Tayloi-, (jiir Clermont medico, that we knew for certain thai lu; had not Ijroken his tliigh. He had to be carried home in great pain, and it was a month before he was lit to travel. The doctor, who is now 207 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. an honoured member of the Legislative Council in Brisbane, did a wonderful ride from Clermont to Table Mountain, and the horses he used were not much good after. He was so rejoiced at the upshot of his visit that, being of a sporting nature, he left his patient for a bit and had a turn after the kan- garoo with fresh horses, notwithstanding his journey of 30 miles. Good old days, when our world was young. Kangaroo huntinsf is an art. If the dogs are staunch and not tired, and don't require continual encouragement to follow up their quarry, they will so press the game that, like a boomerang, the kangaroo will return to the spot he started from and be often killed within a short distance of his lair. An " old man " won't gallop far, but the yearling ones, so-called flyers, will generally give the fleetest dog a great chase and often best him. I had a visit from a gay travelling barrister, George B. Hudson (now M.P. for West Hertford- shire), about this time, that left a pleasant impression on all concerned ; witty and good humoured, he thoroughly enjoyed the knocking about, and being an excellent taxidermist he was often busy recruiting and curing his specimens of birds. One day we brought him back an emu, and tried to persuade him it was a large specimen of the bustard, which grew to a wonderful size on Beak Downs, but it wouldn't do, and we had a hearty laugh over it. He got a httle touch of fever and ague, but soon 268 SHEEP STATION LIFE, WOLFANG. shook it off, and we often now when we meet in England talk of the Brisbane Club and the trip to Wolfang that followed our first meeting there in the days of our youth. Talking of emus and the rate they can trot at, Peak Downs was full of them, and I once for a bet ran my horse " Canary," a very speedy chestnut, alongside a big male bird, took him by the neck, dragged him for a few yards and let him go. So that is quite possible on a level plain. There is no more inoffensive bird or a more picturesque one than the emu, aud I do not think beyond taking the eggs occasionally for ornamental purposes they are ever interfered with. They yield oil that is held by old bush hands as a sovereign remedy for stiff joints or rheumatism, and many and many a hut has its bottle of emu oil hanging by the chimney ; this oil has the faculty of oozing out of the glass, so permeating and incisive are its powers. The flesh of the emu is like veal and not at all bad eating. My friend, P. F. Macdonald, of Yaamba, captured one on the Nogoa in 1860, when he was in the direst straits for want of rations ; it saved him and his mate, and so he adopted it as his crest. Alas for Australian explorers and pioneers generally, their crest has been oftener a drooping one, and few like P. F. Macdonald have lived to reap substantial reward from the taking up of country in early Queensland days. 209 CHAPTER XIX. WESTWARD HO. In 1872 Mr. Roderick Travers, of Peak Downs, had purchased from Messrs. Rule and Lacy the lower half of their Aramac Creek Run, the Aramac being noted as a well-watered creek, running through rich mitchell grass plains, and equal to anything on the Barcoo, Aramac Creek being one of the heads of the Thompson River, which runs parallel to the far-famed Barcoo, watering perhaps the richest pastoral country in Australia, if not in the world. Aramac township had just been formed, a mile from the head station, which lay 180 miles west from Peak Downs, most of the country between these districts after leaving the Belyando being spinifex and so called " desert " country, some of it growing also a poison bush, that often played havoc with travelling sheep if they cropped it when hungry. A gallant and determined Scotchman,Willie Forsyth by name, was Messrs. Travers and Gibson's manager at the Aramac, and under his charge the development of that property was rapid though costly, the prices for wool and sheep at that time perhaps warranting 270 IVESTIVARD HO. the venture ; but the long distance from port for rations, wire and so forth, together with heavy wool rates down to Rockhampton, made a heavy charge against profits. Wages ruled high also at this time and for a long time after, no man, whatever his job might be, taking less than 30s. a week, whilst bullock and horse drivers asked and obtained from 40s. to 50s. coupled with rations, which meant 10s. a week more. However, the yarns we heard on Peak Downs of the magnificence of the Aramac country, with its wide and fattening plains and the booming bullocks and wethers that one occasionally saw from that country, fatter by far than any the Peak Downs could produce, as well perhaps as the sleek condition of Forsyth's horses when he came down to see his principal on Peak Downs, inspired me with a strong desire to secure if possible a slice of that land of promise, before it was all gone in the rush from the south that was beino- made o by Victorian speculators ; so I was not sorry when my old Rugby schoolfellow, Dyson Lacy, a partner of Rule and Lacy, pulled up his horses at Wolfang one fine evening and told me in the course of a long yarn, after supper over our pipes, that he was willing to sell the remaining part of the Aramac run, which he thought was quite as good as the part Travers had purchased. Our firm not being prepared for such a purchase at the moment, I was able to secure it for my eldest brother, who 271 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. was looking out for a property at the time, and he after a short lapse of time resold it to our firm. The price Eule and Lacy asked and obtained for the upper part of the Aramac, with about 500 square miles of country, was equal to a pound a head for 13,000 sheep. There were but few im- provements, only a few yards and paddock and one or two huts, so there was everything to make. It was not long before I went up to take delivery of the property, driving by Surbiton, thence over the low ranges that divide the Belyando waters (which are those of the Suttor and Burdekin, or Eastern waters) from the Western waters of the Thompson joining on to the Barcoo, forming Cooper's Creek, and eventually flowing into Lake Eyre in South Australia. This huge Western watershed embraces hundreds of miles of undulating plains, and may be called the erstwhile field of promise to many an AustraUan explorer ; it is now consecrated to the development of a gigantic pastoral industry, which a woman, plucky Miss Flora Shaw, the travelling correspondent of the great English Times, has perhaps better described and summarised in her letters from Queensland, Nos. IV. and V., than any other writer before or since. The characteristics of the far west, its boundless extent, its sea-like plains, the monotony of rich pasture with so few watercourses to accentuate it, are they not written in the heart and soul of many a plucky adventurer who either has made his pile 272 U'ESTJVARD HO. or lost his little all in the varied fortunes that good or bad seasons, or bad and good times, have brought him ? The rich deep soil cannot fly away, and there it must remain, to carry in years to come a simple, sturdy, healthy population. Whatever it becomes that must be on a large scale, for there is no smallness in it. There are no savage races to conquer and dispossess, it is a kingdom of peace and can be made one of peace and plenty. What it might have remained had not the discovery of artesian water some dozen years ago brought a fresh value to a great portion of this vast area one cannot tell ; but, having secured the element hitherto most valued and most scarce in Central and Western Queensland, the future is assured and it cannot be a failure. Population not too hurriedly tempted thereon, light railways, and industrious producers free from political ambitions, must end in making it a great though certainly not a picturesque country. It may be further, with justice, added that the climate of the great plains of Western Queensland, the great summer heat notwithstanding, is essen- tially a healthy one ; and that with hard work, plain fare, and dry air, the debilitated constitu- tion is often restored, and in the winter months the weak are often made strong by the open air life that is the very essence of s(j[uatling in Western Queensland. 18 CHAPTER XX. COEEEXA AND THE WEST. We christened the upper Aramac country Coreena, one of the blocks being so named, and I experienced the same special pleasure in discovering its resources and capabilities as I had felt in exploring many a former piece of new countr3\ The dai]y expe- ditions and camps on new and unstocked country, when that <^ountry is good, sets the pastoral brain at work, as you are always hoping to discover something better ; and here, barring some scrubby country on the east boundary, it was all very good, and an experienced eye took in at once the variety of edible grasses and bushes with which the western country is blessed. The creeks had hardly any fall, and the main creek had some splendid waterholes which abounded in fish and wild fowl ; whilst the open downs had plenty of shelter in the boree, which resembles the mayall of the south, studding as it did the fringes of all the watercourses, of which, after the main creek. Politic Creek was tlie most important. I have seen a good deal of pastoral country in 274 CO RE EX A AXD THE WEST. m}' day, but a better " lay " of it than the watersheds of Politic Creek I have never come across. Dreading the cost of carriage for sheep we shifted the Coreena sheep to Wolfang and sent the Wolfang cattle to Coreena, where we let them breed up for a few years, after which, yield- ing to the general rush after wool producing country and spurred up by the success of neigh- bours, we turned it into a sheep station after sending its cattle to a piece of country we had secured in the far west. The first lot of bullocks we sent off Coreena went to Adelaide, about 1,000 miles, and fetched £8 per head ; for cattle were then worth breeding and the Barcoo country could " top up '■' bullocks to travel 1,000 miles over good country and still be good butcher's meat at the end of the journey. Of course, the dro\ing expenses were heavy, and later on, when the price of cattle fell, cattle breeding became almost profitless and sheep took their place. Meantime there was a bigger pastoral rush to the great West, comprised in the districts of Mitchell, Gregory Xorth and South, and Burke, than had ever yet taken place in the history of Queensland. Wealthy Victorians such as Sir Francis Murphy and Sons, George Fairbairn and Sons, the Govetts and many others, and surli Queenslanders as the Wien- holts and Taylors, and Koines, also ]):ist()ral com- panies such as the Scottish AustraH;iii Invcstiiicni, tlie Darling Downs Land and Western Company, 275 18* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. and others, flocked out to the new pastures then favoured by good seasons. This settlement of the Western country gave a rare good chance to teamsters, and a good many honest Uttle fortunes were made by contractors for the carriage of these large stations. There is no money more honestly earned than that saved by the nomadic carrier, who has to face at times both drought and flood and is responsible for valuable property in all kinds of seasons. Most of them know how to make themselves fairly comfortable, however, often travelling with their wives and families, who drive the spare bullocks and horses, and on occasions I have seen a good milch cow form part of the equipment where there was a young family in question. Carriers are proverbially hos- pitable, and a pot of tea with a slice from the big damper and highly-corned beef is spontaneously offered in all cases to the less fortunate traveller. Successful carriers in my mind form the backbone of Queensland selectors ; their money has been hardly earned and the squatter has never grudged it ; they know how to invest it, and a bad season doesn't cow them. Carriage by teams is an industry which railways won't altogether displace, for there is the traffic from side distances and places beyond the reach of railroads, so that the w^orking bullock and draught horse are always likely to remain a portion of the stock-in-trade of both old and new Queensland. 276 w w a w Q W: W, J/: o o CO REE N A AND THE WEST. I was anxious to push my work at Coreena in earnest, of wliicli the most important part was ascertainin_ir the boundaries of the run and settling them with your neighbours, as oftentimes it is found that neglect in so doing at the start means disputes and often law suits hereafter. For the country looked upon at first sometimes as of little value becomes precious when it is stocked ; and big as these western runs were, the true old squatter, being rather greedy for good country, was ever ready to fight for it if he thinks he is going to lose it. I started some good teams to Coreena with a few of my old bushmen from Peak Downs who were anxious to link their fortunes with those of the new venture, in fencing, dam-making, &c., and of course there is a lot in knowing your contractors and being able to trust them. I found the Crombies as neigh- bours at Barcaldine, and Simpson was just starting the first improvements for my old friends the Wien- holts at Saltern, which is perhaps now the most highly-improved station on the Mitchell, whilst of course at Aramac I had a good friend and neighbour in Forsyth, who might be then said to " boss " the ueii^hbourhood. McAVhanell was also a good man at Eodney Downs, whilst further afield you came to the grand property selected by Walker for the Scottish Australian Investment Company, the cattle station being Mount Cornish and the shec]) property Bowen Downs, the cattle being under the charge of Kobert Edkiiis, than whom, perha])s, Queensland 27'J JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. will never see a more capable cattle manager ; Ker looked after llie incipient flock at Bowen Downs. So I started at Coreena with a lot of o'ood neioli- hours, being men who knew what they were about. The only drawljacks were high wages and long carriage, though, as I have said before, all would have gone well had wool and sheep prices kept up. Soon after the development of the Aramac country we got a coach service from Clermont to Aramac, and mau}^ a trip I took on Cobb's coach when it wasn't convenient to take my own buggy. These trips were often wet or dry ; in the former case we had to walk over lonf]j distances of bosfo-y ground, every now and then having to lever out the coach that had sunk to its axles. The shades of evening sometimes overtook us, and an impromptu camp had to be made without food and with mau}^ a mosquito as companion. There would be generally a glass of grog, however, to be had from one or other of the passengers whose provision lay in that direction. There are no harder worked men than Cobb and Co.'s drivers in the outside districts of Queensland, as they often have to drive with half- broken horses over half-made tracks, cutting in and out of the bush with nerve and wrists of iron. Most of the country between Clermont and Aramac was bad driving and required great skill ; the great point was an early start, especially in the hot summer months, when the heat and flies of the noontide hour became specially aggravating to man and beast. 280 HI COREENA AXD THE WEST. What is so striking in Western Queensland are the vast distances to be surmounted as a means to an end of either business or pleasure. If a squatter wants to consult his neighbour, a ride of five-and- twenty nales is nothing. The doctor may be thirty miles away, and your townshi}) and the Court of Petty Sessions you are required, perhaps, to preside at is often the same distance ; everything is on a vast scale, and brings with it a burden of physical work that is only fit for the young and the strono-. Look at the lono- silent rides of the sheep overseer or the boundary rider ; the former may and often has a round of fifty miles to make before he returns to his camp, and the latter may have half that distance of wire fencing to examine critically and sometimes strain it up here and there where loose. Verily the new generation of Queens- land will hail the closer settlement that under rail- ways is undoubtedly before that prosperous Colony, but it must be a work of time, and there must l)e no enchantment undergone that is followed by disenchantment, as has so often been the case, financially, pastorally, agriculturally, and in the way of raining, in almost all the colonies. Safe bind safe find ; never incur a deljt there is no absolute prospect of paying off, never take up country you see no immediate pros])ect of developing, never l)iiy more land than you can jjlough, and never invest in a mine with ycnir bottom dollar, are golden rules specially applicable to Queensland. 283 CHAPTER XXI. FAREWELL TO PEAK DOAYXS. The year 1875, that followed our acquisition of Coreena in the then far west, was a year of move- ment in Queensland pastoral affairs, the natural sequence of complete recovery from hnancial pres- sure, and a return to high prices for wool and consequently for sheep, which were bound to keep high with so much western country to stock. So when I went down to my sessional work early in May of that year I found the leading firms of stock and station agents in Brisbane doing a good business, and it was not long before my indefatigable friend Wilham Forrest had felt my pulse regarding the sale of our Wolfang property, which after three good years was in excellent condition to ofier. Of course our Sydney partner had to be consulted, and after a good deal of palaver and correspondence, towards the middle of August, and after 1 had started my shearing on return to the station, a sale on satisfactory terms was concluded to Messrs. Coldham, Cochrane and Hislop, of Melbourne, at the price of a pound a head for something over 100,000 sheep, " everything given in." 284 FAREWELL TO PEAK DOWNS. Wolfang had been an instance of continuous progress. We had some difficulty in 1861 to carry a flock of sheep there for want of natural water, but we gradually and steadily developed it by sinking good wells which ranged from 30 to 100ft. in depth, and with these and the country divided into a number of fair-sized paddocks we had no difficulty in running over 100,000 sheep on about 180,000 acres of black soil land ; and though the Peak Downs country did not fatten as well as the Barcoo it was real good sheep country all the same, and I presume and understand it is so to this day. We had bred over 100,000 lambs in the last three years, and that had enabled us to cull our sheep thoroughly, and they were a good even flock, the Eosenthal German Merino blood having done us good service. Time spent in the sheep drafting yards is never regretted, though in these days of big flocks and financial speculation I am afraid the great individual care of the old daj^s is not practised, and for big lots of sheep the " swing gate " is more in use than the " handling " system. Often have we returned from our drafting yards hungry and dusty to take our mid-day meal, tasting more sheep dust than anything else in what we ate, but there was the comfortable consciousness that our llock was im- proving by the rigid culling of the bare-bellied and wiry-woolled, and one felt sure that a few ounces more weight <»f wool every shearing meant 285 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. an eventual prize in the great pastoral lottery. This work was pleasant also if it meant getting you out of debt, for it has ever been an unpleasant job working " the dead horse," as it was called later on when the fall in wool and consequently in sheep, and the fall in tallow and hides and consequently in cattle, made squatting from the eighties to the period of my writing a dreary and heavy task, instead of the brisk, lightsome work that it used to be in Queensland's earl}^ pastoral days of thirty years ago. We sheared our last clip at Wolfang in July and August, 1875, and by 30th September I had handed over this fine property without a hitch to the new managing partner, Mr. Hislop, who had expressed himself more than satisfied with the property and the bargain they had got. It certainly was delivered to him in first-rate working order, and if the kan- garoos and the selectors could have been kept away Wolfang was quite a squatter's paradise. I certainly felt a pang at parting with it, and turning my back on this fine district, which I had worked hard in for over fourteen years and repre- sented in Parliament for the best part of that period, which had been one of continual development in all respects. I had stocked and taken up the greatest portion of it in 1861 when it was unstocked and unimproved, and I was leaving it mostly fenced and watered, and with nearly half-a-million of sheep upon it. I was also leaving a lot of real good 286 FAREWELL TO PEAK DOWNS. neio-hbours in such men as Donald Wallace of Loc^an Downs, Devereux of Huntly, John Burn of Eetro, Turnbull of Peak Downs, William Kilgour of Gordon Downs, Elliott of Langton, and also a lot of good friends in and around Clermont and Copperfield, who had always backed me during the elections ; such as William Woodhouse, Robert MacMaster, A. B. Macdonald, and Andrew Small, some of whom are leading men there still, whilst others have gone the way of all llesh. I took a final round of my old district with many a promise expressed to revisit it later on. After saying good-bye to Peak Downs and settling the management of Coreena chiefly as a cattle station for the present, and laying out some necessary im- provements there against the time we should require to stock it up with sheep, I came to the conclusion that it would be most prudent to wait a year or two for this development, also that if I ever intended to return to Europe I should try and do so during that period. So I arranged, after a trip to Sydney, to get away to England after the session of 1876. L>H7 CHAPTER XXII. HOMEWARD BOUND AND OLD ENGLAND AGAIN. I MADE a Start for Europe in December, 1876, from Melbourne with my partner's son, taking our passage in the P. and 0. ss. Tanjore, commanded by that most charming of captains, Julius Orman. As we steamed out of Hobson's Bay I could hardly realise that I was leaving the shores upon which I had landed a fresh-coloured youth twenty four years before. The suns of Queensland and the pioneering of Peak Downs had left their traces in the sober individual who paced the deck of the P. and 0. liner, drinking in the fresh sea breeze which travellers across the great Australian Bight are wont to receive in occasionally strong doses. We had some charming Victorians of leading families aboard, and found ourselves very comfortable bar the rolhng ; the Tanjore being over- masted, and once set rolhng resembled a pendulum in her action. It was not long before a number of kindred spirits arranged to avail themselves of the option of extending our tour to Bombay after touching at HOMEWARD BOUND AND OLD ENGLAND. Point de Galle, wliicli was the point of call at Ceylon in those days. This would give us a fort- nio-ht in India, and as we were travellino- more for pleasure than business in those days this arrange- ment suited most of us. At Point de Galle we had a couple of days to acquaint ourselves with the tropical beauties of Ceylon, a land which is never visited without interest, especially by the somewhat drought- stricken Australian, and thence went on to Bombay, spending a cheerful Christmas on board, the first and only one it has been my lot to spend aboard ship. Our fortnight at Bombay was employed in pleasant excursions to Matheran, Poonah, &c., organ- ising successful moonlight jaunts that long dwelt in my memory, our party of about twelve being always merry, open-handed and in good humour, as befits Australians on a holiday. During this period, which covered the new year of 1877, Lord Beaconsti eld's great Imperial Procla- mation was being carried out at Delhi, where Her Majesty was named Empress of India amidst sur- roundings of the greatest .splendour. I recollect the glow of enthusiasm and pride that filled our Australian hearts at the thought that a handful of our white countrymen should hold the sway over the dusky millions of India, when these few, as we could judge from the teeming population of Bombay, could hardly be noticed in point of number. I recollect the great Durbar rejoicnigs at Delhi being- saddened by a polo accident which caused the death :i8*j ID JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. of a 2:)romising officer whose name I have now forgotten. The Siam, a somewhat newer P. and 0. liner than the Tanjore, took us from Bombay to Brindisi, and we were soon made aware that evening dress and smart toilettes would be de rigueur in the evening, for we had on board some of the belles of the court of Lord Lytton. The evenings were pleasantly spent in listening to the supremely good singing of some of the passengers, which enabled us to make light of the Persian Gulf and its dreary heat. I remember speaking to the engineer of the Siam about what he thought the shortest time that the Australian voyage from Brindisi to Albany was ever likely to be done in our time. He replied twenty- seven days ; and I note that we have lately arrived at about that rate of speed in tjie new vessels of the P. and 0., and, indeed, other lines too. The oft- dreaded Eed Sea treated us not unfairly, and we landed at Suez. There was no Suez Canal opened in those days. Not unwilling to tackle the desert route by railroad to Alexandria, we had a cool, though dust}^ railway journey across, the sharjD, clear air of Egypt in January reminding me of that you so often get in the winter months of Western Queensland. Our journey across from Alexandria to Brindisi was without incident, and I was glad to land there and feel myself once more in Europe. I had made friends with the chief of the Customs at Calcutta, an Indian civilian to whom I became indebted for a 290 HOMEWARD BOUXD AXD OLD ENGLAND. great deal of solid information about India, and we agreed to travel to Naples together, which we did after seeing most of our friends off by the overland mail to London. Xext day we skirted the shores of the lovely Adriatic to Bari, thence turning off to Naples, where we arrived on a lovely moonlight night too late to see its beauties. Our hotel faced the bay, and I shall long remember opening the windows of my room facing the Chiaya to gaze on Vesuvius and its thin crest of smoke. The blue Mediterranean fairly danced in the gay sunshine, the music of street organs for once did not shock the ear, and one felt at last in a land of pleasure where hard work and business were secondary considerations. My friend and I took an early cup of cafe au lait and sallied forth to smoke a morning cigarette in the splendid sunshine, everything new, everything fresh, every- thing picturesque. Naples has been described by abler pens than mine ; twenty years ago it lacked a good deal of the cleansing and draining process which I under- stand it has since happily received. We made our excursions by carriage to Pompei and other attract- ive spots and we finally passed many an hour in that wonderful museum, where you can trace the dynasty of the Caisars, and gaze upon features which reflect both victory and passion, to say nothing of the monuments of Koman everyday life. Would that that museum v;ero more accessible to 2\)\ lU* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. the students of England and Australia, for the Isles of Britain in days of yore were not too far for Eoman conquest, and many an Englishman derives the force of character that has enabled him to colonise with success, not only from a possible but a probable Eoman descent. Naples gave me a zest to see eternal Rome, Elorence and Genoa ; so I determined to spend the spring in Italy and thus avoid the too rigorous climate of England. My friend, who, lucky fellow, had inherited a Scottish estate, left me at Naples, but I had always the companionship of my partner's son, who was an excellent specimen! of Australian growth. My sister came from England to join me, and could hardly recollect the Eugby boy in the seasoned Queenslander that she came to meet in Italy. Eome gave us the unalloyed classical pleasure it ever gives to those who escape the Eoman fever and are not kept short of time and means to enjoy its endless treasures of the past, and to Australians, as to Americans, it will ever have special charms in that making of history which they somewhat lack. After spending a busy fort- night we visited Florence, where we found the weather pretty cold ; we there saw occasionally the ill-fated heir of the Napoleons, who was destined some years later to sacrifice his life on the English altar of conquest in South Africa. Eeceiving an invitation from my brother to 292 HOMEWARD BOUND AND OLD ENGLAND. visit him at his villa near Genoa, I managed to spend a month with him, which I thoroughly enjoyed. We made excursions from the Villa Carmagnola, near Pegii, to Genoa, Milan, Savona and the Eiviera generally, and not being pushed for time I had a good opportunity of investigating the contents of many a Genoese palazzo, that breathed of the glorious days when Genoa divided with Venice the supremacy of the Mediterranean. Nothing was more soothing after a hard matter of fact life in Australia, than to revel in the rest and repose of cultured Italy, and slake one's thirst for sentiment and colour at the many founts that abound in this land of past glories. After seeing galleries I was glad to stroll out at Genoa in the gardens of the Aqua Sola. It will take some time, but it is not unlikely that Port Jackson will some dav sfather to its lovely shores some sentiment of romance not unlike that of Italian seas ; some time after I spent an afternoon at Mr. Bloxome's villa, on the north shore of Sydney Harbour, looking at sea pieces painted by the masterly hand of Oswald Brierley, that in adjuncts of sea and sky reminded me a good deal of the Gulf of Genoa, and was quite its equal in winter beauty. From Genoa I made my way h}- the Eastern Pyrenees, whence our family spraiiLi", there to renew the recollections of my eai'ly boyhood, and so on to Paris, t(j spi-nd a gcjod lime in the city JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. where one is never dull. I had not been there since I was a very Httle boy, having passed through it after the terrible days of June, 1848, when Cavaignac saved Paris from mob rule and the Faubourg St. Antoine, together with other parts of Paris I was then shown, had been riddled with bullets. We had then, I recollect, stopped at the Hotel du Ehin, where Louis Napoleon, a claimant for the Presidential Chair, which he filled later on, was also staying. From the windows of the hotel we saw the great " Fete de la Concorde," when 100,000 troops of " I'armee de Paris " defiled in victorious and imposing strength to the air of the "Marseillaise," my young eyes being dazzled with the incessant glitter of uniforms and bayonets. The chief alteration I noticed in London, after my absence of twenty-four years, was in the neigh- bourhood of Northumberland Avenue, the great town house of the Percys having given way to a series of huge hotels that dispense to colonists and Americans an hospitality of much greater pretension than that of a quarter of a century ago. However, I contented myself with rooms in Duke Street, from which I could pay some of those many visits an Austrahan with good EngUsh con- nections is ever asked to pay. I shall always recollect the kindness of good friends, amongst other attentions receiving an invitation to the honorary membership of the Travellers' Club through my friend Eidley Smith's father. I was 294 HOMEWARD BOUND AND OLD ENGLAND. much struck with Hyde Park and the gathering of the fashionable world ; but that kind of thing soon palls. What I enjoyed most were country visits, for there is nothing in the world equal to the life and habits, in my mind, of a well-appointed English country house. I have my diary of this beautiful English summer before me, and find that like all returned Austrahans I was cutting about all over England visiting relations and friends, renewing acquaintance with the scenes of my boyhood and taking my fill of leafy lanes and hill and dale, which ever render the country life of England in summer so unique and defio-htful. Of course, an Australian is struck with the delicate verdure of an English spring, and still more so with that deeper green which the summer brings, but he wonders why that leafy foliage has been denied him in Australia, where the everlasting gum tree and its spiral leaves give him such scanty shade. It was delightful after long years to mark once again the dense population, the villages and towns at every turn, the rosy children, and the air of content and repose so different to Australian rest- lessness. Of course, my eye, accustomed to live stock, readily took in the condition of the cattle and sheep browsing the rich green food and fattening without an eflort of tlielr own ; so dillerent to our country where stock has to march for its living a very uncertain and often considerable distance. It is, of 2iJ.3 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. course, the secret of the succulence and tenderness of the home-grown meat that it is reared without having to travel for its food, the Uve stock in England being brought up in their, to us, infi- nitesimal enclosures, feeding on the green herbage that a certain rainfall never ceases to keep tender. Where after all can the traveller match the fertility of old England in its summer months ? And how sweet that Hngering twilight to the returned traveller from a land where the sun sets suddenly as if ashamed of its dangerous vigour ! Amongst other visits I was glad to be asked to spend a day or two with Sir George Walker of Castleton, near Newport, who took me to look over Mr. E. Stratton's celebrated herd of shorthorns near there, a most instructive and enjoyable day, every- thing good, especially a champion heifer, and the great bull ^'Protector," which were worth going a long way to see. I also enjoyed being shown over Tredegar, the seat of those kings of South Wales, the sporting Morgans ; there I made my first acquaintance with hunting stables on a large scale, both Lord Tredegar, who had ridden in the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, and his brother, the Hon. Fred Morgan, being nulli secundus in the hunting field. Everything at Tredegar was old- fashioned and solid, and had not apparently fahen into any enervating luxury. At the time I paid a visit to Mr. Stratton's stud farm, there were good prices still going with 296 HOMEWARD BOUND AND OLD ENGLAND. Australian breeders for liiglily bred shorthorns. It is a pity that since these days cattle in Queens- land, and indeed in Australia, have become woefully unremunerative, and that English breeders of short- horns or Herefords have to turn to America generally and Argentina in particular to get a liberal market for their stock. I am afraid Australian herds must deteriorate unless a filUp comes to make us all once more take pride and pleasure in our herds. The tick and the quarantine it has brought with it, of which more anon, have a good deal to answer for, but that Queensland is destined to be the special habitat of well-bred cattle, the excellence and wide-spread nature of its cattle country certainly points to. The same slack time of depression, except perhaps in regard to racehorses, has reached the value of Australian horse stock, these having fallen so woefully in the past twenty-five years, that the price for hacks, which in old days was a good five- and-twenty pounds, has now come down to the modest fiver. The returned Australian is always struck with the super-excellence of the London omnibus horses, a particular breed unmatched in its way for its bone and substance ; also with that of the great hunting stock that furnish an animal bred to provide speed and safety for the well to-do class who take their winter pleasure \\\ the sport of fox- huntinf^ Still, I believe that with strict attention to proper mating an almost equally good animal can be bred in Australia, if we could depend upon a JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. certain market in England, India or South Africa. There is many a well-bred colt of fashion and good shape sold in the Melbourne yards for £10, which would be worth £50 in London. India, no doubt, takes a good few of our best " Walers," still the trade is incomplete and unsatisfactory. We have got the winterless climate and the blood and the natural food, we only want the market. Provision for the cavalry remounts of Europe should also more earnestly occupy the attention of Australian breeders. Australian draught stock, at any rate in Queens- land, has fared no better, and that through no want of enterprise on the part of-- breeders ; for such studs as Maryvale and Fassifern have for over a quarter of a century imported fresh blood of the Clydesdale and Shire breeds from the best sources procurable in Great Britain. To these fine Queensland studs we used to go from the west and north for our stud colts, and they have figured as champions on many a Queensland show ground, but now prices have fallen one half, notwithstanding the fact that on the roads the nimbler draught horse is replacing the slower working bullock, and that for aU earth work and dam makino- draught horses are in constant use. As far as racehorses go Australia may be content with the stimulus lately given to breeding race- horses in Austraha by the sale of the great " Carbine " to the Duke of Portland, followed by the migration of " Trenton " and others, to say 298 HOMEWARD BOUND AND OLD ENGLAND. nothirig of the Australian horses in traininsf bou.s^ht by good judges in England. The fashion has, apparently, set in ; there must be something in it, and if the sires of Australia are in demand, the dams will surely follow. I had missed the Derby, but did not neglect Ascot and Goodwood, at the first feasting my eyes on the world of fashion. Of the horses, I admired most " Skylark '" and " Springfield," the latter being unconquerable over short distances, qualities which he has transmitted to his stock. Then, on the hottest of summer days, when muslin and gauze seemed the order of the day, the handsome "Petrarch" won the Cup hands down. How I did enjoy in the saddling paddock, this, my first study of the make and shape of a great English racehorse ! It was a revelation to me. Ducal Goodwood followed later on, and for shade and midsummer surroundings it put all other race- courses I had seen out of conceit ; for Australian courses are prone to be bare and unshady, and the tracks often sandy instead of the elastic turf. I saw "Herald" win the Stewards' Cup, and later on, witnessed the success of the whilom hurdle-racer " Hampton " in the Goodwood Cup, sealing thereby his subsequent good fortune at the stud. They said he had been over hurdles, but he looked well bred enough for anylhinu. The racing other- wise was poor, and it seemed more a gathering of society to celebrate tlie wane of the season, and 299 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. say good-bye till they met again at country houses, than the eager strug-o-le of the racini:^ business I had witnessed at Flemins^ton and Eandwick. I have had a great fondness for Australian country racing, and once indulged in it on a small scale in Central Queensland, where I was fairly successful, but, of course, it was a difficult thing to know there when a horse not thorough bred was properly trained. My first idea of English racehorses led me to think they were overtrained, so lazily and languidly did they move about com- pared to Australian country cocktails ; of course, in most cases I must have been wrong. Some horses will do with half the training of others, and there can be no uniform rule applying to all horses. In a hot climate we used to work our nags at earliest dawn ; I suppose in England they are galloped at all hours. One thing we must all agree about, and that is that there is the one day, and, indeed, the one hour, at which a horse in training is at its best, and that tlie secret of success is that he should make his venture at that supreme moment. Later on, I got an order to see the Queen's stud at Ham,pton Court, which I much enjoyed. Amongst the mares I saw " Viridis," the dam of " Springfield," and amongst the stallions, there were "Pall Mall," "St. Albans," and that king of the T.Y.C., the robust " Prince Charlie," all in tip-top order, as one may imagine. 300 CHAPTER XXIII. BACK TO AUSTEALIA. With the English autumn came my resolution to return to Australia and look after the stocking up of Coreena in person. I had had a good time in England and had tired of doing nothing and was anxious to get to work again. There were the usual adieu X to friends new and old, and the packing up of the new fit-outs Australians always think they require at the hands of English tailors. I had taken my passage via Brindisi, where I caught the P. and 0. Ceylon with m}- friend Orman again as captain. We had a hot trip across to Alexandria, picking up the crowded Poonah at Suez, where we entered upon, though it was early in October, the hottest trip that old ship was said ever to have made through the Ked Sea. There was no breeze to speak of, and the ship was not a fast one ; the sea looked like molten lead and the sun rose of a morning like a ball of fire, the supi)ly of ice turned out insufficient, and we were right glad to make Aden and get out of the worst of the heat. \\'e had a mixed lot of passengers and an incongruous JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. one as far as Galle : — An Australian Governor and his suite, an Admiral and officers going to China, some rather rough Calcutta pilots, a comedy troupe o-oino- to the same place, and last, but not least, a corps de ballet difficult to repress. It was too hot for so many " factions," and we were right glad to separate at Galle ; some for Bombay, some for Calcutta, some for China, and the rest for Australia. Who can deny that a P. and 0. voyage is an introduction in itself to " all sorts and conditions of men"? — for here we had men in high places, polished sailors, celebrated actors, lucky miners, to say nothing of occasional adventurers and adventuresses, all mingling together and bound by the courtesies of ship-board, though never Ukely to meet again, to exchange thoughts and ideas. At Galle — and who • does not recollect its ram- parts, often the scene of many a farewell between passengers who there divide their ways ? — we got the rolhng old Tanjore again, and, starting with a head wind and fresh sea, bade fair to make a long trip to King George's Sound. This long stretch of ocean is the dreariest portion of the trip between England and Austraha, but I made the best of it. I had a good cabin to myself and that next to Captain Almond, a valued P. and 0. commander, who was going to Adelaide, deputed to investigate the mysterious robbery of 5,000 302 BACK TO AUSTRALIA. sovereigns there some time before. Almond and I always took cur early tea together, and many were the instructive yarns I had with him dating back to his early travels in Japan, where the P. and 0. had sent him hunting for coal deposits. Almond suffered a bit from his sight, but I under- stand he is still to the fore in the responsible employment of this great company. At King Georo-e's Sound I said o-ood-bve to Governor Ord and his wife and their stalwart son their society had been most pleasant. This was before the golden but speculative days that have since played havoc with the repose of the then placid West Australia. At Melbourne I exchanged to the Avoca., in which we had a rough passage to Sydney, where once again I was received by my partner at Elamang with his w^onted cordiality and hospitality. The squatting news was good, the season in Queensland being in every way promising, with much movement going on in pas- toral circles. From Sydney I paid a visit by rail to Kirkconnel, my partner's country house in the Blue Mountains, beyond Mt. Victoria, where at an altitude of over 3,000 feet the temperature is nearly as perfect as anyone could wish it, and where English fruits are readily grown. From there to Bathurst, the " city of the plains," is an easy drive, and I extended my visit to Mildura, George's Plains. I then went on to pay a short visit to some old JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Peak Downs friends near Orange, who took me an expedition up the Canobokas Mountain, whence I had a fine view of the country round Orange, which should be reckoned one of the gardens of ^^S.W. The sight of this valley of the Macquarie carries one back to the old days of N.S.W. settlement, when the intrepid pioneers Wentworth, Blaxland and Lawson, gazed for the first time, in 1813, on this land of promise from one of the highest spurs of the broken mountain mass that forms the " Blue Mountains," these being now traversed by an ingenious railway, of which the descent into the plains of the Macquarie is the far-famed " zig-zag," which is quite an engineering tour de force. Before the end of the 3'ear it was necessar}^ that I should go up to Brisbane and look into a number of Crown Lands matters connected with the leases of Coreena. So I once more steamed up to Brisbane and put up at our Queensland Club, where as usual I met a host of friends. I dined at Government House with Sir Arthur Kennedy, who was then the reigning Governor, and his daughter, whose experiences in other governments stood her in good stead. Sir Arthur was one of a band of brothers who had devoted their lives to the service of their Queen ; he was then commencing his government of Queensland, which was only terminated by his lamentable death in June, 1883. I returned to Sydney in time for Christmas, later 304 BACK TO AUSTRALIA. on I paid a visit for the new year to Dr. Jenkins, of Xepean Towers, on the Hawkesbur}^ to inspect his famous shorthorns, a couple of which, of the famous " Theodore " family, I bought at a subse- quent visit. Xepean Towers was not a bad imita- tion of an English country house, and the family was charming ; but beyond the stud herd there was not much to see in the surrounding country. As a matter of climate it was not bracing, and wealthy settlers are now more given to seeking the health- giving altitude of the Blue Mountains, than building their homesteads on the eastern side of them. I spent the first month of 1878 very pleasantly at Sydney, the social pleasures of which were always pleasantly blended with novelty, for one met at the hospitable houses of Sydney's merchant kinsrs travellers of culture, who had visited many a land and could talk of something beyond the gossip of a town, the hospitalities of Mount Adelaide to wit. 30.5 lio CHAPTER XXIV. VISITS TO THE DARLING DOWNS— STOCKING UP COEEENA— INCIDENTS OF LIFE THERE. I LEFT for Queensland again at the end of January, 1878, and paid a round of visits on the Darling Downs, this district being then in a line condition of prosperity. I went to Headington Hill and spent a few days with M. C. Mason, who had everything in apple pie order. This estate was all freehold, and about the pick of the agricultural portion of the Darling Downs ; it had been put together by William Davenport, an experienced Victorian, for his principals, the Messrs. Fisher. A good deal of the best land was under plough, and model farm- ing was the order of the day. It was no doubt a matter of considerable benefit to owners of land on the Darling Downs, that experiments in agriculture should be made by men of experience, who could, at any rate then, afford it ; but it is somewhat sad to reflect that pioneers generally are not successful, and that agriculture forms no exception to that rule. This beautiful estate throve as long as you could feed it with 306 VISIT TO THE DARLIXG DOWXS. capital ; when that ceased, it went to the wall, and has now been repurchased by the Government, and cut up for smaller selection. Mason grew an excellent class of sheep at Headington Hill, and was a thoroughly practical and useful man, and hospitable and good-natured to a degree. I recollect his drivmg me over to Clifton, and our witnessing a quaint light between two eagle hawks and a native bear ; the eagle hawks were o-ettino- the best of it, and beinsj too engaged in the fight to observe us, allowed Mason to get within shot, so he first shot one hawk, then the other ; but when he got to the bear, that showed fight, and we had to knock it on the head too. Mason was a good shot, and fond of quail shooting, of which there used to be plenty on the Darlinsj Downs. From Headington Hill, I visited my excellent friends, the Wienholts, at Goomburra, and spent a pleasant week riding about to Mary vale, Glengallan, Warwick, and the surrounding country, coming back every night to a well-served dinner and pleasant talk of old days. One always met at Goomburra some good old chums, and nothing could be pleasanter than the surroundings of a good homestead on the Darling Downs, where the nights are always cool, and the days, ex(;ept in perhaps three months of the year, never too oppressive. Along parts of Goomburra Creek there is some fifteen feet of ricli black soil, which :;()7 2U* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. grew magnificent vegetables, especially " English " potatoes, which took the prize at the Warwick show, and equalled anything I ever saw at English shows. At Maryvale, we came in for a capital crop of grapes, which thrive particularly well on all parts of the Darling Downs. I find by my diary, I coupled business with pleasure in buying thirty- five bulls from Slade, of Glengallan, at the then low price of £15 each, and secured from Maryvale for £150, that fine Clydesdale colt, " Enterprise," which became in after years the champion of the Aramac district. I visited also Glengallan, once the property of Marshall and Deuchar, now that of Marshall and Slade. This property had under Slade's careful management, even then attained a high reputation for breeding every class of stud stock ; the rich black soil of the creek flats being especially favourable to the growth of lucerne, of which more has been grown there than perhaps on any estate on the Darling Downs. This supply was used for the winter keep of the stud stock, and it was hard to say which were the best, the shorthorns, or the merinos. To any young man who elects to start a farm for agricultural or grazing purposes in Queensland, I would certainly say, go and have a look at Glengallan, and work under Slade for a twelvemonth. If he does so, there is no fear of his contracting lazy habits. This February, 1878, brought splendid rains 308 I '-«■ f<- w^*. # QUKENSI.AND NATIVl'; lilvAK AND VorXC. VISIT TO THE DARLING DOWNS. everywhere in Queensland, another of those grand seasons which stamped the decade of the seventies as the lucky one for the squatters of that day. The season promising so well, and learning from our manager at Coreena that the improvements for sheep were well on the wa}-, I started our sheep invest- ments for that property with the purchase from the Messrs. Wills, of Cullinaringo, in the Springsure district, of 10,000 maiden ewes at 6s. 6d., and 10.000 wethers at 6s.. these havino- about six months' wool on. Eoads were very heavy and the country had had a thorough soaking. I found both the Messrs. Wills and their families living in a simple and easy fashion, and doing most of their own sheep work. I inspected the sheep and gene- rally approved of them, knocking off 6d. from the ewes and taking 5,000 more of the wethers at 6s. I had a nasty trip across flooded rivers, and made my way from the Nogoa to the Peak Downs, where my friends were glad to see me. I then went on to Coreena, where I arrived 4tli April, my visit south having been extremely useful in showing me what other pastoralists were about. Once back at Coreena, I settled down to prepara- tions for the sheep I had purchased, high carriage and labour making it clear to us that a cattle station is not turned into a modern sheep station for nothing. What willi paddocks for ihc vurious classes of sheep and the carriage of wire, dams and reservoirs for the paddocks tliat had no natuial watei', liuts and j)ad- JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. docks for the boundary riders, drafting yards, and last, but not least, an up-to-date woolshed with huts for the shearers, wool presses of a modern pattern, etc., etc., the cheque book was always going and the debit side of the bank book swelled visibly. Still there was encouragement both in the excel- lence of the country and in the fact that a lot of clever Victorians and others were doing the same, and that on a big scale. All this development was being done on the faith that the prices for wool and sheep would remain what they had been. They did so up to 1884 ; after that the fall was steady and seemingly irrecoverable, and those who held on beyond that period had to suffer the penalty, whilst those who sold out saved their bacon. That is broadly what took place, but there were undoubtedly instances where by prudence and good management profits continued to be made after the year I have mentioned, especially when the debt on the property was not a large one. Of squatting on unborrowed capital there were very few instances in Queensland, the establishment of big banks, finance and mortgage companies to wit. It m.ay be a comfort, however, to reflect that the opening up and fertilizing of country, if not always fortune making, is a generous and unselfish pursuit, and that it has occasionally even in that distant land its moments of unalloyed satisfaction. I well recollect we made a big dam on Politic Creek, and soon after it was finished I had to go 312 VISIT TO THE DARIIXG DOWNS. on some business trip be^-ond Blackall. Not long after, for a wonder, rain fell to run the creek, and I got a telegram, at Blackall to the effect that the '* Politic Creek " dam was full ; so coming back, as I neared the water shed where the dam was situated, I got excited, eager to catch a glimpse of the water, and I will not readily forget the thrill of satisfaction at seeing more than a mile off a big, glittering sheet of water, over a mile in length, which had made permanently available country for 20,000 sheep. Oddl}' enough, black swans and pelicans, besides in- numerable wild duck, had already taken possession, and swam away as if they had been there all their lives. I recollect shooting a swan, then a vara avis, and swimming in to get him, but he was no good for the pot. I sj^ent most of the year at Coreena, and found plenty to do. Aramac soon grew into an important little township, my friend, T. S. Sword, now a member of the Queensland Land Board, doing duty as our police magistrate. In October we were favoured by a visit from our member for the Mitchell, Boyd D. Morehead, to whom we gave a dinner, where I acted as chairman, these being still the good old days when squatting constituencies returned representatives interested in the pursuit, instead of Eadicals ready to wage war against capital. The pastoral shows which had been started in the South of Queensland, and had done well at Clermont and Springsure, repeated themselves, but on a larger •M.'> JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. scale, in the broad west. The Aramac Show of June, 1878, was an excellent beginning. It became cus- tomary to follow the show up with three days' good racing, making up a week's carnival. I recollect we got a fair share of prizes in the horse and cattle classes, the sheep prizes going chiefly to Saltern, Aramac and Bowen Downs. For merino sheep the pens of fat wethers were extraordhiary, averaging something like 90 lbs. weight, so fattening were the grasses of the district. These shows, which are carried on now I am glad to see, became famous institutions, enabling the squatting neighljourhood to meet in friendly rivalry and discuss endless sub- jects of sheep and cattle management, and con- cert protective measures of alas ! growing interest — such as the extermination of marsupial and other pests. These shows are multiplying with the growth of the country, and to the sparse exhibits originally sent many others are being added connected with agriculture, dairying and so forth. At Aramac, though at first confined to sheep, cattle and horses, the show was wonderfully good, and it would have been hard to beat at Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne cattle of the breeding and symmetry of some of the exhibits from Thorntons, Mount Cornish or Coreena. Coreena was a bit off the main road from Blackall to Aramac, still we used from time to time to see neighbours and friends, and one day in August I was glad to see Inspector John Aherne turn up, for he was amongst the best known and most efficient police 316 VISIT TO THE DARLING DOWNS. officers in Western Queensland, who had secured to that district its meed of safety to person and property and had grown with the district, thereby knowing the ins-and-outs of stockman and boundary rider, shearer and teamster, and with an insight into the inner thoughts of cattle or horse stealers. I believe John Aherne had assisted in the famous Bowen Downs cattle stealing case of the early Barcoo days, and no big police case in the western districts could be well solved without his assistance. Like most Irishmen he loved a good horse and kept a few good ones. Any way his arrival was always cheery and welcome, and on this occasion, accompanied by a couple of troopers, he was in an unusual hurry, and we had some difficulty in making him stop the night, for he said he had been sent for to Mutta- burra, a township fifty miles beyond Aramac, near which in a reservoir near the road the body of a swagsman had been found floating. The man had evidently been stabbed and robbed of whatever he may have had on him. I now give the case as Aherne told it to us on his return to Aramac : He found on enquir}' at Mattaburra to^vnship that a man answering the description of the murdered man had passed through the township with a mate who had spent the night with him at the reservoir ; that man was the man to liiid out, and Alierne was soon working the wires, enquiring after that mate on the main roads leading to the coast, but without effect. Aherne somehow got an idea that the man 317 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. had not travelled down country, but probably doubled back for safety, so as luck would have it Aherne made for the Bowen Downs woolshed, where, as the biggest shed of that part of the country, a large number of hands used to gather up. The woolshed and the shearers' hut were visible a long way from the Muttaburra road, and Aherne and his men rode straight to the cook's galley, and entered into conversation with the cook, who was bustling about, asking him what new hands had been lately taken on. Aherne thought the man- looked a bit confused, and well he might, as Aherne casually, on bending down to get a light for his pipe from the ashes of the galley fire, spied the glimmer of silver, and hooked out of the cinders a silver chain and watch, which it became evident the cook had hastily hidden on seeing the police ride across the plain towards his camp. His guilty conscience had betrayed him, for wdien Aherne put him into handcuffs on divining the situation, a cheque in favour of the murdered man, together with other chattels, were found in his swag. Cir- cumstantial evidence accumulated against him, and no doubt he would have been convicted had Aherne been able to bring him back to the nearest jail. But the man cheated the gallows ; he was tem- porarily handcuffed round the chimney post of an old hut, and on getting freedom and the use of a knife to eat his dinner with he plunged it into his heart, and thus ended this bush drama. 318 VISIT TO THE DARLING DOWNS. It was certainly a most remarkable thing that John Aherne should instinctively have ridden straight to the place, and indeed to the very spot where the man he was in search of was employed. In those days these widespread districts were singu- larly free from crime. " Soldiering," or stealing horses, and occasionally cattle, were the principal offences, the broad plains of the Barcoo beino- too rich and open to favour cattle or sheep steaHng on any scale. WW) CHAPTER XXV. A SHORT TPJP SOUTH — SYDNEY, MELBOURNE, HOBART. After shearing I wended my way south again, looking up the Sydney Exhibition, and sharing sundry hospitalities at Government House, where Sir Hercules and Lady Robinson were at the time the popular representatives of royalty in New South Wales. It was impossible not to admire and respect a man, who, like Sir Hercules, added to the greatest experience in Colonial administration and an accurate knowledge of Colonial ministers, a thorough knowledge of all field sports, an accom- plishment which goes a long way in the Austrahan Colonies, where, at certain times of the year, a Governor is a good deal like a fish out of water if he does not understand racing. Sir Hercules raced himself and with fair success, the Australian Derby wanner " Kingsborough," and other winners to wit. I can recall him now facing the lawn at Randwick, talking to James White, Edward Lee, or Harry Dongar, his w^ell set-up figure, clad in the inevitable w^ell-fitting grey frock coat, discussing 320 A SHORT TRIP SOUTH. the coming fortunes of the day, quite a peerless gentleman, and most excellent representative of the Queen. I went on to Melbourne for the new year, and attended the races with Lord Normanby's party, seeing the Panic horse " Wellington " win the three- mile champion race. There were plenty of attendant festivities, for the hospitalities of Toorak will never languish whilst Riverina lasts, there being no colony in Her Majesty's dominions where hospitality is wider or society maintains its gaiety more thoroughly than in Victoria. The heat was great for Melbourne, so I was rejoiced to be able to follow up Sydney and Melbourne with a visit to the " tight little island," bracing Tasmania. We started by the short sea journey, Henry Weld Blundell and I, to Launceston in a very crowded boat, for the " bookies " were going over to the Tasmanian race meetings, and this did not add to the comfort of the journey. Blundell was going to visit his cousin, Sir Frederick Weld, who was the then popular Governor of Tasmania. Hobart was, and ever will be, incomparably refreshing at this time of the year to all Queens- landers and Sydneyites, who can afford time to get away from tropical heat and enjoy a land which is more like a bit of England and Scotland blended than any country south of the line. When we got to Hobart, it was the gay season and there was much going on ; a round of parties graced by the freshest 323 21* JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. of beauty, everyone looking pleased, for neither time nor business seem in Hobart to write the wrinkles they do on people's brows in Sydney and Brisbane. We were in time to see the annual race meeting at SIR FREDERICK WELD, K.C.M.G. (Governor of Tasmania). Elwick, in that charming bend of the Derwent which forms, perhaps, one of the most picturesque racecourses in the world. In such lovely surround- ings we , thought that never had " Piper sec " tasted 324 A SHORT TRIP SOUTH. SO exhilarating as at dear old Smith Travers' luncheon carriage. Travers and his brother stewards had done wonders for the management of the meeting, which with pleasant society and perfect surroundings went off famously. I recollect meeting Sir James Agnew at William Degrave's to taste a so-called Tasmanian salmon, which was only, alas ! a large brown trout ; but the controversy was raging fiercely on the subject at the time and I said nothing. I also enjoyed an evening with Sir Frederick Weld, who treated us to venison from " Quamby," and Hermitage from the Cotes d'Or ; verily one could exclaim with Byron, "Fair clime where every season smiles benignant o'er that blessed Isle " with greater justice in regard to Tasmania than an}^ "Isle of Greece," so perfect is the climate and so excellent are the various amenities of life. This was not my first visit to the island, for I had been there in Colonel Gore Browne's time many years before, and I visited it in after years, but Hobart has never palled ; it has always been and ever wiU be the sanatorium of tropical Australia. It is an especial place for old people, who linger on to a wonderful age, and it is last but not least a moderate place to live in. The well-appointed English liglit coach that ran from llobart to Launceston used to be one of the pleasant features of the " tight little island," but that has been replaced by a jolthig and ap})arently ill-conducted JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. railway line. Tasmania still furnishes in the far- famed Gibson blood the crack merinos of the day, from which many a famous Australian flock has drawn its success, these rams nearly always fetching the highest prices at the annual Sydney and Mel- bourne Earn sales. Apart from the value to tropical Australia of Tasmania as a health resort and of Hobart's charm as a residence, also of the value to Pastoral Australia of the high class merino sires procurable from breeders in the island, Tasmania has of late years developed immense mining resources, and in Mount Lyell and Mount Bischofi possesses perhaps two of the finest tin mines in the world. So that, notwith- standing the chaos of mountains you view from the top of Mount Wellington (one of the features of Hobart), you may say that there is wealth in those rocks. Besides the mineral wealth Tasmania is so rapidly developing, which makes her an Australian Cornwall, the sportsman can in many lakes and streams of great beauty tempt trout of an enormous size with all kinds of unwonted baits. Hence a trip to Tasmania in the new century will mean in one way or another attractions and interests that were hardly dreamt of thirt}^ years ago. 326 CHAPTER XXVI. ARAMAC AND DAELING DOWNS REVISITED. I GOT back to the Aramac in April, 1879, to find plenty of work and a magnificent season, rain this year being well disseminated, there having been heavy rains in May which ran the creeks, and there was rain every second month mostly of the year, so it was a grand year for pastoral operations. In June there was a good show, where our cattle and horses again did well, followed by races, when my little " Whisker," a son of " Lord of the Hills," won both the principal handicaps. The gathering was far bigger than the previous one, and marked an era of considerable progress. I was fortunate in securing a good manager who had just spent seven or eight years in charge of the sheep at Bowen Downs, Mr Sidney W. Donner, and now I felt relieved of all anxiety, for my health was not very good, and I had strong thoughts of taking another trip to England, if possible; but most of the year was spent in looking after the improvements, and settling ourselves into a sheep station. We sheared in our new woolslied at tlie JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Sixteen Mile for the first time, and found the sheep gave satisfactory results ; and I am glad to think that the wool-growing qualities of the country have never deteriorated, for the Aramac country being on the fringe of the broken or desert country, is certainly remarkably fortunate in its rainfall. Con- siderations which have made me reflect often how much better we should have done had we kept Coreena and sold the country further west, than selling Coreena later on, which we did. What with buying odd lots of sheep and selecting rams, etc., I was always on the move ; in November, I see it noted, we had a good lambing, cutting 87 per cent, of lambs. Towards the end of the year I went down to the Peak Downs for my Christmas, seeing the New Year, 1880, in at Clermont. From there I made my way, via Bris- bane, to Yandilla, where I was anxious to secure some more breeding ewes. I found Frank Gore as hospitable and obliging as ever, and, although I had been told I should have to put on evening dress, he was good enough to excuse one who had "Jackaroed" under his uncle at Yandilla twenty years before. On my Darhng Downs excursions I used to hear the various flocks discussed : Jimbour, Jondaryan, and many others, but Yandilla was always most in favour in regard to breeding ewes, if you could get them. Fortunately, the Gores let me have a small lot of 6,000 young ewes, also some rams, 328 ARAM AC AND DARLING DOWNS REVISITED and I was lucky in getting one of the young Archers to take them up to Coreena. It was pleasant to re-visit Yandilla, still " fat and fertile," but it was only to be reached through endless fenced lanes of closed settlement, a contrast to the open pastures of over twenty years ago that I had so often ridden over. In one instance, near the North Branch, I recollect narrowly escaping, in old days, being caught by a bush-fire. Heavy stocking had done away with that danger nowadays. How- ever, Yandilla remains a very fine estate, and its homestead, bowered in vines and fruit trees, still smiled its hospitable welcome. This station and Eton Vale, if I mistake not, are the only estates on the Darling Downs that remain in the possession of the families that took them up in the forties. The Gores have stuck well to colonial life, and have not figured much in England, but Sir Arthur Hodgson, of Eton Vale, has for many years lived to the fore in England in pleasant and well-earned repose. The clock seems to have stood still for some of the. Darling Downs pioneers, whose long, happy and useful lives should l)e the best advertise- ment for the settlement of that country. There is no hardship in living nowadays on the Darling Downs ; in the first place, the climate is perfect there, the ways have become smooth with a railway at your door, and sport, society and social freedom are all within your reach. The s([uaUer, big or small, has no butcher or bakers' bills to \V1\) JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. pay, for he grows his own flour and meat ; sugar and rum are grown on the coast, and the day is not far distant when tea and coffee will also be Queensland grown. Such advantages should attract to this favoured part of Southern Queensland from the old country small capitalists who have a taste for breeding choice cattle and sheep, for which there are handy colonial markets ; or it should tempt young fellows who want to breed remounts for European cavalry and the Indian or South African markets. Live stock of every kind thrive to perfection on the Darling Downs in summer, and the soil is good enough to grow oaten and wheaten hay, lucerne and maize, to any required extent for the con- sumption of the stock in May, June, July and August, the so-called Australian winter months, when cold winds nip up the grass on the open plains, and the live stock do not fare so well on grass alone. The picturesque country, a wide plateau of park- like appearance, is ever healthy, and the investor is still in time to pick up a good slice of black soil land at a figure which he can make sure will in ten years' time, or possibly less, have doubled in value. 330 CHAPTER XXVII. SECOND TRIP HOME AND BACK BY THE CAPE. Having settled my afiairs for a second trip home, I left Sydney in the Avoca on 17th February, 1880, for Melbourne, where I changed to the Assam, a P. and 0. steamer. I had a good shipmate in C. W. Little, who was taking a run home after a good many years' hard work. There were no striking incidents of the voyage ; in those days if the ships were smaller, the number of P. and 0. travellers was smaller also, and you generally knew everybody. Some eighteen or twenty years after, first-class travellers have more than doubled them- selves with the expansion of the Australian Colonies, and the result is you may know very few if you travel now. At Galle I was glad to get a deck cabin in the Mirzapore, for we took ninety Indian passengers from Calcutta, amongst whom I met a fair cousin. The Indian contingent was, again, pleasant and musical, and we were rallu-r sorry than otherwise when we got to Suez and disbanded. Amongst tlie notable pas.sengers were Sir Kicliard 331 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Harrison, Sir Eichard Temple, and one of the Eothschilds, the Ceylon being crammed full from Alexandria to Brindisi, not a few being candidates hastening to England for the poUtical fray that was to end in such disaster for the Conservative party. Little and I hngered in Venice and Milan, being in no hurry to reach England till after April. We also took a good turn in Paris, so pleasant in that month. I was glad to see all my old friends of 1877, and there seemed to be no diminution of warmth in their welcome. Once again the Smiths put me up at the Travellers' for a month, where, if " travelling " was held to render you fit for member- ship, I should certainly have qualified. I saw "Bend Or" win the Derby, and the even greater " Isonomy " the Ascot Cup. I seemed to know more people, and the attractions of the season were certainly greater. Lappetit vient en mangeani. I paid my first visit to Newmarket, and saw an American colt win the July Stakes ; I went there from Cambridge with Alfred Maudslay, a great traveller, who, fortunately for myself, had included Queensland in his travels. I spent all the time I could amongst my relatives and friends in Worcestershire and Shropshire ; paid a somewhat sad visit to the Pyrenees, and, choosing another line, shipped myself in the Orient hner Acoticagua from Plymouth, via the Cape for Australia. The feature of the trip was that we had Strauss' band on board, going out to the Melbourne Exhibition; they of course had to 332 SECOND TRIP HOME A AW BACK. practise, but that practice was very good, some of the leaders being first-rate violinists. By the time we got to Melbourne I knew by heart most of the marches and still more of the seductive waltzes that the great Viennese had ever composed. Never had I been so imbued with music, which certainly in my bygone days " had not always met the ear." We touched and landed at St. Vincent, and our band gave the sunburnt inhabitants a treat. On Monday, 13th September, we arrived at Cape Town, being a little over three weeks from Plymouth, and I am inclined to think that for those who have to leave England for Australia in August it is best to do so via the Cape, as it is certainly infinitely cooler. Of course by the Canal, Aden, and Colombo, the journey is brighter and more diversified, but at the same time in July, August, September and October it is infinitely hotter, and therefore much more enervating. Beyond going to Wynberg by rail we didn't see much of the Cape, which since that day has so enormously developed with its annual export of some eight millions' worth of gold. It possesses evidently a good climate ; but, taking all I have read of and heard of the Cape as a colony for white men who do not want to displace native vested interests, give me Australia in preference. Give me a land free from Matabeles, Zulus, and tlie rinder- pest, " the Colossus of Ehodes " and his sj)lendid Imperialism notwithstanding. I felt somehow no JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. desire to travel hundreds of miles by rough rail or rougher coach to get to country that had any width about it. I prefer Sydney to Cape Town, Melbourne to Johannesburg, and Brisbane to Buluwayo. Let us hope that our good frozen mutton and beef will be appreciated in South Africa before long, denied as they are the supply of our splendid merinos, and even more that of our fat shorthorns. And as their supply of horseflesh is precarious, I beg to say Australia is at hand to supply that useful means of travel and colonisation to any extent. Since I wrote the above lines which noted my call at the Cape in 1880 and its progress after, Ensfland has been emifao^ed in a war a Voutrance with the forces of the two Dutch South African Eepublics, the result of which, though still un- decided, viewing the power and resources of Great Britain, must end in the annexation of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. When this takes place the development of these new English colonies will open out commercial relations with the Australian colonies of the very highest value to both South Africa and Australia ; for Australia, which is only the same distance from the Cape as Europe, can furnish all the necessary live stock in horses, cattle and sheep that South Africa will lack for some time to come, and can supply flour, sugar and meat at a cheaper rate than any other source of supply until Natal, and the newly incorporated colonies to be, have in their 334 SECOND TRIP HOME AND BACK. turn, under England's magic wand, expanded the arts of peace and become in themselves sources of supply both agricultural and pastoral. New Zealand mutton is already being successfully sent to the Cape, and the market once properly opened other supplies will follow, and Australia will then receive some quid pro quo for the contingents she has furnished in South Africa to help the mother country to the victorious end she is bound to attain. The journey from the Cape to Adelaide was a matter of some sixteen days' good steaming across a dreary waste of mighty ocean, that made even the largest vessel look small as it rode in the trough of hugh seas unchecked by land in any direction. The various classes of passengers gave musical entertainments and fancy dress balls, everything being done that could cheer the time away. We landed at Adelaide on the third of October, and were glad of a good square meal of fresh food at the York Hotel. Next day, making our way to Melbourne by the " back stairs passage," we had a view of the handsome Orient liner Sorata, wrecked in a mysterious manner on the Attala reef, the account of which had read like a "queer story," but here she was apparently " charging " the rocky coast. At Melbourne I had merely time to see the Exliibition and pay my respects to Lord Normanby before the Aconcayua was off again, and I had 335 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. a narrow shave of missing my passage. We had a rapid trip to Sydney, where I found all well, though the news from Western Queensland pointed to the good year we had had in 1879 being followed in 1880 by a season as dry as the last had been wet ; so there was nothing for it but to go up to the station, ?;f^ Brisbane and Eockhampton, and see how matters really were. 336 CHAPTER XXVIII. EEPEESENTATIOX OF THE LIITCHELL. The Central railway westward from Eockhampton in those days reached only to Emerald, from which I took Cobb's coach to the " Grey Eock," the nearest camp to Coreena, where the manager had not a bright account to give of anything. Such a change to a good season ; everything looked withered up, the watercourses were dry, and the reign of King Drought was evidently in the ascendant. I will spare the reader on this occasion the description of the western country in a drought, preferring to adopt the motto of the sundial — Non numero horas nisi Serenas. The thermometer marked over 100 in the shade every day, which was high for October ; the following month it reached 110 in the shade, the hottest I had seen it at Coreena. I thought this could not last long, and on the 18th November a heavy storm fell that relieved our most pressing wants and brought down the thermometer to (58 in the evening. This was followed later (ju by a complete break up of the drought. On the 14th December I drove into Aramac and JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. learnt that J3. D. Moreliead, tlie sitting member for the Mitchell, had resigned his seat and had been placed in the upper house. A number of my friends were anxious that I should succeed him. I set the wires at work and was able in the course of a few days to issue my address to the electors of the Mitchell. That electorate in those days was not divided and reached beyond Tambo to the south, and included the townships of Tambo, Black all, Isisford, Aramac and Muttaburra, being by far the most important pas- toral electorate in Queensland. I became a candidate with the co-operation and promise of support of a number of neighbours and powerful friends, with the view of opposing the famous Warrego and Trans- continental railway scheme, which would have given a syndicate of British and foreign capitalists the exclusive right to make railways from Brisbane to the Gulf of Carpentaria on the land grant principle, and would have placed in their hands some twelve million acres of the finest land in the colony, princi- pally in the district I stood to represent, in alternate blocks of ten thousand acres on both sides of the line, giving the lucky holders a monopoly of the land on both sides of the line to a depth of fifteen miles ; thus placing the occupants of the back country to a great extent at the syndicate's mercy. Not only was the company to get the ten or twelve millions of acres of land for building the railway, but the syndicate stipulated that the 338 REPRESENTATIOX OF THE MITCHELL. Government should afterwards purchase the rail- way at a valuation equal to some millions sterling. Besides which it was shown later on by the company's articles of association, registered in London, that the company would not only hold the land, but it would exercise supreme control over everybody that settled upon it. It was a scheme, in fact, for setting up an independent sovereignty in the heart of Queensland, according to which the foreign capitalists concerned in it might do everything in its own territory but coin money, and in all trade defy competition. This was a bold and dangerous stroke, which public and legislative opinion fortunately defeated. I forget how much the distinguished promoters of the scheme were to have netted per man, had the venture succeeded, but it stood at a very big sum. General Feilding and Mr. Watson, a civil engineer of note, took a surveying trip from Charleville to Point Parker, in the Gulf, and their report of the excellence of the country to be traversed made the proposals of the syndicate look still more exacting. The Hon. George King, M.L.C. of Gowrie, formerly Treasurer of N.S.W., ]\[essrs. Samuel Griftllhs, and others in the Queensland Parliament, and the authors of a certain powerful yellow pamphlet, ruthlessly exposed the project, which caused intense excitement in tlu- colony. Xot l)ut that a trans-cr)ntiu(intal line would have been a JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. good tiling for Queensland, if placed on the same footing as the other Government lines, and built, as the Queensland railways can now be built, over the western plains, that is at less than £3,000 a mile all told, including the rolling stock. I think most colonists with the knowledge of the colony's wants have advocated the tying up, so to speak, of the western termini of the present main trunk lines of Queensland at Charleville, Longreach and Hughenden, or Winton on to Clon- curry, and thence to some Gulf port by a trans- continental line, the limits of which would be covered by some 800 miles of railway, at the cost of under two millions and a half, that line of country offering no engineering difficulties what- ever. The reader may see at a glance on the map that is annexed to this chapter the lines to be connected by such a railway. I contend, in fact, that Queensland's future cannot be properly developed without such a railway, or her wool and meat, and mineral resources properly tapped without it ; also that such a line, the cost of which is a bagatelle compared to the interests involved, should have taken the precedence over the railway lines recently built to skirt the eastern coast alongside water carriage. Electioneering in Queensland, and especially in the Mitchell, in the hot montlis of January and February, is a rough game ; but with good buggy horses, eagerly lent, with hospitable Barcoo stations 340 REPRESENTATION OF THE MITCHELL. open to you cat the end of your day's stage, and with a resohite old mate hke Charles Lumley Hill, it wasn't a bad schooling for that intimate know- ledge of the pastoral position of affairs that its representatives in the Queensland Parliament of those days generally possessed. We held meetings at all the townships, and in Tambo I made the acquaintance of the late Duke of Manchester, who was touring in the west in his shirt sleeves, and with a large hole in his boot, jolly, debonnaire and cosmopolitan as ever. We dined and spent a very pleasant evening together, I recollect, and I was much struck with his broad views on all colonial questions. What a squatter he would have made. After canvassing the southern part of the elector- ate at Tambo, Blackall and Isisford, where H. B. Gough entertained us royally, I was handed over to Brown, of Saltern Creek, with whom I was to canvass the north and western end of the electorate. We met the electors at Muttaburra, where Edkins, of Mount Cornish, whose kind wife entertained us most hospitabl}^, had paramount iiiHuence. How we did enjoy the evening shower bath after our dusty drives, and how soundly we rested, the great heat notwithstanding, generally in shake- downs on the ])assioii-fruit clad verandahs, which oftenest form tlie air\' smnincr IxmIi-ooius of tlie traveller in the far west. Tt was airaiiged Ijy my supporters tlial [ should :5ll JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. see the polling through in my adversary's country, whilst he laid siege to my end of the constituency ; so I saw the polling through at the township of Blackall, and my opponent at Aramac. Every- thing on both sides to secure the victory was done without acerbity, and with a good deal of good humour ; but the second week of February saw me elected by a substantial majority, my opponent, a well-known Barcoo squatter, being an old friend and very good fellow. 342 CHAPTER XXIX. PAELIAMENT AND LAND LAWS. TJIE Eiri WEST AND GRAZING FARMS. When all was over I felt very proud at representing the largest pastoral constituenc}- in broad Queens- land, though I was fully aware that in the state of parties it involved great responsibilities. The House did not meet till July of that j-ear (1881), when I took my seat in a House that numbered fifty-live members, with a number of whom I had old personal acquaintance. The ]-ecords of Hansard show that, although Members of Parliament in Queensland were not paid in those days, as they are now, I did not eat the bread of idleness. I strongly opposed the sale of large blocks of land on Peak Downs by the Government at lOs. an acre, a low value for deep black soil land, and I am glad to think I was right in my deduction, for it seems more than proljahle that the Government will have lo buy back large areas on Peak Downs for agricultural settlement, in the same way that they have found themselves JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. compelled to do further south on the Darling Downs. Fresh from a close acquaintance with the pastoral districts chiefly concerned, I tabled a motion for railway extensions to the chief pastoral centres of the colon}^, reviewing exhaustively the development that was taking place in them and the capital they were attracting (Hansard, vol. 35, pp. 378-381). This was chiefly with the view of proving that the trans-continental line that had been so much talked about could well and safel}^ be undertaken by the Colony with loan funds. I gave a useful list of the principal pastoral holdings in my district, the carrying capacity of which amounted to six millions of sheep, which at this distance of time, nearly twenty years, it will not be uninteresting to quote in extenso^ as these capabilities have in most instances been realized, and in some instances exceeded. LIST OF EUNS IN PHE MITCH ELL ELECTORATE A ND THEIR SHEEP-CARRYING CAPACITY (1881) :— Tambo Station 50,000 Evesham 200,000 Enniskilleu . 50,000 Stamfordham &Katandra 300,000 East Darr 200,000 HomeCreek & Barcaldine 200,000 Malvern Hills 200,000 Maneroo 150,000 Bimerah 150,000 Maneroo East 60,000 West lands 150,000 Emmet Downs 50,000 Listowel 150,000 Ruthven 100,000 Beaconsfield . 150,000 Corella 200,000 Cameron Downs and Lam Corona 100,000 mermoor 200,000 Lome 80,000 Portland 200,000 Isis Downs I60,0u0 Carried forward 3,190,000 Avington 100,000 344 PARLIAMEXT A AW LAXD LAWS. Brought forward 3,190,000 Kensington & Greenliills 200.000 C'uUoden East 100.000 Wellshot 200.000 Coreena 100.000 Bowen Downs 200.0 JO Xorthampton Downs Aramac . . . 150,000 and Ravensbourne 25 J, 000 Alice Downs 150,000 Apex Downs . 50.000 Saltern Creek 200.000 Eodney Downs 50.000 Silsoe .... 80,000 Terricic 200.000 Minnie Downs 60.000 Two Roekwoods 200.000 Culloden W. 1(K>,000 5,586,000 Yergemont . 80,000 Say six millions of sheep. To non-Australian readers the figures will read large, but the}' will explain the large scale upon which the sheep farmer of Western Queensland often conducts his business, which necessitates now-a-days such vast improvements ; say a home- stead for himself and another perhaps for his assistants, a store for the station supplies, huts for men at the head station, horse paddocks big and small, a garden near the creek with some simple means of irrigation, such as a windmill pump ; a stock3'ard and killing yard, and a wool-shed with perhaps fifty stands of Wolseley's shearing machines worked by a small steam engine ; and attached to same a wool sorting room and shed for storage of wool awaiting carriage ; this with an elaborate and comfortable shearers' hut and meal room, and huts for the rouse-abouts and pickers-up. Possibly also if wool scouring is done tliere will be, at some dam or bore williin ea.sy distance of the woi*! .shed, an elaborate scouring ])lant willi boilers, etc, and drvin*/ j/rounds. 'I'o tlic^c have to be added the ;Mj JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. principal and costly sheep- carr3'ing improvements of the station, that amount to hundreds of miles of six-wired sheep-proof fencing ; together with water improvements for rendering evenly available the country at your disposal, whether these are the artesian bores, a discovery of the last ten years only and, as I have before said, only available in certain portions of the pastoral areas, or large reservoirs, commonly called dams, these being large excavations generally at the foot of a natural water hole in the creek and which back up the creek in some instances for miles ; add to this drafting yards and boundary riders' huts and. paddocks. There are in fact instances in the properties of which the list has here been given, in which up to this period as much as 5s, per acre had been ex- pended in tenants' improvements. Eoughly speaking therefore and reckoning the sheep carrying capacity of the western country at two acres for every sheep, the extent of the country grazed by six millions of sheep in this one district would be twelve million acres, and if 5s. per acre represented the cost of the improvements, the amount spent by the squatters of this one district on land only leased to them by the Government, and that on a very precarious tenure, would amount and I daresay does amount to over three millions sterling. Queensland carries some twenty to twenty-four millions of sheep, and the above calculations can be pretty well relied on as an average one Jbr the whole 346 PARLIAMENT AND LAND LAWS. lot, that is, as regards the average cost of the nn- provements per head of sheep, but as regards quality of country a good many of these twenty-four millions of sheep, possibly one-third to one-halj", would be carried on country not so heavily grassed as the Mitchell and Gregory districts, that is on country that would take, perhapf-', four or five acres to graze one sheep, season by season ; in this latter case, of course, the cost of improvements would not reach 5s. an acre. However, these huge figures must riot daunt the young English reader who may think of trying his luck in Queensland, for he has a paternal Govern- ment to deal with, which deals more leniently with the newcomer than it has done Avith either the pioneer holder, or the one to whom the pioneer has possibly sold his run at a profit. As mentioned in the political chapter of these reminiscences the pastoral lessee very nearly came to grief in 1868, and the Government gave him a long lease on a sliding scale of rent ni 1869. When tlie expiry of tlie twenty-one years' lease was drawing near, the Government took power to resume, by Acts passed in 1884, 1886, in some cases one-half, in some one- third, and others one-fourth of these leaseholds in the so-called "unsettled" districts, which graze four- fiftli.s of the sh(;e|) of the colony; and these I'e.sunied areas Mre now b(;ing gra(jO,000 acres, lies on an uuduhitiiig jjlateau surrounded by the main Liverpool Kange, which 407 JOURXAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. attracts a certain rainfall of over 25 inches per annum, generally more, only two years in thirty having fallen below that average. The lambings are regular, generally averaging (turned out to lamb in paddocks) between 70 and 80 per cent. The wool never meets a really bad market, being of a description that almost always secures the highest price for that class of wool, and is much sought after by continental buyers. Lastly, financial troubles are unknown to the Company, as both a reserve and depreciation fund co-operate in securing the stability of the concern. Moreover, the property has the great advantage of easy, rapid and cheap carriage by rail to Sydney, and it is also within easy distance of the same market for stock. It may here be noted that the sheep carried on the Peel Eiver Company's properties fluctuate betweeen 200,000 and 240,000, and that the cattle herd, which is carried in the Goonoo Goonoo sheep paddocks and is an excellent source of revenue, some of its fat bullocks having recently fetched £9 10s. a head, numbers from 7,500 to 9,000 head. Many of the advantages and gifts above mentioned are more or less natural ones, but they are strongly supplemented by admirable colonial management, which began at the inception of the Company over 40 years ago, when the present general manager, the Honourable Philip Gidley King, M.L.C., took charge of the estate, which has ever since been managed on the same lines ; continuity of management, when 408 THE PEEL RIVER. that is good, being one of the greatest desiderata in the breeding up of a good flock. It is not uninterestinof to allude here to the growth of a leading colonial family such as Mr. King's and to its eminent public services in the cause of Australian colonisation. Mr. King's grand- father, who was the third governor of Xew South Wales, 1800-1806, served in the navy, and as Lieutenant of the Sirhis arrived with the first fleet in Botany Bay in 1788 ; soon after there arrived the French squadron under the command of La Perouse, when King, on account of his knowledge of French, was made by Governor Philip the medium of communication between the two squadrons. King was next sent by Governor Philip to colonise Norfolk Island, where he gave such satisftiction, that on his return to Enaland he was sent out with a conimi8t«ion as Lieutenant-Governor of Nor- folk Island, from which, in September, 1800, he was appointed to the Governorship of New South Wales in succession to Governor Hunter, who had succeeded the first Governor Philip. The son of Governor King and father of Mr. Kind- of Goonoo Goonoo entered the navv, saw active service in the French war and surveyed the coasts of Australia in the Mermaid and Bathurst, and the coasts of America in the Adventure. In 1831 he settled in Austraha as manager t)f the Australian Agricultural Coiupauy, served as M.L.C. for Gloucester and Macquaiie, and died as Kear- Admiral in IH')!;. Philip Gidley King, of the Peel liiver Compiui}-, liis son, began his career in tlie 411 JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. Eoyal Navy till lie reached the rank of Lieutenant, when he joined the staff of the Australian Agri- cultural Company and was appointed manager of the Peel lliver Company when that Company was formed as an offshoot of the Australian Agricultural Company in 1853. So that there is an unusual amount of managing and governing blood in the King family, which has every chance of being well handed down to succeeding generations, as Mr. King's son and grandsons, as they say in Colonial parlance, are shaping remarkably well. I will not weary my perhaps already exhausted reader with a close description of the Peel Eiver Estate, of which I was enabled to make a faithful and, I think, interesting report, or describe its snug and picturesque homestead with the usual station buildings, the solid woolshed and neii^hbouring stud paddocks and drafting yards, the not always to be found school-house and church, and the well-watered creek which winds round the garden at the bottom of the homestead ridge, and the tout ensemble of a vast stretch of undulating country either quite cleared of timber or in part waiting to be denuded of its stumps ; then from that, ridge upon ridge of grassy, good wool-growing country, rising to the sky line of the picturesque and fairly distant Liverpool Eange. The reflection arises of the in- creasing value a freehold property such as the Peel derives under the contiii,uous development it re- ceives, the conditions of its tenure rendering it unnecessary that that should be in any way hurried. I said good-bye with infinite regret to the happy, 412 THE FEEL RIVER. hospitable people of Goonoo Goonoo, having pre- viously had a good feed of grapes and figs. I felt how comparatively free from Government inter- ference and varied stock and other pests the management of the estate was, an exemption which was brouoiit into strong^ contrast when I came to visit other properties. In a few words 1 feel inclined to place before my readers the benefit of my experience in finally summing up the most important points to consider in the choice of an j^.ustralian pastoral investment, should legitimate squatting be the object in view, and not a speculative purchase with a view to resell. I. It is absolutely necessary that 3'ou should choose your property where there is the certainty of a good yearly rainfall, otherwise the chance of droughts is one too great to encounter, that risk being often bound to bring 3'ou down. II. Select your sheep run where it is freehold if possible. III. Get good wool-growing country, even if you should require to give your sheep plenty of salt. IV. Make your choice where carriage is handy and, if possible, cheap, and markets at a fair distance. Of course you will have to pay high for these desiderata ; still it is better to do so and own a small, com])act and well-paying property than at- tempt to woik a larger leasehold squattage against dry seasons and other drawbacks. llecent dry seasons, unusual in the records of the country, have slackened the ardour of lliose who conquered the wilderness in earlier da\s, for there JOURNAL OF A QUEENSLAND SQUATTER. are instances in which a plentiful supply of artesian water has not prevented loss when the grass has failed, so that coming investors are bound to be more careful in their choice ; but the attraction and certain charms of pastoral life are bound to remain, as they will undouljtedly also revive with better seasons and an improvement in the value of produce that are sure to follow the somewhat dark years the pastoral tenant has had to go through. With new markets and the growth of the world, it is confidently expected by men of experience that the " bipeds will overtake the quadrupeds." In the foregoing pages little has been written of the growing development of Queensland's mineral resources, which recently placed that Colony a good second in the rank of Australia's gold pro- ducers, but the subject is so large in itself that it requires more scope than this volume can give it. Hence this apology. FINIS. wool. SHIPS, CIRCUIT. IM. HORACI: HAVILS, I .R.C.V.S. lUustratKiJ by numerous kvproductions o( I'liuluj/raphs taken spct. iail) for thJs work. "Captain Hayes— wlio may juxtly tliiiiii to be tin- llntt autlmrlty now llvlnif on all mattcni connectcl with tin? liont*.'— In alwiijH wi-lcouif, iinil tliu more »<> U'Cttiuw cucli ■occcafive voliiine 1h a tiiuniiinvnt of ' the rtiuion why.' "—Cuunli/ Omtlrman. LONDO.N: IIUK.ST& lU.ACKKTI-, I.IMIIKD. Second Edition. Super-Royal 8vo., Cloth, Gilt Top, Price 34/-. Points of the Horse. 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LONDON: HURST & BLACKETT, LIMITED. Fifth Edition. Revised and Enlarged. Large Crown Svo. Price 15/-. Veterinary Notes for Horse Owners. AN ILLUSTRATED MANUAL OF HORSE MEDICINE AND SURGERY, WRITTEN IN SIMPLE LANGUAGE. By CAPT. M. H. HAYES, F.R.C.V.S. This Edition is revised throughout^ considerably enlarged, and incorporates the substance of the Author's "Soundness and Age of Horses." The chief new matter in this edition is — articles on Contracted Heels, Donkey's Foot Disease, Forging or Clicking, Rheumatic Joint Disease, Abscess, Dislocation of the Shoulder Joint, Inflammation of the Mouth and Tongue, Flatulent Distention of the Stomach, Twist of the Intestines, Relapsing Fever, Cape Horse Sickness, Horse Syphilis, Rabies, Megrims, Staggers, Epilepsy, Sunstroke, Poisoning, Castration by the Ecraseur, and Mechanism of the Foot (in Chapter on Shoeing). "Is a thorouglilj' practical work ami may be recommenileil with coufideuce." — The Field. 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